After a decade of selling an automation software product for managing websites, it’s been interesting to follow the trends of our customers throughout the past year.
At the end of every year, we always see a clear divide. Some people end their year by jumpstarting projects to get a head start on the year to come, while others relax the last month or two and go into cruise-mode and enjoy the holidays and focus on new things after the first of the year.
Many times, igniting all of your metaphorical rocket engines requires the assistance of others in some form or another.
At Elevated X we tend to fall somewhere in between as a company, but personally I’m one to relax and use the last few weeks of the year as a time to mentally regroup and start the new year feeling fresh and gung-ho for what’s next. I always end the year with some reflection on the previous year, what we did right, what we did wrong and anything that I can learn from those things to make us more productive.
One of my favorite business books is Stephen K Scott’s “Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams.” One of the business analogies he uses is to liken achieving the goal of a process to igniting rocket engines. If you have a rocket with multiple engines, you cannot get where you need to go without igniting all of them. This could not be more true than it’s been for me with Elevated X.
Many times, igniting all of your metaphorical rocket engines requires the assistance of others in some form or another.
In the case of paysites, even if you were doing a lot of the work yourself for the building and design process, you are still relying on other key players for mission critical components of your business operation. At the bare minimum, for just about all paysite operations, this at least includes a web host, bank, payment processor, and some type of website management software, and may be extended to also include content providers or producers, a web designer, webmaster staff, SEO person or other marketing people, or affiliate related service providers.
Way back in the 1930s, way ahead of his own time, in “Think and Grow Rich,” Napoleon Hill wrote about what he called the “mastermind alliance.” Although there are differing opinions as to the usefulness of and downsides of such a peer group, there is no mistaking the benefit of open sharing of information among business people.
Many things come from collaboration or even just sharing. Even if you are not actively working on a project with someone else, just talking to other people who are doing the same things, have done the same things in the past or are interacting with others who have done similar things can’t be greatly beneficial.
In addition to having moral support (which is never a bad thing), you gain access to the knowledge and wisdom one only gets through experience — without actually having to have that experience yourself. This means knowing what has worked and hasn’t worked for others without having to make the same mistakes they have.
One example that stands out for me came several years ago when we realized that we needed more than just a small referral list of competent web hosts to whom we could confidently refer customers. What we really needed was a specific package readily available for our clients based on common needs.
We began by simply asking one of the web host we had a close relationship with to tell us what most customers we refer to them required in a hosting plan. A simple five-minute conversation told us everything we needed to know.
We then offered packages from a few companies, eventually refining things and forming a (now several-year-old) partnership with MojoHost for a custom-tailored, exclusive hosting package just for Elevated X that over the course of several years has met the needs of two thirds of our customers.
Similarly, before I set out to update our software’s design templates or create new design themes, I put a feeler out to the top industry designers like Mike Wylde of Wyldesites and Sarah from Zuzana Designs and ask them each to tell me what trends they have noticed over the last year or so when it comes to customer design request and feature requests.
Obviously, I could simply look at the portfolios of web designers and look at the top selling websites online and come up with my own list of what we should offer in a design … but by going directly to a source that is creating tons of these for the entire industry, I am ensuring that I am getting the best possible information from the most qualified source available.
The same goes for billing. When we were ready to develop on-demand content purchasing options that emulated business models of services like iTunes and Amazon, it was easy to reach out to higher-ups at a few top payment processing companies and find out how they are handling payment and fraud prevention for various kinds of purchases ranging from memberships to single video downloads to loading of funds in an online wallet.
Without setting about to do it intentionally, over time I have forged informal alliances with most of the major U.S.-based service providers in the adult entertainment industry. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing for the most part and I now have a small group of trusted vendors who are familiar with my software platform, it’s needs, performance, and its typical customer profile. I know I can rely on them to provide exceptional service to my customers and vice versa. In addition to referring business to each other and knowing that our mutual customers are in good hands, it also gives me and the vendors I work closely with the ability to tap into each other’s’ wealth of knowledge at any point in time to better our own offerings and make our lives easier.
Whether it’s moral and emotional support or a listening ear, mentoring, sales referrals, exchange of information or simply just comradery, having an alliance group is win-win for everyone involved. If you are not operating your business with this promise as a part of your overall plan, you are missing out on a wealth of knowledge, invaluable shortcuts and a lot of inspiration that may help carry you through to the next level much faster than you’ll get there on your own.
Not everyone has access to people who are high up in organizations or perhaps are at an owner or CEO level (at least not right away), however, often it all begins with peers who are at your same level. Most of us did not start out as company owners or high-level executives ourselves and if approached in the right manner, are still very willing to share information freely and help our fledgling customers become successful.
It’s much easier to be able to fire off an email or jump on the phone for five minutes than it is to search message boards or Google for hours at reading articles and trying to obtain information on something that may or may not turn out to be accurate or helpful.
Something every highly successful business person has in common is that they surround themselves with good people. No one is going it alone and most successful people also surround themselves with good people in their personal lives. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together and it’s true. Don’t be afraid to approach people way out of your own league business-wise. To paraphrase the Bible … ask and you shall receive.
Make creating or expanding your mastermind group a part of your 2017 business goals and ignite all your rocket engines. Cheers to your new ventures, projects, unrealized dreams and achieving your business goals in the new year!
AJ Hall is a 16-year adult industry veteran, winner of the 2016 XBIZ Tech Leadership Award and CEO of Elevated X Inc., a provider of popular adult site CMS software. Hall has spoken at industry trade shows and written for several trade publications. Elevated X software powers more than 2,000 leading adult sites, has been nominated for more than a dozen industry awards and won the 2012, 2014 and 2015 XBIZ Award for Software Company of the Year.
