Choosing the Top Ways to Get More Hosting Clients

Last week I brainstormed a list of things I could do to get more hosting clients. Now that the brainstorming is done, I want to try and actually things down and pick the top options.

I feel like it’s key to balance the difficulty of implementing something vs. the potential it has. For me, I think it’s somewhat inextricably linked. For example, it’s possible (and likely) that cracking how to optimize Google Adwords would by one of the most scalable and effective options available to me.

But it would take an extremely long amount of time and I may not even have the resources to ever succeed at that. So it won’t rank highly.

So something that won’t be that hard to implement and is likely to start working quickly is something I’m going to put at the top of my list.

Last week I came up with a list of 12 ideas. now I’m going to rank them in order of best to worst. The top ideas are the ones I’m going to work on implementing.

  1. Developing some code that inserts some kind of hosting-related ad directly into all of my blog posts, for instance right after the first h4 element
  2. The same thing but manually adding CTAs on all of my popular blog posts
  3. Increase conversion by making compelling offers on the site – free month of hosting or something like that.
  4. Start trying out Facebook and LinkedIn ads
  5. Carrying through with the plan I had to offer services just to them and have it all be automated
  6. Post hosting articles on Facebook or LinkedIn
  7. Visiting other BNI groups and promoting hosting, especially with great CTAs or offers
  8. Buying more businesses
  9. Generally promoting services to IT companies
  10. Try some Google ads for highly targeted things and see if I can get clients that way
  11. Going to other types of networking events, such as chambers
  12. Reaching out manually to IT companies

Well, this feels pretty conclusive! The first one was an idea I’ve had for a while, and I feel like it won’t be hard to implement and will potentially be quite effective.

Since I get about 4000 visits to the site each week, I’m genuinely hoping to get something like 0.025% conversion, which would be one single client.

That could be optimistic, though, since they aren’t on my site to look for better hosting. The rates might be more similar to random impressions on other sites.

I’m going to need a really compelling offer, and I think I need it to not look like an ad. It should stand out against everything else.

Optionally, if it doesn’t work, I could try a different CTA, such as having some sort of free site speed analysis or something, and then we could market to them directly.

I just really need to make the website start working for me, and I need to actually convert some of this abundant traffic that I have.

So let’s get moving! This should really be my “One Thing” for the week. Make it happen.

Need to be Laser Focused on Business-Improving Activities

I started reading the book “The ONE Thing” again (which is something I really need to do every single year), and it really has me thinking. I’m currently spending little to no time on activities that improve my business, and all of my time on things that simply operate the business.

The book goes into detail about how most people are simply putting out fires and just going through the motions, when really they should be focusing all of their time on the select few activities which make everything better.

I need to spend a lot of time thinking about what those activities are. To start, analyzing what I’ve done that has worked would be good. Then brainstorming how to improve.

I’m not sure exactly what I need to be doing yet, but I know that right now I’m spending very little time on the most important things. I’m spending a lot of time simply operating the business and it feels a little bit like I’m going through the motions.

I should be done doing any work on my house soon, and when that happens, I’ll have a lot more time to commit to these types of things.

Although even that is a bit of a cop-out. I should be doing them now. I need to be constantly improving and always focused on the most important items. Otherwise I’m never going to improve.

So right now, the most important thing for me is to start constantly thinking about what the most important thing is.

That’s a start.

Maximizing Value Creation is the Only Effective Long-Term Strategy

I realized recently that creating value for clients is really the only way to be successful long-term.

This might seem like an obvious conclusion, but I don’t think it is sufficiently emphasized. Obviously people talk about creating value but I think the point that bears repeating is that if you don’t create sufficient value: you will never be successful.

Long-term, you’ll fail to retain clients or attract new ones because they will realize that you aren’t providing them with a positive return. Whereas if you are generating enough value, your clients will see the returns they are making and will come back and tell their friends.

So I think it’s important to focus on value above all else.

And, of course, value basically means benefits minus costs. It doesn’t always mean having the highest quality, simply that the benefits or returns that you can offer are lower than your prices. If you can do something adequately at a very low price, that’s valuable.

I think with straightforward, commodity-like services, it’s easy to see the connection between value and success. Graphic designers trade their skills and time for direct payment. The amount they get paid is relatively stable from designer to designer, and if they work more, they then get paid more.

So what if you do want to get paid more?

You have to become more valuable. And that’s a very tricky thing to do.

If you can find a way to scale your services while retaining quality and maintaining low prices, then you can multiply the value you can provide.

Of course there are near-endless ways to increase value, but if you plan on simply trading your commoditized services for payment all alone, you are basically limited to just how many hours you can put towards it, which obviously has a cap.

You could become the very best in your field. If you’re fortunate enough to have that as a legitimate option, it works!

Or of course you could specialize or find a way to combine multiple disciplines, fields, or industries in some way to provide additional value to people in a niche and charge premium prices for those services.

However, I would personally rather choose to focus on a few services that I can do really well, build up the infrastructure and processes to scale those services, and then build a team as I grow to keep it running.

In a dream world, my business would be a well-oiled machine that basically runs itself with little input from me. If I can provide great value to clients and scale it, I can continue being successful.

I really need to think, then, about how I can provide the most value to clients, particularly in the managed hosting space which is where I think we currently do the best job and where I can best scale the business.

Another random thought: I initially wanted to suggest here that value is relative, but I decided that it actually isn’t. The services you provide have absolute value. Either they can make your clients more money than they cost, or they can’t. With some services, the ROI might be very difficult to calculate because it is very indirect to their revenue, but ultimately there is still an absolute value associated with it. And it is worth it for your clients to work with you if you have good value.

With that being said, you might be in an industry where there are others with much greater value than yourself, which makes them more competitive. But I would argue that, long-term, being competitive is way less relevant than being valuable. In an industry where everybody is valuable, prices are bound to go up. If you were valuable at low prices, you’ll get business. If you’re valuable at high prices, you’ll get business. Nothing else really matters.

How to Stay Motivated without Pain and Struggle

When I first started my business, I had a free one-hour consultation with a business coach. He asked me what the minimum amount of money I need to make each month is in order for me to sustain my life, and I told him, “$500”.

I’ll never forget what he said next. He told me, “If you want to make more money in your business, you’re going to have to raise that number way up”.

His advice was literally that if I wanted to make more money, I would need to increase my daily expenditure so that it would be a struggle if I didn’t make enough to cover it.

They say that pain and struggle are incredibly powerful motivators. When your next meal depends on making more, you tend to do it.

I don’t know that I agree fully with what he told me, but I think people absolutely get complacent. When you’re making plenty to get by how you’re living, you don’t feel the need to make more.

I think that’s actually why it’s such good advice to automate your finances and investments. Even buying a house makes sense, because it forces you to build that equity. You don’t have a choice not to make enough to cover it.

Without those things, people just tend to inflate their lifestyle. Nobody accumulates cash. Either they find a way to make sure that extra money gets invested (which is rare), or they just spend more every month. Usually in the form of costlier housing or a car.

In my case, I tend to just travel more but I have the luxury of that as an option.

But I don’t want to struggle. And I want to continue improving my business and making more. So how do I proceed?

The one option, as mentioned, is to automated investments, and force myself to always be struggling to have enough for everything. But again, I still have that struggle.

I guess my question to myself is whether the struggle is actually necessary. Is the human nature of complacency too strong for me to overcome?

I tend to be an idealist, and I think, “absolutely not!” But what if it is? What’s the pragmatic approach here?

What if I set rigid goals for myself? Are goals, in general, the key? Because I could say something like, “I want to cap my yearly spending at X, and I want to grow my business by Y each year” and then stick to that.

But is it really doable when I am otherwise comfortable?

I think part of the answer lies in the fact that “motivation” is fleeting, and is more or less a myth. Struggle is only supposed to be temporary. If it goes on too long you get worn out, and the motivation fades.

The solution, I think, lies in habits and an attitude where you just do things and don’t wait around for motivation. Set goals, develop a rigid plan to achieve them, and then implement.

Even if you’re comfortable financially, that time-tested course of action should work.