The Multiple “O” Zone
of Small Business Marketing
In this issue:
- Are you selling a book… or building a business? The practical funnel system that will save your hide in business.
- Small Business Mastery readers speak out!
- How do you be THE one the prospect buys from?
- Giving them a Multiple O experience that keeps them coming back for more
- Practical examples of outrageous marketing
- And Much More!
Fellow business builder,
What wonderful questions you have! The last couple weeks have seen quite a few comments and questions being made around the lead generation and conversion techniques I have shared. If you haven’t read those articles yet – have a look at them here: "How To Write Lead Generation Display Ads" and "Turning Your Leads Into Buyers.
A couple more great questions came in that I wanted to answer…
Bob asked: "Hi Troy, What a great article! How could I adapt the method to sell books? I mean should I try to sell from the ad or offer a free report first? My book will be published in two months time and I will appreciate your comments. Regards, Bob"
Hi Bob, I have worked with quite a few authors so I can share some of my experiences with you. First, a book is typically quite inexpensive, so the offer of all this free information first may not be as needed as higher priced items. That said, it is just as challenging to sell a $25 item as it is a $250 or even $2,500 item. It may seem counter-intuitive to say that, but reality proves it fairly accurate. So, you need to let the potential reader learn more about you, your personality, your story, and what you can help them do. [Side note: I have not sold fiction books before so this information is more suited to non-fiction guides].
The first thing you must give some serious thought to… a book is NOT a business. Well before you start selling your book, you must seriously think through what else you will sell to them. This is a common issue with first-time authors – believing they can make a living with just a single book to sell. You can count yourself very fortunate and skilled if you can earn a real income from just a book. Why?
Think about it:
Average book price $25
Printing and fulfillment costs $9
Left over per book - $16
How many books a day do you need to sell to make a living at $16 per book?
Let’s say you set that number at 20 books = $320 per day.
You need a website, a merchant account, a shopping cart, email campaigns and newsletters. All costs you money.
Oh yeah, you also need leads!
You can find those in numerous different ways… but for now, let’s assume you find the perfect place to run some ads. It costs you $0.25 per lead (which would be a great deal!). For every 100 leads you get – you pay out $25 in advertising costs. Let's assume your leads for your inexpensive book convert at 5% which would be exceptional. For every 100 leads – you sell 5 books. It costs you $25 for the leads ($5 per buyer) and you earn $80 (total profit of $80 - $25 = $55). To sell 20 books a day you would need 400 leads a day minimum.
Enough of that. You can see why your book alone will be a challenge to make real money with.
BUT, if you have a hot book, a great subject, and a fantastic ad – you can make money. And even bigger money when you bring out the audio version of your book, the home study version of your book, the seminar based on your book.
Some of the ways I have personally used to help sell a ton of books:
- Lead generation ads that offer 3 free chapters of the book
- Amazon style campaigns where you get a large number of digital bonuses if you buy the book on this day. These ARE losing their effectiveness… BUT they still work. We used this last summer and sold 40,000 books in 2 months for a client using this model
- You can test selling direct from the ad
- You can, and should, test selling via direct mail to regular book buyers (you can buy lists of these through reputable list brokers)
- You can test the Special Report based on the subject of your book – the report sells the book as a front end product for your backend products, where the real money is made.
I hope this didn’t come across as being negative on books or being an author. I am an author of a best selling book; I have my own books out – and I LOVE the information business. All I wanted to convey is the process of thinking through what ELSE you are going to sell to them, after they buy your book. Do this now, before your book is out, and you will make a much better income from the launch.
Brenton asked: "How is the process you have defined over the past couple of weeks the same or different if what you are trying to do is ultimately targeting successful executives who want to start their own business and you are attempting to convince them to start their own coaching/training franchise costing $50K for the start up fee? Cheers! Brenton"
If there is a list you found that was compiled of these execs… it is worth its weight in franchise gold! So your lead generation is already done. Now that you have a targeted lead – you need to move them to the warm lead stage (at this point – from the list – all you know is that they want a change. They still don’t even know you exist). So in essence you need to move them through your marketing system to weed out those that are serious about making the change from those who are not.
You need to put together a campaign that (a) informs them that you have a solution to the problem or question that keeps nagging at them… them wanting to be their own boss… and (b) gives them a no-risk way to express their interest. This could be for them to call or fill out an online form supplying their contact information. From there you would send them a special report, a book, a CD or DVD, a testimonial booklet, etc. You could also offer them a 1-on-1 consultation as part of this phase.
With a price tag of $50k, you need multiple steps in your system. You should use a combination of information products, consulting time, teleseminars, webinars, case studies (try and specifically target other execs from their industry who took the plunge into the entrepreneurial world), face to face meetings, etc.
This reminds me of a company called Action International in a way. They approached me 7 years ago with something similar. At that time I was in sales in the computer world, selling high end data recovery systems to Fortune 500 clients. And I was fed-up and looking for a change. The system they used was similar to what I just described.
From warming me up to the idea – to screening me to see how serious I was – right down to the final application stage and personal interviews.
They were very persistent and made sure I understood both what life was like on the other side, but also that this was not for everyone and they were only looking for a certain type of person.
If you don’t have the list yet of these executives… find a good list broker – they can help. Or, try running some lead generation advertisements in the most prominent business magazines, those read by executives. Inc. and Fortune are a couple good ones to start with. The New Yorker may be another. Look at the demographics of their reads to determine the best bet (most of the magazines have their media kit on their website – the media kit will give you the details you need to determine the demographics of their readers.
Hope this helps Brenton!
Are you giving your clients a Multiple 'O'
when dealing with your small business?
It seems like a bad dream sometimes! Have you recently gone out and tried to find a new therapeutic masseuse? Or a chiropractor? Maybe you are in need of another virtual assistant to help you grow your business further?
I am looking for all 3 of these right now – and I cannot believe (well, yes I can) how difficult it is to find someone who stands out from the others.
Is there some small business 101 school that I don’t know about that is teaching everyone to promote their business the same as the other?
It sure seems that way.
If you are having a tough time attracting new clients, there may be good reason.
Over the past couple weeks we have gone through some lead generation and conversion strategies. Today I want to talk about the good old ground moving, weak at the knees, multiple O, that really is possible. This is something that any business can implement… and when they do, will see a higher quality of client knocking at their door… quivering at the knees to be a part of what they have to offer.
Three of the most powerful ways
to give your clients the 'Big O' are:
Give them an outrageous offer.
Promise them something that any sane person couldn’t turn down. Be the first in your city or industry to actually step up to the plate and propose something that they have never been offered before… and make it good.
Look at the biggest, baddest, most outrageous claims you have seen made by other businesses in other industries… and modify them to suit your business.
Some of the outrageous claims I have seen lately?
A new car… a new laptop… $50,000 spending money… trip around the world for free for two… 1 million gifts to be handed out this summer… your own personal trainer for a year for free… your own personal butler for a year for free… and so on. These alone are media worthy – and these alone can get many people to buy into your offer, just to be part of the fun and prizes.
The question is, how can you make it fit YOUR business?
Overwhelm them with generosity.
This really goes back to the good old reliable risk reversal strategy. When you make everything you are doing so brain-dead-simple to make a decision to buy on, then you have hit your hot spot.
This may sound kind of harsh, but the average small business doesn’t need to do much these days to stand out from the crowd and overwhelm others with unique generosity.
You can start with a simple thank you card!
No one does this anymore… for some unknown reason. There are automated services that do this for you, like Sendoutcards.com, which I use. You can have your assistant enter every new client's name in the Sendoutcard database and it automatically sends them a thank you card, in your handwriting. Not only that, you can have it automatically insert specific thank you gifts into the card.
Then, after the card arrives, have your fulfillment team send them a free book. Not an e-book – but a real physical book. When you buy them in bulk, the price can be very reasonable.
A week after that – send them an audio CD of you sharing some great tips for success with your product or service.
It really doesn’t take much these days to stand out from the crowd when it comes to customer service and a WOW type of experience. Very few businesses even attempt it – I recommend you do. Some examples of all of these are below in real life applications.
Ohhhh-myyyy-god!
Getting them to say “yes – yes – yes!” many times over will ensure you are never again lacking happy clients. This WILL be your most profitable area to invest in. We’ve all heard the numbers… it takes twice as much work and effort to sell to a first time buyer as a second. And when you learn how to get your existing clients to come back for more on a continual basis, you will see your profits go sky high.
How do you give them this feeling?
It starts from the second they lay eyes on you. You must be the one that not only stands out to them, but is the only one who really understands them. Once you understand the demographics of your client base, you will know what they want to hear, how they like to be approached, how they prefer to be sold to, and how they like to be pampered after the initial meeting.
Think back on all of your best, most enjoyable buying experiences… is there a common theme? Start writing down every buying experience you have personally had that made you smile. What did they do to warm you up? To convince you to buy? To buy again? Then cross reference your list against your clients and your offering. What can you do to give them that weak knee feeling that they have just fallen in love with you and would do anything to keep the relationship going?
Think about it this way…
…If you invested 30-60 minutes a week on fine tuning your "multiple O" skills… you cannot and will not go wrong. You will find the best techniques that work for your ‘mates’ and keep them coming back for more.
As an example, here are some of my big O moments I have planned for the next few weeks:
- Oh-my-God! Moment: At the upcoming Wild West Wealth Summit, there will be an illusionist there (appropriately in his Wild West character)… who may just make a person appear out of nowhere! What if I told you that the person he may be making appear out of nowhere is the great Ted Nicholas, who is a living legend in the direct marketing field? What if our master illusionist also is going to show the entrepreneurs in the room how to create magic in the eyes of their customers and prospects.. in essence… hypnotizing them into a buying trance?
- Overwhelm them with generosity: Again, I am going to use the Wild West Wealth Summit as an example. Not only is this the first event of it’s kind in Canada, but I am also flying in some of the greatest marketing minds in the world. Being that this is a Wild West theme, the attendees will be handed many generous gifts (some of which I can’t say here, it would spoil the fun!). But, they get their own high end felt cowboy hat (selling for $100); they get a private day with just Ted Nicholas, learning how he has sold $4.9 billion dollars using effective marketing. They get lunch, breakfast, and a cocktail party with some VERY unique twists. And they get all of this for only $495 – AND they can bring a guest for free. Time will tell how it goes over, but in a market where quality seminars never happen… I fully intend on this being the event of the year for savvy entrepreneurs.
- An outrageous offer: A couple years ago, I ran an ad in the local paper for a seminar I was holding that claimed:
"Father of Twins Sees Double Everywhere…
Offers a DOUBLE your PROFIT or FREE guarantee!"
The offer was they could bring in any single marketing campaign they had working for them (or not working)… and over the 2 day workshop we would redesign it the way it should be done. After the workshop they would run their new marketing campaign and measure the results. If the results weren’t at least double what they used to get, they would get their money back for the workshop. Yes, it takes some brass ones to claim this – which was my point. I knew I could help them get what they wanted – and I was willing to put it on the line to prove it to them.
How’d it work? Some people never ran the campaigns that we created (good old fear of something new, combined with the negative nellies in their lives that told them it would never work). But those who actually did run the campaigns saw massive boosts to their results. One lady saw a 300% increase immediately on her lead generation. Another hypnotherapist had to hire 2 more people to handle all of his new patient load.
Did I have to refund anyone? No. We came close with one guy… it only did 46% better. But he was more interested in getting that 46% to a 100% or more increase than his money back. So we are reworking it until we gets what he is looking for.
For any of the above to work, you seriously need to think ‘out-of-the-box’, as cliché as that sounds.
I would recommend you go to your local bookstore this weekend – and pick up some magazines from completely unrelated industries.
Buy 5 or 10 of them.
Go through them from front to back. And rip out the most audacious ads and ideas you see. When you have your stack of pages ripped out, get a pen and a piece of paper and start coming up with ideas on HOW you can modify them to suit your business.
And then NEVER show anyone (unless you know they understand this kind of marketing).
Show them the results you get – not the ideas you have. Too many people are quick to trash your ideas, when they have no clue what makes for effective marketing. You do – use that knowledge to make it happen… and then please send me your story!
To your success,
Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE
A Final Note:
If you have specific subjects you would like addressed, or have any comments on what you have seen here, please submit a comment below and I will see how I can help.
"Do not commit the terrible crime of aiming too low "
– Og Mandino
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– Clayton
Comment by Brenton — May 29, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
Thanks for the tips Troy!
There is no list of leads as of yet.The client is actually in Canada and is looking for affiliates in Canada first. Any list brokers you can recommend? Canadian biz pubs that they should run small spaced ads in? I was thinking of offering a free report about the pitfalls of starting a coaching business and how to avoid them. A small spaced ad in the Globe and Mail is the only lead generator used so far, but it\\\’s not pulling in many quality leads.
Cheers!
Brenton
Comment by John — May 29, 2007 @ 8:19 pm
Outstanding advice, Troy - THANKS!
My biggest challenge is that the #1 reason people don\\\’t buy what we are selling is that they seem to believe they don\\\’t deserve the benefits.
What we do is simple, and there are lots of testimonials of success we can share. It also applies to anyone (anyone who wants to employ others, or do work themselves, that is) but for some reason people usually look at all the evidence with their heads and their heart decides to just continue doing the same old ineffective (and painful) stuff they\\\’ve been doing for years. No, make that decades.
Any comments you can share on how we can bring people to believe that they deserve to have both the tangible and the emotional benefits they\\\’re reading about?
Thanks!
John