Attention v. Intention

This morning, I wrote an email to my 7-Figure Letter Newsletter about something that I believe is really important to talk about as we build businesses.

Intention vs. Attention…

In the email (I’ve copied it below) I talk about how VICE went off their path a number of years ago by following attention instead of intention.

Every single day I see Entrepreneurs that follow the cost per click or cost per lead— you’ll see someone turn off an advertising strategy that is producing massive results with awareness and finding the perfect ideal client, simply because the numbers say it has a high cost per click.

In many ways, this is why in building Wisdom Media I’m not optimizing for the cost of attention. Instead, I’m focusing my attention directly on building highly engaged, intentional audiences.

Why? Because, no one cares about empty attention. I care about the cost per sale and that I’m bringing awareness that activates my authority and brand to the exact right people.

As an investor in companies it’s even more important… because VICE started doing this when they started taking massive investment rounds…

The management that came to VICE, clearly didn’t understand what they were actually selling…

This is why when I buy a company or invest in a company, one of the most important elements isn’t always scaling up traffic 100x. It’s about being able to understand who the customer truly is… and finding “pockets” of those people.

While everyone is trying to bring 5,000 people to their next webinar, I want 200 of the perfect fit people.

Just something to think about, friend 🙂 

The original email below…

Originally from The 7-Figure Letter:

This morning VICE filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection... and here's the critical lesson for you...

I don't watch news,

however,

when I did back many years ago...

The main place I really enjoyed? VICE.

Why?

They were on the edge.

In my mind, they truly looked at something that was happening in the world and dug deep.

It has intentionally and passion.

When I watched, the Founder, Shane Smith had deep conviction.

Today, is the beginning of the end for VICE and in my assessment the core reason is almost singular.

When Shane sold majority of the company to take on investment he went from selling intention to attention.

Everything was about clicks... instead of what really created VICE-- passion and intention to understand something and share a story.

They went away from what their core market and in doing so their market abandoned them.

The lesson here is perhaps the most important for businesses that are scaling...

Majority of the time, when scaling a business at the beginning, the only way it occurs? Highly relevancy to a small audience of people.

However, as you scale and build your business... many Entrepreneurs make the same mistake as VICE did...

What is it?

Most Entrepreneurs when scaling go for more...

More social media...

More clicks to the landing page...

More engagement...

More leads...

More funnels...

More of everything...

The problem is... when you add "more"

it takes away energy that is available.

You only have a limited amount of resources

and ensuring you use that wisely, is important.

On top of this when scaling so many people optimize

based on the wrong data.

Instead of being obsessed with cost per clicks...

how many clicks...

how many leads...

or even your return on ad spend in the first 14 days...

Entrepreneurs need to be obsessed with something a little different...

The intention of the audience they are attracting...

Can you get cheap leads? Of course.

Can you get 3,000 people signed up for your webinar? Sure.

Can you build your social media following to 100K followers? Yep.

But what does that actually do?

Would you rather have 100 potential customers that your able to properly help or 3,000 that overwhelm every part of you and your business?

See...

While attention might be the "master" currency...

Without intention, you can't convert that currency.

It's like having a bag of gold...

without anyone who wants to have that gold.

This is easily implemented:

Go for highly engaged audiences, segmenting, deep relevancy, intimacy with your audience and instead of optimizing for clicks, optimize for truly helping those people you come in contact with....