- Triad Marketing System How To Market Any Product Or Service In
Your Own Local Market
Ryan:
Hello and welcome to this training on the Triad Marketing
System. My name is Ryan Deiss. I’m one of the founding
partners here at Shoestring Startups and, really, the purpose of
our company is to bring small business strategies and
information to the average Joe. We’re not out there trying to
teach people how to become millionaires overnight. We’re here
to bring you realistic, small business start up strategies.
Probably one of the single biggest aspects of being a small
business owner is understanding marketing. That is the focus of
this training. It is also why I am so excited here in the Shoestring
Startup studio—if you can call it that— a very good friend of
mine and a true, true small business expert, Perry Belcher.
Before I turn this over to Perry and we jump into the training, I
want to tell you a little bit about him. I think it would be safe to
say he has a very colorful history.
Perry:
That’s a good one.
Ryan:
Yeah. Perry actually started in business at the age of 15 as a
clothing wholesaler. Maybe at some point some of these stories
are going to come out. I hope there will really be a lot of stories
because this guy has more small business stories than anybody
I know, trust me.
At the age of 15 he started in business as a clothing wholesaler.
He later went on to become a paint contractor and he owned a
janitorial company. By the age of 21—legal drinking age here in
the U.S.—he had 42 jewelry stores.
Perry:
I actually had 30 jewelry stores before I was legally allowed to
drink.
Ryan:
If you think about it, you can see he had a lot of retail service
business. At the age of 22, things took a turn the other direction
and he went broke.
Perry:
Guess what happens when you make $50,000 a month at 21?
Ryan:
Things didn’t go so well; they went completely in the opposite
direction. He went broke and at that point he became an
airbrush and tattoo artist. That’s what I mean when I say he has
a very, very colorful story.
He went on to own a computer manufacturing and retail
company. He had a gourmet foods manufacturing company. At
one point he was the third largest candle maker in the world. He
has manufactured vitamins, managed a law firm, has written
and published numerous books, and much, much more, to say
the least.
Perry, welcome again. I’m really excited to have you here. As I
mentioned at the outset of this call, you’re one of the few people
who has truly done it all.
You’ve seen success and you’ve seen failure; you learned from
your success and you learned from your failure. This is one of
the biggest reasons why we wanted to bring you on to talk about
the subject of marketing with you, in particular the Triad
Marketing System which you helped to develop.
Do you have anything to add to that introduction?
Perry:
Thanks a lot, Ryan. I’ve been fortunate enough—I guess you
could call it fortunate—to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of
business over the years. Really, at an early age I started
building on three principles I call the Triad.
As you go through here, you will notice there are a lot of threes.
When we go through the whole system, I have a system that
has three parts and inside of each one of those three parts there
are three subparts. It is pretty simple, easy to understand, and
you’ll know the whole thing in a matter of an hour or two,
however long this recording takes.
This is what has made me successful in almost every business
I’ve been in. It has given me the ability to rise above the pack no
matter where I was.
Before we get started, I need to make a couple of quick
announcements because the lawyers say we have to.
Ryan:
It’s the boring part that nobody likes to do, but we don’t like to
get sued, either, so we’re going to go ahead and do it.
Perry:
Before we get started, if you hear me say that I made $50,000 a
month, it does not mean you are necessarily going to make
$50,000 a month or anywhere near it. I’m going to tell you
stories about people who made a lot of money and I’m going to
tell you stories about people who went broke. I’ve done both.
These are just stories. They are factual and they happened to
people, but they may not happen to you.
You may not go broke and you may not make a million dollars. I
don’t know what is going to happen to you; it depends a lot on
your effort. We don’t make income claims here that are specific
to you, so please don’t take any of these stories as promises
that you will stick this CD under your pillow and wake up in the
morning rich.
Secondly, we’re going to talk about certain things in here such
as some legal strategies, maybe even some tax strategies will
come up, I don’t know. If it does, know that I am not a lawyer
and Ryan is not a lawyer. We’re not accountants or licensed
professionals.
I don’t think you hold any kind of license, do you?
Ryan:
No, I don’t.
Perry:
We’re not licensed professionals and we are not holding
ourselves out to be licensed professionals. If you have a tax or
legal question, by all means, consult your attorney. What you
hear here is strictly for information purposes only.
Lastly, Ryan made a joke about Shoestring Startups Studio. If
the name rings true to the studio, the studio is a shoestring
studio. This is a very small recording area and we don’t edit a
lot. If we hiccup, chuckle, or laugh or get the sniffles along the
way somewhere, you are probably going to hear it.
The purpose here is to give you great information and I promise
we’re going to deliver that to you. Please don’t be angry with us
about our recording quality. Neither of us are recording artists or
professional speakers.
Ryan:
The mission behind Shoestring Startups is that we are trying to
give you the real world stuff. This is not the Harvard Business
Review kind of thing where professors pontificate on what
should work. This is the real world stuff, what has actually
worked; it is what we see and do in our own small businesses
and what we suggest you do.
We have foregone all the Uber professional stuff because,
frankly, we’re only interested in what works and you should only
be interested in what works. This is what we’re promising to
deliver to you here. It is just a lot of stuff that works.
With that rousing introduction and with the disclaimers out of the
way, let’s go ahead and get this started, if you’re ready.
Perry:
I absolutely am ready.
Ryan:
We will start off with a question that is somewhat apropos.
Perry:
That’s a big word.
Ryan:
Apropos? Do you like that?
Perry:
It’s nice.
Ryan:
Yeah, I promised to use at least one SAT word.
Perry:
You should use a $10 word every ten minutes.
Ryan:
What is marketing? It is a term that people throw around and
most people think they know what it means. A lot of people flat
out don’t know. In your definition, what is marketing?
Perry:
You’ve heard me say it before and I think it was coined by
somebody else, but one of the best things you can do is borrow
other people’s ideas and models, so I’ll do that here.
I think marketing is the art of rendering the sales process
obsolete. What I mean by that is that if a product is marketed
well, if desire is built to the proper level and you have the proper
buyers in place, you really don’t have to sell much. You’re going
to learn all this through the Triad in a minute.
One of the things most people hate about being in business is
the thought of having to sell something. I’ve told many people
they should go into business and market their product and they
say, “Oh, I can’t do that.”
I ask, “Why not?” and they say, “I’m not a salesman.” Well, I’ve
been a salesman; I’m not going to tell you otherwise. I’ve been a
salesman and I can sell if I have to, but I found out pretty early
on that being a salesman kind of sucks.
Even if you like being a salesman it sucks and I’ll tell you why.
Being a marketer, I can reach far, far, far more people than I
can by being a salesman. I’ve sold in rooms before with 400
people in the room and I made a lot of money.
However, I made a lot more money by delivering a marketing
message by mail, by e-mail, by print advertising, by a postcard,
or some of the other ways we’re going to talk about tonight.
When delivered to the proper audience I made a whole lot more
money without having to get out of bed.
There have been a lot of nights when I woke up and checked an
online sale, if I was selling online, or got a sales report in from a
store I owned somewhere, where because of my marketing I
made thousands of dollars while I was asleep. I never did that
as a salesman, oddly enough. I never woke up and said, “Boy,
you really had a good night’s sleep last night. Here’s a check.” It
doesn’t work that way.
Marketing makes people want to buy. It gives them a reason to
buy. My biggest example of this is Apple Computer. I’ve never
met an iPod salesman to this day. This is a couple hundred
dollar item that Mac has, this iPod. There are no iPod salesmen
or iPhone salesmen, for that matter.
Ryan:
Yeah, if you look at the iPhone, there are people waiting in long
lines. Those guys didn’t get sold to on an individual basis.
Perry:
No, they were marketed and they used certain psychological
triggers to build anticipation, scarcity, benefit, and things like
that. You’re going to learn about these things as we talk today
through the Triad.
When you learn the process, you will know how companies like
Apple market products. It’s not big branding campaigns with an
apple stuck on a billboard somewhere. You don’t see that.
There is a scarcity and a news spin on what they do. You’ll
understand a whole lot more here soon.
Marketing is salesmanship in print, basically. It is salesmanship
delivered in some form of media to the proper audience, people
who have a propensity to buy it.
Ryan:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re trying to set people free. A lot
of people, if they go into business, see marketing as a burden.
It’s like, “Oh, I don’t want to have to do marketing. That’s work.”
It’s funny, but when the economy turned sour one of the first
things cut was the marketing budget. People see it as this
necessary evil, but if you understand good marketing, it is there
to set you free, not to burden you.
You mentioned Apple. Are there any other good examples of
companies that market well?
Perry:
I could give you a couple of really good stores. One great
example I like to use is MacDonald’s. If you’re out there listening
to this right now, chances are you’ve eaten a MacDonald’s
hamburger unless you’re living under a rock somewhere.
Was it the best hamburger you ever ate?
Ryan:
No.
Perry:
No, of course it’s not. However, who sells the most hamburgers
in the world? It is MacDonald’s because they have a marketing
plan.
Here in town where we live, there was a Vietnamese restaurant
just down the street that was absolutely terrific. It had the best
Vietnamese food you could ever eat. We found this little hole in
the wall and it was great.
Now there is another Vietnamese restaurant about a mile away
that kind of sucks; it’s not really that good. They are still there
and the little guy that had the great food is gone. They had a
better location and better signage. They put people on an e-mail
list and notified them when they were having specials and things
like that. They marketed better.
This is a point to write down. Most people spend way too much
time working in their business and not on their business. That is
probably the biggest tip I was ever given. You have to spend a
lot of time working on your business rather than working in it.
People think if they deliver the best product or the best food or if
they do the best job cutting grass it will be enough. The truth is
that in today’s world, it’s not.
It doesn’t mean you will be able to go out and be a marketer,
deliver a crappy product, and have longevity. That won’t work
either. You have to deliver value to people and that’s a constant.
However, you can deliver the best value you want. Think about
Mr. Johnson and his little hardware store 20 years ago. He
delivered incredible value to his customers and he’s gone today.
He doesn’t exist because companies like Home Depot and
Lowe’s and these big chains tested things, marketed well,
advertised well, gave you a benefit and a reason to come to
their store and they wiped him out.
Was the old hardware store better? It probably was.
Ryan:
Yeah, if you’ve ever gone into a Home Depot and wandered the
aisles for what seems like hours on end until finally some
pimple-faced kid walks over to you, you ask a very basic
question and they look at you with a blank stare on their face,
you miss Mr. Johnson and his hardware store really quickly.
We talked about what marketing is. Let’s talk about why
marketing is so important. We touched on this a little bit.
Obviously, it’s there from a business perspective. We’re
probably preaching to the choir, but could you sum up for the
people here why they should focus so much of their effort on
marketing?
Perry:
Well, there are a couple of reasons. I always joke around and
say, “Hey, the big guy is coming,” no matter what business
you’re in.
If you look around 20 years ago there were no chains of lawn
care companies; now there are. There were no chains of
janitorial companies; now there are. There were no big, giant
chains of hardware stores or coffee shops, for that matter.
There were a jillion little independent coffee shops all over the
world and they were great. Now they have been virtually
annihilated by a giant chain called Starbuck’s. Why is that? Is it
because Starbuck’s had the ultimate cup of coffee? It is
absolutely not.
It is because Starbuck’s tested, used marketing methods, and
figured out what people liked the most. They used what we call
AB split-testing. They learned to test demographics and
locations. They found out how to attract more customers, how to
get those customers to spend more money, and how to get
them to come spend that money more often. They did a
fabulous job of this and by doing it they virtually annihilated an
industry.
If you’re in business and you’re not marketing, friend, you are
soon to be extinct. I don’t care how well you do your job, it really
doesn’t matter. Somebody will come along that can do the job
as well as or close to as well as you and maybe do it for a little
bit less, if they’re efficient. They will present their case in a way
that I’m about to teach you now and they will crush you.
The good news is that with the information you are about to get,
you can be the crusher instead of the crushee. That is totally up
to you. However, I promise if you don’t pay attention and don’t
do these things, your odds of success are limited.
Ryan:
I’ve heard you say before that is worth bringing up now, Perry.
When a customer isn’t given any other reason for choosing one
particular business over another, it is always going to come
down to price. That is why these big chains are squeezing out
Mr. Johnson’s hardware store and the little coffee shop on the
corner.
The consumer looks around and Mr. Johnson isn’t doing a good
enough job of marketing his hardware store; of telling you about
his unique selling proposition and some of the things we’re
going to cover; and telling you why you should choose him over
some of these other big chains.
The consumer is thinking, “I have no other variables to consider
here. I’ll just take the lowest price.”
Perry:
If you market well, price becomes a very low considering on
your poll.
Here’s a funny story. I back and forth to Asia a lot and I was in
China not too long ago. I was in a little market in China and I
found these really cool MP3 players. I might be wrong about the
size, but I think they were 4GB or 8GB MP3 players.
They were $19 and I bought a dozen of them. They were cute
little MP3 players. I brought them back and gave them to people
I knew. Of the people I gave them to, I have never seen a single
person use it.
I gave one to my sister and I said, “Hey, did you use the MP3
player?” and she said, “Naw, I don’t really want to use it. I’m
going to wait and get an iPod.” The iPod is exactly the same
thing; it has the same functions; it does the same thing. She
won’t open the box and use the one I gave her that does the
same thing. She wants an iPod because they built a particular
brand desire for that product.
If you’re marketing well, you can sell a premium product at a
premium price and people will pay it. That’s the second big
advantage to marketing. It is not just for your existence; it is for
your ability to earn.
Like Ryan said a few minutes ago, if you compare apples to
apples and you don’t have any special caramel sauce on your
apple, people want the cheapest apple.
If you go to the store and there are 15 apples there, you’ll buy
the cheapest apple. The apple might be .30 or .40 cents. They
might be more than that; I have no idea. However, if you go to
the fair and get a caramel apple, dipped in caramel with nuts on
it, you pay $4.00.
It has to do with where you are, with your desire for the taste of
that apple, and the little decoration stuff they did to it. It had a
unique selling proposition; it was different. Different is good; it is
what makes things marketable.
Ryan:
Let’s jump in and talk about specifics. What are some of the
specific elements that work into marketing? What are some
specific things that make up your marketing plan?
Perry:
We need to get these out of the way first before we go to the
Triad because they are incredibly important.
Number one is having a unique selling proposition. We call it a
USP in the business. You will hear this all the way through this
training, so you better stick this in your hat. It is important.
A unique selling proposition is how you are different from the
other guy. Obviously, the caramel apple is different because it’s
dipped in caramel and it has nuts all over it.
You have to have a reason why you’re different and have things
that stand out. If you’re going to charge someone a premium
price, if you’re going to try to lure them away from the guy they
are already using to cut their lawn, if you’re going to try to lure
them to drink your cup of coffee over the cup of coffee you’ve
been drinking at the Waffle House for 20 years, you definitely
have to have some kind of unique selling proposition.
With Starbuck’s, it was fancy coffees in a community. They had
a place you could hang out. It was more about the community
and the place than it was about the coffee and there was status
to it.
A customer I know right now has a lawn care service. When he
mows someone’s lawn, he always leaves a couple of little
potted flowers on their doorstep with a note. He even signs it,
“Love, So-and-so the Lawn Guy.” He has an absolutely unique
selling proposition because most businesses are very
impersonal.
The key to running a successful local business and marketing it
well is the ability to be very personal. You have an advantage
right now that you don’t realize you have. Most people work in
the opposite direction than they should. Everybody wants to
look like the big guy while the truth is that people are sick of
dealing with the big guy.
Ryan:
Yeah, they know the big guy is impersonal. They know the big
guy is not going to give the same level of service.
Perry:
I have a friend from England whose father is a cabinet maker.
He just did a whole advertising campaign to come build custom
cabinets. It had his picture all over it and he renamed his
company. It was something like Cabinet Masters and he
changed it to Woodrow’s Cabinets.
He can now go out and say, “My name is Woodrow and I’m here
to do your cabinets. I’m not like one of these big companies with
18 trucks of people. They don’t know who they are and they hire
them to go into your home.
“I’m one guy. I’m a craftsman and I do things by hand. You can
talk to me. You can pick up the phone and talk to me any time
you want to. If you want to sit around and talk about your plan
for a little while, we can do that.”
He’s doing incredibly well and he is getting a premium price for
what he is doing because marketing is about one person to
another. That is a big rule to keep in your hat and we’ll talk
about that in a minute, too.
You need a unique selling proposition, something you have
that’s different. Think about how you can make your product
different.
Jay Abraham is one of the greatest marketers I’ve ever known.
He was doing a seminar not too long ago when a guy stood up
and said, “Man, I have a problem. I sell lamps. I sell a particular
type of lamp. How can I have a unique selling proposition? A
lamp is a lamp is a lamp.”
I watched Jay respond to this guy off the top of his head. He
asked the guy about the lamp, where it came from, what it
looked like. As it turned out, the guy went to several countries to
get lamps made and finally decided to have his lamps made in
Turkey.
Jay sat down and wrote, “I went all over the world looking for the
perfect lamp. Finally, I was trudging through a back road in a
small, sweaty cab in Turkey, when I came across a Turkish
lamp factory. When I walked in the door I saw the most beautiful
lamp I’d ever seen in my life and I asked how I could import that
to the United States.”
He told a story. He got people interested in the background of
the product or the background of the service, the detail of what
they do.
Then he added another unique selling proposition. “If you buy
this lamp from me, I’ll provide you with light bulbs for this lamp
for as long as you own it absolutely free.”
Ryan:
A USP can be a big, massive idea or it can be a very simple
concept. What are some other unique selling propositions that
people might be familiar with?
Perry:
I can think of two that are the most famous. One is local to us
here. The most famous USP in history is Domino’s Pizza. This
is a USP that built an absolute giant of a company by just a few
words. Those were, “Hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less or
it’s free.” It was the perfect USP.
It told people exactly what you had to offer. It told them the
benefit of what you had to offer; it was going to be to you in 30
minutes or less.
If the prospective customer says, “Hey, what if you’re lying? Am
I just stuck?” the answer is, “No, you get the pizza for free.” It
was a no-risk proposition and a perfect unique selling
proposition. It built a company from nothing to being gigantic
practically overnight.
Federal Express has a great USP: “When it absolutely,
positively has to be there overnight.” I just heard a story about
that not too long ago. They had an actor doing the commercial
and the line was meant to be, “When it absolutely has to be
there overnight.”
The actor ad-libbed in the commercial. They told him to be more
dramatic and he was kind of going overly dramatic and made a
joke of it and said, “When it positively, absolutely has to be there
overnight.” They said, “Hold on! That’s it!” They rewrote the
commercial right there and did the commercial with, “When it
absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. FedEx.”
They had a unique selling proposition. They could get a
package across the country and have it there in the morning.
They just delivered that as clearly and simply as they could.
By the way, this USP has to be something you can tell
somebody in a matter of just a few words. It has to be simple
and easy to understand.
“I will cut your lawn and manicure your edges to make your lawn
the prettiest one in the neighborhood or my services are free.”
“I’ll cut your lawn to where your neighbors will be jealous or you
don’t owe me anything.”
There’s a car wash here in town. You can wash your car for as
many times as you want to in a month for $35. That’s a USP.
Ryan:
I’ve seen a painting company advertise. This is one of those
things that will be industry-specific. You have to know what your
customers are looking for and what they’re familiar with.
The USP for this painting company is, “Our painters are always
clean and they don’t play loud music.” That’s one of the big
things they do and, apparently, this is a big deal. I haven’t
experienced it, but lots of people are familiar with this problem.
They get their house repainted and the painters are out there
blaring loud music and being obnoxious in front of their house.
This guy promises, “Look, our painters are going to be
respectful of your property and they won’t play loud music.”
It is a really simple concept, but the interesting thing is that this
guy charges about 30% more than everybody else. I heard this
story from a friend of mine who hired this particular painter and
he said, “Yeah, I didn’t want to have to deal with loud music
blaring throughout the neighborhood making me look bad.”
He has referred numerous other people. This is another thing a
good USP does. I know we’re going to get to this at some point,
but it helps to generate referrals.
We talked about these big concept USPs.
Perry:
I’ll give you a little one. Before I do, this is a fun one for me
because I think it’s interesting that they did it and it really
worked.
I’m referring to Avis where they say, “Avis: We try harder.” They
were number two in the market and had been for years and they
actually took their number two position and used it to their
advantage.
“We’re not the big corporate guy. We’re the second guy and we
know we’re the second guy, but we’re trying hard to be number
one for you, so give us a shot.”
Ryan:
Their slogan has been shortened. Now is just “Avis: We try
harder.” The original version was, “We’re #2, so we try harder.”
That was very, very smart.
Perry:
This next one is a great example of a shortfall in your business
actually being turned into a plus for your business. It is taking a
lemon and making lemonade.
There’s an ice cream shop here in Austin called Amy’s Ice
Cream. There is another one, Marble Slab Creamery, I think.
There’s a national one out there and a couple of others.
The ice cream business is a tough business. You have to carry
a lot of inventory. Look at Baskin Robbins with their 32 flavors.
You have to carry all these flavors.
Ryan:
It’s 31 flavors.
Perry:
Well, 32, 35, whatever. Do you remember the Howard
Johnson’s in Blazing Saddles with one flavor?
Anyway, when this concept was invested, someone said, “Man,
it’s hard. I can’t afford to inventory 50 different ice creams.”
Ryan:
Maybe you don’t have the space to inventory.
Perry:
A small operator came up with this concept. They inventory
three or four flavors. They inventory vanilla, chocolate, and just
a few other basic flavors. Then they put out a combination of all
kinds of stuff from Gummy Bears to chocolate chips and
Reece’s bars.
They take a scoop of ice cream and make a big production out
of beating it out on a marble slab. They could do it 50 other
ways that would be a lot simpler, but there is sort of a show to
the whole process.
They beat it out on a marble slab and then fold in all these
different things that give it flavor. They literally have an unlimited
number of flavor combinations.
They were able to create a business with a lot less inventory, so
they had the advantage of that. They also had much fewer start
up costs and they actually beat the guy that had 50 flavors or
100 flavors. They couldn’t compete. Plus, they were hand
making something in front of you to order. It had a personal
touch to it.
Ryan:
They take that ice cream and actually throw it up in the air and
catch it in your cup. You’re right; it’s a theatrical production.
Perry:
That’s an example of a USP. Is Amy’s ice cream better than
other people’s ice cream? Well, yeah, it is. However, if it wasn’t,
if it was just the same, they would still have an advantage
because of the personal touch that goes into it and the absolute
variety; you create your own.
People want to do more of their thing nowadays. There used to
be a model of selling a whole lot of a few things. Now it is selling
a few of a whole lot of things. It is the long tail angle.
Ryan:
It is Henry Ford’s model: “You can have any color, as long as
it’s black.”
Perry:
I’ve already explained what a USP is, but whatever business
you’re in, think about something in your business that will make
it unique; a point that you can press with people that is
important to them. It is not that it is important to you, mind you.
Remember the story about the painters. That’s not important to
your business. You don’t care if they play loud music or not; the
wall still gets painted. Obviously, though, it is important to the
customer.
You need to find out from the customers what they like and what
they dislike. In this case, they used something that people
disliked. They took something away; don’t play music. How hard
is that? However, it gives them a really unique selling
proposition.
You need to develop one of those and here is the thing that
people leave out after that. You have to prove it. Whatever your
promise is to people, you have to show proof that whatever
you’re promising them is real.
Today, in marketing and advertising and in society in general,
people aren’t very trusting. They are hit with thousands and
thousands of advertising messages a day. Survey after survey
asks, “Why didn’t you buy this widget. It has a great promise,”
and over and over again the answer is, “I didn’t believe it. I
didn’t believe it would work for me.”
Ryan:
The funny thing is that the better you are at establishing a
unique selling proposition, the more important it is to have the
proof of it. You can do a great job of coming up with a unique
selling proposition that is so dang good that nobody believes it
to be true.
Perry:
I’ll give you a couple of examples of good proof items. Case
studies are always good at showing people an example of what
happened in the past. “When this company used our computer
support company, here is what happened.” Show case studies
of how they saved money and improved.
You can also show statistics. “Our computers break down 50%
less than other computers do.”
Social proof is a biggy. It is better known as a testimonial or a
success story. This is getting people that you served in the past
to write a little testimonial or story for you saying, “Hey, I’ve
used John’s Lawn Service,” or, “I’ve used Jimmy’s Plumbing
and he’s awesome. He never overcharges me; he’s always here
on time; he’s courteous and safe. I like him.”
Basically, testimonials are best if they show a result. “I called
Jimmy’s Plumbing. There was water on my floor two feet deep.
When I came back in the afternoon, everything was dried out
and the carpet cleaners were there. Thank you, Jimmy.”
Ryan:
There is a local lawn company here. This is a brilliant strategy
and one that anybody can implement no matter what your
service business is. This one happens to be a lawn company
and they run commercial spots. We’re going to talk about that
and we don’t necessarily recommend TV commercials for a lot
of different reasons.
In this case, though, they do a great job of it because in their
commercials they don’t talk about how great they are. It is not
the owner saying, “Oh, my gosh! We’re the best.”
Their commercial is a person, a customer, standing out in front
of their perfectly cut, manicured lawn saying how much they
love this particular lawn service. It is very informal. You can tell
it is not a trained actor. You can tell it is somebody they went
back to after their lawn was mown and said, “Hey, can we bring
out a camera crew and record you saying how much you like
us?”
That is all they run and it’s amazing. It is just the person sitting
there talking about their experience with using it. At the end they
say, “Give us a call. We want to do the same for you.” That’s it.
It’s really, really fascinating that they’ve turned their entire
marketing message into using social proof and testimonials.
Perry:
Social proof elements are incredibly important. Remember this,
especially in a local business. A testimonial is the easiest thing
in the world to get. All you have to do is find a satisfied customer
at the time they are the most satisfied.
You just detailed this guy’s car and it looks like he just rolled it
off a showroom floor. He comes out and says, “Man! Gosh! My
car looks great!” You just say, “Hey, that’s awesome, man. Can
you do me a favor? Can you answer a couple of questions for
me? I’d love to put you on my Web site or on my next flyer I
send out. Is that okay with you?”
“Sure.”
“How did you find out about us?” and he’ll tell you how.
“Well, were you skeptical of us when you first called?”
“Yeah, I didn’t know what you were going to do.”
“How did it turn out in the end?”
“Man! My car looks terrific!”
“Who would you recommend this to?”
“I’d recommend you to anybody.”
You just asked him four questions and the answers you jotted
down become a testimonial. You can have him say those on an
audio recorder; you can write them. It depends on how you are
going to deliver the message later.
The bottom line is that you can ask almost anybody who is
happy with your service right at the time they are the most
happy. They will almost always be willing to give you a
testimonial.
I’ll throw in a little word of warning here. Never, ever, ever under
any circumstances fake a testimonial like getting your brotherin-law to do a testimonial for you or making up something in
writing.
This is for a couple of reasons. First, it shows through; people
can tell. People only write in one style, typically. If you write
three or four testimonials and they’re not real, people will
consciously or subconsciously know it.
Secondly, if they find out they’re not real, it will absolutely
destroy your credibility in your business.
Ryan:
This is especially true if it’s a local business.
Perry:
Yeah, and thirdly, it is against the law. You could go to jail and
get in a lot of trouble for it. By all means, only use real
testimonials, real, live success stories, and document them. I
usually like to ask somebody to sign a little piece of paper
saying it is true and they said it.
There is also physical proof. I have a few examples of that.
Have you seen the Columbia Sportswear commercial?
Columbia Sportswear is this extreme clothing for skiers and
hikers that hike in super cold conditions.
In the commercial they are driving in a truck somewhere and
she stops, pushes her husband out of the truck, and leaves him
lying in the snow. He’s okay, though, because he is in Columbia
Sportswear and he can stay there as long as he wants.
Ryan:
His marriage might not be okay, but at least he’s warm.
Perry:
That’s true. I’m a little older than Ryan, but people forget how
Timex became so popular. Years ago they used to put a Timex
down and have an elephant stand on the Timex.
Ryan:
“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
Perry:
They would show particular examples of this watch being beat
up and yet it still ran under all kinds of conditions.
Today, a great example of a physical proof element is a Web
site called Will It Blend? I really like it. This is a great marketing
example, as well. This guy sells a $400 blender that has a four
or five horsepower motor in it.
Ryan:
It’s the definition of overkill.
Perry:
It is overkill, but he blends things that shouldn’t be blendable.
He blends marbles; he blends iPods.
Ryan:
He blends golf balls. He blended an entire golf club.
Perry:
Is he showing that his blender is super-duper tough and the best
blender around? Yes, he is. Does he have a unique selling
proposition? As weird as it is, yes, he does. It will do something
your blender can’t do. Do you need it? You probably don’t. Do
people want it? They absolutely do!
It’s like the Jessica Simpson commercial: “I don’t know what that
means, but I want it.”
People want things and they will always buy. People come to
me all the time and say, “Hey, Perry, I have a great idea. You
need to help me with this; I want you to go into business with
me. I have a product that everybody needs.”
“I am not interested. I don’t care. Give me a product that
everybody wants. Then I’m turned on.”
You want to do things that people want. If you’re in the lawn
care business, don’t say, “I’ll cut your grass because it needs to
be cut.” Say, “Hey, I’ll make your lawn the envy of the
neighborhood.”
Everybody wants to be envied, right? Believe it or not, do you
think people don’t have lawn envy? You’re out of your mind. I
have neighbors that spend hours and hours digging in gardens
and mowing grass three times a week. They have the coolest
lawn in the neighborhood, so they have the little sticker stuck in
there once every six months. Congratulations.
That is what they want. Do I want that? Believe it or not, yeah, I
dig it. I’m probably not willing to do what they do to get it, but I’d
like it. If you were to give me an easy way to get there, I’d
probably do it.
That’s the idea. Find things that people want at a core level,
provide it to them, and show proof that you can provide it.
Ryan:
We’ve talked about developing your USP. We’ve talked about
providing proof. What is another big element of marketing, one
of those things that you have to have?
Perry:
This is really the last thing we’ll talk about before we go into the
Triad, so you will understand the concepts of the Triad. I’m
talking about an irresistible offer. This is the key.
Going back to Domino’s Pizza again, you need to have an
irresistible offer. When you decide what you’re going to sell
people, you need to sit down, read out the message to yourself,
and say, “Would I feel like a total idiot if I didn’t do that? I’d be
crazy not to take advantage of this offer; it is so good.” That’s
the key.
You need to have an offer that really turns people on, where
they say, “That’s just too good to pass up.” What do you do to
get that offer?
There are really only three things you need to do to have an
irresistible offer, okay? First, explain what you’re offering clearly.
With Domino’s Pizza, it was easy: hot pizza. Notice they didn’t
say “good, hot pizza.” They just said, “hot pizza.”
Ryan:
They say, “hot pizza, fast.”
Perry:
The benefit was that it’s quick. You are going to get it right
away. They knew the hot button to hit. They didn’t just pick that
and say, “Oh, this would be a neat idea.” They knew from
experience in the pizza business that everybody’s number one
complaint was that the pizza came too late and that it was cold.
This is what was wrong with the pizza delivery business.
They made a promise that they would fix both problems in one
sentence. They said, “Hot pizza—not cold pizza—delivered in
30 minutes.” Wow! That’s a great idea!
Had they not added the last line, they wouldn’t have made the
money they made and that is, “or it’s free.” People don’t believe
you. Domino’s has since taken that line off because they don’t
have to use it anymore; people trust Domino’s.
Before that, they were not a trusted brand. You didn’t know who
in the world they were. If they had just said, “Fresh, hot pizza
delivered in 30 minutes or less,” you would have said, “Yeah,
right, whatever.” It comes down to, “What if you’re lying to me?”
That is what the customer says in their mind.
“Or it’s free.”
“Oh! That just changed everything.”
It became a game with Domino’s. You would set your stop
watch. College kids set stop watches and hoped the Domino’s
man would miss by a minute.
Ryan:
It was the whole challenge thing.
Perry:
They did miss sometimes and sometimes they had to pay up.
You know what? So what! Don’t get hung up with the little
details of your guarantee. Give the best guarantee you can
possibly give and take it on the chin every now and then. If
you’re not getting hit a couple of times by somebody taking
advantage of your guarantee, you probably don’t have a good
enough guarantee.
Ryan:
You used the example of Domino’s. Do you have any other
examples of maybe a local business or service business?
Perry:
I’ll tell you about a guy who owns a pizza business who does
something very interesting. He makes gourmet pizza. This is
just a local guy in Wisconsin and he has become a pizza
marketing guru; he’s a brilliant guy.
Everybody else is selling a $12 pizza and he is selling a $25
pizza. It is this killer, monster, gourmet pizza that is just
absolutely delicious. He only has a few different ones, but they
are the best pizzas you will ever have. He has stuff like crab
meat and all kinds of odd, terrific pizzas.
How do you get somebody to buy that first $25 pizza? He goes
around with samples during the day to local businesses in an
area when he starts up. He has a sample tray of his best pizzas
and he goes into business places and let’s everybody have a
small, half of a normal size piece of pizza.
They try the pizza and he leaves them a coupon that says,
“Hey, my pizzas are $25. It is the best pizza you have ever had.
To prove it, I’m giving you a coupon to get your first pizza for
$5.” Wow!
Ryan:
That definitely takes on the whole litmus test, as you said, about
somebody saying, “I’d have to be crazy not to take that.”
Perry:
It’s the “put your money where your mouth is.” If your pizza is so
good that I’m never going to want another pizza, then let me try
the first one for less or for free.” He does it for $5. His food costs
on a pizza, by the way, are $6, so he loses a dollar the first time
he delivers a pizza.
What he does then is just as smart. When he delivers the first
pizza, he leaves a coupon that says, “Here’s a coupon for your
next pizza for only $10.” They’re thinking, “Only $10?” It is still
cheaper than the Domino’s guy with the crappy, cardboard
pizza.
They get the second pizza for $10 and he leaves them a coupon
for $15. Now they’re getting around the same price as a
Domino’s pizza, but they’re going to say, “Hey, for two more
dollars it’s worth it.” They will buy the third pizza and by the
fourth time they want a pizza, they can’t stand to put that
cardboard stuff in their mouth.
I used to love Waffle House. I like Waffle House and if you saw
me eat, you’d know why. I still love Waffle House, but I don’t go
there very often anymore because their coffee tastes really bad.
I drank Waffle House coffee for 20 years and it always tasted
great, but I’ve been drinking Starbuck’s coffee for two or three
years.
When I go to Waffle House now, it tastes like watered down
dishwater. That’s just the truth of that. I’m used to drinking this
mega strong coffee that you may be able to tell I had a great,
big cup of before we started recording.
Once somebody knows the difference, they’re hooked. They’re
hooked once you’ve mowed somebody’s lawn and every time
you mowed you left them a couple of potted plants by the door
and wrote a note that says, “Hey, if there is anything else I can
do, let me know. I left these for you. I hope you enjoy them. I’ll
plant them for you if you want me to. Love, Tim the Yardman.”
A buddy of mine talks about how Van Gogh cut off his own ear
and sent it to a girl to prove how much he loved her. That kind of
makes a dozen roses look like a booger, doesn’t it?
The next guy that came along had a tough job, you know?
“Yeah, I love you. Here’s a rose.”
“Yeah, well forget that. This guy cut off his ear for me!”
With that little touch like the flowers and getting them used to
certain behavior, it is very difficult to go back to the ordinary. If
you are extraordinary, it is very difficult to go back to the
ordinary.
Ryan:
Maybe somebody is thinking right now, “That’s all great; that all
applies.” As a word of warning, the temptation as you’re hearing
this is to think, “Oh, that’s great for Domino’s. Oh, that’s great
for Starbuck’s, but it doesn’t apply to me.” Keep in mind that all
those businesses at one time were small local businesses, just
as you are or you will be. They were able to grow into
something extraordinary because of these things.
You may not have ambition to be a multinational corporation,
but there is major growth potential here. Just keep your mind
open to it. Don’t shut it off and think it doesn’t apply to you
because you’re a local guy.
From a strategy perspective, if you want to think of a great way
you can do this, step one is to provide superior service or a
superior product. Whatever you do, do it really, really well. That
shouldn’t be a problem.
Secondly, give it away for free. I’ve seen carpet cleaners before
make an offer that says, “If we can’t get the stain out, we’ll clean
the entire room for free.” That may sound kind of crazy, like they
probably have to clean a lot of rooms for free, and they do.
They get into somebody’s home and they have this mega stain
that nobody could ever get out in a million years. They give it
their best effort and they go, “Yep, we weren’t able to get that
stain out, so we’re going to go ahead and clean this room for
free. By the way, while we’re here, do you want us to get the
rest of your house for you?”
They’re already in there. They have already proven that they
can do an exceptional job by cleaning the room. They’ve given
something away for free and now they make the offer, “For a
little bit more would you like to have the rest of the carpets
cleaned?”
From a strategic standpoint, if you’re trying to think how this can
apply to you, just think, “What can I do really, really well and can
I give it away for free or give it away at a really low, break-even
cost?”
Once you provide superior service, as Perry said, people will not
want to go back to the normal guys.
Perry:
You build an obligatory base anyway. People always worry
about what they give away. I’ll give you two quick examples.
I told you I had a jewelry store business when I was really
young. One of the first guys I met was an older gentleman who
had retired once already, but had come back to run a Chick-fil-A
restaurant in the mall where I opened my first store. I probably
learned retail from this guy.
The younger people on the training probably won’t remember,
but Chick-fil-A used to give away samples of chicken in the mall.
They might still do it today. I guess they do, but probably not as
much as they used to.
The guy who ran the restaurant there told me that in a given
week he would give away 400 pounds of chicken in little chicken
nugget bites outside a Chick-fil-A restaurant.
Ryan:
Interestingly enough, I was in a Chick-fil-A two days ago in a
restaurant. I was eating a chicken sandwich and they came
around and offered me a sample of chicken salad.
I noticed they offered that to everybody that wasn’t eating
chicken salad. If they were eating chicken salad, they offered
them something they weren’t eating. They absolutely still do
that.
Perry:
He told me clearly that they could never give away more than
they got back. Truett Cathy, the person who started Chick-fil-A
had that philosophy: “You’ll never give away as much as you’ll
get back.” They built one of the most profitable restaurant
chains in the world on that principle.
Based on that, this is a cool little story I can give you some
specifics on. I was in the jewelry business and I had a kiosk in a
mall.
I used to go back and forth to Providence, Rhode Island, a lot. I
was up there and I saw these little necklaces, a little gold heart
pendant on a little gold chain. They were plated; these things
were very inexpensive, about .80 cents a piece on a closeout.
The guy had about 1,000 of them and I bought them all and
brought them back to my store right at the beginning of the
Christmas season. When people would come up to the store
and ladies were looking at products, if they had a little girl with
them that was under 12 years old, we would give them a
necklace.
It was .80 cents. We didn’t ask them to buy anything; we didn’t
ask them to purchase. We just said, “Hey, honey, I have a little
gift for you here. Let me give you this.”
We found out that with the average person who walked into the
store, one in about eight bought something. If we gave that .80
cent necklace to the child when they walked into the store,
about half of the people who got the necklace bought
something. We didn’t do it for that purpose; we just did it to be
nice. Our average ticket was about $100.
Ryan:
That’s a pretty good return on investment, I’d say.
Perry:
Going that extra mile, doing that extra thing, really does make it
all work.
One of the last examples I have of making an irresistible offer
that people would probably be familiar with is Columbia House
Records. If you’ve seen their ads in the back of magazines
before, you know it’s, “Select any 19 CDs for a penny.”
Ryan:
Right.
Perry:
Then you’re in the club for the next 100 years and you have to
buy a million dollars worth of CDs. At the time, though, you’re
not thinking about it.
They created an absolutely irresistible offer; an offer that is very,
very hard to pass up. You get these CDs—what you consider in
your mind to be worth $150—for a penny. That’s hard to not
take advantage of, basically.
That is what I’m talking about. I think I talk about this again as
we move forward, but you don’t have to make a whole lot of
money on your first transaction with somebody. As a matter of
fact, I would say it’s a good idea to try to give back as much as
you can humanly stand to give back on your first transaction.
Ryan:
Do you know who understands that better than anybody else?
This is going to sound a little bit crude, but I’m thinking of crack
dealers.
Perry:
The first rock is always free.
Ryan:
I’m not saying that they have a quality product, but if you have
something that good, be willing to lose a little bit of money or
break even. Like you said, just being able to acquire that
customer is so, so vitally important and worth so much money.
Perry:
It is so much cheaper. You go out there and use some form of
advertising. You think, “Well, I’m just going to advertise to death
and I’ll get enough customers.” You are probably going to spend
a lot more money in advertising trying to acquire a customer at
full price.
Let’s say it may cost you $50 to acquire a customer that spends
$50. It would be a whole lot easier just to shout out, “Hey! Do
you want one of these $50 things for free?” Everybody will
come.
You’ve spent the same amount of money, but you’ve done it
faster and you built good will. That’s a big point. You build good
will with people.
Basically, to sum this up, you just need to tell people the three
parts to an irresistible offer.
What are you offering? Be clear about what you have.
What is the benefit to them for owning it or using it or for taking
advantage of the offer you have? What is the biggest benefit or
the few biggest benefits they will get by accepting your offer?
Always end the offer by answering the question, “What if it
doesn’t work for me? What am I going to do? How can you
assure me that I’m not going to be left holding the bag?”
I think we made an example with Domino’s and with several
others. That is the big deal. What are you offering? What’s the
benefit? What if it doesn’t work? Sometimes, if price is a real
issue and people don’t understand the price, they may want to
know what it costs. You can put price in the USP.
“The ultimate car. We’ll wash it until it’s spotless for $10.”
I would go to a car wash right now that had a big sign out front
that said, “We’ll wash your car as many times as it takes until it’s
spotless for $10.” Nothing ticks you off worse than running
through one of those stupid car washes that you paid $7 for and
your car is only half clean. It can’t cost that much to run a car
through there.
Think about things like that. Whatever you are about to provide,
if it’s a service, for instance, when you use that service or you
buy that product, what is the thing you like about it the least?
I have a lawn guy right now that blows grass all over my
driveway and he never sweeps it up before he leaves. If
somebody came around and said, “Hey, we do lawn service.
We trim, edge, and we clean all the sidewalks before we leave.”
That might be a big enough thing to push me over. I don’t know
if I’m like everybody else.
You have to find the thing that’s cool for a lot of people; the
thing that a lot of people want. Take advantage of what the
other guys are missing. That’s one of the biggest things to your
offer.
Ryan:
Another big secret is not just necessarily doing something new
or different, but talking about something where, maybe
everybody is doing it, but you are really putting it out there.
Maybe a lot of lawn care companies do sweep up the clippings,
but you’re going to tell everybody that you sweep up the
clippings.
Perry:
There are a lot of great examples of advertising in the past.
Falstaff Beer years ago was trying to figure out how to make it
stand out. All beer is brewed and run through these super cold
filters before it goes out into the bottles.
Ryan:
All beer is cold-filtered.
Perry:
Some genius advertising guy said, “Falstaff Beers: Ice-cold
filtered at 32 degrees below zero to lock in the freshness,” or
whatever the statement was. He explained the process in the
ad.
“Every drop ran through our ice-cold filters to ensure you get the
best.” People went, “Oh! I like that one because it’s ice brewed.”
Well, they’re all ice brewed; they’re all cold brewed. It didn’t
matter. He was the guy who pushed it out.
A great example was the David Ogilvy ad that he did years ago:
“In the new Rolls-Royce, the loudest sound that you’ll hear is
the clock,” which was actually a defect in the car. You shouldn’t
have heard the clock.
He had been in the factory for three weeks trying to write an ad
for them and he couldn’t find anything to write about. They were
driving back to the hotel and he kept hearing this “tick.” A minute
later he heard this “tick.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s the clock. We’re trying to fix that.” That was it. That
was his ad and the ad ran forever.
Sometimes you can take the weirdest little things and
demonstrate what you’re doing. Green elements are a big thing
right now; things that are economically friendly.
Maybe when you cut somebody’s grass—I keep going back to
cutting grass. We’re going to talk about all kinds of businesses,
so I’m not going to get stuck that.
Ryan:
So far we’re really mostly talking to you only if you’re in a pizza
business or if you happen to cut grass.
Perry:
Yeah, right. I like those businesses because most things you do
in those businesses can apply broadly. That’s the advantage
I’ve had over time. I’ve been able to pick up pieces from
different businesses and found out that, fundamentally,
successfully marketed businesses all work on three principles,
the Triad. We’re going to go to those next.
I think that gives you a general idea of how you need to think of
your business. There are some decisions you have to make.
What’s unique about your business? How are you going to
prove that to people and show that to people? How are you
going to craft an irresistible offer?
You need to do that first. This doesn’t take that long, believe it
or not. You could probably come up with that in a couple hours.
After you listen to this you’re going to be inspired and fired up
and those creative juices will be flowing. I really suggest that
you take a piece of paper, sit down, and think.
What’s cool about my business? If it’s not cool, how can I make
it cool? How can I do something that’s just totally different?
We have movie theaters here that serve dinner which is a really
cool idea. They show a movie and you can go to dinner. You
can have one or whatever. It is a neat way to deliver the movie
theater experience.
There are all sorts of different businesses where the uniqueness
of the business makes it stand out. That’s what people talk
about at the water cooler tomorrow at work, too. I can tell you
right now that the guy that does the flowers with the lawn with
the love notes gets talked about until these ladies are blue in the
face at work tomorrow. They’re talking about their lawn guy
because it’s special.
Nobody goes out of their way anymore to be special for people.
If you will do that, I can almost assure you success.
Ryan:
That’s a broad overview of the general marketing process, of
what marketing is. Next we’re going to roll in and talk about the
Triad Marketing System specifically.
Okay, Perry, we’ve talked a lot about the whole marketing Triad
and we touched on it a little bit, but we haven’t really delved in
and talked about what the Triad is.
Can you go into more depth on that and explain the three
elements of the Triad?
Perry Belcher: I sure can. Before I do that, I want to make a statement. I’m sure
I’ll get some e-mails from this, but I challenge anybody to
disprove this. There are really only three ways in the world to
grow any business. I don’t care what business you’re in, there
are only three ways to grow it.
The wild part is that most companies only concentrate on one,
but there are three. The two that are ignored a majority of the
time are the ones that are the most important. I’ll talk about
those right now.
The number one way to build a business is to acquire more
customers. This is the one everybody spends their time on.
Everybody is always out there trying to attract new customers.
The people who are marketing or think they are marketers or
advertisers are actually in the business of acquiring new
customers.
Those guys will typically do better than somebody who has not
marketing effort at all. We just hired a young lady who worked
for a company that was a very good marketing company. She
got hired away by another company and the fellow decided not
to spend any money on marketing at all. He was just planning
on putting a sign out and everybody would just knock his door
down. Well, he’s about to go broke now.
The thing is that he delivers a better service at a better price; he
has a better menu of services for people. It doesn’t matter. He
didn’t want to spend the money to attract new customers.
Ryan:
He has the “if you build it, they will come” field of dreams
marketing strategy.
Perry:
It was a great movie, but it was a fantasy. It’s not real.
Basically, the number one way to build a business is to acquire
new customers.
The second way to build a business is to increase the frequency
of their purchase. This means to get them to come and buy
more often from you. A great example, again, is Starbuck’s
coffee. They want you to be conditioned so that your car turns
into the Starbuck’s parking lot on the way to work in the
morning.
Number two is getting people to buy more frequently from you.
That one can be absolutely dynamic.
Lastly, the third step of the Triad is to increase the transaction
value of each transaction. Each time somebody buys from you,
you get them to spend more money with you.
Any of these three will grow your business. The three used
properly together will grow your business expeditiously. You’ll
see explosive growth in your business if you use all three.
This is what I’m suggesting to you and it is why I’ve been
successful in the past. I have implemented all three of these
strategies. Actually, the last two I mentioned have made me a
lot more money than the first.
Obviously, if you’re starting out and your customer count right
now is at zero, number one is pretty important to you. You may
be getting these CDs or somebody gave you the CDs or you got
them through another product we offer and you already have an
existing business.
If you do, I would say before you go to number one, work on
number two and three first. It is really important. I go into
businesses right now as a consultant. I go in the door and it’s
hilarious because the conversation goes the same way every
time.
“I’m the new marketing consultant. I’m here to help you,” and
the guy says, “Yeah, okay. Let me take you over to our
marketing or sales manager.”
I ask, “What do you guys want? What is your goal?”
“Well, we need to get more customers, obviously. That’s why
you’re here.”
I always ask, “What are you doing with the ones you already
have?” That is what we in the business call the “low hanging
fruit.” This is where you will pick up the most and quickest
money.
If you are in a business where you already have a customer
base already or you can borrow somebody else’s customer
base—which we’ll talk about in a few minutes—then, by all
means, this is the way to build your business.
Those are the three things in the Triad Marketing System and
everything you are going to find out about growing a business
falls in one of those three. No matter what you do, these are the
only three ways that I know of, that exist, to grow a business.
Ryan:
Let’s delve in. I know we’re going to touch on all three
throughout the remainder of this training, but let’s talk
specifically about how people can acquire more customers.
If somebody has a startup business, obviously that is priority
number one. The other two are pointless if you don’t get the first
one down. Let’s talk about some strategies to acquire more
customers for people.
Perry:
Actually, I have a triad for that, believe it or not. You are going to
hear that word a lot. I work in threes.
There are three big ways I use to attract new clients for a
business I am consulting with or a business of my own. These
include advertising in the traditional sense such as space
advertising, as it is called in the business.
Secondly, use referrals. The use of referrals is one of the most
overlooked areas of acquiring new customers in the world.
Third is direct mail. I don’t call it direct mail advertising because
in the sense we use it, it is not really advertising.
I said I had three. “There are only three ways to do this!”
However, a fourth way is now the Internet. I lump Internet and
direct mail together because I use them very similarly. They are
a very similar medium. You will understand what I mean in a few
minutes when I go through the three.
Those are the three methods I use.
Number one is advertising. Guess what we have inside
advertising? We have another triad. Space advertising has three
rules: 1) to find the right target prospects, 2) create the right
message, and 3) deliver it to them.
When I’m doing space advertising, the first thing I am going to
concentrate on is advertising in a place where it will be seen by
the people who are most likely to use my service.
A great thing we have in our neighborhood, in a big subdivision,
is a subdivision newsletter. People who provide various services
for the home like plumbers, gutter repair people, appliance
repair people, advertise in the community newsletter. That goes
out to everyone who lives in our subdivision monthly.
Ryan:
Oddly enough, people read it. On average, I bet that little
community newsletter that goes out every month is read more
than the city newspaper by people in that particular
neighborhood.
Again, just to reiterate, when we talk about space advertising,
we’re specifically referring to putting an advertisement in
newspapers, community newsletters, and things like that. Perry,
perhaps you can clarify this. That’s what we’re talking about.
Perry:
I have a few methods I like and there are some I’m going to
warn you away from, too.
For the uninitiated person, the advertising person that goes to
buy ads for the first time, the obvious logic that pops into your
head is, “I want to go into things that have the most circulation,
so that the most people can see my ad.” You just really couldn’t
be any more wrong by taking that approach.
I would much rather have my ad seen by a thousand people that
have a propensity to buy whatever I’m selling than have
100,000 people see it.
There is a great, big newspaper here that has a readership of
100,000 or 150,000 weekly, and I would say the little newsletter
in our neighborhood with a circulation of 2,000 would easily out
pull that 150,000 newspaper circulation all day long for the
services I want to offer in the area I want to offer them.
Ryan:
Yeah, and it will cost a fraction of it, also.
Perry:
It costs a fraction and you are targeting the audience you want.
You definitely want to start small. I like classified advertising. If
I’m going into a larger medium, I want a classified ad.
Remember this, for the most part when you’re advertising to
acquire new customers, the biggest mistake I see people make
is to try to sell their service in the ad. I know you’re thinking,
“Well, isn’t that the purpose of the ad?”
No, the purpose of the ad is to sell the customer on contacting
you, on calling you, on e-mailing you, writing you, or whatever is
your method of contact. You don’t have enough room in that ad
to just get people to call and be a lay down customer, usually.
The whole idea is to try to generate a lead that you can then
contact in a different way and provide more information to.
That is the difference in marketing. We want to generate leads.
Instead of going out like a salesman, banging on doors, and
being an unwanted pest, by using marketing the proper way you
can become an invited guest. People will invite you into their
homes and into their businesses to provide services.
You can go out and knock on doors, but it is a very inefficient
way of doing things and it sure isn’t any fun, I’ll tell you that right
now. It burns up a lot of shoe leather and a lot of time. People
think it has to be hard to work, but it is absolutely not true. Not
only is it no fun, it is not very efficient. It doesn’t work well.
When you’re advertising, you need to remember three things.
I’m going to tell you how to write a really good ad and, if you
remember these three things, you’ll never have to really worry
about how you advertise.
I said three things, but actually there are four. Number one, the
words in an ad are the most important thing. Most people make
the mistake of putting a great, big, giant picture in an ad and a
few words that don’t mean much.
Ryan:
Or they put in a big, fat logo, as if anybody cares.
Perry:
Nobody cares who you are; they don’t care about the name of
your company. Unless you bought a franchise that is nationally
recognized or something like that, they don’t care that you are
Larry’s Lawn Service.
I’ve seen so many people that have something like “Jimmy’s
Plumbing” as their headline. Nobody cares. People want to
know what you have to offer and what your big benefit is.
“Fast Plumbing Repair” is a good one. “We’ll be there in 15
minutes or it’s free.” Put in whatever is your big benefit. They
want to know what you are offering and the benefit to them.
This last one is the most important thing of all and it is left out of
90% of local advertising. What do you want them to do next?
They’ve read your headline and your benefit and they said,
“Okay, I get it. I like it.” Most ads don’t tell people how to take
action or what to do next.
“Call this number right now.”
“E-mail me right now at…”
“Go online right now to our Web site.”
Tell them in a commanding way exactly what to do next. Make it
clear and concise.
You don’t need to know a whole lot more about advertising.
That’s pretty much it. In the local area, if you have a place to put
some testimonials in an ad or some social proof, that is always
great. I would definitely want to emphasize my guarantee in the
ad.
However, it is easier if you have written an irresistible offer. The
guarantee is all there; everything is there. If you tell them,
“Quality plumbing repairs in three hours or less or it’s free,” that
headline pretty much sums it all up.
You might put a little testimonial underneath or something like,
“over 10,000 customers served,” or something like that. Then
tell them what you want them to do. “Call our 24-hour hotline
right now at 555-1212,” or whatever the number is. Don’t use
555-1212 or the ad really won’t pull that well.
Do you want to know how I know? I actually laid out an ad one
time and sent it in to an agency. I needed a filler number and I
put in 555-1212 and they ran the ad with that number in it. I
have made a mistake or two.
Ryan:
One big lesson might be to review your ad ahead of time before
it runs.
That gets into creating the right message. We talked a lot about
having a USP and having a great offer. How should people
bring that out? You talked about having that call to action in
there.
When I look at lot of ads, the mistake I see a lot of people make
is that it looks like a blown up version of their business card.
You’re saying that the ad should have a message.
Perry:
It should give them one certain way to contact you and make it
simple, simple, simple. Try to make the ad as simple as you
can.
“This is what I have. This is the big benefit for using it.”
Let me quickly explain what a benefit is so you will know. A
benefit is not disk brakes. A benefit is that you can stop your car
on a dime. A benefit is not pasteurized milk; it’s been
pasteurized and you won’t get sick from drinking it and it lasts
longer.
I always say the easiest way to write a benefit is to write out a
sentence that has the word “so” in it. You’ll always get the true
benefit. For example, this coat is double-lined, so that you can
stay warm even on the coldest day.
What is the benefit? The feature is that the jacket is doublelined. The benefit is that you can stay warm even on the coldest
winter day.
The benefit is what will sell the product or service. People don’t
care about the feature; they really don’t care. You see so many
ads that run a bullet list of features that don’t mean a thing to
the customer. They need to understand exactly how that feature
benefits them.
You can leave the feature part completely out, if you want to,
and just list the benefit. Sometimes you can do both. I’ve
successfully written bullets before that are like that.
“The jacket is double-lined so that you are warm on the coldest
day. It has Velcro instead of buttons, so you can take it off and
put it on easily.”
Ryan:
Just make sure your benefit can pass the “so” test.
Perry:
Yeah, it has to have a “so.”
Ryan:
If I had a hotdog stand, for example, you see a lot of people
advertising 100% beef dogs. Well, so what? What does that
mean? Well, they’re delicious, great tasting, and they don’t have
all kinds of other junk that a lower quality hotdog might have.
You need to spell that out for somebody. If they see 100% beef
dog, they think, “So what.”
Perry:
You might say, “It has a duel condenser microphone, so that it
picks up even the nuance of every word.” Most people will just
put, “duel condensers” on the microphone ad and assume that
their audience understand the benefit. This is where they make
the mistake.
I don’t even know if there are duel condensers in microphones. I
just made that up, but I hope you understand what I’m saying.
Again, we have one, two, three: What do you have? What’s my
big benefit? What do you want me to do next?
I’m going to tell you a couple of things to be aware of. If you’re a
local business person—and most of the people listening to this
recording will be—you really need to be aware of radio,
television, and even most big newspapers.
I would never send an uninitiated person or someone new to
marketing to any of those three venues to get their message
out. The good news is that the newbies shouldn’t go there and
the guys that are smart enough and have been around a while
know better than to go there.
For the most part, radio and television are wasted advertising
mediums. This is not always true. I mean, people have made
millions of dollars on there, but you have to understand that if
you’re selling neckties on the radio and only 5% of the radio
station listeners wear neckties, 95% of every dollar you spend is
absolutely wasted.
Ryan:
All advertising is going to have some waste, but I think what
you’re saying is that early on, especially when you’re in the
startup phase and reserving that cash flow is so crucial, you
want to go with the advertising methods that will give you the
biggest bang for your buck. You want exposure to the biggest
crowd in your market without a lot of waste.
Perry:
Consider that versus me sending a postcard saying, “Pick ten
neckties for a dollar,” to a group of stockbrokers at some
company like Payne Webber that I know requires stockbrokers
to wear a necktie every day, let’s say.
It doesn’t mean I’m going to slam dunk every time, but at least it
tells me I have the advantage of knowing that anyone on that list
could buy my product. They would have a propensity to buy.
That’s the best you can ever hope for.
I’ll quickly tell you an interesting story about this. Not too long
ago I was listening to a recording by Bill Myers. It was a great
recording about direct mail. He had bought a list or rented a list
for direct mail of people who had just bought a lot of gold coins.
It’s a great story.
He bought a list of people who bought gold coins by mail. You
can buy those lists, by the way; they are pretty easy to get. We’ll
talk about how to do that in a minute.
He sent out a letter that said, “Hey, where are you hiding your
gold coins? Wouldn’t they be safer in my super cool, hidden wall
safe?” He was selling a wall safe to put your valuables in.
He had a pretty good idea that the people who had just bought
all these gold coins might need a place to put them. The ad did
terrifically well.
The better you can hone down on your client or prospect, the
better off you will be. You will find that in most businesses there
is a certain affinity group of people who will be interested in
buying your product.
Ryan:
It might be geographic. That is the first thing to look at. It might
be demographic. In your local area, you know the
neighborhoods; you know the zip codes, in some instances, that
will be more likely to respond.
Let’s say you have a lawn service, a carpet cleaning service, a
house painting service, or a power washing service. You know
the neighborhoods you should go to and the ones you might
want to avoid. Perhaps it is a neighborhood largely of renters
and things like that. You want to target those particular areas.
I think there is a big message here. If you have a choice
between a newspaper ad where you are lost in the clutter and
you’re going to spend a lot more money as opposed to a much
more regionalized, focused community newsletter, definitely go
with targeting. Choose targeting because your results will be
better, your success rate will be higher, and you will probably
spend less money.
Perry:
You don’t sell a lot of tuxedos to Taco Bell employees. You
have to pick your markets well.
There is one thing I will say outside of this. I said you kind of
want to stay away from newspapers, but I do like classified ads.
I like small community newspapers and local newsletters that
target geographics.
If I have to run an ad in a large newspaper, I like classified ads.
Even in a magazine I like classified ads. Remember, the
purpose of that ad is to get people to raise their hand and ask
for more information about what you do. Don’t try to tell them
the whole story of your life, your business, and everything about
it in a classified ad. It is silly.
You want to make one statement, one promise, one benefit, and
give away the contact information to hear more. Don’t try to sell
them anything. You’ve seen the ads before. There will be an ad
that gives a certain promise and then tells people to call or write
for free information. This works extremely well.
Ryan:
Let’s get into some specifics. We talked about community
newsletters and newspapers as being a good medium people
can go after.
What is your take on Yellow Page ads, for example? In many
senses it is kind of obligatory. You want to make sure you’re in
the Yellow Pages, but what is your take on the size of the ad to
run. Should you be in there at all? If so, how big would the ad be
and what would it say?
Perry:
A lot of it has to do with your budget and what you can afford to
do in the beginning of your business, if you’re brand new.
Yellow Pages for home services and business services is still
effective. It is not as effective as it once was and the online
Yellow Pages is becoming more and more popular as people
are Googling everything and going to www.YellowPages.com
and things like that.
The big advantage you have, after listening to this recording, is
that when you go to run your Yellow Pages ad you are not going
to put a big, pretty picture in your Yellow Pages ad that says
“Jimmy’s Moving Service.”
Ryan:
I know from experience that the Yellow Pages sales person
wants to do two things.
Perry:
They want pretty ads.
Ryan:
They want one thing. They want you to buy the biggest ad
possible because that is where they make the most money.
They want you to spend extra for color and all this stuff. Look,
they’re a sales person and they are trying to get you to spend as
much money as possible.
What do you think about that? Do you need the big ad? Do you
need the fancy colors and stuff like that?
Perry:
You certainly don’t need any of that. You want black print on
yellow paper as ugly as you can make it most of the time. Ugly
works, folks. I know most people are thinking, “Oh, I just can’t
do that.” There are two marketers sitting in this room right now
that made a lot of money on ugly, I promise you. If you give me
ugly against pretty, I will take ugly every day.
Ryan:
Talk about what you mean by ugly.
Perry:
It doesn’t have to be completely unprofessional. It should just be
a bold ad that states your message.
One of our colleagues used to sell carpet cleaning services. He
ran tons of ads that said, “Warning: Don’t you dare call a carpet
cleaner and let them in your home until you’ve called and
listened to this recorded message.”
He was able to pull people off the Yellow Pages to call a
recorded message. Everybody else was trying to sell from a
Yellow Pages ad and this guy got to sell from a 20-minute
phone pitch. He was able to give them information, pull them off
the page, and he had no pictures in his ad at all. The name of
his company was in tiny, little print at the bottom of the ad
because it didn’t matter. The secret was getting the message
across.
If it’s not an ad like that, you need to get your biggest benefit
across or your headline across. Your USP that we developed
early on in this process needs to be delivered and the easiest
way to deliver that USP is in print with words. People read
words. Whoever said, “A picture is worth a thousand words,”
was wrong. It doesn’t apply to direct response marketing.
Ryan:
It may be worth a thousand words, but it’s not worth a thousand
words that sell.
Perry:
No, it certainly is not. Words sell. By the way, Words that Sell is
a great book. If you’re about to write your ad for the Yellow
Pages or any other ad, there are a couple of helpful books out
there. One is called Words that Sell and one is called Phrases
that Sell. I think these are $10 books at www.Amazon.com.
These books show you super ways to phrase your ads. Instead
of saying “inexpensive” you could say “it would be a bargain at
twice the price.” They give you different ways to make it catchier
and move a little faster.
Yellow Pages ads do work, especially for home services.
People still tend to turn to them for local needs. If you’re
marketing a local need to a business or a local need to a home,
I would say Yellow Pages ads would be a big part of your
success.
You can live without them. I’ve run businesses without them.
You may call the Yellow Pages guy and he tells you the Yellow
Pages ad just closed two weeks ago and you can call back in
nine months. If it is, don’t think you can’t make it because you
can. You can absolutely live without it.
I’ve done it with newspaper advertising and with direct mail.
We’re going to get into direct mail heavily here pretty soon.
More great forms of advertising for local services are door
hangers and flyers, the good, old flyer. I’ve used flyers
extremely successfully in all kinds of businesses from computer
repair businesses to gourmet food businesses to gift
businesses. These are all sorts of things I’ve done in the past
where we have used flyers successfully.
Again, you want to make that simple promise at the top of your
flyer in black ink. I’ll give you my little, secret Ninja tip for flyers.
Use goldenrod paper. It pulls better than any other flyer color I
have ever used. Goldenrod is a yellow color. It’s not like that
bright canary yellow; it is a bit deeper, gold yellow. A local
Kinko’s or Office Depot will have that paper and you can run
your ads on it.
Make your promise at the top of the page, your headline. Show
some of your benefits and show your guarantee. Maybe you can
print a couple of testimonials on there and give them a way to
contact you on the flyer.
Ryan:
Make an offer, like what we talked about before with your
unique selling proposition. Make a good compelling offer where
you are giving something away for free. It could be a free trial,
but give them a compelling reason to get in touch with you.
You mentioned the humble door hanger.
Perry:
Door hangers are awesome.
Ryan:
Getting back to what we talked about with targeting, you can
really target with door hangers. If you have a lawn care
business—
Perry:
We said we weren’t going to talk about lawn care services.
What about a dry cleaning service?
Ryan:
We can do dry cleaning. Power washing is another one. We’re
going to throw out examples and we want you to definitely think
about how this can apply to you.
Let’s say I have a power washing service. I can pay someone to
go around putting door hangers or flyers. I remember when I
was a kid during the summer this was my job, to go around
putting flyers. I can tell you that I didn’t get paid much.
You can go around and only hang your little flyer on doors of
people whose driveways are stained.
“Stained driveway? Let me fix it.” How targeted is that? Is it
more manual labor? Yes, it is, but if you think about how laserfocused your costs are and how laser-focused your efforts will
be, it is going to have a much higher return on investment even
if you are the one that has to go around and put the flyers up. I
don’t recommend that, by the way. I don’t think you would
either, Perry. It’s not a great use of your time as a business
owner.
Either way, you are laser-targeting your audience.
Perry:
It is still a better use of your time than cleaning driveways. When
I was 19 I had a paint contracting company. I was 19 years old
which was in 1911 or it feels like 1911. I’m an older guy right
now, a middle-aged guy, so it was a long time ago and I can
clearly remember that I barely made less than $1,000 a week at
19 years old.
The way I did it was with a simple flyer. I went to people’s
houses that needed to be painted in the neighborhood and I put
flyers on their doors. I cut holes in them and stuck them on the
door knob. They would call me.
Honestly, the response rate to flyers is crazy. If you’re targeting
it to funky painted houses, your response rate can be crazy,
crazy high.
Ryan:
You talked about one of the elements being to make sure it gets
delivered. A lot of times you might think, “Oh, I ran an ad in the
newspaper. Look, there it is. It got delivered.”
No, delivery is when somebody in your target market lays their
eyeballs on it. If you’re in the newspaper buried amongst other
ads, it isn’t going to be delivered. If your ad is sitting at their
front door where they walk through every day, it will be delivered
and it will be seen.
Perry:
Another big benefit to flyers and door hangers is that you get to
pick the geographical area to work in. If you’re in a local service
business or a B to B business and you want to work in a certain
office park or whatever, you can spend a lot of your time in drive
time.
If you’re in one of these service businesses, you know exactly
what I’m talking about. If you don’t plan where your jobs are and
they are spread all over the place, you can spend half of your
day driving. You don’t paid a thing for driving; you get paid for
performing your service.
Flyers are a great way to target your market. Again, remember
the things we told you about creating the flyer and the flyer will
be dynamically successful.
I have helped people do flyers for all types of service
businesses before and the results of writing a flyer with a USP
like we talked about before with a promise and some social
proof will pull a ten to 20 times higher response than just the
simple dumb-dumb flyers like “Jimmy’s Painting Service: Quality
sales and service, 555-1212.” That is what you’re up against.
That is your competition.
Ryan:
“Since 1954.”
Perry:
There is a story about two ponies. I’ll quickly tell you the two
ponies story. Do you know that story?
Ryan:
I actually don’t know the Two Ponies story.
Perry:
The Two Ponies story is a great story. A guy was thinking about
getting a pony for his daughter. He called one guy who had a
pony and he said, “Do you have a pony for sale?”
The guys said, “Yeah.”
“How much is the pony?”
“He’s $500.”
“Is he good with kids?”
“Yeah, he’s pretty good with kids. He’s a good pony, a really
awesome pony. He rides well. He’s a neat, little pony. You
ought to come buy it.”
He said, “Okay, well I’ll think about it. I need to make a couple of
other calls.” He calls the next guy and asks, “Do you have a
pony for sale?”
He said, “Yeah, I do,” and both ponies were the same price.
“Well, is he really good with kids?”
He said, “You know what? He’s always been good with kids and
I’d like to say he’s always going to be good with kids, but he’s a
pony. I can’t really tell you what he’s going to do for sure.
“I’ll tell you what I will do. Why don’t I go ahead and bring him
out to you and you keep him out at your place for a week. Let
your little girl ride him and see how you do with him. I’ll even
come out there once or twice during the week to check on him
and bring him some hay so you’re not out any money feeding
him.
“At the end of the week, if everything is working out, she’s riding
him well, and she likes him, you can go ahead and pay me for
him. How does that sound?”
Ryan, which pony are you going to buy?
Ryan:
Obviously, it will be the second one. It is not just that it is a more
compelling offer. The brilliant thing about it from a psychological
standpoint is that even if that pony nips at your daughter a little
bit, you already have the thing at your house. It is already there.
The guy already has a foot in the door.
This is what we’re talking about when we refer to having a
message that is compelling and being willing to make an
irresistible offer. A lot of that is just getting your foot in the door.
In some cases it is quite literally a foot in the door.
Once you’re in somebody’s home, once you have somebody in
your business, there are habits being established there. There is
convention. If somebody has come into your business to get
something for free, they are probably going to buy something
else while they’re there. That is how basic decorum works and
you have that working for you.
Don’t be afraid to make a truly irresistible offer because, if they
take you up on it, they’re going to keep the pony, so to speak.
Perry:
Absolutely.
Ryan:
To review here, we talked about newspapers. They are probably
kind of “eh” unless they are really local or maybe with classified
ads.
Perry:
Don’t spend a lot of money there. You can spend yourself to
death in local newspapers.
Ryan:
The Yellow Pages can be good, but don’t feel like you need to
get the biggest ad; just have a really strong message.
Perry:
Insist on being place on the right side placement, if you can get
it. More specifically, have your ad at the right top, if you can get
it. With any print advertising you ever do, the top right hand
page will sometimes double the result over the left hand page.
Ryan:
If you’re going to do it, you need to insist on that. If they can’t
guarantee it, say, “No, thank you.”
Perry:
Usually, if you just ask, they will give it to you. Most people don’t
ask. Inexperienced people don’t ask.
Ryan:
Well, they don’t know. I bet a lot of people listening to this right
now didn’t know about a right hand placement of an ad. It is the
same with classified ads in newspapers, in community
newsletters, or community newspapers.
If they fold open like a book, you absolutely, positively want to
be on that right hand side. The human eye, at least in the
Western world, reads left to right and top to bottom. You want to
be where that eye is going to stop and that is on the right hand
side.
Perry:
I’ll bet you in our local community newsletter we receive monthly
that they probably got a request to be in the top right corner one
time in the last year. If you ask, you get it.
I want you to think about this. This one little tip, this one little
difference right there will probably, in almost every case, double
the response to your ad.
Ryan:
I came from financial services; I was in the financial services
world. That is where I cut my teeth in marketing and in the
services business. I still remember other guys in the office
saying, “The only way to really do this well is to cold call. You
have to cold call and you have to knock on doors.”
I was like, “There isn’t any way that is happening!” I ran ads and
I sent direct mail. That is how I built my book of business. Even
at a very young age in an industry where I had no business
being successful, I was successful because I understood
marketing.
I remember there was a guy in the office that was very bitter
about the fact that he had spent a lot of money on an ad in a
particular magazine that targeted affluent members. He
declared it to be a colossal failure and warned against it. I ran
an ad at the same time in the same place, but I insisted on a
right hand position.
His was a glorified version of his business card. It had a big
picture of him and a big logo for our firm and all that stuff.
I ditched all that and had a nice strong message with a
compelling benefit that got people to raise their hand and call
me up. I was able to close significantly more than he was. He
didn’t even realize the ad in there was my ad and I wasn’t about
to tell him because I didn’t want him to rip me off.
The right hand position teamed with a good, strong message is
absolutely crucial.
We also talked about flyers and door hangers. Those are a nobrainer because, man, the cost is nothing.
Perry:
I’ll give you another little tidbit. This is a neat little thing. Some
people are going to be timid about this.
I’m going to give you two other ways to advertise. You need to
check your local ordinances on these, but they are highly
effective.
One is what we call bandit signs. They are the plastic yard
signs, things that you stick in the ground at intersections that
have a short message on them and a reason to call. Those work
extremely well in local markets. There are laws about them that
you have to follow. A lot of communities will let you put them out
on the weekends and pick them up on Sunday night.
Ryan:
You have said that a great place to put those is in places where
folks are stuck in traffic.
Perry:
Put them where people are stopped. I’ve seen so many people
go, “I put them all down I-95 and that just didn’t work.” Well,
everybody is going 70 miles an hour trying to read a 24-inch
wide sign; it isn’t going to happen.
When they are stopped at a four-way intersection or a busy
area, those work extremely well and they are inexpensive.
There is a company called www.GraphixEnterprises.com that
makes them. Another one is www.MysteryYardSigns.com.
There are a lot of other companies out there that make plastic
yard signs. They work extremely well.
They also work really well when you are working. If you have a
service in somebody’s home, don’t put out a sign, “Another
quality job by Jimmy’s Plumbing.” It doesn’t mean anything.
Stick a sign in the yard that says, “Hey, we’re installing new
gutters on this house. Would you like new gutters on your
house? Call me now or stop and say hi.”
Ask the customer to put that in their yard while you are doing
the job.
Ryan:
You might even offer them a discount for doing it.
Perry:
Yeah. Aluminum siding companies did something years ago and
it was extremely successful. One of the biggest lead generation
sources that siding companies had was a sign that said
something like, “Wouldn’t your house look more beautiful with
aluminum siding like this one?” People responded, “Oh, I sure
would.” You want them to answer yes.
I saw one thing not too long ago and I don’t know too much
about the legality of it, but it was an interesting twist.
Ryan:
Perhaps we should reiterate our disclaimer.
Perry:
I call it the plastic bag flyer. This is a really interesting idea that
some broke entrepreneur used and it was very effective. It was
a carpet cleaner, actually.
He took a fluorescent orange index card, an over-sized, jumbo
index card and printed his flyer on it. On the back of it he
printed, “Home improvement news. Here are ten ways to make
your home worth more money.” It had a news element.
The front of the card was an ad for his carpet cleaning
company. He stuffed those cards inside sandwich bags, like
Glade sandwich bags, with a rock. He went through a
neighborhood tossing them out the car window onto your lawn
one at a time. He threw one on everybody’s lawn in the
neighborhood.
When I drove in the driveway in the afternoon, I stopped the car,
looked out on the yard and there was this bright orange thing
laying in my yard. I put on the brakes, got out of the car, and
picked it up.
Is that going to tick some people off? It probably will. However,
it’s a great, effective way to put out a flyer and it is in a plastic
bag. If it rains, it is still okay. Plus, you get to sling it out the
window.
Someone told me that because there was a news element to it
that you had the right to toss those like a free newspaper law.
You definitely need to look into it. Ryan’s over there going, “Shut
up. You shouldn’t have told them that one.”
Ryan:
No, I think it’s a great.
Perry:
If you’re a Rambo kind of guy and you want to go for it, it is a
way to deliver, especially if you’re dead broke. A box of rocks
and some index cards are pretty cheap.
Ryan:
If you have a kid, a box of rocks is free. You just tell him to go
get the rocks. I think that’s a great point. I think you should be
willing to push the envelope and be a little outrageous.
I know someone who did something else and got slapped with a
massive fine. Do not go and put an advertising item in
somebody’s mailbox. Oh, my goodness!
Perry:
Don’t even put something on the mailbox. People think if they
stick it on the flag it’s okay. It is not. It is still a violation.
Ryan:
You’re talking Federal stuff there because those are postal
regulations. If there isn’t a stamp on it, it isn’t going in that
mailbox unless it is delivered by a mail carrier. Do not put
anything in somebody’s mailbox. I just cannot emphasize that
enough. If you do it enough, you’ll go to jail.
Perry:
Again, if you’re courageous, I’ve used flyers before and put
them on the windshields of cars at events. I’ve put them on
windshields of cars in competitor’s parking lots before. That
doesn’t necessarily make you the most popular guy in the world,
but you can do it. It depends on how far you want to go.
When you’re starting out and you’re broke and you want to be
successful, you are probably willing to go out there and put in
some “sweat-equity.”
The company here is Shoestring Publishing. It is “shoestring” for
a reason. It is how to start a business on a shoestring.
Ryan:
This is real life.
Perry:
You read these SBA reports that say, “Okay, if you want to start
a business, the first thing you need is just to go out and raise a
million dollars. Secondly…”
There is a joke in business. How do most people make a million
dollars in business? They start out with two million.
It is unrealistic for the average person. We’ll give you strategies
here that helped me build tons of businesses, most of them from
nothing. The most successful ones were those I built from
nothing.
Ryan:
The only times I have really failed are when I got cocky and had
some money.
Perry:
You threw a lot of money at a problem. This is bootstrap stuff.
I’m going to tell you, I love entrepreneurs. I put an e-mail
address on the front of these CDs and you can e-mail me and
ask a question. If you’re a struggling entrepreneur, I’ll try to help
you in any way I can.
I have the greatest respect for you. Entrepreneurs built this
nation and small business people provide 70% to 80% of the
jobs off the sweat of our backs. I have the greatest respect for
you and if you’re out there pushing the envelope, God bless you
and good for you.
Ryan:
What you absolutely don’t want to do is sit at home and just
stare at the phone or the door waiting for somebody to come in.
Get out there; go and print.
With regard to the flyers, remember that a piece of paper is twosided. Don’t just print on one side because ink is cheap. Print on
both sides and get out there and do something. Take some
responsibility for your own success and be assertive. Get out
there and start doing some of these things even if they do
require some manual labor up front.
Quickly, there is one more medium I want to get your opinion on
and then we can move forward. I want to get your opinion on
referrals because I know that’s another really big aspect of
acquiring more customers.
What is your take on Val-Pak and Money Mailer and those kinds
of card deck methods?
Perry:
Those are called card deck advertising. You are probably
familiar with it if you live in America. You get an envelope with a
bunch of coupons in it.
Again, I like it geographically; it’s okay geographically. It is worth
a test if you have extra money. It is certainly not a place I would
start.
Remember your fundamentals. You have a card you are
working with, so make a text message, show a great offer, a
guarantee, a call to action, a way for them to contact you, and
tell them what you want them to do next.
I keep beating those fundamentals into your head and I know
you’re saying, “I heard that five times already.” I hope you hear
it 50 times. People that hear it 50 times still screw it up! I do it. I
have become overzealous before and I make this beautiful ad
with a beautiful image and whatever, and the next thing a big
nuclear bomb goes off. I realize I just wasted a thousand bucks.
I look at myself and ask, “Why did that happen?” Well, I know
why it happened. I’ve done it before and the same thing
happened. You want to believe that pretty ad is going to work,
but it doesn’t.
Ryan:
Part of the reason it doesn’t work, getting back to what you
talked about earlier, is that you need the right message to the
right prospect and make sure it gets delivered. If you’re dealing
with card deck, delivery is not just the packet of coupons
arriving at the addresses.
Ultimately, as they are scanning through this thing over the
trash can, your message needs to catch their eye. If every
single one of those coupons is pretty and now there is one that
is kind of ugly, black text on white, that is going to catch their
eye because it looks different.
Perry:
It is sort of the reverse of “will it blend.” You don’t want your ad
to blend.
Bill Glassier is a great marketer and one of his most famous
pieces is when he sat down with a Sharpie marker and wrote
this complete four-page ad on legal paper, all hand done. He
then had that ad reproduced on legal paper. Wasn’t it his most
successful ad?
Ryan:
Yeah, it was one of his most successful pieces.
Perry:
It looked super-duper corny and homemade. We were talking
earlier about the bandit signs, the signs you stick out on the
street corners. The best thing you can do when you make your
first sign is to take a paintbrush, some paint, and one blank sign
and paint your first sign by hand. Take that to your sign guy and
have him make you a bunch of them.
The more that sign looks like you personally made it with your
hand, the better it will pull. You definitely want it to be legible;
people have to be able to read it. The hokier that it looks, people
will say, “That’s a real guy. It is not some big company. It is a
real, honest guy looking for work. I’m going to call that guy.”
Ryan:
I’ve known people with flyers who get their kids to write a
message. They tell them to write something like, “My daddy just
started a—I’m going to say it—lawn care company and I think
you should call him.” They have their child write this message in
crayon. It’s eye-catching, it’s cute, and it’s quaint. It is something
that makes people say, “Oh, that’s neat.”
Perry:
Plus, they get to know more about you. People want to deal with
people they like, that they know, and that are local to the
community.
Ryan:
I think that cover the whole space advertising things and
advertising in general. Let’s talk about referrals. This is
something that most businesses don’t even try. I guess they’re
scared to do it. What is your take on referrals?
Perry:
The biggest reason people don’t use referrals is because they
are chicken. I’ll tell you that referrals are the fastest way for you
to grow your business. Every time you deal with someone, you
need to ask for a referral.
The reason most people don’t get referrals is simply because
they don’t ask. They don’t ask in the right way and they don’t
ask at the right time.
Ryan:
What is the right way to ask and what is the right time?
Perry:
Timing is a big deal. Let’s say you just painted this lady’s house.
You’re done, you’ve check it, you’ve cleaned up, and everything
is perfect; it is just the way you want it to be. It is like that
extreme makeover show. You go out for the big reveal.
You knock on the door and say, “Mrs. Johnson, come on out.
You’re house is ready. I want you to look around and see what
you think.” She goes out and goes, “Oo! Wow! Wonderful! It’s
beautiful! It’s great! It’s lovely! It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever
seen in my whole life! You guys did a perfect job. Awesome!”
This is when you ask for the testimonial. This is the secret. Ask
for the testimonial first and you’ll get it. By the way, ask for the
testimonial before you ask for the check because they’re always
in a better mood.
Ask for the testimonial first. Say, “Hey, would you mind if I put a
success story about your house in my newsletter?”
“No, I don’t mind. That would be fine.”
“Okay, let me ask you, were you skeptical when you first hired
us to do the job?” The answer is almost always, “Yes, I was.”
“How come?”
“Well, I never heard of you before. I didn’t know your company.”
“Well, that’s great. Why did you try us?”
“You had this great guarantee and I knew I couldn’t lose.”
“That’s perfect. That’s great,” and you write that down. Thirdly,
you ask, “What happened? Were you satisfied with the result?
What result did you get?”
“Oh, you guys painted my house. You did a great job. You
double-coated everything and there was no mess when you
left.”
“Awesome! That’s super. The last question is who would you
refer us to?”
“I would refer you to all my friends. I would refer you to my
relatives.” If they don’t say it right away, ask, “Would you refer
us to friends, coworkers, your family, and things like that?”
“Oh, absolutely. I would refer you to my friends, my coworkers,
and my family.” They just bit the big, old hook right there.
“Thanks so much. This is going to be great for the newsletter.
You know, I’d love to send a copy of this article to some of the
people you think might want to use our service. Do you mind
giving me a couple of names and numbers or addresses, if you
have them handy? We can go in if you need to look in your
address book. That would be great.”
Do you see what you did? You built a box for them. They’re not
going to be reluctant to do it. They will want to do it. They are
euphoric at that moment.
Ryan:
There is that pride, also. By the way, this is one of the reasons
why you probably should have some kind of customer or client
newsletter even if you have just a local business that you think
doesn’t merit one. Then you have a reason to get this kind of
information.
You tell them, “Look, I want to make a feature out of you.” You
are turning your customer into a celebrity. Now they want to
brag to their friends. It is not that they are turning their friends
over to you so you can pitch them. It is giving you the
opportunity to brag about how great their house now looks to all
their friends.
Perry:
I’ll tell you one more little thing that will help you get referrals,
too. People like people that are trying to help themselves.
Just say, “Miss Jones, this is the way I make my living and feed
my family. We try to do good, honest work, and if you can refer
us to some friends, it would be a great help to us. It would help
me a lot.”
You just helped them by doing a good job for them and they are
usually going to be willing to help you. For the most part, people
are good.
When do you ask? Like I said before, ask immediately at that
euphoric moment. If you wait and come back a day later or a
week later, you will have a lot harder time. You are out of sight,
out of mind, it’s over with, and that little oo-ah period is going to
go away.
Be sure to ask them, “Would you do me a favor, too? I know you
are going to have a ton of people coming over talking about how
great your house looks. Would you do me a favor and give them
one of my flyers? I’m going to leave you some of my flyers. Give
them one of my flyers and ask them to call me. While they’re
here you guys can call me together. That would be great.”
There are a number of other ways to get referral. I’ll talk about
an interesting one in just a second. You can be creative.
Joe Girard, the greatest salesman who ever lived, according to
the Guiness Book of World Records, was the king of referrals.
He didn’t advertise his service at all and he sold something like
1,500 cars a year.
Ryan:
He was a car salesman.
Perry:
He individually sold 1,500 cars a year. Don’t quote me, but I
think that’s right. Actually, I think it was more than that.
Ryan:
It was a lot.
Perry:
It was a lot of cars. His whole secret was referrals and he went
out of his way for people. In his desk at his car dealership he
kept candy bars and cigarettes and newspapers, anything you
could ever want while you were waiting. That wait is incredibly
boring at a car dealership. Everybody who has purchased a car
knows.
He had everything there that a person could want. He went out
of his way for them to do everything he did. He figured out a
way to do every step of the car sales process that was sort of
showing how devoted he was to them getting the car they
wanted and really working with them.
At the end, he had boards and boards on his wall of pictures of
people who were satisfied with the cars they bought. He had a
book—and this is something you can do in your business, too.
You can say, “Let me show you something. You might like this.
Here is my book of other people whose houses I have painted.
Here are all their pictures showing how happy they were. Would
you like to be in my book?”
“That would be great.”
“Let me get your stuff. Can you tell me of some other people
who might be looking for a car? This is how I make my living.
Have I done a good job for you getting the car that you really
wanted at the best price?”
“Man, Joe, I think you have.”
“Can I ask you a favor? Can you help me with something?”
“Sure, what?”
“Can you refer me to some people? In this business, people
don’t know who to deal with. The only way I can let people know
I’m a good guy and I provide a good service is through my
customers.”
He asks; he asks for referrals. His business was 100% built on
referrals.
In order to get a referral, I’m going to tell you, you are not going
to get a great number of referrals by doing an average job or
delivering an average service. You have to deliver extraordinary
value.
If you deliver extraordinary value, all you have to do is ask. If
you deliver average value, you can ask and you will still get
some referrals, but they’re not going to be sterling referrals and
they won’t go out of their way. They want extraordinary value.
Extraordinary value might be mowing the grass and giving them
a plant. It doesn’t have to be something extremely costly or that
takes tons and tons of time. It could just be that little bit extra.
Lastly, I’ll tell you a story about a guy back in the 80s who
owned a casino in Las Vegas. His name was Bob Stupak. It was
the Vegas World Casino.
He did something that I thought was one of the coolest referral
stories I ever heard of. I think you said you went to a resort that
does what he did. Why don’t you tell that story?
Ryan:
We went to a resort in Mexico, my wife and I. It was the same
deal. When we checked in we were given these postcards. They
were gorgeous postcards and I think they gave us about half a
dozen of them. They said, “While you’re here, why don’t you
write to some people back home?”
We did and this is the big lesson when it comes to referrals.
They didn’t make us jump through a hoop. They didn’t give us
the postcards and say, “Okay, now drop those in the mail.” They
gave us the postcards and they said, “Bring them back to the
front desk. We will put the postage on them and mail them for
you.”
I didn’t have to go find a stamp. I knew it was going to be taken
care of and, of course, it was a beautiful postcard, but what did
it do? It was all about how we were having a great time at this
resort and it had their Web site on there.
Perry:
I know Stupak recorded all the addresses of everybody you
addressed the postcards to before they went out. He knew you
had mailed a postcard about his casino to a friend of yours, so
you had a friend that had already been recommended to the
casino once. When he mailed you consistent follow up
messages, they came to a very warm prospect.
Ryan:
That’s a very good point. I hadn’t even thought about that.
Perry:
Yeah, Stupak pulled those out and had somebody key every
one of those addresses into his database.
Ryan:
That’s another great reason to mail it for them.
Perry:
Absolutely, you want to mail it for them. I didn’t know you didn’t
know that. That is absolutely what they did. They grabbed the
addresses and built a database by the postcards you sent.
You might have a stack of postcards for your service. You might
have plumbing postcards and say, “Hey, do you mind filling out
a couple of postcards and sending them to some friends while
we’re here? I do this funny little promotion; it’s kind of cute. Let’s
go fill out a couple of these postcards and mail them out to
some of your friends. You just fill them out and I’ll put the
stamps on them.”
What a great way to build referrals and it would work in almost
any business. If you are Associated Plumbing, it’s not going to
be as cool. If you’re Jimmy the Plumbing Guy, it’s a lot easier.
Do you see how being the local guy is so much better? Are you
starting to get the picture of how being the one-on-one guy is
important, so people can say, “I use Jimmy.”
Who is your hardware man at Home Depot? You don’t have
one. Who is your sales rep at Wal-Mart? You don’t have one.
Ryan:
If you have Jimmy the Plumbing Guy, it’s, “I have a guy for that.”
Perry:
The toilet is stopped up. Call Jimmy. Remember that. Even if
you’ve already branded your name and you’ve been in business
for a while, you might think about shrinking that out of your
persona and change it to, “Call Jimmy down at Blue Star
Plumbing.”
It’s really a good idea to have a person to associate with.
People like dealing with people. They don’t like dealing with
institutions.
Ryan:
Obviously, you could always say more about it, but I think the
big thing for referrals is just asking and asking at the right time.
Perry:
I’ll give you one more. I know there is an extremely successful
chiropractor that uses this one. You have to kind of jump on out
there and this is something you need to do after you have a little
client base.
This particular chiropractor decided he was going to go to a
premium service. He wasn’t going to take insurance anymore;
he would only take cash clients and stuff like that. He had been
fairly successful in the past.
He went to each of his clients after he made this decision. As
they came in for their regular visits he said, “Hey, I just want to
talk to you for a minute, Ryan. I have decided to close the door
on my practice. I’m going to lock the front door.
“You will be able to get in because I’m going to give you a code
or you can buzz the thing and they will let you in. From now on
I’m not taking customers off the street anymore. I’m only taking
patients that are referred by other patients. I wanted to know if
you have any friends that might want to get in.”
This is a killer angle, especially if you’re in a certain type of
business. I know a massage therapist that uses this strategy
extremely well.
Ryan:
Yeah, if you’re in a business that naturally has some scarcity to
it, it works.
Perry:
You need exclusivity. “I only have so much time. I only want to
deal with people that are cool. Only list your friends that you
think are really cool people and don’t mind paying for premium
services, if you don’t mind. This may be the only time that I ask
you, Ryan, so if you have somebody that might want to get in,
you need to tell me about them now.”
People will go out of their way to come up with a list of people
that want to get in. You just changed everything. You turned the
table around. Now they are helping their friends out by giving
them the opportunity to get in.
Ryan:
It created scarcity out of thin air. You’ve given your friends a
new reason why they need to refer you. You put that customer,
the person doing the referring, in a pretty cool status position.
They are already an insider.
Perry:
I get to call Ryan and say, “Ryan, guess what. I got you in at my
massage lady.” Oddly enough, this is a conversation going on
between us right now because he has the killer massage person
that is supposedly awesome. I still don’t know. She is so booked
up that she doesn’t take any clients off the street.
I have to get Ryan to get me in. He’s telling me, “I’m going to get
you in with Sandy.” So far I haven’t gotten in with Sandy.
Ryan:
We’ll make it happen. That is our take on referrals.
We’re sticking with the first leg of the Marketing Triad, which is
Getting More Customers. We talked about space advertising;
we talked about referrals. Let’s dive in and talk about direct mail.
Obviously, the subject of direct mail is massive. There have
been volumes and volumes of books written about it. There
have been intensive courses done on it.
We’re not going to be able to cover everything that you’d ever
want to know and more about direct mail, but let’s dive in and
talk about some of the basics and some of the things that
people really need to think about and watch out for if they’re
going to go into direct mail.
Perry:
Direct mail is my absolute favorite way to promote a local
business.
Ryan:
That’s interesting that you say that. I’ll bet when you said that,
some people went, “Huh?”
A lot of people think direct mail doesn’t work, number one. A lot
of people think marketing in general doesn’t work, but I’ve heard
a ton of people say, “I’ve tried direct mail. It just doesn’t work
and it’s too expensive.”
Perry:
That’s because they mailed a letter out in a white envelope to
everybody in town, advertising the disco dance on Saturday
night.
Ryan:
“Do you have a pulse? Can you fog a mirror?”
Perry:
“Are you at the nursing home?” Yes.
“Do you like disco?” Absolutely.
Dumb direct mail is a disaster. Smart direct mail can make you
millions.
Ryan:
So, what separates dumb direct mail from smart direct mail?
Perry:
The biggest reason most direct mail campaigns fail – I’m not
saying that most direct mail campaigns fail, but when they fail,
the reason they fail typically – is because of not properly
identifying the market; not having the right list; not mailing to the
right people.
I’m going to go back to my example of selling ties. Let’s say I’m
selling suits and ties. I’m sure there are a lot of auto mechanics
that wear ties to church on Sunday and things like that, but it’s
not something they have to do on a daily basis.
If I mail out to a list of auto mechanics, I’m going to probably do
poorly. If I mail out a catalog of tools and handsaws to
stockbrokers, I’m probably going to do poorly.
Ryan:
If you mail out to renters and there’s a home services deal, as
opposed to homeowners….
Perry:
That’s the thing people don’t understand: “I’m going to send
everybody in the 38479 zip code my mail about cleaning your
driveway.”
However, when you hit an apartment complex and hit 1700
rooves that don’t spend a penny on that and never will, you just
burn up a lot of money. The whole idea is targeting your
audience first and foremost.
There are a lot of services out there. Polk’s Directory, if you’re
doing home things, really can show you lists of homeowners.
They sell lists of just homeowners that just go to certain
geographic areas.
Ryan:
www.InfoUSA.com does as well. I remember we used them a
great deal when we were doing some local marketing. They can
target in pretty timely.
Perry:
You may be doing business-to-business things. If you’re selling
forklifts, you only want to sell to people who have warehouses.
You can run in a magazine or a newspaper.
There are a lot of markets, particularly niche markets that
people might be in that are on this recording, that can’t be
serviced hardly by any method other than direct mail.
For instance, if I’m selling forklifts, I’ve got two choices. I can get
a list to everybody in town that’s got a warehouse, get in my car,
go knock on the door, and be an intruder in those businesses.
Or, I can get a list of everybody that has a warehouse in town,
and gently send them a series of direct mail pieces.
That’s a big point there, too. You might say, “Well, I tried direct
mail and it didn’t work.”
That will usually be followed with, “Okay. Tell me about your
experience with direct mail.”
They’ll say, “We mailed out a postcard to everybody in town and
nobody bought nothing.” That’s usually what follows.
Number one, they didn’t target the mail. Number two, they made
a single attempt. Have you ever wanted to date a guy or date a
girl? This usually applies more to guys trying to date girls than it
does girls trying to date guys, because they have an advantage.
My wife is Asian. Asian women, particularly, just don’t respond
to overtures from men on a first attempt. It’s just a bad idea.
They just don’t do it. They think you’re not working hard enough.
You’re not showing your devotion, or whatever.
I think a lot of businesses may be the same way. If you said,
“Hey. I’ve got this thing. Do you want it?” and they didn’t all
respond at once, you go, “Well, screw them. I’m never going to
send them anything again.”
If you buy something from a mail order catalog company, they’re
going to send you those catalogs for a good long while because
they know that over time, they may have a chance of catching
you at a certain time that you need or want one of their services
or one of their products.
Sequential mailing is probably the biggest secret in marketing:
sending a series of mails to a target list of people. When you
think about the cost, it costs me about 50 cents to send a letter
selling my accounting software to a Certified Public Accountant
or to a teenager that’s in high school. It doesn’t matter. It costs
me the same 50 cents.
Unfortunately, when you’re buying print advertising, the more
qualified the lead, the more expensive it is. If you want to
advertise in a magazine that’s just for accountants or just for
lawyers, you’re going to pay a lot of money.
In direct mail, it doesn’t matter. It’s a stamp. That’s the big
advantage to direct mail. Also, one of the coolest things is that
you can deliver an affinity message to an affinity market.
Here’s an example. “Are you better off painting your house, or
making $250 an hour practicing law? I’m betting that you’re
better at being a lawyer.”
That might not be the best combination; but the point is that you
can make an affinity message. You can talk to a particular
group: “Are you going to be under the desk fixing somebody’s
computer? Or would you rather I do that so you can go do your
accounting work?”
Ryan:
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve got some kind of home
repair, like house painting or any type of home repair service.
Imagine mailing to people who are members of a golf club.
Or here’s one thing that you can do if you go with InfoUSA. You
could say, “I want all the people who subscribe to Golf
Magazine.”
You could give them a list of different golfing magazines and
say, “I want all the people who subscribe to these different golf
magazines who live in these particular areas.”
Perry:
Yeah, and send them back a message that says, “Wouldn’t you
rather be playing golf than painting your house?”
Ryan:
“Wouldn’t you rather be playing golf than” doing whatever the
service is. That’s a great affinity message that people can do
through direct mail.
The theme that should be coming out over and over and over
again – the big one that you should be hearing – is targeting. It’s
what you said before, Perry, about sending out sequential
mailings.
You send one direct mail piece to somebody and then you
follow it up with another and another. People are going to be
hearing that and saying, “What? Are you kidding me? I can’t
afford to do that.”
You can’t afford to do it if you’re mailing the entire city. If you’re
super-targeted, you absolutely can afford to do it. You’re a small
business.
We’re talking about shoestringing these startups. A big way to
do that and to ensure your success is to trim the fat; cut out the
waste.
For so many people, with their marketing and their advertising
there’s so much waste built in because they’re marketing to
untargeted prospects.
If you can laser focus your list and spend the money on sending
multiple messages to the same super-targeted people, as
opposed to sending more to people who are less qualified,
you’re going to have significantly better results.
Perry:
For instance, if you’re in the auto detailing business, you may
buy a list of Corvette owners in a particular area. Or maybe
you’re in the motorcycle repair business. You can get a list of
people who own motorcycles in a particular zip code and only
mail those people.
You could advertise your service for motorcycles; but to the
people who don’t own a motorcycle, you’ve got no shot at all.
It’s a total waste. Again, the biggest thing is getting the proper
list, the proper people that you need to mail to.
First, then, you want to make sure you have the right list.
Second, you want to make sure you have the right message.
We’ve already talked about your marketing message and what
you have to offer; but you may tweak that message, depending
on the list that you’re mailing to.
Third is delivery, media; making sure that the message gets
delivered. I’m going to tell you that the biggest thing we’re
seeing working right now in direct mail – especially for local
businesses – is an oversized postcard. It’s working way better
than a letter in most cases, particularly in the beginning of your
mail relationship.
You may mail a letter later on in the chain; but when you’re
beginning, an oversized postcard works extremely well for a
couple of reasons.
An associate of ours tells the story about why Bill Gates will
never read your letter. Most people don’t open letters; junk mail
letters. If they sniff them out to be junk mail, if they sniff them
out to be an offer or you’re trying to sell something, it goes into
what I call “File 13.” It goes in the trashcan.
The thing is, though, with an oversized postcard, you’re forced
to stop, read, and evaluate whether or not you’re going to throw
this piece of mail away. At least you have an opportunity to get
your message across.
Ryan:
When we say “oversized postcard,” normally you are going to
spend a little bit more. If you go within the postal regulation, the
normal-sized postcards get a discounted postal rate.
Yes, then, by upgrading and going with what we’re calling an
oversized postcard – that might be a postcard that’s 6” x 11”; it’s
a nice, big postcard that’s going to stick out and not get lost in
the pile, literally – that’s going to cost you more in postage.
However, when we’ve tested it – and other people we know
have tested it – that extra increase in postage cost is more than
made up for in response rates.
Again, it comes down to getting your message delivered. The
mere fact that that postal worker put your postcard in
somebody’s mailbox isn’t good enough.
Picture people sorting their mail. Picture how you do it. In our
household, I sort mail over the trashcan. I stand right there. I’ll
make two piles.
I’ll say, “Bills, bills, bills; don’t really know what that is; and junk
mail.” All the junk mail goes in a pile; I pick it up, and throw it in
the garbage.
Before, you mentioned the goldenrod paper for the flyers. That
same thing applies. It just sticks out like a sore thumb.
Perry:
There are companies that will print you a really cool, hard,
glossy postcard. One thing is kind of good in a postcard if you
can afford it. If you can’t, it’s okay to use normal cardstock. I’d
go to the goldenrod-and-black rule.
If you can afford to print a little heavier postcard – if it’s a little
more dense and a little heavier – sometimes it gets noticed a
little bit better.
There’s a Web site I’ve used in the past called
www.ClubFlyers.com. ClubFlyers prints tons of postcards.
They’ll print these big, oversized, 6 x 11 “jumbo” postcards on a
really heavy cardstock. They’re all slick, coated, glossy, and all
that, and they’re roughly ten cents apiece.
You can’t create a letter in an envelope for that, I promise you,
even if you start with a blank one. I think they ship overnight or
the next day; it’s very fast.
Oversized postcards are working really well. They’re great.
Make sure that you have a call-to-action mechanism on there
that lets them know what you want them to do next.
You’ve got to treat them like a postcard. You don’t want to tell
your entire life story on that thing. You want to make your point,
show your benefits, make your offer, show your guarantee, and
get them to take action. That’s what you want to happen.
That’s direct from a perspective. There are a million things I can
tell you about direct mail. There are a million lessons to be
learned about direct mail.
The key lesson is: target your market. Really target who you’re
going to send to. Then make sure you get some sort of
message across that can be deliverable and that at least they’re
going to evaluate; and not just throw it in the trashcan without
ever reading it. That oversized postcard is a great example of
that.
We talked about mailing sequentially. “How many times do you
mail?” That’s what everybody asks. Well, you mail until it stops
working. Usually, I try not to mail fewer than three pieces. It
doesn’t mean you have to mail three pieces to 100,000 people.
You test.
Here’s what you’re going to want to do in the beginning of a
direct mail campaign. Let’s say you’ve got 10,000 people you
want to mail to.
You don’t want to mail all 10,000 of them the same message.
Mail a slightly different message if you can to maybe 1,000
each; or pick 2,000 and mail five different messages or five
different colors, layouts, or whatever.
You can put some sort of code on there to target which one
worked the best for you. That’s getting a little advanced for
some of you folks, but the point is that that’s the beginning of
becoming a real marketer. We’ll talk just briefly at the end about
split testing, and testing and tweaking.
Direct mail gives you the opportunity to make a better and better
and better message all the time. Find out what people respond
to and do more of that; what people don’t respond to and do
less of that.
That’s the basic direct mail pitch. I’ll just say that, over years, I
can tell you that I’ve made more money with direct mail in
promoting local business than I have with any other method.
Ryan:
The key really is just getting the right list. If you screw that one
up, everything else is irrelevant. If you screw up the list, you can
get everything else right and you’ll lose.
If you get the right list, frankly, you can kind of not have the
greatest message. I’m not suggesting that you do that, but you
can kind of screw everything else up.
Perry:
Well, you know how to write a great message.
Ryan:
Yeah, we’ve talked about writing the message, so you should at
least have a solid one. Gosh, use the same message that you
used on the flyer that worked. Be consistent. There’s no reason
to re-invent the wheel on this.
If you get the right list and you target it effectively, everything
else becomes so much easier. You just make your job so much
easier.
Perry:
I’ll add to that real quick. You don’t hear Domino’s Pizza saying,
“Domino’s Pizza because our pepperoni is better.” They don’t
try a new headline or a new touchstone. They’ve got one that
absolutely, positively works.
Some people think, “My message has worked for a long time,
but it’s kind of tired. I’d better change it. I think I’m going to do
this this time.”
They just randomly pick a change they want to make, and most
of the time it ends up in disaster. Once you’ve tweaked that
message and got it to the point where it’s working perfectly,
mail, mail, mail, and mail some more.
Ryan:
Now let’s talk about the bright, shiny object on the horizon;
probably the least understood of all marketing media, especially
when it comes to local businesses: that is the Internet.
I’m not going to try to pretend like the Internet is something new
and that you haven’t heard about it, but gosh. It seems that
everybody, when they start a local business – because a lot of
what I do is online marketing, and I’ll talk to people around
businesses – will say, “Oh, man. I need to get on the Internet.
What should I do? Can you build me a Web site?”
We talked about this a great deal, Perry. For most local
businesses, they’ve got the Internet all wrong.
Perry:
Oh, yeah. Owning a Web site for a local business that’s a start
up – or even if it’s not a startup – is like owning a postcard. I can
sell you 500,000 postcards. If you don’t mail them, you ain’t
gonna make no money. That’s just the bottom line of that.
I can build you a $5,000 Web site, and that’s awesome; but if
nobody sees it, you ain’t gonna make no money. In the local
marketplace, the key is traffic. A big question is “Should you
have a Web site?” The answer is “Maybe. Who knows?”
It depends on how advanced you are. I would certainly say this
is a great place to start so you can get your feet wet in the
Internet.
There are a couple of services. One is called
www.WordPress.com. WordPress is a free blog site. I prefer
that one over the second one I’ll tell you about. The second one
is www.Blogger.com.
A blog is basically a pre-laid-out Web site where you can post
messages and communications to your customers and to your
friends, and let them post things back to you. You can talk
online, back and forth, and build a relationship online.
I suggest, for most starting marketers for local markets, that that
is where they start. Start with a blog. If you get pretty good at
blogging, that’s probably where you’ll end.
You don’t really need a commercial Web site in the true sense
of the word, unless you’ve got some service, such as a pizza
service, and you want to take orders by the Internet.
However, I think it’s quite impersonal, actually. I’m sure Pizza
Hut would disagree with me, but I’d still rather take mine on the
phone.
I run Internet businesses, too. In some of my Internet
businesses, we’ve taken off the ability to buy online, especially
on some of our big-ticket stuff.
We’ve told people, “Call us. We’ll give you the best price we
possibly can.” We always tell people, “We love our customers.
Give us a call.”
The reason I do that is because I know that if I get somebody on
the phone, I’ve got about a one-in-three chance of them buying
something from me. If they just come into my Web site, I’ve got
a one-in-one-hundred chance.
So, even if you get a lot of people on your website, you’re not
going to sell a lot from it. It’s a better relationship-building tool,
for the most part, for most local businesses.
Ryan:
Relationship building and lead generation, as well.
Perry:
Yeah. You can have some mechanism in there for them to ask
you questions on a forum or to ask you questions in a Q&A
area, so that you can grab their e-mail address and keep in
constant contact with them. We’ll talk about that toward the end
of the presentation today.
The Internet is a great place to start, though. If you’ve got that
blog set up, or even if maybe you’ve got a buddy or your
brother-in-law that builds you a Web site – or maybe you even
build your own Web site; it’s not that hard anymore – the second
thing you’re going to have to do is get some people to come to
it.
If you’re going to depend on SEO, or search engine
optimization, to shoot you to the top of the Google rankings, you
could probably take $1,000, run down to your local casino, and
put it on red.
Actually, that’s not true: if you put it on red or black, you’ve got a
50/50 shot, right? You’re better to go put $100,000 on the
double zeros of the roulette wheel. You might get a little closer
to the same odds you’re going to have of getting to the top of
your search engine rankings with Google. It’s not going to
happen anytime real soon.
It takes time, for one thing, to get to the search engine rankings
with Google. A lot of things are search engine driven. However,
Google has got a solution for that. Imagine! It’s called Google
AdWords. It means that if you want to be at the top of the
search engine rankings for any term you want, you can kind of
buy your way in.
Let’s say you’ve built your blog and you’re a roofing contractor.
You’ve decided you’re going to do a roofing contracting blog for
Cincinnati, Ohio.
You can go to Google AdWords and buy the term “roofing
contractor,” and select to only have that ad displayed when
somebody looks up a roofing contractor in Cincinnati, Ohio.
It’s very inexpensive, for the most part, to place your ad. You
can choose to place your ad to get people to come to your Web
site, to contact you, and to get advice from you.
The best examples that I’ve seen in the past are blogs that give
away a lot of good information in advice. It shows that you know
what you’re talking about.
If you say, “I’m a roofing contractor. Call me and I’ll come
charge you money to do something for you,” that’s a compelling
offer! You get to show yourself off as an expert.
Back a couple of years ago – and it’s still popular today in
certain businesses – people would pay to get on the radio and
be a radio talk show.
They’d do a radio gardening talk show on Saturday morning or
they would do “The Life Insurance Hour.” Believe it or not,
people would actually call in. It was a way to establish
themselves as an expert in a particular field and to generate
leads.
Today, that’s a lot easier to do with blogs and Google AdWords.
So, familiarize yourself with Google AdWords. It’s relatively
easy. You can go open an account. It’s about $50.
Set yourself up a blog. Make sure you have some content,
some valuable information, and a way for people to contact you
on your blog before you go out like a great big dodo and spend
money driving traffic to a blog that’s got one post that says,
“Hello, world.”
The good news about this WordPress blog is that you can put
pictures of your family up there; you can show jobs that you’ve
done and testimonial pictures.
Say, “We just finished the Williams’ house. Here’s a picture of
their new house. That’s us shaking hands out in front of it. They
were so happy. Here’s what they had to say about us.” You can
post a testimonial there.
You can do all sorts of things: “Here are my five tips for
winterizing your house. Heating oil is going up this winter.” You
can do all sorts of things that are helpful.
That blog does have a better chance of moving up the
popularity ranks at Google than a commercial Web site does.
Google actually likes blogs a lot.
You might move up in the natural listings; but if you don’t,
buying local traffic for ten or twenty dollars a day, at the most,
will probably get you to the top of the Google search engines for
almost any local service, unless it’s just something very specific
like computer repair, or odd things that people are a little more
savvy with.
Another great thing to do on the Internet, which we’ve talked
about before, is www.YellowPages.com. It’s very inexpensive to
feature your Yellow Pages listing above other phone number
listings at YellowPages.com.
Ryan:
Really, though, more and more and more – and it’s only going to
become more prevalent – people are using Google like the
Yellow Pages. Just give some thought to “What would my
customer type in?”
They’re not going to go and type in “plumbing.” They’re going to
type in “plumbing Cincinnati,” “lawn care Cincinnati,” “dry
cleaning Cincinnati,” or “carpet cleaning Cincinnati.” Make sure
you appear for those city-specific terms.
We can’t really go into this here, but if you set up an account
with Google AdWords, they have so much documentation and
really good training and tutorials on how to do this.
For local advertising, though, you can drill down very, very, very
tight in your specific market so that only people in your specific
market ever see your ad.
Just like Perry said, you send them to a Web page. A blog is
just such an easy way to get started because you don’t have to
have any technical ability whatsoever.
Send them there and make sure your phone number is
prevalent. Make sure you have your contact info. We talked
about those benefits and things. Make sure that those are front
and center on your page. That’s a great way to prospect and to
get customers.
Really, though, for the most part – this is going to sound weird
and you may not even like hearing this – you really don’t need
the Internet.
For the most part, the other strategies that we’ve talked about
as far as generating customers are going to be far more
effective both in volume and in return on investment than the
Internet will be for the vast majority of local businesses.
So, don’t fret too much about the Internet. Don’t spend too much
time on the Internet stuff because it really can be a huge,
massive time suck; and what it delivers to you in terms of
customers may just not be worth the time that you invest in it.
You’re probably better off driving through some nice
neighborhoods and putting some flyers on doors.
Perry:
Absolutely. There’s one thing I will add here real quick. Google
Maps is their new answer to the Yellow Pages that they’re doing
on Google right now. It does list businesses.
You can list your business on Google Maps and it’ll basically
give you a Yellow Pages listing. I think it’s either free or very
inexpensive. It even lets you put a Web site link on there if you
want to use it.
I’m looking at it right now and I’ve typed in “roofing Cleveland”
just as an example. American Roofing, Inc. is the first thing at
Google that pops up.
These local listings are starting to show up differently, and
Google is becoming the replacement for the phone book. This is
the place that you’re going to want to be.
I don’t think it costs anything at all to at least get listed there. It
might be a little bit if you list your Web site, but the cost is going
to be very insignificant.
Ryan:
The biggie there is that most people really are not even going to
look at people’s Web site. I know, because I’ve used this before.
I don’t even look at people’s Web site. It’s got the phone number
there, so I pick up the phone and just call.
Google is becoming the new Yellow Pages. That type there is
called Google Maps. If you go in there, do a search for it, and
check just the Google local stuff, you’re going to see it in there.
Perry:
There’s a thing in there. If you click on it you can claim your
business. There’s a bunch of stuff. If you read about it, it’s pretty
easy to do and it’s a great place to start.
Ryan:
That pretty much sums it up, unless you have anything to add to
the first part. Remember: right now we’re just in the first part of
the Triad Marketing System, which is Getting More Customers.
Perry:
It’s the hardest one to explain and the one that, if you’re starting,
you need a lot of; if you’ve already been in business, it’s going
to make you the least money, but it’s very still very important.
You’ve got to attract a constant stream of new customers. More
importantly, you need to attract a constant stream of new leads.
We call it the funnel system. You need to have leads into your
funnel, people constantly contacting you, and multiple sources.
Here’s the big mistake people make. We’ve told you all these
methods and you say, “Which one of those am I going to use?”
I’ve heard people do that: “Which one do you think I ought to
do?”
The answer is “All of them.” Multiple streams of leads is the
secret to consistent business growth. You’ve got to get those
different systems generating leads for you all the time.
When you do that, your funnel is going to start to fill up the top.
As it narrows down, people spend more and more and more
money. You’re going to fill your pipeline, basically.
Ryan:
Where you should start is really dependent upon the type of
business that you have. Obviously, some are going to lend
themselves well to flyers; some are really going to lend
themselves more to direct mail. Pick the low-hanging fruit first.
You’re going to have to sit back and take a good, hard look at
your business and think, “What’s going to be the best avenue
for me to begin?”
Most of the things that we’ve talked about here don’t require a
ton of time, and you’re able to utilize the same messages across
all these different media.
With that, Perry, are you ready to move onto the second leg?
Perry:
Yes.
Ryan:
That is Increasing the Frequency of Purchase. We talked about
the only three ways to grow the business; what makes up the
Marketing Triad. We’ve got Getting More Customers, Increasing
Frequency of Purchase, and Increasing Transaction Value.
Let’s talk about increasing the frequency of purchases.
Perry:
If you’ve been around a while in the advertising and marketing
business, you might say, “Well, I ain’t learned nothing new here,
yet.”
Let me tell you, you’re about to. These next two areas are so
exciting to me. I would say that 90% of the people in business
don’t market well at all. I would say that the other 10% consider
themselves marketers, and they do the first part of what we just
talked about. They usually don’t do it nearly as well as how we
just taught you to do it.
Then you have that tiny little sliver of people who understand
the second two parts of the Triad. When you get that, man,
that’s when companies become chains; that’s when people
begin to grow exponentially; that’s when you get to step outside
your business and run and enjoy your life, while other people
are doing all the work for you.
With that being said, we’re going to talk about the second part of
the Triad, and that is Increasing the Frequency of Purchase. To
understand this, you have to understand a concept called LTV:
the lifetime value of a customer.
Here’s how people acquire customers usually. Gosh, I hate
going back to pizza, but I’m going to go back to pizza. They say,
“I’m selling a pizza for $20. I don’t want to spend any more than
five dollars in advertising to sell that pizza.”
Well, you’re not selling the pizza. You’re selling a customer on
trying your pizza the first time. If you do your math, you might
find that that customer is going to buy 17 pizzas from you.
I promise you, companies like Papa John’s, Pizza Hut and
Domino’s know these numbers. You see all the money that they
spend in advertising and you say, “How in the world does
McDonald’s spend $100 million a quarter on advertising selling
a two-dollar hamburger?”
It’s because they know that the average McDonald’s customer –
and, by the way, this is a truism – visits a McDonald’s restaurant
100 times a year.
Ryan:
Really?
Perry:
Yes, 100 times a year.
Ryan:
I am clearly not the average McDonald’s customer.
Perry:
I know guys that eat breakfast and lunch there every single day.
What’s 100 times three or four bucks? Let’s just say it’s $500 a
year that that guy is worth.
What’s it worth to give that little kiddy toy to drag him in the first
time and get him to bring his kid in to buy a Happy Meal? It’s
worth a lot.
The same is true with things like Sam’s Clubs. Basically, there
are three ways – imagine that, a triad – of increasing the
frequency of purchase of customers which I know work well.
This is one area that I can tell you there are a myriad of other
ways, but these are the three core ways that I’ve seen used
successfully of late to increase the frequency of purchase. One
is loyalty programs. Ryan, you call it “building an iron cage
around your customer.”
Ryan:
Yes, exactly. We witnessed it just the other day. I wanted to go
and buy a new T.V. I am a silver elite loyalty member at Best
Buy.
There we were. I’m looking online and I’m looking around at all
these different T.V.s, wanting to get a new big screen, LCD T.V.
We checked out Costco and we checked out Sam’s, but I get
points if I buy at Best Buy.
Quite literally, I went to a store that was a little more out of the
way and where the T.V. that I bought was a little more
expensive because I wanted my points. That’s irrational and
somewhat illogical. I’m a marketer, and I get this stuff.
Perry:
I’m looking online right now at the same T.V. we bought, and it’s
for $1,319. We bought it yesterday for how much?
Ryan:
It was about $1,500 or $1,600.
Perry:
It was $1,600; but you’re going to get back $100. Whoo!
Ryan:
Exactly. I’ll make back $100 as part of being a club member, but
I get this. I know how it works. I understand what they’re doing
to me, and it still works.
I’m not poor. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m Bill Gates
or Warren Buffet, but I’m not poor. I don’t need that extra deal,
but I’m a loyalty member of that. I want to use my card. I want to
accrue those points. The other places don’t give me points, and
I want my dang points.
What they did was build an iron cage around me to where I’m
not going to be as interested in shopping at a different store.
That’s one of the things that loyalty programs do.
There is a restaurant where we go and eat lunch regularly.
Thinking about it, it’s not because they have the best food.
Again, it’s because they have a loyalty program and they do a
good job of following up.
I like to get those points. I accumulate them and I get a coupon
for a free dessert or a five-dollar-off thing. It works. It absolutely
works.
Perry:
I got a card for a steakhouse where, if you buy ten steaks,
eventually over a period of time, you get a free steak dinner.
Hell, I could buy the damned steakhouse, but I still use the card.
Again, I’m not a poor guy.
People think that those programs are going to bring out the
wretches that want the freebies; the lowlifes that want the free
stuff.
For the most part, they’ll bring out some of your highest-end
customers; people who are astute consumers who want to save,
who want a deal, and who want to be treated a certain way.
If you don’t believe a loyalty program works, two of the most
amazing things in the world to me are Sam’s Club and Costco.
You can either choose to go buy your stuff at a normal grocery
store, or you can choose to come here and buy it for roughly the
same price per unit in a 55-gallon drum. We’re not going to
touch it, bag it, or do anything to it. You can haul it out in your
pickup truck.
Also, by the way, for the privilege of getting to do that, I need
$100 a year. They absolutely convince people to give them that
money. Then you feel obligated: “I’m going to go buy it at
Costco because I have a membership there.”
You wouldn’t believe how many people I hear: “Why don’t we go
get it at Costco? I’ve got a membership there and I don’t ever
use that doggone thing. Let’s go use it and go to Costco and get
it.” That’s a great logical reason for buying something from a
particular retailer.
Ryan:
So that you can force yourself to use it later.
Perry:
Yeah. I’m going to force myself to use it later. Doggone it, I
swear. I’ve got a Sam’s card and it just sends me to the moon. I
probably go there twice a year, and I’m an idiot for even having
one.
That second time I go every year, I put my $75 worth of stuff
there on the table and they say, “Oh, well lookie here! Your card
expired a week ago. Do you want me to just go ahead and add
that $100 renewal to it?”
“Yeah. I’m already through the line.” I drop it and there I am, in
the bucket for another year. That’s a loyalty program I don’t
understand or even know why it works.
I do know why the other ones work. These things are not
necessarily just discounts or points. Sometimes it’s privileges or
premium services.
We’re going to talk about this, too, in Increasing Transaction
Value. I bank at HSBC bank because I opened an account there
in Hong Kong.
When I opened an account, they said that if you keep a certain
amount of money in the bank, you want to pay a $100-a-month
fee.
Think about your banking fee. It’s normally about three or four
dollars a month. I pay $100 flat fee so that when I go to an
HSBC bank, I get to walk through the main lobby – and lot of
people don’t even know they have this – and go to a special
lobby on the other side of the front lobby in the HSBC bank.
The bankers there are at desks and they have a computer for
you to use. They give you this groovy, cool, wallet; an HSBC
wallet. I’m going to pull it out right now so Ryan can see. It’s a
really super-nice wallet.
Ryan:
It is a very nice wallet. I wish you could see it right now.
Perry:
You get it for being an HSBC member. I get these special
privileges.
Ryan:
All for the price of $100 a month?
Perry:
I pay $100 a month! That’s $1,200 a year! We’ve got multiple
friends of ours who have an American Express black card. They
call and insist they send them one. They get irate if they don’t!
It’s only $3,000 a year to have one.
Guess how it works differently than the platinum or the gold
card? It don’t! It’s exactly the same. They still send you a bill at
the end of the month, and you still have to pay for all the stuff
you bought, too.
Some loyalty programs work out of prestige. Some work out of
bargains, deals, and coupons; you get stuff back. I’ll tell you,
though, it seems like the trend in the industry is that the ones
that offer premium services that aren’t available for sale at any
price tend to be doing better. “You could only get this particular
level of service if you are one of our loyalty program members.”
That’s number one.
Here’s another great example. I’ll give this really quickly. I
belong to a dinner club. I pay a certain amount a month to be a
member of this particularly nice dining club. It’s basically a
restaurant. It’s no more than a nice restaurant.
I eat at a variety of places. I might visit a restaurant twice a year
for dinner, because you want to do something different all the
time. I probably visit this restaurant 12 times a year because I’m
a member. Just because I became a member of it, I tend to use
it.
Ryan:
Yeah. Members, on average, are going to spend anywhere from
five to ten times as much as just a “regular customer.” That’s
just their association and how they feel about it.
Think right now: “How can I turn my customers into members?”
Perry:
There are free member services or loyalty programs and there
are paid member services. They’re really kind of different. I got
ahead of myself a little bit there.
The second way you increase the frequency of purchases with
your customer base is offering more than one product or
service.
In other words, if you’re a roofing contractor and you know a
gutter guy, you ought to be selling gutters for your buddy. This is
for a lot of reasons.
One is that you’re providing a service to your homeowner.
You’re providing a service to your customer. They don’t want to
have to create a brand new relationship for everything they do.
Ryan:
Yes, and going through the trouble of doing all the research.
Think about it. Maybe you own a restaurant or maybe the
business you want to go into isn’t home related.
However, think about the last time that you had a plumbing
problem at your house. Wasn’t it kind of a pain in the butt to
have to find a phone book, call 50 million people, and try to get
quotes over the phone?
Perry:
You absolutely don’t know who to trust.
Ryan:
Yeah. You don’t know who to trust. You find someone and they
do a good job for you. This is the funny thing about it.
I noticed we had a leak in our shower and we had a plumber
come out and fix it. In our bathroom, the light goes out all the
time. I put a new light bulb in that thing probably every week, so
obviously there’s an issue with the ballast or something like that.
I don’t know.
I asked the guy, “By the way, while you’re here – I realize you’re
a plumber, but – can you fix that also?”
“Oh, no. We don’t do that.”
Well, why not? Either expand your product line or expand your
services, or say, “I can’t, but we have an area that does do that.”
You’re already in their home. You’ve broken through that initial
barrier. Your foot is quite literally in the door, as we talked about
earlier. Think about all the other stuff you could be doing while
you’re there, and operate it.
Here’s an example I love more than anything. This is not only an
example of increasing your product line, but also of
incorporating what’s known as a “slack adjuster” in your
business.
I’ll explain what slack adjusters are in just a second, but think
about a Starbucks. We talked about Starbucks quite a bit. You
go in there to buy a five-dollar cup of coffee, which, granted, is
an overpriced cup of coffee.
Somebody goes in there and they spend maybe five or ten
bucks because they buy a Danish, too. We’re not talking high
transaction values.
However, six steps behind that person is a $600 espresso
machine. Do they sell a lot of those espresso machines? No;
but when they do, that’s a nice little pop for that store.
Perry:
Except for 100 customers.
Ryan:
Yeah. That’s what’s known as a “slack adjuster.”
Perry:
So, if it’s a crappy day and you sell a cappuccino machine,
everything is cool.
Ryan:
Yeah, everything’s fine. In jewelry stores, it’s diamonds.
Perry:
Jewelry stores don’t live off diamonds. Jewelry stores live off
everything else. When they sell a diamond, it’s a great day.
Ryan:
Yeah, that’s when they take their wife out to dinner. Think about
how you can incorporate slack adjusters as the high-priced
things that you’re not going to sell very often; but when you do,
whoo-hoo!
Perry:
These are services that you can provide. However, by all
means, if you don’t feel like you can provide any more services
right now, or if you don’t have the resources and you don’t want
to spread yourself thin, joint ventures in most businesses is the
difference between the men and the boys.
Everybody worries about the competitor: crushing the
competitor; making more money than the next guy. Be that
guy’s friend. The easiest way that you’re going to be able to do
that is by recommending customers to him.
Don’t call him and say, “Hey. I’ve got a customer. I’ll
recommend my customer to you if you’ll recommend your
customer to me.” Don’t try to make a deal with the quid pro quo.
Just say, “Hey. I hear that you’re the best guy in town.”
Only recommend the people you hear great things about.
You’ve got to learn this. This is really important if you’re going to
make money in joint ventures and joint venture deals.
You own your customer and you’ve got to handle them like a
Faberge egg. If you recommend somebody that does them a
crappy job or screws them over, that’s the last time they’re
going to let you recommend anything, and your reputation is
going to be soiled.
You want to make sure: “I’ll recommend somebody to you, but
I’m going to tell you right now that he’s the best guy in town.
He’s also probably the most expensive guy in town, but if you
want it done right, I’ll recommend him to you. Know that up
front, though. He’s not going to be the cheap guy. Do you want
me to get him or not?”
They’ll say, “Yeah, that’ll be great. That’s exactly what I want.”
“Okay, great.” You recommend the best people. Then tell the
guy, “Hey. I want to recommend this customer to you. If you
throw a little shake off my way, that’d be great. If not, that’s
okay.” Sometimes you’re going to make more formal deals on
down the road.
After you’ve referred a number of customers to somebody, if
they’re not referring a number of customers back to you, then it
might be time to go over and have a cup of coffee.
Ryan:
Most people understand reciprocity unless they’re just
psychopaths. If you refer somebody to them, most people are
going to do everything they can. It will be a thorn in their side
until they can return the favor.
In some industries you can get into some legal issues, but I
don’t even suggest that you work out a fee split because it can
kind of be a pain to do. You just say, “Look. I’ve got customers.
You’ve got customers.” The thing is to train them.
Let’s say you’re a carpet cleaner. You’re in somebody’s home
and you’re a carpet cleaner, but what you don’t clean are
drapes.
You go in, you do a great job of cleaning somebody’s carpet,
and you look around and see their drapes. You say, “Excuse
me, Mr. or Mrs. Homeowner. When was the last time you had
your drapes cleaned?”
They say, “Oh, wow. We’ve never had them cleaned. Is that
something you do?”
You say, “We actually don’t clean drapes. That’s a different level
of service. I know of a local dry cleaner, though. They do a
fantastic job of cleaning drapes. They’re not the cheapest out
there, but they’re also not going to ruin them. Those look like
pretty expensive drapes. Am I right? You spent good money?
They’re not going to ruin your drapes. They’re going to do a
great job for you.”
You have to learn how to start looking for those opportunities.
You send people over to the dry cleaner. Now you tell the dry
cleaner, “Since I’m sending some people over to you, would you
mind just stapling my flyer about my carpet cleaning services to
the plastic bags that cover people’s suits and pants; or keeping
a stack of my business cards? Maybe if you get a customer that
you get to know, mention to them, ‘You’ve got your nice clean
clothes; but what’s your carpet like? We don’t offer carpetcleaning services, but this guy over here just cleaned our
carpet. He does a great job.’”
You train them, as well. You coach them. “Here’s what I’m doing
for you.” However, you’ve got to learn to look for those
opportunities.
People are so focused, they have blinders on. They walk into a
home or, if they’re a retail business, they sit there and only sell
what they sell. “I sell what I sell and that’s it.”
You’ve got people walking through your door who have needs
other than what you can meet. Try to open up your mind and
think, “What other businesses around could benefit from the
customers I already have coming through my door? How can I
send people their way, and then how could I train them to
reciprocate and send their customers my way?” That will open
up all new lead avenues for you.
Perry:
Here’s a lesson that maybe you can learn from the white-collar
area; a lot of financial guys, insurance guys, and real estate
guys. They have something called “lead clubs.”
I’ve been a member of these in the past. A lot of salespeople
have them and small businesses have them. One of the best
things that you can do is create a leads club. Most people don’t
belong to one and they don’t even know what it means.
You can call people in complementary services to yours and
say, “My name is Perry and I’m starting a leads club. We want
to meet once a week or once every two weeks for coffee. I’m in
the carpet cleaning business. You’re in the roofing business.
Jimmy down the street is in the lawn care business. Let’s all get
together, meet once a week, and have coffee. Maybe we can
share some leads and talk a little bit.”
You start to build yourself a little mastermind and get some
people. You make great friends that way. It’s a super way to
absolutely start building a lead generation program or a referral
program between different service providers.
There’s a good example I was going to use here, too. Then we’ll
move on because I know we’re running short on time. If you’ve
ever walked through Costco – back to my favorite retailer – or
even a Sears store, as you’re leaving there’s a whole row of
stuff on the right-hand side of Costco. There’s Costco Carpet,
Costco Travel Agency, Costco Curtains and Drapes, and
Custom Whatever. Costco don’t do a dad gum bit of any of that.
That’s all farmed-out services.
I used to be heavily involved with Sears when I was in the
jewelry business. One of the most profitable areas of Sears was
their third-party services.
There’s Sears Cabinet Installation, but they have absolutely
nothing to do with that business. They have a contractor in
every area that builds the cabinets.
They have carpet installation people. They don’t sell or deliver
any of that. They make a contract deal and they simply get a
small piece – 15% or 20% - of the sale. They don’t do any of the
work. They don’t do anything. They just provide the customer,
basically.
Ryan:
Joint ventures are an easy way to get in this without doing a
heck of a lot of work, but don’t limit yourself just to joint
ventures. Think about, “How can we expand our own product
line?”
You’ve given the example and we talk about this in some of the
shoestring start-up programs that we have. Take daycare, for
example.
You’re dealing with parents and you’re working with parents. A
great strategy that you can do is become the concierge for that
parent.
Add an extra service, where maybe you take their dry cleaning
in for them. They bring their dry cleaning in when they drop off
their kids. Just keep your mind open to those kinds of strategies.
Perry:
I’ve consulted a lot of businesses in the daycare industry. They
have a great advantage because they do have the foot traffic of
these same parents every day.
One of the coolest things I saw was a daycare center in New
Jersey. They have a deal with a caterer. Every morning, when
you drop off your kids, the caterer has a board up at the front of
the thing.
It says, “Tonight’s dinner for four is the Chicken Cacciatore with
the green beans and mashed potatoes. Sign up to have your
dinner here when you pick up your kid this afternoon.” Man, that
is an incredibly successful service.
Ryan:
It’s good for the caterer and I’m assuming the caterer pays.
Perry:
The caterer pays the daycare center a piece. It’s delivering an
amazing value for the parent who now doesn’t have to go home
and prepare a meal. They can actually spend more quality time
with their children. It’s a win-win-win.
When you think about these things, make sure always that
you’re delivering great value. If you’re not delivering great value,
it doesn’t matter how much money you make.
An old man told me one time, “If you shear a sheep, just a little
wool here and a little wool there, the sheep will give you wool for
years. If you skin him, though, you can only skin him once.”
That’s the absolute truth. Make a little money here and there
and make sure you’re delivering great value. Remember first
and foremost, before everything else, to protect that customer
like they’re your mother. Treat them like your own mom.
Hopefully, you have a good relationship with your mom.
Ryan:
Yeah, I hope you like your mom. We’ve talked about loyalty
programs, and we’ve talked about expanding your own product
and services line. I really want to get to this third one.
Perry:
Yeah. It’s the biggie. It’s applicable to every business.
Ryan:
It’s the one that nobody is doing; and that’s the continuity
program. Here’s what we mean by a continuity program. You
get your customers to actually pay you for the right and privilege
to be your customers.
You already touched briefly on HSBC and what they do; and
you talked about Costco. However, we’ve actually seen another
example.
You may be thinking, “Oh, that’s going to work for banks and
that’s going to work for Costco and Sam’s Club. They’re well
established. Yeah, I get it. What about me? I own a restaurant.”
Perry:
A restaurant is a fabulous candidate. Or let’s talk about
massage. There’s actually a new chain and they’re becoming
pretty popular right now. It’s called Massage Envy. I guess you
would envy anybody that supposedly has a membership here.
Massage Envy is a club that you join and you pay a flat fee per
month for a certain number of massage services over a period
of a month, and discounts on other services you can get.
I don’t know exactly what their programs are, but let’s say that
you pay $100 a month and you get three or four massages
during the month. It’s going to be less expensive than each
normal massage.
You can go as often as you want and you get to use their
services. They have private VIP areas and all this sort of cool,
exclusive stuff. You’re a member. It’s a members-only kind of
thing.
The neat thing about continuity programs is that they bring in an
incredible amount of consistency to your business. There are
sole membership models.
Tanning salons are a great example: “All-you-can-eat tanning.
Tan every day for $99 a month.” The guy that owns that tanning
salon may have 1,000 people. He hits a button on a computer
and $99,000 drops into his bank account on Day 1 of every
month.
Ryan:
That’s a great way to start out a month, by the way. Compare
that to how most local businesses start: on Day 1 of the month,
they’re at zero. They sit there and hope and pray.
They may have had a great month last month, but you only get
to celebrate that for so long. Next month, the number is zero.
You’ve still got a mortgage and you’ve still got kids to feed.
Perry:
Do tell them about your pizza example. We’re seeing these
continuity programs pop up in every kind of business
imaginable. If you’re creative enough in your thinking, you can
make it work for practically any business.
Ryan:
I’ll give you an example for pizza and I’ll give you a retail
example for menswear. There is a pizza place that I believe is
up in the northeast. They are a gourmet pizza place.
It gets to creating scarcity. They say, “Look. Because we’re
gourmet pizzas, we can’t delivery 50 million of them a night.
We’re not Domino’s where we can just run these things through
like a factory. It takes a little bit of time to create your pizza.”
It was getting to the point where, on a Friday night, the wait to
get the pizza delivered was about two hours because it takes
some time to prepare and cook these different pizzas.
Perry:
I’m sure their pitch is “We hand make every one with love and
mother’s tears.”
Ryan:
Yeah. It’s apples and oranges between them and Domino’s.
What they said is, “Let’s turn this disadvantage into an
advantage.” They said, “We’re going to have a new club and
you pay to be a member of this club.”
I think they charge them a couple hundred bucks a year to be a
member of this club; and they actually have different levels that
go all the way up to about $1,000.
If you’re a member of this club, you literally have a different
phone number that you get to dial. It’s the Bat Phone! You get to
call up and there are no busy signals. Somebody’s going to pick
up almost immediately. They’re going to take your order, you
get first priority, and you get a guaranteed delivery time.
At the highest level, they will then go to these members and
say, “Superbowl Sunday is our busiest time. We’re taking
reservations.”
For Superbowl Sunday, if somebody calls up, they say, “Sorry.
We’re reservations-only today to our exclusive members.” Then
and at other times, they make their money ahead of time. They
get paid ahead of time, before that day ever comes around; and
they get to go after their members to do it.
That’s an example of providing a higher level of access, that we
call the bat phone. Another great example I’ve seen is with the
menswear.
They get men to pay around $30 a month or $300 for the year.
For that privilege, you’ve got a day that’s assigned to you. You
can come in during a certain time. You’ll have an interview, and
they’ll assess what you like and what your style is.
You can come in during this time, you’ll have a person
dedicated just to you, and they’ll show you a bunch of things. It’s
a personalized concierge, and they just make you feel like a
king.
This is for menswear. You wouldn’t think that men would be into
this. This may make me sound a little fruity, but I think about
that scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts is going
around and getting dressed up.
You go into these boutiques and they’re treating you like you’re
a movie star. It’s like they shut down the whole place for you
and they’re showing you everything. People just want to be
treated like that.
Nightclubs have done it for a long time. If you’re a member of a
particular nightclub, the line out front goes on forever, but
members get to come in the back door right away.
It’s about access. What level of access? What premium
service? How can we make people feel special?
Perry:
They’re willing to pay a monthly service for it. Doctors are doing
it now. Try to call your doctor: “Hey, Doc. I’ve got a cold.”
They’ll say, “Yeah? Well, come in in two weeks.”
In two weeks, I’ll be over the freaking cold. Now they say, “Are
you a member of our premium service? You can come in the
back door of the clinic and get seen by the doctor in 15 minutes.
It only costs you $1,200 a year.” Those are extremely popular
services in larger cities right now.
Back to little services, though, here’s one of the coolest things
I’ve seen in a while. This one had a particular advantage. It was
really neat.
I called a florist to get some flowers delivered on Valentine’s
Day. If you know anything about the floral business, flowers go
from about $40 a dozen to $100 a dozen on Valentine’s Day.
That’s pretty much the running gamut right now.
You say, “I want to get a dozen roses delivered. How much is
it?”
They’ll say, “They’re $99.95; or they’re $39.95 for our loving
events members.”
Basically, the idea was, “We’re going to go ahead and deliver
these roses for you for $39.95. You agree to get in our $39.95a-month club. We’re going to send flowers to your wife on your
anniversary, her birthday, your mom’s birthday.”
You get one floral event a month or 12 floral events a year if
you’re a member: “If you want to do it over the phone, we’ll set it
up for you. You don’t even have to think about it. You’ll never
miss another day.”
They’ve targeted men. Boy, what a wonderful time to do it.
You’re going to save me $60 right now. That’s immediate
gratification. I’m sure at $39, they still made money on my
roses.
They save me $60 right now and locked me into almost $500 a
year. They just turned me from skinning me one time for $100
and making an extra $50, to getting $500 out of me.
Ryan:
In a year. Then, perhaps you’ll stay a member of that for years
to come.
Perry:
I would imagine that that had a pretty successful conversion. I
could go on and on and on. You just think about your industry –
whatever you’re doing in your business – and how you can set
people up on a consistent method.
One of the things I’ve seen done before is in the pool cleaning
business. I’ve seen people stabilize their incomes by telling pool
owners, “Here’s what we do. It’s $100 a month to service your
pool through the summer. Or it’s $49.95 a month to service it,
and we’ll just bill you all year.”
You can bill them $49.95 a month all year instead of $100 a
month; and you get consistent yearly income instead of just
one-time income. There are all kinds of ways to do that. The
power of a continuity program is beyond imagination.
I’ll tell you one last thing about continuity programs and then
we’ll shut up on it. The guy that’s got the tanning salon with the
continuity program at $100,000-a-month billing, or the guy that’s
got the tanning salon where you come in and pay as you go:
which one do you think is going to sell for more money at the
time he decides to sell, cash out, and retire? The difference is
not even funny.
A lot of people who buy businesses will pay up to 15 times
annual earnings from companies that have strong continuity
program bases. That’s up from two or three times earnings for
companies that don’t.
Smart money knows that the continuity programs are the future
of business. If you don’t get that, man, you need to just hit the
Replay button over and over and over again until you do.
Ryan:
This one topic right here can make you more money than
anything else we’ve discussed. If you slept throughout the first
couple of volumes of this training, this is the big time.
This is absolutely, positively what can make you so successful
and have your competitors looking around saying, “I don’t
understand what he or she is doing.”
Just think about it. A lot of it just requires some boldness and
requires you to think high enough about your service and good
enough about what you do to say, “Do you know what? I
deserve to be paid for what I provide.”
Don’t feel like you have to get to that point of true scarcity
before you implement some of these things. Implementing some
of these things is going to make it seem like, “Wow. There’s a
ton of scarcity here.” Then it’s going to become a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
That’s Increasing the Frequency of Purchase; some quick
strategies to not just increase them a little bit. When you get to
continuity, we’re talking about increasing the frequency of
purchase exponentially, as Perry has mentioned a couple of
times.
Perry, do you have anything else that you want to add for
Increasing the Frequency of Purchase before we move on?
Perry:
I can’t think of anything.
Ryan:
Okay. What we’re going to do next is talk about Increasing
Transaction Values. We’ll go there now.
We’ve talked about a basic overview of marketing – why it’s
important and what it is; the basic elements of setting forth a
marketing plan, et cetera.
We’ve touched on the three elements of the Triad Marketing
System: Getting More Customers; Getting Those Customers to
Buy More Frequently; now, we’re going to touch onto the third
leg of Triad Marketing, which is Increasing the Overall
Transaction Value.
Again, the Triad Marketing System: getting more customers;
getting those customers to buy more often; and this one is
getting them, flat out, to spend more money – increasing your
transaction value of each individual sale.
Let’s talk a little bit about how we go about doing it and how
people can implement those in their businesses.
Perry:
The number one method of increasing transaction value is
upselling and cross-selling. The easiest example of this is, “Do
you want to ‘Biggie Size’ that?
Ryan:
“Do you want fries with that?”
Perry:
Yes; “Do you want fries with that?” is a cross-sell. That means
you’re going to sell a complimentary item with a core item.
If you want to “Super-size” your meal, that’s an upsell; that’s
basically selling people more of the same thing.
Cross-selling is selling a complimentary product; however, a lot
of times an upsell can be a bigger size or deluxe version of
something.
When we offer information products, we may offer an
electronically deliverable version; then, we may upsell a
physically delivered version.
That gives us an opportunity to give more value to the customer.
We have to make sure and get back to that same core principle;
we have to give value to the customer, helping the information
to be more digestible to them, et cetera.
Not too long ago, I bought a suit in Bangkok, Thailand. One of
the things that they asked was, “Would you like another pair of
trousers for $40 extra?”
Well, “Yes.”
I remembered that a lot of times one of the first things that fades
on a suit is the trousers and not the jacket.
So, “Yes, I would like an extra pair of trousers.” That’s $40 extra
bucks.
I would say that probably 60 or 70% of the people that they sell
a suit to buy another pair of trousers for $40. In Bangkok, that’s
a lot of money.
This is a really misunderstood process of upselling and crossselling. It’s where most people leave their profit on the table.
Most people’s profit in a sale is relatively low.
You may be in an industry where you have a gigantic profit
margin; but, for most people the profit margin is moderate.
When I say moderate, I mean a 50% profit margin. You may be
selling a service for $20 that only costs you ten dollars to
perform. If you are, by the time that you take out your marketing
costs, et cetera, the average net profit of a small business is, a
lot of times, less than ten percent of the overall gross figure.
In other words, if you sell $500,000 worth of stuff, you may only
make $50,000. However, by adding on small add-ons and
cross-sells, you may only increase the gross sales of your
business by 20 or 30%; but, you may double or triple your net
profits.
Ryan:
Right, because there are no costs.
Perry:
There are no more marketing costs. The customer is already
there. You don’t have to spend any more time acquiring the
customer; anymore money acquiring the customer; you just add
something on.
Let’s say that you’re getting a new roof on your house. I’ll bet
you that most roofers in the world never ask this question, “Hey,
while we’re reroofing your house, do you want us to clean out
the gutters for you? It would be $75 extra dollars.”
Ryan:
Right.
Perry:
It takes five minutes for the roofer to do it. The booger to
cleaning the gutters is getting on the roof. The roofer is already
up there; he can take a water hose and blow out the gutters.
He’s made another $75.
Let’s think about that. If he does 200 or 300 roofing jobs per
year – that could potentially be a lot of extra money.
I’m going to tell you a story that kind of goes to frequency and
upselling. One of the coolest things that we’ve seen in a while
happened the day before yesterday. We were in a Starbucks
and I had purchased a drink. The lady said, “Here’s a coupon;
you can come back after two o’clock today and you can get
another frozen drink for just two dollars.”
Think about this math for a minute. We actually asked the
owner, “How many people actually bring these back in the
afternoon?”
She said, “It’s about 100 a day.”
I went, “Wow. How many do you pass out in the morning?”
She said, “About 400. We have about 400 customers in the
morning.”
So, 25% of the people brought back that coupon and bought a
two dollar drink. Imagine that. If they only bought the two dollar
drink – which they didn’t; chances are they bought a crumb cake
to go with it – so, let’s say that it’s a four dollar transaction.
That’s $400 extra dollars a day, every day, that went into that
small coffee shop. Four hundred bucks a day; that’s $150,000 a
year that they wouldn’t have gotten if they hadn’t have asked.
“Would you like fries with that? Would you like a hot apple pie?”
Let me tell you, McDonald’s doesn’t ask that for fun. They know
that if they ask that, that four or five out of every 25 will say,
“Yes.” The more value there is delivered and the more closely
related the upsell or cross-sell is, the higher the percentage.
Here’s one of the big secrets to upsells and cross-sells:
immediacy. This is the thing that you absolutely need to
remember.
Everybody says, “You know what? I sold Mrs. Jones a lawn
mower. I’m going to go back next week and see if she wants a
weed eater.”
That’s wrong. Your success for that is going to probably be very
poor.
The minute Mrs. Jones bought the lawn mower from you, as
she’s completing that transaction, say, “Oh, by the way Mrs.
Jones, do you want a weed eater with that?”
Ryan:
Yes, while it’s already out.
Perry:
People go into a buying frenzy. She has the money, checkbook,
or a credit card in her hand – she is in “buy mode.”
Ryan:
Actually it is a physiological sensation. They have actually
tracked this. There are endorphins and chemicals that are
released into the body, in most people, when we buy. It’s
different than when we’re just hanging out. We truly do get a
little rush, a bit of a high, from buying.
Now, you’re not going to get that when you’re buying life
insurance, necessarily; but, that’s one of those things, especially
with luxury items and things that you are excited about. You get
that high.
To be able to capitalize on some of these physiological things
that are already happening is huge; not to mention the
convenience aspects of it.
Going back to Mrs. Jones and saying, “Hey Mrs. Jones. Do you
remember that I was here last week? I’m Ryan, do you
remember me? You don’t? Oh, that’s a shame. Anyway, I was
hoping that maybe I could sell you this other thing, too.” That’s
not good for a number of reasons.
However, if she’s sitting there handing you her credit card – or,
maybe you have the credit card in your hand and all that you
need to do is to swipe it one more time – all she has to do is nod
her head and say, “Okay, sure.”
That’s much easier than, “Oh, let me get out my credit card
again.”
Perry:
Once somebody has bought an upsell from you, they’re even
more likely to buy another one.
Ryan:
Right.
Perry:
Most people say, “I already asked them to add on to their order
and they said, ‘Yes.’ I’m not asking them to buy anything else
because they might get mad at me.” If it’s a good value and they
need it, they’re not. I’m going to tell you a story. It’s going to
take a minute to tell; but, it’s a good story.
About ten years ago I met a fellow that lived near me in the
neighborhood. He drove a brand new truck. He was always at
the lake and skied all the time. He had a nice house and a great
lifestyle.
I never saw the guy work. I thought, “Man, the dude must be a
drug dealer since he’s living this kind of a lifestyle.”
I lived there all summer and I never saw the guy do a dog gone
thing. He was always just having a good time, always in a good
mood; he had a great lifestyle.
In the winter I noticed that he had a chimney sweep on the side
of his truck. He has a sticker on the side that said, “Chimney
sweep.”
I said, “Man, did you get a job?”
He said, “No, I do this every year.”
I came to find out that he would work for about four months a
year, make $150,000 as a chimney sweep. That sounds
unbelievable; but, I’ll tell you how he did it.
He advertised with bandit signs. That was his biggest form of
advertising; that, plus flyers and door hangers on doors. He only
worked certain geographical areas.
However, his biggest secret was upselling. He would do the
chimney sweeping job for less than anyone else in the phone
book; or anyone that they called. Everyone else was $69 or $79;
he would come do their chimney sweep job for $39.95.
However, he was a brilliant upseller.
He understood the mentality. Why do you get a chimney sweep
job done? It’s because you don’t want your house to catch on
fire; you don’t want it to stink up or catch on fire. You’re a
conscientious homeowner.
At times he also sold dryer vent cleaning because they are a fire
hazard as well.
So, the first thing that he would do is go out and completely
clean the chimney. He would finish that part of the job. He
actually had a camera on a little string, basically. (Chimney
sweeps all have these now. It’s becoming really popular.) While
he was up on the roof, he would drop this camera down into the
chimney and, here’s his big secret: most chimneys have cracks.
It’s not unusual for a chimney, especially up toward the top, to
have cracks.
He would film the cracks in the chimney; come back down and
say, “Okay, I’m done with your chimney sweep job; but, let me
show you this video.” He’d pop out a laptop computer and say,
“I filmed this up in your chimney a few minutes ago. I just
wanted to show you that you have a couple of potential
problems here. I can patch all of those for you for another $95 to
$100.” Or, whatever he charged. It was quite a lot.
All that it took was a little bit of mortar and a few minutes to fix.
He had ten or 20 cents of mortar; cement is cheap. That’s all it
took to patch up these cracks in the chimney for another $100.
A lot of times when he’d come back in to collect his bill for
cleaning and repairing the chimney, underneath his arm he’d
have this big beautiful solid copper chimney cap. He’d have it
under his arm when he came to get the check.
He’d say, “Okay, I have your bill here. Here it is. You owe me
$145.75.” Remember, he actually came out there for $39.95,
right?
“I had one of these in the truck that I wanted to show you. It will
fit your chimney.” (By the way, he had one in the truck that
would fit every chimney and he only had one.) “I have one of
these in the truck that would fit your chimney. This thing is
usually $700; but, I got a deal on this one. If you want it, you can
get it for $295. I left my ladder up on the roof out there. I can go
out and install it right now if you decide that you want it.”
Did everybody buy it? Absolutely not; but, believe it or not, of
the homes that didn’t have a cap, about 25% dropped $300 on
this copper chimney cap, which cost him about $50. So, he
made another $250.
So, he’s rolling out of there - $39.95 job – remember he had
more volume of jobs than anybody because he was the
cheapest. Why was he the cheapest? He didn’t make a cent. He
said, “If they don’t buy an upsell from me, I don’t make a nickel;
nothing.”
He didn’t go out there to sell the chimney sweep job. It was the
farthest from that. He went out there to sell a repair job and a
cap. The chimney sweep job was just a necessary evil.
Ryan:
That’s the loss leader. That’s the lead mechanism that got him
in the door.
Perry:
That was one of the best examples of a small service, or local
business, that I’ve ever seen that used upselling.
He’d only do four or five calls a day and make $1,500 or $2,000
a day during 70 or 80 days out of the year.
Ryan:
When he couldn’t be out on the lake doing what he loved.
Perry:
He went fishing and skiing the rest of the year. He even went to
the Bahamas and had a great time.
Ryan:
It applies to everything.
If you have something as simple as a hot dog cart, you know?
You have your basic dog that everybody else sells for $2.95;
but, you have all kinds of other things that you can pile on top of
it, along with chips and drinks.
Perry:
By the way, I’ve been involved in the hot dog and hot dog cart
business, too. Can you imagine that?
[Laughter]
A hot dog and a hot dog cart only cost about 30 cents to deliver;
the whole dog gone thing costs 30 to 35 cents. People would
come up to me, “I’ll have a dog. How much is that?”
“It’s two dollars and 50 cents for the dog.” (We’re going to get to
bundling in a second; and, the meal pack applies to that.)
If they just wanted a dog I’d say, “Do you want an extra dog for
one dollar?” They just paid two dollars and 50 cents for one.
Even if they’re not hungry, the value proposition is so great that
they’re going to spend the extra dollar for the extra hot dog,
even if they throw it away. I promise you that you’ve done that
before – buying something where the value was so dog gone
good you just couldn’t pass it up. You end up not even using it.
Ryan:
I remember the day that I went into a store. I literally needed
one battery; one battery for a clock. I went into the store to buy
one battery; well, you can’t buy one battery. You have to buy a
packet of 12. Then they had, “Buy two packs of 12 for just a little
bit more.” So, I went in for one battery and walked out with 24
frickin’ batteries.
Perry:
Now, that’s bundling. That’s the next thing that we’re getting to.
Ryan:
That’s probably a good thing to transition into if you’re ready.
Let’s go ahead and talk about bundling.
Perry:
Upsells and cross-sells are one; bundle offers are second. You
know that there’s always a “triad,” so the third will be premium
level services.
Bundle offers are a great way to increase transaction value.
These are combining more than one product – sometimes it’s
the same product; sometimes complementary products; or,
sometimes it’s a bundle.
The telephone companies do a fabulous job with this; cable
companies do, too. “You can get all three services from us:
phone, cable, and Internet, for one low price of $99.95 per
month.” They bundle things together. Packaging several
products together is sometimes a bundle.
Other times a bundle offer is a “Buy three; get two free at
Victoria’s Secret” sale; or, at a Clinique make-up sale. We’ve
both been drug in there by our ears before to deal with that.
(Although she doesn’t have to drag me into Victoria’s Secret too
hard; I can be there for a little while.)
[Laughter]
Your wife is a Clinique person, isn’t she?
Ryan:
Yes; make-up in general anyway. Actually, do you know what’s
funny? She’s not really a Clinique person; but, once a year they
do their big...
Perry:
It’s called something. I’ve heard about it. I forget what it’s called,
though.
Ryan:
They do their whole big, “Get this whole big bundle of stuff for a
low price. It comes in a cheap little pink bag that costs them 30
cents.”
Do you know what’s crazy? You’re there walking around the
mall – I need a new shirt, so I get drug to the mall. Well, what do
you know? It just happens to be the same time that Clinique is
running their big sale.
However, you’re walking around the mall and see all these
women walking around with these bags. It’s amazing how it
works. It’s just because everybody likes a deal.
It’s the whole “piling on;” it’s the “thud” factor. It’s the getting
tons and tons and tons of stuff. It’s the gensue knife thing.
Perry:
Car washes are a fabulous example of this. You go through the
drive through car wash with the big brushes, et cetera. The
basic car wash is seven dollars. Then the super-duper deluxe
car wash with the simonize this, and the whatevers, is $21.
What do you think the real cost differential between car wash
“A” and car wash “B” is? It’s a nickel; or something just crazy
stupid. They’ve just added so many things to package “C,” the
platinum package, which you just can’t refuse.
I’ll give you a little secret to selling bundles. If you’re going to be
in the bundle business, offer three bundles. You need to offer a
basic; a deluxe; and an extra super-duper mondo package.
What you’ll learn is that almost everybody buys the one in the
middle. However, not very many people will usually buy the
basic, especially if you call it, “basic.”
[Laughter]
When you go to the car wash: “Do you want the basic car
wash? Do you want the deluxe; or, do you want the supermonster wash?”
Most people are going to fall into the last two groups. There is a
reason why. Most people want the average; believe it or not,
people gravitate toward the average. So, chances are, you’re
going to sell more of the second one, although it does depend
on how your value is set up; but, most of the time you’re going
to sell more of the second option than either of the other two.
You’ll also sell a good number of the deluxe. You might as well
throw in the absolute “kitchen sink” and drive the price through
the wall because there are going to be a certain amount of
people that are always going to buy the most expensive one
that you have.
Ryan:
This might be a great transition into getting to the third one:
premium levels.
I know that my father-in-law is this way; and I am, too; but, my
father-in-law walks into a store and says, “All right, which one is
the most expensive?”
Perry:
My grandmother was like that.
Ryan:
There are some people who are just premium buyers. For some
it’s a pride thing. For me, it’s a speed and efficiency thing.
However, for the most part, the most expensive thing is the
best. If I just want to make sure that I get the best, then I’ll go
ahead and say, “All right, which one is the most expensive?” I
buy electronics that way most of the time.
I bought a new computer recently, “What’s the best, fastest,
most amazing, super-duper computer that you have?” Do you
know what I mean?
For those people, cost is not even remotely a factor. You can
bump it up, just broaden your margins as wide as they can go
and it’s completely irrelevant to the person who is buying that; it
just doesn’t matter.
Perry:
There’s always going to be people at the top. In the business we
call them, “hyper-responders.” These are people who are going
to buy everything that you come out with. They’re going to buy
all of your services and the best ones that you have.
We talked about HSBC and my premium banking where I pay
$100 a month, like a dodo, to be able to walk back in and be a
big shot when I go to the bank.
Ryan:
However, they gave you a five dollar....
Perry:
They gave me a five dollar wallet, you know? It’s probably made
in China.
[Laughter]
We also talked about the example of the pizza phone; the
doctors on call – people are willing to pay premium prices. This
is something to write down, “People are willing to pay premium
prices for access.”
I don’t care what business you’re in, if you’re in some consistent
service business, the pool maintenance business, for example.
After a while, you aren’t going to want every one of your
customers to have your cell phone number.
If you have some snooty customers you say, “If you’re a
platinum member customer, you get these extra services and
this extra stuff. I’m going to give you my private cell phone
number. If you have an issue, you can call me.”
Ryan:
Interestingly enough, usually the highest level people are your
best customers, but they’re the least trouble.
Perry:
They’re the least trouble.
However, they’ll say, “Oh, yes. In case I ever really have a pool
emergency; I want the best one.”
I’ve seen people do a takeaway sale before. They say, “That
service is $500 a month.”
“Five hundred dollars a month? That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, that’s okay. Let’s look at something that’s more affordable
for you; something that fits into your budget.”
“I can buy anything I want. I’ll take the $500 a month.”
Ryan:
Some people will buy it out of spite.
Perry:
Yes, they’ll buy out of spite. I’ve actually watched that
experience happen.
Ryan:
Now be honest, you’ve done that before, haven’t you?
Perry:
Yes.
[Laughter]
You know what? There’s a service right now that I was telling
Ryan about yesterday. I read an article about it in the Wall
Street Journal. It’s doing really well in New York and L.A.
People are weird about cell phones right now. Everybody wants
the newest cell phone, “I have to have the newest thing that’s
coming out,” et cetera.
There’s a service now that is $299 a month - $299 a month –
they’re a cell phone provider. They run off someone else’s
signal. However, they’re a third party cell phone provider.
Here’s what you get for $299 a month. If you call them up and
want to become a customer, they send out some gorgeous
person – they hire model-type sales people. They’re
predominantly a male driven company so they send out some
beautiful woman with a suitcase full of phones. They are the
best hottest slickest phones...a lot of times they have the
phones from Hong Kong and Tokyo. They aren’t in the US yet;
they’re the ones that nobody can get. You get the phone that
you want; you pick it out.
Their other big service is to have a secret concierge code that
you can call from your phone. Only their customers can call.
You can get tickets to places, get into nightclubs; you have a
concierge who will jump through hoops and do all kinds of
things for you. This is through their private concierge service.
Once every three months your rep calls you up and says, “Hey,
your three months is up. I’m going to be in your area. I’m going
to bring by the case. You can look and see if you want to trade
in your phone on a brand new phone.”
Ryan:
So they’re getting $300 a month for what other people are
charging $60 or $70 a month for?
Perry:
Yes; but, it’s extremely exclusive. They’re snooty about it. “We
have phones that we can’t put in a case because, due to
marketing agreements, these phones are imported prior to the
official releases,” et cetera. Do you know who uses them?
Celebrities; hot shots; and, wanna-be celebrities, you know?
That’s just a really good example. I’ll give you two more real
quickly.
My grandmother, who passed away years ago, God bless her;
she was a great woman. However, she believed that you got
what you paid for. She always bought the most expensive thing.
When I was growing up I remember that there was a company
called Curtis Mathes. I don’t even know if they’re still in
existence or not. Do you remember Curtis Mathes at all?
Ryan:
Ummm.
Perry:
Curtis Mathes was a television maker. I don’t think they ever
made a TV; I think the Curtis Mathes television was made by
Zenith. However, they private labeled.
Curtis Mathes had TV shops where they sold nothing but TVs in
these big cabinets. Back in the old days, we had console TVs.
They were the most expensive television in the world; and darn
well worth it, you know? That was their pitch. They were the
most expensive TV that you could buy.
When TVs were getting cheaper at retailers and you could buy a
really nice color TV for $400 or $500; a big console TV from
Curtis Mathes was $1,100 or $1,200. It was twice, almost three
times what the normal TV cost.
They had a crazy warranty. Everyone else’s warranty was a
year; but, theirs was a 15 year warranty. They would repair that
thing forever. Back then people felt like they were going to keep
their TVs for 15 years.
Ryan:
If I spent $1,200 on a TV back in the 1970s, I’d probably want to
keep it 15 years, too.
Perry:
Yes; but, that was their whole pitch, “You get what you pay for.
We’re the most expensive one out there.” They targeted the top
end market.
Another great example is a message that I love; it’s from
Hallmark: “When you care enough to send the best.”
It’s a card! It’s a piece of paper!
[Laughter]
It’s a frickin’ piece of paper!
Ryan:
However, it’s funny. On the commercials they show people
flipping it over, reading the card, and then seeing the crown on
the back of it like that made all the difference in the world. Like
anybody honestly frickin’ cares.
Perry:
Yes, but do you know what? Somewhere back in your little subconscious mind, you’re going, “I better not get them Jimmy’s
discount card or they’ll think I don’t give a crap.”
Hallmark pretty much owns almost the entire market now
because of that. It’s the only thing that you can find.
Ryan:
Talk about something that’s a pure commodity. Its paper folded
in half.
Perry:
It’s a pretty special piece of paper.
I think you get the idea of selling a premium level service. A lot
of times it has to do with status; but, also, it’s driven by access –
access to the principal or access to immediate service.
We use a computer service here; a computer support company.
We pay $400 a month to have the privilege of calling a 24 hour
a day line. We’re recording late tonight; but, if we call
somebody, they’d come out here tonight and work on these
computers.
Ryan:
Yes. There’s that segment of the market. They may only make
up ten or 15%, but that ten or 15% is going to be worth more to
you than the other 85 or 90%.
That is the third leg of the Triad Marketing System. Now you
know the three ways to go out there and increase it.
You’ve now learned some strategies for getting more
customers. Really, I hope that the big takeaway there was to not
overcomplicate your marketing process. Don’t feel like you need
to chase the next whiz-bang thing.
You need to be willing to be ultra-focused; ultra-targeted
because that’s where you’re going to be the most successful.
Number two – increase the frequency of purchases. Think,
“How can I incorporate loyalty programs? How can I offer more
products or services either through expanding my own product
line or through joint ventures? How can I incorporate
continuity?” That’s such a big point.
Then increasing transactions values through upsells, crosssells, and bundle offers; and then offering a premium level that
you know that ten to 15% of your market is going to take just
because you offered it.
That is the Triad Marketing System. However, I know that you
didn’t want to stop there, Perry. You wanted to make sure that
we really over-delivered and talked about ongoing, constant
communication and drip marketing.
Everything that we’ve talked about so far is “How do we get
these people in?”
We touched on having a client newsletter and other things. So,
let’s talk a little bit more about that before we officially close out
this training.
Perry:
Sure; you’re absolutely right.
I wanted to talk for a few moments about constant contact. This
is one of the things that really are not covered in the Triad; but,
it’s in all parts of the Triad. It’s keeping in contact with your
customers.
In one format or another, a newsletter, I think, is one of the most
important tools to every business. You’re saying, “Man, I own an
auto garage. What do I need with a newsletter?”
First and foremost, a newsletter’s purpose is not to sell your
service. It’s not even, necessarily, to talk about car repair. A lot
of times a newsletter is just a way of having inter-personal
communications with your customer.
We do it with blogs sometimes. A Weblog is a newsletter. We
also sometimes do it with email newsletters.
I’ll tell you an example. I know that on Ryan’s blog the most
popular post in the history of his entire blog was when his
daughter was born. He showed a picture of his daughter and
said, “Baby Joyce as just been born.” He wrote a little bitty blurb
about his daughter being born and popped her picture on his
blog. It was his number one opened, number one most
commented thing on the blog.
People want to hear stories about your kids, your dog, and the
funny things that happened at the shop this week, et cetera.
They don’t really care a great deal about car tips or any of that.
It’s more about keeping in contact with them.
It’s not a bad idea to have a car tip in there; it’s certainly not
going to hurt. However, more than anything else, they want to
know more about you.
The more that you can expose yourself and let them know about
you; the more they’re going to feel comfortable about doing
business with you.
This is a truism; it’s the absolute truth. People do business with
people that they like. Period; period. You have to really break
that trust, or somebody just has to drop their pants on a price to
get people away from you once you have them.
Constant contact is once you have that very first customer. If
you’re starting out brand new today and don’t have a single
customer in the world; but, if you have one customer, you need
to start contacting that customer on a regular, consistent basis.
Ryan:
I still believe that you should do that through direct mail; but,
now that can be supplemented so much through email. It’s
getting to the point where most people now check their email
daily, so it becomes a great way to do it.
There’s a local Cajun restaurant that I eat at, at least once a
week; at least once a week. They have a good solid loyalty
program.
Perry isn’t a big fan; but, I still drag him there all the time.
[Laughter]
Perry:
That’s the absolute truth, “dragging.”
Ryan:
However, on an almost weekly basis they email me and tell me
about their specials. “Come on out tonight, we have half-price
wine.”
A lot of times your customers, especially if you’re a restaurant or
some kind of entertainment-type venue, think, “Man, what do
you want to do tonight?” My wife and I have that conversation all
the time, “What do you want to do tonight?”
“I don’t know; what do you want to do?”
However, by being in touch, they make my life easier.
Perry:
There’s a restaurant near me called “Villa Castrioti.” It’s a homeowned Italian restaurant.
Two weeks before Valentine’s Day they send a thing out, “Hey
Perry, this is Jimmy over at Villa Castrioti. I just want to tell you
that I have a table reserved for you and your wife for this
Valentine’s Day; but, I need you to give me a call and confirm it
because we’re selling out.”
How quick do you think they sell out their Valentine’s Day
package?
Ryan:
Oh, yeah.
Perry:
Literally, if you have a good enough list, you send out email, and
you’re sold out tonight. So, for two weeks in advance you know
that you already have a $5,000 or $10,000 night booked.
Ryan:
Doing that on nights when you know that you’re going to be
busy is a huge opportunity; but, a bigger one...
Perry:
When is your birthday; your anniversary?
Ryan:
This particular Cajun restaurant figured out their slowest night. It
was Tuesday night. So, what do they do Monday evening? Just
about every Monday evening, and very often on a Tuesday
afternoon, they send you an email plugging the big special that
they have on Tuesday night.
While other restaurants are dead on Tuesday night, they are
hopping. They’re absolutely jam packed.
Every business is cyclical. Maybe this isn’t going to mirror yours;
but, the other thing that they know is that the first parts of the
year – the time following Christmas – people don’t eat out as
much. A lot of it is because they have leftover food or they’ve
been gorging themselves and are on diets; but, typically people
don’t eat out as much. It’s one of the facts of the restaurant
business.
So leading up to that time when things are super slow, they’re
giving their people coupons, et cetera. That time of the year, for
them, because they make sure that those coupons are only
valid for that time that would otherwise be slow; they’re packed.
So, in your business, think about what the slow days of the
week are for you. What are the slow times of the year? What
are the things that people aren’t buying that we wish that they
were?
You need to come up with special promotions. However, it
doesn’t work if you don’t have a list or the ability to keep in
constant contact with your customers; but, if you have a list, you
have the ability to be in constant contact; now you have control
over your own destiny.
You don’t sit there on a Tuesday night thinking, “I really hope we
break the norm and do well tonight. It’s already kind of a slow
month.”
No, you don’t deal with that. You have control of your own
destiny. You control the success of your business; you control
how much money goes into your bank account.
Nothing will make you feel more empowered than when you
have a list of people who have bought from you; know you; and
like you.
I don’t care if you have a restaurant, a retail establishment, or a
service company. If you have a service company – Perry, you
mentioned the pool cleaning businesses. I’m going to bet that
most pool cleaning companies are probably pretty dead during
the winter.
Perry:
What services can that homeowner want during the winter?
Ryan:
It isn’t just that. What about blasting out an email where you talk
about your new pool winterizing service. “Hey, we’re going to
come out there and winterize your pool. We’re going to get it all
cleaned; fill in any cracks; and we have this new tarp that we’re
going to lay across it.”
Perry:
Or, you start booking two months before summer, “Hey, last
year our pool openings sold out early and a lot of people were
delayed. Go ahead and book early.”
Ryan:
“We couldn’t get to some people’s pools until midway through
June.”
Perry:
Get them on a priority list; have an “early open” special.
Ryan:
There’s absolutely no way that you can do that unless you have
a list of customers.
Perry:
You need to make yourself a promise right now that you will
never have another customer, or lead, that you don’t at least
ask for contact information on. You need to get their email
contact information; their address, phone number, or any other
information that you can get.
Then you can put them into a campaign to broadcast emails to
them.
There
are
a
lot
of
good
services:
www.1ShoppingCart.com
is
a
good
one;
www.ConstantContact.com is a good one; www.AWeber.com
does broadcast emails.
One of the coolest things on an AWeber account is that you can
have a sequential autoresponder series. This is the thing where
you write a series of messages that get delivered over a specific
period of time.
You can write them one time and every time that you drop
someone into that list, every week they will get a message. You
can also set it up monthly or on an “every so many days” to
send them a message. It’s a way of staying in constant contact
over a long period of time by only taking one single action.
There’s one last thing that I want to tell you about concerning
constant contact; it’s cool.
I never would have thought this would work; but, the reason
“why” to mail is really important is because mails will get
opened. Emails, direct mails, phone messages: “Peter Cottontail
is about to hop down the bunny trail. We’re having an Easter
Egg Hunt on Saturday.”
You can believe it or not; but, Valentine’s Day carpet cleaning
specials work better than just carpet cleaning specials. That
sounds like the dumbest thing on earth; but, when you think
about it, why does it matter that there’s a Valentine’s Day carpet
cleaning special? People just have a propensity to read those
things that are timely.
Ryan:
Yes, holiday driven; news event driven is another good one.
“Hey, in honor of the Presidential election, no matter who you’re
voting for, we’re just excited about this practice of democracy.
So, to celebrate democracy in action, we’re having a sale.” I’ve
seen that one before.
Perry:
How many retailers have a President’s Day sale each year? Do
you think anyone really gives a crap about President’s Day?
Ryan:
Yes.
Perry:
Okay, four people; the people that work at banks care about
President’s Day. That’s about it.
However, it gives retailers a reason why.
Ryan:
It’s a reason why.
Then there’s Tax Day sale. Retailers do that all the time, “Oh my
gosh. I just talked to the accountant and it looks like I’m going to
owe more than we thought. We’re going to get rid of some of
this inventory to help cover some of our tax costs.”
People just love reasons “why.”
Fire sales are another example. I’m not suggesting that you go
and light your place on fire so that you have an excuse to sell
things cheaply; but, there are “Scratch and Dent” sales.
Perry:
You’ll learn in marketing – we make some of the best money
that we make when problems occur.
Ryan:
Yes, when things go badly.
Perry:
I’ll give you an example.
Not too long ago we sent an email out to a list of people selling
a particular product. I won’t go into what it was; but, we made
about $6,000 sending out an email to some people that went
and bought a product from us almost right away.
We found out later that a big part of the list didn’t get the mail.
So we were able to say, “Oh, man. Everything is screwed up.
The site didn’t work right and the mail didn’t get delivered
correctly. We lost a bunch of money.”
Well, no, we didn’t because we went back and emailed the
same list and said, “Oops, we made a mistake. Look at this.”
This time we mailed it to the whole list: “Oops we made a
mistake.” We actually grossed more money from the second
mailing than we did from the first one.
“We screwed up.” These mistakes that happen give you a
reason. You just need a reason “why.” It doesn’t even
necessarily have to be a good reason; just have a reason why
to offer a special or offer a sale.
Ryan:
Yes, people don’t really examine. If you’re giving them a
discount, they’re not really going to examine all that hard.
Perry:
However, if you don’t give them a reason, they don’t buy the
discount. There has to be a reason why.
Ryan, what do you think? I think that this is a pretty heavy crash
course in marketing. I bet the guys at Harvard don’t have it this
good.
[Laughter]
Ryan:
Really my advice is to go back. We gave a lot of examples; but,
you may have felt the whole time, “You know what? I was
listening to that and there wasn’t one example specific to my
business.” That’s where you may have started.
However, by the end of it, as we threw out more and more
examples, we hope that your mind was really beginning to open
up to all the opportunities that are out there.
It might have taken a little while; but, hopefully you started
thinking one-third, one-half, or two-thirds of the way through,
“Man, I could do this in my business. I could do that, that, and I
bet that would work.”
If this is the first time that you’re hearing this, I would encourage
you to go back and listen to it again. I would also encourage you
to have a notepad next to you while you listen and write down
ideas, even if they sound stupid and bizarre or you don’t think
that they would actually work. Just go ahead and write them
down.
For every little idea that we give you for the three elements of
Triad Marketing System – getting more customers; getting your
customers to buy more frequently; and, getting your customers
to spend more – for all the different things that we gave, think
about it. Each one of those contained a triad.
When this is all said and done, you could literally have about
nine to 12, depending on how you break it down, new ideas for
how you can use these different marketing tactics to grow your
business. When I say “grow your business,” I don’t mean by a
little bit – not by ten or 20%; but, exponentially. I highly
encourage you to do that.
Perry:
Please don’t wait until you can do everything to do it. “How do
you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” You have to start
somewhere. Just begin putting these systems into place.
If you’re a start-up business and you start up with this stuff in
mind, you’re going to be head and shoulders, leaps and bounds,
ahead of your competitors in absolutely no time at all. This is my
promise to you.
After listening to these recordings, I hope that you feel smarter
and more capable of this. That’s our goal.
In closing, I just want to say, “Don’t go off half-cocked. Plan and
win.” If you put together a good plan in the beginning, it’s a
whole lot easier than going back and retro-fitting one later on.
If you’re already in your business, you’re still going to be better
off. So, start implementing things.
Either way, get into marketing and working on your business
more than working in your business. You’re going to see some
dramatic things happening in your life.
I hope to hear from you. I want to hear your success stories; I
want to hear your troubles and problems if you run into any. I’ll
try and help in any way that I can and I know that Ryan will, too.
We’ll have some contact information on the front of these CDs
and ways that you can get in touch with us.
If we can help you in any way, we’d be glad to.
Ryan:
Perry, I got a ton out of this. On behalf of myself and everyone
else that’s listening, I want to thank you so much for not holding
back and sharing abundantly of all your wisdom from all of your
different business ventures. It’s just fascinating from my
perspective of sitting here to see how there’s so much crossover between so many different business ideas.
Again, if at any point in time in this, you thought, “It doesn’t
apply to my business.” I encourage you to get that thought out
of your head. Go back through and listen again.
Again, Perry, thank you so much. Everybody please take action
– go out there and utilize some of these strategies.
We wish you all the best.
Perry:
Thank you for being on with me; it was a great. I had a good
time.