Oct

26

The late Fred Herman, one of the “early” sales trainers, coined “KISS” for Keep It Simple, Salesman, and the advice is just as good now as it was in 1950. Too often, we complicate the sales process unnecessarily, for our customers and ourselves.

When putting together a sales “pitch”, I try to get a “straight line list” built; what points must be made and proved, in what order, to arrive at the close…..then I’m careful about wandering off in the weeds, away from that straight line.

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Oct

18

Buying space at the right price is just as important as presenting the right message. Maybe even more important.

The greatest product, offer and ad copy in the world will not overcome bad economics, and one way to achieve bad economics is over-paying for media (or, for that matter, for printing.)

Many years ago, I made the same dumb mistake many did and do; I “knocked off” what I could see of a business without realizing there were things I couldn’t see. At the time, the opportunity-type magazines were chock full of $10, $12 and $15 get-rich book ads, all modeled after the famous Joe Karbo ad*, and these ads were running month after month. I answered a number of them, and most of these advertisers were not doing much selling of additional products to these book buyers. I concluded that (a) they were making money from the book sales and (b) that I could create a better ad than theirs. I was right in some cases about (a); I was right in all cases about (b), but I still walked away a bit bloodied and bruised. Why? Because I paid the rates the magazines asked, less only frequency and agency discounts - and I had no idea that these other advertisers were buying the same space I was for 15% to 30% less than the “discounted” rate I was paying. (I also didn’t realize the extent to which they relied on their mailing list rental revenue for their real profits.)

I quickly learned the game, and can assure you: you MUST buy right.

And, unlike traditional/brand/image advertisers, we direct-response advertisers (should) know what we can pay per lead/order and, thus, what we can pay for space. If a particular publication will not sell you space for the amount you can afford to pay, then, no matter how badly you want to be in that publication, you must pass.

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Oct

16

Think about the car business: does anybody really concern themselves with the selling price of the car anymore? No, most are only concerned with the monthly payment. That’s why that industry has gradually de-sensitized people to longer terms; from a norm of 24-36 months to a norm of 48-60 months.

America lives by payments, and is largely conditioned to think about the payment amount rather than the purchase amount. Just about anytime you are selling something with a price that is “significant” to your market, you ought to offer installments. Offering and emphasizing payments vs. price can improve response by as much as 50%.

In mainstream consumer marketing, we have discovered an advantage to monthly payments below $50.00. In business to business, the amount is less important. If selling a fairly high-priced item, you may want to “weight” the financing in your favor, to cover all costs with the first installment and only finance profit: Egs. a $1,000.00 purchase - $500.00 down, 5 monthly payments of $100.00 each.

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Oct

5

Manipulative Selling

“Selling IS psychological manipulation.”
(Message: get over it!)

- THE CLOSERS

In the past 5 years or so, there’s been an incredible proliferation of new approaches to selling and sales training that try to sound warmer, fuzzier, and, well, less like selling….like “non-manipulative selling”, “non-confrontational selling”, “win-win selling”, “stress-free selling” and the like.* This is all horse puckey if you ask me. Selling is manipulation. If you are going to feel guilty about designing and using a presentation and answers to questions and objections engineered to make people do what you want; accept your proposition; buy your product; choose the higher priced options; and so on, no supply of psychobabble-ish buzzwords will turn you into an effective salesperson (in person or in print). The tools of selling include fear, guilt, ego, and greed. Mainstream advertising is largely about association: wear these shoes and you’ll be like Mike, drink this stuff and you’ll be like Shaq, drive this car or drink this beer and attractive members of the opposite sex will think you’re cool. Asking someone any simple yes/yes question: would Tuesday or Thursday be better? - even offering choices of credit cards or payment terms - is by nature manipulative. Just about everything you do in selling has a manipulative effect even if unintended.

I feel fortunate that this never bothered me in the least. I’ve been selling my entire adult life, from the very beginning operating under the “no holds barred” premise: that my job is to make the sale doing and using anything short of lying or fraud.

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Oct

1

Pander To The Big Boys

 

 This is very important if you happen to be selling a small company to a big company; know that they will view you with disdain and they will be very willing to assume that, given their superior intelligence and superior resources, they will be able to do much better with your business than you have. If you are selling, this is a conceit you will want to pander to. (If buying, beware of your own arrogance.)  This is the kind of arrogance that causes a big company to buy something like Snapple then wind up selling it back to its old owners for a fraction of what they paid for it; Time/Life to buy a thriving mail-order business and then manage it into extinction. It is perfectly okay to be underestimated by people giving you money.

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Aug

31

Burning Desire

August 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment

I’ve been around only a few people who have exhibited sustained, burning, overwhelmingly intense desire to accomplish a particular goal or learn a particular skill and it’s my observation that such people rarely waiver from an optimistic, enthusiastic, constructive attitude.  “Fire in the belly” seems to prevent distractions in the mind.

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Aug

27

Honor Your Commitments

“To be punctual in all of your appointments is a duty resting upon you no less obligatory that the duty of common honesty. An appointment is a contract and if you do not keep it you are dishonestly using other peoples time and, consequently, their money.”
- S.D. Bremer

This is a big “hang-up” of mine; I detest being late and I detest being inconvenienced by others who cannot get where they’re supposed to get on time. I sometimes go to extreme and extraordinary lengths to honor my commitments, as small as a lunch appointment - and “honor” is a chosen word. I think peoples’ behavior with regard to honoring their littlest commitments very accurately reveals whether or not they can be trusted with bigger and more important things.

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Jul

31

This is one of my favorite “tricks”: selling Item-A for X$, then offering that customer a “bigger” Item-B, for Y$, but giving full credit for the prior purchase as a discount. This puts money in  the customer’s pocket that he loses if he doesn’t make the second purchase.

For example, we ran our SuccessTrak seminar business for three years based on a $25.00 deposit to guarantee attendance at the free seminar, then refunding double the deposit against the product purchase.

I nearly doubled my U.S. Gold client’s business with a $99 “Mini-Kit”, then full credit for the $99 when the full kit is purchased.

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Jul

12

Lead in niche markets

Although I’ve rarely found the opportunities to do this personally, because I do not come from any niche, when I have done it and do it, it is always exceptionally profitable, and I’ve evolved into the practice of steering clients in this direction whenever possible as well as choosing clients to work with who possess such opportunities. Personally, I’ve made extraordinary profits in publishing, mail-order and seminar businesses in the niches of chiropractic, dentistry and professional speakers; and exceptional earnings by consulting in information product publishing and marketing, business opportunities, and TV infomercials (although I hasten to add, my total consulting activity is much broader). 

Niche markets offer smaller opportunities than the mainstream, public marketplace, but they also provide a long list of appealing, offsetting benefits, including lower testing costs and investments, more predictable results, ease of message-to-market matching, affordable use of many media, high dollar units of sale, high margins, and so on. There is also this opportunity: to quickly and (relatively) inexpensively establish a visible, recognized leadership position.

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Jul

6

The Successful Business Life

“To be in business is to be assaulted by relentless adversity and crisis; it comes with the territory.”

                        - Carter Henderson.

I’m very happy that I read this book fairly early in my entrepreneurial career, because this statement leaped out at me - everything else I’d read seemed dedicated to the premise that if you did things right, you could do business problem-free. This certainly was not my experience, and I was beginning to wonder if I was hopelessly screwed up when I first encountered this simple statement. With 25 years of entrepreneurial experience and 20/20 hindsight, I appreciate this profound statement even more. You see, it is my experience that even doing everything to the very best of your ability, and even trying to do everything with integrity, you will still deal with “adversity and crisis” constantly. When you are in an aggressive stage; growth, building, creating, then dealing with adversity, opposition, crisis, etc. is an unpreventable, unavoidable part of the game. The important thing to do about that is to make mental peace with it so that you do not overreact, or become so frustrated you can’t function or can’t enjoy what you’re doing, or conclude there’s something wrong with you, or worse, quit altogether. You’ll find throughout my writings about entrepreneurship a philosophical acceptance of the truth of the entrepreneurial experience as stated by Henderson.

How to build an exceptionally successful business life…….

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Jun

29

Do YOU believe in your proposition? Do you have a “fire in your belly” about putting it across?

 Most of the “great” copywriters, including Ogilvy, Reeves, etc. agree that a pro can and should be able to write copy for any product, but that it is a decided advantage to work at selling that which genuinely interests you. Ogilvy, for example, said he had long been fascinated with Rolls-Royce automobiles before he wrote the now-famous “the loudest noise you’ll hear….” ad for Rolls-Royce.

Just the other day, in rehearsing an author for his infomercial, the producers and I noticed that, when challenged by a skeptical interviewer asking “tough” questions, the author came to life and spoke with fiery passion and firm conviction. His authentic passion is an enormous advantage, and although it will be seen on TV in this case, it can be transferred to print.

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Jun

26

Selling Prevention

“How many people buy medicine to prevent athlete’s foot, compared with those who buy to cure it?”

 

- Clyde Bedell

When facing the need to sell “prevention”, the very first thing to do is look for a way to reposition the product or service as a “cure.” If that turns out to be impossible, I advise finding some other business to be in. Selling “prevention” IS that difficult.

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Jun

10

The newsletter is, I think, the most useful tool in maintaining relationships with customers and keeping them interested in you, your business, your products and services. Since “publications” get better readership than “sales materials”; articles get more readership than ads, it simply makes sense to put your messages into the format of a publication, and into the context of articles.

Sadly, many marketers are terribly lazy about this, and can never get their act together, to put out a good, interesting newsletter every month. 

Content Tips

  1. Information/education directly linked to your products and services
  2. Information/education linked to the customer-type (egs.  homeowner; CEO; parent)
  3. Customer recognition and appreciation
  4. Promotion of new/selected products, services
  5. Stimulate

 

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Jun

8

The Power Of Results

“DON’T TELL ME ABOUT THE LABOR PAINS -
JUST SHOW ME THE BABY.”

Ordinary people are process focused and task focused, but exceptional success comes from being results focused. People who are obsessed with the telling and retelling of all the details and minutiae they went through to get to a particular result waste your time and slow down the entire organization.

People around you have to be taught, conditioned and constantly reminded how to communicate with you. Here are two examples of employees, same situation:

“Bill, we had a problem this morning. All the phone and FAX lines were out and we couldn’t get any calls or orders. I went across the street to the pay phone and called the phone company. I was on hold forever. Then the first person told me they’d look into the problem as soon as possible and get back to me by tomorrow. I got to a supervisor and pushed. Finally, somebody agreed to put a repair crew on it immediately. They were here an hour ago. The head guy said we’ll be up and running by noon at the latest.”

****

“Bill, we had a problem this morning. All the phone and FAX lines were out. I already got a repair crew out here and the head guy says we’ll be up and running by noon at the latest.”

Which do you prefer?

By the way, the biggest Negative Power anybody has is in usurping your valuable time. If you have somebody around you who is “high maintenance”, you need to get rid of them.

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Jun

4

Although I’ve rarely found the opportunities to do this personally, because I do not come from any niche, when I have done it and do it, it is always exceptionally profitable, and I’ve evolved into the practice of steering clients in this direction whenever possible as well as choosing clients to work with who possess such opportunities. Personally, I’ve made extraordinary profits in publishing, mail-order and seminar businesses in the niches of chiropractic, dentistry and professional speakers; and exceptional earnings by consulting in information product publishing and marketing, business opportunities, and TV infomercials (although I hasten to add, my total consulting activity is much broader).

Niche markets offer smaller opportunities than the mainstream, public marketplace, but they also provide a long list of appealing, offsetting benefits, including lower testing costs and investments, more predictable results, ease of message-to-market matching, affordable use of many media, high dollar units of sale, high margins, and so on. There is also this opportunity: to quickly and (relatively) inexpensively establish a visible, recognized leadership position.

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May

20

“You may depend on the inner-mind absolutely. Everything you need to know will come to you when you need to know it.”

- Dr. Edward Kramer

Decisiveness is one of the most prized and valuable of all personal characteristics, but it is also often misunderstood; many books written equate being more decisive with learning better processes for making decisions, but this is not the way super-decisive individuals operate. Instead, individuals in this category have a hyper-active “inner voice” and they listen to it and act on it confidently, unhesitatingly. Some call this “intuition”, although that term has been tainted over the years with gender issues. And this is not “hunch betting”; but the environment of wagering is a place where the distinction can be explained. At the track a “hunch bet” is picking a horse because it’s name is the same as your cousin’s. An “inner voice bet” occurs, for example, when you are suddenly reminded by your subconscious that a certain jockey has only one mount all day in a late race, which is very unusual for him, and it is unlikely he would take the trouble to come out to the track just for that one mount unless it had a legitimate chance of winning. In that instance, “stored information” rises up out of the recesses of your subconscious. The trick of course, is developing the ability to recognize this and the confidence to act on it.

Kramer goes beyond this. The essence of Kramer’s ideas is that each individual’s mind (sic. subconscious) is directly connected to all intelligence (”universal intelligence”) and therefore all the knowledge of the universe, past and present, is stored in your mind and accessible for the asking. This follows demonstrations by a Harvard prof, Dr. Sidis, in which very young children were able to do complex math problems or recite poetry, etc. without it being taught to them, but by it being stimulated from them. Sidis/Kramer argued that formal education errs in “stuffing in” information as opposed to helping individuals develop the powers of the mind. It’s conceivable that many things little children do that, in observing them, we pass off as “instinctive” is actually know-how. Just for example, little children are often able to calm and befriend a scared or violent horse when adults fail - is it possible the child is using know-how that is later “un-learned” as adults?

Even if the Sidis/Kramer idea of essentially unlimited innate intelligence and knowledge existing in each person isn’t totally valid, it certainly is true that the subconscious mind stores every little bit of information it is ever exposed to and has it all available for lightning speed recall, but we find all sorts of ways to jam up that machinery. Learning to get out of our own way consciously and let the subconscious mind do more of the heavy lifting is a path to much greater, less stressful achievement.

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May

18

“You are subject to your environment. Therefore, select the environment that will best develop you toward your desired objective.”

- W. Clement Stone

The reason that conditions of parole typically prohibit associating with known felons, past criminal associates and, in many cases, frequenting certain previously frequented establishments or even sections of town is simple: there’s abundant evidence that doing so dramatically increases, in fact, virtually guarantees recidivism.

It is hard enough converting from criminal to citizen without trying to keep one leg knee deep in a criminal environment. When I decided to end my heavy drinking, I found it very helpful to stay out of bars. Yes, I can sit in a bar or lounge and not indulge. These days I can have one, enjoy it and stop. But I still do not make a practice of frequenting bars. Why subject myself to such an environment, unrelated to achievement of my goals and potentially distracting or destructive?

People can and do escape their environments, as we see that in people who grew up in ghettos or received nominal education or were raised by abusive parents, etc., who become stellar citizens and successful individuals. However, there’s also a great deal of “you can take the boy out of the _________, but you can’t take the __________ out of the boy” to be observed as well. It is very clear that environment has enormous impact, and I doubt you’ll find a dissenting psychologist or sociologist.

In recognition of this, I began selecting my environments fairly early. I sure didn’t do a perfect job of it, but I did a better job than most. And I’m very conscious of it as an adult.

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May

12

“What would you do if you HAD to make your next mailing work? What if you could only mail ONE letter and if you didn’t get a response you would, quite literally, be beheaded?”

- Gary Halbert

This is the prelude to Gary’s discussion of “A-pile vs. B-pile mail”, based on the correct insistence that America sorts its mail over a wastebasket. (In biz-to-biz mail, the gatekeeper sorts it first over her/his wastebasket, then the intended recipient sorts again over her/his wastebasket.) And, of course, this is the argument against envelopes with “teaser copy”. It is this thinking that has led me to favor “a-pile look” in 90% of all situations - except when mailing to established, responsive customers who welcome mail from the mailer.

However, here’s an interesting FACT: direct mail covered with teaser copy is used more than “a-pile mail” by about a 100-to-1 ratio, and thus, far more goods and services are sold via the “junk mail look” than with the “a-pile look”. Some of this can be chalked up to more mailers using bulk mail than any other class and thus losing the opportunity to use a pure a-pile look, some to stupidity, but, still, this fact also suggests the wisdom of testing the one approach against the other in just about every situation.

The most important point I would make is that if or when you violate pure a-pile - such as having a corporate name or logo in the return address or mailing bulk - once you’ve crossed that line, you are best advised to go way over the line……to use every available inch of both sides of the envelope as billboard space.

My preference remains a-pile.

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May

9

“The opening sentence of a letter IS the letter. If these words do not say anything, there is no conception of philanthropy that could reasonably urge any man to read more.”

-J. George Frederick

Here’s a very simple copywriting test: put only your first sentence on a page. Looking at that and that only, would you go onto the next page to find the next sentence? Or try this one: if you received the letter with nothing but the first sentence* and all the other pages apparently, accidentally omitted from your letter, would you chase down the sender to get the rest? (*Same tests for first paragraph. For first page.)

I spend a lot of time working in environments where all circumstances conspire against grabbing the attention of the prospects. All my speaking at the Success events is at the very end of a ten hour day, after 8 to 10 speakers, after the last celebrity, with a crowd leaving. In my work in the infomercial industry, we battle the “clicker” with every word, the “ugh, it’s an infomercial” reaction at the start of every program. I think; I hope these kinds of situations sensitize me to the importance of the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first page.

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May

3


Recognition creates repetitive behavior (just as non-recognition does!). Again, with the manufacturing business, we started a formalized “thank you” program aimed at those who paid as agreed, and we very quickly turned good payers into great payers.

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