sometimes when I speak to my business
audiences I ask the question what is the
purpose of a business and almost
invariably people shout back to make a
profit to make money to make a lot of
money to get rich well that’s not quite
correct the purpose of a business is
actually to create and keep a customer
and if you look at a business if you
look inside it you’ll find that all
successful businesses are focused on
creating and keeping customers marketing
and sales getting the customers and then
servicing the customers and holding on
to them a prophet is the result of
creating and keeping a customer in a
cost-effective way therefore the basic
management functions are innovation and
marketing because only they are capable
of creating and keeping customers
generating sales revenues and cash flow
the most important skill of the
entrepreneur or the businessperson is
the ability to market the product or
service an average product or service
intelligently and aggressively marketed
will run circles around a brilliant
product or service with poor marketing
behind it
unfortunately most entrepreneurs and
business people have never been trained
in marketing but fortunately marketing
skills can be learned and that’s what
we’ll talk about in the next few minutes
now the key to marketing the product is
this this marketing is the process of
determining what is to be produced and
sold it requires analysis of the market
analysis of the competition and analysis
of trans customer service surveys
customer
the questionnaires and so on to find out
what it is that people who really want
and will buy on the other hand selling
is the process of determining how the
product or service is to be sold once it
has been determined by the marketing
department so the marketing department
determines what and the selling process
determines how its to be sold now the
key question in marketing is this and I
came to this after many many years I put
it all together in a single paragraph
and here it is what exactly is to be
sold and to whom is it going to be sold
those are the first two questions what
is the product and who is the customer
the third part of it is and by whom is
it going to be sold in other words who’s
going to actually do the selling and get
the money and the next part of the
question is how is it going to be bought
and paid for in other words what is the
sales process and and how is the product
or service going to be produced
delivered and serviced so let me repeat
that one more time this is the key
question and it’s this is what exactly
is to be sold and to whom is it going to
be sold and by whom is it going to be
sold and how is it going to be sold and
paid for and how is the product or
service going to be produced delivered
and serviced you have to ask these
questions over and over again because
our discovery is this inaccurate answers
to any one of these questions can lead
to business failure for example you
could have the question wrong who is
going to sell it if you don’t know who
is going to sell or how is it going to
be sold or how is it going to be
produced or delivered or exactly to whom
is it going to be sold in at what price
if you don’t have the exact correct
answers to these what happens is you’ll
go off in the wrong track and you can
often lead to the failure
for business but if all these questions
are answered correctly and they need to
be revisited over and over again you can
make a very successful business well
here’s a rule the product or service
must be well suited to the current
market it must be priced appropriately
and aggressively marketed and sold
let me repeat that the product or
service must be well suited to the
current market how can you tell because
people want it and are buying it
it must be priced appropriately relative
to competition and relative to what
you’ve got contained in the product or
service and it must be aggressively
marketed and sold you have to always be
thinking of ways to get more of your
product or service to your customers in
a competitive market
first rule of marketing is that the
customer is always right the second rule
by the way is when in doubt refer back
to the first rule in our marketplace the
customer is everything the customer is
the central focus of all marketing
efforts all business efforts you can
always tell a good company because there
they are obsessed with customer service
they think about their customers talk
about their customers discuss their
customers they think about their
customers all the time
well unsuccessful products that are not
selling must be either improved or
removed from the market now remember
there’s 80% of all the products and
services that will be in use five years
from now have not been invented 80
percent of the products in common use
today will no longer be in the market
five years from now is companies spent
fortunes to bring products and services
to the market but what happens is about
80% of them fail every year so a product
is not working you either have to
improve it revise it reorganize it or
remove it from
market and sell something else remember
it is not what accompanies produces but
what customers want the determines
marketing demand it’s not from the
inside this Peter Drucker says there are
no profits inside a business all profits
come from creating and keeping customers
and satisfying those customers so that
they buy more and talk to their friends
about what’s yourself now a new product
or service must be better in at least
three ways to break into the market
first of all the product must be clearly
superior in some way the product has to
be better than any other product out
there in some way for example the
product can be cheaper the same level of
quality at a lower price this is one of
the reasons why products from Asia are
becoming so popular there this higher
quality is anything else that has been
offered especially from Europe or other
manufacturers but they’re much cheaper
because of their cost of production
right or the product can be easier to
use making a product so it’s much easier
to use much more convenient can make it
more valuable and help you break into
the market the product can be more
convenient to buy by making the product
easier to acquire you can make your
product attractive enough to break into
the market for example making your
product available for use like Amazon
perfect example if you want to buy a
book you can go to Amazon it’s delivered
to your house in three days you never
have to leave your home you can see a
mention of a book I hear about a book
you can buy it with two clicks which is
a critical thing click onto Amazon and
one-click buying so they made it’s so
easy to buy millions of products that
they’ve been able to create a billion
dollar business
another way is the product can be more
attractive it could just be more
beautiful to use luggage cosmetics
fashion cars home furniture just if it’s
more beautiful to use that can help you
to break into the market the product can
offer additional features or benefits
for instance a is a very simple camera
can be upgraded and improved so now you
can get a digital camera that can shoot
movies that can take photographs that
can send them and put them onto the
Internet you could get cellphones that
can do remarkable things with these
additional features and benefits they
sell tens of billions of dollars worth
each year in a market that did not even
exist a few years ago another example is
the product can be of a higher quality
at the same price many manufacturers are
finding ways to build quality into their
products keeping the price the same but
selling vastly more about the product
biggest people will pay pay more or buy
more often a product or service that is
higher quality
the product can’t satisfy the customers
deepest needs better it can satisfy
their emotional needs so you have to
look at all the different ways and you
must find at least three ways that your
product or service is superior if you
want to break into a competitive market
now there are four keys to strategic
marketing these have not changed at all
of history and you need to keep coming
back to them over and over again
the first is specialization in
specialization the company specializes
in providing a clear benefit to a
particular customer only huge companies
can offer a lot of different products
and services but companies small and
medium-sized companies have to
specialize they have to specialize so
that when people think about your
company they think about your area of
specialization give an example there are
some restaurant chains that specialize
in steak when you think of their name
you think of steak some specialize in
seafood when you think of the name of
that restaurant you think about seafood
it doesn’t mean that they don’t offer
other dishes but they specialize in a
particularly a particular highly popular
now there’s several ways you can
specialize you can specialize in a
particular market for example you can
specialize in the California market you
can specialize in the homeowners market
you can specialize in the doctors market
I I had a very good client once that
specialized in law officers all they did
was sell to law offices and they
eventually built the largest company in
the country a billion-dollar business
selling products and services just to
law offices a second way that you can
specialize is you can specialize
providing a particular benefit many
insurance companies do this HMOs do this
it can be a medical service of some kind
but it’s a specific benefit that you
specialize in and then that’s all that
you do and you don’t digress from your
area of specialization sometimes your
company can specialize in providing a
particular service for example they’re
companies that do carpet cleaning window
cleaning drape cleaning your specialist
just in that service and they
concentrate on getting better and better
in a specific in a specific area some
companies specialize in cleaning and
detailing cars other companies
specialize in interior renovations but
they don’t try to be all things to all
people they specialize in a particular
service another area that you can
specialize in is in a particular
technology Microsoft for example
specializes in personal computer
technology Intel a specializes in chips
in technology so you can specialize in a
particular technology and that
determines your whole business sometimes
the company can specialize in servicing
a specific type of customer
some people service teenagers and focus
on a teenager some focus on senior
citizens some focus on doctors some
focus on lawyers so you can take a
specific type of customer and specialize
in that customer and finally you can
specialize in a particular location or
area many companies will decide to
specialize just in a small community
they will focus just on becoming the
very best known for their specialty
in that particular location or area what
are your areas of specialization
how would your customers and colleagues
describe you in terms of what area do
you specialize in in your business now
the second part of marketing which is my
favorite part is differentiation there’s
a book by a recent trout called
differentiate or die and what it
basically says is that all marketing is
differentiating yourself from your
competitors it is the key to success in
business it means you have to set
yourself aside and apart in a special
way from everyone else who competes with
you in your business
we talked about this over and over again
it’s called your competitive advantage
and the question is what is your
competitive advantage what do you have
in your business that makes your
offerings superior to any of your
competitors what is your competitive
advantage today what will your
competitive advantage be tomorrow the
way market trends are going what should
your competitive advantage be if you
want it to be the best in your business
what could your competitive advantage be
if you were to upgrade the quality of
your products or services but the rule
is if you don’t have competitive
advantage you’ve got to develop one
if you can’t develop one and be superior
to competitors you should abandon the
market and get into the area where you
can be excellent and this brings us to
the second part of differentiation is
your area of excellence you have to be
excellent superior to your competition
in one or more ways and you must be
crystal clear what they are everybody in
your company must know what they are and
you must constantly strive to maintain
your lead in that area of excellence
that is the key to selling more and to
selling more at higher prices and the
final part of differentiation is called
your unique selling proposition this is
the one feature or benefit or
distinctive characteristic that makes
your product or service clearly superior
to your competitors if something that
only you have that no other competitor
can offer and customers are willing to
buy and pay for that unique selling
proposition question is what is yours
what is your unique selling proposition
now the third part of marketing is
called segmentation segmentation means
focusing marketing and selling efforts
on a specific type of customer what kind
of customer will you identify the exact
type of customer who can most benefit
from the superior features of your
product or service in your area of
specialization this becomes what is
called your target market these are the
prospects that you focus all of your
attention on identify the precise
location of your ideal customers where
are they geographically where are they
in businesses where
they economically where are they in
their careers
second of all you identify the ideal
method of sale to those customers
sometimes you’ll find that your ideal
customers prefer to buy it by the
internet prefer to buy it by direct
sales prefer to buy by coming to your
establishment prefer to buy it by
catalog figure out them clear the very
best way of selling to them and then
identify the ideal marketing channel
what is the way that you advertise
promote get the message out to that
market segment all sales success today
depends upon segments in your market
your target market clearly and then
focusing your marketing efforts on
convincing them that you’re in your area
of specialization your area of
differentiation is of greatest concern
to them and is the real reason why they
should buy from you now now the fourth
part of marketing is concentration
first of all specialize then
differentiate that segment and then
concentrate focus all your time
attention and money on those customers
your ideal best customers
remember the 80/20 rule 20% of your
prospects will turn into 80% of your
sales 20% of your customers will buy 80%
of your products 20% of your customers
will count for 80% of your profits 20%
of your customers will account for 80%
of your referrals and so on your job is
to keep thinking who are or who could be
your top 20% of
and customers once you’ve determined who
they are concentrate your best people
and resources on selling your most
profitable products and services to your
best customers one of the key questions
in marketing today is who are my most
profitable customers and how could you
organize and reorganize your activities
so you’re selling more and more of your
best products and services to your best
and most profitable customers all
advertising and promotion must be
focused and concentrated on the
customers that can make the greatest
contribution to your business you know
they say there’s two types of customers
that are the ones that know you like you
have bought from you in the past and
will buy from you again if you ask them
and then there are those who have never
heard of you before and what is it that
most companies do is to advertise and
promote to customers who have never
heard of them before rather than
concentrating on their very best
potential customers of today and
tomorrow
now the ability of the entrepreneur your
ability to continually innovate and
create better faster cheaper ways to
service your customers is essential
remember continuous and never-ending
improvement always looking always
looking for better ways so continually
seek out or develop new products and
services for your highest profit
customers listen to their questions
especially listen to your customers
complaints do you guys offer this why
don’t you offer that I wish somebody
offered this very often the very best
ideas for new products and services will
come from listening to your best
customers continually seek to improve
your existing products and services
never become complacent always be
looking for ways to make them better
like cars try to make every model year
superior to the previous model year
every year your products or services
should be superior to what you offer
last year and finally continually seek
out better ways to market sell promote
and distribute never become complacent
with your ways of doing now you need to
continually identify customers who are
not yet being served by you here’s one
of the greatest discoveries in marketing
your non customer is your biggest
potential market no matter how many
people are using a product or service
the number of people who are not using
it are usually greater than all of those
put together so keep thinking why who
are my non customers and why aren’t they
buying from you ask yourself what
additional customers exist for your
products and services today what are
their additional customers who could
really benefit from what yourself who
are not currently using ask what
additional products and services could
you develop for your existing customers
remember innovation and entrepreneurship
finding new products and services must
be a continual and ongoing part of your
business and finally could you improve
your existing products and services in
some way how could you make them better
so that they will be more attractive to
more of your current customers and more
of your prospective customers to wrap up
marketing is the process of continually
seeking out new and better ways to
create and keep customers profitability
in your business is the result of
finding and serving customers with more
and more of what they want your ability
to do this is the key to your success
[Music]
this is a very important lesson let’s
start off by saying the purpose of a
business is to create a customer all
sales revenues profits and growth are
the result of creating enough customers
in a cost-effective way
all marketing advertising and promotion
of every kind is aimed at buying
customers at a lower cost than the
profits they generate when they buy from
you you are in the business of buying
customers every bit of advertising and
promotion you put out is an attempt to
buy customers at a profit your goal is
to acquire customers to generate leads
and then convert those leads into
customers who buy from you buy again and
tell their friends that’s the central
focus of your business in its simplest
terms every business is in the business
of customer acquisition your main goal
your central purpose is to buy as many
customers as you can as fast as you can
now marketing and sales are different in
a special way marketing includes the
entire process of lead generation
starting from new product development
and continue through pricing emotion
advertising positioning and packaging
the purpose of marketing ultimately is
to make selling unnecessary if your
marketing efforts are good enough
customers will just walk in dial up or
buy in some other way think of
McDonald’s for example people just walk
in and buy they don’t have to be sold
because all the Newmark
the promotion has brought them in but
unfortunately it seldom happens that
people just walk in and buy ultimately
somebody has to sell them something so
selling is the process of converting
sales leads or prospects into paying
customers you know you may have a
business where one out of ten people who
responds to your advertising buys I work
with a large multinational corporation
for every 100 prospects four of them
actually bought for 100 prospects who
came into their business only four
bought I showed them how to increase
that from four to five and it added a
hundred million dollars to their bottom
line it increased from four to five
that’s an increase of 25% they were
already a multi-billion dollar company
by increasing from 4% to 5% they
increased their bottom line profits by a
hundred million dollars the company was
selling for about twenty five times
earning in the stock market which means
that those additional profits translated
into 2.5 billion dollars in additional
market value on the stock market for one
percentage increase in the hundred
people that came in to look so
converting leads into into customers is
a really important business your job is
to convert to leads from the very first
customer contact to to the satisfactory
delivery of the product or service this
is why selling skills are essential to
successful businesses and it’s
absolutely amazing how many people start
a business and they say well just hire
some salespeople I just get some sales
people I just hire somebody else I have
her or himself
no no the heart beat of a business is
the ability to sell once you’ve
attracted the leads we will talk about
how to attract leads a minute but we
have companies one of my companies we
have an 80% conversion rate
there’s 80 percent of people who walk in
by I work with other business with
conversion rate is 90 percent in some
places not my business where the
conversion rate is 10 percent
sometimes the conversion rate is even
lower the conversion rate is really poor
so you have to focus intensely on lead
generation on attracting prospects who
can and will buy within a reasonable
period of time and ideally you want
customers who will buy immediately there
are many ways to generate sales leads to
get people to pay attention and approach
you for the first time first of all you
can place ads in newspapers and
magazines or other publications this is
one of the most common ways of
advertising but when you do here are the
key things to remember your ad must be
simple clear and easy to understand one
of the things I’ve learned over my
business career is the value of imagine
a 10 year old child and you must write
your ad or help design your ad so that a
10 year old child can look at your ad
and is so clear about what it is that
you’re selling and why they should
respond that they can tell and convince
a second 10 year-old child to respond to
your advertising your advertising should
never be well it’s supposed to mean or
what we’re trying to say or what we’re
trying to get across is no it must be so
clear a child can understand it please
it’s very important so the second part
of your ad your headline should offer
the most important benefit that your
customer wants to enjoy already
by buying your products 25% to 35% of
every written ad should be the headline
and the headline should appeal to an
existing knee pain want desire hurt that
the customer already has for example
sometimes when you’re driving through
the countryside you’ll see a huge
billboard and have a big sign on say
Hungary question mark you know
Martha’s restaurant two miles ahead
because what they’re doing is they’re
trying to appeal to a major need that
already exists one of the most
successful print ads in the world is by
preparation-h it’s an ad that has a huge
word that says hemorrhoids question mark
and then it says if you have scratching
and itching pain and itching get
preparation-h it will take it away
instantly it made preparation Eights the
most successful hemorrhoid treatment in
the history of the world because they
knew that the primary headline was aimed
right at their ideal customer the person
who most wanted their product and
service now
a second thing about your ad another
thing is your ad must tell specifically
what you offer the specific results or
benefits the customer will receive and
why your offer is superior to any other
competitive product that’s available in
other words they have to have a reason
to come to you rather than someone else
you don’t want a sign that says hungry
person is Jesus I’m hungry and then a
whole bunch of other restaurants that
they can go to it’s got to be a reason
Martha’s genuine home-cooking serve
piping hot now there has got to be a
reason why people come to you finally
your ad must tell the customer exactly
what action you want the reader to take
immediately in other words you say do
this now call now come in pick up the
phone of this minute purchase it today
in other words don’t say here’s a
wonderful product that’s really neat and
just leave it like that
when you look at ads by the way you’ll
find 50 60 70 percent of ads many of
them designed by very expensive agencies
just lay there on the table they give no
reason to buy they’re just kind of
statements like we sell nice cars and
and and that’s basically all it is but
your ad has to pop your hat
as to punch it and here’s the only way
that you can tell if your ad works it
causes immediate response an
advertisement that is good causes people
to telephone or to to dial up on the
internet or the walk in the door
immediately if that is not happening it
means the ad is no good the second way
that you can attract leads you can
advertise on the radio when you
advertise on the radio first you must
capture the attention of the prospect
immediately with a strong statement or
question going out for dinner tonight
come to Harry’s restaurant bring your
spouse and will give you a free bottle
of wine the most delicious food on the
coast you see that bang-bang-bang going
out for dinner you immediately appeal to
people who going out for dinner who want
a bottle of wine going with their spouse
and delicious food something like that
this doesn’t have to be artful it just
has to have a strong statement or
question that connects instantly with a
person driving along who’s mine is on a
thousand different things you must make
it clear what your product or service
will achieve avoid or preserve for the
customer you could have a testimonial I
just ate it Charlie’s it was most
beautiful dinner I’ve had in years in
other words that’s what you get if you
come to Charlie’s we’ve now covered in a
30-second ad the first 15 seconds that’s
why by the way many advertisers are now
using 15-second ads because they find it
doesn’t really take that long to get
across the critical message if you focus
on the critical message you must tell
the customer exactly what action you
want him to take immediately in a radio
ad give your telephone number or address
twice and end with a call for action our
address is 1525 Main Street and our
phone number is 235 236 24 87th that’s
235 236 25 87 call
now to reserve in other words always end
with a call now come in now do this now
don’t never let it and just kind of died
away in every case make it easy for your
customer to buy make it easy for them to
understand why they should buy many
advertisers think tricky advertising
works no straightforward simple honest
advertising that gives people a reason
to buy is what causes your phone to ring
you can advertise and generate leads by
using direct mail when you do you must
choose your mailing list carefully I
clearly identifying the type of customer
who will buy immediately ask yourself
who is my customer who are the people
that buy today who have bought in the
past who is my ideal customer what did
they do where do they work what sort of
job so they had what kind of education
where do they live where is their
business in other words when you design
your mailing list you want a rifle in on
exactly the kind of people who read that
and say that’s for me I want that now
you must make your offer in a direct
mailing clear attractive and desirable
your letter or mailing should trigger
the reaction that’s for me I want that I
want that now people should read it and
say honey did you see what’s in the mail
now I’ve said before you could ask a
child to make sure a child understands
but you should also ask women women are
the very best people of assessing
advertising you show it to a woman
before you send it out and say honey
would you respond to this Susan if you
receive this in the mail would you
respond to it if they don’t read it and
light up it may be polite if they don’t
light up go back and rewrite it until
someone says I would respond to that
that is an interesting app I’m curious
to know that woman doesn’t like it and a
child can’t explain it go back to the
drawing boards you must request in a
Direct Mail advertisement that the
reader take immediate action to enjoy a
result or benefit in other words give
them a reason call now get 10% off call
now get a free gift call now
while supplies are still available call
now and let us get it out to you by the
weekend always give a reason a hooker
and exclamation point to get people to
respond immediately now in generating
leads you can use direct selling many
companies depend solely on direct
selling or direct selling in conjunction
with other advertising this is where you
send out trained sales professionals to
find prospects we say to get customers
from someone if you’re going to do this
your salespeople must be carefully
selected for character ability and
personality to stop for a second
character means that they’re honest
people people will only buy from other
people that they sense or arms ability
means that they’re skilled at selling
and personality means that they’re nice
people all we send out people that we’d
be happy to have dinner with them we
invite home for Sunday dinner with your
family remember the number one word to
describe the best salespeople in every
industry is he or she is a nice person
now your salespeople if you’re going to
use salespeople must be thoroughly
trained in every step of your sales
process more than 70% of companies do no
sales training at all they do a little
product training and they think well
that’s the same isn’t it no it’s not
sales training is where people know how
exactly what to say to get up get an
appointment they know exactly what to
say to ask questions they know exactly
how to develop a customer and and to
learn what the customer needs they’re
thoroughly trained in the face-to-face
interaction process not the product
an average company with an average
product can sell a jillion dollars worth
with us great salespeople a super
company with a super product can go
broke if it doesn’t have well-trained
salespeople your salespeople must have
clear sales goals for each week and each
month you sit down agree and give them a
target remember even the most motivated
person can get a target that they can’t
see your salespeople must have clear
activity goals so in other words you say
all right this is your sales goal you’ll
want to make this many sales but in
order to do that if you’re closing one
person out of five then you’ll have to
speak to five people in order to get one
sale expect you to get one sale per day
certain that you must see five people
per day in order to get one sale so
begin first thing in the morning and
focus on seeing five people these
activity goals are prospecting customer
calls presentations close sales for each
day for each week for each more
if you have direct sales force you must
monitor and manage the activity side of
your salespeople on a regular basis you
can’t just meet them once a week and say
how are things going every day every day
when I’ve taken over companies that have
Salesforce is the very first thing I do
is I’ve sales meetings every morning at
8 o’clock for 30 minutes where we talk
about what we’re going to do that day
and sales meetings every evening at 5:00
to 5:30 we’ll review what happened
good morning and night good morning and
night morning and nightly and where ever
people ever get tired you can use the
internet to contact selected names but
you cannot legally send out spam emails
anymore so the best way to market via
the internet is by creating what are
called strategic alliances with
companies that have large databases of
names sometimes you go to them and say
look you have names of people that
typically buy our product and let’s do a
deal and we will give you a percentage
of commission or royalty a profit share
of everybody from your database who buys
from us we do this by the way on an
average of once a week we sell millions
of dollars of products of our own and
those of others by doing strategic
alliances they then sell our products on
their list on their internet site onto
their list we sell their products to
ours everybody benefits
you can send regular special offers to
the names of customers and prospects on
your own list one of the most important
things you do when you start into
businesses you track everybody’s address
an email address and contact them once a
week and if you have a special let them
know one of the best companies that I
know
Nordstrom’s for example who has what is
called a presale special they say we
have a special sale on these highly
desirable products and because you are
inner circle of customers for three days
you can come in before we put the
products out to the public and take your
pick my wife loves things because they
come to her on a regular basis with
special offers for their customers how
could you do that for your own list
another way to do internet marketing is
you can do affiliate marketing with
other companies that sell different
products non competing products to the
same kind of customers that you do for
example we have more than 600 affiliates
that we want to grid on the internet
these companies all have their own
databases and their own customers and
they all sell non competing products so
what we do is we say if you send us a
customer we’ll give you a commission if
you do a percentage of the profits chip
600 companies nationwide that are
sending us customers as affiliates on a
regular basis and you can do this as
well now a sixth way that you can
generate leads is you can do what are
called postcard mailings and this is a
new way of mailing it’s a direct mail
way that we find very effective
oversized postcards a five by eight
inches in full-color will often trigger
excellent response rates even better
than letters packed with information
because often a direct mail letter
unfortunately just gets thrown away on
open but a postcard always gets looked
at people look at the postcard
especially if it’s attracted they flip
it over they look at the other side and
if it has an offer on there they’ll
often just pick up the phone or or
respond on every postcard you have to
offer a specific product or service or
even a free offer but it has to be clear
a person has to glance at the photograph
and know instantly like a child what
you’re selling
ask the receiver who receives the
postcard to take an immediate action I’m
absolutely amazed at the number of
people who send postcards absolutely
beautiful postcards and there is the
product and it just lays there like a
person who’s unconscious
it doesn’t say call it gives a phone
number if you’re interested if you ever
feel like it you ever get around to it
gives no reason to respond now I’ve read
the whole darn postcard because it’s
attractive there’s no you know no
incentive to pick up the phone don’t
don’t let that happen to number seventh
way that you can generate leads is you
can advertise on on television this is
the most expensive but it’s the best way
to reach a large audience if you’re
going to advertise on television spend
20% to 50% of your whole budget
producing the ad in the first place it’s
amazing how many people will want a
cheap ad to sell an expensive product
remember the ad is everything a good ad
will knock people’s eyes out can you
know cause your phone to fall off the
hook but a poor ad even if it’s a great
product
nobody will respond to when you use
television remember this and I learned
this so many years ago this television
is not radio in motion television is
very different you use television to
show pictures of your product or service
solution in action remember a visual
impact
vastly greater than an auditory impact
so show people what this solution looks
like if you’re advertising Charlie’s
restaurant show people in the restaurant
laughing tinkling glasses happy music in
the background come to Charlie’s for a
beautiful evening out that’s it really
gets people’s attention rather than just
a person standing there and saying come
to Charlie’s I’m Charlie Charlie’s
restaurant is good television is not
made for Talking Heads television is
made to show the product in action make
it clear what you want your prospective
customer to do immediately always end it
with a call to action sometimes they’ll
say what what you want to do is what
it’s called institutional advertising
you know let people know that you’re out
there but people know that you offer
this product or service and they’ll find
their way to your door no people need to
be told
remember people remember people are busy
people need to be told what to do now
here’s a rule all advertising is risky
most ads and sales efforts do not work
initially some don’t work at all four
out of five nine out of ten advertising
attempts that you may won’t work they
won’t drop I’ve mentioned in an earlier
session that we did an internet offer
I’ve got one hundred and thirty people
who responded we pulled it back and said
well there’s something wrong here we
completely revised the ad simplified the
offer completely made it benefit
oriented and ran the same ad to the same
people seven days later and got 1400
responses we increased our response rate
by a thousand percent by simply changing
the
a little bit you’ve heard it said that
fully half of all advertising dollars
are wasted but the problem is nobody
knows which half it is sometimes it’s 80
or 90% of advertising dollars so here’s
your rules with regard to getting
customers advertising is an investment
where an expected reached rate of return
or profit as a result advertising is not
an expense where you spend the money and
go on with the rest of your life like a
punishment or a penalty if you advertise
and you spend a dollar you should expect
to get $2 or $3 in profits as a return
if you don’t think that you’re going to
get a profit then come spend the money
only spend money to generate profits if
you some advertising will give you $5.00
back for every dollar you spend some
advertising will give you nothing but
you must be very hard minded with regard
to and advertise an expenditure the
first thing you do in advertising is you
determine your break-even point for your
product or service this is the amount of
profit that you make from each sale
let’s say you make $10 a profit after
everything from a sale well you then
divide this number into the cost of the
advertising to determine how many sales
you will have to make to earn a profit
with this advertising for example let’s
say you make $10 profit per sale and the
advertisement you’re looking at costs
$1,000 your break-even point would then
be 100 units you would have divided $10
into a thousand units you’d have to sell
a hundred for this ad to pay off you
only advertise in this form if you were
confident that you could sell more than
100 units as a result of this
advertising best is 200 units so you
make a hundred percent profit on your
advertisement three hundred four hundred
five hundred would be better but if
there’s any doubt you think Jesus no way
we can sell a hundred cars with this ad
though 100 whatever is yourself then
don’t advertise at all if you are going
to run an ad only run at once if it
doesn’t pay for itself stop it
immediately the dumbest thing that we
can do is run an ad that’s not working
do everything possible to reduce your
risk in advertising and lead generation
determine your break-even point in
advance how many sales will you have to
get to justify the advertisement test
the advertising method on a small scale
to find out if it works if you’re going
to do direct mail before you do 5000
pieces send up 100 pieces and see what
happens with newspapers or magazines run
one small ad and test the responses some
years ago by the way we had an ad and we
place it in six magazines we found and
we tracked not only the number of
responses but the number of sales that
we got from those was
we found that one magazine out drew all
the others put together so we cancelled
all our advertising and all the other
publications and advertised in one a
response rate was 500 percent for ads in
this publication relatively to the
others we dramatically lowered our cost
of advertising without increasing or
decreasing our response rate in our
sales with radio or television you run
the ad once or twice and measure the
number of customers who call or visit
remember this is called direct response
advertising a person should see the ad
and respond immediately when advertisers
sell you advertising us say all people
will remember you and by later no they
won’t because the average person sees
4,000 advertisements a day of all kinds
if people don’t respond immediately they
never think about you again so you must
be very very hard minded when it comes
to advertising ask every customer or
prospect who contacts you how did you
hear about us and write it down write it
down we found in one of our businesses
that ninety percent of our customers
come one way and of the other nine
different ways that we use to promote
counts for 10 percent of our customers
so what do we do is we beefed up the one
way that attracts most of our customers
and dramatically increased our business
you should know exactly similar to say
to you where do you get your customers
you should say exactly – the percentage
point and one exactly where they come
from
the rules with regard to advertising our
test test test measure measure measure
and then test and measure again and
again keep testing and measuring because
when you find a combination of
advertising that generates leads and
sales profitably every time you can grow
your sales and profitability without
limit if you can spend $1000 and get
$1,500 profit after the promotion from
sales that means you make five hundred
dollars every time you advertise then
you can spend ten thousand thank you
five thousand dollars
you can spend fifty thousand make 25,000
dollars once you have figured out a way
to advertise you can control Amazon but
you have to test and measure over and
over again to find the way
once you’ve attracted a lead an
interested and interested prospect you
must focus on converting that lead to a
sale plan out every step of the sales
process every word from the first
customer contact live or on the phone
have everyone learn and memorize your
telephone or personal greeting and use
it continually for example thank you for
calling how could I help you
everybody says the same thing thank you
for coming in how can we help you
some companies say hello it’s a great
day at ABC company how can I help you
and everybody says it every time they
hope they pick up the phone focus on the
person focus on the relationship first
don’t talk about the product talk about
the person for example you can say hi
where are you calling from oh what’s the
weather like today in your city
beautiful or thank you for coming in did
you have any trouble finding us always
say something that connects with the
person before you talk about the problem
focus on the needs of the prospect once
you’ve built the bridge ask questions
about what he wants and needs before
making any attempt to sell
how can I help you what is it you’re
doing now what is it that you’re looking
for and so on when you’re clear about
the customers needs show tell teach the
customer how and why your product is the
best choice for him all things
considered be prepared to answer his
questions in price terms features and
conditions make sure everybody knows how
to conduct this process same way or
lanova finally be prepared to ask for a
decision
be prepared to close the sale at the end
of the conversation
it’s terrible to meet with a customer
have a customer walk in and walk away so
learn and practice several closing
techniques ask for referrals and resales
at every opportunity
remember the easiest customer to sell to
again is a happy customer the very best
sources of referrals are satisfied
customers so now you’ve attracted the
customer you’ve solved the customer now
you have to get a repeat customer and a
roofer immediately after closing the
sale and concluding the paperwork and
payment ask for referrals for example
you could say thank you for your order
by the way would you happen to know
anyone else who might need or want this
as well and just ask them and they say
well you know my brother your son friend
uncle a boss and take out your pen and
be ready to write down the prospects
name another great way to get referrals
is to send a handwritten thank-you note
right after each sale thank you so much
for buying from us we’d love to see you
please come and see us again
always use a postage stamp to
personalize a thank-you note never put a
thank-you note through a machine always
put a postage stamp people will then
feel that you’ve made a special effort
to say thank you to them and that goes a
long way
make a follow-up phone call to thank the
new customer call up and say just want
to tell you thank you for buying from us
did you happen to have any questions
that I may not have covered customers
are overwhelmed when people take the
time to call them back afterwards to
develop referrals respond quickly to
every customer question or problem
speed is considered one of the most
wonderful things that a company can do
for a person remember to get referrals
superb customer service is essential if
you want to get resales and referrals
the better you treat your customers the
more they’ll buy from you so make the
customer experience excellent customer
service your competitive advantage
resolved from now on then you’re going
to get the reputation for giving the
best customer service in your business
resolve to take better care of your
customers than anyone else now there are
specific things you can do to increase
your sales and profitability
here they are number one you can
increase the number of leads you get by
continually testing different ways to
advertise hello number two you can
increase the percentage of leads that
you convert into sales by using good
sales skills and techniques number three
you can increase the size of each sale
by upselling and cross-selling or
bundling additional products and
services with the basic sale so each
sale is larger and of course
number four you can take such good care
of your customers that he or she buys
more often comes back to you more
frequently rather than going somewhere
else
number five is you can give such
excellent customer service that your
customers send you a steady stream of
new customers they actually become what
are called customer advocates they want
their friends to buy from you because of
the way you treat them
remember the customer is the most
important person in any business your
job is to attract and keep and create as
many customers as possible you should
spend fifty to eighty percent of your
time generating new business until you
have more sales than you can handle
never forget you’re in the business of
customer acquisition at a lower price
than the profit each customer
contributes the more skillful you become
at buying profitable customers the more
successful and profitable your business
will be
[Music]
audiences I ask the question what is the
purpose of a business and almost
invariably people shout back to make a
profit to make money to make a lot of
money to get rich well that’s not quite
correct the purpose of a business is
actually to create and keep a customer
and if you look at a business if you
look inside it you’ll find that all
successful businesses are focused on
creating and keeping customers marketing
and sales getting the customers and then
servicing the customers and holding on
to them a prophet is the result of
creating and keeping a customer in a
cost-effective way therefore the basic
management functions are innovation and
marketing because only they are capable
of creating and keeping customers
generating sales revenues and cash flow
the most important skill of the
entrepreneur or the businessperson is
the ability to market the product or
service an average product or service
intelligently and aggressively marketed
will run circles around a brilliant
product or service with poor marketing
behind it
unfortunately most entrepreneurs and
business people have never been trained
in marketing but fortunately marketing
skills can be learned and that’s what
we’ll talk about in the next few minutes
now the key to marketing the product is
this this marketing is the process of
determining what is to be produced and
sold it requires analysis of the market
analysis of the competition and analysis
of trans customer service surveys
customer
the questionnaires and so on to find out
what it is that people who really want
and will buy on the other hand selling
is the process of determining how the
product or service is to be sold once it
has been determined by the marketing
department so the marketing department
determines what and the selling process
determines how its to be sold now the
key question in marketing is this and I
came to this after many many years I put
it all together in a single paragraph
and here it is what exactly is to be
sold and to whom is it going to be sold
those are the first two questions what
is the product and who is the customer
the third part of it is and by whom is
it going to be sold in other words who’s
going to actually do the selling and get
the money and the next part of the
question is how is it going to be bought
and paid for in other words what is the
sales process and and how is the product
or service going to be produced
delivered and serviced so let me repeat
that one more time this is the key
question and it’s this is what exactly
is to be sold and to whom is it going to
be sold and by whom is it going to be
sold and how is it going to be sold and
paid for and how is the product or
service going to be produced delivered
and serviced you have to ask these
questions over and over again because
our discovery is this inaccurate answers
to any one of these questions can lead
to business failure for example you
could have the question wrong who is
going to sell it if you don’t know who
is going to sell or how is it going to
be sold or how is it going to be
produced or delivered or exactly to whom
is it going to be sold in at what price
if you don’t have the exact correct
answers to these what happens is you’ll
go off in the wrong track and you can
often lead to the failure
for business but if all these questions
are answered correctly and they need to
be revisited over and over again you can
make a very successful business well
here’s a rule the product or service
must be well suited to the current
market it must be priced appropriately
and aggressively marketed and sold
let me repeat that the product or
service must be well suited to the
current market how can you tell because
people want it and are buying it
it must be priced appropriately relative
to competition and relative to what
you’ve got contained in the product or
service and it must be aggressively
marketed and sold you have to always be
thinking of ways to get more of your
product or service to your customers in
a competitive market
first rule of marketing is that the
customer is always right the second rule
by the way is when in doubt refer back
to the first rule in our marketplace the
customer is everything the customer is
the central focus of all marketing
efforts all business efforts you can
always tell a good company because there
they are obsessed with customer service
they think about their customers talk
about their customers discuss their
customers they think about their
customers all the time
well unsuccessful products that are not
selling must be either improved or
removed from the market now remember
there’s 80% of all the products and
services that will be in use five years
from now have not been invented 80
percent of the products in common use
today will no longer be in the market
five years from now is companies spent
fortunes to bring products and services
to the market but what happens is about
80% of them fail every year so a product
is not working you either have to
improve it revise it reorganize it or
remove it from
market and sell something else remember
it is not what accompanies produces but
what customers want the determines
marketing demand it’s not from the
inside this Peter Drucker says there are
no profits inside a business all profits
come from creating and keeping customers
and satisfying those customers so that
they buy more and talk to their friends
about what’s yourself now a new product
or service must be better in at least
three ways to break into the market
first of all the product must be clearly
superior in some way the product has to
be better than any other product out
there in some way for example the
product can be cheaper the same level of
quality at a lower price this is one of
the reasons why products from Asia are
becoming so popular there this higher
quality is anything else that has been
offered especially from Europe or other
manufacturers but they’re much cheaper
because of their cost of production
right or the product can be easier to
use making a product so it’s much easier
to use much more convenient can make it
more valuable and help you break into
the market the product can be more
convenient to buy by making the product
easier to acquire you can make your
product attractive enough to break into
the market for example making your
product available for use like Amazon
perfect example if you want to buy a
book you can go to Amazon it’s delivered
to your house in three days you never
have to leave your home you can see a
mention of a book I hear about a book
you can buy it with two clicks which is
a critical thing click onto Amazon and
one-click buying so they made it’s so
easy to buy millions of products that
they’ve been able to create a billion
dollar business
another way is the product can be more
attractive it could just be more
beautiful to use luggage cosmetics
fashion cars home furniture just if it’s
more beautiful to use that can help you
to break into the market the product can
offer additional features or benefits
for instance a is a very simple camera
can be upgraded and improved so now you
can get a digital camera that can shoot
movies that can take photographs that
can send them and put them onto the
Internet you could get cellphones that
can do remarkable things with these
additional features and benefits they
sell tens of billions of dollars worth
each year in a market that did not even
exist a few years ago another example is
the product can be of a higher quality
at the same price many manufacturers are
finding ways to build quality into their
products keeping the price the same but
selling vastly more about the product
biggest people will pay pay more or buy
more often a product or service that is
higher quality
the product can’t satisfy the customers
deepest needs better it can satisfy
their emotional needs so you have to
look at all the different ways and you
must find at least three ways that your
product or service is superior if you
want to break into a competitive market
now there are four keys to strategic
marketing these have not changed at all
of history and you need to keep coming
back to them over and over again
the first is specialization in
specialization the company specializes
in providing a clear benefit to a
particular customer only huge companies
can offer a lot of different products
and services but companies small and
medium-sized companies have to
specialize they have to specialize so
that when people think about your
company they think about your area of
specialization give an example there are
some restaurant chains that specialize
in steak when you think of their name
you think of steak some specialize in
seafood when you think of the name of
that restaurant you think about seafood
it doesn’t mean that they don’t offer
other dishes but they specialize in a
particularly a particular highly popular
now there’s several ways you can
specialize you can specialize in a
particular market for example you can
specialize in the California market you
can specialize in the homeowners market
you can specialize in the doctors market
I I had a very good client once that
specialized in law officers all they did
was sell to law offices and they
eventually built the largest company in
the country a billion-dollar business
selling products and services just to
law offices a second way that you can
specialize is you can specialize
providing a particular benefit many
insurance companies do this HMOs do this
it can be a medical service of some kind
but it’s a specific benefit that you
specialize in and then that’s all that
you do and you don’t digress from your
area of specialization sometimes your
company can specialize in providing a
particular service for example they’re
companies that do carpet cleaning window
cleaning drape cleaning your specialist
just in that service and they
concentrate on getting better and better
in a specific in a specific area some
companies specialize in cleaning and
detailing cars other companies
specialize in interior renovations but
they don’t try to be all things to all
people they specialize in a particular
service another area that you can
specialize in is in a particular
technology Microsoft for example
specializes in personal computer
technology Intel a specializes in chips
in technology so you can specialize in a
particular technology and that
determines your whole business sometimes
the company can specialize in servicing
a specific type of customer
some people service teenagers and focus
on a teenager some focus on senior
citizens some focus on doctors some
focus on lawyers so you can take a
specific type of customer and specialize
in that customer and finally you can
specialize in a particular location or
area many companies will decide to
specialize just in a small community
they will focus just on becoming the
very best known for their specialty
in that particular location or area what
are your areas of specialization
how would your customers and colleagues
describe you in terms of what area do
you specialize in in your business now
the second part of marketing which is my
favorite part is differentiation there’s
a book by a recent trout called
differentiate or die and what it
basically says is that all marketing is
differentiating yourself from your
competitors it is the key to success in
business it means you have to set
yourself aside and apart in a special
way from everyone else who competes with
you in your business
we talked about this over and over again
it’s called your competitive advantage
and the question is what is your
competitive advantage what do you have
in your business that makes your
offerings superior to any of your
competitors what is your competitive
advantage today what will your
competitive advantage be tomorrow the
way market trends are going what should
your competitive advantage be if you
want it to be the best in your business
what could your competitive advantage be
if you were to upgrade the quality of
your products or services but the rule
is if you don’t have competitive
advantage you’ve got to develop one
if you can’t develop one and be superior
to competitors you should abandon the
market and get into the area where you
can be excellent and this brings us to
the second part of differentiation is
your area of excellence you have to be
excellent superior to your competition
in one or more ways and you must be
crystal clear what they are everybody in
your company must know what they are and
you must constantly strive to maintain
your lead in that area of excellence
that is the key to selling more and to
selling more at higher prices and the
final part of differentiation is called
your unique selling proposition this is
the one feature or benefit or
distinctive characteristic that makes
your product or service clearly superior
to your competitors if something that
only you have that no other competitor
can offer and customers are willing to
buy and pay for that unique selling
proposition question is what is yours
what is your unique selling proposition
now the third part of marketing is
called segmentation segmentation means
focusing marketing and selling efforts
on a specific type of customer what kind
of customer will you identify the exact
type of customer who can most benefit
from the superior features of your
product or service in your area of
specialization this becomes what is
called your target market these are the
prospects that you focus all of your
attention on identify the precise
location of your ideal customers where
are they geographically where are they
in businesses where
they economically where are they in
their careers
second of all you identify the ideal
method of sale to those customers
sometimes you’ll find that your ideal
customers prefer to buy it by the
internet prefer to buy it by direct
sales prefer to buy by coming to your
establishment prefer to buy it by
catalog figure out them clear the very
best way of selling to them and then
identify the ideal marketing channel
what is the way that you advertise
promote get the message out to that
market segment all sales success today
depends upon segments in your market
your target market clearly and then
focusing your marketing efforts on
convincing them that you’re in your area
of specialization your area of
differentiation is of greatest concern
to them and is the real reason why they
should buy from you now now the fourth
part of marketing is concentration
first of all specialize then
differentiate that segment and then
concentrate focus all your time
attention and money on those customers
your ideal best customers
remember the 80/20 rule 20% of your
prospects will turn into 80% of your
sales 20% of your customers will buy 80%
of your products 20% of your customers
will count for 80% of your profits 20%
of your customers will account for 80%
of your referrals and so on your job is
to keep thinking who are or who could be
your top 20% of
and customers once you’ve determined who
they are concentrate your best people
and resources on selling your most
profitable products and services to your
best customers one of the key questions
in marketing today is who are my most
profitable customers and how could you
organize and reorganize your activities
so you’re selling more and more of your
best products and services to your best
and most profitable customers all
advertising and promotion must be
focused and concentrated on the
customers that can make the greatest
contribution to your business you know
they say there’s two types of customers
that are the ones that know you like you
have bought from you in the past and
will buy from you again if you ask them
and then there are those who have never
heard of you before and what is it that
most companies do is to advertise and
promote to customers who have never
heard of them before rather than
concentrating on their very best
potential customers of today and
tomorrow
now the ability of the entrepreneur your
ability to continually innovate and
create better faster cheaper ways to
service your customers is essential
remember continuous and never-ending
improvement always looking always
looking for better ways so continually
seek out or develop new products and
services for your highest profit
customers listen to their questions
especially listen to your customers
complaints do you guys offer this why
don’t you offer that I wish somebody
offered this very often the very best
ideas for new products and services will
come from listening to your best
customers continually seek to improve
your existing products and services
never become complacent always be
looking for ways to make them better
like cars try to make every model year
superior to the previous model year
every year your products or services
should be superior to what you offer
last year and finally continually seek
out better ways to market sell promote
and distribute never become complacent
with your ways of doing now you need to
continually identify customers who are
not yet being served by you here’s one
of the greatest discoveries in marketing
your non customer is your biggest
potential market no matter how many
people are using a product or service
the number of people who are not using
it are usually greater than all of those
put together so keep thinking why who
are my non customers and why aren’t they
buying from you ask yourself what
additional customers exist for your
products and services today what are
their additional customers who could
really benefit from what yourself who
are not currently using ask what
additional products and services could
you develop for your existing customers
remember innovation and entrepreneurship
finding new products and services must
be a continual and ongoing part of your
business and finally could you improve
your existing products and services in
some way how could you make them better
so that they will be more attractive to
more of your current customers and more
of your prospective customers to wrap up
marketing is the process of continually
seeking out new and better ways to
create and keep customers profitability
in your business is the result of
finding and serving customers with more
and more of what they want your ability
to do this is the key to your success
[Music]
this is a very important lesson let’s
start off by saying the purpose of a
business is to create a customer all
sales revenues profits and growth are
the result of creating enough customers
in a cost-effective way
all marketing advertising and promotion
of every kind is aimed at buying
customers at a lower cost than the
profits they generate when they buy from
you you are in the business of buying
customers every bit of advertising and
promotion you put out is an attempt to
buy customers at a profit your goal is
to acquire customers to generate leads
and then convert those leads into
customers who buy from you buy again and
tell their friends that’s the central
focus of your business in its simplest
terms every business is in the business
of customer acquisition your main goal
your central purpose is to buy as many
customers as you can as fast as you can
now marketing and sales are different in
a special way marketing includes the
entire process of lead generation
starting from new product development
and continue through pricing emotion
advertising positioning and packaging
the purpose of marketing ultimately is
to make selling unnecessary if your
marketing efforts are good enough
customers will just walk in dial up or
buy in some other way think of
McDonald’s for example people just walk
in and buy they don’t have to be sold
because all the Newmark
the promotion has brought them in but
unfortunately it seldom happens that
people just walk in and buy ultimately
somebody has to sell them something so
selling is the process of converting
sales leads or prospects into paying
customers you know you may have a
business where one out of ten people who
responds to your advertising buys I work
with a large multinational corporation
for every 100 prospects four of them
actually bought for 100 prospects who
came into their business only four
bought I showed them how to increase
that from four to five and it added a
hundred million dollars to their bottom
line it increased from four to five
that’s an increase of 25% they were
already a multi-billion dollar company
by increasing from 4% to 5% they
increased their bottom line profits by a
hundred million dollars the company was
selling for about twenty five times
earning in the stock market which means
that those additional profits translated
into 2.5 billion dollars in additional
market value on the stock market for one
percentage increase in the hundred
people that came in to look so
converting leads into into customers is
a really important business your job is
to convert to leads from the very first
customer contact to to the satisfactory
delivery of the product or service this
is why selling skills are essential to
successful businesses and it’s
absolutely amazing how many people start
a business and they say well just hire
some salespeople I just get some sales
people I just hire somebody else I have
her or himself
no no the heart beat of a business is
the ability to sell once you’ve
attracted the leads we will talk about
how to attract leads a minute but we
have companies one of my companies we
have an 80% conversion rate
there’s 80 percent of people who walk in
by I work with other business with
conversion rate is 90 percent in some
places not my business where the
conversion rate is 10 percent
sometimes the conversion rate is even
lower the conversion rate is really poor
so you have to focus intensely on lead
generation on attracting prospects who
can and will buy within a reasonable
period of time and ideally you want
customers who will buy immediately there
are many ways to generate sales leads to
get people to pay attention and approach
you for the first time first of all you
can place ads in newspapers and
magazines or other publications this is
one of the most common ways of
advertising but when you do here are the
key things to remember your ad must be
simple clear and easy to understand one
of the things I’ve learned over my
business career is the value of imagine
a 10 year old child and you must write
your ad or help design your ad so that a
10 year old child can look at your ad
and is so clear about what it is that
you’re selling and why they should
respond that they can tell and convince
a second 10 year-old child to respond to
your advertising your advertising should
never be well it’s supposed to mean or
what we’re trying to say or what we’re
trying to get across is no it must be so
clear a child can understand it please
it’s very important so the second part
of your ad your headline should offer
the most important benefit that your
customer wants to enjoy already
by buying your products 25% to 35% of
every written ad should be the headline
and the headline should appeal to an
existing knee pain want desire hurt that
the customer already has for example
sometimes when you’re driving through
the countryside you’ll see a huge
billboard and have a big sign on say
Hungary question mark you know
Martha’s restaurant two miles ahead
because what they’re doing is they’re
trying to appeal to a major need that
already exists one of the most
successful print ads in the world is by
preparation-h it’s an ad that has a huge
word that says hemorrhoids question mark
and then it says if you have scratching
and itching pain and itching get
preparation-h it will take it away
instantly it made preparation Eights the
most successful hemorrhoid treatment in
the history of the world because they
knew that the primary headline was aimed
right at their ideal customer the person
who most wanted their product and
service now
a second thing about your ad another
thing is your ad must tell specifically
what you offer the specific results or
benefits the customer will receive and
why your offer is superior to any other
competitive product that’s available in
other words they have to have a reason
to come to you rather than someone else
you don’t want a sign that says hungry
person is Jesus I’m hungry and then a
whole bunch of other restaurants that
they can go to it’s got to be a reason
Martha’s genuine home-cooking serve
piping hot now there has got to be a
reason why people come to you finally
your ad must tell the customer exactly
what action you want the reader to take
immediately in other words you say do
this now call now come in pick up the
phone of this minute purchase it today
in other words don’t say here’s a
wonderful product that’s really neat and
just leave it like that
when you look at ads by the way you’ll
find 50 60 70 percent of ads many of
them designed by very expensive agencies
just lay there on the table they give no
reason to buy they’re just kind of
statements like we sell nice cars and
and and that’s basically all it is but
your ad has to pop your hat
as to punch it and here’s the only way
that you can tell if your ad works it
causes immediate response an
advertisement that is good causes people
to telephone or to to dial up on the
internet or the walk in the door
immediately if that is not happening it
means the ad is no good the second way
that you can attract leads you can
advertise on the radio when you
advertise on the radio first you must
capture the attention of the prospect
immediately with a strong statement or
question going out for dinner tonight
come to Harry’s restaurant bring your
spouse and will give you a free bottle
of wine the most delicious food on the
coast you see that bang-bang-bang going
out for dinner you immediately appeal to
people who going out for dinner who want
a bottle of wine going with their spouse
and delicious food something like that
this doesn’t have to be artful it just
has to have a strong statement or
question that connects instantly with a
person driving along who’s mine is on a
thousand different things you must make
it clear what your product or service
will achieve avoid or preserve for the
customer you could have a testimonial I
just ate it Charlie’s it was most
beautiful dinner I’ve had in years in
other words that’s what you get if you
come to Charlie’s we’ve now covered in a
30-second ad the first 15 seconds that’s
why by the way many advertisers are now
using 15-second ads because they find it
doesn’t really take that long to get
across the critical message if you focus
on the critical message you must tell
the customer exactly what action you
want him to take immediately in a radio
ad give your telephone number or address
twice and end with a call for action our
address is 1525 Main Street and our
phone number is 235 236 24 87th that’s
235 236 25 87 call
now to reserve in other words always end
with a call now come in now do this now
don’t never let it and just kind of died
away in every case make it easy for your
customer to buy make it easy for them to
understand why they should buy many
advertisers think tricky advertising
works no straightforward simple honest
advertising that gives people a reason
to buy is what causes your phone to ring
you can advertise and generate leads by
using direct mail when you do you must
choose your mailing list carefully I
clearly identifying the type of customer
who will buy immediately ask yourself
who is my customer who are the people
that buy today who have bought in the
past who is my ideal customer what did
they do where do they work what sort of
job so they had what kind of education
where do they live where is their
business in other words when you design
your mailing list you want a rifle in on
exactly the kind of people who read that
and say that’s for me I want that now
you must make your offer in a direct
mailing clear attractive and desirable
your letter or mailing should trigger
the reaction that’s for me I want that I
want that now people should read it and
say honey did you see what’s in the mail
now I’ve said before you could ask a
child to make sure a child understands
but you should also ask women women are
the very best people of assessing
advertising you show it to a woman
before you send it out and say honey
would you respond to this Susan if you
receive this in the mail would you
respond to it if they don’t read it and
light up it may be polite if they don’t
light up go back and rewrite it until
someone says I would respond to that
that is an interesting app I’m curious
to know that woman doesn’t like it and a
child can’t explain it go back to the
drawing boards you must request in a
Direct Mail advertisement that the
reader take immediate action to enjoy a
result or benefit in other words give
them a reason call now get 10% off call
now get a free gift call now
while supplies are still available call
now and let us get it out to you by the
weekend always give a reason a hooker
and exclamation point to get people to
respond immediately now in generating
leads you can use direct selling many
companies depend solely on direct
selling or direct selling in conjunction
with other advertising this is where you
send out trained sales professionals to
find prospects we say to get customers
from someone if you’re going to do this
your salespeople must be carefully
selected for character ability and
personality to stop for a second
character means that they’re honest
people people will only buy from other
people that they sense or arms ability
means that they’re skilled at selling
and personality means that they’re nice
people all we send out people that we’d
be happy to have dinner with them we
invite home for Sunday dinner with your
family remember the number one word to
describe the best salespeople in every
industry is he or she is a nice person
now your salespeople if you’re going to
use salespeople must be thoroughly
trained in every step of your sales
process more than 70% of companies do no
sales training at all they do a little
product training and they think well
that’s the same isn’t it no it’s not
sales training is where people know how
exactly what to say to get up get an
appointment they know exactly what to
say to ask questions they know exactly
how to develop a customer and and to
learn what the customer needs they’re
thoroughly trained in the face-to-face
interaction process not the product
an average company with an average
product can sell a jillion dollars worth
with us great salespeople a super
company with a super product can go
broke if it doesn’t have well-trained
salespeople your salespeople must have
clear sales goals for each week and each
month you sit down agree and give them a
target remember even the most motivated
person can get a target that they can’t
see your salespeople must have clear
activity goals so in other words you say
all right this is your sales goal you’ll
want to make this many sales but in
order to do that if you’re closing one
person out of five then you’ll have to
speak to five people in order to get one
sale expect you to get one sale per day
certain that you must see five people
per day in order to get one sale so
begin first thing in the morning and
focus on seeing five people these
activity goals are prospecting customer
calls presentations close sales for each
day for each week for each more
if you have direct sales force you must
monitor and manage the activity side of
your salespeople on a regular basis you
can’t just meet them once a week and say
how are things going every day every day
when I’ve taken over companies that have
Salesforce is the very first thing I do
is I’ve sales meetings every morning at
8 o’clock for 30 minutes where we talk
about what we’re going to do that day
and sales meetings every evening at 5:00
to 5:30 we’ll review what happened
good morning and night good morning and
night morning and nightly and where ever
people ever get tired you can use the
internet to contact selected names but
you cannot legally send out spam emails
anymore so the best way to market via
the internet is by creating what are
called strategic alliances with
companies that have large databases of
names sometimes you go to them and say
look you have names of people that
typically buy our product and let’s do a
deal and we will give you a percentage
of commission or royalty a profit share
of everybody from your database who buys
from us we do this by the way on an
average of once a week we sell millions
of dollars of products of our own and
those of others by doing strategic
alliances they then sell our products on
their list on their internet site onto
their list we sell their products to
ours everybody benefits
you can send regular special offers to
the names of customers and prospects on
your own list one of the most important
things you do when you start into
businesses you track everybody’s address
an email address and contact them once a
week and if you have a special let them
know one of the best companies that I
know
Nordstrom’s for example who has what is
called a presale special they say we
have a special sale on these highly
desirable products and because you are
inner circle of customers for three days
you can come in before we put the
products out to the public and take your
pick my wife loves things because they
come to her on a regular basis with
special offers for their customers how
could you do that for your own list
another way to do internet marketing is
you can do affiliate marketing with
other companies that sell different
products non competing products to the
same kind of customers that you do for
example we have more than 600 affiliates
that we want to grid on the internet
these companies all have their own
databases and their own customers and
they all sell non competing products so
what we do is we say if you send us a
customer we’ll give you a commission if
you do a percentage of the profits chip
600 companies nationwide that are
sending us customers as affiliates on a
regular basis and you can do this as
well now a sixth way that you can
generate leads is you can do what are
called postcard mailings and this is a
new way of mailing it’s a direct mail
way that we find very effective
oversized postcards a five by eight
inches in full-color will often trigger
excellent response rates even better
than letters packed with information
because often a direct mail letter
unfortunately just gets thrown away on
open but a postcard always gets looked
at people look at the postcard
especially if it’s attracted they flip
it over they look at the other side and
if it has an offer on there they’ll
often just pick up the phone or or
respond on every postcard you have to
offer a specific product or service or
even a free offer but it has to be clear
a person has to glance at the photograph
and know instantly like a child what
you’re selling
ask the receiver who receives the
postcard to take an immediate action I’m
absolutely amazed at the number of
people who send postcards absolutely
beautiful postcards and there is the
product and it just lays there like a
person who’s unconscious
it doesn’t say call it gives a phone
number if you’re interested if you ever
feel like it you ever get around to it
gives no reason to respond now I’ve read
the whole darn postcard because it’s
attractive there’s no you know no
incentive to pick up the phone don’t
don’t let that happen to number seventh
way that you can generate leads is you
can advertise on on television this is
the most expensive but it’s the best way
to reach a large audience if you’re
going to advertise on television spend
20% to 50% of your whole budget
producing the ad in the first place it’s
amazing how many people will want a
cheap ad to sell an expensive product
remember the ad is everything a good ad
will knock people’s eyes out can you
know cause your phone to fall off the
hook but a poor ad even if it’s a great
product
nobody will respond to when you use
television remember this and I learned
this so many years ago this television
is not radio in motion television is
very different you use television to
show pictures of your product or service
solution in action remember a visual
impact
vastly greater than an auditory impact
so show people what this solution looks
like if you’re advertising Charlie’s
restaurant show people in the restaurant
laughing tinkling glasses happy music in
the background come to Charlie’s for a
beautiful evening out that’s it really
gets people’s attention rather than just
a person standing there and saying come
to Charlie’s I’m Charlie Charlie’s
restaurant is good television is not
made for Talking Heads television is
made to show the product in action make
it clear what you want your prospective
customer to do immediately always end it
with a call to action sometimes they’ll
say what what you want to do is what
it’s called institutional advertising
you know let people know that you’re out
there but people know that you offer
this product or service and they’ll find
their way to your door no people need to
be told
remember people remember people are busy
people need to be told what to do now
here’s a rule all advertising is risky
most ads and sales efforts do not work
initially some don’t work at all four
out of five nine out of ten advertising
attempts that you may won’t work they
won’t drop I’ve mentioned in an earlier
session that we did an internet offer
I’ve got one hundred and thirty people
who responded we pulled it back and said
well there’s something wrong here we
completely revised the ad simplified the
offer completely made it benefit
oriented and ran the same ad to the same
people seven days later and got 1400
responses we increased our response rate
by a thousand percent by simply changing
the
a little bit you’ve heard it said that
fully half of all advertising dollars
are wasted but the problem is nobody
knows which half it is sometimes it’s 80
or 90% of advertising dollars so here’s
your rules with regard to getting
customers advertising is an investment
where an expected reached rate of return
or profit as a result advertising is not
an expense where you spend the money and
go on with the rest of your life like a
punishment or a penalty if you advertise
and you spend a dollar you should expect
to get $2 or $3 in profits as a return
if you don’t think that you’re going to
get a profit then come spend the money
only spend money to generate profits if
you some advertising will give you $5.00
back for every dollar you spend some
advertising will give you nothing but
you must be very hard minded with regard
to and advertise an expenditure the
first thing you do in advertising is you
determine your break-even point for your
product or service this is the amount of
profit that you make from each sale
let’s say you make $10 a profit after
everything from a sale well you then
divide this number into the cost of the
advertising to determine how many sales
you will have to make to earn a profit
with this advertising for example let’s
say you make $10 profit per sale and the
advertisement you’re looking at costs
$1,000 your break-even point would then
be 100 units you would have divided $10
into a thousand units you’d have to sell
a hundred for this ad to pay off you
only advertise in this form if you were
confident that you could sell more than
100 units as a result of this
advertising best is 200 units so you
make a hundred percent profit on your
advertisement three hundred four hundred
five hundred would be better but if
there’s any doubt you think Jesus no way
we can sell a hundred cars with this ad
though 100 whatever is yourself then
don’t advertise at all if you are going
to run an ad only run at once if it
doesn’t pay for itself stop it
immediately the dumbest thing that we
can do is run an ad that’s not working
do everything possible to reduce your
risk in advertising and lead generation
determine your break-even point in
advance how many sales will you have to
get to justify the advertisement test
the advertising method on a small scale
to find out if it works if you’re going
to do direct mail before you do 5000
pieces send up 100 pieces and see what
happens with newspapers or magazines run
one small ad and test the responses some
years ago by the way we had an ad and we
place it in six magazines we found and
we tracked not only the number of
responses but the number of sales that
we got from those was
we found that one magazine out drew all
the others put together so we cancelled
all our advertising and all the other
publications and advertised in one a
response rate was 500 percent for ads in
this publication relatively to the
others we dramatically lowered our cost
of advertising without increasing or
decreasing our response rate in our
sales with radio or television you run
the ad once or twice and measure the
number of customers who call or visit
remember this is called direct response
advertising a person should see the ad
and respond immediately when advertisers
sell you advertising us say all people
will remember you and by later no they
won’t because the average person sees
4,000 advertisements a day of all kinds
if people don’t respond immediately they
never think about you again so you must
be very very hard minded when it comes
to advertising ask every customer or
prospect who contacts you how did you
hear about us and write it down write it
down we found in one of our businesses
that ninety percent of our customers
come one way and of the other nine
different ways that we use to promote
counts for 10 percent of our customers
so what do we do is we beefed up the one
way that attracts most of our customers
and dramatically increased our business
you should know exactly similar to say
to you where do you get your customers
you should say exactly – the percentage
point and one exactly where they come
from
the rules with regard to advertising our
test test test measure measure measure
and then test and measure again and
again keep testing and measuring because
when you find a combination of
advertising that generates leads and
sales profitably every time you can grow
your sales and profitability without
limit if you can spend $1000 and get
$1,500 profit after the promotion from
sales that means you make five hundred
dollars every time you advertise then
you can spend ten thousand thank you
five thousand dollars
you can spend fifty thousand make 25,000
dollars once you have figured out a way
to advertise you can control Amazon but
you have to test and measure over and
over again to find the way
once you’ve attracted a lead an
interested and interested prospect you
must focus on converting that lead to a
sale plan out every step of the sales
process every word from the first
customer contact live or on the phone
have everyone learn and memorize your
telephone or personal greeting and use
it continually for example thank you for
calling how could I help you
everybody says the same thing thank you
for coming in how can we help you
some companies say hello it’s a great
day at ABC company how can I help you
and everybody says it every time they
hope they pick up the phone focus on the
person focus on the relationship first
don’t talk about the product talk about
the person for example you can say hi
where are you calling from oh what’s the
weather like today in your city
beautiful or thank you for coming in did
you have any trouble finding us always
say something that connects with the
person before you talk about the problem
focus on the needs of the prospect once
you’ve built the bridge ask questions
about what he wants and needs before
making any attempt to sell
how can I help you what is it you’re
doing now what is it that you’re looking
for and so on when you’re clear about
the customers needs show tell teach the
customer how and why your product is the
best choice for him all things
considered be prepared to answer his
questions in price terms features and
conditions make sure everybody knows how
to conduct this process same way or
lanova finally be prepared to ask for a
decision
be prepared to close the sale at the end
of the conversation
it’s terrible to meet with a customer
have a customer walk in and walk away so
learn and practice several closing
techniques ask for referrals and resales
at every opportunity
remember the easiest customer to sell to
again is a happy customer the very best
sources of referrals are satisfied
customers so now you’ve attracted the
customer you’ve solved the customer now
you have to get a repeat customer and a
roofer immediately after closing the
sale and concluding the paperwork and
payment ask for referrals for example
you could say thank you for your order
by the way would you happen to know
anyone else who might need or want this
as well and just ask them and they say
well you know my brother your son friend
uncle a boss and take out your pen and
be ready to write down the prospects
name another great way to get referrals
is to send a handwritten thank-you note
right after each sale thank you so much
for buying from us we’d love to see you
please come and see us again
always use a postage stamp to
personalize a thank-you note never put a
thank-you note through a machine always
put a postage stamp people will then
feel that you’ve made a special effort
to say thank you to them and that goes a
long way
make a follow-up phone call to thank the
new customer call up and say just want
to tell you thank you for buying from us
did you happen to have any questions
that I may not have covered customers
are overwhelmed when people take the
time to call them back afterwards to
develop referrals respond quickly to
every customer question or problem
speed is considered one of the most
wonderful things that a company can do
for a person remember to get referrals
superb customer service is essential if
you want to get resales and referrals
the better you treat your customers the
more they’ll buy from you so make the
customer experience excellent customer
service your competitive advantage
resolved from now on then you’re going
to get the reputation for giving the
best customer service in your business
resolve to take better care of your
customers than anyone else now there are
specific things you can do to increase
your sales and profitability
here they are number one you can
increase the number of leads you get by
continually testing different ways to
advertise hello number two you can
increase the percentage of leads that
you convert into sales by using good
sales skills and techniques number three
you can increase the size of each sale
by upselling and cross-selling or
bundling additional products and
services with the basic sale so each
sale is larger and of course
number four you can take such good care
of your customers that he or she buys
more often comes back to you more
frequently rather than going somewhere
else
number five is you can give such
excellent customer service that your
customers send you a steady stream of
new customers they actually become what
are called customer advocates they want
their friends to buy from you because of
the way you treat them
remember the customer is the most
important person in any business your
job is to attract and keep and create as
many customers as possible you should
spend fifty to eighty percent of your
time generating new business until you
have more sales than you can handle
never forget you’re in the business of
customer acquisition at a lower price
than the profit each customer
contributes the more skillful you become
at buying profitable customers the more
successful and profitable your business
will be
[Music]
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