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How to guarantee victory in your advertising campaign…

By: Dave Dee on: November 6th, 2012 7 Comments

Today people head to the polls in the U.S.A. to decide who will be our next president.

Over the past few days, candidates have displayed a mannerism that the most successful entrepreneurs use to chart their course to business victory.

It’s something you’ll need if you intend to unseat your competition. Fight off feelings of being overwhelmed and eliminate chaos. And lead yourself and your business to the transformation, quality of life, wealth and victory you deserve.

Can you guess what it is?

It deals with a problem many of our members say they struggle with…

A problem that is only going to get worse over the next couple of months as holiday distractions encroach on your already hectic schedule.

What do candidates do that you need to figure out how to do?

They know how to get things done.

In the final hours of the presidential race, they held a combined 14 events, spoke to undecided voters and ran ads and counter-ads.

And if you are thinking, well it’s different for them…they have money and people to help them get things done, I want you to suspend that thinking for a few minutes and consider instead what you can take away from their final bid for commander in chief…

Because there are some fairly significant lessons you can learn.

Take extreme measures: In the final stretch, both candidates took extreme measures…sleeping little, making stops in multiple states in one day. They basically did what they felt was necessary to get the job done.

Make a commitment to do what it takes to get your marketing out. If that means working longer hours a few days or outsourcing pieces of your campaigns you don’t have the expertise or time to do…do it.

It’s the people who are willing to do what’s necessary to get the job done that will achieve the biggest wins.

Leverage everything you have: To the bitter end, both candidates are pulling out everything they have to win votes. And while you may be getting tired of strangers knocking on your door, a mailbox full of campaign literature, the barrage of ads and multiple phone calls each day—chances are your marketing is far from approaching saturation with your clients, customers, or patients.

When it comes to marketing, it’s important to leverage everything you have. That means with each message, don’t just rely on one media form. Send your message to your newsletter list, send it out as an email, a postcard, and post it on your blog. Then deliver it during a webinar and make posts about it on social media.

Simply using the same message in different formats is a great way to leverage the power of your message and reach the most people with it.

Don’t second-guess yourself: The Romney and Obama campaigns didn’t second guess their decisions on where they should make their final stops. They simply made a decision and did it.

With marketing, you never are 100% sure that what you do will work. Make your best guess and just go for it. If you are really unsure, start small and test first. The point is that you need to make a commitment and just do it.

Do things simultaneously: Could you imagine if the candidates only ran ads in one state at a time or to one organization at a time?

Yet it’s common for small business owners to try one campaign before moving on to the next—believing they need to wait until they have more time to put together another one or more money to do a second type of campaign.

However, as Dan Kennedy says in Extreme Productivity Blueprint, “Nobody ever has any money left over. Nobody ever has any time left over…and if you’ve got any lying around, time or money, that you have left over, that you’re not doing anything with, somebody will take it.”

Put a lot of campaigns in motion all at the same time. For example, have a follow up campaign in motion while you are starting a new campaign. Run an ad in a specialty publication for your niche audience at the same time you are sending out your newsletter to them and holding a special event. Instead of setting up one lead funnel, set up multiple lead funnels.

Multiple campaigns means multiple sources of leads and income.

Think of marketing your business like you are in a presidential race. You are attempting to sway prospects in your favor. In order to reach the top of your game and edge out your competitors, use these four tips and you’ll to pull ahead in your marketplace. You’ll find taking massive action eliminates that feeling of being overwhelmed because you’ll no longer be wallowing in indecision. Plus the big wins you’ll experience will only motivate you to want to do it more.

NOTE: The easiest (and least expensive) way I know to guarantee marketing victory is to come to one of our FREE Fast Implementation Bootcamps.

Whether you are new to marketing and GKIC or you’ve been a student of marketing for quite some time… you’ll discover ways you can quickly implement proven marketing strategies so you can grow your business FAST.

The best part is that this is FREE for GKIC members to attend (less a $97.00 deposit which is fully refunded immediately after you attend bootcamp.)

Don’t miss one of the best ways to get more done. [Find out when our next Fast Implementation Bootcamp is and learn more now]

The Vince Lombardi Principle Needed To Profit That Even Seasoned Businesses Neglect

By: Dave Dee on: August 7th, 2012 2 Comments

In 1959, Vince Lombardi (1913-1970) took over as head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

The team was coming off the worst record in their team history, winning only one game the entire season.

To make matters worse, the team hadn’t had a winning season in 11 years.

At his first team meeting, Lombardi looked the players in the eye and said, “I have never been on a losing team, gentlemen and I don’t intend to start now.”

Keeping his word, Vince Lombardi never had a losing season.

In his first game as head coach, the Packers won 9-6 over the Chicago Bears in their new City Stadium (later renamed Lambeau Field).

His first season was a huge success. The Packers finished with seven wins and five losses and Lombardi went on to win unanimous Coach of the Year honors.

In his second season, the Packers had eight wins and only four losses, capturing the Western Conference title, which brought Lombardi to his first NFL Championship game.

Although the Packers lost 17-13 to the Philadelphia Eagles that year, the next year, in 1961, after finishing the season with eleven wins and three losses, Lombardi lead the Packers to a crushing victory over the Giants, winning 37-0 in the NFL Championship game. The Packers first title since 1944.

Over the course of Lombardi’s 9-year career as head coach of the Packers, he guided the team to an impressive record that included five NFL Championships, two Super Bowl victories and a career record of 105 wins, 35 losses and 6 ties.

The thing is, in Lombardi’s first season, he didn’t get new players. He used many of the same players from that dismal 1958 record of 1-10-1.

He didn’t try tricky new strategies either.

Although strategy was important to Lombardi, his key to success was mastering the basics.

Lombardi was famous for his hard work and pursuit of perfection. He once said, “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal or any goal.”

He would often dedicate long hours of film or practice study to just one element of play.

He drilled his players over and over on the basics such as blocking and tackling.

On the opening day of practice at the beginning of each season, before the team would go out on the field for the first practice, he would address his team of talented, veteran players with proven skills. He would say, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” That was the most rudimentary thing he could say. From there he would take them through the essential elements of the game.

He understood how easy it is to neglect the basics, so each year, he’d remind them.

What assured his team of winning was executing those basics well. Time after time, the Packers defeated teams by using a simple and methodical offense, not a clever strategy.

In business, it is tempting to look for the next new strategy and to forget about executing the basics well.

Don’t get me wrong, strategy, like in football, is definitely important.

However, when you work at mastering the basics first, you’ll find you can win consistently.

For example, creating a good solid unique selling proposition (USP) that you can use in all your marketing materials such as your website, elevator pitch, phone script, ads, etc. is a critical basic. Something that even businesses which have been in business for many years have found by going back and perfecting to make a huge impact on their business.

Take GKIC member, Dwight Woods for instance. Owner of Unified Martial Art Academy, Dwight says after years of being in business, he saw a dramatic boost in business after refining his USP. He says that if it hadn’t been for GKIC his business wouldn’t have survived. “Martial Arts schools can easily be commoditized… I learned about using the USP from GKIC and how to set my business apart,” he says.

The hot strategy right now is social media, using the Internet and mobile marketing. Sure, all of those are important, BUT first you want to focus on the basics—print and direct mail.

The backbone of direct response marketing is the long form sales letter. Again and again, it’s proven to be a winner and a solid, reliable tool for driving sales.

These are just a couple of the basics, however the point I want you to get, is to stay focused on the basics. When you do, you’ll find like the Packers did, that you can not only come from a losing place to a winning one in a short period of time, but you can hold on to it year after year.

NOTE: Want to double your profits in the next 90 days? Like the Packers, sometimes you need guidance to get you focused on what will make the biggest impact in your business. So similar to Lombardi’s “This is a football” speech, I’m hosting a FREE webinar to help you get re-focused on the basics. Tune in on August 16^th to discover “The Top 10 Ways to Radically Transform Your Business and Double Your Profits In Just 90 Days.” To register for this FREE event, click here NOW!

Not a member yet??? Claim $633.91 of Money Making Information For FREE By Clicking Here!

If only she’d known…

By: Darcy Juarez on: August 2nd, 2012 2 Comments

Recently a friend told me a story about a woman she knew who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars…

The woman’s husband, a heavy smoker, was having chest pains so they took him to the doctor and discovered he had multiple spots on his lungs…

His cancer was so far advanced, they didn’t do any additional tests.

Five days later he died.

The woman’s husband, who was retired military and had spent his whole life serving his country, had a retirement pension.

But, because he was diagnosed with lung cancer, she was not entitled to his pension when he died.

She later found out that had he been diagnosed with throat cancer, she would have been entitled to his entire pension.

The doctors felt there was a good chance that he actually had throat cancer and that it had metastasized to his lungs, only at the time they had no reason to run further tests.

Unfortunately when she found out about the pension qualification issue, his body had already been cremated.

If only she had known earlier, she would have had an autopsy done. And, if the results had proved it was throat cancer, she would have received 100% of his pension, versus being left with nothing.

The military knew the information, but didn’t offer it to her. The doctors probably had seen similar cases where insurance didn’t pay for something, but they didn’t warn her to check into things or advise her that a complete diagnosis might be beneficial to her.

And of course, it never occurred to the woman that such a thing could occur.

As is often the case, information that could save time, money or frustration, comes too late.

As a consumer, you’ve most likely experienced an “If only I had known” situation.

And as a business owner, you may have experienced that sinking sensation when a customer says something like, “If I’d only known, I would have purchased from you…”

Sometimes this happens because we are too close to our own business to see what is missing. We assume that “everyone knows that.”

But just as a teenager buying his first car doesn’t know that keeping the tires on his car properly inflated will result in him saving money on gas and add months, even years, to the life of his tires, people who are not intimately familiar with your product or service don’t know what they don’t know.

And it may never even occur to them to ask.

To help you avoid potential customers saying, “If I had only known” here’s what to do:

Make a list of your current customers for your product or service that don’t fit in your typical client profile. Look for commonalities among people in this list. For example, maybe there are a large number of parents on your list. Or maybe you notice that there are a number of high-end hotel chains using your service when you normally target mom and pop hotels. Look for clues that a strong target audience you’ve previously missed exists.

See if you identify a potential new segment. In the example, above, let’s say you sell food service supplies and your typical client, the mom and pop hotels, buy their supplies for their free breakfast they serve to hotel guests. However, after looking at your list, you discover that this small segment of high-end hotel chains, purchase much larger orders from you than the typical mom and pop hotels and are less work for you. This might be a segment worth exploring. And one that needs more specific information as it relates to their business. For example, maybe you provide free delivery when orders reach a certain limit, or you can bulk order certain items and give a much more attractive rate.

Make a list of benefits. Start with every benefit you can think of. Don’t forget to add benefits which may apply to your newly identified segment (if you found one.)

For example, let’s take last year’s Info-SUMMIT^SM.

Typically our target audience is info-marketers. However, after making my list, I found that there were benefits in all 20+ speaker’s presentations that would benefit any type of business…

Because from brick and mortar businesses to online businesses to professional service businesses… every business sells their products and services by providing information.

Information to attract your ideal customer, client or patient. Information about your products and services. Information about how to purchase from you. Information about how to use your products or services. And the list goes on.

That means, if we only target info-marketers, we would be missing out on a huge segment of our target market – businesses that need the information we provide to help them streamline their marketing and boost their profits.

A partial list of benefits include:

How to get a frantic flurry of activity surrounding your business so streams of customers, income, publicity and more flow to you.
How to create materials that attract news sources who want to feature you, and can help you sell more of your products and services.
What to do before, during and after you launch a new product or service so you generate the most traffic and drive higher sales.
How to dominate the search engines and quickly increase profits using videos.

Rephrase benefits to match your newly identified segment:Again, using last year’s Info-SUMMIT^SM, here’s how we might have rephrased some of the benefits to gear towards businesses other than info-marketers:

Discover how to use spider-webbing to not only get people talking about you and your business, but to leverage those discussions, magnify them and turn them into streams of new customers, income, free publicity and more.

Media is often viewed as a more credible or believable source than our own websites and brochures. Knowing how to create marketing materials that emulate these, or even attract news sources to want to feature you, can help you sell more of your products and services. Find out how to get to tell a story that the public will be drawn to and that will get you in the news, be breaking news and fascinate your market and audience.

Video use is on the rise. More and more businesses of every kind are using videos—especially B2B companies. 2010 GKIC Marketer of the Year and best-selling author Charlie McDermott shows you how to quickly increase profits and dominate the search engines using video.

Can you see how the language used was more specific to non-info-marketers?

Ask your best customers what’s missing. Send a survey or interview some of your best clients or customers to find out what they wish they would have known from you when they first purchased your product or service.

Determine what information needs to be dispensed that you aren’t currently communicating. What information are you overlooking that you need to get out? Information you may have overlooked might be about:

How to use your product or service after they receive it.
Where to go if they need additional support or have questions.
Who else uses your products and services and what they have to say about it.
Additional ways they can use your products.
What the next step is after they’ve purchased.
Special features of your product or service that aren’t known.
Special guarantees, offers or limited time bonuses.

Make a plan to get the information out in multiple ways in multiple media. One of the reasons people miss out on information is because it is only distributed one time and maybe only in one type of media.

For instance, let’s say you have a financial services business. In the past, you always sent a letter to encourage feedback and communicate important information to them.

However, the response to these is very low, which means your customers may not be getting all the information they need to make good decisions.

In order to reach as many people as possible, consider adding as many ways as possible to communicate with them and capitalize on the latest information technology that you know your clients use. For example, if your clients spend time on the go and communicate through their iPhones, Androids and other smart phones, consider creating videos they can watch from their phone, social media that showcases eye-popping pictures with links, emails and an app that will take them to the latest information.

Use direct mail to drive traffic back to your website. Use social media posts to drive people to articles and stories about your company. Offer tele-seminars and webcasts. Use the Giorgio letters as described in Magnetic Marketing. Create CD’s and DVD’s to send. And videos they can download.

The more ways you give your customer to consume your message, the better chance you are of hitting his or her preferred method of consumption…which means he or she is more likely to receive the information you are delivering.

Take a look at your products and services today. Are you missing information that could help a segment of your audience? If so, take time now to create a plan for getting this information to them.

When you do, you’ll increase profits by adding a new stream of income, help more people, and potentially add a new stream of customers in the process. But best of all, you’ll make sure you are doing everything you can to avoid a customer say to you…”If only I’d known…”

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How to Get 500 Free Leads from Facebook with 1 Hour of Work

By: Brian Horn on: October 7th, 2009 37 Comments

GUEST POST FROM BRIAN HORN

One of the most powerful ways to build a Facebook Group or Fan Page size is virally. Whenever someone joins your Group, all their Friends will see that on their Wall.

The problem for us, as business owners, is that most people will not rush to join a business’s Group or Fan Page (especially if they are not familiar with you or your business).

So how can you use the power of the viral marketing in Facebook?

Well, I stumbled on this trick during the Presidential elections last year.
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