Posts Tagged ‘magnetic marketing’

Are You Hunting In The Wrong Place?

By: Dan Kennedy on: March 12th, 2013 9 Comments

I’ve been in the advice dispensing business for 40 years.

Throughout my career I’ve been paid millions and millions of dollars by CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, small business owners, even my peers, professional speakers, authors and consultants.

Whether the economy is good or bad, I remain fully booked and in demand.

On occasion I have run up against ‘professional norms and guidelines’ dictated by some association or certifying organization, and had my fees and the fees I recommend others charge criticized. Some say they are unethical, some say they are impossible to receive.

Nevertheless, I’m fully booked with demand left over.

And people I’ve guided routinely command premium prices in return for their products and services.

I’m not telling you this to brag.  My ego doesn’t need the boost.

I’m telling you this to let you know that these sort of opportunities exist and are there for the taking by people who may have never dreamed they could command such, “aggressive compensation.”

(I reveal how I’ve done this in detail in my course Super Powers of Price Elasticity which right now you can try for just a single dollar by clicking here!)

And at no time is it more critical than right now thanks to the rising costs of marketing and customer acquisition and the overabundance of marketing streams fighting for people’s attention.

Right now you may be asking yourself, “Given the habits of consumers seemingly flocking to pay the lowest price is it still possible to find consumers willing to pay top rates?”

It is, I assure you. In fact, I guarantee that hugely valuable customers exist for every business. It may just be you’re looking in the wrong place.

The truth is if you lack the kind of customers, clients or patients I’m talking about, you are most likely lacking specific customer focus and using ineffective approaches that are dangerous to your business’ long-term survival.

Amir Karkouti, owner of a successful group of restaurants in San Diego and an author, speaker and mentor to other restaurant owners wrote this letter…

“It wasn’t that long ago that my restaurants were going to fail and I was losing hope. I spent the last money I had to go to the SuperConference, and I went home determined to utilize everything I learned from you and all the other marketers.

I went straight to work. I got lists, created letters, improved my copywriting.

I realized that my business wasn’t failing—I was failing at marketing it. “

Amir says since that time his restaurants are booming. He’s been written up in publications, began speaking to and coaching other restaurant owners, and written a book on how restaurant owners can market their business to explode their profits. He developed a Marketing System that includes a turn-key, automated email marketing program, the “4X2 SECRET”- which brings customers back 4 times within 2 weeks and The Restaurant Sales Letter Template.

Amir used specific-customer focus—targeting the right customers—and combined that with effective marketing strategies to get him out of peril and onto a prosperous path.

Any business owner can attract higher value customers and clientele. Ask yourself, if you could double your net profit, without getting any more customers, wouldn’t you want to do it?

NOTE: Is your business positioned properly? At this year’s SuperConference during one of my two entirely new presentations, I’ll show you how to rate and judge your positioning strengths and weaknesses and help you determine whether consumers see you as a one-of-a-kind business that people can’t ignore or one that is swimming to keep up with the competition..

Find out how to correct your course and locate, target and attract those consumers which will be highly valuable to your business. Plus the five X-Factors found in exceptionally successful businesses that “own” much higher value customers or clientele than 90% of their competitors or peers.

You’ll also have a chance to win free advice from me and an all-expenses paid vacation in sunny Florida in our Marketer of the Year competition.

And if you have a great business or product idea that could use a surge of cash or “brain capital” to get it off the ground or take it to the next level, enter “THE TANK.” I along with Barbara Corcoran and the other GKIC Sharks are giving you a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to pitch us on giving you cash, investing in you, or providing “brain capital” for your business.

Don’t miss these opportunities and your last chance to save over $1000 on registration.

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.

The Truth About Converting Customers And Four Tips To Make It Easier

By: Dave Dee on: September 25th, 2012 2 Comments

Last week at the Fast Implementation Boot Camp, GKIC members left excited because of the proven “ready-to-go” marketing processes they now have for their businesses.

It’s one of my favorite events because the change we see in businesses after they attend is so dramatic…

Like Walter Bergeron, our 2012 co-Marketer of the Year winner, who attended the Fast Implementation Boot Camp one year ago in September of 2011.

Walter went home and mailed out a newsletter using some of the things he learned. As a result, just a few weeks later, he received his first order from the newsletter for $30,000 from a “lost customer.”

I love stories like this.

The thing is, this might sound like an overnight success story. But the truth is, it’s not.

You see, Walter was a member with GKIC for a year before he came to that boot camp. And even though he was a member for a year, he didn’t use GKIC strategies during that first year.

He says, “When I started as a GKIC member I agreed with everything Dan (Kennedy) and all the members and guest speakers taught. I found it all very fascinating and intriguing and I thought that maybe someday I could do some of those things. But there was always something preventing me from taking the next step.”

The continued messaging to Walter through direct mail, emails, newsletters, webinars and boot camp is what finally convinced Walter to do something and try GKIC strategies.

In reality, Walter’s path is similar to the majority of your customers. Because there really are no “ready-made” customers, no matter what your business is. In other words, there is a period of gestation between when your prospect finds out about you and when he or she buys.

In Marketing to the Affluent, Dan Kennedy talks about how a $14,000 exercise machine is sold. He says, “The guy on the other end of the phone who took the order only– says that it was pretty easy (to get the order.) The salesman asked three questions and closed the sale… he didn’t see all the other stuff that lead up to it, nor did he see what else those prospects may have done.”

Not only do we not know how long a customer has been considering their purchase, often times we don’t see the other products and services our customers consider or even buy before they buy our “thing.”

Realize that no matter what you sell… insurance, financial services, furniture, food at a restaurant, pet products… whatever… everything has an incubation period. That means in order to win the business and truly convert a prospect to a buyer and a buyer to a loyal fan, it’s your job to get in front of and stay in front of your prospect.

This also means that you can’t expect a prospect to immediately convert to a customer.

This is why you need to constantly generate leads and help lead them through the gestation period to bring them to a fully mature, raving fan.

Four tips to developing raving fans are:

1. Create systems. Putting systems in place ensures you are regularly attracting and leading prospects to your product or service and engaging with them to help guide them and sell to them during that gestation period.

2. Create systems for every stage your prospect, client, customer or patient will go through. For example, create a system to attract new clients, to follow-up on potential clients, to manage current clients, to educate prospects and clients and to help customers use your product or service. Without systems in place, prospects and customers, clients and patients will never find out about you or they will fall through the cracks causing lost revenue or worse.In No B.S. Business Success In The New Economy, Dan relays this story from Dr. Michael Roizen M.D. as seen on PBS and Oprah. Dr. Roizen says, “…Even if the pills are free, in the V.A., and patients who have hypertension and know that it is a serious disease, only one-third of those patients take the pills prescribed—and that’s when the pills are free! Only two-thirds even fill the prescription to start with.” Dr. Roizen goes on to say that the “failure in medicine is failing to understand that we have to sell health.” In another story in Marketing to the Affluent Dan talks about how he was personally ready to write a check to a guy for $77,000 for a service he needed. Dan says he had the money. It was easy to get the money. He needed the service. And he trusted the guy. But… there were three or four things that Dan had questions about that weren’t answered or followed up on. The result? No sale. Lost revenue of $77,000 and probably a whole lot more because now there are no referrals from Dan nor a new customer who would continue to buy. In your business, you need to continue to sell whatever message your prospect or customer needs to understand and respond to.

3. Having systems in place means you won’t have to chase after clients, customers or patients—nor are you losing sales because you didn’t have time or forgot to follow up with them. Don’t worry about having a perfect system. You don’t need the perfect system to get started. Put something in place, then tweak as you go. At GKIC, we are constantly tweaking existing systems to make them better and sometimes we put something up, knowing it could be better. Don’t let perfect get in the way of done—because even an imperfect system will capture and convert more sales than one that isn’t done in the first place.

4. Swipe & Deploy. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Use what is already in place and proven to work. (The key here is to use something you know is successful.) For example, grab ideas from your Million Dollar Swipe File in your No B.S. Marketing Newsletter or the three-step sequence in Magnetic Marketing.  Not only does this make it easier and faster, but because these are proven to work, you will be more successful and more profitable. Bookmark systems. When you come across a system you like, bookmark it so you can easily find it later when you are ready to use it. For example, our most incredible free gift offer sequence (located here ) is a great example that every business can use to attract new customers and boost sales. If you aren’t ready to set this up in your business, bookmark it in a “to-do” file online. You can also save direct mail sequences to see what other businesses are doing. If you are holding an event, look at what GKIC is doing and save all the pieces we mail. Look at what companies who send out catalogs do. Save mail from non-profit organizations (big non-profits like American Cancer Society, World Wildlife Fund, and other non-profits tend to have excellent examples.) Then when you are ready to create your system, you have a ready-to-go swipe source waiting for you.

Put systems in place and you will find a lot more of your “Walter Bergeron” customers. You’ll be more efficient, more productive, and convert more prospects to paying customers. Plus, by ensuring consistent contact with your prospects, customers, patients and clients, you’ll always have a steady flow of new business.

How To Cook Up More Sales Williams-Sonoma Style…

By: Dave Dee on: September 6th, 2012 8 Comments

What better way to end the summer than with a cookout…and a sale!

This past weekend in addition to the backyard barbecues and pool closing parties, retail stores were in full force with Labor Day sales.

Among them, U.S. gourmet cookware store Williams-Sonoma was offering some good deals…but even more impressive was their check-out procedure.

The sales person at the cash register was taking customers through a series of questions, all designed to create more sales…

“Did you mean to get the single ice-pop maker or did you want the one that makes three at one-time?”

“Would you like extra reusable plastic pop sticks with that?”

“Did you see the great specials we are having today like the pie-maker that is 50% off or the table top sale in the back?”

The sales person was actually doing something that most business don’t even think to do.  Through friendly suggestions, she was trying to prompt the customer to increase the size of their purchase.

You see even though in traditional sales training a lot of time is spent on the close, once the sale is closed, many businesses end the conversation instead of continuing it.

A mistake that costs mucho “DEE-nero”.

Even a good salesperson might only close one in four people. And an average sales person is probably more like one in eight.

That means that for every one sale made three to seven people are walking out empty handed.

If your average sale is $100, then for every one sale you make, you’ve lost potentially $300-$700 (or more) in sales.

There are ways to recapture these lost opportunities and, without a whole lot of effort, increase your sales substantially.

Using Williams Sonoma as an inspiration, here are some of the best ways you can sell more:

Go for an immediate upsell. Hardly any businesses go for the immediate upsell, but when you do, twenty percent of your prospects will say “YES.” Not only did the Williams-Sonoma sales person rattle off several questions in search of the upsell, she collected customer information to follow up.  Within a few days, Williams-Sonoma sends the customer an email thanking them for their purchase, offering them free shipping, recipes, entertaining ideas, new items available, and, of course, another sales offer.

Using recipes as an example, they feature a different product with each recipe and highlight more information about the product.

Obviously coming up with your own list of upsell questions will give you the opportunity to offer an immediate upsell directly after a consumer purchases from you, but you should go even further.  Add a follow-up email campaign to keep the conversation going with your customer.  But don’t just rely on emails. Create a system for gathering your customers’ addresses so you can send them direct mail too.

For instance, you could offer to mail a free CD or DVD of a live presentation you did which compliments your product or service or that demonstrates how to use your product or service. Then include an upsell offer with the free item.

Go for a back-end sale. Williams-Sonoma uses direct mail catalogs for back-end sales. This is a great way to sell your product because people tend to be in a more relaxed state of mind when looking at your catalog versus looking online. They have fewer distractions and are more likely to spend more time looking at and devouring information about your products and services.

When looking online, people tend to be more in a search mode, wanting to get information quickly.

Plus, because consumers don’t have to go online to see it, they can use your catalog anywhere—like while relaxing in their easy chair or waiting for an appointment.

Catalogs work exceptionally well too. According to the Direct Mailing Association (DMA), more than 89.6 million Americans bought an item from a catalog last year. The DMA also said that when retailers tried cutting back on the use of catalogs a couple of years ago, their “sales plummeted.”

If you’ve never used a catalog, consider adding one. It doesn’t have to be a big thick book. Create a catalog that targets a specific audience.  Or try tailoring your catalog for a specific event you are holding.

If you don’t think a catalog will work for your business, other forms of direct mail are still a good option for making a back-end sale. This is because direct mail will still give you the advantage of catching consumers in a more laid back state causing them to spend more time looking at your ad.

Build their list. If someone comes to your place of business, they are a prospect in the market for whatever you are selling. Instead of letting people leave the store empty handed, why not have an employee standing at the door giving out a free gift to shoppers who don’t buy in exchange for their address?

Using direct mail you could immediately send a message within a few days to get them back in the buying mode for your products and services.

For example, you could send an irresistible offer with a deadline such as a sale, freemium with purchase by a certain date, a limited-edition item or limited-time offer.  Offer special purchase terms like three payments over time instead of one immediately.

This does two things. It brings people back to your business that you might have otherwise lost and it puts more good prospects in front of your sales people making it easier for them to sell stuff.

This technique is exactly what got me to buy Dan Kennedy’s Magnetic Marketing program all those years ago. And it’s what will help you sell more in your business too.

The reason this works so well is that it gives you an opportunity to continue your sales pitch and send prospects into a follow-up sequence where you can test different offers, up the ante or change the terms of your offer.

Use these lessons from Williams-Sonoma in your business to increase your sales. And remember to use a combination of both online sales tools and direct mail to get the biggest response. Because while using one or the other will definitely improve your bottom line, the real power comes when you combine them both.

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

What You Can Learn From The Artist Wyland About How To Create Your Business Masterpiece

By: Dave Dee on: August 16th, 2012 3 Comments

The other day an article about the artist Wyland got me thinking about how one becomes a master of something…

If you’re not familiar with Wyland, he created the “Whaling Walls.”  The Whaling Walls is a series of 100 large outdoor murals featuring images of life-size whales and other sea life.  The murals sprung from Wyland’s dream of sharing his love of marine life with 100 communities around the world.

His goal was to bring awareness to marine life conservation. It took him 27 years to complete—finishing the last one in 2008. It’s estimated that his murals are seen by more than a billion people each year.

This made me think about what it takes to be able to create something of that size and magnitude.

Obviously an artist doesn’t start out creating pieces of art to that scale.

In fact, no matter the media nor the many years of experience that most everyone receives in public and high school drawing, painting and using color to create artwork, art instructors always begin with core elements.

For example, painters work with just three primary colors…yellow, blue and red. They learn to combine those colors to make a full spectrum of hues like purples, oranges and greens.

When learning to draw figures, you don’t draw a “person” or a “horse” or whatever. You draw basic shapes like circles, ovals, squares and rectangles and learn how to put those together to make the figure you want.

It’s only after mastering the basics that artists move on to more advanced techniques and even then those original fundamentals are used in every creation.

Much like an artist strives to put those basic elements together to create a masterpiece…as a business owner, you combine core elements to create your ideal business.

There are several lessons you can learn from an artist’s process so that, like Wyland, you can reach your desired goals.

1)      No matter your experience level, you can’t create your business masterpiece without the basics. Just like an artist can’t draw a figure without understanding and using basic shapes like circles and squares, as a business owner, you need to use the basic marketing building blocks to successfully sell each and every product or service you offer.

2)      Even though you may have experience creating marketing, it’s necessary to break things down to the core elements and master those in order to create campaigns that get people’s attention. For example, most likely you have a lot of experience writing emails.

However, despite your experience, it’s important to break down each core element of an email such as the subject line, the opening line and the P.S. to get the best results. Really understanding things like what makes an email subject line effective at getting opened and or the components of a strong P.S. read can double, triple and even quadruple your chances of selling your product or service.

3)      You don’t need fancy tools to create a successful campaign. Blending three primary colors to create the full spectrum of hues is a distinctive way to create stunning and original paintings. In fact, many artists routinely only paint with three to six colors.

Like artists, some of the most successful businesses use a simple formula which can be repeated over and over again. For example, at GKIC we use the “Girgio” letter campaign described in Magnetic Marketing with continued success.

Or the “Lost Customer” Reactivation Blueprint which  is a simple to implement plan that consistently adds thousands of dollars to  GKIC members bottom lines.

Take the time to go back and inspect the core marketing elements that make businesses successful. Master these marketing basics and you will create the business masterpiece of your dreams, even if like Wyland, that includes getting your message out to a billion people.

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

A Back To School Tradition That Can Mean The Difference Business Success Or Failure

By: Darcy Juarez on: August 9th, 2012 5 Comments

The other day I was walking through reams of notebook paper stacked in the shopping aisles and it made me remember back to my own “back to school days”…

Remember those?

Picking out your lunch box…getting a fresh box of crayons… and buying new school clothes…

One of the things I remember is that we would always spend the first few weeks of school reviewing what we had learned the year before… especially in subjects like math and foreign language.

Teachers understood that it was important to make sure you completely understood the concepts before moving on. Otherwise you would not only have a harder time succeeding, but be more likely to fail.

That’s something that is important in business too—especially when it comes to marketing.

Because if you haven’t got the fundamentals down (things like creating a strong unique selling proposition (USP) and properly identifying your target market before picking out the media you’ll use) , your marketing is destined to fail.

Many business owners don’t understand this fully. Of course it’s not always their  fault.

They are often in reactive mode, trying to determine how to best steer through all the information they have access to.

For instance, often a sales person from a newspaper, radio or TV station or other advertising medium is there telling you that your product or service is the perfect fit for their publication, program or whatever it is they are selling.

Under pressure to stimulate some business, many business owners jump ahead and follow the advice of these sales people because they are in a hurry to get the word out about their product or service.

Another tempting distraction is to jump ahead to the hot new marketing trend that “everyone” is using and maybe even having success with, without first evaluating if it makes sense for their business…

However, if you haven’t laid down a solid foundation for your business or are missing a piece of that foundation because you don’t quite understand what is needed or how to create it, you will struggle—and possibly even fail.

In Magnetic Marketing, Dan Kennedy tells the story of how Domino’s Pizza turned around from a flailing business to a worldwide success story by developing their USP. Quite literally their USP, “Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed” was worth millions.

Developing a clear, strong and compelling USP that is concise, differentiates you and is easy to understand is a crucial first step.

But here’s the thing, some businesses think they have a USP, but what they really have is a catchy slogan.

They don’t quite understand the goal of a USP.

For example, Diesel Jeans uses “Be Stupid”.  It’s concise, it’s clear and it’s catchy. But I wouldn’t define that as compelling. It differentiates, however is “be stupid” something that is a benefit to the customer?

The result is a confusing message, one that isn’t really unique or one that doesn’t offer a clear benefit to the user.

How do you know if your USP needs help? Here are some signs that you might need to work on your USP.

1)      Your business is often commoditized.

2)      You find yourself constantly competing on price.

3)      Your employees or customers can’t easily explain what you do.

4)      You lack differentiation from your competitors.

5)      There isn’t a reason to respond NOW.

When you are missing truly unique positioning, your business doesn’t have what it needs to stand out among competitors, making your prospects unsure of why they should buy from you. Or it puts too much focus on your product or service versus your customer’s needs, desires or interests.

Another area that often needs re-examining is identifying your “who” –in other words, your ideal customer or client.

In fact, a poorly written ad or sales letter making an offer that is perfectly and exactly matched to the needs, desires, interests, fears and problems of a targeted group of people can get great results…

Whereas a great sales letter, expertly written, making an offer to people with no interest in it, will more than likely fail.

Here are some clues that it’s possible you need help identifying your “who”:

1)      You have a strong compelling offer and an atypically low response.

2)      You have a very large list, but no one is buying what you are offering.

3)      You’re spending a lot of money on advertising and getting your message out to the market, but aren’t making many sales.

Revisit your prospective customer list. Work on creating your IDEALLY matched prospective customers and clients who have a strong interest in what you offer and you will see a huge increase in your results.

Once you have a clear, compelling USP and have matched it to your ideal prospect, you’ll be on the right path to move forward and choose media that will be profitable for you.

NOTE: Are you ready to double your profits in the next 90 days? It’s back to school time so we want to remind you to review the building blocks of your business to ensure you have a solid foundation on which to grow your business.

GKIC Chief Marketing Officer, Dave Dee, is hosting a FREE webinar to help you get re-focused and give you tips you need to strengthen your foundation. Tune in on August 16th 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!

The Secret To Olympic Records, Business Success And Other Big Wins

By: Dan Kennedy on: August 8th, 2012 3 Comments

Last week, U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time.

Earning his 19th Olympic medal with a win in the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay.

Although he’s having a great Olympics, it’s not as great as he could have been enjoying.

In fact, he’s fallen short of many people’s expectations, including his own.

It’s a good lesson in what it takes to reach the success you desire.

For Phelps, his problems began after the 2008 Olympics when Phelps got lazy.

He stopped doing the things that brought him success in the first place…like going to the pool to train every day.

Until in 2011… he was bested in the pool by his teammate, Ryan Lochte in the 200 meters Individual Medley (IM) at the world championships.

And that’s when Phelps got back to the basics, doing the things he needs to do to win again.

Funny thing with swimmers is that no matter how long they’ve been swimming, they do the same thing day in, day out to prepare for their races.

Take U.S. swimmer Dara Torres, who at the age of 41 became the oldest Olympic swimming medalist in history, when she won two silver medals at the 2008 Olympics.

Despite having swam her whole life, unlike Phelps, she never forgot the basics.  She did the same workouts that every other sprint swimmer on her team did such as kicking and drills.

Of course, this was just a small piece of the reason for their success.

What makes people succeed (or fail)?  There are four components necessary for succeeding at any goal or objective you set.

Begin with a definite purpose.  Michael Phelps stopped doing what had always made him successful, because he had lost sight of his purpose. It’s hard to do things when you aren’t clear about why you’re doing them.  Despite his secrecy about his goals for the 2012 Olympics, it’s evident with the success Phelps is seeing at this year’s Olympics, that he has a definite purpose for being there and is clear about what that is, even if it is not the same goals that others may have for him.

If you don’t have a definite idea of what you are after, it will be difficult to think accurately and decisively about the decisions and actions you need to take.

Make a practical plan on paper. Despite there being documented evidence that this makes a difference, this is a step that is often neglected. Writing out a plan of how you will achieve your objectives helps you to think accurately about what you need to do in order to succeed.

Competitive swimmers don’t just show up and swim a bunch of laps. They have a written workout that they follow every day. Olympic swimmers have a long-range plan…some start planning for this many years in advance. Their workouts the week before the Olympics will be much different than two months before the Olympics or two years before the Olympics.

Taking time to figure out your plan will make you more productive and allow you to quickly determine when you need to adjust things to keep on target to achieve your goals.

Surround yourself with good people to help you. When she began training for the 2008 Olympics, Dara Torres had a head coach, a sprint coach, a strength coach, two stretchers, two masseuses, a chiropractor and a nanny.

This was the team she set up to help her succeed.  Setting up this team is one of the well-known, yet little used secrets to success.

Who’s in your corner?

Many people think they can do it alone, but one of the fundamental secrets to success is engineering a team of good people. Andrew Carnegie once said, “Take away my railroads, take away my factories, take away my money, but leave me my people and I’ll have it all back and more in six months.”

You too will need to apply “teamwork” concepts in many different ways, to many different relationships, in order to achieve your goals.  I’ve found this application works wonders in unpredictable ways. Join a mastermind group. Get a coach. Find a mentor. Surround yourself with people who will support you and facilitate correct thinking when it comes to your plans and actions.

Take continuous action.  One of the reasons Phelps lost after the 2008 Olympics is because he stopped taking continuous action. He stopped doing the basics that made him successful in the first place.

Even though I’ve been doing this 35 years, I still have routines I follow every day. I still use the same Magnetic Marketing principles I teach in my business continually.  Sure I could stop writing my newsletters and doing the things that made me successful (like doing at least one client-getting activity every day.) But my income would suffer and so will yours if you don’t take continuous action.

When you understand the fundamentals to success, it won’t be hard for you to succeed. Ignore them and you’re destined to struggle.

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 on Thursday, August 16, 2012 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 here.

 

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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-SUMMITSM.

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-SUMMITSM, 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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Making Money From Hangovers, Zombies & Surprises

By: Dave Dee on: June 28th, 2012 2 Comments

In Las Vegas, anesthesiologist Jason Burke has people pay him to treat their hangovers.

His business, Hangover Heaven, administers a special concoction of vitamins, medications and amino acids to hangover victims at his “office,” a luxury bus.

Customers book appointments and get picked up all along the Las Vegas strip and ride in the bus while receiving their treatment.  Then they relax on board in a plush “recovery lounge”.

Run for Your Lives, is a 5K obstacle course where runners pay $77- $87, depending on how early you register, to be chased by zombies or $50+ to chase runners as a living dead zombie and spectators pay $32 to watch.

Not Another Bill is a company that sends you or a loved one a random surprise package in the mail each month. For example, a map printed on archival paper, laid onto cloth and then stored in a case…a Scandinavian scarf…or a leather coin wallet. The surprises are mailed to you each month with different ones sent depending upon if you’re a man or a woman. Cost is a little over $31.00 per month.

Here are four business lessons you can take away from these three atypical businesses:

Have Fun. Each of these businesses has an element of fun and entertainment.  A big part of success in business is enjoying what you do.

Think small, different, unusual. Business ideas don’t have to solve world problems or even major problems. When I talk to people about types of businesses, most think that they must create a product or service that has appeal to the mass market in order to get rich.

When you focus on a creating something that appeals to a small market, chances are your product will have little or no competition—which means your product will be much more valuable than if you market more of a commodity to the mass market.

Find a small gap and test it out on a small level. You never know what might be a huge moneymaker.

Target a very specific niche market to start with.

Finding and selecting a specialized target market is a safer and better bet than targeting the masses when starting out.

Look at it this way… if you want to sell your product or service to the general public, you need a substantial marketing budget because you’ll need to run ads in major publications, do massive direct mail campaigns and spend larger amounts on advertising on the Internet.

Try out your product in a small niche first. Find out if you can make money there first.

Hangover Heaven took their business to the target rich environment of Las Vegas first. They could have decided to target anyone with a hangover, but that would have been a wide net to cast. It’s easier and more effective to find a small select group first. Plus because it’s less overwhelming to figure out how to reach a small audience, you are more likely to take immediate action.

Test a larger market once you find success in a small one.  I imagine that Hangover Heaven will look at branching out to places other places with an “alcohol-friendly” strip such as Bourbon Street in Louisiana or Atlantic City.

Once you have experienced success in your specialized niche, it’s extremely easy to duplicate your efforts.  Plus you’ll have a lot more money and confidence to fuel your expansion plans.

You don’t have to target business to business. Don’t rule out ideas for the business to consumer niche just because you are used to selling business to business.

For example, if you are a fitness instructor that teaches other fitness instructors how to market their business more successfully, you could look for a new niche product for the consumer market.  Let’s say you are both a fitness instructor and a cancer survivor. You could create a fitness product that shows cancer survivors how to get back in shape after undergoing treatments.

In this case, you could start small by targeting only cancer survivors in your area or only cancer survivors that had the same kind of cancer you did.

Keep these in mind when coming up with product ideas and when looking at marketing products you already have. It makes sense to test out your product on a small scale before rolling it out to a larger audience. And you’ll lower your financial exposure when you avoid going into a market that is too big.

Selecting a specialized target or niche market is an easier and more effective way to get rich.  Plus, you’ll find that targeting a specialized niche allows you to charge more for your product.

What other lessons can you learn from these three business examples? Share them in the comments below.

NOTE: If you are looking for NEW advanced strategies that will help you sell your product or service at a higher price, multiply your effectiveness and prosper in a small niche, take a look at Dan Kennedy’s Advanced Magnetic Marketing . You’ll get real-world marketing examples with  detailed analysis on advanced strategies, Dan’s NEW, advanced and proven 5-step strategy, and his six-figure marketing formula that shows you how to unleash dormant value in your existing business.   Click here to learn more.

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