What Does Dating Have to Do with Running My Internet Business?

Copyright (c) 2008 Dan Dimit

I'll give you quickly the biggest principle in dating and marketing to get people to buy your stuff online or off: Building Relationships.

To illustrate how relationship building on the Internet really works, here's a quick story about an average guy... we'll call him Rick.

"Things had never come easily for Rick, but he worked hard and landed a decent job after graduating from college. Now that he was employed, he figured it was a good time to get married, settle down and start a family. So he was ready to go searching for 'Miss Right'.

One Friday night, Rick gets a call from his buddy who tells him about a great new bar that was opening up down the street from where he lived. They both meet up and after nursing an iced cold one for a few minutes, he looks past the crowd... and there she was... Samantha, the girl of his dreams.

Rick fixes his hair, straightens his collar and walks right over to her...Their eyes meet, sparks fly...He reaches out to shake her hand and says: "Hi. Will you marry me?" "Whoa!! Stop right there creep!"

Talk about putting the cart before the horse!! It's obvious that this approach doesn't work in the real world, yet, this is exactly what most online marketers are doing to build their business. It's no wonder why most of them fail; they're so impatient, they propose even before the "first date"!

They usually bypass the entire process of building trust with their prospects and instead pounce on them, going straight for walking down the aisle (the close).

In the business world, what happened here is a form of "Interruption Marketing," a term coined by an Internet marketing pioneer Seth Godin, in his book, "Permission Marketing." Godin estimates that the average American is exposed to over 3,000 advertising messages every day, so many darned ads that we just ignore most of them.

And what do advertisers do when we ignore their ads? They do ANYTHING they can to get our attention. From turning up the volume when their commercial comes on, to making fun of cavemen and getting geckos to talk about car insurance. And what do we do when they do that? We usually do ANYTHING we can to avoid 'em.

Just think about some of the ads we see on the Internet for business opportunities. A lot of them look like this: "Earn $10,000 in 30 Days!", "$1,000 in 3 days... I did nothing! Wow!!!!!! Yippee!", "$1 Million in 6 Months or Less! I did it, so can you!!", "$10 One-Time Investment Returns 25% Daily For Life!"... and my personal favorite: "How To Earn $1 Million Dollars In Your PJs, Without Ever Spending A Dime On Advertising Or Lifting A Finger!"

Most of these ads take you to a web site where you get to see all the benefits of instantly "marrying" the suitors.

"Hey there, get in here, marry me, and let's start this business relationship right NOW...even though you don't know me!" "Join my program, Join my program, Join My program!" Sound familiar?

It's just like Rick asking Samantha, "Will you Marry me?" on the dance floor. The relationship in this type of approach is purely commercial. The person who clicks on one of those 'hypey' ads is going to be pitched and they know it. They expect it. This is The Biggest Mistake That "Newbies" make!

They're so desperate to hit a home run on the first date that, not only does their prospect feel "pitched", they're left with a bad taste in their mouth, most likely never to return for second chance.

Let's pretend for a moment that you don't really care whether or not your prospect joins your business...If they feel like you're there to help them instead of sell them, they'll usually respond favorably. It's all about relaxing and letting things flow naturally.

By the way, do you really believe that the people who ran those lame ads above actually made that kind of money? Most haven't made a dime, so how are they going to show YOU how to earn it, too? Yup, you guessed it - they're not! It's actually kinda creepy...

Here's a quick disclaimer: There ARE people who run these types of ads that actually do tell the truth because they did the right thing first (i.e. - They built relationships and credibility through their own permission-based opt-in list, etc).

But the key point here is this: The advertisers who re-used these truthful ads have sacrificed their own credibility by pushing their agenda in your face and making claims that may not have been theirs to make. (They also may have (uh-oh) violated FTC laws by making false or misleading claims without proof.)

This just proves why 'Interruption Marketing' doesn't work. It fails because the focus is entirely on the marketer's agenda and shows no interest in the prospects or what THEY want and need.

What's a better approach? Well, what if Rick simply walked up and asked Lisa for permission to dance? "Hi, I'm Rick. Would you like to dance?" We can almost guarantee that he'll get a better response than the "Marry me?" approach, right?

Now let's say Samantha accepts. They dance. They enjoy each other's company. They exchange numbers and chat on the phone over the next week, and get to know each other even more. Maybe they go out to a dinner or the amusement park. They're now in a relationship-building process based on mutual respect for each other's needs, wants, and desires.

They'll learn about each other's tastes, interests, dreams, and plans for the future. A few months later they might know enough to decide if they're ready for the big commitment of spending the rest of their lives together...By the way, that's the most profitable way to do business! Having a customer for life.