Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, September 22, 2006:
Back to $0 :-(
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As the end of the month approaches I’m reminded yet again that the start of a new month is about to begin. This is always a sad time for me because my primary success marker is my monthly sales goal. So the beginning of the month means I’m back to $0 again and need to work my way up.
Of course it’s fun to work your way up, well at least when it starts fast. More often then not though the first 15 days are very slow and the majority of the sales come in the back half. This phenomenon leads to a stressful start and gleeful finish. I’ve been very careful though to always put the last month behind me so I always have a new goal to shoot for.
It’s kind of funny because my wife hates the stressful start of the month. Because I often know when big sales are coming in (because of working closely with the customer beforehand) she often roots for the sale to come in after the 1st while I prefer it to come in the existing month since I prefer chasing new monthly highs. It’s all the same in the end, but it’s a fun game nevertheless.
Discussion
I don't know if it is a common phenomonon but it appears that all of my sales of my Authorize.net component seem to come at the end of the month. The first couple weeks are definitely disappointing but each month I have still made more sales than the previous month so something must be going right!
Created by Ben Kubs on 09.22.2006 5:46 pm
Here's your question # 4:
When you start with $0 each month, how do you get your sales? Of course don't share specific information, but give us some hints about what methods you use. Is it from google organic searches, google adwords, or any other sort of advertisements?
Created by Ali on 09.24.2006 1:02 am
Ali I have a few hundred dollars in ads (no google ads though) but for the most part sales come from word of mouth and people who find UserScape via old blog posts on various important subjects. That's about it.
I do have some new marketing efforts which I'll be putting in motion this fall, stay tuned!
Created by Ian on 09.24.2006 10:34 am
You can always show your wife a report of a rolling 30 days worth of sales, this way things will be a bit smoother 
Created by Baruch on 09.26.2006 2:43 am
Hiya Ian,
Thanks for the reply. So basically, most of the people find you by themselves without you having to do much marketing efforts each month? (Apart from the advertising)
If so, then how do you set different revenue goals for each month? I mean, do you actually predict how much sales you would get through a particular blog post/customer giving referals, or do you do any individual marketing efforts apart from that to meet the goals?
Sorry this is a bit tongue-in-cheekish, but you know what I mean 
Created by Ali on 09.26.2006 10:30 am
I'll have to try that Baruch!
Well, I wouldn't characterize it as without much effort Ali. What I've done is lay the foundation through lots and lots of work over the past 2 years of constant blogging, getting link backs, participating in various communities and so on. So now I've built up the search rank on HelpSpot and also my blog posts.
For instance, if you search Google for 'help desk software' HelpSpot is on page 2. Not bad considering I'm up against companies willing to pay up to $35 per click in the ads next to it and who hire professional SEO firms, etc etc.
My current focus is to maintain that along with some small strategic marketing and building the word of mouth among my current customers. Also as the user base grows my SEO should improve because the HelpSpot portals of each customer contain a link back to HelpSpot. They can remove it, but many keep it.
Created by Ian on 09.26.2006 10:39 am
Thanks Ian!
Created by Ali on 09.27.2006 12:24 am