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4 Steps To Profitably Marketing & Branding Yourself, Your Product & Your Company

By: Dave Dee on: May 20th, 2013 1 Comment

Remember the film, “Jurassic Park”… where massive monsters from the past roamed free to devour any and all who made the mistake of getting too close?

Great fun. If you were on the “dining” side of the equation. But that’s how it goes in the jungle… and often enough, in business as well.

Which brings up a question… ask yourself this: “Am I a big-dumb-but-happy Dinosaur company?”

If the answer is YES…………………THEN you don’t need to read any further. What you’ll learn here won’t matter a hill of beans…. you’re already too far up the food chain for what I’m going to discuss.

Eat hearty my friends.

On the other hand….

If the answer is NO…………………THEN there’s still hope to avoid some serious mistakes you could be making in regards to the way you look at BRANDING (and marketing) your products and services.

The 4 Steps To Profitably Marketing & Branding Yourself, Your Product and Your Company from my friend and business leader Eben Pagan reveals many strategies and pitfalls at length.

Big-Dumb-Happy Dinosaurs can afford to burn cash willy-nilly…at least for a while, nothing lasts forever. Their reasoning when it comes to branding is purely DEFENSIVE – they’re king of the forest and therefore feel the need to roar as loud as possible to scare away competitors large and small.

That’s NOT the right approach for the nimble, up-and-coming entrepreneur… instead, you want to apply the principles of “Direct Branding” to make your business resonate on a deep, emotional, even primordial level with your prospects.

You see… way back in prehistoric times, today’s lumbering corporate thunder lizards were mere slithering shadows of their current selves… but they grew to gargantuan status through the use of these very same “direct branding” principles.

And the good news for you is that YOU can leverage “direct branding” in YOUR business. It’s all spelled out in the brand new report from my friend Eben Pagan, entitled:

“The Profitable Marketing & Branding Manifesto – How To Market & Brand Yourself, Your Product & Your Business”

Inside, you’ll discover:

>> Why most companies use the WRONG approach to branding when they spend money to market themselves… which does nothing to expand market share and instead could well lead them down the path of extinction!

>> What branding actually is, and how the key ways it works to trigger powerful responses on a deep psychological and emotional level

>> How to combine your direct marketing and branding together… creating a POWERFUL synergy that established an instant and irresistable connection with your prospects… you’ll be able to communicate your messages in a way that’s infinitely more powerful than you ever imagined possible.

>> The secret to leveraging these strategies to acquire MANY more customers, expand your business, and also grow your profits and income!

The report works in tandem with a step-by-step video from Eben where he takes you by the hand through the process of identifying your own brand “hot buttons” and then using the strategies to build your brand and massively increase your sales.

It’s all here, all FREE, and you can get it NOW by clicking here!

Grab it now and discover how you can turn your current business into a awe-inspiring marketing monster!

NOTE: This report and FREE video training will be taken down soon, so click now before you lose your chance to get this information.

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.

For Ladies Only? You Can’t Be Serious…

By: Dan Kennedy on: January 15th, 2013 5 Comments

Over the years I’ve become known as “the professor of harsh reality.”

I was dubbed this because I was the only one in a chorus of yes-men who would ever point out the flaws in a proposed idea.

Not everyone always likes to hear about flaws. In fact, I learned early in life that most people prefer delusion to reality. Dislodging people from their delusions often winds up making you the brunt of their anger—the “shoot the messenger syndrome.”

However, you and I need to relentlessly seek out reality in our own businesses and our own lives, even when unpleasant or uncomfortable as real success is based on truth.

I suppose that sounds elementary, but in actuality, people often avoid hearing unpleasant truths.

Next month I’ll be speaking at GKIC’s Women Entrepreneur’s Next Level Summit where I’ll be delivering some straight facts. I’ve decided to toss caution and tact aside and deliver a very ungentle collection of reality and advice that comes from my experience and dealings with the most successful women entrepreneurs, thought leaders and celebrities I’ve worked with over 38 years—and there have been many.

Last year we began this event which is exclusively for women entrepreneurs leading or engaged as partners in business, not as an exercise in segregation, but as what Walt Disney called a “plus-ing.” A plus-ing is an additional opportunity for exploration of shared interests, exchange of knowledge, networking and inspiration. To simplify: more knowledge is better than less knowledge.

I’ve heard from some of what I –affectionately and respectfully—call the “women with balls” in GKIC that they were not happy about this event. They wanted to know why they were being singled out. They felt they were being asked to sit at the kids table. Admittedly I can see their point. A lot of what I see merchandised to women in business by women coaches and gurus doesn’t have much substance.

But I don’t see this event that way…

To me, it’s another means of expanding and providing additional opportunity to a group with special interests—similar to what we’ve done with Info-SUMMITs just for info-marketers. Or what we’ve done within our mastermind groups like Lee Milteer’s Peak Performers/Implementation Coaching Group, or our Platinum and Titanium groups.

Members helping members, encouraging, networking, entering joint ventures and creating another productive community within GKIC.

It’s also been my experience over 30 years that women do have a different mindset about business than men.

After working with both women-owned and men-owned businesses, some of the broad observations I’ve made between men and women are as follows. You will find some of these observations truer than others because everyone is unique. And you may find that you don’t want to hear some of them.

I’ve noticed that men tend to be more short-term, immediate outcome, and any-means-to-an-end thinkers, while women entrepreneurs are interested in a more complex collection of issues.

Both are double-sided coins. For instance, men tend to be less concerned than they should be with how customers or clients feel after a sale is made, and with sustaining relationships over time. Women tend to be overly concerned with how customers feel, which can foster timidity and inhibition.

Overall, I think men are less wealth-inhibited, but women are smarter about money, or at least inherently capable of being smarter about money – and there is factual evidence to support the latter conclusion, from long-term studies of male and female investors.

Women, statistically, are paid less than men inside hierarchies, but also tend to price lower than men, charge lower fees than men, and avoid negotiation and confrontation more than men – although that has not always been my experience—Joan Rivers, comes to mind.

I don’t see anything wrong with airing these matters, facts from research about them, opinions that may or may not be accurate, considering and discussing the differences.

Ultimately, I don’t believe there’s anything I would advise or say to a man in business I wouldn’t to a woman in that same or similar business, but there is advice I would give the woman that I wouldn’t give the man.

There is different conditioning, and there is bias. To deny either is, I think, delusional. To deny it in the interest of political correctness or to avoid risking offending women is, I think, counter-productive.

Exploring reality like this isn’t for everyone. But it can be useful to entrepreneurs who are will to open up to find out what may be holding YOU back…What is getting in YOUR way, what conditioning or belief is getting in YOUR way, what conditioning or belief systems or barriers do YOU have, what business, marketing or selling strategies might best fit YOU?

I invite you to be relentless in your pursuit to seek out reality in your own business and life…and be willing to develop the habits of being brutally honest with yourself and insisting that others you rely on give it to you straight.

NOTE: I’ll be presenting at the GKIC’s Women Entrepreneur’s Next Level Summit on February 8-10 along with some brilliant and savvy entrepreneurs and marketers. I’ll talk about some of the ways that women get in their own way. Some of these are universal, shared by men. But men also have certain self-sabotage attitudes and behaviors that are uniquely theirs. Women have a Dolce & Gabbana bag full that are uniquely theirs too. There are some strategies and tactics worth borrowing from men. There are some very male ideas that should be avoided as if explosive toxic waste.

I think you’ll find my thoughts about this provocative and it may just liberate you from a lot of limiting B.S., and empower you to achieve faster and with less struggle than you ever imagined. I hope I’ll see you there. [www.gkicwomen.com]

What Can Kim Kardashian Teach You About Marketing?

By: Darcy Juarez on: January 8th, 2013 2 Comments

Besides losing weight, one of the top New Year’s resolutions is to get organized.

The great thing about getting organized is that sometimes in the midst of it you discover things you didn’t realize you had.

The best organizers even know how to find hidden money.

Take Kim Kardashian. Her former moniker was “Queen of the Closet Scene.” She got this “pre-fame” nickname after she began organizing celebrity closets for people such as Cindy Crawford, Rob Lowe, and Serena Williams to name a few.

Part of what made her so good is that she helped celebrities turn their closets into cash machines by convincing them to sell their designer clothing on eBay. She also gave them styling advice on how to color coordinate, what they needed to fill in their wardrobe and how to pair things together, giving the end user many more options of what they could wear.

As you organize your business this year, I want you to think like the “Queen of the Closet Scene” and find the hidden cash and opportunities in your business.

To get you started, here are some cash machine ideas you may have buried in your proverbial business closet:

1) Remind people what you have. Did you ever forget about a favorite pair of shoes or shirt or pair of pants—then discover it lurking in the bottom of a drawer or on the closet floor? Your customers don’t always remember what you have to offer. Make frequent announcements to your clients about what they need as well as giving ideas about what they can get from you that will help them get rid of their pain, problem or challenge. A great way to do this is through email marketing and newsletters.

2) Reframe, repackage, or re-language your stuff. Kardashian showed her celebrity clients how to piece things together, what to add, and what to get rid of in order to get more out of their closet. In Opportunity Concept Marketing, Dan shows you how to get more out of your marketing by comparing and contrasting opportunity marketing to standard marketing. By approaching people differently, and reframing, repackaging, representing, and re-language your products you can achieve higher success and sell your products and services better.

3) Tap into the industry experts you do business with. Just like designers are the celebrities and experts of the fashion industry, your industry has “celebrities” and experts too. Find your industry celebrities and experts and invite them to speak at round table discussions or interview them. Videotape or audio record these sessions and then sell them to your clients and customers or give them away as a way to attract new prospects to your business.

4) Use the power of technology to your advantage. Fashion designers take maximum avantage of every tool. Where they used to only be able to sketch designs on paper, CAD computer software is now revolutionizing design. One of the powerful pieces of technology you have at your aid is your computer. Are you using it to its full advantage? One thing you can do is to hold webinars, post videos or hold live demonstrations. Live demonstrations can be done on video or in a truly live format using Google Hangouts. Use these to educate your consumers. For example, a water filtration business could demonstrate how easy it is to change a filter or how using their filter cleans more effectively than competitors.

You might also consider holding a live event via the Internet. Streaming live events has become very popular in certain industries—like the music industry. It’s a way for people all over the world to see your event and allows people who perhaps couldn’t normally attend, to be a part of your event. You can use Google, U-Stream and other services to stream a live event.

5) Spotlight your best (and favorite) clients. Everybody has their go-to shirt, pants, outfits…for certain occasions. Who are your best, favorite, go-to clients? Invite them to come to an online or face-to-face event. Put a spotlight on them and ask them to answer your prospects’ questions about your product or service. Video, audio tape or do both, have it transcribed and then turn these into products you can give away or sell to your customers.

One thing every business has is knowledge, experience and information that customers, clients, prospects, etc. wants—and often times are willing to pay well for. When you look at what information is hidden in your business or new ways to deliver it, you’ll find new ways to profit and grow your business.

NOTE: Want to know how you to make 6 figures online using the newest free online technology tool? Dave Dee is doing a free training this Friday, January 11, 2013. Join him and find one more way you can find more money in your business—plus it won’t cost you a cent to use. www.dankennedy.com/googlehangout

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.

Happy New Year: What I’ve Learned About Goal-Setting…

By: Dan Kennedy on: January 1st, 2013 No Comments

January is one of the times of year that goal-setting is promoted.

People, especially people involved in business or entrepreneurial endeavors, seem to get the importance of goals and goal-setting. Yet every year, from talking to friends and associates and reading studies, a high percentage will fail to achieve their goals.

There are, of course, all sorts of theories about why this occurs such as the “fear of success” and “fear of failure” arguments or that people didn’t write their goals down, their goals were unrealistic to begin with and so on.

I’ve become a lot less rigid in my thinking about goal-setting as years have passed, and I’ve had more experience at motivating myself and observing how different successful people motivate themselves.

The “rules” most commonly taught about how all goals must be written down on paper in exacting detail, then broken down backwards into bite-sized mini goals are very useful to many people—especially those starting out, but are not necessarily the only right way to go about it.

However, I will say, some process for setting, clarifying and achieving goals is important for two chief reasons:

One, you can’t make good decisions without well-defined goals. In the absence of goals, the mind and body atrophy. Goals provide life force. The absence of goals hastens death.

Personally, I find it easier to write a sales letter that’ll make $50,000 than to get across town through traffic, get dry cleaning done right or get a room service order right in a hotel.

And a lot of people find it easier to do a big deal than a little one or make a lot of money instead of a little. This is for a variety of reasons; including the fact that doing the “big thing” is often more interesting, inspiring and exciting. Plus it’s also more likely to captivate interest and secure cooperation from others.

Overall, I think it’s easier to make $250,000 than it is to make $35,000 a year.

People who make $35,000 a year work very, very hard to get that money. They mostly work at jobs they find uninteresting, don’t like or settle for. They mostly do a lot of manual labor.

In some cases, they place themselves at considerable risk—like police officers and firefighters (and school teachers).

I think it’s also easier to double a business than it is to increase it by 10%. You just don’t get a lot of creative juices flowing with a small goal.

I’ve also learned that you can accurately predict whether a person’s life is going to be any different a year from today based on how well or how poorly they can clearly and concisely enunciate their goals when challenged.

This is because most mediocrity and unhappiness is directly linked to simply failing to clearly decide what to do.

You’ll find that most people—including many in captain’s chairs, in business and elsewhere—are in a perpetual fog. They see their future like the visually impaired cartoon character Mr. Magoo sees the world around him. Consequently, if they move forward at all, it must be very cautiously and hesitantly, like groping in the dark.

Earl Nightingale said, “Unless you can say, in one sentence, what your goal is, the chances are good you’ve never clearly defined your goal.”

Clearly express what it is you want. Communicate this to your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is like an errand boy with superhuman powers, and when you learn to command your mind in its language, you can give it the most arduous of tasks and let it accomplish them in the most amazing fashion. I try to use this method whenever possible, as it is more effective and much less strenuous than conscious thought or physical labor.

In fact, it has been my experience that the distance in time between a very, very clear, precise, vividly pictured objective communicated to the subconscious mind and its attainment is very short.

May you attain your goals in short fashion in 2013.

Happy New Year!

NOTE: If you are looking to make 2013 the year you attain your goals, the Peak Performers-Implementation Coaching group led by Lee Milteer and Dave Dee can help you. Focused on eliminating all of your barriers to productivity, results and success, this program will help you choose the right goals that match your temperant, talents and best interests. Then it will help you take the best business ideas and actually implement them in a carefully structured and scheduled way, with the result that you finally achieve the TRANSFORMATION in your business you’ve always dreamed of.

Make 2013 great. Click Here To Learn More

Want An Army Of “Elves” To Promote Your Products?

By: Darcy Juarez on: December 25th, 2012 No Comments

“How does Santa get all those toys made and delivered?”

It’s a question kids have wondered throughout the years.

And with today being Christmas, as kids open their stockings and gifts, it’s a question that will be asked millions of times around the world.

Movies throughout the years have shown their explanation of how it’s done.

In the 2011 movie, Arthur Christmas, Santa’s oldest son Steve runs the command center for Santa, while a younger son, Arthur reads the letters to Santa and makes sure the children’s “orders” are filled. Armies of elves load up the sleigh with presents requested from kids around the world and a team of elves help Santa in an ultra-high tech sleigh, the S-1.

Sort of like being one of the elves, if you don’t want to come up with your own info-product to sell, or aren’t sure what to sell, becoming an affiliate for someone else’s products gives you the opportunity to participate and earn money without having the responsibility of running the operation.

You can find products that complement the products and services you already sell without having to incur the costs or hassle of distribution.

Or you can build your own command center and build an army of affiliates eager to sell your product for you—creating a significant increase to your income.

Here are seven additional reasons to consider adding an affiliate program to your business in 2013:

You eliminate costs associated with selling your own product such as production costs,, order processing, shipping and distribution. Plus there are no licensing fees.
You don’t have to carry inventory.
You don’t have to hire any additional employees.
You can choose from thousands of products and services.
You don’t have to have any experience.
You don’t have to deal with customer complaints.
Often your affiliate provides you with the necessary marketing materials saving you time and money.

On the flip side, if you round up your own army of affiliates to promote your products or services:

You can make money while you sleep. Having affiliates sell your products means you have a team of people selling your product at all hours of the day. Super Affiliate Secrets (now available at 50% off through this series) reveals that the secret to selling millions is to lure the best affiliates and build relationships with them.
You can build an army of affiliates to help sell your products or services—without having to pay anything unless they bring someone to you.
Building an army of affiliates can help you build your list faster.
Affiliate armies can generate massive traffic to your site.
You can create a mass affect and generate huge amounts of cash during launches.

There are two money-making sides to affiliate marketing. Whether you cash in on one side or both, affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to rake in six to seven figures per year. In fact, the amount you can earn is only limited by your desire, effort and imagination.

NOTE: If you’re interested in meeting super-affiliates to promote your products and services or want to get the exact, nitty-gritty details of how Dan Kennedy’s built his army of affiliates and cashed in being an affiliate for others, then plan to attend The A-Z Info-Biz Blueprints Re-Boot in April. Dan guarantees this will be information worth a million dollars to you—in fact he’s offering a double your money back guarantee plus documented airfare up to $1000, if you don’t agree.

Not only will you learn everything you need to know and walk away with a blueprint to build your own profitable info-marketing business in whatever area you desire, it’s a great place to start relationships with super-affiliates that you may otherwise not have the chance to meet. [Learn more]

Three Ways To Offset The Fiscal Cliff

By: Darcy Juarez on: December 6th, 2012 2 Comments

With the end of the year looming, U.S. government officials don’t appear to be any closer to a resolution for the pending “fiscal cliff.”

Falling off the cliff would most likely mean a recession according to some economists.

What happens then? A more dramatic version and acceleration of what’s already happening: the middle shrinks.

People still buy necessities, but the middle freezes up, afraid to spend discretionary money.

Even on necessities, Dan Kennedy says, speaking from experience…

“The profit margin goes away, as merchants at the bottom battle over consumers’ shrunken spending power with price cutting as the only weapon…big companies even sell products below cost just to keep factories, stores, and offices open, thus crushing small businesses.”

The good news is there is a way to offset pending gloom and doom. However, you’ll want to start preparing for it now.

Today we’ll take a look at a few suggestions from Dan Kennedy and GKIC members who no longer worry about things like this—having learned how to create what Zig Ziglar called your own “personal economy.” (You can read Zig’s description here: Zig Ziglar: One Of The Best Gifts You Could Ever Receive)

It’s something you can do too.

Here are the top three ideas for preparing your business so you can offset the fiscal cliff.

Niche your business. GKIC member and co-owner of Cater Galante Orthodontic Specialists Dr. Donna Galante says between 1997 and 2007 her business was growing gangbusters. In fact it was growing 25% a year minimum and at times doubling. Then in 2007 her business tanked. She says, “The phones stopped ringing and in 12 months’ time we had lost 30% of our revenue and production.” In one of the hardest hit industries in the country, orthodontics, which is considered an elective, was down 47% nationwide.

She says, I kept thinking about what Dan was always saying about how “there are riches in niches.” So Dr. Galante decided to specialize in the niche area of Invisalign, a proprietary orthodontic treatment which uses a series of clear, removable teeth aligners as an alternative to traditional braces.

Things turned around very quickly for them as her practice became one of the top 1% producers of Invisalign nationwide in 18 months’ time.

Recession-proof your business. Look no further than Dan Kennedy to know how to recession proof your business. In his book, No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent, Dan says “Those in the middle are the most affected by recession. They tend to be living at their means or above their means, yet spending only about 60% on necessities. In recession, they stop spending the other 40%. They just cramp up. So merchants selling to them don’t see a 5% or 10% drop; they get whacked with a 40% drop. Even price cutting doesn’t help much.”

His advice? “Trade up.” The richest 20% of the population account for more than 60% of spending in our economy. It’s just as easy to sell to the affluent masses who are least affected by tough times.

To get started, set yourself up to attract the affluent and their money. First transform your business to appeal to and attract the affluent. In other words, find out where the money is and then go get it. To market to the affluent, study who your affluent customers are, where they are, what they buy, why they buy, and the best ways to get into sync with them.

Learn how to “speak to sell.” GKIC member and co-owner of Bradley Communication Corp., Bill Harrison gives this advice”: “Learn how to speak to sell.” He says, “In 2002, we almost went out of business because of the post 911 recession. We were really hurting and my brother went to a conference he had spoken to before and had never come home with more than $800. That year he came home with $67,000 because of what we learned from Dan about platform selling.

GKIC member and owner and chief instructor of Unified Martial Art Academy, Dwight Woods says his business would have folded had he not learned how to persuade people about the benefits of his products and services. He says, “I always taught for the love of the art form and thought that selling was evil. I’ve realized that you are no longer a hobbyist once you are in business, so you better learn how to sell.

In a recession, when you get someone on the hook, it’s essential to be able to move them to asking you what they should buy as quickly as possible. Whether you are speaking to one or to many, selling in person or through the mail or online, you must find your voice and learn how to speak to sell.

One way to make this easier is to eliminate your competition before you get into a selling situation. In Dan’s sales system, detailed in Sales & Persuasion Strategies, he stresses the importance of eliminating the competition by making you, your product or service a foregone solution—this way you are dealing with clients, customers or patients who are pre-determined to buy from you and you alone. This not only makes the sales process go faster, but you no longer have to compete on price.

Don’t wait to see what happens. Get prepared now.

So what are you doing to prepare your business? Share your ideas in the comment section below.

NOTE: If you want to get on the “fast track” to creating your own personal economy and join the economic elite and discover the proven path for thriving, prospering and creating fortunes during these uncertain economic times, you can now. Discover the untold wealth attitudes, behaviors and strategies that’ll allow you to EXPLODE your income…and make you immune to a recession and countless other roadblocks that could sabotage your success! Get Wealth Breakthroughs Now for 30% OFF!

Four tips from Kris Kringle’s spreadsheet…

By: Dave Dee on: December 4th, 2012 5 Comments

At home in Atlanta, the holiday festivities are in high gear…

From the great tree lighting in Lenox Square to concerts, events leading up to the Chick-fil-A Bowl, ice-skating, Santa appearances and shopping …it seems everyone is full steam ahead.

Of course there’s a lot to do personally too—right?

Present-shopping for family and friends, gift-wrapping, tree-trimming, holiday card writing and mailing, house-decorating, holiday meal-planning and making, cookie baking and on and on…

There is a lot to do, but somehow we manage to get it all done each year.
Why is that?

Are we superhuman?

Does “Kris Kringle” have a spread sheet?

No, but we are more focused. We have our to-do lists and our priorities and we relentlessly attack them into submission.

To be super successful at your business, you have to adapt the same “nothing can stop me attitude.”

Here are a four tips you can take from the holiday season about how to improve your productivity and results…

Take massive action consistently. The biggest take-a-way here is to take massive action—but not just at the holidays.

Every year businesses go all out for the holidays. Planning special events, decorating, doing massive amounts of advertising. Imagine if you did this every month all year round?

Sure, businesses are capitalizing on the holidays, however, if you look, you can find something to capitalize on every month all year round. (For ideas on how to generate more revenue and take maximum advantage of the holidays year-round, check out Dan’s unique system that will show you how to promote your business on almost every day of the year in the Ultimate Holiday Promotions and Swipe File.)

Prepare. Are you holding any holiday dinners or parties this year?

Think about the preparation you put into these. You have to make a guest list. Pick a date. Decide on a menu. Shop for the food. Get your house ready for company. Send out invitations. Follow up with your guests. Plan what you are going to wear. Set the table. Make a plan for cooking the food so that it’s finished at the precise time you want to serve dinner.

There is a lot of thought and energy that goes into planning this one event. In fact, more time and energy goes into the planning and preparation than into the time the actual event takes.

Yet many business owners do not put the same thought into preparing their marketing!

They spend more time on the execution than on the planning. For example, invest more time finding out who your target audience is and who you should send your marketing to. Decide when and how you will follow up. Work on creating an irresistible offer that will make your prospects and customers not just eager, but “foaming at the mouth” eager to respond.

Use a “holiday mindset” to get it done. Every year at the holidays you wonder if you can get it all done. But somehow you figure it out.

You might not have everything picture perfect, but somehow you manage to complete all the items on your list. Shift that mentality to your marketing and you will not only find you are implementing far more than you ever have before, but that you are getting results far beyond what you ever have.

Just like with your holiday planning, prioritize. To get marketing items done, plan to do the things which require the most energy and focus during your peak energy time. For most people this tends to be in the morning. Save repetitive tasks for when your energy slump kicks in.

Minimize the number of man hours. The other day I saw a commercial for the post office. You can pick up pre-paid boxes for shipping at the post office and your postman (or woman) will pick them up from your house to save you a trip to the post office.

I’ve also seen ads for companies that will not only print your holiday cards, but who will also mail them for you.

In your business, you have time-saving resources available to you too. For example, you can use time-tracking software to keep track of billable hours for you. You can set up autoresponder emails as a follow up to prospects and customers whenever they take certain actions like buy a product or sign up to receive your emails. (A great way to automate a lot of your business is by using Infusionsoft.)

Whenever possible utilize software and resources to automate your marketing. This allows you to not only get a lot more done, but to save you time by not having to do things over again and again.

Don’t wait until next year to put this into play. Take clues from your holiday preparation and put your marketing on steroids before the end of the year. When you do, you’ll start next year off in high gear and every day will seem like Christmas.

What other success tips can you take from the holidays and apply to your business? Share your ideas in the comment section below.

NOTE: One of the biggest things that stops businesses from implementing marketing is copy. If you haven’t seen 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 is a great place to start to make sure you find the right resource. You can grab your FREE copy by clicking here.

Fill This Gaping Hole In Your Persuasion Strategy Immediately…

By: Dan Kennedy on: November 20th, 2012 2 Comments

The beginning of this month during GKIC’s INFO-Summit, I had the opportunity to present insights on copywriting alongside ‘master of dark arts copywriting extraordinaire’ and fellow grizzled veteran of many wars, John Carlton.

John worked with Sir Gary Halbert, Prince of Print, intimately, for many years, thus earning a Purple Heart and a grand collection of stories; most not suitable for public telling.

Carlton is a renaissance man, rich with life experience and right up at the very top of the list of Living Greats.

We both have our Halbert connections and remember our times with Gary fondly (even the ones that scared us) and value our lessons learned from Gary highly. We are both troubled by the lack of depth of knowledge we observe in many newcomers to direct marketing and copywriting.

Anyway, Carlton and I go way back to when mastery mattered, and people like he and I aspired to it, worked at it, fought for it, paid hefty dues for it.

It’s something as a marketer you should be thinking about too.

As I mentioned in this month’s No B.S. Marketing Letter (if you aren’t currently receiving the No B.S. Marketing Letter, you can get two free months of it here), ‘just because you think you can’t doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.’

Many people think they can’t write or think they write well enough. These trains of thought mean in their minds they think they need not make an effort to learn more or aspire to know more.

On the flip side, entrepreneurs who are the ones that tend to hang out at the top of the money pyramid and are on the most successful, most enviable businesses list, pay top dollar to acquire the best copywriters they can afford, and study what works and what doesn’t.

Whether you think you can write and do, think you can and don’t, or think you can’t and don’t, working to understand copy techniques that drive response is a path worth pursuing.

When you do, you can look to boost your response and achieve exceptional return on investment.

When you don’t, a belief that direct-response copy doesn’t work, an argument that long copy fails, and ‘your business is somehow different’ will most likely be your party line. You’ll also be hanging at the bottom of the money pyramid, with your main marketing strategy being to discount your products and services.

If you think you can write, but have never studied from copywriting masters and don’t continue your pursuit of good copy, danger lurks. Swiping bad copy because your competitor or a big brand name is using it. Presenting a perhaps, well-written message that doesn’t appeal what-so-ever to your target audience.

Believing you can write and choosing to hire a copywriter can have similar consequences. There are many copywriters out there. A few exceptional. Some pretty good. Many mediocre to not so good to awful. The fact that so many businesses don’t pay attention to their copywriting puts you at a huge advantage when you take the time to educate yourself on the science of good copy.

Note I say science, not art, as USA Today would have you believe per their “Win $1 million in free ad space” contest. Copy is a science. There are precise reasons for doing one thing over another. Using certain words, techniques or strategies in one situation and choosing to not use them in other circumstances.

So when you hire someone to write your copy, it is critical, to have an idea that what you are being handed is reliably good.

Yes, not every piece of copy is going to work as well as you’d like or expect—but this is not the way to decide if you should hire a copywriter or not.

Knowing that you are looking at reasonably good copy and understanding why it’s good will help you make better decisions, hire better copywriters and get better results. (Inside “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!” is what every business owner should ask before hiring a copywriter.)

Another reason to pay close attention to your copy has to do with being able to attract customers and clients for whom price is not a determining factor in their purchasing. When I wrote No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent in 2008, I made much of the concentration of both wealth and discretionary spending power in the hands of leading edge boomers and seniors. Now in 2012, this is proving true.

Control of money by leading edge boomers and seniors is in the 50% neighborhood. As I show in chapter 12 of my new book, No B.S. Marketing to Leading-Edge Boomers & Seniors, print media and direct mail is vitally important in effectively and successfully marketing to boomers and seniors. This is the media they value, they trust, they pay the most attention to and that they have the most respect for. It requires knowing how to write. Ignore this and you risk half of the population’s money—half of the population that is at the top of the spending pyramid.

Michael Wolff wrote in USA today that “Johnny who can’t write has gone into advertising.” In his article he suggested that all you need to do to get people to pay attention “save Facebook”, “make digital media a decent business” and “move more merchandise” is to bring back the copywriter.

I concur. If you want to stand out among the crowd and rise to the top of the money pyramid—seek out, aspire to and fight for better copy in your ads. Delay equals lost revenue. The time is now to fill this gaping hole in your persuasion strategy.

NOTE: Another one of the “living greats” is Mark Ford (aka Michael Masterson). The chief strategist behind taking AGORA Publishing, the largest internet-based publishing company in the world, from $8 million to $380 Million Mark is notoriously known for taking one business from $180,000 to $135 Million in 11 years.

He too found it disturbing that there was a lack of depth and knowledge in copy-writing—so he co-founded AWAI specifically for the purpose of teaching people how to understand and execute the science of copy-writing.

He spoke a couple of years ago at SuperConference. His wisdom in regards to business and intimate knowledge of copy-writing are worth paying attention to. Here’s a free essay by Mark written for GKIC readers: [link to pdf by Mark Ford]