My $6,000 Gift To You!
Over the past several months, we’ve been discussing the fundamentals of marketing in depth.
I’ve been emphasizing that businesses use tactical marketing instead of strategic marketing, and tactical marketing simply doesn’t work for small businesses.
In my last email to you, I gave you a thorough and complete summary of strategic marketing, and outlined for you step-by-step EXACTLY how to implement a strategic marketing campaign for your business.
So here’s what I want to do for you now!
Let me give you weekly access to a special series of webinars my company has created that will teach you a specific lead generation or conversion strategy each week designed to put instant cash in your pocket.
This is a service I typically charge $6,000 per year for my coaching clients to attend, but I’m going to offer it to you as a gift from me to you.
You will have to register for it every week so I can send you the proper link since each webinar is different.
The webinar is held every Tuesday, and to make sure it’s convenient for you, I’ll offer it at 9am and again at 3pm… so hopefully you can work one of them into your schedule.
Click here if you would be interested in attending.
Implement the information we’ll share with you on each webinar and you will put a lot of additional revenue in your pocket starting the very next day.
Until then, be successful!
Paul Duncan
Marketing and Lead Generation Strategist
P: 0433440881
E: Paul@paulduncan.com.au
www.paulduncan.com.au
P.S. If you use the strategy we teach you this week, email me your results and perhaps I can provide further guidance and support to help you maximize your initial results.
Check Out These “Before” And “After” Websites
Over the past several weeks, i have been asked -What is the fundamentals of marketing?…
Simply put ..
- have something good to say
- say it well
- say it often
Click here to review the video that explains the important factors that led to the creation of these fundamentals.
Here I share the fundamentals about the second fundamental… say it well.
In the past you might have heard me discussing the “magic formula” that will enable you to write powerhouse marketing.
The magic formula is called the “Conversion Equation,” and it looks like this…
Interrupt, Engage, Educate and Offer
As a brief review, the Interrupt refers to a problem-based, attention-grabbing headline.
The Engage is a sub headline that promises a solution to the problem referenced in the headline.
The Educate provides the solution and backs it up with evidence and proof.
And the Offer compels the prospect to take action by providing VALUE.
It’s absolutely critical that you know and understand how to use this “Conversion Equation,” and I promised that this week I would provide you with before and after examples that will prove to you the absolute power of this amazing formula.
Click here and check out these two websites (they should look familiar to you).
Notice how the “After” site follows the Conversion Equation to the letter, and will result in this child psychologist gaining the ability to out-market and out-sell every other child psychologist hands down.
This child psychologist specializes in helping adolescents with a range of problems from emotional and behavioral issues to teen pregnancy and bullying.
In the psychologist’s “Before” site, notice how he attempts to target ALL of the prospects who may have a need for one of more of his services.
This makes it impossible to speak directly to any of them with a targeted, problem-based headline… or a subheadline promising a specific solution.
Obviously there is a BIG difference in the messaging for a parent needing help with bullying issues versus a pregnant teen (can you say “day and night”).
But in the “After” site, the psychologist is addressing only the parents with kids suffering with emotional and behavioral problems, and therefore gains the ability to speak to them directly and target their hot button, problem-based issues.
Now listen, that does NOT mean this psychologist can’t continue to treat the other conditions as well.
But to do so effectively, he MUST develop a separate site for EACH of the conditions he treats.
Then he MUST create targeted marketing that directs the right prospects to each individual site.
As an example, he could run a pay-per-click campaign on Facebook with an ad that says… Sick and Tired of Your Child’s Belligerent Attitude?
Anyone clicking on that ad would be instantly transported to the “After” site where most (if not all) would request the doctor’s informational offer… mainly because of the value it promises, coupled with the fact it is NO RISK to the prospect (they don’t have to speak directly with anyone).
Then the psychologist could run a second Facebook ad that said… Child Being Bullied – Here’s What All Parents Should Know!… and then those parents will be directed to the psychologist’s “bullying” site.
Now answer this question… how many child psychologist’s are currently doing anything like this?
Simple answer… NONE! ZERO! NADA! ZIPPO!
THIS is the great opportunity that is being handed to you right now!
99.9% of business owners have NO clue that this is the key to effective marketing, and now YOU have the knowledge to implement this in your business… and if you do, you will begin to dominate your market.
But there is a reason WHY this works this way, and next week I’ll share that secret with you!
Until then, be successful!
Paul Duncan
Marketing and Lead Generation Strategist
Author of “Dominate Your Market “
P: 0433440881
E: Paul@paulduncan.com.au
www.paulduncan.com.au
P.S. My earlier offer to jump on the phone with you and perform a complete evaluation of your marketing and your business is still available.
It’s 100% free and I promise it doesn’t come with any type of sales pitch.
Using the Conversion Equation, I can show you exactly what to do with your marketing collateral that could double or triple the number of prospects who respond to your marketing.
And if you don’t presently have any marketing to evaluate, I’ll show you what will work for your business.
Just click here and complete the short evaluation request form.
DOWN-SELL for EXTRA SALES
We’re all familiar with upselling and cross-selling. The downsell is where someone has declined your product or service offer (sometimes by simply clicking the close button on your web page) and you offer them an alternative product at a lower price (which you should ALWAYS do).
The advantage of a downsell is that even if a customer doesn’t buy the product you’d ideally like them to buy, they’re at least buying something. That means you get some return for your sales effort. And since they’re now a customer they will hopefully have a good experience with you and be much more likely to buy higher priced items in the future.
The problem with downsell is twofold.
- First, they can be annoying. If you’ve pondered over a purchase and decided not to buy, it can be rather annoying to be held up and made another offer. And it might even seem desperate.
- Secondly, they can encourage bad buying behavior in the future. If a customer comes to believe they will be made a “better offer” simply by saying no to the original offer, then they will always say no.
- In fact, I hate to say it, but I ALWAYS refuse to purchase online the first time I visit ANY site. I’ve discovered that in 90% of all cases, the moment I attempt to click off the page, I receive a better offer. If I don’t, I can always go back top the original offer and purchase it then.
To counter the annoyance issue you need to make the downsell relatively pain free. Some marketers might argue that if you’re going to lose a customer anyway, who cares about whether you annoy them. But in reality, they may still be potential customers in the future. They may also create bad publicity for you if they find your process for downselling annoying.
To avoid encouraging bad buying behavior, the downsell must not simply be a cheaper version of the original offer. It must be significantly different in some way which justifies the lower price… and it must also be perceived as offering value to the prospect.
For example, a common offer in internet marketing is a free DVD containing training material. A downsell could be a cheaper, downloadable version with no physical DVD.
Or it could be for less advanced training material that may be a better fit for the potential customer. A good way to decide what the downsell should be is to survey customers to find out why they didn’t buy your original offer. Ask them what their main objections were. Was it price? Was the offer too simple? Or too complex? Are they actually more interested in a different area? Once you know the main objection you can offer a downsell which addresses it.
DOWNSELLING APPLIED TO “PROFESSIONAL SERVICES”
In professional services such as a doctor, lawyer, accountant or consulting, we have the advantage of selling face to face – so there shouldn’t really be a mismatch between what the client is looking for and what we’re offering.
But no one is perfect. Sometimes we offer a service that’s more than the client was looking for. Sometimes it’s just not quite focused in the right area. Sometimes they realize they just don’t have the money to afford the service we’re offering. And sometimes they’re just not quite convinced we’re right for them – they haven’t seen us in action yet. In these cases a downsell can sometimes help.
For example, if you’ve been discussing a consulting project with a client, and they decide not to proceed at this time – perhaps a downsell to a training course in the same area for some of their team would get them to agree. After doing a brilliant job with the training course, the consulting project may get put back on the agenda.
Perhaps you’ve proposed a major lead-time reduction program across all the client’s major factories – and it felt like too much to them. You might be able to downsell to a pilot program in just one factory to get started.
WHEN TO DOWNSELL
A downsell is most appropriate when you realize a client is not going to buy what you’re currently offering. Don’t introduce it too early – it may be you just need to work through some objections to confirm the original sale.
But if you know a client is not buying, then a downsell can work. It’s best to visibly rewind the discussions. “John, it sounds like what I’m proposing doesn’t fit well with what you’re looking for. Do you mind if we backtrack a little and go back to some of the things you were saying about the problems you were having with your lead times?” Then rework the problem and solution and introduce the downsell.
A downsell can also be introduced later. For example: if you ran a campaign to sell a 10 day analysis project to a qualified list of companies, try contacting the ones who turned you down one week later and offer them a half day workshop you’re running on the subject. It could be they were hoping to work with you – but just weren’t yet convinced enough to justify the full 10 day project. A half day workshop is much easier to buy – and may give them the confidence to hire you for the big project… especially once they experience your talents and expertise first hand.
In this case you must be careful and have a logical reason why you’re proposing something new which you didn’t initially mention in your original proposal.
For example, “John, we’ve had a number of clients express an interest in a half-day workshop on lead time reduction. I know you felt it wasn’t the right time to start up the analysis work together – but would you like to attend the workshop to get a taste of the information?”
Creating downsells like this can reopen the dialogue with a client who may not have been ready to buy – but who may have been close. Certainly closer to buying than a completely unqualified lead that you might be working on instead.
KNOW YOUR MARGINS
Consider downselling once you know your true margins. In this situation, I always look at my gross margin. Gross margin only considers the cost of goods (what you have to pay to produce the product or service and deliver it) and any sales commissions that must be paid on the sale. It does NOT account for overhead or miscellaneous expenses, since those are typically already covered by the initial sale.
Think of a downsell as “found money.” Here’s an example. I had a client who helped prospects author their first book. He guided them in writing it, publishing it and marketing it. He sold this package of services for $5,000. He had an 80% margin, meaning that it cost him just $1,000 in hard costs to deliver this service. That leaves him with $4,000 in gross profit.
So what would happen if for every 5 prospects who express an interest in his service, he manages to close only one of them? He obviously makes $4,000. But what if he could downsell the remaining four prospects to a slightly smaller program, perhaps one where they would work with one of his coaches instead of with him personally?
They could acquire that program for half price… $2,500. And perhaps he could finance that over three months, or six months, or possibly one year. If three of them bought that program, and it still cost him the same $1,000 to deliver it, he just made an additional $4,500 with NO additional work or effort on his part.
NEVER BASTARDIZE YOUR PRICING
Be careful to never give the impression you’re discounting your price or service just to close a sale. Like it or not, word will spread like wildfire that you will cave on your price at the first sign of resistance.
In our example above, let’s say our client does NOT have a fallback program that can be offered at a lower price point.
Consider using what I refer to as a “Scholarship” or “Hardship” Program.
This client could tell each prospect that they sound serious about investing their time, effort and energy into writing and publishing their first book, but they’re experiencing some financial challenges right now due to their specific situation. They could go on to explain that they have set up a “Hardship” Program where up to three participants are granted a special pricing waiver each month… and that to date, they have only used one of these waivers so far that month.
They could then set specific terms and conditions for this prospect to agree to (perhaps document their success, provide a testimonial, send three referrals within six months, etc) and if everything sounds acceptable, they would be granted the second waiver and allowed to receive the full service program for a 50% discount.
This maintains the integrity of the original program price, and yet provides a logical reason for your willingness to discount. It also limits the number of discounts you need to account for every month if others find out about it and inquire further. In short, it keeps you in total control of your pricing.
As long as you have the margins to more than cover the discount, then this becomes additional profit to your business. In this example, the profit would be an additional $1,500 for each Hardship Program awarded, and if you granted three of them every month, that’s an additional $54,000 in annual profit that would have otherwise been lost.
Every smart business owner will always have a series of downsells ready to use, and the specific times and conditions identified when it’s best to offer them. Just be sure you’re not downselling for pure profit only. The downsell MUST still meet the needs of the prospect, or you risk losing your reputation and integrity.
Paul Duncan
Marketing and Lead Generation Strategist
Author of “Dominate Your Market “
P: 0433440881
E: Paul@paulduncan.com.au
www.paulduncan.com.au
6 Reasons Why You Need To Hire A Business Coach
If you’re feeling burned out or stuck with your work in terms of career advancement, or maybe your business is stuck somewhere and don’t know how to improve your journey, hiring a business coach can help you gain traction and have a better understanding of yourself.
By running your business, problem-solving is part of the traits and things that you do on a daily basis. You are faced with numerous problems that you have to solve to ensure that your business gets better and performs better. Take note though, that even if you’re doing this on a regular basis means that you don’t need a bit of advice. In fact, it pays to have a bit of help from someone to give you a new approach, a new perspective and a fresh set of ideas.
This is where a business coach enters the scene. They don’t just coach you related to business aspects, but they also help you become the best version of yourself to bring out the best version of your business as well.
Whether you’re planning on expanding your business, improving some of your recruitment processes, or simply wanted to improve the long-term goals and plans of your business, hiring a coach plays a crucial role. They are the ones who specialize in these areas of expertise and can genuinely and significantly help you grow your business. While we know that all of these are overwhelming, here are some of the benefits that you can expect when hiring one. Take these points to help you better understand whether a business coach is worth investing your money and time as well.
1. They Are Active Listeners
This is one of the most notable benefits of hiring a business coach. They are active listeners – they show that they are interested in whatever you’re about to say and they would also offer feedback in return. They pay attention to whatever you’re saying, whether these are problems in your HR department or some walls that you’ve hit while you’re running your business. Business coaches have been trained to actively listen and helpfully and positively respond to your concerns.
2. They Are Objective
Unlike your family and friends, who are most often involved in your life, a coach isn’t. They have a way of seeing things that you or a loved one may see differently. Their objectivity is one of the assets of a business coach and this is where you can get honest suggestions and feedback from them.
Sometimes it can be tempting to work with a family friend or relative who is a business coach, but this isn’t always a great idea. Abhiraj Singh has had experience with this before and recommends to “find a business coach whom you have no personal connection with. Using a family member or friend as a business coach will make it difficult to separate business from personal relationships, and can lead to arguments and tension.”
3. You’ll Learn Lessons
Depending on your struggles and goals, your business coach may also assign some “tasks” or homework to you. These tasks let you look at your life and business differently. Some will ask you to write these in a journal, some may require you to list down your goals, network with other people, interview other people, or even ask you to read more and research more about a certain topic. It’s not a one size fits all so what your tasks will depend on your situation. As you go along the way, you’ll learn a thing or two (or even more) from these tasks which will help you grow as a business owner. Take note though that when you’re given a task, you need to take time to do it and reflect on it as this is a crucial step in helping your business grow.
A business coach is there to assist you, but they simply can’t do it if you don’t cooperate with them and do what they’re asking of you. E-Commerce business owner Gurkan Gurgur recommends that “when you first meet with your business coach, identify what kind of work they will require from you and how much time it should take. Schedule an appropriate amount of time each week to work on implementing the coaches recommendations without being tempted to do other activities.”
4. They Will Guide You
Since you’re at the top of your business, guidance is often something that we don’t get as business owners, which is why we need someone like a business coach to guide us through the process. When working with a coach, it is important that you learn to trust their judgment and observations and follow their suggestions. Most often than not, the situations we’re in may appear blurry for us, clouding our judgment and decision-making process. This is where a business coach can help you as they usually see things that we don’t as a business owner.
5. They Are Knowledgeable
One of the things that you’re paying for when hiring a business coach is their knowledge and expertise in the field. They are up to date on the latest trends, research, and strategies that work in the field. You’re paying to access that knowledge base through your coach, and they will help you apply what they know to your business.
They can also tell you where to focus your energy. Business owner Mark Douglas says it’s essential to prioritise income-producing activities. “I introduce and focus on the services that produce a greater profit for my business. As a result, we get the cash flow required to continue offering the services that we loved but weren’t necessarily making me the most money.”.
6. They Provide Helpful Insights
A business coach can provide helpful insights as a result of actively listening and observing your activities and methods at work. These insights may also include your behavior, and others as well, which will help you carry on with your business process. Most often than not, they can help you take down that brick wall that’s stopping you from growing as a business. Even after your coaching relationship ends, they are the ones that you can always carry with you and even work with in the future.
We don’t consider business coaching as a therapeutic process, but rather a professional journey that helps you unlock your potential as a business owner by giving you a better self-understanding and letting you perform actions based on the results. With the right business coach, you’ll find yourself doing better as a business owner, where you see your business grow as its cores are strengthened and as your creativity keeps flowing.
As a matter of fact, hiring a business coach is often-times referred to as a life-changing moment in your business.
Paul Duncan
Marketing and Lead Generation Strategist
Author of “Dominate Your Market “
P: 0433440881
E: Paul@paulduncan.com.au
www.paulduncan.com.au
3 Marketing and Lead Generation tips to Dominate Your Market
1. Define Your Target Market
Many businesses can’t answer the question: Who is your target market? They have often made the fatal assumption that everyone will want to purchase their product or service with the right marketing strategy.
A target market is simply the group of customers or clients who will purchase a specific product or service. These groups of people all have something in common, often age, gender, hobbies, or location.
Your target market, then, are the people who will buy your product or service. This includes both existing and potential customers, all of whom are motivated to do one of three things:
• Fulfill a need
• Solve a problem
• Satisfy a desire
To build, maintain, and grow your business, you need to know who your customers are, what they do, what they like, and why they would buy your product or service. Getting this wrong – or not taking the time to get it right – will cost you time, money, and potentially the success of your business.
2. Never compete on PRICE only VALUE
Most business owners compete on price and wonder why they are not making a profit at the end of the day. This is due to business owners not knowing the fundamentals of marketing –how –What-Where –Who – Most Business owners DON’T know the lead generation secrets I’m about to reveal to you. This information is so powerful and compelling; it will position you in the top 4% of all business owners that don’t compete on price today. This example will show you why every small business owner should acquire a step-by-step roadmap as they start to generate leads for their business.
Here’s what a true marketing professional will know… and help you implement into your marketing. It’s known as the “Conversion Equation.” This conversion equation will make sure you NEVER have to compete on price. Instead, you will start selling your product or service for what it’s really worth.
You’ll drive in more leads and increase your advertising response by 10 to more than 100 times. You will convert a higher percentage of those leads and dramatically increase your number of sales. You will get a bigger bang for your marketing buck. The bottom line is this… you will literally create a profit bucket that you will have TOTAL control over.
Interrupt
You must get your qualified prospect to pay attention to your lead generation marketing. Simple enough to say, but a lot more difficult to pull off in real life unless you understand what you’re about to learn here. The interrupt is done through your headline if your marketing is in print… or it’s
the first thing you say if you’re marketing at a networking event.
Engage.
Once your prospect is interrupted, it’s critical we give your reader the promise that information is forthcoming that will help the prospect make the best buying decision possible. In other words, it must help facilitate their decision to pick you over anyone else. This is the job of our subhead line.
The interrupt is our headline that highlights a specific problem that your prospects are looking for a solution to… and the engage is our subhead line that promises them that you offer a solution to the problem we mentioned in our headline.
Educate.
Once we’ve interrupted and engaged your prospect, we have to give information that allows them to logically understand how and why you solve the problem they’re facing. This is accomplished by giving detailed, quantifiable, specific and revealing information. This is typically done in the
body copy of your ad. When we educate, we need to reveal to your prospects the important and relevant information they need to know when making a good decision, and that your business… and yours alone… provides it to them. The interrupt and engage hit the prospects emotional hot buttons.
Educate is the logic they need to justify picking up the phone and calling you.
Offer.
Now that we’ve interrupted your prospect based on problems that are important to them… engaged by a promise of the solution… and they’ve examined the educational information that makes your solution real and believable… the last step we need to take is to give them a low risk way to take the next step in your sales process. We do this by offering a free marketing tool, such as a report, brochure, seminar, audio, video or something that will continue to educate them. Your offer will allow your prospect to feel in control of their final decision to call and buy from you.
So our conversion equation is Interrupt, Engage, Educate and Offer and together they equal market domination.
3. Strengthen Your Marketing Message
The strength of your marketing message lies in its ability to speak to the specific wants and desires of your target market, and tap into their emotional reactions, or hot buttons.
When you push those hot buttons, you motivate your audience to take action. The more people you can motivate to take action, the more leads you’ll have in store and on the other end of the phone line.
A marketing message is simply a statement or phrase that you use to communicate information about your business to others. A strong marketing message will do four things:
- Speak to the reader’s needs, wants or problems (hot buttons)
- Offer a solution, advantage or benefit
- Describe a point of difference
- Motivate the reader to take action
The key here is to motivate your target audience to do something after they read or hear the message. It needs to be strong enough to entice the audience to ask for more information, visit the website, pick up the phone or walk in the store.
You should put your marketing message on every piece of marketing material your business uses for lead generation, so it has to be powerful and consistent and speak to the group of people that you have identified as your ideal customers. Strengthening your marketing message has the potential to dramatically increase your lead generation before you even change your existing strategies.
Work through the following questions to brainstorm and record the aspects of your business that you will communicate in your marketing message
- Use all the information you gathered about your target market to figure out what your customer’s hot buttons are.
- Describe the value or benefit that your product or service offers your customers.
- Think about the outcome of the value or solution that you provide.
- What is your company’s point of difference? Your U.S.P? What makes you stand out from the competition?
- 6. Based on the notes you wrote in response to the above questions, summarize the information into a paragraph of 4 to 5 sentences.
Paul Duncan
Marketing and Lead Generation Strategist
Author of “Dominate Your Market “
P: 0433440881
E: Paul@paulduncan.com.au
www.paulduncan.com.au
