Steve Brown - The Golden Toilet: Stop Flushing Your Marketing Budget into Your Website and Build a System That Grows Your Business

If youre like most of the clients who show up to ROI Online, the online marketing agency I started, youre on the hunt. Youve been bombarded by salespeople telling you what your business needs in this modern era of marketingto get to the top of the results for a search phrase, to run the right social media ads, to run email campaigns and have keywords, and to fix your damned website already. You dont need convincing on any of those points, either. You know that what you have isnt moving the needle, which means it doesnt work, which means there must be some truth to what theyre telling you. So, you try it on your own or you hire someone to do it. Sometimes you even come to an agency like mine, or you pick up a book like this.

Actually, let me pause there. Theres not a book like this. Thats really why its in your hands. See, all of those voices telling you what you need are all trying to sell you something. I know, because thats what I used to do, too. I had a quota to meet, and to meet that quota I had to convince people to let us make their new website. But quotas are exactly what is wrong with the sales profession in general. Quotas inherently put salespeople at odds with the prospect. As a salesperson, if all Im focused on is meeting my quota, then Im not really interested if what Im selling is the best thing for my target or not. I just want to make my quota, collect my commission, and go party. But all of these great sounding solutions coming at you are someone elses quota. They arent you, the entrepreneur, which means they dont worry about the same things that worry you. Getting a yes from you moves their needle, regardless of what it does for you.

Whats worse is that most of these agency - based models use a pretty outdated method of marketing. Think about how life looked twenty years ago. We werent scrolling through our phones every day (or minute). We were barely scrolling the internet at that point. So advertising was about finding where people were, interrupting what they were doing, and making sure they knew about your great solution. Billboards, print ads, mailers, commercials, pop up adsit all worked for a while.

Fast forward to today, and everything in our world is designed to repel those interruptions. We will do everything we can to consume entertainment and information without interruption. (Honestly, not one person wants to have to answer their four - year - old when they ask daddy what a four - hour election is because the latest family flick blared out a Viagra commercial over dinnertime! Well sweetie its a way to pick a winner real fast. In fact, if the election lasts longer than four hours you call your doctor.) We are the generation that created Netflix, do - not - call lists, and spam filters. We are the generation that rejected old marketing models.

So why, as business owners, are you still expecting those outdated models you avoid in your personal life to be effective for your business?

This book is different because it isnt about me or my quota. Its about you. You picked up this book because you know in your gut that youve been flushing your marketing money away. And you are. Weve all been there. Heres the piece that you might not want to hear and the thing that I tell everyone who comes to ROI Online looking to appease the Google - bot salespeople who call every day telling them they need better SEO: you dont need a website.

Thats right. The last thing you need to invest in is yet another website rebuild. In fact, that fancy website of yours is nothing more than a beautiful, brand new, solid - gold toilet.

So lets talk about the title of this book. Did you make the same face my dad did when I told him what the title of this book was going to be? Seriously? What does a golden toilet have to do with how a progressive business owner should look at their online marketing challenge?

Im glad you asked.