Bill Glazer | Small Business Marketing Blog | Glazer-Kennedy Insiders Circle

Author Archive

Increase Your Sales By Making Your Prospect “Nervous”

By: Bill Glazer on: August 25th, 2009 4 Comments

Have you ever had a brief encounter with somebody famous? Almost everybody has at least once in their life. How did you feel? Excited? But maybe also a bit tongue-tied and nervous?

To at least some degree, you too can and should be creating this same kind of feeling in the minds of your customers and prospects. How? By getting yourself and your business written-up in newspapers, magazines and trade publications as well as featured on radio/TV shows. You don’t have to be a household name to easily cultivate more celebrity status in your industry or niche. Once your prospect sees you as a THE expert, their skeptical faces will turn into bright smiles. They’ll feel excited to meet you maybe even nervous and that’s a good thing.

Publicity establishes you in the minds of your customers and prospects as somebody special. They feel like they know you. They trust you. Consequently, they buy from you. Fame is power.
(more…)

How to Use Two Simple Words to Immediately Get More Money Out of Every Customer

By: Bill Glazer on: August 22nd, 2009 6 Comments

What small business marketing technique, that is only two simple words, can get you more money? It’s simply…saying “Thank you”.

I bet you might be thinking, “Saying thank you to our customers for their business is not any big secret. What are you trying to pull here?” Ah…just hold your horses and I think you’ll see how wonderful this technique can be.

Most people will make some kind of thank you gesture to their clients – but it doesn’t translate into tangible bottom-line results for your small business. So I’m going to show you how you can get double-duty out of saying ‘thanks’.
(more…)

Before We Advertise, Let’s Decide WHAT To Advertise

By: Bill Glazer on: August 7th, 2009 8 Comments

There are five important rules to successful advertising.

When you advertise you MUST:

1. Decide whether you have a 1-step or multi-step sale to make.

2. If multi-step, recognize your small business marketing is simply trying to generate leads (and do nothing else that takes away space, time, attention, etc. from that task)

3. Feature your free offer up top and early – don’t hide it (Example Of Headline: EXCITING FREE DVD TAKES YOU ON A FISHING EXPEDITION ON THE WORLD’S BEST AND MOST AMAZING PONTOON FISHING BOAT – AT HOME IN YOUR RECLINER!)

4. Make the free offer as exciting and valuable as possible.

5. Give multiple ways to respond, emphasizing the one that’s best for you. (Web site, phone, maybe mail-in coupon). Whether or not to try pushing most to the web site is still open to debate: good news: gets you 100% e-mail capture for lots of zero cost follow-up. Bad news: you need a separate, different web site just for this purpose, and you delay response – vs. the phone, always handy.

Don’t Overlook Opportunities to Encourage Others

By: Bill Glazer on: August 6th, 2009 1 Comment

I woke up on February 1st with no heat. Heater dead. I called somebody out of the Yellow Pages – best ad. They had a guy there in an hour, fixed a “bad igniter.” $154.00. But he upsold me to their Priority Yearly Service Plan, which got me a $27.00 discount on the $154.00, but, in total, had my check made out for $314.00. I spent more to save some.

When that’s all over with, you sometimes think: what just happened here?

I had three thoughts about small business marketing as all this went on.

First, the tech was naturally a better tech than salesman, did the upsell somewhat awkwardly, basically reading it off the work order and bill. But he did it. I bought more to encourage him than because I really wanted it. But I can promise you, clumsy and hesitant or not, if he delivers that little upsell script every time, at least 20% will take it. At whatever point(s) there is human contact with customer in your business, there ought to be an upsell, unless you’re already too rich.

(more…)

Five Tips for Making Your Small Business Famous on National TV

By: Bill Glazer on: August 6th, 2009 13 Comments

A single appearance on national TV can drive a flood of sales, spark more word-of-mouth and raise the percentage of people who buy from your small business.

When your clients see you on national TV, they’ll never look at you like a salesperson or marketer. They’ll see you as an expert – even a celebrity.

Here are five tips for marketing your small business in order to get it on national TV:

Try to tie-in with something timely or in the news.
Tell the viewers something they don’t already know.
Offer producers ideas for visuals.
Write a tailored one-page pitch that sells the show idea.
When possible, meet producers face-to-face.

Now let’s take an actual case history so you can see how to apply this. Gold Plus Member Mahesh Grossman came to Steve & Bill Harrison (Platinum Members) because he wanted to get more publicity. He took advantage of the training and resources provided and did all five things to get himself booked on Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends Show.

1) Try to tie-in with something timely or in the news.

Mahesh runs a ghostwriting business in which he gets books written for people who don’t have the time or talent to do it themselves. But let’s face it, the average Joe or Jane watching TV isn’t looking for a ghostwriter. So what did Mahesh do? He created a timely topic he could address and which would interest the average viewer. At the time, the presidential primaries were going on. Mahesh offered to talk about how each presidential candidate had hired a ghostwriter to write his book and then went on to compare how honest and appreciative each candidate had been.

2) Tell viewers something they don’t already know.

A producer at Fox News Network liked the idea of having a ghostwriting expert pull back the curtain and reveal things most people wouldn’t know about the candidates and their books. In fact, when they introduced Mahesh on the air, they called him the “ghostwriting guru” – a description that will be quoted on his web site and promotional literature for years to come.

3) Offer ideas for visuals.

Remember, TV is a visual medium. Producers usually want to show the audience something rather than just telling them something. With Mahesh, they knew they could use “B-roll” of the candidates campaigning – file footage they had and could run a couple times during the segment featuring Mahesh.

4) Write a tailored one-page pitch that sells the show idea.

You’ll increase your odds of getting booked tremendously by giving producers a compelling one-page pitch letter that immediately sells them on your show idea. Think of it as a sales letter going to the media where you’re selling yourself. But unlike most sales letters, be sure to keep your pitch letter short. Media folks are very busy and don’t have a lot of time to read, so make your proposal in one-page and then send it to producers. (For an example, go to www.getmajorpress.com/pitch55.)

5) When possible, meet media face-to-face.

Producers are busier than ever. The best way to stand out from all their cluttle of faxes, phone calls and emails is to meet them in person if they come to one of your industry trade shows. Or attend an event like my National Publicity Summit in New York City which is where Mahesh met the Fox producer who booked him.