Welcome to Thursdays with Cyn where I share my personal tips and tricks to hopefully motivate and inspire you to take just one small step towards your OWN e-commerce entrepreneurial journey.

The title of today’s topic is: Skipping Rocks for the WIN!

How many of you remember skipping rocks on a pond as a kid? 

Wasn’t that fun??? My friends and I would search for really smooth rocks and throw them over and over trying to see how many times we could make them skip or bounce on top of the water.

Sometimes we could make them skip about 8 times and other times they were duds and just sank. 

As kids, we were just having fun, but we did figure out that a certain type of rock with just the right angle when thrown would have a better chance of skipping or bouncing farther.

That came with trial and error.

So think about it… the best “skipping rocks” are located near rivers and streams and the ocean where rapids and waves create the perfect shape for skipping, flat and smooth.

Depending on the body of water where these rocks are thrown will determine your success in their ability to skip.

If thrown into a pond with very still water, the potential to skip is great.

If thrown into an ocean or lake with waves and lots of current activity, they will just sink.  

We can actually learn a lot from this age-old activity of skipping rocks… 

Let’s explore how this can relate to your business….

First - you have to find the right type of rock.

Must be smooth and flat. Not just any rock will do.

In this case, rocks can be considered a tool used in the job of skipping.

So this means not all tools available are necessarily the correct ones to use for all businesses.

Not all businesses have the same purpose or structure so only specific tools matched to the specific purpose will be effective. Make sense?

Next, the pitch or how you throw it is just as important as the rock itself. We already talked about the angle and how important it is to the success of the rock actually skipping or bouncing.

There are 360 degrees of possibilities for how to pitch that rock. Only a very small narrow window of those degrees will produce a successful bounce.

This translates to FOCUS and honing in on your subject in your business. In other words, your clients. Who are the ideal clients for your business? If you are in the business of building rocket ships, then bicycle customers are not your ideal clients. Right?

You must find what we call your customer AVATAR - translates to an example of who your ideal client is. What they like, what they dislike, their buying habits, and many more parameters. You have to get inside the mind of who your perfect client or customer is for your business and only market to that avatar. Otherwise, you will be wasting time and money on ineffective ads.   

So let’s take that a step further…

When you set up ads for your product or service, you will identify groups of people as your target audience - a great example is Facebook ads. They actually make suggestions for groups to target. 

Using one of my clients as an example let me explain how a bigger audience is not better.

TailgateFix makes several products for GMC Sierra trucks with the MultiPro Tailgate.

When creating a Facebook ad, it asks for keywords that fit our product. Obviously, that would be truck owners. That could have 100 Million people targeted for that group.

So one might think - wow - all those millions of people would see my ad and buy my product! YAY!

Ummm… NO!

The fact is, 95% of that audience would be the wrong group to market to because the product is geared to only GMC Sierra truck owners with this very specific tailgate.

The true audience may only be 1 million people. Without that laser focus on the correct group of 1 million people, tons of money would be wasted by targeting the wrong audience.

Ads are just one area where this type of laser focus is required. Consider the following:

The design of websites / funnel landing pages

How wording (copywriting) plays a role in attracting a certain audience

Product photography or lifestyle photos that evoke emotion and cause people to act: which means buying what you are selling… causing them to press that “add to cart” button.

Finally, let’s talk about the ripple effect.

A successful throw with multiple skips/bounces at some point comes to an end because the force behind the throw slows down and the rock finally sinks.

But ~ the ripples in the water continue on long after the rock stops.

The force is still moving behind the initial motion of the throw, just in a different way - at a different speed - with a different purpose.

You can relate that to how a business grows and develops not only through the advancement in the product being sold itself but also through the power of the force of the customers that purchased that product.

They tell their friends.

They leave reviews.

They make repeat purchases.

As far as the product itself goes, let’s say you have a YouTube video showcasing your product. 

The digital footprint of that video lives on forever. Think about that...

You know how videos go viral and generate millions of views? Companies can literally be put on the map overnight by the power of the internet.

They also can be crushed in an instant.

Those ripples, both good and bad, can have everlasting effects on one’s business. 

Now… back to skimming rocks … 

It’s a fun activity

It becomes competitive - with yourself or others

It’s truly an art, once perfected

It takes a lot of practice

The right type of rock must be used

The angle of the pitch must be perfect

When successful, the ripples continue until they are out of sight.

If unsuccessful, they sink faster than the Titanic.

When you do everything right and you finally get one to skip - even if it’s just a couple of bounces, that’s a WIN and you celebrate.

Then you keep throwing to do it again. You feel challenged to increase the number of bounces… 

That is called momentum which drives you to keep working harder and harder to get better and better so you can be more successful every time you throw. 

All of this works the exact same way in business…

Hopefully, you can use this lesson on skipping rocks to find ways to improve your focus and create those ripples in your business to gain the success you truly deserve! 

So I want to hear from you...give me your thoughts on today’s topic and what changes you will/or have made in your business to get those wonderful ripple effects after a perfect pitch!

So … that’s a wrap for today… I challenge you to go out and take just one step further towards your dreams and goals whatever they may be!

Til next time…