Last week I was having lunch with my friend and entrepreneur Liz of Silver Charm Events, and she told a story that has really stuck with me. I had asked Liz for advice regarding starting my new business and she told me about an experience from a business conference she had just attended.
Where Are You Leaving Money on the Table?
At this conference, all the attendees were leaving their brochures in the networking area. One attendee, a business owner, had stapled a crisp dollar bill to all her brochures, all 350 or so. At the end of the day, Liz noticed about half of those brochures were still left! That means around 175 attendees saw the brochure, and the dollar, and made a choice to keep walking by without taking one (or more!).
Liz turned to a fellow conference attendee and asked, “Why? I know it is just a dollar, but why would someone NOT take it?” The fellow attendee said, “I think that’s the lesson here. Where are you leaving money on the table?”
How Can You Optimize Your Earnings?
This phrase made me really think about my business and how I make money. Right now I’m doing okay, but I need to start making a more reliable income through blogging to avoid going back to corporate America. I thought hard about where I am leaving money on the table and made the following list:
- Promote my advertising options more often (inspired by Liz asking me if I sold advertising on my blogs, despite us being blogger friends for two years [The answer is, yes, I have an “Advertising link on each blog … that apparently is being overlooked]).
- Sort through my affiliate programs and focus on the one or two that make me money. Right now I’m affiliated with probably 30 businesses, which is overwhelming and confusing. I should research the few that make the most money, and promote those more.
- Optimize my Adsense ads. My CTR is embarrassingly low. I know there’s no “right or wrong” CTR, and there’s really no way to predict or rely on Google ads, but I could try different ad placements and sizes to see if anything improves.
My challenge for you today is to ask yourself, where are you leaving money on the table?
