Split testing and why you should ignore the guru.

I was watching a video from quite a popular online “Guru” the other day who said:

“You shouldn’t worry about split testing until you are making 6 or 7 figures”.

Although I could understand his sentiment (People tend to make everything much too complicated when they start a business and so get overwhelmed)…

…I don’t agree you should wait until you are a 6 or 7 figure business before you worry about split testing.

Split testing done well could get you to those bigger numbers much sooner than if you just ignored using this idea altogether.

The argument used by this and other Gurus is that split testing may only improve conversion by small amounts, but they forget to mention that those “small amounts” can add up to quite a bit of extra profit.

The way I see it is that when you start a new business everything you do is a guess or an assumption.

You guess the price of your product (Mostly).
You guess the design of your site or sales page.
You guess your customer acquisition strategy.
You guess your email follow up strategy.

Even if you copy what others are doing you don’t necessarily know that they may have just guessed as well!

Once you start making your first sales you need to start finding out as quickly as possible if your guesses or assumptions are correct.

Just because you are making sales doesn’t mean you have it right.

You could be under selling the product or service so you could charge more,
Your conversion rate could be higher so you could sell more.
You may be able to get more people on your email list.
You may be able to sell to your customers more often that you think you can.

One of the biggest issues I find with businesses that are in trouble or cannot grow is because everything they still do is a guess.

They started and they managed to get going.

They grew for one or two years and then they either level out or the business starts to suffer and go downhill.

In business, you cannot afford to leave anything on the table no matter how quickly you are growing.

Finally split testing can also bring you big breakthroughs if done properly.

I have seen conversion rates jump by 5% to over 12%
I have seen Average order values jump by 20% or more.
I have seen the average number of orders a customer places go from 3 to 6.

All through simple split testing.

It’s not hard now days to put split testing in place and I suggest you start now.