Archive for the ‘Sales Tips’ Category

Three Ways To Grow Your Business…Effortlessly

By: Darcy Juarez on: May 14th, 2013 5 Comments

“What’s your fascination advantage?”

That’s the big question around the office these days…

You see, attendees at SuperConference were offered the opportunity to take the first science-based personality brand measurement test that measures your “fascination advantage.”

The benefit of taking the test was to learn how you could use what comes naturally to you more effectively…and effortlessly grow your business.

Those of us who took it received a report which shows how our personality is uniquely hardwired to fascinate customers, co-workers, and colleagues.

Everyone here at GKIC took it (even Dan Kennedy.) And now that we have the results, we are working on how we can use more of our “fascination advantages” to be more effective at what we do.

Developed by Sally Hogshead, the best-selling author of Fascinate and the world’s leading expert on fascination, what makes this test different than other personality tests you’ve seen (and perhaps taken) is that instead of measuring how you see the world, this test measures how the world sees you.

Because as Sally points out, your personality is not only what makes you unique and different, but it’s how you add value. Or I should say how you potentially add value. Because if you aren’t using the things people see as strengths in you, you could be hindering your chances of success.

This is an important point.

And while I’ve learned through trial and error to gravitate towards using my strengths, from reading my report, I realized there were areas I wasn’t capitalizing on.

In order to help explain, I’ll use my own report to demonstrate.

When I took the test, I discovered that I’m the personality archetype called “The Vault.”

This means that one of the ways my personality is most likely to add a distinct value is by consistently delivering and being constant in my words and actions.  In other words, I need to be stable, dependable, and reliable.

Now that tends to feel pretty natural to me, however, not everything was so obvious.  Here are three things I learned that will help you grow your business effortlessly…

1) Don’t make the wrong assumptions. One of the things my report revealed was that I watch and review details carefully. Suggesting that I like to use spreadsheets, I thought the test was mistaken, because actually I hate using them.

Of course, despite my dislike for them, I do use them quite a bit. And when I started thinking about how this test reveals how the world sees me and not how I see myself, it made sense.

While I don’t like spreadsheets, others are fascinated by how I use them to successfully manage details.  Which means I can add more value to our clients by revealing more of how I use spread sheets successfully.

Lesson learned:  Don’t assume that others won’t like what you don’t like or that they will like what you like.

2) Stop hindering your own success.  The problem with modeling certain gurus is that you may be trying to be something you’re not. As a result, you might be turning people off.

For example, my report revealed that “passion” is my “dormant communication trigger.” That means that while I feel passionately about certain people and topics, I don’t gush the way people do that have passion as their primary way of communicating. I’m not highly expressive and tend to be more reserved.

So if I tried to mimic someone who had the primary trigger of passion and excessively raved and praised ideas and people, then I would come across as fake.

3) Start using your personality brand to your advantage when managing your team. My report also revealed how I could get the most out of my team by knowing what their fascination advantages were. (Step four of Sally Hogshead’s five step system for amplifying your fascination advantage as exposed in our blog post, “Yes, You’re Fascinating, But Are You Using It To Your Advantage?”)

By discovering what my team members’ strengths are, I can help place them in roles where they will be most successful. A person who has the primary trait of “passion” for instance will do better in face-to-face conversations and will perform better if I give her more face time and in-person contact.

This will also help me make better hiring decisions, know how to motivate my employees better and build a better culture which will help grow GKIC over time.

If you want to grow your business more effortlessly, discover how to add value through your personality and start leveraging your fascination advantages today. When you do, you’ll not only feel more comfortable and natural in everything you do, but your business will grow faster and easier than you ever imagined possible.

NOTE: Do you know how others see you? If you’d like to start leveraging your fascination advantage today, you have the opportunity to take the same  science-based personality brand measurement test that I took and receive your report for FREE, by clicking here.

Response was so overwhelming at SuperConference, that Sally has created a series of FREE videos on using your fascination advantage.  Plus, THIS WEEK ONLY, Sally is waiving her fee for the GKIC faithful and allowing you to find out what your fascination advantage is. You’ll receive a free report explaining:

  • What your primary and secondary communication triggers are and how to use these to your advantage.
  • What your dormant trigger is (this is what you want to avoid using.)
  • How to use these triggers to be more successful in your business and what you should look out for so you’ll stop hindering your success.
  • A three-step action plan for using your ‘fascination advantage” in your business.
  • How you compare to others who have taken the test.
  • What your next steps should be to improve your results.
  • How to hire and build teams more effectively.

To take your FREE test and receive your FREE personalized report, click on the link below.

FascinationMarketingSystem.com

How To Get Rich, Especially If You Hate Selling

By: Dave Dee on: February 28th, 2013 4 Comments

“I hate selling.”

I’ve heard that hundreds of times from entrepreneurs. The problem is the success of your business depends on sales. You need to be good at pitching your products or services. If not, you’ll not only lose revenue, but you could lose your business.

There is a lot of advice out there about what to do if you don’t like selling…

Like “change your attitude about selling” or “get over it.”

That’s NOT what you’ll hear from me today.

Today I want to give you a different way to sell that makes it possible to make more in one hour than many professionals make in a whole year.

You won’t have to worry about being shy or feeling awkward because it doesn’t involve public speaking.

It doesn’t involve live coaching or consulting either.

In fact, of all selling methods this type of selling has the lowest amount of personal interaction with buyers. In many cases, you’ll have no interaction with buyers at all.

You won’t even have to face rejection.

What’s more, you can do it without even leaving your home. Plus you can leverage what you already know and use the things you are most passionate about to make it easier and more enjoyable.

The best part?

You can do work once and get paid forever.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not.

I’m talking about copywriting. Putting words on paper that encourage people to send you money.

Now obviously you’ve heard the term “copywriting” before. But here is something you may not know about it…

It’s the highest paid skill in the world. And it gives you tremendous leverage. Because once you get the right words on the paper, all you have to do is use the right media to deliver the message to the right person.  And then you simply “rinse and repeat.”

Let me tell you a story about a man named Gary. Gary was an encyclopedia salesman who wanted to get into information publishing. He was a very good salesman, but he hated the long days, and hated the rejection.

He made a lot of money, but he hated seeing people face to face. Hated it.

The reason Gary wanted to get into information publishing was so that he never had to do face-to-face selling and telephone prospecting again.

The idea of sending out a letter in the mail, and having money come back without ever seeing his customers or even talking to them on the phone appealed greatly to Gary.

Plus he could have a printer print up all his letters and the post office deliver them so that he would never have to do any “leg work.” Write the letter, have others send it out. Gary is, of his own admission, a somewhat lazy fellow, so you can see why the information business appealed to him.

So, Gary used what he had learned while he was selling encyclopedias to write a letter. He took all the elements of his sales presentation, and put it in print. So now, instead of giving a sales presentation one on one, he could deliver it to millions of people at the same time.

What was the bottom line? Simply this: Gary was soon able to mail so many letters, that he brought in over 20,000 checks per DAY!

What was Gary selling? It doesn’t matter! See, the magic was not in the product – it was in the letter!

People were sending Gary money because of the words contained in the letter. And, the neat part was, Gary only had to write the letter one time – once it worked all he had to do was mail it again and again.

That’s the power of good copywriting and a great way to sell.

In fact, whenever top marketers want to make more money, they just write, or hire someone else to write, a killer sales letter. Once they put it in the mail, the money starts to roll in.

Copywriting truly is the best way to go for the person who doesn’t like to sell. The truth is though that it takes a lot of work, study and trial and error to learn how to do it. However, if you don’t like to sell and don’t want to spend time mastering copywriting, then you do have another option.

You can hire a copywriter to write sales letters for you.

Even with paying a professional copywriter’s fees, it’ll be well worth it. You won’t have to sell your products or services yourself and if you hire a good copywriter, you only have to pay them to write the letter once, then you can use it to sell your products or services and collect checks from it forever (or at least a very long time.)

NOTE: If you’re interested in hiring a copywriter, be sure to read our FREE report, “The 7 Key Questions Every Copywriter You Hire MUST Be Able to Answer To Write Killer Direct Response Copy and Create Marketing Campaigns That Will Outsell The Pants Off Your Competition!”

This report reveals critical information average copywriters don’t want you to know. However, the good ones won’t mind a bit. Plus, you’ll be better off, and make more money. Beware though, you’ll probably have to pay more to get a good copywriter. Worth it though when you consider that bad copy wastes precious dollars and costs you sales.

So the question to ask yourself now is would you rather save a few minutes by not looking at this report? Or would you like to set yourself up to make millions?  Remember there is no charge for this.

Click here to get your FREE report!

If you’d like GKIC’s best selling copy-writing course for 33% off, click here now.

ONE MORE THING: Be on the look out TOMORROW…Dan Kennedy is releasing a Brand New FREE course on New Success Thinking. This is completely written by Dan and there is no cost, no obligation. BUT, the only way to get this is to let Dan know you want it by registering. So you don’t miss out, check your email tomorrow and look for the special registration link.

How To Create “Endless Chains” of Referrals

By: Dan Kennedy on: February 14th, 2013 5 Comments

The other day I ran across an article that offered advice for Valentine’s gifts. The author started by saying that most gifts come up short—either hollow or too cheesy. The article also talked about what husbands really wanted.

Before your mind goes off wandering in places it needn’t, it’s the same thing that is at the core of every business. It’s what we want from every client, customer or patient and it’s what you must strive to get from them to be a leader in your field with more business than you can handle.

I’ll reveal what it is shortly, but first I want to issue a challenge to you.

A challenge that has the power to transform your marketing, prospecting and presentations…and ultimately your business.

The challenge is based on something called “The Endless Chain of Referrals.” I first heard about it from Paul J. Meyer, a famously successful insurance company developer, who went on to create the Success Motivation Institute (SMI) who for decades have been a leading force in sales and success training and publishing.

Paul’s premise is that you never need to be without a good prospect as long as you have just one client, unless you are inept at trust.

In other words, every client should beget another.

I made this challenging concept a major part of my own business approach. In my own professional practice, I have over an 85% repeat/reoccurring patronage factor and nearly  as high a referral rate.

2 million dollar clients (in fees and royalties) have been brought to me by other clients—not just told about me—brought to me.

This reveals how effective I am at creating and managing trust.

When a client brings a business peer of theirs to me, they know that person will be risking $100,000 or more on my advice and work-product, and if that person has an unsatisfactory experience, the client who brought him will hear about it. Endlessly.

This is a critical fact few marketers grasp. There is risk in referring. Even more risk in hand-delivering clients to you. Greater risk than there is in doing business with you.

The trust hurdle becomes increasingly more difficult as prospects ascend from buying from you to referring clients to bringing clients to you. In other words, it’s easier for a client to trust you enough to make a purchase from you, but it takes a higher level of trust in you for a client to refer someone to you through word of mouth. And yet an even higher level of trust for them to actually bring clients to you.

So my challenge to you is to look at your true statistics. How many “endless chains” do you have?

Building endless chains of referrals can transform your business. A copywriter I know was in the early stages of building her business. She received a call from a potentially career-turning-point prospect. We’re talking about the kind of client that makes you seem like an overnight success to onlookers and would easily add six figures to her bottom line, if not more.

The potential client told the copywriter that she had spoken to several business associates about who they used for copywriting projects. She proceeded to list an impressive list of well-known marketers in the copywriting and marketing world then she said, “But the recommendation I received for you was by far the best, so I called you first.”

That copywriter knew something about creating trust.

Acquiring new business is one of the toughest challenges businesses face. Asking the question “Where can I find clients?” is the wrong question to ask. The right question is “How can I construct a business persona and life so that clients seek me out, with trust in place in advance?” (In No B.S. Trust-Based Marketing, I discuss the ways to demonstrate trustworthiness to clients and offer a master checklist of trust triggers.)

Building chains of endless referrals brings you more and better clients to your door and helps you attract only those people who are interested in what you are selling. You must have trust in place to do this.

And by the way, if you haven’t figured it out yet, the article I mentioned at the beginning suggested that what husbands really want is for you to trust him.

If you do not have clients bringing you good clients, customers, or patients, a number of which repeatedly bring you new ones, and endless chains of referrals emanating from clients, you won’t like this, but you are failing.

There’s something wrong. You are creating only enough trust to get customers, but you are NOT creating enough trust to multiply those customers. Don’t BS yourself. Statistics are reality. If they are harsh reality, do something about them.

NOTE:  Do you want to know how to transform your business and reach success as fast as possible? GKIC Chief Marketing Officer, Dave Dee will be holding a FREE Webinar one week from today, on Thursday, February 21, 2013,TIME to show you how. Titled “The Top 10 Ways To Radically Transform Your Business And Double Your Profits In Just 90 Days” this is for you if…

You are frustrated because of all of the untapped potential you see in your business…

You’re new to Dan Kennedy/GKIC marketing…

You haven’t been able to find a way to get things done…

Or you just want to FINALLY get the results from your business you know you should be getting—the results you deserve.

Register for this FREE webinar by clicking here or go to www.DanKennedy.com/Transformation.

8 Steps To Making More Money in 2013!

By: Dave Dee on: January 3rd, 2013 4 Comments

The end of the year and beginning of a new one tends to make one reflect on the year’s successes and failures…

What were your top achievements?

What was your biggest failure?

What had the biggest impact?

And so on…

Instead of focusing on generic achievements, I thought it’d be fun to put a little twist on this year’s achievements by relating them specifically to your marketing successes and failures.

So here’s how to review your 2012 marketing and 8 easy steps to making more money in 2013:

1)   Map out how you did sales-wise throughout the year. Write down your total sales per month for the entire year. Which were your biggest months? Why? For instance, did you hold an event or launch a product that created a spike in sales? This will give you clues of things you might want to be sure and repeat next year.

2)   Which were your three most important marketing initiatives for the year? Why were they important? At GKIC, one of our most important initiatives is membership because without members, we have no one to attend our events, buy our products, etc.

3)   What were your top three marketing campaign results of 2012? Maybe you launched a product that generated twenty percent of your income this year or added a lead generation funnel that has created a new source of qualified leads.

4)   What was your biggest marketing failure this year? What did you learn from it? Marketing is never successful 100% of the time, however when you test things, you can learn to be more successful the next time. Think about your marketing failures and what the biggest lesson was that you learned last year so next year you can do better.

5)   What are three marketing techniques or strategies you used that had the biggest impact on your bottom line? Did you incorporate direct mail? Or add one of the 12 Business Building Strategies or Magnetic Marketing famous 3-step sales letter system? Write down what the strategies were and how they impacted your business.

6)   What are three things you want to achieve with your marketing in 2013? Do you want to get better and more qualified leads? Increase your sales or membership? Be able to charge more with less resistance to price? Create a steady stream of customers, clients or patients that come to you? Shorten your sales cycle? Determine what it is you want to achieve and that will help you define where you should focus your time, money and resources.

7)   What marketing (already in place) would you most like to improve or change? How and why? Sometimes we have marketing in place that needs a tune-up. For example, maybe there is a sales letter or an email sequence that isn’t working as well that could use some freshening up. Or maybe your website needs a tune-up.

8)   Describe what your marketing will be able to do for you in the future. What marketing do you need to get in place or what do you need to do to create that? For example, you might say…

“I want marketing that will attract well-paying customers that love my products and services to me so that I don’t have to chase them.”

or “My marketing will develop customers into raving fans who tell others about my products and services and are willing to pay premium prices without resistance.”

or “My events will fill quickly and easily. And when I launch new products and services I’ll sell a minimum of $500,000.”

The next step would be to figure out what you need to do to make your marketing picture a reality. In the above examples, an integrated lead generation strategy would need to be in place which means you might need to develop a lead magnet. Or you might need to take a course on how to market to the affluent.

Spend a few minutes reviewing your marketing from last year and it’ll be easier to develop a more successful plan for 2013. Plus you’ll find it easier to make decisions about what type of resources you need to get in order to fulfill your marketing goals in the coming year.

NOTE: If you want to be sure to make your marketing better in 2013, consider joining myself and Lee Milteer in the Peak Performers Implementation Coaching group. New this year we are adding ways to find money fast and a marketing hotseat. For more information or to apply, click here.

How To Sell Better, Even If You Aren’t A Skilled Copywriter

By: Dan Kennedy on: December 11th, 2012

A recent encounter at Info-Summit reminded me of a powerful technique you can use to multiply your income…

You can use this whether you are experienced or not, have skill or not, or know very little or a lot about your industry. In fact, even if you consider yourself an amateur copywriter, you can use this to out-perform an experienced pro.

It’s a rare secret advantage far too few businesses use. It’s revealed in a story about a young baseball player…

The year was 1907.

Frank Bettger was fired from Johnstown Pennsylvania, Triple State baseball team.

Shocked, he went to his manager and asked him

Frank Bettger was fired from Johnstown Pennsylvania, Triple State baseball team.

Shocked, he went to his manager and asked him why.

His manager told him that he was lazy and told him he dragged himself around the field. Believing himself ambitious and wanting to get to the top, that was the last thing Bettger expected to hear.

His manager’s parting words, “Wake yourself up, and put some life and enthusiasm into your work!”

Bettger reported to his new team in Chester, Pennsylvania where he took a pay cut from $175 per month to just $25 a month.

Bettger says, “Well, I couldn’t feel very enthusiastic on that kind of money, but I began to act enthusiastic.”

His new enthusiasm gained him a trial at a team in New Haven, Connecticut. Inspired, he made up his mind to establish himself as “the most enthusiastic ball player they’d ever seen.”

It paid off. In just ten days he raised his salary 700%, from $25 per month to $185 per month..

Within two years he was playing third base for the St. Louis Cardinals, multiplying his income thirty times.  Bettger says, “I got this stupendous increase in salary not because I couldn’t throw a ball better—or catch or hit better, not because I had any more ability as a ball player…Enthusiasm alone did it.”

Later, after a bad accident forced Bettger to give up baseball entirely, he returned home and began selling insurance.

After ten months of miserably failing as an insurance salesman, Bettger believed he was no good at selling and would never succeed.

Remember the lesson he’d learned from his manager in baseball, Bettger decided he would put enthusiasm into selling insurance. He soon discovered that he could make up for a lack of experience, a lack of skill, and a lack of know-how in selling with sufficient enthusiasm—but that no amount of skill and know-how can make up for the absence of enthusiasm. Using enthusiasm he turned his life and income around, becoming one of the highest paid salesmen in America.  Frank Bettger reveals that “enthusiasm makes a difference” in his book,  How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success in Selling and observes:

“Enthusiasm is by far the highest paid quality on earth, probably because it is one of the rarest; yet it is one of the most contagious.”

Enthusiasm is just as important in print as in face to face selling.  Infusing your sales letter or advertisement with sincere yet intense enthusiasm is one of the ways an “amateur” copywriter can beat the efforts of an experienced pro.

This is why you can’t just sit down and write your ads, sales letters, and brochures “on command” like you can sit down and do bookkeeping. You have to work up some enthusiasm for the task as well as for the proposition you’ll be putting across.

Imagine your own reaction when you are in a store with someone obviously eager to help you, who looks you in the eye and shows genuine excitement that you are there. Versus someone who acts like you’re interrupting what they are doing or as if they don’t care whether you buy something or not. Written copy can have the same effect.

If I’m going to write first thing in the morning, as I often do, I try to set my subconscious mind working on that particular project while I sleep. Sometimes I wake up with the “big idea” I need. Other times, I wake up with ideas and a readiness to write.

I don’t think you should force yourself to “grind out” direct-response copy when you don’t really feel like it; the result will be flat and mechanically assembled; it may be technically correct in that it has a headline, subheads, bullet points, an offer, a P.S., etc., but it will lack spirit.

However, forcing yourself to be enthusiastic works. Bettger said that when he forced himself to act enthusiastic, he soon found himself enthusiastic.

The person who is genuinely enthusiastic about what he is selling definitely has an advantage. If you feel you could use a boost in enthusiasm, try recording the sales pitch from your most enthusiastic salesperson, and transfer it to paper.

Never underestimate the power of enthusiasm and the advantage it can give you. Over the years, the clients I’ve done the best work for and have been the most successful with have been passionate and enthusiastic about what they sell.

NOTE: If you plan to hire a copywriter to give you an advantage, be sure to read GKIC’s free report, “The 7 Key Questions Every Copywriter You Hire MUST Be Able to Answer To Write Killer Direct Response Copy and Create Marketing Campaigns That Will Outsell The Pants Off Your Competition!” Get your FREE copy here