Posted by: Daniel Levis
August 8, 2007
Issue #198

“Give Me the Place to Stand,
and I Shall Move the Earth!”
– Archimedes

In this issue:

• Creating wealth through leverage – How small inputs can sometimes equal large outputs …
• Seven hidden force multipliers waiting in your business to be exploited …
• The Leverage Model – A case study in finding points of leverage and turning them into new customers …
• Plus more!

Dear Business Builder,

1700 years ago, Archimedes knew that by applying a mechanical lever, he could lift the heaviest of weights with the slightest of forces.

Today, I want you to know that you can use this very same concept in your business to turn little inputs into large outputs!

I’m talking about using leverage in your business to turn a relatively small amount of effort, capital, and capability into an inordinately large amount of cash!

Whether you’re just starting out in business, or already running a multi-million dollar business, leverage holds the key to increased profits and wealth. It’s just sitting there, waiting for you to apply.

Here, let me give you the formula.

Take a blank piece of paper, and make an inventory of your assets. Like this:

• Your sales skills
• Your marketing skills
• Your specialized knowledge
• Your money
• Your products
• Your copy
• Your content
• Your infrastructure
• Your lists
• Your contacts
• Your time
• Your brand
• Your employees
• Etc.

Now, you see the picture up there, with the two weights? The items on your list represent the smaller weight. And the bag of money you’re after is the bigger one.

Your job is to find an external lever that multiplies the force of your assets, so you can lift that pile of money up and deposit it into your bank account.

To obtain that lever, there is always a quid pro quo: sometimes a direct monetary transaction, but more often than not, a creative bringing together of assets between two or more businesses, where each party to the transaction benefits in some way.

To stimulate your thinking, let me give you a few examples from my Bootstrap Money Makers Series. It’s turning into the ultimate crash course in using leverage to bootstrap a business.

Each one of the call participants laid out a plan to go from zero to hero in 30 days or less, starting with no list … no products … no notoriety … and just a thousand bucks.

Seven hidden force multipliers waiting
in your business to be exploited …

Let’s take a high level look at just a few of the points of leverage they used:

On the first call, THE TOTAL PACKAGE’S own Clayton Makepeace talked about leveraging his talents as a film producer. How did he do it?

He looked for external levers that would allow him to quickly sell promotional opportunities to local merchants.

Instead of approaching each merchant separately with his proposal, he worked through the local Chamber of Commerce. This afforded him both mechanical and psychological leverage. Working through the Chamber of Commerce dramatically reduced the amount of time it took him to make his pitch, and gave him the credibility he needed to close a much higher percentage of his target market.

The Chamber of Commerce was glad to make the introduction, because it fit right in with their mandate to bring potentially valuable business opportunities to the attention of its members.

On the second call, one of the things JP Maroney talked about was leveraging a product by approaching other businesses that sell to the same target audience as you do. You simply give them a promotional insert that they mail out in their newsletter.

When the sales come in, you pay your new partner half of the proceeds. Again, we have both mechanical and psychological leverage at play here. You save on postage by riding along with an existing mailing, and you capitalize on the good will and trust your partner has built up with his or her customers. Brilliant!

On the third call, Steve Manning mapped out a strategy for doing the same sort of thing online, and demonstrated how you can leverage a small low-ticket e-book into a much higher ticket item, simply by repurposing the information in different modalities.

On the fourth call, Michel Fortin showed how he was able to leverage his presentation skills by approaching a printing shop that had a small conference room in the back of their shop that they rented out to local merchants. Instead of approaching clients one by one to develop his fledgling consulting business, Michel cut a deal with the print shop where he’d come in and give free marketing presentations to draw more people into their store.

The store benefited because they saw fresh new traffic, and Michel dramatically increased the number of prospects he was able to communicate with. Not only that, his message was delivered with far greater credibility than if he were to approach each business individually. He gained both mechanical and psychological leverage.

On the fifth call, Marc Goldman explained how he was able to take a resale rights product and leverage it by combining it with a directory to other complimentary resources freely available on the Internet. By adding value to it, he was able to sell it for double what his competitors where selling it for. Later he leveraged the directory as well, by selling access to it on a recurring basis.

Both of these are examples of psychological leverage. In the first case creating increased perceived value for the product, and in the second decreasing the perceived cost. Marc knew that it was much easier to get people to pay $50 a month on a recurring basis than $300 up front. The net result of applying these points of leverage was a dramatic increase in customer value.

On the sixth call, Michael Cage talked about using affinity groups combined with communications technology to leverage your sales skills. He laid out a step-by-step plan for approaching various trade associations and offering to put on free training teleseminars for their members. Cage shows you how to sell your information products in big bunches like bananas before they’re even created with nothing but a phone line and a simple one page website. Talk about leverage!

And on the seventh call, Perry Marshall demonstrated how he leveraged his knowledge by using the principle of reciprocity to nab lucrative consulting gigs.

There are still two calls left, and you can get in FREE!

The Leverage Model – A case study
in finding points of leverage
and turning them into new customers …

In reviewing the calls, I counted 21 different ways to leverage human capital, knowledge, technology, customer lists, physical assets, and more … and a definite pattern for thinking about your business and your marketing that will help you to find them.

Without a doubt, the more leverage your business or your marketing exploits, the more successful you’ll be. Going over these calls with a fine-toothed comb has helped me to develop a simple five-step brainstorming process.

I ask myself the following five questions:

1. What assets do I have at my immediate disposal?
2. Who else interacts with my target market?
3. How can I leverage my existing assets by temporally combining them with the assets of those third parties who interact with my target audience in a way that benefits everyone?
4. How can I use technology to obliterate time and space, thereby further leveraging my existing assets?
5. How can I create psychological leverage? By this I mean – how can I take my basic marketing message, and deliver it in a context that amplifies its selling power?

Let me give you an example of how I used this just recently.

A potential new client asked me for advice on how to get more customers for her beauty salon.

I discovered she had a great downtown location … a small but fiercely loyal clientele … some really great stylists … and a knack for creating a fun experience for her customers.

I also learned she caters mostly to professional people who work in the office towers that surround her salon. And that there are shoe and clothing stores, restaurants and bars, jewelery stores and things like that nearby that service the same clientele.

Here’s what I suggested:

I told her to get a list of all of the companies with 50 or more employees within comfortable walking distance of her salon. This is a huge list, because some of the office towers in her area are over 100 stories tall!

“We’re going to send the office manager in each one of those businesses a letter that shows her how to give her employees a surprise bonus!” I said.

“I’ll write you a letter to send her introducing the idea and explaining that you’re willing to give her as many $50 gift certificates as she needs to reward everyone in her office – as a special “Thank You” from her company for a job well done.

Enclosed with your letter, will be another letter announcing the surprise bonus to the company employees, and a flyer selling the benefits of your salon with a clip-out gift certificate worth $50. All the office manager has to do is photocopy them, sign the cover letters, and slip them into the pay packet of each employee.

It costs her company nothing, generates loads of employee good will, and makes her look like a hero. She will have every incentive to do it. Just in case, you’ll promise to give her a $100 gift certificate for her personal use.”

Now let’s look at the wonderful leverage afforded by this bootstrapping plan.

First, instead of spending a lot of money on advertising, my client leverages her great location, and enlists third parties who interact with her target audience to deliver her sales message. This gives her incredible mechanical leverage. Her sales message gets to her target audience almost free.

Second, by approaching her target prospects through trusted third parties like this, she gains powerful psychological leverage. Not only does her salon have the tacit endorsement of the prospect’s employer, the gift certificate looks like a perk that the employee has earned, and should therefore take full advantage of.

Do you think this idea will overrun my client’s salon with fresh new customers? You better believe it!

And since the average transaction will be worth north of $100, she’s guaranteed a huge return on investment. Now how’s that for leverage?

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

P.S. Join me this Thursday for Bootstrap Money Maker call #8, where I’ll be interviewing online copywriter to the Internet marketing stars, Ray Edwards.

Growing up dirt poor in a depressed area of Eastern Kentucky, Ray found himself on his own at the age of 17, unemployed, and living in a cockroach-infested apartment. His only possessions were a card table, an alarm clock, a .22 caliber rifle, a Charlie Daniels album, and a lime green ‘77 Chevy Chevette.

Today, Ray is a published author, a sought-after speaker, and an in-demand direct marketing copywriter (he’s booked solid for the next 8 months!). His clients include Chicken Soup co-creators Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, New York Times Best-selling Author Joel Comm, and well-known Internet Marketers Brad Callen, Alex Mandossian, Frank Kern, and Matt Bacak.

Discover the unusual tactics Ray used to make this remarkable transition against all odds … how he’d do it differently today … and how you too can apply the very same street wise strategies to your own business for startlingly quick profits.

It’s FREE to attend. Register NOW!

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2 Comments »

1. Comment by James MacGillivray — August 8, 2007 @ 5:47 pm

   Hi Daniel,
   Thanks so much for sharing the info on building sales for the salon.
   I had a cafe in New Zealand and did a Joint Venture with my local gym. We were in the same block of shops and shared the same customer profiles.
   The promotion generated a 500% ROI and the promotion was featured in Bill Glazer\’s \’Outside the Box\’ newsletter.
   You might be surprised to know that all I gave away was a free cup of coffee.
   As always, I look forward to hearing you creating \’real life\’ success stories.
   Thanks a million!

2. Comment by Scottt — August 11, 2007 @ 9:14 pm

   Yo Mo Fo,

   That was awesome. Wish I saw it a couple days ago as I could have swiped some for a piece I did.

   Right On!

   Vote Ron Paul for Save Our Country