How unlike every launch I have ever done, for the very first time, I met my membership goals. Actually, I surpassed my goals.

I was going to share the strategies I used in creating buzz, crafting the offer, the timing, the freebies. How I put the opt-in and the sales page on the same page, even when the program wasn’t open. The beta test. The limited time lower price. What went in the emails and the ustream classes. Those last few email blasts and tweets.

And how I was going to use these tactics on my next relaunch (for 6 Weeks to Live Your Truth).

Then I realized I couldn’t.

I couldn’t use these tactics because I backed myself into a corner in The Live Your Truth Project.

And I couldn’t write the blog post because the launch didn’t work because of tactics. It worked because of something else.

Here’s my truth.

For a long time, I was taught the nasty sales strategies of never taking no for an answer. Pushing. Closing.

I had upsells. Annoying popups. Big red headlines. Results based testimonials. Automatic recurring charges. Tricky subjects in the email blasts. Hype.

I scared the crap out of you. Told you that if you didn’t buy this, it would ruin your life. You would fail.

If you didn’t buy this, you were wasting your time. You would be a fool.

Then … I got religion about this selling stuff thing.

Selling is bad. Taking advantage of people. Short-sighted. Old fashioned.

Thank god, because I hated selling. Ick.

Now it’s about …

“Sharing Amazing Content!”

and

“Building the Relationship!”

That’s the big movement, the big shift that’s happening in our industries, in social media, in business. Right?

Yes. No. Well, not exactly.

By themselves, sharing content and building relationships are just more pillars to hide behind.

Another way to keep us from fully realizing our brilliance. Another oversimplification distracting from why were are really here.

Dude. This is not a freaking nonprofit.

If I can’t make money, I can’t do this anymore.

As much as I would love to live off of blog comments and emails and @replies, …. well, you get the point.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Actually, it’s a good thing.

The Work that we are doing here is not about one extreme or the other.

It’s about balance. The third tribe. Finding a way to create something amazing and change people’s lives while building a real business.

It’s about transparency. Being completely honest that the reason I’m giving away all this content is so you can try it out to see if you want to buy the thing.

It’s about caring. I want you to succeed. I want you to learn this stuff.

If you have this problem, if you resonate with me, if you know this is the right solution for you, then damnit, buy this!

And, if you don’t have this problem right now, if you’re not quite sure about me, if you don’t feel in your gut that this is right for you … then damnit, don’t buy it.

That’s why the 4 Weeks to Video launch worked. Not because of how I did it. Not the steps. Not the tactics. Those were all just natural expressions that flowed from the real reason this launch worked.

The launch worked because I cared. But I didn’t just care about you. I also cared about me.

I cared about me being compensated for the work I do, for my expertise, for my brilliance, for what I love to create.

I cared about making money to pay the rent. I cared about being able to eat. I cared about being able to pay for the stuff my kid needs.

I cared about going on crazy new adventures and traveling to hang out with my best friends.

So I’m ripping apart the launch plan for 6 Weeks to Live Your Truth.

I’m making every decision, writing every piece of copy, making every video, scheduling every ustream … from that place.

From the place of caring about you. And the place of caring about me.

I’ll let you know how that works out.

–

I teach that we should always put a call to action at the end of every blog post to get people to comment on the post. Asking a specific question, what you think about xyz, what was your experience with this situation, whatever.

I don’t know what to ask you today.

So, if you like, please answer the question you wished I had asked.

I really love reading your comments and want to hear from you.

#thatisall

Related posts:

1. Sucking, Simplicity, & Selling: The Truth Behind the Relaunch of EPW
2. Speaking, Bullsh*t, and Billionaires: Post-#Shine Wrap Up pt 2

When you meet them for coffee or drinks, do you stand on the chair and throw your business cards at them, screaming about your latest big launch?

Do you walk around the restaurant forcing people to stand around you and be part of your herd, since you promised to be part of their herd first?

Do you pay someone $99 dollars to find a bunch of random bodies to sit at your table?

Of course you don’t.

That’s not how we develop relationships with people we care about.

When we are around people in our real-life in-person communities, we act real.

• We share our stories.
• We listen to each other’s stories.
• We ask questions and listen to the answers.
• We respond to each other’s questions.
• We share something we just discovered and are excited about.
• We share resources that we honestly believe will help the other person.
• We introduce people to each other who we think would get along.
• We fix people up who we think would really get along.
• We check in with each other if it’s been a while since we’ve talked.
• We share stuff that is funny or bizarre or gross or stupid.
• We go on adventures together.
• We give gifts.
• We tell inside jokes.
• We debate issues that are important to us.
• We help each other with our challenges.
• We ask for help when things get hard.
• We find out what’s wrong if we sense there’s a problem.
• We celebrate each other’s successes.
• We morn together when things go bad.
• We apologize when we screw up.
• We call each other on our bullshit.

Bottom line –> We act like human beings who care about other human beings.

If you want twitter to work for you, if you want to develop real relationships with your followers, if you want any of this to actually mean something …  that’s all you have to do — treat people on twitter like you would treat friends in your regular life.

Act like you care about people you know on twitter.

Better yet, actually care about people you know on twitter.

You don’t need a guru or expert or A-list blogger or even me to tell you how to be a human being.

All you have to do is take massive action that’s naturally inspired from that caring place.

And the real relationships will follow.

#thatisall

P.S. I’ve seen stats showing that 10K followers can pull the same number of click-throughs on a tweeted link as 1 million followers. You don’t need big numbers of followers. You need engaged followers. People you have real relationships with. People you care about, who care about you in return. If you want a bullshit ego inflation mechanism go ahead & build up a big follower count. If you want to have an amazing life & amazing relationships & an amazing business, you have to care.

#nowthatreallyisall

How has your experience been on twitter?

What has worked for you? What has not worked? Where did you find your greatest success?

Please, join the conversation below, I’d love to hear from you!

Related posts:

1. 3 Ways to Use Twitter Lists to Stalk Your Tribe
2. The secret of my success … delegate, learn, know, delete
3. An Open Love Letter to Twitter

More of what I learned after 5 days in Las Vegas:

I might be a real speaker.

I have a complex. (Okay, I have a few complexes, but let’s just deal with one at a time.)

I don’t think I’m a real speaker.

Yes, I regularly speak at live events. And I tell stories, make people laugh, teach them amazing content, and hopefully inspire them to take action on what they have learned.

But I’ve never been paid to speak.

You know, the person who gets paid $3K or $20K or whatever the heck people get paid to keynote an event. I’ve just done the free speaking, where you are supposed to be happy to be there so you can share your information & maybe add people to your list or sell stuff from the back of the room.

I have friends who are real speakers. They get paid actual checks (Do people still get actual checks? Either way, they get paid actual money.).

And I thought you magically get tapped to be part of the club once you become really good. Or maybe after you are President of the United States or save kittens from dying in Antarctica.

But as I was sitting in the audience listening to the keynote on Thursday, I realized that dude, I’m better than this chick.

I mean, yes, she started a company that she sold for millions and has a compelling story about her journey with cancer. But this woman’s success was based upon a lie, a bit of luck, and selling her business before the market changed. Her presentation was devoid of reproducible content, lessons that people in the audience could apply to their own business today.

And just like back in 2003 when I was inspired to start my financial business after I realized that I’m smarter than Suze Orman (there’s another blog post waiting to happen), I realized after watching this woman that I am a pretty good speaker already.

The only reason I’m not getting paid to speak is because I don’t think I should get paid to speak. Because I believe I’m not real.

Wow, as I wrote that last sentence I started to cry. Frak me. Well, at least now I know one thing I’m working on in 2010.

If it worked yesterday does not mean it will work tomorrow.

There is a business theory that reproducing what was successful in the past is a way to be successful in the future.

Now that’s not a completely insane idea, and in a slower moving world, it probably (maybe?) worked.

So today we go to events and listen to people who were successful yesterday, and they tell us the secret strategies & tactics of making their millions (or ahem, billions).

And tell us that if we do not follow their advice, then we are fools.

Bullsh*t.

If the only way to success was modeling tactics that worked in the past, we’d still be riding horses, taking ships to europe, sending checks via airmail, and turning on the news to find out what happened yesterday.

Cold calling would still work. Brand advertising would still work. People would still click on banner ads.

Technology & tactics change. And today, they change at exponential speed.

Even more so, the strategies that worked yesterday don’t necessarily work today, because technology has changed the sophistication of the customer.

People no longer respond to the push. They respond to building a relationship. Especially in a service based, personality based business.

Sorry to break it to you, billionaire, but twitter and facebook are not a waste of time.

Building relationships is never a waste of time. And twitter/facebook/blogs/social media are powerful tools to build those relationships.

Can you waste time on social media? Obviously, just like you can waste money on branding and printing fancy business cards.

Do we have something to learn from what worked yesterday? Yes, because some principles of business & how humans work still apply today.

Telling an audience of 450 entrepreneurs that twitter & facebook are a waste of time is a gross oversimplification and a violation of trust.

Psst … twitter & facebook relationship building leads to 90%+ of my revenue. What a waste.

Bullsh*t does not work on social media.

Now we are getting into pet peeve territory.

If you follow me on twitter, you know that my style is hands on. No automation. No assistants tweeting for me.

Why not outsource? Think of it this way: would you pay a virtual assistant to go to a networking event on your behalf?

Would you pay the assistant to dress up in your clothes & put on a wig and pretend to be you?

No, of course not. That would be total bullsh*t. Fraudulent. Creepy. And would totally not work.

Then why would you have someone pretend to be you on twitter?

Now there is a way you can use staff to manage your social media, answer questions for you, or even have their own accounts to handle customers service. That’s a brilliant way to leverage your time & provide even more relationship building opportunities with your community.

Having others tweet as if they were you is just gross.

So when Ali was on stage on Friday morning and this tweet allegedly from her came across my iPhone, I called bullsh*t.

(in case you can’t read the graphic, the tweet from @alibrownla reads: “@barbaracorcoran so excited to meet you today and have you speak to my audience at #Shine. We have so much to learn from you!” and it is dated 9:25 AM Nov. 6th)

Ali was obviously not tweeting that as she was on stage. Either she had an automatic service tweet that out (somewhat lame) or her staff was pretending to be her (ick!).

So here I’m sending a message to Ali’s team (that they probably will not listen to, since Ali’s mentor thinks twitter is a waste of time):

You. Are. Doing. It. Wrong.

And that is why you are getting mediocre results from your social media efforts.

Leverage Ali’s time, yes. Use staff to answer customer service issues, yes.

But either Ali tweets out as herself, or she shouldn’t do twitter.

And … the CEO of a personality-based business who wants to be big must engage her audience.  The most simple & inexpensive way to engage is through twitter.

#thatisall

(stay tuned for part 3 of the post-#shine wrap up, including: “The real magic happens outside of the seminar room.” & “It is possible to be married for more than 10 years and still have sex every day.”)

Related posts:

1. Do It With Your Eyes Open & Be Awesome: Post-#Shine Wrap Up, pt 1
2. Magic, Energy & Ecstasy Outside the Seminar Room: Post-#Shine Wrap Up pt 3
3. Riots, Bullsh*t, and Calling It What It Is

That you must reduce access to you (not answer your own phone, not answer your own email, not speak to people at your events, have someone else manage your social media) in order to appear successful? That you must distance yourself from your people / community / tribe?

So … how’s that working for you? Not that great, eh? Yeah. Exactly.

[If you can't see that video, go here]

What do you think? Are you sick of guru’s? How do you want to engage with your people?

Related posts:

1. Why I Never Want to Be Called a Guru … part 2
2. Speaking, Bullsh*t, and Billionaires: Post-#Shine Wrap Up pt 2
3. Get First Dibs on Build Your Tribe

Are you engaging in one-off transactions, or are you building relationships?

Here’s what I’m changing in the culture of Potts Weinstein Enterprises LLC …

What do you think? What words do you like to use to describe the people who purchase your services/products and the people on your various lists? Does it matter?

Related posts:

1. Top 5 Websites I Use in My Small Business
2. 3 Ways to Use Twitter Lists to Stalk Your Tribe
3. Info Products Fail