IWillTeachYouToBeRich - A 49,514-person screwup

Hey Reader,

Ripped from the headlines of Ramit’s dumbass moves...today I present to you:

“DO NOT DO THIS: RAMIT’S 49,514-PERSON PARTNERSHIP MISTAKE”

We don't run contests anymore. It's a funny story. Funny like a clown crying, AKA sad and expensive.

A few years ago, we partnered with a big company to create a contest co-promotion and offer their readers some of our products.

We went all out for the contest. Thousands of dollars worth of prizes and free access to some of our best material.

The good news: We acquired 49,514 new subscribers. Most people would be thrilled. We were thrilled! 

The bad news: I am Indian, so getting an A is not enough. I need the A+, or in this case, what will those 49,514 people actually do? Do they actually buy? Let’s see what happened.

49,514 contest entries.

2 sales.

ARE YOU SHITTING ME???

No matter how you slice it, this was a complete waste of time.

But, we did learn a few worthwhile things...

7 things to learn about growing your business

If you miss your goal by 10% or 20%, that’s fixable. If you miss it by 50%, that’s bad. But when it’s this bad...sometimes all you can do is laugh. 

Getting traffic matters. But getting the right kind of traffic matters even more. 

Trying new stuff is expensive. Be prepared for most tests to fail. Build it into your budget & expectations.

The more you grow, the harder it is to keep the quality of your community high. There are a lot of things we could do to grow that we don't because we put our students first.

80/20, 80/20, 80/20. Whether you have 100 customers or 10,000, the heart of your business will always be driven by a small group of super fans. If you can find them, you have an amazing business.

Running a business is a numbers game. We've built an engine that brings on 15,000 people a month and has made us $10,000,000 on autopilot. With just one product.

You know what the real lesson is?

The best aren’t geniuses or people who flawlessly avoid mistakes.

They've just made MORE mistakes than anybody else. And they've used those mistakes to learn and improve.

So take more risks. Make more mistakes. Just learn faster than everyone else. 

Happy Friday (and there’s just one more thing below),

P.S. I really believe in making more mistakes, and learning faster, than anyone else. I’m always testing new traffic and growth strategies. I have an entire team focused on this.

Contests (ugh)? Facebook ads? Affiliates? SEO? I've tested them all and built the very few winning ideas into the traffic engine behind IWT.

Next week, I'm opening up a flagship course to help you get more traffic and more customers to your business.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn about how to get your idea in front of more people — the kind of people who read, engage, and buy — you should keep an eye open for my emails next week.

That's all for today. 

Have a great weekend!