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“46 Action Provoking Money Making and

Marketing Ideas from Australia’s Rebellious Master of Cashflow”

Mal Emery’s thoughts, information, very current and timely ideas and discoveries, "go to" recommendations… important reminders, ideas, tips, motivation and action provoking

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ACTION INVOKING RANT No 1, THOUGHTS, IDEAS, TIPS and UPDATE FROM MAL

How Will Our ‘Pollies’ Being in Election Mode,Affect Your Business?

Frankly it [election mode] will affect virtually every kind of media because there’s going to be a lotof money spent by politicians in their quest to be elected and it’s also going to create a lot of cluttereverywhere. Infinite media like newspaper space, magazine space, radio time and television time,election campaigns push the rates up. Even media buyers won’t be able to get the deals they’re usedto. And in a media that is not finite such as direct mail, it adds to the clutter at the Exchange and inyour mail box. Delivery of your all important mailing piece will take longer and you’ll need to allowfor this. During the last election, every spending record ever set was broken. This time will be noexception; every one of those records is going to be broken at every level. So there’s going to be alot of ‘stuff’ out there. In such an environment, the need to stand out and be noticed cannot beunderestimated, regardless of media type. You’ll be part of a big “pile”.

There is an opportunity here if you can tie in to newsworthy events and certainly an election is one,but there are many others as well.

It’s the Robert Collier principle of ‘enter the conversation that’s already in their mind’. What arepeople talking about on coffee breaks, what are people talking about over a drink at the end of theday, what are they talking about over dinner? One of the major topics during an election period isgoing to be the election itself. In a positive sense, I think every marketer should in fact give seriousthought to how they can tie into this, how they can link to this, how they can capitalise on it?

During the recent well publicised Californian elections, which Schwarzenegger won, I think it wasTaco Bell that assigned food items to different candidates, then taking it one step further, whensomeone bought a particular item of food, it was deemed as a vote for the respective candidate.What a great way to use an election to drive sales.

To summarise: Almost without exception, any business owner who advertises in any medium, willfind it costs considerably more and the clutter will mean the need to make an effort to stand out is ofparamount importance; particularly as the pace picks up closer to the election.

Marketers must keep this in mind.

Best regards

Mal


Have you Bound & Gagged your Best Sales Person?I fully understand I sound like a broken record on the subject of Testimonials and the use of them.When I go into consulting situations sadly I usually discover one of three situations:

1. 2.

They have not collected many or any testimonials.Their testimonials are plain and ordinary “Vanilla Flavoured” testimonials that are eitherlightly used or not at all. And worst of all they have a massive collection of great testimonials or clients willing to givethem, yet are woefully used surprisingly. Surprisingly this seems to be true of otherwise astutemarketers.

3.

I often find an arsenal of before and after photos, scientific proof/data, Case Studies (Professionals)that could be used on CD, DVD’s & Video’s. The use of Testimonials should be limited only byyour imagination.

What is most interesting is that Business Owners and Managers are straining and spending to conveytheir marketing message to their Customers, Client, Patients or Prospects while keeping their very best salesperson bound and gagged out of sight locked in the cupboard.

This is what you do when you leave testimonials unexploited.

Why decorate reception walls and offices with paintings and logos when the wall space coulddisplay testimonials?Why have the Bert Newton show running in you surgery when you could have case studiesinstead? Why display a product package on a store shelf without testimonials?Why have the name of your company on your vehicle but no testimonials? Why send out a direct mail package with out testimonials?

Why waste any opportunity to use testimonials when after all, what your clients say about you is ten times more important than what you say about you? But I wonder if it’s possible to nag enoughwhere testimonials are concerned.

Best Regards

Mal


The Erroneous Theory of“Undeserved Success”

I am sure you’ve heard of “Dr Phil” from the Oprah Winfrey and Larry King shows and more recently hisown TV show. Anyway, mention his name around any psychologist … then stand back while their face turnsred with anger and their body shakes with pure indignation as they explain in no uncertain terms why thereare better qualified and far more worthy therapists than “that chubby charelton Dr Phil!!”

My clients and good friend, Chiropractor Dr Chen Tay, three years ago at the relatively tender age of 22,together with his fiance Margaret who has since become his wife, started his first Practice with little or nomoney! It’s imporant to note that this was already an operating, one million dollar Practice and Chen’spurchase included the freehold! Now 25, Chen actively works only three days in the business and he sees upto a staggering 200 patients per day. If you were to speak to his peers, almost without exception, they wouldtell you his style of advertising is a disgrace to the Chiropractic industry. They might also insist theythemselves have been a practising Chiropractor for far longer and with better qualifications. They mightALSO say that Chen doesn’t deserve to be in the position he is and proclaim themselves far more deserving ofit! But there is a small contingent within the industry prepared to think differently. Chen is also sought afterand paid well for his marketing methodolgy, by many of his peers!

Of course the “Wanna-be’s” miss the point entirely and even more importantly, they miss the opporunity!You see, there’s no such thing as undeserved success! Dr Phil IS superior to other “shrinks”, in someimportant ways, which relate directly to his current situation. And Chen recognised many years ago, in hisfirst years of studying Chiropractic, that the paltry 3 hours reserved for the subject of Marketing in a 5 yearcourse, was ridiculously inadequate! He understood even then, that his success was dependant on himbecoming a great MARKETER of “the thing”, not on him being great at “the thing”.

Dr Phil and Chen both understand something very important; they both know that it’s not academicqualifications or supreme professional skills that has led to fame and fortune, particularly in Dr Phil’s case.Rather it’s the result of action they have both taken.

And still the “Wanna-be’s” and other losers cling to the notion of “undeserved success”. Otherwise theyhave no way of justifying their own lowly status and empty bank accounts.

For many, the notion of “undeserved success” has become something of a “Get Out of Jail Free Card”, whichgives them a sense of comfort and shelter in the face of their own feelings of inadequacy. Without this“safety clause”, they would only feel overwhelmed by guilt, fear and dispair! The warning is simple; thebetter you do and the more visible you are, the more people will be ready to cast their “sorry” judgement; thatyou are undeservedly successful.

Best Regards

Mal


Censorship or “Mass Destruction”? “Well, it’s my philosophic view that every adult should have the right to see, read or listen to whatever theyplease.” Don Chipp on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton 29/03/2004

Don Chipp is a rare bird; a popular politician who entered politics in 1960 and years later, founded theAustralian Democrats, with the noble intention of “keeping the bastards honest”.

As the Minister for Customs and Excise in charge of censorship, he considered censorship “evil”, because inhis words, “It’s the beginning of the big Brother state and if you start censoring matter from facts frompeople, then it’s an easy step to start censoring all manner of things.”

So ridiculous had things become, that around the time of his appointment to the ministry, the list of bannedbooks was banned! And this was when the children’s book Noddy and Big Ears was banned, due to asentence on page 84 of the book, which read, “And Noddy walked down the lane and felt a little queer”!

If you choose to follow the path of the Entrepreneur, then you also choose to enter a war! It’s a new kind ofwar and its one business owners have no choice but to participate in! You see, the basic and fundamentalability and opportunity of the marketer to take his or her message to the market place and even to their currentclients and customers, is under assault! And the advantage is being handed to big business and others whooperate with impunity. It’s censorship by another name! Certain marketers ought to be concerned about theFederal Government’s new “Spam” legislation.

The difficulty in getting emails not just delivered but opened, coupled with the new laws, pose a very realthreat to many businesses, as does the effect of these laws on Voice Broadcast, Fax Broadcast and telemarketing. Who knows, even your industry could be vulnerable. Could Direct Mail be next? I readwhere the leader of a U.S. Postal Worker’s Union, publicly labelled large volume mailers, like me, “vermin”!

Eradicating marketing tools and opportunities utilised by small business – is tantamount to declaring war onsmall business!

What really disturbs me is how readily everybody surrenders in this scenario! What are the associations YOUbelong to doing to fight this war on your behalf? In most cases I would speculate nothing and if that is thecase in your situation, you could withhold your support.

PLAN B, of course, creates real urgency for you to build your list (herd)! Do it fast and aggressively NOW,before more tools are taken from you. You might think I’m nagging, but when you understand that the onlytrue asset of a business is it’s client list, you will see that time is running out for you to build your 100%“permission based” list – big enough to support you “post war” when businesses struggle to operate in anenvironment stripped of it’s tools of engagement. Don Chipp was right when he described censorship ascrazy!

Best Regards Mal


All Customers are not Equal Almost every business gets 80% of its net profit from 20% of its clients. Of that 20%, 5% will be hypersensitive; they will buy almost everything you offer them and are raving advocates of your business andwhatever it is you do. This same small group are also responsible for an inordinate number of referrals,testimonials and “hassle free” sales.

Yet surprisingly, very few business owners ever identify this “golden list” or do anything special in order tothank or nurture them. In fact in most cases, such clients are completely ignored while less worthy and even“problem” clients are ardently wooed!

In fact, often more time and money is invested in trying desperately to upgrade the “worst” clients in favourof doing anything to retain and reward the BEST!

Even those who DO actively nurture their prized clients, often miss another opportunity; to “show off” thiselite group of clients to less well performing clients on their list, thereby creating the discomfiting impressionfor these people that maybe they’re missing out on something; that they have been left out of some kind of aprestigious ‘club’.

There are 6 basic steps you can take to correct, if indeed you concede YOU are guilty of making this mistakein your business.

These are:

1. Grade your client list A. B. C. D. E. ….

2. Identify your top 20% (A & B)

3. Create an “arsenal” of rewards, such as Free gifts (movie passes etc), group outings, Closed DoorEvents, Special discounts, Newsletters etc.

4. Give these gifts often and with regularity, say every 3 or 6 months.

5. Select Cs and Ds for special attention to upgrade to the level of you’re A & B clients.

6. Make your Rewards programme and who is a part of it, known to the rest of your list via yournewsletters, photos, in-house ‘signage’ and Case Studies.

It doesn’t take much to acknowledge your most valuable clients. One of the most primal needs we have, ashuman beings, is to be acknowledged; acknowledged for our achievements, acknowledged for our contribution, acknowledged for a job well done, acknowledged for being a worthwhile person and on it goes.If you fulfil this need in your clients, not only will they continue to advocate you and your business, they mayeven strive to reach even higher levels of support for you. The rewards are indisputable.


“YCDBSOYA”?I want to make one very valid and important point; Contemplation is a good thing. And meditation has beenknown to spawn great ideas and deep insightfulness. But in business, MOTION beats meditation any day!

I’ll put it another way… YCDBSOYA or “You Can’t Do Business Sitting On Your Arse”!

You have to take ACTION and just about any kind of action is better than doing nothing at all! The businessowners who have an idea and set this idea in motion are what I refer to as Entrepreneurial business owners.

Passive business owners, on the other hand, might have a great idea, but that’s where it ends. They are thedreamers who spend their time punching out one idea after another but never take it to the next step. But Ifyou are under the illusion that you can stick to having bright ideas and leave the rest to somebody else, I’mafraid you’ll spend your life ‘sitting on the bench’ watching other people playing the real game and gettingrich.

The entrepreneurial business owner, the REALIST, combines his idea with business building. This personknows that in order to succeed they must become a SKILLED MARKETING PERSON, A SKILLED SALESPERSON, and A NEGOTIATOR AND ENTREPRENEUR. It indisputably takes focus in these areas to getthings done and what’s more, YOU are the greatest champion of your own cause; your product or service! Inmy capacity as a mentor/coach, I can be of the greatest help to this person.

Now let’s get down to dispelling some popular myths on the subject of business. The one about the bettermouse trap, for instance. It has been said that if a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon ormake a better mouse trap than his neighbour, though he built his house in the woods, the world will beat apath to his door. Well once upon a time this may have been true – but not anymore!

The myth would suggest that if you can come up with a better product, then success is guaranteed with littleor no further effort required! On the subject of the mouse trap, it’s a fact that in the United States, there aremore than 4400 patented mouse traps! Roughly 40 new mouse trap patents are granted each year andsomething like 10 times that many are rejected. And of the 4,400 only 24 have ever made a cent for theirinventors in the market place.

Another myth is that if you simply fill a need, you will make millions. Find a need and sell it. Well productsuccess today requires a lot more than just identifying a need and coming up with a product to fill that need.

If you want to be financially successful in business, you must make market potential. You must makeMARKETING your primary focus; you must create saleability for the product or service. A patent isworthless and expensive if you cannot sell your product in the market place. It is marketing that is the biggestfactor in the success of any product or service!

The truth is, there are only two breakthroughs you can have in business; the first one is PRODUCT. Productbreakthroughs are time consuming, expensive and occur rarely. The other breakthrough, of course isMARKETING! This is easy to achieve by those who understand the science and take action, coupled withthe fact that I find it extremely difficult to find anyone (business) who is performing their marketing based onany level of competency. In other words, the opportunity for a marketing breakthrough in your categoryis enormous because your competitors are asleep.


“So How Does a Business get into Financial Troubleand How Can You Avoid it”?

QUESTION 1: How does a profitable business become a no-profit business?There are two pre-conditions of a non-profit business; the first is an excessive amount of ‘sameness’ in anindustry or market. I often refer to it as ‘commercial marketing incest’, where everyone looks to everyoneelse in their industry, for what to do; they copy each other feverishly and after a while it really does begin toresemble some form of incest – because everybody just gets dumber and dumber! One industry where this ismost frustratingly evident is the real estate industry. With a few outrageously successful exceptions, all realestate ads and their selling methodology respectively, look and sound the same.

When everyone vies for business in the same way, most often they do so based on price alone. Their productor service has become a commodity! And this is where a lot of companies go from making money to losing it!

The worst thing that can be allowed to occur in business is the playing field becomes level! And that’s why Iadvocate creating your OWN playing field with your own rules and equipment; one where your competitorswon’t and can’t play! In the real estate industry, John McGrath does this by hiring a handy man to changelocks, replace broken light globes, fix leaking taps, turn on hot water systems, and clean up gardens and such,for the new owners of properties he sold them. John even arranges for the electricity, gas and telephoneaccounts to be transferred to the name of the new owner and turned on ready for the day they move in. Bytaking care of these things, he turns what is generally considered to be an enormously stressful experience,into as pleasurable a one as possible!

So is “commoditisation” developing or has already developed in your business and industry?

The second condition which can turn a profitable business into a NON profitable one is the loss of a profitcentre the industry has come to rely upon. In an advertising and marketing sense, any one of the followingmedia may have been relied upon; email, broadcast fax, telemarketing, infomercial, print media or radio.Pokie machines are the profit “life raft” of certain hotels and clubs. What might happen if poker machineswere outlawed or if every hotel was allowed to put them in? Without any prejudice whatsoever, where haveall the real estate seminar guys gone, since the “protective big brother” turned its intense focus in the realestate seminar industry?

Are YOU dependent upon any one profit centre which could be “kicked out from under you”? Is it possiblethere could be a sudden disruption to an accepted industry pattern?

QUESTION 2: How does an unprofitable business which has allowed its product or service to become acommodity, become profitable? Starbucks redefined coffee; from being simply a beverage (commodity) they have turned it into an ‘experience’. Surf shops have done the same, by employing the “Disney” marketing principal of “Do whatyou do so well, people can’t help but talk about you”! And then of course they take the money to themouse. That’s the case with John McGrath; he delivers the unexpected (with little cost to himself) andcustomers and prospects TALK about it!

The client you are getting by accident can be MULTIPLIED with purpose!

Here’s the opportunity; virtually NO-ONE is WOWING anyone in any industry. Chances are it’s nothappening in your industry either. The BIG opportunity though, is in seeing that it happens by DESIGN, notleaving it to chance. How do you WOW your clients so they can’t help but talk about you?


“Key People for Your Company” Most people prefer the company of others for at least part of their working day, to “flying solo”. And their reasons forsurrounding themselves with people may well be based on sound and practical thinking. Or it may not! There areentrepreneurs who are under the misconception that in order to be the real McCoy, they must lead a team of employees;still others simply like the camaraderie of the corporate environment or the presence of their own resident “cheeringsquad” to quell feelings of insecurity. None of these is a good reason for adding to the key people in your company!

In fact, contrary to popular belief, the opposite is often the case. Years ago I employed a multitude of people in businessafter business. And then I made a decision! I sold out of the last business, fired all the employees AND the Landlord andmoved the “office” home. It wasn’t long before I was turning over $1 million per year working from home, in fact itwould be safe to say I ended up making more money THEN than I do now, with the added expenses I have to coversince moving back into an office again! When I worked from home, there were certain roles I was required to fillmyself, which I now delegate to somebody else. But now I also expend time and energy dealing with the inevitablesituations that arise with staff and office politics, which were not an issue before. While a change of such dramaticproportions wouldn’t work for every business, it may totally recharge some!

The RIGHT reasons for increasing your number of staff are: to increase profits! This might mean that you hire someonewho has skills you don’t possess. It may be that by having another person filling a role in the office, your own time isfreed up so that while they work IN your business, you can work ON it.

And it’s not always measurable in financial terms. How many people live to regret lost time they could have spent withtheir families? Even if the whole exercise diminishes the coffers somewhat, what price do you put on spending valuabletime with loved ones or being able to pursue an activity you love? The role of the entrepreneur can be a challenging oneand the support of those close to them, whether family members, key employees or even peers, should never beunderestimated.

In fact Andrew Carnegie referred to such a team of people, as “the mastermind concept”. Both Carnegie and hisprotégé Napoleon Hill of Think and Grow Rich fame, however, put a caveat on the formation of such a group. This was,choose your members wisely! Give the highest priority to building a team which will operate in harmony with eachother!

Firstly, be realistic! Common to most entrepreneurs is a tendency to see the best in people, to expect that others sharetheir level of motivation and enthusiasm. But they soon find out, some people simply don’t WANT to be helped or totake action to improve their lot. It’s when the highly motivated entrepreneur begins to push these people to raise theirbottom lines that disaster often occurs! As Robert Kiyosaki says, “Don’t try to teach pigs to sing; it upsets the pigs andyou just get covered in mud”! How true. I’m guilty! And I’ve paid the price in lost friendships and anguish.

With the benefit of experience both good and bad, I believe the profile of the RIGHT person to choose is …. in anutshell, someone who is basically secure in themselves. They don’t mind covering your tracks and picking up theodd pieces. RESULTS are their focus and they MAKE SURE things get implemented to achieve them. Ideally, they alsohave a cheerful disposition! As an entrepreneur, you’re looking for someone with …

The ability to accept responsibilityA sense of security, as opposed to a person in need of reassuranceA belief in co-operationA willingness and ability to confront obstacles and even confrontations in amature manner, with the voice of reason.

1. 2. 3. 4.

You could liken this person to the assistant coach of a major football team. While the primary coach gets the glory, theassistant coach feels no need to demand more recognition... They just go about getting the result for the team and give ittheir best!

And when it clearly isn’t working? Get rid of the source of the problem. You have no other alternative, but to wipe theslate clean. If you don’t, the danger is it will fester and infect like a noxious weed. Do it as cleanly and quickly aspossible in the circumstances. You can’t afford to allow a dysfunctional relationship or arrangement drain away energyyou could be giving your business! The really smart – and realistic entrepreneur develops dissolution agreements.


“Smart Speed Selling – No Bull About it!”

Create a Million Dollar Sales Presentation Last week, my wife made several phone calls to well known home building companies which cater largely tothe Baby Boomer. These are all well established companies which build homes considered to be in the“luxury” category, with a relevant price tag. But despite the fact that each sale represents such high $ value,there was a chasm between the sales techniques used by the various companies. Was I surprised? Yes and no.The luxury home building industry suffers from the same level of complacency as any other industry when itcomes to selling.

What every business owner and every person who is employed in a business needs to understand is thatEVERY JOB is at some level, a SALES job! The onus is on the business owner and entrepreneur to not onlymake this clear to everyone in their organisation, but to provide smart, savvy and effective SALES TRAINING! This means that everybody understands that marketing and sales are fundamentally linked; thatwithout making the sale at the end of the process, great lead generation systems which flood the business withpotential clients and customers, are of little real value! Unwavering focus should be given to developing asales team which approaches the process of making a sale, with COURAGE!

The process actually begins at the first point of contact, often even before the appointed sales person getsinvolved. This means that your receptionist needs to consider her or himself a vital link in the process to asale!

Recently I sat in a waiting room listening to the receptionist giving a one dimensional answer to somebodyasking about one of the treatments the clinic offered. I listened in amazement as she spoke in technicalmumbo-jumbo, none of which meant anything to me and just as little to the previously primed prospectivecustomer she was now busy losing, I’m sure. Nothing the receptionist said made the treatment sound evenremotely interesting, compelling or beneficial. And I have NO idea how it is done. By the time she hung upthe phone, not surprisingly without booking an appointment, I was no more enlightened about the treatment inquestion, than I had been before the call. I was appalled at her failure to understand what the lost client wasactually seeking to know, with her questions!

It’s a fact that: 1. Business owners themselves, are often lacking in sales skills2. Most businesses, including sales professionals, don’t use any sort of system for selling 3. Even if there is a system in place, most employees fail to adhere to it.4. Few companies invest in effective sales training5. Most companies use a long drawn out sales process.

Like any media, telephone, print, internet or even face to face, when selling, you must follow a PRECISEFORMULA, which produces a highly predictable and profitable result. This formula, which simply follows aproblem, aggravate, solve and call to action sequence, must be strictly adhered to. It’s what I call a MillionDollar Sales Presentation. It must be as scripted as Yul Brunner’s performance in The King and I, which Imight add; he practised daily before each performance to ensure any slight nuance remained the same. It’senormously expensive to get a prospect and then fail when it comes to making the sale.

Am I saying for one moment that every member of your team should speak exactly the same words everytime? No. What I am saying is they should use their own words, but never deviate from the formula!

It’s your job as a business owner, entrepreneur to ensure sales training is carried out in every facet of yourbusiness. An enormous amount of money is left unbanked because of poor selling skills.


Money Back Guarantees andEXTRAORDINARY money back guarantees

What makes a guarantee extraordinary? Well first let’s look at conventional guarantees. A conventionalguarantee is designed to alleviate loss to the customer, in the case of a product or service, within certainlimits. Straight forward. And the kind of guarantee most businesses offer.

But an EXTRAORDINARY guarantee promises exceptional, uncompromising quality and customersatisfaction and stands behind that promise with a ‘payout’ intended to regain the customer’s goodwill,with few strings attached.

Historically, guarantees made their debut about the middle of the nineteenth century. Though quite simple inessence, by offering a hand written guarantee with items sold in their stores, two of the first business ownersto offer them in the United States, won tens of thousands of customers as a result and were soon among therichest people in the nation. Apart from the fact that people began to understand that a guarantee assuredthem of having any faulty transaction reversed in their favour, there was a something more about such aguarantee. And that was simply the power of the unspoken message sent to their customers about the waysuch a company did business. If they were prepared to rise to so high a standard with their guarantees, theymust be very confident of their product and/or ability and it must be a good measure of how they conductedbusiness in every way. From a fairly obligatory kind of gesture, a guarantee started to be seen as an immensely powerful marketing tool.

So the risk of doing business was reversed for the customer and the reputation of the company prepared to goout on such a perceived “limb” for their customers soared to new heights! AND something else; by makingtheir guarantees so much more lofty and bold, the companies offering them, created new challenges forTHEMSELVES and consequently were forced to raise the bar in terms of every aspect of their own business.In many cases, businesses were and continue to be transformed by taking this action. Better to raise the bar than try to resurrect a company which has already sunk to dismal depths

Why Offer and Extraordinary Guarantee?An extraordinary guarantee sends the clear message that the company making it is committed to QUALITY.It promises the customer that they will not be disappointed and that security often inspires a normallyhesitating customer to take action and BUY! And it sets the company way apart from its competitors.

Some Extraordinary Guarantees.In his book Extraordinary Guarantees, Christopher W.L. Hart, gives some examples of extraordinaryguarantees:

The First National Bank of Chicago offered a $250 repayment to customers dissatisfied with theirloan application process PRISM Pest Control who serve the restaurant and hotel niche, offer that if a customer sees a pestthey’ll pay for their meal and another, pay for their accommodation at the hotel on that and one otheroccasion, refund the complete premium for the year and pay the their client (restaurateur or hotelier)$5,000 extra! L.L.Bean says “Everything we sell is backed by a 100% unconditional guarantee. We do not wantyou to have anything you buy from us at any time, for any reason it proves otherwise” Allied Van Lines guaranteed to move customers on schedule or pay $100 each day of delay

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Many such guarantees are unconditional and hold themselves to the highest possible standard; that of thecustomer! What is YOUR guarantee? Is it bold? Is it conditional? Will it stand out from the limp guarantees offered bymost other companies? The amazing thing is most companies which DO offer compelling and extraordinary guarantees, will tell youthat only rarely, if EVER do they get asked to honour the guarantee. Even then, they have taken such a hugeslice of market share BECAUSE of the guarantee, they simply smile and comply!


Are You a Maven, a Connector or a Salesman? In his book “The Tipping Point”, author Michael Gladwell refers to business trends as “epidemics”. He says“Ideas and products and messages and behaviours SPREAD just like viruses do”! It’s a simple concept butaccurately reflects the process that culminates in a “hot” product attracting mass interest – and mass sales, inthe market place.

So Gladwell points out that what most people might see as a craze or a phenomenon is really brought aboutby very distinct forces, the same forces which lead to the outbreak of flu or measles. It starts small; it takesone person to be infected, but that one person infects many more, until what was once an outbreak, becomesan epidemic – and it is the very moment this occurs that Gladwell calls the Tipping Point. And while themedical world does all it can to STOP a potential epidemic reaching that point, the book The Tipping Point isintended to help business people make sure it DOES!

Think about how a fashion trend spreads or the manner in which an unknown book becomes a best seller. Asfar as the creators of either the fashion trend or the author of the book are concerned, it’s “Bring on theepidemic!” Most people have trouble comprehending how something can start in such a small way but soquickly multiply in effect, with a result that seems so blatantly out of proportion to the cause. The reality isthis can and does happen, so we need to abandon our preconceived ideas about proportionality and prepare forthe possibility that BIG CHANGES can follow from small events; and QUICKLY!

But what ARE the forces that cause something with humble beginnings to reach the “tipping point”? WellGladwell has bestowed names upon what he says are THREE agents of change which form this process. Hisown book adhered to these stages to become a best seller.

There is firstly the Law of the Few. This relates to PEOPLE and to how energetic, sociable or influentialamong their peers they are. You can see this in motion with the 80/20 principle, which states that roughly80% of the work will be done by 20% of the people.

The second agent of change Gladwell calls the STICKINESS Factor. If we relate it to a virus, it’s about howeasy or difficult it is to brush off or overcome. In business terms, this relates to the how memorable or‘contagious’ the MESSAGE we send out is. We want it to make an impact; to STICK in the memory of therecipient. How? By how we STRUCTURE and PRESENT the message!

The third is the POWER of CONTEXT; Just as a medical epidemic is sensitive to the conditions it exists in,so too are the business “epidemics” we strive to create. The conditions and circumstances of the times andplaces in which these epidemics occur make the third agent of change environment rather than people related.Still, even given these three agents, some brilliant ideas fade away while others turn their creators intomillionaires. Why? Well it comes back to PEOPLE. And Gladwell again introduces us to categories.

CONNECTORS – provide the means for knowledge to spread; they know lots of people which gives accessto a wider circle of contacts. The knowledge they spread comes from the MAVENS. No not a group of HarryPotter characters, but derived from the Yiddish term meaning “one who acquires knowledge”. Economistsattribute much to the behaviour of Mavens, who are identifiable by their focus on not only getting the bestdeal, but telling others about it! They are “helpers” in the marketplace; they have the ‘inside scoop’. SoConnectors are the social glue that spreads the message provided by the data bank of Mavens. The third inthe category is the SALESMAN (person) The salesman has the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced by what we are listening to. They are critical to the tipping of epidemics. And what separates agreat salesman from an average one, is the number and quality of answers he/she provides to objections raisedby potential clients.

To start en epidemic then, concentrate your resources on The Law of the Few; Connectors, Mavens andSalesmen. When IS the next Harry Potter film coming out; anybody know?


Use Information Technology to Target Hot Prospects!Would you like your clients to seek YOU out rather than you pursuing them? Unless you have masochistictendencies, I’m sure the answer is YES! Then rather than use the “carpet bombing” technique of makingtelephone calls to prospective clients and customers to set up a face to face appointment, use DIRECTRESPONSE ADVERTISING.

Conventional methods of selling often require a rep from the company to telephone in the hope of setting upan appointment where the real sales process begins. This means that the rep needs to establish some kind offavourable rapport with the first point of contact he or she encounters at the company they’re calling beforethey can get near the decision maker. Or the rep will actually front up and wait to be seen, thereby wastingtime and once again, putting themselves in a somewhat powerless position. Such bad positioning will onlymake the whole process harder, if not knock the whole thing on the head before a sale has even got close!

With direct response advertising, a very different dynamic takes place! Most importantly, the client seeksYOU out, because they are already predisposed to doing business with you.

Here’s how it works; suppose you send a brochure out to prospective clients, on which you offer a video,showing the client how to do something of significant benefit to his /her company. I said something whichwill BENEFIT them! Something meaningful and specific that will save the prospect time or money or maketheir job easier to do. No face to face contact has even taken place, but the prospect now perceives you not asa sale person, but as someone who can HELP them him achieve something they want. When they call inresponse to your offer to order the video, they still feel as though they are in charge, but their defences havecome down. This puts you in a good position to “tell them how it works”. They are likely to ASK you. Thesales process is well under way and it all began with a non-confrontational brochure / letter or otheradvertising piece!

The CONTENT of the advertising material VITAL! There is a formula for writing any kind of advertisingmaterial and the difference between a well written piece and the conventional waste of paper we most oftensee doing the rounds, is simply – A SALE! If you’re offering a FREE video or report, it should have acompelling title; it should be professionally presented and offer the client value. Goodwill is generated and soare sales! But I know I’m preaching to the converted here because you all have access to advertising copyeducation I’ve provided as part of a package or your Welcome Kit!

The POSTIVE POWER OF NEGATIVE PREPARATION empowers you in the person to person part of theprocess. Most people don’t expect a sales person to admit to any weaknesses. But while you’re talking to aprospect they have a little voice inside their heads trying to convince them that you’re hiding something, thatthere are negative things about the product or service you are offering, that you are not telling them about.

So instead of talking only about your strengths, throw in a couple of your “flaws”. But then address theseissues the best way you can. You are bringing up the objections before the client does, and one by one, youhave the opportunity to wipe them away. Coaches use the positive power of negative response when theystrategise a game … “What will we do if this goes wrong?” Of course if you are prepared to talk about yourfoibles as well as your strengths, you present as an honest person/company!

The increase in closing rates astounds companies who switch to direct response / lead generating advertisingfrom tired old traditional methods. It can blow profits through the ROOF!

In closing this week, on the subject of writing ad material, I am getting some great stuff through from you forcritiquing. It’s not hard to see when your efforts are based on having spent some time. Keep taking it veryseriously and you’ll be royally rewarded!


Preponderant Proof that what I say is TRUE

Attached you will find a newspaper extract sent to me by Platinum member and friend Chen Tay.

Basically this re-enforces what I have been saying and I also want to remind you that …

1. the biggest bang you will ever get for your buck is direct mail

2. If you’re not collecting the names and addresses of your customers or don’t have a list at present,you don’t have a business, you have a promotion.

3. ..and this is a secret with an advanced secret to follow; there’s no money in the “thing” (product/service), the money is in the marketing of the thing and all the wealth and asset is in theclient base. And here’s the advanced secret; hopefully the following document will represent apreponderance of truth of what I say.


Increase Your Prices!It will automatically “prune” off some of Your Customers –

but you are likely to be BETTER OFF! We have long been conditioned by society that the MORE we have and the BIGGER it is, the better. Butwhen it comes to your list of clients, that isn’t necessarily the case. What I’m getting at is this; if you have ahuge list of customers but only a proportion of those customers actually buy from you and have a positiveeffect on your profit, then not all of that list is worth having. In fact some customers are quite literally moretrouble than they’re worth!

Jack Welch, who used to run General Electric, advocates cutting the lowest performing 10% to 20% ofemployees every year. And this approach makes good sense with your least profitable customers too.

So how do you go about altering the status quo? One way is to “prune” your list. It costs money to keep intouch with customers and if your efforts are not producing acceptable sales, then refocus your attention – onyour ‘better’ customers. Not only will such a purge make room for new better quality customers, it will alsomake YOU stay on top with your marketing! And it will result in less work, but you’ll make the sameamount of $$, or more. How do you prune your customer list? On way is to put your prices up! Whilst your low profit customers are likely to bail out, your “performing” customers will provide you with the same net income or more, for less work.

Increase your prices and sell more…It makes many business owners cringe at the thought, but …. the chart below explains how many sales youcould afford to lose and still retain the SAME profit.

The example below – 30% profit margin with a 10% price increase means you can afford to lose 25% of salesand still make the same profit. In my experience, no-one has ever lost 30% as is highlighted in the chartbelow.

Magnetic Marketing - “Increase Your Margin Calculator’ Percentage that sales can fall before gross profit reduces

Your Gross Profit—>

10 2015 35 40 50 100 3025

% Increase

17% 12% 9% 7% 6% 5% 5% 4% 23% 17% 13% 11% 9% 8% 7% 6% 29% 21% 33% 25%

17% 20%

14% 17%

12% 14%

10% 9% 12% 11%

7% 9%

22% 20% 17% 29% 25% 33% 50% 40% 10

2 3 4 5

25 20

30% 27% 23% 37% 33% 43% 60% 50% 15

The truth is, it’s difficult to make a case for not increasing prices, when presented with this sort of concreteevidence that you should.


When setting any type of goals, Be SPECIFIC – if YOUdon’t fill in the blanks, it will happen anyway; it just may

not be the way you’d want!In the few months since my book Your Right To Be Rich first became available in bookshops, I’ve had a tonof feedback. The subject of this week’s RANT is the focus of a huge proportion of that feedback, whichconcerns the section of Chapter Two; Mindset, on setting GOALS!

I think what makes the whole concept of setting goals in the fashion we advocate so compelling to people, isthat it requires you to to FREE UP your imagination, to have some serious FUN with it. Most of the goalsetting techniques I’ve heard about take a much more rigid view of how it’s done, for instance “make yourgoals achievable”. The inference is that it would be foolish to “wish” for something unless you can alreadysee the steps you will take on the journey to achieving it. The trouble with that approach is that most of usdon’t really KNOW what we are capable of achieving until we open our minds to the possibilities.

BEGIN with the END in mind, to paraphrase the title of Law No#5 in Your Right To Be Rich!

The Wonderful thing is you don’t NEED to burst a blood vessel ‘MAKING’ it happen; this is about having aball with your SUBCONCSIOUS mind, which works away for you at an entirely different level! And evenmore importantly, the mind will accept what you persist in feeding it and go into overdrive in order to makethe pictures in it become REALITY! Your mind CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE between what isREAL and what is IMAGINED! It accepts what you tell it as the truth and sees to it that this is mademanifest! How does this happen? It has to do with THOUGHTS being very real forces of ENERGY, whichattract ‘like’ forces of energy to themselves. If you can get hold of any of the literature written by CanadianJohn Kehoe, this is explained very clearly.

If Your thoughts; your focus, is weak and scattered, your outcome will be all over the place too!So the CLEARER the picture you have, the more SPECIFIC you are with both the vision you have and in theway you articulate your goals, the more exact will be your outcome.

For instance, on a small scale, you might want to achieve a goal of having a barge holiday, floating fromvillage to village via the intricate network of canals in Britain. Of course you want the holiday to be theexperience of a lifetime. So you need to think deeply about what would make a holiday perfect for YOU.Imagine you were to be joined by another couple and four or more of you will be living in VERY closeproximity for two or three weeks. A tall order, but if you focus on HARMONIOUS RELATIONSHIPSbetween you all and SAY that in your written goals, something ‘magical’ will happen and this will becomeyour experience. Of course if you spend time worrying (running negative scenarios in the fertile environemnt of your mind) about whether you’ve made a big mistake by inviting the other couple or couplesalong, you are giving POWER to what you DON”T want to happen. Very obediantly, your subconcsious willsee to it that what you are picturing so vividly comes about. Ugh!

Most of you will have spoken with Karen, who is an integral part of our business. Karen set a goal some twoyears ago, for a new home. At the beginning, her vision was infused with such ardent desire that possibilitiesquickly began to present themselves; this had seemed outside the realm of possibility to her before. She readher goals daily and ‘day dreamed’ of the kind of home she wanted for her family. In her own words,however,after some time she let her daily routine slip, stopped vividly imagining the outcome she wanted.The result is Karen now owns an attractive but smaller house than she really wanted, she stopped “seeing” apool and doesn’t have one and the location she REALLY wanted is a short distance away. Karen takes TWOlessons from her experience – be persistant and be SPECIFIC!

Marketing Ploy for this week!On another note: At the recent Platinum Mastermind 2 Day Closed Door Event in Brisbane, Chiropractorextraordinaire Chen Tay shared this brilliant marketing strategy: “When quoting a price, never say the word‘dollar’. For example, “the cost of your Chiropractic Healthcare is 750.” DON’T say the the word “dollars”.It may seem uncomfortable at first, but you will get used to it and the effectiveness of the strategy maysurprise you.


Some Practical Rules for Staying Out of Trouble –And most of it is plain ol’ Common Sense!

It’s a fact, we are living in litigious times. I’m sure you’ve heard wise remarks cracked about how if you live inCalifornia and your dog “does his business” on your neighbour’s lawn you stand a good chance of being sued; well letme warn you we are in hot pursuit; rapidly scaling the same heights of absurdity! In fact it’s recently been reported in amajor newspaper that NSW is second only to California in litigation stakes. So rather than winding up with a neckinjury from constantly looking over your shoulder or jumping at shadows, be pragmatic and take some simple steps thatcan at least go a long way to avoiding not just litigation, but any kind of confrontation with a disgruntled client!

#1. Leave naivety to children; let them live in their dream world but it’s no place for the business person! It CANhappen to you! While the person who never takes a risk is least likely to succeed, those who take STUPID risks arebeing just that! Almost daily we’re smacked in the face with anti cancer advertising; the stomach turning images of apost mortem coronary artery with smoking induced plaque being pressed out of one end, but STILL people everywherecontinue to light up! People continue to drive without a seatbelt, knowing a body that’s just gone through a windscreen isnot a pretty sight and somebody always has the heartbreaking task of identifying it. Take the same slant on youradvertising; get informed, take responsibility and take yourself OUT OF RANGE of anybody who might be inclined tocome gunning for you!

#2. Tell the Truth! This applies to your customers, your partners and business associates. While you might get awaywith an indiscretion here and there, one lie can bring you undone faster than you could imagine and do more harm thanyou care to contemplate! And it might sound “off the wall” in your familiar little world, but all you have to do is watchthe evening news to see that not every “wronged” person who seeks retribution does it via litigation! There are worseways, know what I mean?

#3. Acknowledge EVERY Order You Receive! Have a letter, called your “Acknowledgment Letter” or “Stick letter”,immediately sent to EVERYBODY who orders something from your company. Not only does this reassure someonewho has just parted with a significant slice of their hard earned money to pay for your product, it has the potential tokeep YOU out of trouble. Bother to contact them. If the boot was on the other foot, you’d certainly want to know whathappened to your $$ wouldn’t you?

#4. Get Your Orders OUT THE DOOR! I still wrestle with this one in my office! I know only too well that when achain of command or series of steps precludes fulfillment, hold-ups can occur at any point. But it doesn’t matter whetheryou’re waiting on a master document before you can fill the order, or your own supplier is keeping YOU waiting,MAKE CONTACT and let your client know. It’s great to have stock constantly topped up, but if it can’t be avoided,SPEAK to your client. Most people understand, if you treat them with courtesy. Don’t make customers wait fordelivery if you can help it and talk to them if you can’t!

#5. Issue Refunds! Do it as close to the same day you receive the returned product as you can and SMILE when you doit. And never lose sight of this; if you win, you lose! As the business owner/proprietor, you might feel justified, youmight even be right, but you don’t keep customers, earn referrals or a positive reputation by “making your customerswrong”. And there are plenty of disturbing stories about the repercussions for people who’ve refused to honour refundsin U.S. and it isn’t inconceivable that we’ll follow their lead. Apart from your own honour/reputation being at stake ifyou don’t comply, once within the radar of a regulating ‘body’, you’ll know about it!

#6. Answer all your White Mail! I know it ain’t easy! This is all written correspondence, other than orders, whichasks for more information, government department inquiries, refunds etc. Answer before you CAN’T answer, that isyour ability to do so is forcibly taken from you. You also blow your credibility by ignoring it. Delegate.

#7. Resist the urge to rub your wealth in other people’s noses! Oh, you’re a natural borne show-off. Trouble is thereare people who are “natural borne losers” and the only way they get to feel better is by blaming you for their frustration.If they set their sights on you, look out!

#9. Stay Healthy! Good health emanates strength, which deters two legged “sharks”! It facilitates clear thinking!

#10. Never lose your sense of humour! When you’re really feeling down on your luck, go and visit the Oncology wardof a children’s hospital or spare a thought for the man who lost three members of his family to a tragic accident. It getstough sometimes, but laughter is still the best medicine!


Find a Need and Fill it, Identify a Problem and SOLVE it; putanother way, Sell what People WANT to buy!

You’re visiting a foreign country and as most often happens when in a brand new environment, your senseshave come alive. You look around in awe at sights you’ve never beheld, your ears are on high alert with thebarrage of strange and wonderful new sounds and your nose is almost twitching in response to the new,hypnotic odours. But it’s not just these senses that seem to awaken from a deep sleep; something else canhappen when we visit places we’ve never been before. The whole experience seems to give rise to somethingof the entrepreneur!

“Look at that; I haven’t seen that sold anywhere at home. They’re everywhere you look! I bet I could make akilling if I brought some trianti-wonti-gongs into Australia!”

But it isn’t always because of an overseas holiday that someone decides that the country would benefit frombuying a certain something and with that thought firmly entrenched, proceed to commit their hard earnedmoney and valuable time to flogging what sadly turns out to be a “dead horse”. It happens all the time! Such“great ideas” often prove to be great misconceptions!

Sell Stuff People WANT to BUY! This is a GOLDEN RULE disguised as six simple little words!

If you SOLVE a PROBLEM for someone; take their pain away, they will pay you well for it! So manypeople approach the whole thing back–to-front; they have a ‘great idea’ or find a ‘great product’ and expectpeople to want what they are offering without even identifying whether or not there is actually A MARKETFOR IT FIRST!

Let me give you an example; we have a client who had a snoring problem. Well he shared this problem withhis wife of course, as she got less sleep than he did because of it! These people were suffering because of thisproblem; they were in some kind of PAIN! It just so happens that this person had bought a marketingpackage from me with the intention of starting a home based business. In simple terms, one night unable tosleep, he switched on his computer and desperate to find help with the snoring that kept them both awake, hetyped ‘snoring’ into a search engine. The result was a product came up, which ultimately became the producthe sold from his home based business, as a joint venture! Two years on, this business was sold as a goingconcern for almost a six figure sum!

What he did is simple! He identified a problem which an ENORMOUS amount of people suffer from and heoffered them a solution! Think about it; how BIG is the market that snorers comprise? HUGE!!

The process involves three things – your product, your sales pitch and your delivery system.

9 9 9

First you have to have something to sell that people WANT.You need an effective sales pitch to TELL THEM ABOUT ITYou need a way of GETTING it FROM YOUR HANDS to THEIRS.

We can look at it another way; have you ever felt the urge to pour yourself a drink, curl up in a chair andbrowse through the Yellow Pages? I doubt it. But when you need a tree lopped - because if it doesn’t getlopped it will blow over in the next squall and damage your house, or worse injure someone, or some newtyres - because yours are bald and driving you car has become dangerous, or maybe a Skip Bin – because yourfront garden looks like a tip, the Yellow Pages is the first place you are likely to look. You have a problemand you are confident you’ll find a solution to it, within its pages.

Take people from problem to solution; from pain to pleasure!


The Secret to Sales Copy is to Make it read Like We’re Having a Conversation!

I have an Agreement on my desk which I could have read and signed about a week ago. I do want to enterinto the agreement because it stands to benefit both my business and the party making the proposal. But Ilooked at it for a few minutes and handed it on to Pam to read. Guess what? She looked at it for a fewminutes, groaned and put it straight back on her desk. Why haven’t we done it? Because it is so WORDY andbursting with industry “lingo” neither of us have had the patience to pick it up and plough our way through itto where we have to sign!

Now I realize that Agreement documents are not strictly sales copy, but the purpose of BOTH is for them tobe READ and ACTED upon. If it’s that unpleasant or hard to read, then that’s not going to happen!

Your SALES COPY is your bread and butter. The greatest sin you can commit is the one that is more aboutyour ego than anything else; the one that makes you forget what you’re actually writing this piece FOR – tomake a SALE - and instead launch into an epistle to impress your intended audience with how clever you areto know so many big words and how to arrange them in such a sophisticated manner!

GET REAL! And I mean that literally! Make your letter like a long, interesting, easy to read and CONVERSATIONAL letter!

Nobody but YOU cares about how clever you are, your clients only want to know what’s in it for THEM! Ifthey want to read ‘clever’, they’ll take themselves off to special group where like minded individuals gatherto share mutual admiration to their heart’s content.

The more you tell the more you sell, as a general rule. Let’s make an analogy here. What if the Good Lordhad ordained that although we all had a partner ‘earmarked’ for us, we could not choose them ourselves andwe could not SEE them before we were committed to each other? I mean not even a photo! And neithercould you speak with them or get somebody else to find out all about them and report back. No the ONLYWAY we could make any contact and find ANYTHING out about our intended would be for each of us towrite a letter to each other, telling each other all about ourselves!

How much detail would you want in that letter? Imagine it! Would you want to read …?

“Hi, my name is Bethany, I have blue eyes, long fingernails and I love dogs. I don’t mind cooking and I can add up but I can’t spell”

Is that all you’d want to know about the person you’re going to spend the rest of your LIFE with? Unless youhave a serious personality quirk, or you’re a thrill seeker of the highest order, OF COURSE NOT! You’dwant to know EVERYTHING there is to know!

And so do the people you’re asking to spend their money with you! You must tell them everything you can!And remember what you consider to be a significant amount of $ to part with might be wildly different to theamount THEY consider significant!

Whatever you are selling, strive to know so much about it yourself; you have no trouble writing prolificallyabout it for their benefit. Make it easy to read and write as though you’re having a conversation.

Take the same approach to selling on your web site! That means a long, easy to read, conversational letter,leave out the graphics clutter, forget the cute animation and make “what’s in it for them” your Mantra!


Let’s Hear it for Good Ol’ Underestimated Snail Mail!Snail Mail is 20 times more effective than email internet marketing! If you have any doubt about this,just do a test and watch as my claim is validated.

Try it with your current list of clients. Lets suppose you have a list of 10,000 current clients, that is clientswho have already purchased from you. Now you have a synergistic product lined up, which these clients arehighly likely to be interested in, so you write your sales material and send it to them. But you have dividedyour list into two; half to receive your sales material via email and half using snail mail.

What will happen?

This will happen. However many orders you get from the emails you sent, times it by 20 and that’s howmany you’ll get from your snail mail promotion!

So if you get 15 orders from the email promotion …. You will get 300 orders from your SNAIL mail-out!And if we introduce $$ to the equation it starts to really get the adrenalin pumping!

Let’s say what you’re selling is a book for $37.00. The 15 email orders you got would result in sales worth$555.00. As it didn’t cost you anything to contact these people, your net profit is equal to your gross profit!

But now turn your attention to the 300 ‘snail mail’ orders! Multiply 300 by $27.00 for each book and yourgross profit is now a whopping $11,000.00! WOW! But don’t get overly excited about it yet, because itCOST you approximately 70 cents a piece to send out the advertising material via snail mail, amounting to$3,500.00.

Moreover, you paid about $3.00 apiece to fulfil these orders, which hikes it up by another $900.00! So addthese two costs against you together and your initial gross profit of $11,000.00 is reduced by $4,400!

Damn-it, that only leaves a net profit of $6,700.00!

SO what’s the verdict??

GO back to your net profit from email mailing, which was $555.00. Compare it even AFTER all the‘overheads’ of your snail mail campaign, to a net profit of $6,700.00.

Basically, your snail Mail campaign was 12 times more profitable than your email campaign!

Why? One big fat, indisputable reason is that SPAM FILTERS are making it harder and harder to get yourmessage delivered through to your target market! And even when it does land in their in-box, it stands a goodchance of being deleted by the recipient. Even if it was delivered, opened and read, it probably wasn’tbelieved! This is supported by numerous studies which show that people simply don’t give any credibility tothe emails they receive.

There are no such “spam filters” between you and your snail mail recipient! Barring a mail strike or a mailthief, both of which are rare in relative terms, your material will get delivered. If it is PERSONALISED, itwill most likely also be opened. And the ‘believaibility’ factor with snail mail is higher too.

When I say “personalise”, I mean use the person’s name. Forget about “Dear Friend”, “Dear Subscriber”,Dear Resident”, “Dear Fellow Volvo Driver” and so on. If you use the person’s name, you can calculateanother 30% into your response rate!


Out of Countless Possible Strategies, all it takes is a HANDFULL to Propel You to Raging Success!

Sometimes I know it can seem overwhelming! You could work your way diligently through one of myInformation packages, read a thousand different books and attend any number of marketing seminars and youwill be confronted with so MANY possible strategies you could implement in your business, you simplydon’t know where to start! The list of possibilities is so long that instead of leaping into action, you feelimmobilised!

STOP! Step back, take a deep breathe – and let these words seep deep into your conscious mind. IT ONLYTAKES A HANDFUL of strategies to make a truckload of difference!

And hear this: All those stats you have been bombarded with since the first day you contemplated going intobusiness; you know the ones about how “the majority of businesses fail in the first five years” and “many ormost small businesses take several YEARS to reach break-even point” …… read them and file them away ina place in your mind under the heading of “So What?”

I have no intention of sounding flippant; I mean every word I say! Because I can ‘put my money where mymouth is’ I have bought many a so-so business, turned it around and sold it for a big profit in record time.

And right now, my daughter is duplicating my m.o. Just about two weeks ago, she started her first traditionalbusiness; a pizza bar. In her opening week, she and her partner turned over in excess of $5,000.00! That’sBEFORE actively doing any marketing. And what blows those myths I hope you have already delegated toyour “so-what?” file, out the proverbial window, is that she netted $2,000.00 for that week and with figureslike that, she has a business worth $200,000.00 on her hands! That’s not just pure speculation on my part, mymate Warren Scoby-Smith, who has owned 18 pizza bars in all, made the projection! He ought to know.

I actually didn’t tell you everything! We did apply a marketing strategy and we did it before the Pizza bareven opened! We splashed the window of the shop with a ‘New Pizza Concept Opening Soon!” Then 3months later, with the fit-out still happening we changed these words to “Grand Opening June 9 !”, whichintrigued passing motorists and local residents for weeks! By the time the shop opened, they were alreadypractically salivating – at the door! Imagine what will happen when we get SERIOUS!

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SO that’s a traditional business; what about the Information business? Well, on June 7 I was paid a sixfigure sum for the rights to an information product I created out of ‘thin air’. I had no product knowledge todraw from, I didn’t spend a red cent of my money to procure it and it sells on and off line. I could have soldthis business long ago, but it was a nice little money generator for me, so I kept it for a while. I’ll do the sameagain with another product the market place demonstrates a demand for!

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KNOWLEDGE comes first, then ACTION!

It’s not talent, technical agility, academic qualifications or luck that brought about my success and none ofthese things will be responsible for yours! What will be is - RIGHT KNOWLEDGE and RIGHT ACTION,in that order!

It took ONE strategy implemented before business even got under way in the pizza bar, to create a ministampede! ONE STRATEGY! And there are plenty more where that one came from. Watch this space.


Making Expos and Trade Shows Work For You! In late June, we had a 3 day Business and Franchising Expo in Perth. But rather than treat this as a Sell-a-thon – seems to me a good way to wear yourself to a frazzle at an event like this where your target market hascountless other booths to investigate and you have something like 5 seconds to capture their attention – Icame away from the expo with about 800 new names to add to my data base! I know several other businessesalso gathered some names at the event, but most treated it as a sell-a-thon.

In fact I had a multi facted approach to the event. I gave a daily 30 minute presentation in one of the specialseminar rooms and I certainly got to speak one-on-one to many individuals. I also packaged up some of myproducts into a special Expo pack and sold off some of my surplus stock.

But the most valuable, proactive thing I did was to GATHER NAMES.

And I did this with remarkable ease and with little resistance from the people walking past. How? ByOFFERING THEM an IRRESISTABLE OPPORTUNITY!

What was the opportunity? The chance to win a HOLIDAY! I appealed to the typical baby boomer really,although many of the people who filled out my forms were younger than the baby boomers. What they allhad in common was a yearning for LIFESTYLE! How ‘lifestyle’ can you get? Mention a weekend away andwatch as eyes mist over as imagination takes over!

Another exhibitor at the Expo offered a high $$ value prize in exchange for names, but the prize itself was‘work’ orientated and they gathered about HALF the number of names we did! They also had only one or twopeople gathering the names and this was obviously not their top prioirity. It WAS ours!

Why else do we strive to build successful businesses and make big profits, than to provide us with thefreedom of choice; in a word LIFESTYLE?

At an Expo, the sign above your boothis your HEADLINE! MAKE IT COUNT!

Another reason that people were drawn to our booth was that we used the opportunity to win the prize as ourmain sign rather than the name of our company! The first thing people saw when they looked in our directionwas – WHAT WAS IN IT FOR THEM! We gave them a REASON to come to us.

And when they did, we were ready! Ceri organised teams of three to be present in shifts, with forms on clip-boards and a simple question “Would you like the chance to win…?” The most common response was “Whowouldn’t?” We have a perspex barrel and the names were put straight in to be drawn a week later.

If I wanted to gather 800 odd names I would usually have to rely on several display ads in the newspaper.With the cost of the ad and the mailing costs which follow, gathering names thus costs approximately $15+per lead, compared to a paltry $3.75 per lead generated at the Expo. This is based on how many names wegathered and the cost of the booth. And despite the fact that they weren’t responding to a Lead Generatingadvertisement as most of our data base did, they were still well targeted given they were attending a BusinessExpo.

Of course it’s not just Expos and Trade Shows where running a competition to gather names can be abonanza. We know of a fish n’ chip shop which ran a competition to win $100 worth of free fish ‘n chips andthey gathered something like 1300 names in one month! That’s 1300 customers they had the chance to turninto loyal advocates for a lifetime! 1300 names they could contanct with any future promotional offer and1300 people who have friends and family to introduce to their business!


In Negotiating, it Pays to Know this Secret! From a tender age, we strive to present ourselves to the world in the best possible light. If you have any doubtabout that, nowhere is this basic human need demonstrated better than in the playground! Children don’twant to be “different” to their classmates or playmates; they DO want to “belong”.

And this doesn’t change throughout life! We spend the rest of our days doing the best we can to showcaseour strengths and concerned about how we measure up and are perceived to measure up, to those around us.

So what does all this have to do with negotiating? LOTS! What’s more it ostensibly remains a well keptsecret! So let’s dispel the secrecy.

What happens when we are in the company of people to whom we feel inferior? And what MAKES us feelinferior to them? To answer the last question first, it might be many things. They might appear moreintellectually smart than we are; more culturally educated, more snappily dressed, even more beautiful. Andwe feel intimidated. On the other hand, when we are in the company of people whom we perceive to be“behind” us; less smart, educated, beautiful etc than we are, or even if we decide we are on equal footing, weimmediately feel more comfortable and as though we are certainly “ok”.

But what happens to the person who feels inferior? Well they sure don’t feel at ease, neither does conversation flow. They become stand off-ish and up go the barriers! And right here is where negotiationsare likely to stall! Negotiations require the cooperation of BOTH parties – if you are attempting to negotiatewith someone who’s barriers have just gone up, you have as much chance of getting the result you want asyou’d have winning The Melbourne Cup on a donkey!

How to Multiply Your Chance of Successful Negotiating!

In his book “Start with NO”, Jim Camp advises us to “let the adversary help” us. The reason for doing this, isto put them more at ease, show we’re really on an equal footing and far from being “Mr /Ms Slick”, we arejust as human as they are. Your adversary will quickly begin to drop any guard they might have put up whenthey began to feel vulnerable in your presence. Rather than presenting an image of perfection, ask to borrowsome paper to make a note on because “you left your notepad on your desk” or borrow a pen because yourshas run out of ink. In their “helping” position, they will relax once they see that just like them, you too havesome foibles; you have common ground; you RELATE!

Once the barriers have come down, conversation tends to open up.

Remember homicide detective Colombo from the television series of the same name? He would mumble hisway into suspect’s homes, dropping his pen, pretending to forget what it was he really wanted to ask until hesuddenly remembered after he’d left and have to ring the doorbell again. When he finally got throughinterviewing, off he’d shuffle in his ill fitting trench coat to drive off in his beat-up looking car. While I’m notsuggesting you emulate Colombo to a T, there was something about the way he made himself appear thatcaused those he was investigating to let down their guard and start talking. But underneath that scruffyexterior was a razor sharp mind, just waiting and working stealthily towards the American equivalent of“You’re nicked!”

Colombo was in fact, a master of negotiating. He knew exactly how to get his prospective “nickee” to openup and give him just what he wanted.

Try it next time you’re negotiating for anything. Start small if you want to. Forget about your vanity or yourego if you’re the type of person who relishes feeling superior to others and keep your focus on the result youwant to achieve!


Create BUZZ for Your Business! In order for plants and trees to produce fruit or to propagate, Mother Nature developed a clever system whichinvolves the interaction of “communities” living within the same environment. For example, if a plant or treeis to grow further away from the mother organism than just under it, where the seeds can easily fall, it musthave a way for the seeds to distribute elsewhere. And it does; with the cooperation of the animal communitywhich carries the seeds with them when they take the fruit to eat and carry the seeds with them to whereverthey roam. That’s networking at its best!

But while it works brilliantly in nature, in business, we need to take this concept and expand on it! Because ofthe fierce competition in a business environment, it’s not enough to rely on your “fruit” being found bychance or that those who happen across it will share their find with others. It’s up to US to strategically“plant seeds”!

And what happens when we do it well is …. BUZZ! What’s that?

Buzz is what happens when people start TALKING about you, better still raving about you in a positive light!And in order to create the biggest buzz, the more strategic you need to be about planting the seeds.

But even before that, you must have something worth talking about! We’re talking about QUALITY.

Your product must exceed people’s expectations! It’s not always the products of the highest standard thatcauses the biggest buzz, but it IS the ones which exceed the consumer’s expectations. Your product mustWORK right from the start! It must also contain or offer everything you have promised it will.

Does your product enhance the lives of people? Does it make life easier, less stressful, more enjoyable etc?Will it save them time and effort?

Is your product something to get “excited” about? Or is it the same old, same old?

Assuming you have all these “product” bases covered, you must know …

The Secret of Creating the Biggest Buzz …And it’s very logical! Simply find ways to spread the word about this extraordinary product in a speedier,more effective manner; by reaching more people at once.

Think in multiples. When the film Lost in Translation was nearing its screen debut, the producers had finequality towels monogrammed with the name of the hotel at which most of the scenes were filmed, and sentthem with a video of the film to all the film critiques worldwide, which were in a position to “talk” about thefilm to the greatest number of people at any one time, by way of their film reviews!

Rather than rely upon word passing from one to another in a singular fashion, target the ONE person orGROUP OF PEOPLE who has/have the biggest circle of influence – the CONNECTORS! We all knowsomeone who loves to talk about something they believe in and they usually talk to a LOT of people and withconviction. These people are polished persuaders and all of us have been influenced to read a book, attend acourse, visit a holiday destination, undergo some kind of treatment or even try a restaurant, by such a person.These are the kinds of people you want spreading the word about your product!

My wife is such a person and I have watched her literally ignite sparks of enthusiasm in a room when she’sonto a subject which is a subject of passion for her, particularly when it is something which has the potentialto benefit the people she’s talking to.


Here is Proof Positive that Direct Mail is the BiggestBang for Your Dollar!

This might sound like a weird question to ask… but humour me and answer it anyway. What’s the first thingyou do when you get home in the evening? After parking the car that is. Perhaps you’re among the 14% thatstatistics say make a beeline for the smallest room in the house.

Would you believe 52% of people go straight to the mailbox first? Then they carry it inside to sort through it.And collecting and sorting mail is among the first THREE things that a whopping 80% of people do.Knowing this is of great value to the Direct Marketer.

What it clearly demonstrates is that every day, the focus of over 50% of the population is on their mail! Nowwe cannot make personal contact with 50% of the population every day through any other media such as TV, radio, print, telemarketing etc. So clearly the person who delivers your mail is your silent sales ‘man’. Butwhat happens next, gives us the most important insight, because your next objective is to get your mail read,immediately! Generally, people tend to sort their mail into three distinct piles! In order of priority, these arethe pile containing mail that MUST be read straight away, the next pile is interesting but not urgent and thethird compiles “junk” mail … which gets filed in the bin!

So what constitutes mail that compels you to read it immediately? Well, what about medical results you have been waiting to get; the results of a test? Or something which hasan ominous return address, such as the tax department or a letter from your lawyer (or somebody else’s!) ORsomething which suggests that by opening it, you stand to BENEFIT in some significant way? Something completely different from the usual type of mail you get, which has something outrageous orextraordinary about it. “Lumpy” mail is mail which has an appearance other than the usual straight envelopecontaining a letter etc.

Make your mailing piece look PERSONAL! Because nothing gets opened faster than a letter that is handaddressed and stamped with a REAL stamp! And DON’T have the name of your company stamped anywhereon the packaging, just put your return address. The word “confidential” is also a source of intrigue for mostand will help your mail to attract immediate attention.

Remember your mailing might contain the most amazing offer, but if the reader doesn’t open the mail, they’llnever see it! Waste of time; waste of money!

How else do you compel them to open your mailing piece? Think outside the square!

Bill Glazer, who is a grand master of marketing from the United States, has created some very clever and veryPROFITABLE direct marketing pieces which are simple in essence, but POWERFUL in the effect they have!For instance, if you received a bike rider’s water bottle in the mail, (lumpy mail) around which an eye-catching label, with an even more eye-catching message had been placed, would you be fascinated enough toopen the water bottle to read the sales letter inside?

Now I know what you’re thinking; it’s going to cost a fortune to send a water bottle as a mailing piece. Thetruth is it will cost you more, but in the scheme of things, more people will read your sales material and if youhave your message right, the maths will be a long way in your favour. In fact, hundreds of % in your favour!So the sooner you start perfecting and using Direct Mail, the sooner you will enjoy a higher level of success.Of course another wonderful thing happens when you use Direct Mail to your own data base; most importantly, you are immune to a lot of factors that influence you getting your message out, such ascompetitors and the high cost of advertising in all media.


“I Knew That!” – But you’re not DOING it! So What is the Underlying Reason for Your Inaction?

There are few ‘three little words’ more irritating for an educator to hear when imparting strategies to businessowners, who are obviously NOT implementing, than “I knew that!” There’s a tone of indignation; “I’m notstupid, you know” are the unspoken words.

So it begs the question … if you already KNOW all about it, why aren’t you DOING it? Well the reason forthe” I knew that” response isn’t all that hard to work out; after all our perception often depends upon thecurrent state of our ego.

But what about the underlying cause of “knowing” something but failing to act on it? If I were to askyou personally, why you often don’t achieve what you set out to do with the best of intentions, several wordsmight spring to mind, such as “procrastination”, “confidence”, “laziness”, etc. There is absolutely NO doubtthat many people don’t succeed at much because of these traits. But I’m willing to bet that lack of TIME isblamed the most. There are just not enough hours in the day!

A quick search will reveal a plethora of books written on managing time. But what if I suggested that “time”isn’t really the core issue? You get 24 hours in a day; that’s quite a few; the time is there. But for how manyof these, is it physically possible to be productive? And if you are stressed, you’re also likely to be exhausted;how quickly do you seem to burn through whatever energy you have available?

I believe the bigger issue is about managing your ENERGY!

If you manage your energy, it follows that you will make BETTER USE OF THE TIME YOU HAVEAVAILABLE. But I’m not just talking “work” time here. I’m talking about all the time you have and aboutall the aspects of your life that take time! Work and business take mental energy (and more) but if yourphysical self is not taken care of, or your emotional life is in tatters and your spiritual self ignored completely,you cannot sustain health and balance. Health applies to all aspects of you.

Sharpen your Saw by Redressing the BALANCE in Your Life! Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz are the co-authors of The Power of Full Engagement, which might sound,given the global state of affairs, like a book about military strategy. On the contrary, it’s a book whichaddresses the management of your energy, which in turn facilitates better use of your time! The authors saythat when we are fully “engaged” with all aspects of our lives, we automatically live with more structure andbalance, enhancing our lives in all aspects. It makes sense!

One woman who spoke about the effect this book had on her life said that is forced her to confront her valuesin life. Although she always maintained that health was one of her top priorities, she suddenly realised herwillingness to grab a coffee and two biscuits for breakfast was a blatant contradiction. A healthy diet iscrucial for good health! And although her family was at the top of her list, when she actually spent time withthem, she was so depleted of energy by the events of the day; she found herself snappy and the quality of theirtime together poor as a result. She was thus confronted with the question of what her TRUE values actuallywere!

But by addressing her physical and emotional selves as well, she was able to see that restructuring her day toinclude them, her physical and emotional health improved, giving her more ENERGY to bring to herself, herwork, her family and everything important to her.

If you struggle to implement strategies, look at whether it’s because your energy levels are depleted! Ifyou’re expending energy on one aspect of your life, is it to the total exclusion of all others? Schedule them allinto your daily life and you will seem magically to have more energy at your disposal! How exactly? This iswhat The Power of Full Engagement is all about. I recommend you get a copy.


When You’re Onto a Winner, Keep Backing it! Have you created an ad; any piece of advertising material which has proven to be a winner for you? It mightbe a Yellow Pages ad that made the phone ring off the hook, a flyer that got a huge response from the marketplace or a single promotion.

Or maybe your local newspaper did an article on you or on your business, that brought in lots of enquirieswith the opportunity to convert these to sales and on-going business.

Have you submitted a Press Release to a paper or a radio station, resulting in free publicity that generatedsales?

What I’m leading to is this; many, many businesses have a history of successful ad campaigns, promotions orsome other kind of successful publicity to draw from … but they fail to make good on-going use of it!

Let’s say you write a Yellow Pages ad which causes the right kind of pandemonium in your office; the kindwhich means you and everybody else dealing with the subsequent response by the marketplace, must raiseyour bottom lines, in order to answer the demand! If you’ve run an ad or campaign that resulted in a highresponse, you know that after the first wave of enquiries/orders, you might have been caught on the hop, evenexhausted; but it never takes long to raise the bar and meet the challenge.

THE JOY OF RECYCLING!But after that, what did you do with the Yellow Pages ad which caused the all the fuss? Nothing?

What if you were to take a copy of it and mail that copy as part of a Direct Mail campaign? What if yourecycled it as a Display ad? Did you think of including it in your newsletter? If the formula you used to writethe ad worked so well in the Yellow Pages, it will be just as powerful in another medium!

If a publication has written an article on you or your business, USE this as part of your advertising material toboost your credibility! Some years ago, I was involved in an innovative pizza shop. I approached a prominent restaurant critic and invited him to come to the shop and sample our food and hospitality. He didand wrote a rave review. I asked the newspaper which featured the article to send me a print-out of the articleand used this again and again in future campaigns both as an example of getting free publicity and ascredibility.

You’ll see an attachment to this RANT; this is a supremely good example of using one successful direct Mailad and “recycling” it as a Display ad. This is one of Bill Glazer’s; Bill is one of our acclaimed presenters forthe Global Information Summit in Sydney in November. This ad was supported by an editorial which Billalso wrote and resulted in a phenomenal response. If you read it carefully you will also see it cleverly uses“exclusivity” to attract people. With this ad, Bill extends an offer to people who would not normally beeligible for “private” promotions.

Think outside the Square and become a Recycling Junkie!

In the same way that you recycle advertising material, if you run an event, you can use a simple visualrecorder to do a roving interview with delegates after any event you run; ask for feedback and use this tosend out as a “taste of what’s to come” as part of a campaign launch for future events. Instant testimonialswith the added benefit of sight and sound to add weight to what they say! You could put some of theseinterviews on CD and send it out as a mailer, or have it running when people enter the room at the beginningof another event. Make every opportunity count!


So you’ve written a great piece of advertising –Now what is the OFFER!

We’re back on advertising this week – because it’s VITAL to get it right! I get ad after ad, Free Reportafter Free Report, sales letter after sales letter sent to me for critique and it’s obvious that some peoplereally make a big effort to follow the formula. Just as many, have just as obviously not lifted a finger letalone a manual, in an attempt to actually LEARN the formula. I wasn’t borne yesterday, I know somepeople figure if they send me any old excuse for an advertising piece, that I will re-write it for them sowhy bother to do it themselves?

WRONG! I will NOT write anybody’s advertising for them but I will point out where they went wrong!And I can recommend a good copywriter if you are looking for one.

But what is the most common mistake even those who have made a diligent effort, make?

They don’t make an OFFER! But when I say “offer” I don’t mean something that looks like an afterthought on your part. Not a weakly articulated, “So-what” kind of offer; I mean a stimulating, “call themto action”, “get an immediate and enthusiastic response”, type of offer! Your goal should be to incite asense of URGENCY in your prospective customer or client!

If you fail to include a desirable offer, you are risking that your prospective client will simply postponetaking action – forever! They lose the impulse to buy and your advertising piece inevitably finishes uptaking a short trip – to the bin!

So what can you do to make your OFFER more irresistible? Well HAVE one for a start! But thinkseriously about the following strategies:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Add Value – with more bonuses or perhaps by offering the Deluxe for the price of the standardA significant decrease in the price – without giving the prospect reason to disbelieve the value.Variable discounting – “Order by the date stamped in red” or “for the first fifteen people to orderEasy payment options – two payments halved may be perceived to be more achievable Build perceived value by dividing your product/package up into partsPreferred client – people love being treated as “exclusive”, being offered something for a lowerprice than others Make some portion of your added value satisfy the urge for instant gratification Tell the story of an impending price increase to move people to immediate action “Pay no money now” with payments deferred by a least a month

7. 8. 9.

You want to build a believable story around why fast action is required and make it clear that there arevaluable incentives for those who do respond straight away. It is also powerful to underline the risk inNOT responding immediately.

EVERYTHING you do must be structured to incite an immediate response!


Question: What do you call a person who does business their way,whenever they want, with whomever they choose, wherever they

like, on their own terms at the price they want? Answer: A RENEGADE MILLIONAIRE!

But how does a Renegade Millionaire become one? How do they reach that place where they are free to maketheir own choices; where they become AUTONOMOUS?

The answer to these questions is best answered by a Renegade Millionaire themselves – or SEVERALRenegade Millionaires. And that’s why we have FOUR of them coming to Sydney in November to openlyshare their secrets with you at the Global On-Line and Off-Line Multiple Streams of Income InformationMarketing Summit! http://www.globalinformationsummit.com

BILL GLAZER, YANIK SILVER, JIM EDWARDS and MATT FUREY are flying from all over TheUnited States to tell you exactly how they have achieved their success and their respective states of autonomy.

But surely there is something these four individuals have that sets them apart from the rest of us! They musthave a pre-disposition which puts them a mile in front of ordinary folk. Surely they have a distinct advantageover the proprietor of your local clothing retail store; over the mortgage broker scratching out a living oncommissions; the dedicated young martial arts teacher taking classes at the local gym or the young fella whospends an inordinate amount of time sitting in front of his computer.

But if that’s what you’re thinking, you’ll have to cast your net much further to justify to yourself why it’spossible for them but not for you, to reach a state of autonomy!

Why? Because in the paragraph above, I have just described how each of these entrepreneurs began theirremarkable climb to the top. How different do they sound from YOU?

Bill Glazer was the owner of a Menswear store who began attending seminars with the aim of turning hisretail business into something special and as a consequence, met and became aligned with one of the greatestmarketers in the world Dan Kennedy, who is now his partner. Jim Edwards actually lived for a time in a“trailer “(caravan) park while he wrote his first book, Matt Furey was a Martial Arts instructor who identifieda better way and Yanik Silver might happily term himself a “computer geek”. Yanik is somewhere in hisearly thirties and Matt under thirty. Neither was borne with the proverbial “spoon in their mouths”.

If you dug deeper, I’m sure you would find that each of them face many of the same challenges we all do inour daily lives and they just might not be as supremely self-confident as we seem to expect of people whoachieve great things in their lives.

What you WILL find though, is that each was willing to invest time and money in achieving their ultimategoal – to achieve autonomy! They wanted it badly enough and they PERSISTED, even when results were notimmediate; even when they were forced to re-navigate their course and sometimes even when they were“knocked” down with no alternative but to get up again!

How URGENTLY do YOU want autonomy?How much time are you willing to commit; how much money are you

prepared to invest in your journey?And the scary question; How much TIME DO YOU HAVE LEFT in which to achieve it?

These are the questions that count and these are the questions you need to ask yourself NOW. How seriousam I REALLY about this? Your results will be the answer!


When you have an Expert on tap, make the most of it…ASK QUESTIONS!

Next time you spend some time with a child, especially a small one, see if you can hazard a guess at howmany questions he/she asks in the space of even a few minutes. Of course after the first five “But why’s…?”you might begin to feel less enchanted with their company than you were at first.

But contemplate for a moment. Children have SO much to learn; they’re starting from scratch after all. Thesimplest of tasks is a learned skill and they are surrounded by a wild world they understand very little about.The only way their sensible little minds tell them they will understand it and survive, is to LEARN about itand the only way to LEARN is to listen to the answers they get to zillions of QUESTIONS!

And so what happens from the moment they ask their first question? They progress at a staggering pace,that’s what! If any besotted parent had the time to document all of the things their child learned to do in thespace of a year as they grow, the resulting volumes would fill a library, probably a state library!

But something tends to happen when we become “all grown up”. We stop asking all the questions. Giventhat a child instinctively knows that in order to progress and survive they must ask questions – and lots ofthem, would you expect that as adults we would continue to thrive by doing the same thing? It seems not.

Why not? Well it could be pride, embarrassment, laziness or all three. But while its interesting to speculateabout the reasons we might have for being less curious than we were when we hit our steepest learning curveas children, it’s more important that we remember what a great learning tool asking questions was - and startasking them again!

And the Inner Circle Mastermind Mentoring Programme is the perfect format for you to start!

With the Inner Circle Mentoring Mastermind Programme I frequently have highly knowledgeable,outrageously successful, even world renowned personalities participating in a Conference Call.

And each time I have one of these sages lined up for a call, I notify you and invite you to submitquestions. Despite the fact that all of the speakers are ready and willing to be YOUR captive audience,I am truly surprised by the low number of questions that actually comes in. At most, there would bethree, sometimes none!

Do you have TIME to be complacent? I know I don’t! In last week’s RANT I asked you to consider thefollowing questions if you’re really serious about living life on YOUR terms?

How URGENTLY do YOU want autonomy?How much time are you willing to commit; how much money are you

prepared to invest in your journey?And the scary question; How much TIME DO YOU HAVE LEFT in which to achieve it?

If you ARE really serious, surely the opportunity to grill people who are authorities on the very things youNEED to know, some of them outstandingly successful and autonomous entrepreneurs, is something youwould jump at and grab with both hands!

I anticipate LOTS of questions being submitted for future Conference Calls. Make the most of agolden opportunity; get them to spill the beans and fast track your success!


The Value of Showing Appreciation. I have an aversion to schmaltzy movies; in fact I can’t stand them!

But showing appreciation is not schmaltzy, it’s a simple way to make yourself and so your businessunforgettable.

If you roll out the red carpet for a Billionaire, he won’t even notice.

If you roll out the red carpet for millionaire, he’ll expect it.

If you roll out the red carpet for a “thousand-aire”, he’ll thank you for it.

If you roll out the red carpet for a “hundred-aire”, he’ll tell everybody about it!

APPRECIATE people. And TELL THEM!

Good Business is more about building long term relationships than in making short term sales. A letter costs50 cents to send – and has the capacity to effect the person you are sending it to in the most profound of ways;I’m not talking about their wallets so much as their hearts!

How do you feel when somebody actually takes the time to express gratitude and treat you with the respectyou deserve? Surprised? Special? Even elated?

I could ask you how you feel when your efforts are ignored!

More importantly, how long will you remember the person who extended these simple courtesies to you?What about FOREVER? And who will you think of FIRST when an opportunity to do business presentsitself?

However you use them, you will be amazed by the effect they will have on the person you send them to.Thoughtfulness and good manners are nothing more than a powerful symbol of the respect we have for theperson with whom we are communicating. And voluntary acts of kindness are never forgotten!

That old saying “It’s the little things that count”, is as true today as when the words were first spoken. SayingTHANK YOU might seem like a very little thing, but in effect, it can wield greatly underestimated power!

There are a myriad of ways to express appreciation. However doing so with WORDS, expressed in a sinceremanner, is not only the most straight forward and uncomplicated way, but surely the most effective. You cansend a gift with a card or letter for added impact.

If you want to build a solid and enduring foundation beneath your business relationships, show appreciation –to your staff, your colleagues, your clients, your suppliers and your associates.

I find whenever I do; it’s never long before the same courtesy comes back to me!


Speed does not always equal Quality! Telexes gave way to faxes and still we couldn’t communicate fast enough. Then came mobile phones andemail, so that no matter where we are or what we’re doing, we’re contactable, mostly instantly. And if we arecaught up in a meeting or have our phones switched off, we’re still expected to be on tap because of coursethere’s message bank so - what’s our excuse? We live in a fast world!

But while the vehicles of instant communication have made it possible to deal with things quickly, it hasn’tnecessarily facilitated the effectiveness or the quality of that communication!

I’ll explain. It’s one thing to take action and even better to take MASSIVE action. But what kind ofRESULTS can you realistically expect if there is no STRATEGY behind the action? If you’ve forsakenresearch and preparation for speed, you’ll get the results you deserve!

I see it alarmingly often; companies having invested huge capital, not to mention precious time and effort indeveloping good product which is then assigned to poorly trained, badly prepared and unsupervised personnelin key positions, to sell to the market place. Huh?

What results would you expect? Spend all that money, commit all that time and energy to lose the sale atcrunch time because the person entrusted with making the sale doesn’t know what they’re doing?

Do you have resources fully deployed, hurtling towards an unknown target?

What about your actual clients? Do you blindly seek and acquire clients without regard for how appropriatelymatched they are with the product they’ve bought?

And do you invest strategically in wowing them in order to retain them in the future?

I’ll give you an example of the very antithesis of strategic action. Unless you live in a rural area, you’ll havea Letter Box and so you’ll relate to this. Think about the last flyer or brochure you got in the mail.

What strategy was used in the brochure to actually move you to action; to buy whatever it is they’re selling?And if you were to ask the people who had the flyer or brochure dropped and ask them exactly what strategicobjective they hoped to achieve with it, chances are you’ll be met with a blank stare.

So back to the Brochure.

Did the company sending the brochure or flyer to you MAKE YOU AN OFFER to entice you to buy whatthey’re selling or get you to come into their business?

Did they tell you what BENEFIT to you there would be in taking them up on their offer, thereby increasingthe likelihood that you would buy? Did they include a testimonial from a satisfied customer to support whatthey are telling you about themselves, giving you even more reason to believe them and give them yourcustom?

In most cases I bet they did NONE of these things. They sent out a brochure because…. well … that’s whatyou do isn’t it? I mean everybody else does!

Think carefully about it. While it’s important not to procrastinate and to take action, it must be DIRECTEDaction! Without any direction, without strategy and planning, your business is simply a hit and miss affair!


What is a Widget?Hint: No, it’s not a small, furry mammal!

A WIDGET is simply a combination of products and/or services, which collectively form a “package”. Thispackage is given a name and has a high perceived value. It is the sum of its parts.

What is so great about a Widget?

A widget allows you to ADD VALUE and SELL MORE! It can also be created for any business regardless ofindustry.

It’s power lies in that instead of offering a single item for sale, your prospective client is wooed by the offerof all the OTHER items/products or services, they are getting for the price of a single package. When youname and give a value to each item comprising the whole package and then tell them that rather than payingwhat it would normally cost to buy each item individually, they pay far less when they buy the package ofproducts. This isn’t always the case; typically, take 4 wheel drive vehicle, put a roo bar on the front, a roofrack on the top and a stripe down the side and you suddenly have a Limited Edition! You simply add all theprices to the basic model and charge accordingly for the first twnty buyers. Perceived added value is apowerful motivator!

Perhaps you have a Pizza Bar; how could you possibly “widgetise” a pizza? Simply by adding a free coffeeand a money back guarantee to the list and putting a NAME to your offer.

Or what about a mechanical business? We have a client who attracted a stampede when with every carservice, she gave her clients car mats, a steering wheel cover and washed their car. As well as this she gavethem an outrageous guarantee which said.

“Your car repaired right the first time or it’s FREE until it is!”

If the idea of buying car mats and steering wheel covers puts you off, this enterprising lady got them for freefrom a supplier. How? She asked!

I consulted to a company which sell work boots. The story I created for them was that this boot was the“World’s most comfortable work boot”. We then told the story by attaching a gold embossed rosette sayingthis, to the workboat. As many of you will already know this company went on to be named TelstraAustralian Small Business of the Year for 2003! They have added a Cisco Systems Business Award to theirachievements.

I once consulted to a building company which had a display home that had been on the market for far toolong, by industry standards, making it seem “old” to the consumer. So with the cooperation of the very astuteowner of the company, we created a widget. We added a free roller door, replaced the usual baked enamelappliances with more appealing stainless steel appliances and added a free dishwasher. Total value was$3,800… for free! We also reduced the size of the house and its price by $7,000, making it more affordable.When we marketed this ‘widget’ to the market place, it resulted in “the busiest weekend through the displaycentres that I can remember” … those are not my words but those of one of the company reps

The examples I could give you of a widget would fill volumes. McDonalds do it well.

Widgetising is a little known strategy used by millionaires that very few businesses exploit. Even those thatdo so barely understand the purpose and methodology behind it.

You can take virtually any product or service, add other products or services (they don’t even have to be yourproducts or services, do a joint venture with someone who would normally sell it to your clients) give it a titleand then market it to your clients.

So consider for yourself how you can create widgets in your business. How you can turn nothing intosomething!


Do you constantly lust after NEW customers while ignoringthe proven ones you have?

There is one area of business in which too many business owners reveal themselves to be lazy andshort sighted.

What am I specifically referring to? When the business owner gets all steamed up, pouring all theirenergy and resources into chasing NEW customers, while ignoring those customers who are alreadyproven, who’ve bought before and will surely buy again! It’s a fact that most business owners focuson ardently pursuing the NEW CUSTOMER and to hell with the old! Well that’s how it feels whenyou’re the “old” ignored and neglected client!

It’s bad economics and poor planning, no matter what the reasoning behind it.

Think back to the last time you bought a new car. After you finally signed on the dotted line, havingbeen hotly pursued by an enthusiastic, “let me bring the car to you” kind of salesman, did you ever hear from that car dealer again? Understandibly, the dealer needs to keep making sales, but I’mtalking ever. Did you EVER hear from them again?

Imagine all the sales they’ve made in the past, the THOUSANDS of sales, which equates toTHOUSANDS of people who have already bought from them. Most people will be looking atupgrading their vehicle every few years, but does the car dealer appear to view these people as“proven” clients and so worthy of contacting? In only the rarest of cases.

And it’s not exclusive to the car industry, it’s common behaviour in EVERY industry! Did thatbicycle business ever make contact to see if you were in the market for another bike? Did the RealEstate agency consider you might be interested in another piece of real estate? Did the rug companymake contact to make you an offer prior to announcing a sale? What about the shoe company? Whatabout the restaurant? And on it goes.

In many cases, these industries are spending an astronomical amount of money advertising for newclients on a weekly basis! And there you are wanting what they’ve got, but in the meantime, anothercompany catches your eye or makes you an offer and they’ve “lost” you.

Are you “losing” business because your focus is on the new and yet to be “proven” customer? Areyou sending out leaflets with an offer with something stupid like “This offer is for NEW clientsonly” written in big bold letters? If so you might as well tell all those who’ve bought from youbefore that they are worth nothing to you now that you’ve sold them something.

Expend your energy making sure that your TOP 40% or 50% of clients are talking about YOU! Givethem reason to become advocates of your business. Turn your customers into FANS!


You are Not Your Prospect! If you’re wondering about the date, (which has long since passed us by) at the top of the page, you might beaware that I owe you a few; RANTs that is! In the last two weeks leading up to the Global InformationSummit in Sydney, I found my time engulfed by Summit affairs, leaving no time to get the usual weeklyRANT off to you. So here they come.

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It doesn’t matter how invisible I think I have become, how well insulated from the distraction of unannouncedinquirers and passers-by, it seems pre ordained that I will be sought out to have my marketing buttons pushed,no matter what!

This week’s RANT is the result of chance encounter with such a ‘button pusher’!

Before I tell you what transpired, I want to bring your attention back to the headline. You Are Not YourProspect.

In other words, until you find out just what your PROSPECT is looking for, what matters to them, you’ll havea snowball’s chance in hell of selling them anything! If you don’t understand their reasons for buying andinstead base your selling campaign on your reasons for selling, you will be doomed to failure!

So now to the inspiration for this RANT. The name of my business, Magnetic Marketing and Publications isdisplayed on the outside wall of my office. Noting the word ‘Publications’, this week, a lady walked into myoffice with a book she has written, and asked;

“So do I bring my book in here if I want to get it published?” I responded with “Who is your market?” Shetold me her book is aimed at educating children. I countered with “So really your market is the parents ofchildren?” The lady gave me a rather blank look and made a point of telling me that she holds two degrees. Icontinued, “Well I’m a parent, why should I buy your book?”

Her deadpan answer was “Because I wrote it!”

Perhaps I could have found other words, but I didn’t. “No-one gives a toss about you writing it. What is thetitle of your book?”

“I haven’t got one yet.” I told her that the title should be the FIRST thing she wrote. She retorted “I’ll do itmy way”. I’m sure she thought I was the most boorish git she’d had the misfortune to meet in all her highlyeducated life! And she left.

It’s a classic tale. Another aspiring author whose thinking extends to two stages. Write a book, get itpublished. Is there a hungry market for the book? Is the subject of the book a hot topic, so will anyoneactually want to even read it? Would anyone actually BENEFIT from reading it? It seems evident that ratherthan responding to a demand in the marketplace, they are focusing on the ego boost that comes with being apublished author. Good reason to write a book? NO! Good reason to advertise a product? NO!

At one of my events, the subject of Loyalty Cards was raised. A lady stood up and declared “I hate loyaltycards!” As she sat down again, a man walked to the front to show me a collection of 13 Loyalty Cards in hiswallet! He loves them. The message is clear. It doesn’t matter what you think! It only matters what yourCLIENT/PROSPECT thinks! Find out before you rush in with your own biases and opinions! To put itanother way, don’t let what you think get in the way of doing good business, because …………YOU ARENOT YOUR PROSPECT!


My one regret is not focusing on investing in MeLong before I did!

Surprisingly, this time I’m not talking about investing in my education so much, but what comesnext; making a habit of investing in the acquisition and nurturing of customers for my business!put another way, I believe the quickest way to create financial freedom is through business.

Or

More than investing in real estate, more than trading in stocks and shares, more than anything else,by investing in your own business, you create the greatest potential for building the cash flow thatwill enable you to buy good assets such as property. Cash flow from business is what enables you tobuy good assets and keep on paying for them!

You’ve heard me say it countless times, I know of databases which have grown cold and void fromlack of contact. I’m talking about dynamic, entrepreneurial business owners and I’m talking aboutTHOUSANDS of names on cold, cold lists. Enormous amounts of money, time and effort havebeen invested in making first contact after which thousands of potential customers are nevercontacted again! No further investment, no return; lost cash flow = lost investment opportunity.

Let me put this as plainly as I possibly can. Focus your wealth creation on your business effortsbecause nothing returns in multiples as predictably as being a well versed business entrepreneur.

So as we race towards the end of another year, there’s a strategy which I can virtually guarantee hasthe potential to ensure next year is your best year yet, if you’re in business or make a sale. And let’sface it who isn’t (in business) or doesn’t (make a sale). That strategy is the creation of a marketingplan for the next 12 months. And now is the time to do it! What should that plan look like? Itshould include strategies for getting new prospects and clients.

The fact is, if you’re not growing you’re dying. Probably more importantly, your plan shouldinclude strategies for nurturing past clients, designed to get them to come back more often, or getthem to buy joint venture products from you or a JV partner.

How often should you contact your clients? Well, if you were fortunate enough to hear Bill Glazerat our recent Summit, you’ll know that this marketing wizard believes you can never contact yourclient or prospect too often. I suggest a minimum of every three weeks. This equates to a mere 17times per year. And don’t think for a moment that you have to be ‘selling’ every time. Being incontact and being the first person they think of in your category is the hidden secret which allowsyou to dominate your competitors and create a playing field they’ll never know or understand – or beable to copy.

So get yourself a laminated 2005 Year Planner and start NOW, to plan your marketing for next year.Almost without exception, this will be revolutionary to you all and it will revolutionise your success!


Marketing Nuggets RANT Let’s keep it really simple. Below are 15 bullet points listing some of the golden nuggets of marketing.

People by nature, are procrastinators; give them a reason to respond by making them an offeror you will probably never hear from them again.

If you want to be a marketing wizard, do this; ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS! Don’t assume toknow what they want, ask them and have the wisdom to listen when they tell you.

Apply the same rules you use with writing headlines, to titles and when naming products.

Tell your prospects precisely what you want them to do in your sales material. Believe it ornot, most people WANT to be lead by the hand. And don’t be shy about telling them more thanonce.

TEST, TEST, TEST. Test your product and your pricing.

The biggest challenge you will face in advertising, is getting your prospects to believe you! Doit with TESTIMONIALS, with ENDORSEMENTS, copies of BANK STATEMENTS, swornstatements, Before and After photos, scientific data etc.

When you are targeting a niche market, advertise in publications read by this market.

When you educate your clients and customers through seminars, newsletters, free reports, books,letters and websites, you create credibility for yourself.

Never miss an opportunity to capture the names of people who call or visit your business. Itsmind boggling how little attention is given to building and nurturing business data bases.

If you have good staff, never fail to acknowledge them for a job well done. Reward them forgoing the extra mile. Remember they are at the front line of your business, in direct contact withyour customers and clients. Appreciate them!

Print your order forms in coloured paper. This draws attention to it and sales are increased.

When advertising, always include the address of your website.

When you send requested information out, have the envelope stamped with “Here is theinformation you requested” or “Open immediately!!! Contains your FREE report or your latestnewsletter” or words to that effect. This tells your prospect they are not being sent unsolicitedmail or ‘junk’ mail.

ASK for the order! Don’t just leave a question hanging in the air; remember you are leadingthem by the hand.

Do what you do so well that people can’t resist telling others about you!


Keep Asking Yourself “WHY?” Make a habit of occasionally stepping back and reviewing what you are doing in the sales andmarketing aspects of your business. Or in any aspect for that matter. And when you do, ask yourselfwhat your real PURPOSE is.

While most business owners think that the purpose of getting a customer is to make a sale, myclients and I do the reverse; we make a sale to get a customer.

When you are constantly obtaining new knowledge and subsequently growing, the more opportunities will come your way. You’ll probably want to try to do justice to them all! And it’sthen you can lose sight of what it is you are actually striving to achieve and the best way to movethrough the process. It’s then you can all too easily find yourself “OFF PURPOSE”

You must decide what you WILL do, what you WON’T do and what to prioritise!

Some things may need your attention NOW, some later, some if you have time. Some things youare presented with you may decide NOT to do at all! Discipline yourself to stick to the your TRUEPURPOSE for doing everything you are doing!

Make it a habit to have a strategic purpose for getting your customers; for getting the BESTcustomers, precisely the ones you want, in the manner, which suits you best, and in a way that isappropriate to them!

If you need to totally revamp some of your systems, so that these things are done in such a way thatis consistent with your key objectives, make that a priority!


Take the initiative!I get a lot of requests. And I expect that, given that I include Critique Vouchers in my Direct Mailpackages and a service to my Inner Circle clients.

But I do wonder about some of them. I’ve been asked to write some stuff that the most basic of readsthrough my material would have enabled the client to do for themselves. And though I can’t boastthe vocabulary of literary scholar, I have a fair idea how to string a few words together, enough toget the message across certainly.

And this brings me to the subject of resources. If you’re a bit shaky on using a word in the rightcontext, or my old foe spelling, consult a DICTIONARY! And another thing every office shouldhave is a THESAURUS, which provides you with an effective means of expanding your vocabulary,while you search for alternative words to use. I personally use an electronic one and I love it! Bigboys love toys!

On the subject of my Coaching programme, we get calls every month from people wanting to knowwhat day and time their call is scheduled for. Or what week the one-on-one calls are scheduled for.We sent out a schedule for the year shortly after the programme started, with each and every eventand date clearly listed for every month.

Now I don’t mind the odd call to check. I understand that some times are more chaotic than othersand my life can get as crazy as anyone’s. I forget things too.

But when the SAME people call, month after month, to ask what the day and time of their call is(and allocated days and times are constant; it would be a logistical nightmare to allocate a differentday and time to a huge group of people on a monthly basis) I do feel like putting a prodder to gooduse! What it tells me about these people is not that they’re just busy or having a rough week, butthat they seem to be in an on-going state of confusion!

Get a diary and USE IT! If you’re among the people who constantly lose track of where you shouldbe, ask Santa Claus for one this Christmas! If you’re that out of touch with your routine, you needbetter systems; can’t get much simper than a diary. Or delegate. Your business is bound to besuffering. You need to take control and do something about your dilemma.

Another thing I hear is “I’m not computer literate”. Well neither am I. But I delegate computer tasksto staff. I heard my wife recently suggest to a client with a home based business, that they eitherenlist the help of a young family member or advertise, even in a local shopping centre, for a youngstudent to work a couple of hours after school. Computer skills are second nature to these youngpeople and what they can’t teach you ain’t worth knowing!

Be empowered by taking the initiative.


What you do after the sale is just as important as whatyou did before the sale!

Despite the fact that this simple strategy is enormously powerful, hardly anyone uses it. But if they did, itcould cut down dramatically or even almost eliminate clients cancelling their orders!

I’m sure you know how it feels to buzz with the excitement of having landed a big sale; the sense ofachievement you get when your diligent work pays off and a client demonstrates their vote of confidence inyour product or service with $$$! It can make you feel ten feet tall! You automatically begin to allocate yournewly acquired funds to where you need them or better still, to something you don’t need so much as ardentlywant!

And then the client cancels their order!

You may have been that client yourself! You evaluated and rationalised a big purchase, bit the bullet andwrote out the cheque/handed over your credit card. But in the next few days, you did a complete turnaroundand called to cancel your order!

Why? Because you are human and what you have just experienced, is buyer’s remorse. There’s a big fancyname for it; post cognitive dissidence! What it means in simple terms is that DOUBT began to creep in,because when you bought you were motivated more by emotion, but then your logical mind entered theequation! You suddenly began to wonder if you really made the right decision, if the money you spent wouldbe better spent on something else. That sceptical little “monkey” in your mind turned up the heat until youtalked yourself out of the sale.

Now a good sales person will have pre-empted most of all of your possible objections either before orimmediately after they closed the sale. But even that wasn’t enough to make the sale stick in the days thatfollowed!

The GOOD news is, you can do something about it! There is a simple three-step method you can use toovercome buyer’s remorse in your clients and so reduce the possibility of them cancelling or sending theirorder back, which can happen where there is no immediate gratification to be had.

1. Firstly, immediately after you’ve closed the sale, have your client vividly mentally visualise howhaving your product or service will BENEFIT them! The more emotive this experience the better.Paint as vivid a picture as you possibly can so they almost experience the benefits as you speak!

2. Immediately send your client an ACKNOWLEDGMENT LETTER or a “Stick” letter. Just as thename suggests, your letter is designed to make the sale “stick”.

3. In your “stick letter” tell them you’ve also sent them an unexpected FREE Bonus(es)

If I was to say send your client a Thank-you note, you might think a card with just a few lines would suffice.But NO, I’m not talking about social etiquette here, though we could do with more. I’m talking abouthelping your client to sustain their initial enthusiasm and energy about your product or service, so theyhave no intention of cancelling, or sending it back for a refund.

In your acknowledgement letter, you start by CONGRADULATING your client on making theirpurchase, and then once again, talk about the BENEFITS to them in having whatever it is and whyhis/her choice was so wise! If there is some specific action required by them to start the ball rolling, tellthem the best way to go about it, emphasising that it will be enjoyable/interesting; anything butdifficult. Of course neither should it be, because your product is beneficial/ethical/educational!


DUH!A couple of RANTs ago, I said this; “I’ve been asked to write some stuff that the most basic of reads throughmy material would have enabled the client to do for themselves”. In RANT No 38, I was eluding to lack ofinitiative. This week I’m issuing a documented ‘prod’ to those of you who deserve one! And that’s YOU ifyou’ve spent your hard earned money on one of my educational packages, but then obviously can’t bebothered learning from it! Judging by the number of poorly crafted advertising pieces I get asked to critique,there are LOTS of YOU out there!

Effective, results orientated ADVERTISING is a learned skill. It’s a scientific formula and all you need do isfollow it! Don’t lose this RANT and you will never again have an excuse for writing something only fit togenerate flames in a fire, rather than the $$ in your bank account it SHOULD be generating.

BASIC PRINCIPALS OF A SUCCESSFUL AD:

#1: A Functional Headline: There’s a simple stand alone test to see if your headline cuts the mustard!Separate it from the rest of the ad and run it all by itself as a classified ad or mail it on a postcard with anumber to call or your location – and see if you get loads of calls or visits! Resist the urge to dive intounchartered waters; stick to modifying tried and proven effective headlines!

#2: Testimonials: I feel like I must be talking to people who literally don’t speak the same language! Whatsomeone ELSE has to say about you is at least 10 times more believable than what you say about yourself!

#3: Good Testimonials: OK so you used a testimonial. Only it was so damn BORING and with only aninitial after it, there’s no reason anybody would believe it! Use real people with full names and any otheridentifying information you can include, such as business name or phone number. And the testiminal itselfneeds to be GLOWING! Don’t bother to even use it if all it says is that you’re adequate or good. UseMEANINGFUL specifics. If I’m told “sales increased by 32% in 42 days”, I’m interested. If not ….(yawn),so what? After that, your testimonials and your market need to be in synch. Be strategic about matching thetestimonial to the target market and the objections and problems that market is likely to have.

#4: An Exciting Offer: I GASP with incredulity, almost every time I open my mail box or pull out myCritique folder to see how many plain, old, common-as-muck, BORING offers I see! Just because you sentthem a postcard or paid for an ad, people are NOT obliged and certainly anything BUT inspired to respond.TO the contrary, most people are doggedly glued to their seats, with eyes that don’t see and minds that feelfried and their wallets are stuck between their backsides and the glue on their seats! Give them a reason toMOVE!

#5: Call to Action: I feel like a broken record, but PEOPLE WANT TO BE LEAD BY THE HAND! Evenif they want what you’ve got to sell them, unless you TELL them to get off their backsides and come andGET IT, they might start off with some enthusiasm, but ….. never quite make it to the phone or your businessto place an order. Tell them that unless they order by a certain date or are one of the first 17 clients to respond,they will miss out! So many people fail to close the sale and getting people to respond to your marketing isstill a sale. If you’re not comfortable about it, get and READ Zig Ziglar’s book Secrets of Closing the Sale.The first time you try something that’s outside your comfort zone, you might feel a bit shaky. But when youunderstand what you’re doing, your initial fear will be replaced with a feeling of accomplishment!

#6: Fear At the end of the day, two things motivate people to buy. Fear or personal gain. In my experiencefear is the effective way to go. Articulate a penalty for NOT responding and incentive for responding.

#7: The Envelope If you’re trying to get your advertising material read and you run it through the barcode‘meter” you might as well include a big red stamp that says “JUNK MAIL – PLEASE DITCH ME”! Thinkabout it. What impression do YOU get when you get an envelope like this? DUH!

I’ve had my little spit. And my liver feels better already.


The 3 Most Important Questions Business Owners Need to Answer!

1. If you were the customer, would buying from me (you) be the clear and obvious best choice?

2. Why should I choose to do business with you as opposed to any other competitor in yourcategory? I suggest you put the question written boldly on a 200-x 300metre card. Have itlaminated and tack it up somewhere you see it constantly.

3. Is your product or service a lot better than any other available in your category? If not, whynot? If so, HOW is it better?

These are the BIG questions I ask every Consulting client and it may surprise you to know Irarely receive the answers I want to hear. However, sadly I get the answers I expect, meaninglessand boring, vague and general.

Others stutter and stammer to mutter some corny slogan or come out with the old cliché; “myproduct or service is better than my competitors.” Look, it may be true but guess what yourcompetitors say …the same old boring meaningless statement that fails to inspire him or her, theemployees or importantly, the prospect or client.

If you can’t answer these questions, and lets be honest no one can (rarely anyway), then you’reprobably not “sold” on the superiority of what you’re selling and if you’re not sold, you can’tsell!

Acting with enthusiasm is no substitute for being genuinely enthusiastic because that requiresgood reasons.

You need to structure or restructure your business, product, service, idea or premise so that YOUare ‘sold’ on the superiority of what you offer! After that, convincing others is easy.

In order to convince others, first YOU must be convinced!


Breakthroughs come from looking OUTSIDEYour industry, not inside!

I believe the first industry to employ the ‘drive-up’ service window, was the banking industry. Oncethe example had been set, many other industries followed suit. Among the first to latch on to thisnew way of servicing customers, was the Fast Food industry. I imagine some McDonald’s managermay have been stuck in a drive-through banking queue waiting his ‘turn’ when suddenly it dawnedon him that this would work well for the fast food industry.

Today, of course, we have ‘drive-thru’ car washes, liquor outlets, drycleaners, car lube and service,florists and coffee bars. There are bound to be more I haven’t named. I have read that in Las Vegas,one casino has a ‘drive-thru’ betting window for sports bets!

But other industries that I haven’t noticed practicing this service, that would benefit by doing so, arevideo libraries, TABs, Pharmacies (for prescriptions), bakeries and cake shops. These are industriesthat come easily to mind. I’m sure there are many more that could use drive-thru as a breakthrough.

Just about every breakthrough idea will come from the example set by something that’s already beencreated and is in operation.

The Club Med style of hotels is really a ‘cruise ship’ on land!

Star Wars was an adapted and updated version of the old Western movie!

So look outside your industry for the basis of a big breakthrough, because it will rarely come frominside your own!

Most breakthroughs come from OUTSIDE!


If you don’t have a list of clients or worse, you dohave a list but don’t USE it …you don’t have a

business at all, you have a promotion! NEVER buy a business without having a list of clients; customer names, addresses, telephone andfax numbers and email addresses, or the ABILITY to get them!

Sadly, most business owners and their advisors (accountant, lawyers etc) mistakenly place a highvalue on the physical aspects of a business, such as the shop front, the locations, equipment,inventory and whether it’s a shop or a factory, when all of these things are either easily replaced orduplicated.

The smartest and richest entrepreneurs I know, always ensure they have direct access to and arelationship with the end user! To have it any other way will always ensure that the experience isbasically a painful one.

Last year, I enjoyed a dinner in Phoenix with Jeff Paul, of ‘How to Make $4,000 per day in YourUnderwear from Your Kitchen Table’ fame. Jeff relayed a story to me, about a new product he haddeveloped; a Financial Organiser Kit which he sells through infomercials on a Home ShoppingTelevision channel.

Jeff sold 165,000 units, but because of his contractual agreement with QVC, he wound up withoutany access to the client. Not only that, he was not allowed to put his contact details on the product,so even if the purchaser tried, they would be unable to contact him. While he did very well out of thedeal – he did well ONCE! Given that Jeff knows how to maximise the ‘back-end’ (sales after thefirst sale) he estimates that conservatively, the money he won’t make without access to these buyingcustomers, will exceed the money he did make by 500%! Now that’s painful!

Worse than this scenario, is the one where the business owner does have a list and does NOTHINGor little with it! I believe that less than 5% of restaurant owners have a list, which they use! Yet Iknow for a fact that there is a restaurant owner in the U.S. who attributes a whopping $400,000annually to his “Birthday” promotion emails! Ok, so he gives them incentive to come in, maybe afree meal or a Birthday cake … but think about it; do you know anyone who celebrates their birthdayalone in a restaurant? Of course not. People come in pairs and groups, which introduces new clientsto the restaurant and their names are added to the list by the crafty restaurateur. Then of course, allof these people get their own individual birthday offers and they too bring along first time customerswho also get added to the list.

I don’t know of a better model than that!


Cash Flow is KING!Most businesses actually make a loss – but survive, thanks to positive cash flow.

But lack of cash flow is the cranky hound that will bite you on the bum, and ultimately propel youtowards bankruptcy!

A good cash flow will also buy you the time you need in order to become profitable. It gives you thestaying power necessary to invent, reinvent, trial and test, until finally, you finish up with a winningsystem.

In fact, often it’s just one new product, a different media, a new ad, one marketing and salesbreakthrough that can take the company from the brink of destruction, to the pinnacle of outrageoussuccess! And in reality, success is the logical result of a procession of tests, failures, successes,tweaks, adjustments, investments, and decisions, followed up with action!

Throughout the years I have been in business, I have developed many methods for increasing cashflow. I refer to them as cash flow accelerators C.F.A.’s. Here’s the first of many I will share withyou in the coming weeks.

1.) Reduce and control expenses and wastage.

Most businesses accumulate ‘fat’ and wastage; such running expenses as wages, product costs,excessive telephone bills, over supply and increased expense of office stationery and freight costs.All sorts of expenses creep up!

The best way to stay on top of this is divide your expenses into categories, which then become adollar percentage, in relation to gross sales.

It’s been a while since I was in the food game, but the key categories in that industry was food costs,wages and rent. For example I aimed for wages to be 16% to 22% of turnover. A good result wouldbe closer to 16%, and at 22% the staff level is too high as a percentage of turnover.

In your own business, start by determining just what the key categories peculiar to your industry are,then find out what percentage of turnover they should be. Enlist the help of trade associations, youraccountant, and draw upon your own experience if you need to.

In my own businesses, I am always determined to range down, not up, where product is concerned.You’d think it would be common sense to have only a small number of products to make and sell,allowing you to focus on quality and profit, but I continually see businesses racing to increaseproduct range in the pursuit of more sales (cash flow).

Find out where, and from which products your cash flow stems and cut the wastage (80/20 principle). Never stop improving the quality of your product or service!


Increasing Sales Alone is Not the answer to Cash flow crises!

Following on from last week’s RANT subect of Cash Flow;

Most business owners would instinctively think that increasing sales is the first step to increasing cash flow.

Unfortunately driving sales up without a thorough approach to cash flow and profit management has theability to make everybody else rich, (suppliers, staff, freight companies, landlords etc), but you.

You see, in order to manage the growth, more staff will be needed, more taxes payable, more plant andequipment necessary, a higher inventory required, and of course more sales means a corresponding rise in thecost of freight and postage.

More often than not, it pays to cut back on volume. Eliminate unprofitable products and services, and alter theeconomics.

While it’s natural to want to grow your business, the process requires a STRATEGIC approach!

Remember there are usually more opportunities than there are resources, so choose to grow strategicallybased on those products and services that provide the best margins and cash flow.

I am associated with a gentleman who used to be in the wholesale distribution business. For many years, hehad a very clear m.o. and that was to build sales rapidly and cash out for big $$$, usually within three to fiveyears.

Because he focused so intensely on sales growth, his sales would often triple. But as a direct result, so wouldhis staff and his stock level; in fact he often had to find new premises to accommodate such massive growth.Boy is shifting premises a nightmare!

Having survived a number of such growth spurts, at great expense, not least of all to the state of health of bothhim and his wife, he swore to me he would never again repeat the same exhausting and often- counterproductive scenario. True to his word, they recently bought a small wholesale business they could runalone, with just a few part timers. I know they have no intention of ‘growth for growth’s sake’ with thisbusiness or ever again.


Gain Financial Leverage To continue on from the last two weeks of RANTs …

Big organisations routinely take 60 to 90 days to pay their accounts and do so because their size affords themthe prive ledge. They are, in fact, using that “float” to make money, using other people’s money.

Small business owners too, should delay payment where strategically possible without damaging their creditrating. The 5 tactics below will help you leverage your finances.

1.) Never pay bills early, but always pay on time.If you pay your bills early your creditors will ALWAYS expect you to, so when a cash crunch comes (andcome it will) your creditors could quickly react unfavourably. Ire’s obvious that paying before the due date isa dangerous precedent to set.

2.) When negotiating in advance, request extended terms with your suppliers. This is a particularly good tactic when negotiating with a new supplier. You may even consider negotiating topay your accounts in instalments, such as 1/3 payment every 30 days. Try this tactic and you will besurprised how receptive suppliers can be.

3.) Never use your own cash reservesThe cash you have accumulated is what I refer to as “old” money. It’s really worth much more than it’s ‘face’value as you would have to have earned many times it’s value, because it’s what is left over after you havepaid all your bills and your taxes. To save $10,000 you may have to earn $100,000. Instead choose an optionlike leasing with a deferred cash balloon payment. This will conserve your cash and allow you the use ofother people’s money.

4.) Refinance when it is not absolutely necessaryI would do this to consolidate dept and reduce my monthly payments to a friendlier premium. Remember toshop around for the best deal and rates.

5.) Use vendor leverage by “selling” future guaranteed purchases.

I can best describe this by telling you about a ‘deal’ I actually did.

A printing company rep walked into my office one day and began to present me with his usual spiel in pursuitof signing me on as a new client. When he had finished, I asked him “How much are you prepared to offer mefor the (extra profit) business I will bring to your business?”

He looked confused. I continued, “Last year the printing company I used received about $600,000 from mealone. What are YOU prepared to pay me for my custom in order to have a guaranteed yearly income of thatamount in your company?” I repeated, “What is $600,000 worth to your company?”

It took a moment for the rep to recover and then he said, “I’ve never been asked that question before. I’ll haveto consult my boss, but what would you want?” I replied that I thought my custom was worth at least $20,000.About a week later, the printing rep came back to my office. “We’ll pay you $30,000 for TWO years!”

What I did was to pre-sell guaranteed future purchases from the printer and created income out of thin air. Inthe end I decided to stay with the printing company I had, but it was a fascinating exercise!

Of course I am not giving you financial advice; this is simply how I choose to run my business and it may beof interest to you. As always with these matters, you should seek the advice of a trained professional.

Dear Friend,

I hope something has been stirred in you that will propel you forward and cause you to take some positive action so that you get where you want to in life.

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Best Regards, Mal Emery Committed to Elevating the Financial Wealth and Wellbeing of Society Through Entrepreneurial Excellence and Guilty of Conspiracy to Create Capitalism.

Mal Emery

http://www.rebelliousrant.com/

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