Business Building Scripts
March 24, 2009
I’ve recommended a few different scripts recently and I sell a few different ones myself.
I’ve been asked why I recommend different scripts/applications when they can’t all be the best. That’s true, they can’t all be the best, but like so many things we buy, we don’t always want/need the best.
The “best” car in the world is probably not what most of us drive. So what? The “best” TV isn’t sitting in everyone’s home. What does best mean, anyway? Are we talking about cost, value, materials used – what?
Seems to me that the answer is different for each one of us. For an absolute beginner the “best” software might beone that requires no configuration. Literally plug and play. For an expert that might be so restrictive that it’s useless. We all have different needs and the truth is – shock, horror – no software will meet every one of your needs 100%. That’s just a fact.
For online selling I use a whole suite of different programs. I could probably consolidate down to just a couple, but I can say that no single product I have does it all. So I use more than one.
For a complete beginner the $7 Secrets scripts are real affordable. Just $7. But they’re not that easy to use for real beginners. I know, because I’ve had many beginners pay me to install the script for them. Even the most apparently obvious configuration setting can fox a beginner. So although it’s affordable for pretty much everyone, it’s not a comfortable fit for everyone.
Smart DD is a low-priced, powerful product (especially if you took advantage of Frank’s recent sale). It requires a little bit of care in handling because databases are involved. Not everyone is comfortable with creating databases, even though it’s easy when you’ve done it a couple of times. It also takes quite a bit more setting up for each product you sell, in my opinion. You have to pre-plan a little bit to make the most of it. But once it’s up and running you can forget about it. You don’t need to touch it again. It just works. And the integration with Kunaki, which means you can sell CDs and DVDs is just so good it’s almost invisible. You just don’t notice it because it works without your intervention.
Butterfly Marketing, which I hope to be getting later today if I’m quick enough, is a much more subtantial product, hence the normal $1,997 price tag. For the average person it’s likely that it would be quite hard work to install it and setting up and configuring the various options would also probably require a degree of care. It’s not suitable for beginners, I would say, unless they have someone do the install for them. For marketers with a range of products, cross-selling opportunities between those products, and a bank of affiliates to promote them, it’s a complete enterprise business automation system.
There are lots of others, like RAP, RCP, DL Guard (I use that too, every day, and it’s excellent), aMember and more.
I’ve done this in the past and I know newcomers will do it in the future. You might have recognised this in yourself. I’ve bought products that were too substantial for what I wanted to do. I’ve ended up spending more time learning how to use them, rather than time spent actually using them to run an online business.
What I’d suggest is that you get a clear idea of what you want to achieve with a script/software, before you ever start looking. Flashy sales pages can be very enticing and all those wonderful bullet points of what the software can do are very appealing. Just ask yourself though, for where you are now and where you’ll be next month, does it fit you?
And if that doesn’t work, think of it like this: If you were 14 years old again which would you choose?
- Clothes that fit you perfectly now
- Clothes that you’ll grow into in about 18 months’ time.
A good fit isn’t just important in clothing. It’s important in the tools you use to run your online business. If the tools are too complex you’ll never use them, or you’ll miss opportunities. If the tools are too small you’ll constantly be hitting barriers. But get something that’s just right and you’ll find you grow in knowledge and you’re more likely to grow your business, too.
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