Business Coaching

Power Parthenon Beats The Diving Board

Recently I was reviewing the Jay Abraham inspired articles I had written and I was astonished to see that I hadn't written about the Power Parthenon of geometric business growth.

I have covered the strategy of preeminence, funnel vision, greatest headlines and adapted the three ways to grow a business model, but all my mentions of the Power Parthenon were in passing when I was talking about something else or someone else.

According to Jay Abraham, too many businesses work on the principle of Diving Board Marketing where they get the majority of their business from just one source.

 

So in this case I have used the example of a business depending on the Internet for attracting leads but it could be a direct sales force, it could direct mail, telemarketing, referrals or many others.

And when times are good, this model can provide a stable business unless something happens. So for the Internet example, it could be that Google changes the algorithm and the website falls from the cherished number one position for the main keywords to position sixteen and traffic falls by 95% immediately. It could be that the main sales person is poached by your main competitor after a double your money offer.

Or it can be that your own initiatives cause your business to behave unpredictably and as I explained in the beer game, sudden change can produce a series of difficulties, particularly when times are uncertain anyway.

What happens when sales are slow. It is so tempting that you have special promotions to make your sales numbers for the quarter, would you?

"Buy now and save 10% of the price."

Your regular customers take advantage, just as you would want and buy but next month they don't need to buy again. You have introduced a shock to your system and you create supply problems and excess costs.

Whatever the cause, the business is fundamentally unstable and vulnerable to shocks.

But when you build a Power Parthenon by adding multiple lead generation sources, the business becomes much stronger and you start Jay's concept of geometric business growth by adding another 20% from direct mail, 30% from telemarketing...

 

Each pillar of lead generation techniques makes the business stronger and while I have only included five pillars to make it easy to draw, you can have many more.

Jay Conrad Levinson of Guerrilla Marketing has identified 200 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons that you can use and improve. Not all of them will be suitable but many of them could be used to bring you extra business.

The Power Parthenon doesn't stop at this first level.

Remember the idea of Jay Abraham's Three Ways To Grow A Business Model:

1. More customers, who
   
2. Spend more, and
   
3. Buy more often
   

Each of the pillars can be used for difference purposes and in different ways.

I have just added extra legs for each of the three ways to grow but you may have multiple methods to achieve these objectives only limited by your time, money, energy and imagination.

Resources To Help Implement The Power Parthenon

The Power Parthenon is one of the ideas covered in Jay Abraham's great audio program from Nightingale Conant - Mastermind Marketing System - follow the link to hear sample snippets.

Scott Hallman and the Small Business Growth Club provide a systematised basis to win more customers and sell more, more often.

The Guerrilla Marketing Association (30 day free trial) includes six hours of audios of Jay Conrad Levinson explaining all 200 Guerrilla Marketing Weapons and the Guerrilla Marketing Toolkit is an excellent way to implement the Guerrilla Marketing concepts. Ideas are great, action produces the money.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Jay Abraham Recession Wealth Building Strategy

Overnight an email came in from Jay Abraham promoting his new project - The Ultimate Recessionary, Wealth-Building Strategy which he is promoting through a series of free teleseminars.

This follows quickly on his Golden Nuggets / Brain Trust calls he made a few weeks ago but Jay Abraham is a natural for turning his mind and money-making ability to how to prosper in the recession.

I asked the question "Who do you want to advise you on how to prosper in a recession?" in my review of Jay Conrad Levinson's book "Guerrilla Marketing During Tough Times".

Somebody who has experienced recessions and knows what it is all about or someone who only knows the good times?

Sometimes experience counts big time.

What's all it about? Here is a snippet from Jay's webpage.

"I call the strategy “The Recessionary Leverage-Impact Power Play” and it allows anyone with an eye for untapped opportunities, underperforming activities or underutilized assets to “leverage - up” everything from the performance and profitability of their business (or employer’s business) to other people’s skills, efforts, relationships, assets, and enterprises."

So I recommend that you take 90 minutes out of your busy schedule and listen to exactly what Jay Abraham has to say. This link lets you find out details about the Ultimate Wealth Building Strategy.

Jay Abraham's proven techniques for leveraging the opportunities that your existing customers provide and then building on relationships provides a natural solution when things get tough.

You may be familiar with many of Jay's ideas but it will be interesting to hear how he adapts established ideas to the recession.

Unfortunately three calls are scheduled but because of time differences from Los Angeles to the UK and prior commitments, I can't make any of them. So if you due listen it, I would appreciate it if you could come back and add a comment to explain what he covered.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Guerrilla Marketing In Tough Times (sales letter)

My favourite low priced Jay Abraham resource is the MasterMind Marketing System. It turned me into a Jay Abraham fanatic.

Maven Marketing Home Study

Back in January and February my blog was buzzing with news of the joint venture between Jay Abraham and Rich Schefren on their Maven Marketing project.

If you are not familiar with the word "maven" and I hadn't heard it before Rich Schefren started using it, a maven is regarded as the trusted expert in their field, the "go to guy" if you like. (See Wikipedia for maven)

If you remember Jay and Rich released another of Rich's famous reports, the Maven Marketing Manifesto which you can still download for free which gave you an insight in how to become a (or the) maven in your market niche.

I told you that I was buying the Maven Marketing Home Study program. How could I refuse when two of my favourite gurus come together to talk about something that I am trying to do myself.

The main component of the maven home study kit is the recordings from the three day of workshops that Jay Abraham and Rich Schefren held after the Strategic Profits conference in February although it is backed up my plenty of extra reading materials and twice a month coaching calls with Jay and Rich.

Technical Difficulties Caused Delays

The original time for distribution of the home study was late April, then it was going to be May.

But still nothing turned up.

But it came on Monday in a great big box and as I watched the first DVD yesterday Jay and Rich have such enthusiasm for this concept that I believe the Maven Marketing experience is going to be great.

What is In the Maven Marketing Home Study

Fortunately the enormous box had a lot of packing but even when all that is taken away we have a big box of goodies which has:

1. 14 DVDs and 26 audio Cds from the live Maven Marketing Intensive Boot Camp
    
2. Jay's ideas on the strategy of preeminence and the advanced strategy of preeminence
    
3. Swinging for the fences
    
4. Character building blogs so that you can build your maven character or personality
    
5. The maven marketing plan
    
6. The joint venture matchmaking template

Just watching the two of them has given me a real buzz and I am now re-arranging my plans to squeeze in as much of the Maven Marketing Home Study as I can into my schedule.

The more I watch what is happening with marketing and all the clutter, the more I realise that the Maven concept is the way to go. Seth Godin was right. You do need to focus on permission marketing and the people most listened to are the mavens.

I expect this to be part of a much bigger future launch (and probably at a higher price) but I think that you can still get a copy of this first version of the Maven Home Study.

But I will be keeping you up-to-date with my thoughts and progress at becoming a maven.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

My favourite low priced Jay Abraham resource is the MasterMind Marketing System. It was this great audio program which turned me into a Jay Abraham fanatic.

How To Increase Profits Quickly & Easily

Marketing guru Jay Abraham is famous for many ideas and innovations but one of the most powerful is his concept of stripping down the complexities of business growth into three components:

1. Increase the number of customers
    
2. Increase the value of each transaction
    
3. Increase the number of times an average customer buys per year

If sales turnover equals £840,000 per annum, it can be broken down into:

• 200 customers
• who spend  on average £700 per transaction
• and buy six times per year.

200 x 700 x 6 = £840,000

So simple but so powerful because it:

a) breaks the focus on increasing sales by attracting new customers. The idea of selling more to existing customers is opened up and the success of Jay Abraham and his followers has shown that most companies do not maximise their opportunity with existing customers.

b) the model creates exponential, geometric growth. Increasing each factor by 10% generates 33% total growth. Increasing the three drivers of growth by 20% each creates 72.8% growth.

Adapting The Model To Increase Profit

Often higher turnover translates directly into higher profit but because times are tough I want to adapt Jay Abraham's model to show you how you can increase profits quickly and easily.

My revised profit increase model is:

1. Increase the number of customers
    
   
2. Increase the average profit margin of each transaction
    
   
3. Increase the number of times the customers buy on average in the year
    
   
4. Reduce the overhead costs
   

So the first three when multiplied together create Total Margin which becomes Profit when Overhead costs are deducted.

Reducing Overhead Costs

The quickest wins and boost to profit can be to cut your overhead costs.

If your average margin is 25%, then to increase profit by £1,000 you can either increase your sales by £4,000 (to create an extra £1,000 margin) or reduce overheads directly by £1,000.

I discussed cost cutting in  considerable detail in my day 2 review of the 7 Day Business Turnaround Kit - see cost cutting in your business turnaround for more details

The essence is that you need to:

1. Cut any costs which exceed the value/benefit they create.
     
   
2. Review your other costs to make sure that you are getting as much "bank for your buck" as you should. This includes reviewing employees - their role may be necessary but you may have some under-performing in the role. See Difficult Decisions Made  Easier for details of Brian Tracy's technique called zero based think.
   

Increasing Your Margin

The Jay Abraham formula is simple and its implications for increasing profits quickly and easily is clear.

Focus on your existing customers and clients and implement techniques to persuade them to buy more and to buy more often. Then when your clients are receiving an outstanding service from you, tap them for referrals. This is the method that Jay Abraham has used to devastating success throughout his stellar career.

The problem is that Jay's techniques are deceptively simple and that has caused followers to struggle with his ideas. This is why I want to introduce you to Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club and in particular the Increase Profits work stream.

Scott Hallman & the Small Business Growth Club

Scott is a keen student of Jay Abraham and has been since 1992 when he attended a three day $5,000 course. Since then Scott Hallman has become a very successful entrepreneur and is now probably the leading business coach in the world who still works with clients charging $1,250 per hour. Scott has also presented on stage to Jay Abraham's clients and he is recognised at the master of implementation.

What Scott has done is take the Jay Abraham ideas and turn them into an easy-to-implement system. A step-by-step guide to increasing profits and the six modules I have worked through so far are brilliant in the way Scott explains the concepts, reveals the opportunities with a host of examples across a wide range of industries and then leads you by the nose through the implementation.

I just do not understand why the Small Business Growth Club is not famous throughout the world.

Increasing Margin With Scott Hallman

Here are the first six modules in the Small Business Growth Club - Increase Profit workstream:

1. How to Effortlessly Get Your Customers to Dramatically Increase their Average Purchase
   
   In this workshop Scott  gives you the detailed systems to increase the amount of up-selling and cross-selling you can do in your business, increasing the amount that customers spend.
    
   
2. Condition Your Customers to Purchase More Often
   
   Did you know that your customers may not buy as often as they want to from you. That's right they recognise that they benefit from buying from you but there busy lives and other distractions get in the way. As Scott Hallman explains, there are simple techniques to help your customers buy your products and services at their optimal purchase frequency.
    
   
3. 10 Ways to Increase Customers Retention by 50% or More
   
   There are two ways to increase the number of customers. The first is to attract more new customers, the second, which is often overlooked, is to reduce the number who stop buying from you. In the true style of a customer focused entrepreneur, the more you focus on making their buying experiences exceed their expectations and really deliver on the promised benefits, the more customers will want to keep buying.
    
   
4. How to Create "Active" Referral Systems to Double Your Referrals Effortlessly
   
   When you have introduced systems to stop or at least reduce the number of customers you lose, the next stage is to introduce active referral systems so that your happy customers are delighted to do both you and their family, friends and colleagues a favour by recommending your business.
    
   
5. Turn Your Customers in "Turbo-Customers"
   
   More advice on ways to persuade your current customers to buy more together with re-converting inactive customers and persistent follow up with unconverted prospects.
    
   
6. How to Double Your Sales Force Without Spending a Dime
   
   I don't know why but the next module I reviewed was out of order but this module on strategic alliances and third party endorsements is still very relevant to earning profits quickly from current customers and prospects because it gives you a quick way to increase your product offerings. Even more powerful is that it opens up the opportunity for you to be recommended to many of your target customers by people they already trust.
   

You can see how well these training modules fit in with Jay Abraham's three ways to grow a business model so as a big Jay fan, you can see why I am so impressed with how Scott Hallman has taken these ideas and each profit improvement strategy into a step by step guide.

The Master Of Implementation

Scott Hallman is known as the master of implementation because he makes things simple to do and he takes away the overwhelm factor.

If you have ever tried to implement a strategy like, for example the first one designed to increase purchase values. You may have read about the ideas of cross-selling and up-selling and hopefully you have paid attention to your own experiences as a buyer and seen how gently and beneficially people introduce opportunities to get more benefit for an increase in purchase value.

But then when you sit down to try to do it in your business, it is difficult to know where to start. You sell so many products and there are so many options.

The "do you want fries with that?" question is easy for the McDonald's kids to ask but what if you don't have the ubiquitous fries? What can you do?

And this is where problems set in.

As soon as you hit a doubt or difficulty, the impetus is lost. You put the cross-selling and up-selling idea to one side while you "think about it".

A week goes buy but there is no answer. Then a month. Then it's three months since you read about the ideas and you've either forgotten about it or you've decided that you don't have cross-selling or up-selling opportunities in your business.

What a Waste! It Doesn't Have To Be Like This.

If you allow this to happen you've wasted your time and effort and even more importantly, you've wasted the opportunity for easy extra profits that a well constructed up-selling and cross-selling strategy can provide.

But it doesn't have to be like that.

Scott Hallman teaches you the Power Of One™ which means that you don't make the common mistake of trying to do too much and failing. Instead you pick one attractive opportunity and focus your attention on making it work and only then, do you roll out the idea across multiple products. 

How To Increase Profits Quickly & Easily

Do you get the impression I like Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club?

If so you are wrong. I love it.

Manufacturing sector or service sector, distribution or retail trades, it is a great product and it is currently available at a great price. You see these techniques being used in Internet marketing but Scott doesn't really operate in the Internet world.

The Small Business Growth Club is for real businesses with real products and services who want to make some real money.

The only downside I have is the website - Small Business Growth Club.

I think that first time visitors find it difficult to navigate around and they become confused and lost. I have told Scott this and I hope it improves. Just head over to Take the tour and follow it through then join when you have seen enough.

If you do need or want to increase profits quickly and easily and you are prepared to put in the effort to learn and implement, then you can't go wrong with the Small Business Growth Club

It is available for a fantastic price that represents only a few minutes of Scott talking to you one-to-one. For less than a dollar a day, you can learn the secrets of success AND how to implement them.

Scott's coaches can provide help and assistance if you have any queries for a small fee and if you are in the UK, I would love to help you implement these ideas.

It's your move now, the website is Small Business Growth Club

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Common Marketing Mistakes Part 4 - Ignoring Customers, No Referral System

This is part 4 of my Common Marketing Mistakes series of articles inspired by Jay Abraham.

So far I have covered six mistakes (and I've provided the links to take you straight to the three previous articles.)

1. Inadequate market research
   
2. No unique selling proposition or USP
3. Not measuring the results of your marketing
4. Not using direct response advertising
5. Not testing
6. Not knowing the customer lifetime value

and today we will add two more to the list:

7 - Focusing all of your attention on new customers

8 - No customer referral system

Putting New Customers Before Your Existing Customers

I believe that your customers are your greatest asset but too often, businesses focus on attracting new customers at the expense of their take-for-granted loyal clients.

I often see special deals to lure new people into the net with special "new customer only" deals but how do you think that makes your existing customers feel?

Banks and building societies are particularly bad at it as they offer much lower interest rates to new borrowers than to existing customers.

It's not fair and it causes customers to be cynical about the company who relies on customer apathy to make money. It rewards customers to switch accounts at considerable inconvenience and that's not good for them or you.

So how do you show your appreciation and thank your existing customers?

Do they enjoy special privileges like special events or first refusal on a scarce product? Do you give them preferred terms of some bonus items? How do you make them feel special?

I would like you to start seeing your customers as a great opportunity and source for hidden profits. They know you, they put up with you and if you treat them right, they can buy more and more often.

Remember Jay Abraham's three ways to grow a business model:

1. Increase the number of customers
2. Increase the average transaction value
3. Increase the number of transactions per year

Fundamental to the last two factors is growth with your existing customers and that can only happen when they are treated fairly and delighted with your product and service.

Not Having A Customer Referral System

Word of mouth recommendation is probably the most successful lead generation approach. It is low cost, easy and your potential customers are predisposed to buy from you.

An advert or a salesman can tell you that "Bloggs widgets are the best money can buy" but because this is the company talking, the messages are biased with such a strong incentive to sell you on the product.

It's much more credible when someone you know and trust and who uses the company regularly tells you that you should buy Bloggs widgets because they really are the best.

The easy way is to just wait for customers to tell other people they know about the fantastic products and services you offer. The problem is that you might be waiting a long time.

We all have too much to think about and unless someone comes along and says "I'm having terrible problems finding a reliable widget supplier. Is the one you use any good?" your best customers won't think about recommending you.

It's not that they don't want to help you out. They just don't think about it because they are so wound up in their own lives.

So you need to have a referrals system where you can prompt your customers to give referrals regularly. They understand what's in it for the prospective customer, you and themselves.

Giving referrals is a nice thing to do. It's good to help people you like and if that means playing matchmaker where one action can help two people, then it is great.

There are many different systems that you could use and Jay Abraham has identified 93 referral systems from his seminars and workshops.

Conclusion

So there you have it - eight common marketing mistakes which cost a fortune in lost opportunities and profits.

I firmly believe than in many businesses the are hidden pockets of profit, just waiting to be found by someone prepared to try a few new marketing ideas.

If you are in central England I'd like to think that you would give me a call but elsewhere I can recommend Jay Abraham's Mastermind Marketing System (a set of six audio CDs from Nightingale Conant which was responsible for my Jay Abraham addiction).

If your budget is modest but you are looking for a  more comprehensive solution with a strong focus  on practical implication, then I recommend Scott Hallman's Small Business Growth Club. The more I work my way through this system the more impressed I am by:

a) the sheer quality of the material included

b) how easy Scott makes it to start applying the profit building techniques and

c) how he offers it for such a low price.

Business will get much tougher over the next year or two so it is much better to start applying these techniques to deliver higher results from your marketing now than to wait for performance to decline.

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

My favourite low priced Jay Abraham resource is the MasterMind Marketing System. It was this great audio program which turned me into a Jay Abraham fanatic.

Common Marketing Mistakes Part 3 Not Testing, No Customer Lifetime Value

In recent weeks I have covered the first four of eight common marketing mistakes which cost small businesses a fortune in lost sales and opportunities and in this article I cover mistakes 5 and 6.

5 - Failing To Test

6 - Not Knowing The Lifetime Value Of An Average Customer

If you would like to read the earlier articles first, here are the links  to Common Marketing Mistakes 1 and Common Marketing Mistakes 2.

Failing To Test Sales Promotion Methods And Components

When you start measuring the results of your advertising and promotion, the next stage is to use these measuresments to make your marketing as effective as possible.

You should start testing different adverts, letters, telesales approaches and sales presentations after you have captured your baseline data.

It may sound strange but little things make a huge difference in response rates.

There's a story that Dan Kennedy, a famous American copywriter changed one letter in a headline in a magazine advert and nearly tripled the response.

Isn't that incredible.

Just by adding an S and changing the advertisement from "put music in your life" to "puts music in your life" had such a major difference in the result.

Let's just have a look at a few numbers on an example where you try one advert and it is OK but not exciting and then you start testing headline, copy, offer, call to action and contact method.

Example Of The Benefits Of Testing

Imagine you owned a small painting and decorating business in an area of about a million people. You advertise in the local newspaper and that has a circulation of 100,000 as it goes to about 1 in 5 homes.

You advertise every week at a cost of £300 and receive on average four enquiries as a result of your advertisement, one of which you manage to convert into a customer.

Since the average order is for £1,500 with costs of £1,000 for the labour and materials, you make £500 profit  from the job and therefore after paying for the newspaper advertisement your net profit is £200. Worth continuing with the advertisement but not very exciting.

Then you learn about the benefits of testing your advertisement and you change your headline.

Please always remember better marketing offers almost unlimited upside leverage.

It costs you the same to advertise and receive 1 or 100 responses but your cost per lead and cost per new customer fall dramatically.

Not knowing the value of an average customer

I'm trying to get you to see effective sales promotion as an investment rather than an expense.

If it doesn't get results it's just a cost, but if a lead generation method covers its costs and generates a profit then you'd want to do some more wouldn't you?

It's an investment when you spend money and get more money back.

Let me give you an example.

Cost of advert £1,000

Sales generated from advert £5,000

Profit from those sales at 40% margin £2,000

So that gives you a net £1,000 profit after allowing for the cost of the advert.

That's a pretty clear case that you should carry on and advertise again but what if you only had half the response? Is it worth advertising if you get £1,000 of margin on sales?

That depends on what level of these new customers come back and buy again.

If 50% of them come back you'd get another £500 margin every time they made all made a repeat purchase.

So successful advertising is still an investment if you take into account the lifetime value of the customer.

How much should you spend to get a customer?

It all depends on the profit you can make while they are a customer. That value is called the lifetime value and it's an important number to know.

To Your Success

Your Profit Coach

Paul Simister

Business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

Common Marketing Mistakes Part 2 - No Results & Image Advertising

Several weeks ago I started a series of articles about eight common marketing mistakes and revealed that my first two marketing mistakes were: 

• not doing enough market research and
• not having a USP

(See common marketing mistakes). Today it is time to consider the next two mistakes:

3 - Failing to measure the results of marketing.

4 - Using image or institutional advertising

These two mistakes are linked. Image advertising doesn't produce results that you can measure.

Marketing Mistake 3 - Failing To Measure The Results Of Marketing

Perhaps it's the accountant in me coming out but I believe that there needs to be a measurable result in everything you do.

There's an old saying:

"Half my advertising doesn't work, but I don't know which half".

When I think back to the mid eighties when I was employed by a consumer products company, we spend a lot of money on advertising and sales promotion and as the Company Accountant (and effectively the CFO) I wanted to be sure that:

a) we were getting value for money

b) We did more of what was working and stopped doing anything that didn't produce results.

So can I ask, "Do you look at your sales promotions and think 'half of it is working but which half?'"

If so, that's a big problem.

Every business needs to understand where the leads are coming from and which leads convert into one-off or regular customers.

This is fundamental. There is no other way to know whether your marketing should continue in its current form or should be changed?

Marketing Mistake 4 - Using Image or Institutional Advertising

The big factor that stops people understanding their marketing results better is that they use the wrong type of advertising.

Big companies can afford to invest in brand building and will be pleased if an advertisement increases brand awareness even if it doesn't generate any immediate sales. This is called image advertising or institutional advertising.

The opposite of image advertising is direct response advertising. Direct response is designed to produce a measurable increase in sales as a direct result of the advert.

If you have based your advertising on examples from big companies and your adverts promote your brand name but little else, you are probably generating few leads and may think that advertising is a waste of time and money.

My message is simple. Stop doing image or institutional advertising.

Small businesses can't afford to waste money building up a brand name and play the long game. Instead small businesses need to give a prospective customer a good reason to make contact as soon as they've seen and read the advert.

Imagine you have a pub which offers good beer and nice food.

An image advert would say:

"KINGS ARMS 

Public house in Birmingham, good beer and nice food available lunchtimes and evenings"

It gives information and promotes the name of your business but doesn't excite anyone.

A direct response advert would say

"FREE BEER

Visit the Kings Arms in the next seven days and when you buy a meal, we will give you one free drink for every two drinks you buy. Our food has a great reputation and our beer won the Best Light Ale aware at the 2008 Birmingham Beer Festival"

Do you see the difference?

Think of your advertising as "salesmanship in print."  It should build a case for a prospect to contact you immediately and want to buy.

Do I hear you say "But Paul, I don't like these full on "aggressive", very long sales letters or discounted offers, I'd prefer something classier."

I can understand that and some people do take it too far.

Many of the Internet sales letters I see are so full of hype that I doubt anyone reads the full letter. Just the headline, then down to the bottom for the price and then a scan of the rest of the copy for anything particularly relevant.

I would urge you to find your own balance which feels right but which gives you a measurable result.

You wouldn't expect your sales representative to visit a customer and just say "I'm from Bloggs, the widget distributor" and then leave. It would be crazy behaviour but that's exactly what a lot of image advertising does.

Instead you'd want your sales rep (or advert) to make a case for the customer to buy - "Bloggs widgets - every widget in every size and colour - and delivered direct to your premises by 10:00 am the next day or you get 10% off your bill for every day we are late. Order within the next three days and receive a special incentive of a free super widget saving you £67"

Now that's a compelling offer if you are a buyer of widgets and you appreciate service and quick delivery. It's especially compelling if your current supplier is unreliable. Even if you have to pay a higher starting price, you know that you will only pay for benefits you get and poor service is compensated by a low price. The free super widget offer gives you a reason to act now rather than just "think it over."

Direct Response Marketing Makes Measurement Easy

When your marketing and sales promotion is designed on a direct response basis, there is a clear call to action and you expect to get results. That gives you an interest to ask where the leads come from and because prospects have just received an effective marketing message, they know what has caused them to contact you.

Direct Response Gives You The Benefits Of Image Advertising

I don't want you to think that I am against brands.

A strong brand and a great reputation are two of the biggest assets any business can have.

But brand building doesn't rely on image advertising because every contact with a direct marketing message also raises general awareness of the brand as well as providing an opportunity for a direct sale.

Jay Conrad Levinson, Father of Guerrilla Marketing says that it takes nine exposures to a message to persuade someone to buy and that on average people only see one advert in every three. Personally I am surprised that it is not many more times than that.

Your Challenge

If you are watching the television tonight and there are commercial breaks for advertising, watch and see how many give you a reason to remember the name and take action.

Then next morning, try to remember what companies and products were advertised. If you can't remember, what is the point of image advertising?

I can't deny that repetition works. Messages will gradually filter into your brain and you will be attracted to buy from familiar names if products are in the same price zone. Brands do work but they take so long.

Jay Conrad Levinson tells the story of Malboro cigarette advertising. Malboro was seen as a low selling female oriented brand before the "Malboro Country" campaign was launched with the cowboys. One year later, perceptions were the same and Malboro was still only the 31st best selling brand of cigarettes. Fortunately Philip Morris believed in the campaign and had the money to keep the promotion going and over the long term have been rewarded with the best selling brand of cigarettes in the world.

Image Advertising - A Long Drawn Out Affair

In the excellent book, Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson quotes from a book by Thomas Smith written in London back in 1885

• The first time a man looks at an ad, he doesn't see it.
   
  
• The second time, he doesn't notice it.
   
  
• The third time, he is conscious of its existence.
   
  
• The fourth time, he faintly remembers having seen it.
   
  
• The fifth time, he reads the ad.
   
  
• The sixth time, he turns up his nose at it.
   
  
• The seventh time, he reads it through and says “Oh, bother!”
   
  
• The eighth time, he says “Here’s that confounded thing again!”
   
  
• The ninth time, he wonders whether it amounts to anything.
   
  
• The tenth time, he will ask his neighbor if he has tried it.
   
  
• The eleventh time, he wonders how the advertiser makes it pay.
   
  
• The twelfth time, he thinks it must be a good thing.
   
  
• The thirteenth time, he thinks it might be worth something.
   
  
• The fourteenth time, he remembers that he wanted such a thing for a long time.
   
  
• The fifteenth time, he is tantalized because, he cannot afford to buy it.
   
  
• The sixteenth time, he thinks he will buy it someday.
   
  
• The seventeenth time, he make a memorandum of it.
   
  
• The eighteenth time, he swears at his poverty.
   
  
• The nineteenth time, he counts his money carefully.
   
  
• The twentieth time he sees the ad, he buys the article or instructs his wife to do so.

 

This was written over 120 years ago and in that time, the number of advertisements anyone is exposed to every week has risen exponentially. You can't move anywhere without someone trying to sell you something.

My message from marketing mistake 4 is simple, don't go the long way round with image advertising, when you can use direct response marketing, get results quickly and see what is working and what isn't.

Extra Marketing Resources

My third Common Marketing Mistakes with mistakes 5 and 6 will appear in about a week's time.

If you want more information about how to prepare a direct marketing campaign I recommend these two free resources:

The modern classic - Mark Joyner - The Irresistible Offer- currently available as a free ebook.

The old classic - Claude Hopkins - Scientific Advertising- I have heard marketing genius Jay Abraham say that he has read this book over sixty times and while it is heavy going in places, it has been very influential.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Jay Abraham Golden Nuggets From The Brain Trust

Jay Abraham has been quiet recently following his Reunion event and the Maven Marketing joint venture has been delayed through supply problems with the workshop DVDs.

I have received an email from Jay promoting the home study version of his Reunion event which he is now calling the Golden Nuggets from the Brain Trust, Business War College event.

Jay brought together 25 of the top people he knew and he is now scheduling three FREE teleconference broadcasts to promote the home study program where you can hear 90 to 120 minutes of the golden nuggets.

I have enrolled and you can too by clicking on Jay Abraham Golden Nugget sampler. Three calls are scheduled for the end of this week at various times but past history suggests that further calls may be added later.

Update 31 May 2008 after listening to the Golden Nuggets call

I listened to the call last night and it is a good one.

It lasts about two hours with an introduction from Jay Abraham, about 90 minutes of highlights from the presenters at the Brain Trust conference interspersed with short sections from Jay promoting the home study program.

Jay explains that his brief to the presenters was to provide information to help owners of small and medium sized businesses to overcome tough times.

Jay Abraham's view is that the probable recession provides a dividing point after the years of plenty. Many will see their business go backwards but some will see it move forward and this matches my own views - see preparing for a recession.

I took four A4 pages of notes from the call and I was particularly busy writing in the Brian Tracy, Stephen MR Covey, Andy Miller, Bill Harris and Stephen Pierce golden nuggets.

I have been good and not bought the Jay Abraham Business Brain Trust program although Jay is offering to ship it out on trial for 45 days for you to decide to buy or return. I already have a lot of Jay Abraham material to work through from the Maven Marketing project.

As I expected I have received confirmation from Jay Abraham that further broadcasts are being added so if this repeats the same pattern as the Master of Passive Income calls, it could go on for weeks in a series of three calls announced at a time.

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for customer focused entrepreneurs

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Common Marketing Mistakes Part 1 No Research or USP

The full title of this article which I wrote some time ago is:

The Eight Marketing Mistakes That Could Be Costing Your Business A Fortune In Lost Opportunities For Growth And Profit

I wrote it when I was in a very intensive Jay Abraham phase of my learning and development and it was only when I read a similar report written by Jay that I realised just how much of his thinking I had absorbed into my own.

The eight common marketing mistakes are listed below and then repeated with comments.

1. Failing to do enough market research.
    
2. Failing to develop a Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
    
3. Failing to measure the results of marketing.
    
4. Using image or institutional advertising.
    
5. Failing to test sales promotion methods.
    
6. Not knowing the value of an average customer.
    
7. Failing to reward/thank existing customers.
    
8. Not having a system for encouraging customer referrals.

Here's the detail and an explanation of why the first two are so important and the other six will be covered in subsequent articles.

1 -  Failing to do enough market research

Is your business one of the many that haven't taken the time to really identify and understand your potential customers.

Do you know

• why some people buy from you and some buy from your competitors?
   
• who your main customers and prospective customers are and where they are?
   
• what they want and how they make their buying decisions?
   
• when they are likely to buy?
   
• how big the market is in the area you can serve?
   
• who your competitors are and your relative strengths and weaknesses?

Have you looked at:

• your current customers?
   
• customers who used to buy from you but have switched to your competitors?
   
• your competitors' customers who have never tried you?
   
• prospective customers who have never even tried the product and service but should want the benefits?

Do you still think you do enough market research?

It is such an easy marketing mistake to make but it is also easy to correct.

You just need to open yourself up to ask prospective customers questions and really listen to their answers. Try to put yourself in your customers shoes and understand what it is they are trying to achieve from using your product or service.

However there are some limits to your customers and the way they think and report back what they want. They have been conditioned by years of selling to believe that certain benefits are important but when you dig deeper, you may discover that what they say and what they do are very different.

Customers also have a difficulty imaging the impossible. There is a famous story that the Sony Walkman which totally changed the way people listen to music and paved the way for the Ipod and mp3 players received a thumbs down from customer focus groups because they couldn't shift their mindset t listening to music on the move. Fortunately Sony had the confidence to back their judgement.

Customer research and understanding what it is that they want to achieve, what consequences they want from buying and what attributes that will use to guide the purchase decisions are essential to the entire marketing process.

2 - Failing to Develop a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

What offer do you make to your target customers that makes your business (or product) special and unique?

Do your customers have a compelling reason to come to you and only you because they know that you can meet their particular needs so much better than anybody else?

If not, your product or service risks being treated as a commodity.

If your customer perceives your product as little different from your competitors, the customer will decide that the easiest, safest way to choose is on the basis of the lowest price.

If you don't have a USP, you risk losing your customers to any competitor who comes along and offers an attractive deal.

If your customers perceive that you do have a USP, but you don't know what it is (that is your customers have a very clear reason to buy from you but you don't understand it correctly) you risk making changes in your business which damage your competitive strengths.

When Is a USP a USP?

Is USP unique selling proposition or is it unique strategic position?

Different gurus have played around with the USP concept, twisting and shaping it.

Some treat the USP is a short phrase or byline for your advertisements or a short elevator pitch while others see the USP is a much more complicated, all-embracing concept which identifies the basis of your differentiation in the market and which ripples through in everything you do.

Perhaps surprisingly, both group use Dominos Pizza as an example of a great USP

"We'll deliver hot, juicy, delicious pizza to your door in 30 minutes or less, and if we don’t you’ll receive it FREE."

But when you look at it and start analysing the statement, you can understand why both groups love this so much.

The "USP = unique selling proposition" people see this as a clear articulation of the benefits to the customer - "hot, juicy, delicious pizza to your door in 30 minutes" is just what you need when you come in late after a hard day, you're tired and hungry.

But this first part of the statement is easily imitated.

Any pizza company can claim to supply "hot, juicy, delicious pizza to your door in 30 minutes" so the uniqueness of the USP would soon be lost.

The "USP = unique strategic position" like the first part as it does make the benefits so clear but they love the second part "if we don’t you’ll receive it FREE."

This guarantee is linked directly into the special capabilities of Dominos Pizza to have:

a) the capacity to make and cook the pizza

b) the ability to deliver quickly

c) the courage to put their money and reputation on the line.

And customers loved it. Meet the promise and they got what they wanted. Miss it by a few minutes and they had a free pizza so "it's heads I win, tails you lose."

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

Now the big problem with having such a successful USP as Dominos is that if it is successful, your competitors will try to copy your USP. It's easier than analysing the market and identifying different segments of customers who want different things.

Dominos have now backed down from their USP and while they still talk about the 30 minutes, the website indicates that the 30 minutes is not a guarantee but an estimate because "safety is a priority"

Differentiation is Essential

The USP dressed up the complex subject of differentiation in a marketing phrase and while that's nice and you have to communicate your benefits to customers, you may struggle to come up with the USP phrase which stands out.

First, they can sound glib.

Second, brevity can compromise your ability to explain the uniqueness of your product or service. In copywriting, the professionals have always favoured long copy because they know people who are interested want to know more. Long copy is justified on the basis that you wouldn't restrict what your salesman would say on a call to 250 words or less, and especially if the customer was giving off signs of interest.

But communicating your uniqueness and differentiation position is still essential.

Top marketer and best selling author Mark Joyner has recently made his very successful book, "The Irresistible Offer" available as a free ebook and this moves the USP concept along. Once again Dominos is used as an example of an irresistible offer.

Marketing Mistakes 3 to 8

Today I have looked at two marketing mistakes:

1. Not knowing your customers
    
2. Not having a USP

The remaining six marketing mistakes will be the subject of follow up articles.

Please Leave Comments

Do you agree with me that these are mistakes and if not, why not?

Have you struggled to come up with your USP or have you now refined something that you'd like to share as an example?

To Your Success

Paul Simister

Your Profit Coach, business coaching for the customer focused entrepreneur

© Planning & Control Solutions Ltd 2007-2008 All Rights Reserved

Jay Abraham Mastermind Marketing System

I have just received notification from Nightingale Conant that my all time favourite audio program is on sale - Mastermind Marketing System.

If you know about Jay Abraham then you will know that his training materials are usually extremely expensive and the Mastermind Marketing System from Nightingale Conant has always been a great chance to hear Jay Abraham explain his main profit building ideas.

The Mastermind Marketing System is the program that turned me into a Jay Abraham fanatic and since then I have spent thousands of pounds of his training materials, at one stage literally snapping up everything that came on the market.

I don't have time at the moment to write a full review so I will just borrow from the Nightingale Conant email.

..............

Jay Abraham's Mastermind Marketing System can help you breathe new life into your business in so many different ways. You learn how to.....

• Grow your business and differentiate it from your competitors
   
• Multiply your sales and dramatically improve the effectiveness of your marketing
   
• Create highly leveraged strategic alliances and joint ventures that literally bring business to your door
   
• Maximise every asset, contact, opportunity, relationship, distribution channel, employee, financial and human capital you have available
   
• Identify new ways to sell more things to more people, more frequently
   
• Remove chaos by creating clear, easy-to-follow priorities that empower your employees and reassure your customers
   
• During the last 30 years, Jay has shown business owners in 10,000 companies across 400 different fields - how to double, triple and even quadruple their revenue.

Manufacturers, retailers, estate agents, publishers and professional practices are growing incredibly wealthy  from Jay's business-building methods.

Jay is the most sought-after business consultant in the world today, and for good reason.  He has the magical ability to create extraordinary growth for any company he works with, and has probably made more money for his clients than any other business consultant alive today.

For some companies he restructures their entire business strategy.  For others, he improves entire selling approaches and philosophies.  Sometimes, he totally changes the focus of where they sell or what they