You're 1 Test Away From Finding a Marketing Channel That Will Transform Your Biz Overnight

I've done it 10+ times.

Below is my how-to framework:

I often tell my kids "Test everything, except drugs"

Why? Because imagine all of the things we could either...

1 Be really great at
2 Really enjoy

...that we currently have no idea about! For example:

In 2019 I started running. And to be clear, I'm not a runner, nor do I have a runner's body. I'm pretty big boned at 6'3" and 205 lbs.

I started running to avoid becoming fat again, plain and simple. The only organized sport I ever played in high school was wrestling. I was decent, but not anywhere near elite.

As a 205 pound runner, physics isn't in my favor. Ounces = pounds and pounds = pain, and I have a lot of ounces, 3,280 to be exact.

But I soon learned that the longer I ran, the better I got compared to my peers.

I'd never win a 5k, and maybe not even a marathon, but an ultramarathon win was within reach. Over the course of 2.5 years I ran 15 ultras, winning 5 of them and setting course records on about as many.

I later learned that I have an endurance gene. My grandpa once walked from Ft. Worth to Dallas, just because.

That sounds like me!

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What's cool about ultras is that it's almost all mental. If you can be dumb enough to ignore the pain, you can win.

Did you know that ultramarathon running is one of the only sports where the women routinely beat the men? Why? Because women are freaking tough!

Anyway, my meds must have not kicked in yet because I'm getting off track. This post isn't about running, it's about testing marketing channels.

My point is that had I never started running, I would have died never knowing that I had it in me to set running records, as a 205 pound, formerly obese, dad-bod-dad.

I tested that, so now I test everything.

But let's (literally) get back to business.

At @MainStSummit this week, I heard from a guy named @johnhfio

John is known for inventing the Gravity Blanket, AKA the first weighted blanket. He's also gone on to create hit after hit.

It took me a few to wrap my mind around his thesis, but by the time he was done I was completely enthralled with this guy. I found myself agreeing with almost everything he said.

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The main premise of his talk was this:

If you're starting a startup and things are going ok, but you aren't absolutely swamped with demand, then you need to quit and try something different.

Allow me to put my own twist on that that I find more palatable.

He referenced @onepeloton, and said that when everyone first heard about a $3k stationary bike they thought it was stupid. But because of Covid, Peloton looked genius for a couple years.

But now, in looking at their dismal stock performance, it's fairly well known that he was right and that our initial gut intuition is always correct.

When he invented @gravityblankets, he tested the concept with a Kickstarter, and collected 7 figures in a matter of minutes.

Like magic. He had no idea that this was even possible with a startup.

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Of course, there's always nuance, and I took issue with his absolutism.

How many people thought that digital internet money would work? Or that watching others play video games (Twitch) would work? Or pet rocks?

Oftentimes our initial gut "this is stupid" reactions are an indicator of a big innovation or tidal wave coming.

John's advice flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which is why I like it.

Startups are hard. They're a grind. And a lot of the world's most successful companies weren't obvious home runs in the beginning. In fact, most of them weren't. It takes time to find traction and to find the right marketing channel.

Occasionally you find the Ubers or the Facebooks of the world that are rocket ships from day 1. The product market fit is there and it's obvious to everyone.

You have magic, as @johnhfio called it.

I've both experienced and written about this myself in my Newsletter #0002 when I talk about product-market fit (PMF) being similar to being chased by a stone rolling down a mountain.

It's an amazing and terrifying feeling.

But this post isn't about PMF or finding the next Uber, it's about finding the right marketing channel for your product or service.

It's about finding magical lightning in a bottle, and it's much more possible than you think.

When I scaled my iPhone parts biz to 8 figures in 2 years, that magic was boring old cold calls to iPhone repair stores.

It wasn't unique or innovative, but it was perfect for that channel at that time.

A few years later it likely wouldn't have worked as well.

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I posted earlier this week about a midwestern house flipper (@meetmikehiggins) that found magic in Judge Judy ads.

Even if you're running a company that feels like pushing a boulder uphill, it's still possible to find that magic that will cause the boulder to chase you.

Pushing a boulder doesn't mean you have a bad idea or a bad company, it means you don't have the right channel...yet!

Ok, so HOW!? How can I find this magic?

Well, I'll tell you exactly. You need to start testing.

If there are only 100 marketing channels that exist and 1,000 business ideas, products or services to sell, that means there are 100,000 different tests that can be run.
 
On 10/1/21 @CoFoundersNik and I purchased a company that was doing $17k/month in profit.

We put only $50k down for this company and generated over $9,800,000 of revenue in it's first 90 days, with about 12% of that being net profit into my personal checking account.

It took 3 employees, and had a positive cash flow conversion cycle, so we didn't need to borrow any money.

How?

It was the perfect storm convergence of:

The right skills
The right market
The right timing
The right marketing channel (magic)
The right offer

I'll go into detail more about this company later, but for now, just know it was an eCommerce company, and paid ads did not work.

So I started testing everything else to sell these dang products:

Cold calling
Email marketing
Twitter
Reddit
You get the idea
SMS
Influencers
Affiliates

All of them worked just okay. We were pushing a boulder, but seeing enough movement to keep going.

But then one day I decided to test something. Instead of advertising the product directly, why not advertise the much cheaper service component of the product?

After a customer purchased a product, most needed to purchase a service plan as well, and we offered that, too.

So we listed the service component on FB Marketplace with the lower price point, and asked people to book a call with us to learn more.

Magic. The calls had an 82% close rate.

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That simple tweak led to all those sales in a short period of time. That company, is over 2 years old now and one of the biggest in our holdco.

Do those tricks still work? Nope, not at all. The window closed and we have to find other channels now.

That's the thing about magic. Eventually the kids watch a couple YouTube videos and figure out how the tricks work, and you have to keep reinventing.

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But if you aren't testing many, many things, you likely won't ever find the right channel.

Here's the framework to finding that magical channel in two steps:

Make a list of every single channel you can think of.

I mean every. Single. Thing. Even if it seems stupid or irrelevant on the surface.

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Knocking doors to sell aerospace parts? Yes.

Facebook ads to sell dog vitamins? Yep.

An airplane banner to sell hemorrhoid cream? Why not?

Write down everything, and ask ChatGPT for help in generating ideas.

There are literally hundreds of channels. Have you ever heard of kijiji? That's a channel, too!

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Put them all in a spreadsheet and score them 1-5 based on time, cost and difficulty level.

Start with the lowest scores first and take notes. (You can get that spreadsheet when signing up for my newsletter at MHPguy . com)

You're looking for max surface area. Once you find that magic, the clock is ticking.

The more effective a magical exploit, the less of a lifespan it has. I wouldn't be telling the world about my exploit today if it still worked.

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I hope this motivates you to start testing, testing, and testing.

Test a sport, a business idea or a marketing channel.

Test what happens when you do the dishes before your wife asks.

Test what happens when you tell your boss you're quitting if you don't get a 20% raise.

Just don't test drugs.

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Follow me @mhp_guy for more biz deep dives.