“The Weakest Link in a chain is the strongest because it can break it.”

~ Stanislaw Jerzy Leć

The Search for the Weakest Link

Troy Broussard is a Navy Nuclear Submarine engineer and software developer. For many years he was the pre-eminent Infusionsoft Master-Service Provider (Infusionsoft is now Keap and is still the most powerful and sophisticated CRM/Campaign management software solutions) and he now develops his own software and apps, but he is first and foremost a business strategist.

One of the his biggest peeves is the habit many software developers have of looking for ways to make things work (or reasons why they do work), rather than looking for ways to break them before your customers can do so. I call this, the search for the ‘weakest link’ because when you find the places where your marketing, product, or service breaks down you gain two benefits:

• You can proactively fix it and remove the friction rather than waiting for your customers to complain; and
• If you genuinely cannot fix a problem then you can earn the trust of your customers by pointing it out in advance (ie – sometimes your weakest link can become a selling point).

This doesn’t just apply to software. It applies to your customer service, delivery and design of your products and services, and almost every aspect of your business.

In marketing for my clients, I am often able to multiply their results simply by searching for this weakest link – the first place that the chain breaks – and addressing that element. However, sometimes it’s a trade-off because when you fix one problem, others emerge so you’re just bumping the breakage down the road.

Perspective on Solving the Weakest Link

The weakest link is not always the obvious problem that you need to fix first.

Let me illustrate this:

Melbourne, where I live, has some major traffic problems because our infrastructure development has not kept up with our traffic growth. Traffic engineers frequently look at this problem as a series of issues and so, when they ‘solve’ one problem they just  bump it further up the road. At one major shopping centre, there was a problem with the flow of traffic leaving the centre. They solved this by installing a traffic light on the main road outside. Unfortunately, this bumped the problem from the the shopping centre, to the main road (where hundreds of cars were affected, not merely tens of cars leaving the shopping centre. When they addressed the problem at the intersection by changing the lights sequence, they bumped the issue further up the road and affected even more vehicles.

In this situation, a better solution would have been to recognise the flow-of effect of each action and take that into account in designing a wholistic response.

I’ve seen the same approach in marketing strategy and implementation where a business addresses the ‘obvious’ problem (eg. Lack of leads) without determining whether there are fundamental issues underlying it.

The Weakest Link in Your Marketing

You’ve created the promotion.

You’ve made an irresistible offer.

You’ve actually sent the offer to your list and paid to advertise it.

Then…

Crickets!

What went wrong?

Fixing the problem completely could demand an expensive, time-consuming process of tweaking, testing, and changing… That could ultimately leave you no wiser than you were when you started out if you don’t have the numbers to make your tests relevant.

In my experience, the problem is often not lack of traffic, but your relationship with your existing readers. Fix that relationship and suddenly your promotions become…

• more successful
• more profitable
• more interesting (for you as well as your audience – it’s funny how engagement drives motivation and enthusiasm, isn’t it?)

I’m not a fan of measuring open rates. There are just too many things that can go wrong with your statistics and most people’s lists are simply not large enough to provide accurate data. Even Click Through Rates (CTR) are deceptive. But sales… now those give you the data (and encouragement) you need to push forward.

The Biggest Problem with Getting Sales is…

If nobody reads your emails or ads… Then you won’t get sales.

Last year, I was working with a guy named Todd who wanted to get more patients into his Chiropractic Offices. His ads were delivering zero, his emails weren’t doing much better even though his open rates were ‘decent and improving’.

The problem was none of that was translating into sales.

So… we tried a different tack and focused on creating curiosity and getting engagement while staying well within the AHPRA guidelines. Mostly we changed headlines and subject lines and made unusual connections so that people felt they simply had to read the emails, ads, and landing pages to discover what was going on AND when they got there, they were not disappointed (that last part is critical!).

The difference was dramatic.

Almost immediately sales to his ideal clients increased (even though the email body and offer was almost identical). It turned out, that despite the ‘statistics’ his emails were getting virtually ignored so his readers felt no reason to develop a relationship with him.

Since then, two things have happened:

• New sales have continued to increase;
• Consistency and Longevity of patients has increased.

Once we fixed the weakest link (lack of relationship, engagement, and interest) we were able to refine other elements and we had more data to drive our changes. It wasn’t the first link in the chain, but it was the one that made most difference.

So… What are you going to do to drive interest and engagement?

I have noticed that if I’m not feeding my marketing mind with solid information, examples, and the like, it quickly shows up in my copy.

It’s one reason why A-List copywriters do so much research before they write – they’re feeding their minds and setting themselves up for successful and innovative angles that will engage readers. That’s also why Dan Kennedy’s archives are a great resource for any business – because they are drawn from a variety of industries and ‘eras’ they are a deep well of solid creative inspiration for your business.

Here’s the link to purchase: https://debrah.me/searchdank.