Making It – Episode 153
From Poetry to Prosperity (Alex Mandossian)
Alex Mandossian: Hi, I’m Alex Mandossian, and you’re listening to Making It. I run a business called MarketingOnline.com, and we assist those who have friction in their business to lubricate those points of friction so they make more sales faster, better, and easier.
At age six, I was a regular at St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church in Pasadena, California, and my parents were churchgoers. I was in the church choir, and I had a skill set that other six-year-olds didn’t have at the time. And I was looked upon as an Armenian mini-Mozart because for some reason I could recite classical Armenian poetry. A poem would last somewhere between ten and 15 minutes, and I could recite it from memory after being somewhat tortured at the table for a month before with my parents learning that poem because of the repetition, the space repetition in between dinners and lunches.
So why that shaped my life of who I am today is I went into a whole different persona. When I was on stage, I would deliver the poems to elderly women, most of whom were widows. And when I was done with the poem, I’d get a standing ovation because they couldn’t believe I could do it. And I my right cheek was pinker than my left cheek because they would come and pinch me because that’s what elderly Armenian women do. And there would be a throng of them. If I gave autographs, they would probably take those as well. So I did that for about three years, and as a result, I gained quite a reputation. I started reciting that poetry in other parts of the country, and they’d fly me all over.
They were going to fly me to Armenia. But back then it was under the Soviet Union’s control, and so we couldn’t go in there. And that shaped my presentation and professional speaking career, I think because I’ve never had stage fright, I’ve been an extemporaneous speaker many times. If you asked me to speak on any of maybe 45 different topics, I could do it because I’ve just put them to rote memory. And I remember through an auditory method that just a natural gift that I have, it’s unique ability. And I found it to be very useful when it comes to training teams, building teams, building companies, and pitching new ideas.
The way I started my business, I guess, stemming from that six- to nine-year-old who would recite classical Armenian poetry, was just accepting the fact that I was not employable. I went to Loyola High School in Los Angeles, and I graduated from there and eventually went to University of California at Irvine. I got two degrees there after five years, and as a result, I was not employable. I would interview and I would offend the person interviewing me because I thought I knew more.
In my first job interview, I was never asked back. And it was a chubb insurance company. I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t ask me back. The hubris that I must have had it back then, I still have it now. But at least I think I’m humble and I think about humility, whereas I didn’t before. By the way, I was told that humility is simply telling the truth about yourself. So as a result of not getting that job, I somehow meandered into a frozen yogurt and bakery in 1987, and I was 23 or 24 at the time. Saw a little red sign that said franchises for sale. It just so happened that polar frozen yogurt and bakery had five franchises. I was going to be the 6th franchisee.
And I opened a store in Long Beach, California, after somehow getting an SBA loan, small business administration loan, for $170,000. No experience whatsoever other than a college degree in economics and in psychology. And my mother put a second mortgage on the house, and I was in business. I was supposed to make about $850 per day just to break even. And I don’t think I had a day that I made over $225. And I went through a deep depression. I’m not a big fan of yogurt because I have a shell shock and PTSD as far as losing money.
I found myself on the other side of the counter with an SBA auctioneer auctioning off my equipment for about $0.17 on the dollar. I was weeping. I had employees stealing from me because they had nothing else to do. You know, my business was going under. My poor mother would come and mop the floors, my dad would come and help, and my mom’s house went into foreclosure in Pasadena. It was the only asset that she and I’m taking my family down. And so the next three years were very troubling because I’m $242,000 in debt. No way to pay it off. And eventually, after lots of hit and misses, I convinced the SBA loan officer not to foreclose on the house.
Those were very troubling years. But I remember after I got my mojo back, it took about seven years to get out of that hole. And I got a gig working for a direct response and tv company, writing scripts. I was a very good scriptwriter for some reason, with short form and long form infomercials, which eventually morphed into Internet marketing and I started MarketingOnline.com in 1995. In 2003, two partners and I were the first to bring talking websites to the market. We use flash audio so that websites could talk. We call them audio postcards. We send them by mail.
And in 2004, two years before YouTube was born, we had video on websites and I cut my teeth, you know, as one of the pioneers and dinosaurs of the digital marketing age and the first generation of what you would know to be click funnels and lead pages and other things like that. We called it marketing makeover generator, where we could AB split test things. And 1 October we did over a million dollars in less than 29 minutes. And I’ve never made that much money since. But it was a perfect storm, and the digital marketing age for me was born. And now I work as a fractional CMO because I’ve known what mistakes not to make and what to avoid.
The fear of starting is not something I have. The fear of finishing is something I do have. I’m a very OCD as far as it being perfect. And so I think what really shaped me was perfectionism. As much as it hurts to know that finishing means I’m not finishing, but it’s just another version. Once I accepted after lots of therapy, version one is better than version none. And the iterative process, the iterations of version, 2, 3, 4, 5 is what made Apple, Apple and I focus on friction as my fractional CMO business allows me to. Any business that doesn’t have friction, like Amazon or Uber or Tesla, are very high value companies because they don’t stop the customer buying journey in their trash.
And so as a result of that, I’ve observed that if good is the enemy of great, then great means lubricating the friction to make the buyer’s journey seamless. How do I do that? I get rid of the key friction points that are there. Usually there’s a friction point at onboarding. There’s a friction point at a confirmation page after they’ve ordered. There’s a key friction point when you’re attempting to upsell or cross sell, and there’s a key friction point after they’ve completed a training or course, depending on what it is that you have. So those are the major ones. I don’t believe in getting new traffic. If you have a leaking bucket, let’s plug the holes in the leaking bucket and then get all the traffic you want so it overflows.
The biggest mistake people make, who I’ve supported and mentored, I coached, is not listening. Simply not listening. If I plowed the ground before them, then chances are with almost absolute certainty what I say is going to happen will happen, because I have one advantage they don’t – experience. And I have another advantage they don’t – objectivity, that most people don’t have because as much as they want to be logical about business decisions, many times they make decisions with their gut or their heart.
And I have lost galactical amounts of money-making decisions with my heart instead of going back to my head and using the steering wheel instead of the acceleration pedal, because the car can’t move without pushing down on the accelerator. But I’m going to crash unless I use the steering wheel. And so the big mistake they make is they stop listening when they achieve success and they come back to me with their head down and say, Alex, this is what happened. They didn’t go by the steps or they didn’t go by the rules that was set before them. Usually, I would say eight out of ten times, they come back with bad news.
One of the mistakes I have made in the past is getting so ambitious and excited about a launch or a new campaign that I don’t split test. So the question I ask myself each day is, what am I split testing today? And if I test something five days a week, well, I’m going to test over 300 times a year, which is great. Now, Jeff Bezos at Amazon tests 2,000 different split tests every single day. It’s no wonder he’s one of the wealthiest humans on earth. But what am I split testing today means I know nothing. Everything is sacred. The mistake I make is when I know everything and nothing is sacred. What am I, split testing today? That’s a very important question, world class question. And I’m making a mistake if I don’t ask that question.
Making it for me is like a rainbow. I can never touch it, but I know it’s there. And so I believe making it is getting so good, that is more than good enough for everyone else, but it’s still not good enough for me. And that does bring up some psychological issues. Not being good enough is something I think I’ve grappled with emotionally and mentally most of my life, but in a positive sense in business. And I think I’m okay with it because my goal is to turn my mentees into mentors. And some of the gentlemen are now my mentors, and they were once my students.
So I used to get resentful towards that. You know, one of the most annoying things is when I tell them, I want you to be bigger than me, better than me. I want you to be smarter than me. And then they go ahead and do it. And I had a mentor sit me down one time and say, that’s the greatest honor anyone could ever have on this earth. So I live by that. But I’m nowhere close, so it’s a rainbow for me, and I’m just enjoying the ride.
The best piece of advice I ever received is before writing your message, before writing a headline, before writing any advantages or benefits in the form of bullets, before even crafting your offer, before creating the bonuses or the email teaser copy or the PS and any of your marketing communications, before you do any of those things which are coming from your mind, write down five to nine frequently asked questions that the candidate may have. And from those questions now you’re coming from the mind of who you’re ultimately enrolling.
And the research it takes to get those questions will put you at such a head start level, you’ll get momentum with writing your headlines, writing the benefits, writing the advantages, writing your PS, writing the body copy. So starting with FAQs is the best piece of advice I ever got, and Socrates was my mentor for that.
This is Alex Mandossian, and you’ve been listening to Making It. You can find me at marketingonline.com. That’s marketingonline.com.
Melinda Cohan: Making It as part of the Mirasee FM podcast network, which also includes such shows as Just Between Coaches and Once Upon a Business. To catch the great episodes that are coming up on Making It, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player. And if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a comment or a starred review. It is the best way to help us get these ideas to more people. Thank you and we’ll see you next time.