When Something’s Working, Don’t Stop Doing It

Don’t stop when something’s working – whether it’s your ads, your marketing tools, or anything else. 

This week’s theme was inspired by something I see all the time. Things are working really well, then people stop doing them. They think their work is done and that’s the end of it.

Some business owners even find it quite boring when things are working. They’re always looking for the next thing to try, rather than doubling down on the thing that’s actually performing.

The goal has been met, so it’s not exciting anymore. 

If the system’s working – like your DM system or whatever you’re doing – do more of it. Pay your VA to send more messages to more people. Get them to train up another VA. Keep going.

We see it with clients where the stats are really good, but they’ve spent so little in relative terms that the money that’s landed in their bank account doesn’t reflect how effective the campaign was.

If they’d spent 10 times as much and the stats had been the same, that £500 that landed in their bank account would’ve been £5,000 or £50,000, depending on their initial spend.

And they’d see things completely differently.

But they didn’t back themselves when they saw it was working.

Instead, their mindset was: “I’ve invested £2,500 into my marketing, so I’m expecting £20,000 back from this”, instead of: “I’ve invested £2,500 into my marketing, £500 of which was on ads. Now I’ve made £5,000 back, so I’m happy with that”.

But why don’t you put all of that £5,000 back in and if you get five times that amount back, you’ve made £25,000?

In my mentorship group chat, someone recently posted that their click-through rate is two, which I believe is good, but no one had DM’d him.

“What’s wrong with my ads?”, he asked us.

Well, if he’s had eight clicks and his click-through rate is two, that means he’s had 400 views, which is f**k all. It probably cost him £10 max. So there’s nothing wrong with his ads; he just hasn’t got enough data to make a decision on what’s working.

We’ve got some clients that run at 50p a lead from their Google Ads, and others that run at £50 a lead. Both are happy.

Because the client that runs at £50 a lead gets three leads and converts a £20,000 customer. The client that runs at 50p a lead needs 100 leads, but then converts a £500 customer.

Both outcomes are perfectly OK.

And that’s what you need to know; you need to understand the maths of your business.

The gross income, the revenue, the profit margin, everything. If you don’t know those things, how can you tell whether 5p a click is good or bad?

Knowing your numbers gives you incredible freedom.

Because then you can make decisions really quickly.

One of our tactics at the moment is to send out quite an expensive box to 10 people a week that we’ve handpicked to receive it. If one of those 20 converts, that’s an incredible result for us.

So that’s a £1,000 gamble for every 20 boxes we send. I don’t know many business owners who’d be willing to do that.

But if it works, I’m going to do more of it.

And I’m going to keep doing it. Even if I end up needing a warehouse for all these boxes, and even if I end up needing an extra member of staff just to fill up and send out these boxes.

I think what stops a lot of people from doing this stuff is fear of success. They’re scared they can’t fulfil the demand they create. Or they’re stuck in the mindset of: “That’s a lot of money to spend” rather than: “That’s a lot of money to make”.

Beyond that mindset, I often see trust issues.

Trusting your agency, trusting the ad platform, trusting your website, trusting your team, trusting yourself.

As a marketing provider, we’re talking to people who are scaling and when they reach that stage, there’s always a block. There’s a mindset of: “Well, that was a record month, so we’d rather pat ourselves on the back than try to break our record.”

On the flipside of that, the elite entrepreneurs out there think more like athletes. When Usain Bolt broke his first world record, he didn’t stop and think: “Great, I’ve done that now. I won’t bother trying to break it again.”

So how do you know if your campaigns are working?

Well, you need really bulletproof measurement tools. If you’re spending over £1,000 a month on ads and you think you’ll be able to monitor them yourself, you’re having a laugh.

We’ve got AI on it, humans on it. We’re checking every day, and it’s still hard because of the sheer amount of data to process. Seasonality, hot weather, cold weather, bank holidays, school holidays – all these factors play a role in ad performance.

And when ad views drop, sometimes you’ve just got to ride it out.

Just like the stock market.

When people first invest in stocks, they start to do OK and then as soon as there’s a blip in the market, they panic sell. And then the successful ones who stuck it out can buy in cheap because everyone else has sold off.

Ads behave in the same way.

But you’ve got to be brave enough to ride it out, and keep going, and stick with whatever’s working, even when there are blips.

Now, here’s what always blows my mind.

People will put down a £30,000 deposit to buy a £350,000 house and then pay a £1,200 mortgage every month for the next 20 years. Ultimately, they’re never going to see the full return on that investment because that’s the house they live in.

But if you said to them: “Your ads are making you £10 for every £1 you spend, do you want to increase your budget?”, they’d be nervous about it.

And that’s how we’re conditioned to think.

That’s how we all get stuck. I would love people to be like less robotic and less caught up in their limiting beliefs and their money blocks.

Their fear of what if.

‘What if it gets too busy?’, ‘What if it doesn’t work?’, ‘What if this breaks the ads?’.

But what if it does work? What if you’re able to fill the extra orders? What if when you start fulfilling them, people start coming out the woodwork and want to work for you?

And what if this is the greatest decision you’ve ever made?

Maybe this takes you from living in your small flat in your small town to having your dream home and going on three holidays a year?

People’s go-to reaction is always: “What if it doesn’t work”, when it should be: “What if it does?”

And I really rate those people who look at things objectively from a factual standpoint and say to themselves: “I’ve got all the facts in front of me and therefore I can make this decision.”

It’s an informed decision – not a gamble.

And yet people are often more comfortable taking a gamble than they are making an informed decision.

Recently, an e-comm business came to us for their ads. On their first sale, they were happy to just break even, but they actually made £7 for every £1 they spent.

And they’ve been so wildly successful, going from 20 orders a day to 50 and soon it’ll be 80. They started as a decent-sized family business; now they’ve got life-changing sums of money going through their business every day.

That’s what’s possible when you stick with what’s working.

Don’t miss the next episode of Stay Hungry – we’ll dive into straight-talking insights on business marketing, growth mindset, and the realities of running a business. And if you want to take the hassle out of your marketing, we’ve got you covered with our done-for-you service.