Lowest Hanging Fruit Approach Is the Key to Success

I'm looking out my window and there's "low hanging fruit" right in my back yard...literally. We have four mango trees falling over with ripening fruit.  Some are within reach a few feet off the ground.  Others are 40 feet up.

Option 1 is I can walk over and grab the fruit.  Option 2 is I can pull out a ladder, grab my telescoping saw, stretch beyond my reach for the mangoes near the top, risk a dangerous fall and get the same quality mango I'd be getting with option 1.

This sounds ridiculous, but I encounter this all the time from business owners contacting me needing help.  They need someone to work with them on their Internet marketing and Infusionsoft marketing automation project.  Instead of taking on the simplest next project that gets them closer to their goal, they are reaching for the equivalent of a mango 150 feet up or 10 different mangoes each of which are 20 feet off the ground.

"Why is that?" you might ask.

I work with a lot of really sharp business owners.  It's a part of my job I really enjoy.  They do  their homework. They join Infusionsoft mastermind groups and attend Frank Kern, Jeff Walker or Perry Marshall seminars.  Many have gone to Infusionsoft University or other training programs to learn how to make use of these tools in their business.  They follow top marketing automation forums and Linkedin groups.  Often when I meet them, they have their heart set on something extremely complex.

Don't get me wrong. Business owners wanting big complex projects can make excellent customers. They bring so much to a project since they understand the possibilities and they understand the resources required to get something like this built.  The problem is they can often miss an obvious simple and much better alternative because they've been staring at the mango high up on the tree for so long.

I had a client that approached me with ideas for building a membership site.  iMember360 with Infusionsoft was the right choice given their requirements.  They wanted to  have people log into a free membership site to gain access to protected content, much of it course ware like.  there offering was complex so a lot of education is required.  They would educate prospects with call to actions made available through out their site.

It wasn't a bad idea except that given their relationship with their list, it wasn't a best next thing to do. Their relationship with their list was so strong, I wasn't concerned about getting people to sign up as members.  But why not instead target an email campaign at those same contacts using a targeted email campaign?  First of all it's a much less expensive solution.  There's no building of a membership site.  They could share with them the same content they'd be sharing with them on the membership site. They could then look to see who opens and clicks on the email messages and gauge their interest in the offerings that way.  Then they could use that intelligence to target an email follow up campaign to those that showed the most interest using similar call actions.  With  much less time, money and energy, they could accomplish the same thing.

The moral of the story is business owners with great entrepreneurial thinking are open to taking chances on big, complex and sexy ideas.  That's a common trait all entrepreneurs have and it leads so many of them to big success.  It also puts them at risk of wasting time, money and energy they can't affored on an idea that's unnecessarily complex.  A good option for protecting yourself against this "syndrome" is to work with an outsider, a coach or consultant (like me if I dare ask) that can serve as a sounding board and point out what may not be obvious because you're too close to the problem.  The result could be attaining the goal faster and at a much lower cost.

Hope this helps.