Success has a way of packaging itself in a way that you only experience it when you have accepted failure as an option, but not as a destination. I was watching this interview of Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4 Hour Work Week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AysWsbrtzMU. Tim Ferriss’ first book was rejected by 26 publishers before it went into print. He has authored 3 books and at a point during the interview, he says that his friends author recommend him to divide his books into multiple, but he won’t because he wants to give maximum value to his readers.
In this video interview, Tim Ferriss recommends to the following book and article to learn about marketing and better writing:
I have placed orders for the two books and finished reading the 1,000 True Fans article. If you have not read it yet, I strongly recommend you do. If you don’t have time to go read it (even though you should), here is the best piece, my takeaway from the article:
A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.
When you think about that statement, it makes perfect sense. Regardless of what type of activity or enterprise you venture in, all you need is 1000 true fans and you will be able to make a good living. If you have a product that you make a small profit on (regardless how small), getting your thousandth repeat customer (true fan) should be your goal. I will keep this in mind when thinking about developing business ideas in the form of this question: How can I make 1,000 people become true fans of my product or service? I found a great article on www.copyblogger.com which contains a 20 steps process for finding your 1,000 true fans. Good read.
If you sell a product or service, how was your experience when you had your 1,000th repeat customer? If you have not yet had your thousandth customer, what can you do differently to have repeat customers and attract more customers?