• Define your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
• Put an effective sales offer to work
• Avoid the marketing pitfalls
• Use a world-class marketing perspective
• Get results!

1. Put together a headline that gets immediate attention.  Remember to use something familiar, unusual or problematic to your intended audience.
2. Share benefits of your products/services speaking from the customers’ perspective.
3. Identify the specific needs your products/services fulfill.
4. Make it easy to do business with you by offering guarantees, testimonials, samples, etc.
5. Share your specific sales proposition.
6. Walk your customers/clients through how they should respond and act.  Remember, you may need to explain to them the next step they need to take in your process.
7. Motivate with a call to action.  Keep in mind you want to sell the next step in your sales process harder than the end result.  You need to nurture great clients by bringing them through your sales process.

• Ignore market testing and push on with an inaccurate plan.  This is a sure fire way to waste marketing dollars and lose long term clients/customers.
• Offer an incomplete case, or reasons, throughout their marketing plan.
• Fail to notice the needs of their prospective customers/clients.  Make sure you are hitting their hot buttons.
• Fail to diversify their marketing options.  Don’t put all your eggs in one marketing basket.
• Fail to get market opinions on their offers.  I call this reading the label from the inside of the bottle.  Our views are biased about our products and services, so take the time to get outside objective views of your product/service.

1. Keep a marketing journal and scribble down anything innovative that you see.
2. Keep encouraging your marketing department, or yourself, to try new things and dump the ones that aren’t working.
3. Order from your own company under a different name and analyze the process of ordering, shipping, online store, customer service and the product itself. This will show you where the areas for improvement are in the customer experience.  You can also hire a temp to be a secret shopper of your product/service.
4. Read every quality ad you can find and keep a file for future ideas to consider.
5. When out in public, watch how consumers behave in different situations and how they consider their purchases.
6. Step down a notch or two and work on the front lines with your sales and customer service staff.  Also read the reviews about your company online.  You can order an online reputation report for FREE at Influence Engine Report.
7. Continuously acknowledge your staff, vendors and customers. Everyone works and shops better when they feel appreciated.
8. Always listen to feedback from employees and customers.
9. Continuously test markets, ads, and marketing techniques. This is the only way to stay successful and know what’s working and, more importantly, what’s not.
10. Offer more information in your marketing than anyone else. The more information you offer, the more products/services you’ll sell.  Don’t fall into the “White Space” Trap from advertisers.
11. A great marketing plan can only get better. Continue to fine tune and refine your marketing plan based on testing results and feedback.
12. Be classy in your marketing. Make sure your marketing and advertising fits your company image, products/service and quality.  Don’t get mad that someone opts out of your contact database.  They are not your target audience and you don’t want to spam people who are not receiving benefit from your marketing.
13. Improve your best marketing areas and drop those that aren’t working.
14. Focus on what you say, not how you say it. The best marketing ideas turn into the best marketing naturally.
15. Develop all your ads, campaigns and sales materials with an attention to compelling and factual information.

• Providing quality products/services
• Providing high quality customer service
• Providing a low-pressure, highly informative sales experience
• Taking all the risk away with a great guarantee

• Build your database with a contest.
• Do regular mailings with sales, discounts, or other incentives.
• Find other creative ways to keep your current customers coming back for more.

“As long as the reward is directly related to your product or service, you can’t lose. Why not get started today? It’s so simple, it’s so seldom done, and it’s so profitable. And that’s the bottom line.” Jay Abraham

The people you work directly with on your products and services are really the ones with the most to gain when you find success. By taking the time to get to know them, you’ll find a whole host of opportunities you didn’t realize were there.

Look for great ways to offer your vendors rewards for helping grow your business and everyone wins. Here are two ways you can do this is by offering performance based incentives that are compelling to your vendor. Not every vendor can or will accept rewards for your performance and that’s okay.  You can still find ways to show your appreciation to them for helping you become successful.

Here’s the step-by-step process to putting together a non-monetary based partnership with a vendor:

1. Approach all the vendors you work with and find out if they can or will accept incentives based on your company’s performance.
2. Those that will accept incentives jump to the next process below.  Those that won’t or can’t find out what makes them successful in their own role/company.  E.g. maybe they are measured by the volume of product they move through your company, etc.
3. Work out how many more clients/customers/patients you need in order to have them achieve the next level of performance in their current role/company and ask them to “help” you achieve that goal so that you can help them achieve their next volume level.  (NOTE:  People love to help people when asked, so don’t be afraid to ask them to help you.  Try it, walk up to the next person you pass and ask them “Will you help me?” and watch and see if they immediately reply with, “sure, how can I help?” or something similar to that.)
4. Develop a clear, concise and easy to track goal, this will increase motivation especially when you approach the goal. (Think of the big thermometer goal for a fund raiser and how that motivates people whether it is low or high).
5. Encourage subsequent sales instead of focusing only on the initial sale. By doing this you can get closer to your goal without spending more money on marketing efforts to obtain brand new clients. Encourage:

• Future sales
• Upsell better and more profitable products/services
• Educate the vendor on your entire product line of offers
• Cross-sell to additional products

Here’s the step-by-step process to putting together an incentive based partnership with a vendor:

1. Approach all the vendors you work with and offer an incentive based on performance.
2. Put the generous incentive plan together from their perspective, even take suggestions.
3. Develop a clear, concise and easy to track incentive plan, this will increase competition between vendors and therefore higher performance levels.
4. Encourage subsequent sales instead of focusing only on the initial sale. By doing this you can give away more of the profit from the initial sale to your vendors and make higher profits off the back end products. Encourage:
   • Future sales
   • Upsell better and more profitable products/services
   • Cross-sell to additional products
5. Create an incentive plan that’s irresistible to your vendors by offering generous, exclusive compensation.

Think of all the vendors you work with and the creative ways you can put together an incentive plan that entices them to be part of your business. Use their talents, capabilities and connections and you’ll both be winners.

Putting together an incentive plan doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Use our FREE test drive to come up with some great ideas and put your incentive plan together for maximum results.

Schedule a private 30 minute complementary Brainstorming call to find out how to implement new strategies in your business.

Last Week’s radio shows were:  Dr. Dorothy Martin-Neville discussing “Growth and Change in Business and in Life” and on Saturday I had an “Open Mic” show where I answered many marketing, sales and time management issues.

This week’s Shows are:  Jenna Henderson on Thursday discussing “Niche Marketing” and on Saturday we’ll discuss “Lean Principles in Management” with Jonathan Schultz.

• Inviting
• Informative
• Enjoyable

The biggest fear of most new customers/patients is the dreaded buyer’s remorse. You can avoid or mitigate buyer’s remorse if you’ve provided a quality product/service that delivers on the marketing claims you’ve made.

However, this may still occur regardless of your efforts. There are two ways to deal with this:

• Offer to refund money-no questions asked – better to satisfy their expectations rather than have a disgruntled customer talking about you
• Offer a bonus they can keep even if they return the product – you see this offer on many TV commercials

These offers alone will also mitigate buyer’s remorse because the customer will trust you more, just for offering these things.

There are a number of other ways to turn a prospect into a customer:

1. Offer a special price as an opportunity for you to test the market.
2. Offer a lower price with the reason of pushing inventory to pay a tax bill, for your kid’s’ braces, or another tangible reason. Customers love that this makes you feel so much more human.  Don’t make stuff up though because your good will can be just as negative if you are caught making stuff up.
3. Offer a referral incentive.  You will see this strategy with time share sales.
4. Offer a smaller, more inexpensive product first to build trust.  Lower the risk of doing business with you so they can create a relationship to build trust with.
5. Offer package deals.  Add high value items to the package that don’t cost you much.
6. Offer to charge less for their first purchase if they become a repeat customer.
7. Offer extra incentives-longer warranties, free bonuses if ordered by a set date.  This creates some urgency and may tip them over the edge if they are unsure.
8. Offer financing options, if applicable.  Another strategy to lower the risk of doing business with you.
9. Offer a bonus if they pay in full.
10. Offer special packaging or delivery.
11. Offer “name your own price” incentives.
12. Offer comparative data or other comparison tools.
13. Offer a trade-up or upgrade to something they already have.
14. Offer additional, educational information to help them make the decision.

The options really are as limitless as you make it. You can use these or other ideas to find what works the best for your business, products/service and target market. Remember this…

“By making it inviting, easy, informative, non-threatening, educational, inspiring and fun to do business with you, you’ll loft your company above the competition.” Jay Abraham

Need help with figuring out the best strategy for converting prospects into customers? Our FREE test drive gives you exclusive access to the mountain of resources and tools, along with information from some of the greatest marketing minds on Earth.

You can schedule a “No-Obligation” personal consultation with Roger at no charge by using this link to coordinate with his online calendar.  Business Breakthrough and Strategy Call

Listen to the Show by clicking the play button below:

For private or teleseminar trainings, send an email to info@idahobusinesscoach.com

Schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger to discuss your  plans, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1

Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check
For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges

Another business took a step closer to failing yesterday and the sad thing is that they didn’t move an inch.  That is the problem, though.  Too many business owners are allowing fear to control their actions and all too often that fear is to recede into a proverbial turtle shell and do nothing.  Now is not the time to develop atrophe for your business.  Now is the time to get active and “SELL” your product or service.  Remember, when your competition goes out of business, if you are not actively seeking those stranded customers they will go to another competitor instead of you.

1. Registering for the big three, and how to use Twitter
2. All about Facebook (Focus is on the business apps not on the social side)
3. Linked IN, How to strengthen existing relationships and develop new markets
4. Aggregators, how to centralize your social media to save time and effort
5. Advanced Tips and Tricks in Twitter, Facebook and Linked IN.

For private or teleseminar trainings, send an email to info@idahobusinesscoach.com 

 To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger to discuss your  plans, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1       

Other resources are:
Growth Club
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them       

Roger Hawk Business Coach

Hawk's Eye on Business

Last night I had an interesting discussion with my MasterMind Group where the topic for one member was on direct mail marketing and how to make it effective.  There are a number of areas that need to be addressed when considering a direct mail marketing campaign.   

Here are the items that need to be addressed:  

1. Target Market:  Before you write your sales letter, you must first understand specifically who you are writing the letter to.  Do not scrimp on this issue.  The more specific the target market the better the mail piece can relate to that market.  If your target is too broad, your mail piece will be too general and when your market reads the letter, it will not hit any hot buttons or the hot buttons will not appeal as strongly to the reader, giving them no reason to take action on your mail piece.
2. Write an effective Marketing Piece:  I use the IEEO method taught to me by one of my coaches for Writing Ads, Flyers and Emails that Sell.  The acronym stands for Interrupt, Engage, Educate and Offer.  I have a complete module on my products page that explains how to construct effective print marketing pieces where I provide you with all the tools to construct your effective piece using both IEEO and the AIDA methods.  AIDA is Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. 
3. When to mail the letter and how many:  When to mail your marketing piece will depend on how long it takes your postal service to deliver the piece.  More important than when to mail the piece is when you want it to arrive at the target’s desk.  The best results are when the piece hits the target market’s desk on Tuesday or Wednesday.  This is because on Monday’s the target’s are usually putting out fires that sprung up on the weekend.  Thursday’s don’t give you enough time to follow up the mail piece before the weekend.  Friday’s are about preparing for the weekend for your targets. 
4. Following up the mail piece:  Studies show that mail pieces get between .5% to 2% response rates.  So for every 200 mail pieces, you can expect 1 to 4 responses from it.  By following up the mail piece with a phone call, you can increase those responses by 200-300%.  So now you can have between 2 to 12 responses to your mail piece.  This is because those people who thought your mail piece carried some merit but got side tracked can be brought back to the topic when you call.  Other’s may not have understood what you wrote or may not have been able to understand the benefits to them of your offer.  Therefore, never mail more pieces out than what you can follow up on with a phone call before the weekend.
5. Test and Measure Everything:  Test small samples of different headlines, offers, and benefits in your mail piece and record the results.  Keep track of demographics, responses, etc.  When you find a mail piece that works in a specific demographic then you can blow it up into a larger campaign.  One of the single biggest mistakes is that a business will mail 5,000 pieces out and get not one response and then complain about how direct mail doesn’t work.  No follow up, no testing to find a piece that worked, no clue about what they are doing.  If you are going to throw money away doing this type of marketing I have an address for you to send your check to, mine.  Sending me your money will have the same effect as not testing and measuring.

Things to consider for your mail piece are:  

1. Be specific with the benefits of your offer to your target.  Too many mail pieces are heavy on features of the business, the service or the product and not on what the benefit is to the customer.  Don’t make this mistake as it will be the most costly mistake in direct mail you will ever make.
2. Include some item that makes the letter stand out to your target.  If you are a CPA, put a couple of $$$ sign confetti in the letter, or if you are a landscaper include a couple of magic bean seeds in the letter.  The reason you want to do this is so that when you call, you can say “I’m calling about a letter I sent you (today or yesterday), the one with the magic bean seeds in it.  Do you remember receiving that letter?”  Now the conversation is started.
3. Sell the next step harder than the end result.  In your mail piece, be very clear what result you want out of the letter.  For instance, a consumer can not buy a washing machine as a result of your mail piece.  They have to come to the store.  Some people can buy directly off of a mail piece but you probably have to have a trust relationship built if your product is a high dollar item.  In this case, you might want them to take a smaller step in your sales process by downloading a money magnet from your website.  Money Magnets are low risk items that potential customers can download from your website to get introduced to you, your service or product.  For more information on money magnets, visit my products page.
4. Ensure that your marketing pieces are always promoting your Unique Selling Proposition  (USP).  By promoting what makes you unique, you take your competitors out of the equation.  This allows you to charge a premium for your service or product as opposed to constantly cutting your margins and competing on price.

  To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger to discuss your  plans, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1      

Other resources are:
Growth Club
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them      

Roger Hawk Business Coach

       Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.        

    Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check     
    For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges                     

 _________________________________________________________________      
 Material on this web site is copyright © Roger Hawk and R J Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved

Hawk's Eye On Business

Roger’s guest this week is Dave Peaslee of Visual Lounge Media.  Dave and Roger talk about marketing your business through web sites, direct mail, and various other campaigns.  One caller asks why a person would want to buy a web site when everything he wants to do can be done through eBay stores.  Another caller asks how to protect an online business that keeps having server crashes.

Hawk’s Eye On Business

I am often asked, “why should I use social media in my business and how much time should I spend using it daily?”  To answer this question, we first have to have a plan for what you want your social media presence to accomplish for your business.  The major objectives for social media in business are: 

1. Deepen relationships with suppliers, customers, clients and business associates.
2. Create new relationships with potential suppliers, customers, clients and business associates
3. Find new markets and new outlets for products and services
4. Establish your expertise, brand,  awareness and/or increase your sphere of influence in the market place.

By defining what your objectives are you can quickly define what you want to accomplish while investing your time in the social media outlet of your choice.  To establish which social media outlet to use, you must first understand where each is viewed on the Business – Social scale.  The big three social media outlets and where they fall are: 

1. Linked In - Viewed as mostly business
2. Facebook – Fairly balanced between being social and business
3. Twitter – More social than business

Linked In has built some great tools over the last year into their service but could still bolster their interactive capabilities that would allow for more conversations between connected people.  Facebook has built many tools into their offering for business which are very powerful but they keep changing the interface, look and feel, etc, which confuses and frustrates their users.  Twitter has not changed much and allows individuals to post up to 140 character status updates.  Many individuals are viewing Titter now as a spam outlet for online marketers who push their products without regards to their audience.  

Determine what you want to accomplish on social media, set aside an appropriate amount of time to engage in the conversations, For help determining an appropriate amount of time for social media setup a 1/2 hour conversation with me by using the link below. 

Other resources to this issue are:
Managing your Cash Flow
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Business Calculators
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them
 To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1        

Roger Hawk Business Coach

 Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.  

    Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check     
    For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges               

Hawk's Eye On Business

Today, from noon to 2pm we are holding a “Grow Your Profits” seminar at Stevens Henager College.  Corey Smith of Tribute Media, Martha Sandifer of Martha Sandifer CPA, and me, Roger Hawk of ActionCOACH will be sharing tips, tricks and actionable strategies with local business owners and executives.  Areas where we will focus: 

• • What are the 5 ways to grow my profits?
  • How can I easily grow my profits by more than 60%?
  • What tools can I use to measure how well I am doing?
  • How could my beliefs about marketing be hurting me?
  • How to balance the need to pay less taxes with the need to appear healthy to investors?

There will be an additional offering of this seminar tomorrow from 5pm to 7pm at the Ground Floor in downtown Meridian, ID.  More information on this seminar is available at http://actioncoach.com/rogerhawk/promo/growprofits.

Other resources to this issue are:
Managing your Cash Flow
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Business Calculators
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them
  

To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1       

Roger Hawk Business Coach

       Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.   

    Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check     
    For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges              

Hawk's Eye On Business

     Yesterday we talked about setting the price on your product.  Today we talk about discounting the prices once you have set your price.  Before setting your “sale” price we need to understand what affect to the bottom line the discount will have. 

     The first step is to know your true margin on the product.  Without knowing this, you could be “Sale”-ing your way to bankruptcy. Let’s say your net profit margin is 20%.  The question is how much more product would you have to sell in order to make up for the discount in net profits?  You need to sell 100% more product because the 10% discount will come straight out of profit cutting your net margin down to10%.  

    Doulbling your sales is not enough, though because doubling the sales will only have you breaking even with the sale.  This is like saying you have to work twice as hard for the same amount of pay. 

     On the other hand, if you raise your prices 10% what impact would it really have on your business? Well, your profit would go up to 30% on each unit of product.  You would have to lose 1/3 of your customers at 30% margin to drop back to the same amount of profit you are currently making.  This may even be highly advantageous to you if the bottom 10-20% of your clients are the trouble makers who pay slowly or constantly complain without reason.  

Other resources to this issue are:
Managing your Cash Flow
Is Your Pricing Sound by Sandy Kemp
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Business Calculators
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them
 

To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1    

Roger Hawk Business Coach

     Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.   

     Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check     
     For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges            

 _________________________________________________________________      
 Material on this web site is copyright © Roger Hawk and R J Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved