"When you can hold back the marketing messages from your content, it will take your business to unimaginable places. But the idea of restraining marketing messages is a difficult pill for most people to swallow. It’s the opposite of what many marketers believe to be right and true."
- Launch, page 185
"If you lift people up, they’ll help lift you up."- Launch, page 8
In a nutshell, the elevation principle is: Great Content + Other People – Marketing Messages = Growth. This is the theory Stelzner puts forward in Launch and he makes a compelling case for it being true. He suggests that it is the process of meeting the core desires of prospects and customers by helping them solve their basic problems at no cost. By taking this approach, you focus on building trust and gaining attention without an obvious marketing message. This is more or less the complete opposite of traditional internet marketing, which is all about pushing the message out to the reader. Moreover, this helps a business shift from the “all about us” mentality to one that focuses on being of service to others. Stelzner also suggests that this facilitates a change in the prospects mind from “I’m being sold” to “I’m being educated”.
"What’s your vision? This may seem like a no-brainer concept, but it is very easy to lose focus and drift off into space without a clear vision."- Launch, page 28
It is a classic problem for a lot of business owners online. It starts as a passion project or a hobby, but then it takes on a life of its own. The problem is since it wasn’t started as a business, it can be a challenge to get a handle on the long-range view. In other words, what are all of your efforts going towards?
Creating a vision for your business helps you by painting a picture of a desirable future and can guide your business decisions. Understanding what you want your future to look like will help you make more informed decisions in the present in order to achieve that future vision. For example, your content and the gifts you give your readers should be created with the goal of moving you closer to your vision. Furthermore, when you have an idea of what the future looks like it becomes easier to say no to projects that don’t fit the bill. This can be an equally powerful tool that will help keep you focused.
"Remember, it’s people who take your business to new places. When you give them what they want, your business will grow."- Launch, page 92
This takeaway ties back into the The Big Idea of this book, which is the elevation principle. As it states, you need great content and other people for growth to occur. Stelzner outlines several different groups of people that are necessary for the elevation principle to work. Chiefly, your reader base, outside experts and fire starters. In the case of each group, relationship building and reciprocity are key.
Your gift to your reader base will always be your content. In addition to that, you might provide them with other gifts that help them solve their problems. This could include a free webinar, a template, an e-book, etc. Stelzner states that in gaining people’s trust and demonstrating how valuable you can be, you will create a larger, more loyal pool of prospects. If you’re looking to build your readership, then you have to focus on the other two groups: outside experts and fire starters. “Experts bring credibility, experience and exposure to your business”, which are key components of growing your business from the ground up. Building great relationships with experts comes down to the value they find in the exchange – be able to articulate this clearly. Finally, fire starters are the people who have so much influence that their endorsement can set off a chain reaction that propels your business forward. The best fire starters have the eyes and ears of an audience that closely matches your ideal reader base.
One thing that Launch affirmed for me is that there are many moving parts and pieces to building a successful online business; my own experience running an online business hasn’t been such an anomaly after all. It’s not enough to just be creating content in a silo. You have to be committed to the greater vision, which usually involves community building. Perhaps relationships really are everything.
Michael Stelzner is the founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com (one of the world’s largest business blogs), author of the books “Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition” and “Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged.” Michael is also the man behind large summits, such as Social Media Success Summit.
