by: AskPat 324 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 324 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.
Now let’s get to today's question from Jackie.
Jackie: Hey Pat, this is Jackie from FreedomThroughPassiveIncome.com. I have a question about writing ebooks. I wrote a book about three months ago called “How to Get a University Job in South Korea.” The good news is that there's no competition on Amazon or anywhere else on the web actually. The bad news is that it's kind of a very narrow niche. My sales have not been amazing. They're slow but steady. I usually sell one or two copies a day. For the future I'd like to write some more books and I'm wondering if it's better to focus on things where I might not get a lot of sales but there's no competition or if I should try to go bigger and compete with other people? Thanks for your input. Bye.
Pat Flynn: Hey Jackie, thank you so much for the question today. I really appreciate it. This is an interesting one and I'd love to hear what everybody else out there thinks. While you're thinking about this while I come up with my answer, go ahead and use the hashtag #AskPat324. I think this is a great question for the audience to kind of get involved with as well. Again #AskPat324 on Twitter and Jackie you can follow that. We can all continue this after the episode. But my thoughts are first, you got to make sure that you've optimized what you've already built. A lot of people get to that point where they are getting a few sales and it's not as much as they thought, so they want to try something else and trying something else is a lot of more fun sometimes. Then taking something you're already doing and making it better, but that's what I would absolutely recommend you do first. Because you don't want to miss out on the opportunities to grow, which you've already started. What if you were just a few people away? A few websites away? A few mentions away from getting it to a point where it would double to two to three or four sales a day. That would be huge right?
Then maybe even triple after that. Also, I would also not just think about outreach in terms of getting more traffic to your site, which is important obviously. Hopefully, you're connecting with all the right people, you're putting it in the right spaces. Perhaps you're doing some paid advertising as well. I don't know have you tried those things? I would absolutely try them to maximize again what you've already started. But beyond that also thinking about what happens when people come to your website and that sales page? Are you split testing? Are you optimizing? Are you using Crazy Egg to see how people are searching and going through that site and what they're clicking on? Are you keeping track of conversion rates and all of those sorts of things?
These are things that all of us should be paying attention to before we move onto the next thing, because how do we know if what we're doing is the best way we can do it right now? Unless you try different things and this works. Jackie, it works. Can it work even better? Maybe and I hope you're doing everything you can to do that. Again, not just outreaching any more traffic in but getting and figuring out how that traffic who gets there. How you can get them to the sales page and clicking through even more. I would also see what if those one or two sales, what if they could be sold something else? What if they are also hot leads for your coaching program related to that? Or maybe a reference to somebody who coaches in that sort of thing that you can get a referral for. Again maximizing the lifetime customer value as well. Those are all important things that you should be thinking about before you think about going into these other spaces.
Now it's obviously help to you that there is no competition out there. Which is partly good and partly not so good. A lot of times when you do research it's a little bit of a red flag when there's not a lot of competition out there because then maybe there's not a market out there. But again you've proven it with a few sales a day and that's huge. That's absolutely huge, this works. Again, I beg of you please make sure you are optimizing what you've already started and getting that to a point where you're feeling good that you've done all you can.
Then when you get to that point, then it's the question you ask, should you focus on more competitive spaces? Or should you just continue with spaces that are not competitive? Well to tell you the truth, I think you are pretty lucky with this space that you're in already because a lot of times, like I said when there's no competition, I mean there's a reason there's no competition. Now that's not to say you couldn't get lucky and find a niche that you're into that is no competition, but does really well for you because maybe the industry picks up. I was in that similar way when I first started with talking about my greetings and academy website. When I started helping people pass that architecture exam called the lead exam. I was one of the first ones out there really writing anything about that in this space and that's how it got picked up so quickly. But then timing was just perfect because that industry became really hot at that point and people went to my site for help.
Again, another reason for you to again focus on what you have working now. But also I would go with what you feel like you would be most comfortable doing. That and what people need the most help with. Now it is my thought that maybe there are things that aren't competitive out there because there's not that many people that need help with them. If it was a very competitive space, obviously it's something a lot of people need help with like fitness and making money online and those sorts of things. Maybe that's a little bit too competitive, but I wouldn't focus on just the competition. I would focus on the opportunities in either space, whether there's a lot of competition or not. I wouldn't use the competitive nature of the space that you're thinking about getting into or the spaces you're thinking about getting into as the only variable. There's a lot of other variables too.
Not just competition but how many people are searching for those keywords? Using keyword research tools to help drive that decision as well. Talking to people in those spaces and understanding what they're pains, problems, issues, wants and needs are. Even if there are people out there competing against others to help serve that audience. You might find a way that can do it better than all of those others. In which case you'd have that competitive market that's already validated by others and it would do really, really well for you.
Jackie, I hope that answers your question. That at least gives you something to think about. Again, there's no right answer here. Again, it depends on the opportunities that are presented to you. The niches that you come across in your research and also hopefully again going back to what you've already started. It's working but can it work even better. Everybody out there listening, if you have something to add to Jackie's question here use the hashtag #AskPat324. Do you agree with me? Should she go and make sure she's optimized what she has started already? Is it a good sign that she's getting one or two sales? Can she possibly do more? Should she go to a more focused perhaps a more competitive niche? Or should she continue with doing well with these little spaces that don't seem to have much competition at all? Let me know what you think with #AskPat324.
Thank you, Jackie. An AskPat t-shirt will be headed your way for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like featured here on the show. All you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.
Cheers, take care. Thank you so much. I appreciate you listening in this week. If you'd love to do me a favor head on over to iTunes, leave a quick review for AskPat if you've enjoyed listen to the show. As always I'm going to finish with a quote. Today's quote comes from Adam Osborne. He says, “The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake-you can't learn anything from being perfect.” I'm definitely not perfect, but I've learned a lot and hopefully you have from me too. Thanks so much. Take care, and I'll see you next week in the next episode of AskPat. Cheers.