Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
August 27, 2010
Issue #998
My Secret Weapon:
The “unfair advantage” that has helped me
beat the competition into submission since 1995:
How you can have it, too …
Dear Business-Builder,
They say the ultimate in “chutzpah” is killing your parents, then asking the judge for mercy because you’re an orphan.
I know – gross. But you gotta admire people who know what they want and who’ll go to just about any lengths to get it.
Like the guy I knew who landed an airplane, unannounced at a KGB listening post at the Arctic Circle and bribed a Soviet Colonel to lend him a helicopter – just so his son could make it into The Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest person ever to visit the North Pole.
Or the infamous mercenary and publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine I spent a day and a raucous evening with in 1980 who got himself invited to tag along on the Bay of Pigs Invasion just for grins.
Or the guy I met just last week, who sold Castro a boatload of coffee for $1.8 million – cash in advance – then told the Cuban authorities his boat had sunk on its way to Havana.
I don’t care who you are; this stuff is priceless.
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Posted by:
Troy White
July 9, 2009
Issue #711
In this issue:
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Six questions that may give you a breakthrough in the next week …
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The mastermind meeting unveiling of simple solutions …
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Uncovering the block that keeps you from moving forward …
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And Much More!
Fellow Business-Builder,
1,542 e-mails in the past seven days.
That doesn’t include any newsletters I subscribe to either. That is strictly 95% spam, and the rest are legitimate business e-mails.
Recently, I was in a mastermind meeting for over 12 hours – and this e-mail problem kept popping up around the room.
And it made the conversation turn to management of your various business functions.
As much as I love to talk about marketing and advertising strategies for small business, I also realize that there is more to business than just the growth side.
If you don’t have some serious management systems (and people) in place, all the marketing you are doing can just as easily go to waste.
One of the mastermind members runs a real estate investment type of company.
She has been doing this for many years, and one of her more recent projects has been her most trying.
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Posted by:
Troy White
November 28, 2008
Issue #556
Fellow Business-Builders,
You are going to love the rest of this success story!
If you haven’t read the first half, make sure you go back to last week’s article and go through the details.
Brendan Ready shared with me his brilliant strategy for selling a commodity type product for huge margins over his competitors.
Some of the things he covered in our last week’s article …
- Do what your competitors aren’t willing to do to open up new territories.
- Go where the real money is … and charge appropriately.
- Find areas that are not being served properly.
- Be creative in how you pay your team members – get them excited about how much they can make … and how much of a mini-celebrity you are making them.
- Charge very high premiums for a unique service and product that creates an unforgettable experience … one they can’t wait to share with their friends.
- Plus a lot more was covered … make sure you read it!
back to the interview …
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Posted by:
Michael Masterson
November 25, 2008
Issue #553
"This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back."
John Ilhan
I believe that for every business, at any given time, there is an optimum strategy for acquiring new customers - and that the primary marketing obligation of the company’s CEO is to make sure that strategy is discovered and implemented.
What do I mean by an optimum strategy for acquiring new customers?
I mean a marketing and sales strategy that will produce the greatest long-term benefit to the company. Usually, that means finding and converting the greatest number of high-lifetime-value customers, i.e., customers who will continue to buy products from the company for years into the future.
Here’s an example …
Since its inception, EarlytoRise.com has recruited almost all its customers through Internet advertising. Of the many conversion strategies we have tested, two have so far proven effective:
- Selling informational reports on other websites and then giving buyers a free subscription to our daily e-zine, which then sells them all sorts of "back-end" products.
- Targeting search engine users on a pay-per-click basis with a free special report, and then giving them a free subscription to the e-zine with its back-end selling.
What we found - over and over again - is that those who had purchased our informational reports were worth considerably more over the long-term than those who had responded to our free report offers.
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Posted by:
Troy White
November 21, 2008
Issue #551
Fellow Business-Builders,
You are going to love this success story!
I know I do … I’ve probably shared it with a thousand people by now.
Why?
Because it is packed with useful tips on how a relatively average, commodity-type business turned things around and now charges > 12,000% more than his competition.
The next best thing about this: Brendan Ready did this without buying 400 e-books, $1,500 home study programs, or attending thirty different $2,500 per person workshops.
Here is a guy who is well on track for a $1.5 million dollar a year business in his first year. I can see it tripling in size every year, if they can handle it.
Now, I am one for training through books, home study programs, and seminars. I invest $20,000+ per year in this … not to mention what I pay my coach and mastermind groups (more than my education investment). I would highly recommend you invest in your education too.
Even with Brendan’s success, he had never even heard of some of the strategies I shared with him. One of which is an easy extra million a year for him if he wants.
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