I had been standing there for five minutes, not very long in terms of history, but an eternity when waiting for a cup of coffee.  At first, I assumed that the barista must have been working on something in the back.  No big deal.  There was another person in the coffee shop who had gotten their order already, so somebody had to be there.

After a minute, I craned my neck to see if I could see through the kitchen window without breaking the customer/server barrier that is “the counter.”  I couldn’t see them back there, and there was no sound coming from the back, either.

I turned to the other satisfied customer, a grin on their face as they sipped their caramel latte. Envying them for their joy, I asked, “Do you know where the employee is?”

Not wanting to leave their zen-like state of enjoyment, the patron half-heartedly turned their head to the left (looking just at me) and then the right (which was actually just a wall) and said “Nope” and returned to their state of happiness.

“Well, did you see if they left?” I asked, but they were already zoned back in (or out or whatever it was they were doing).

I called to the back to see if they were just sitting there, maybe taking a break.  Nothing.  I was angry, but also concerned.  Maybe they had collapsed back there and passed out.  Caramel Dreamer over here wouldn’t have noticed and there was nobody else in the café.  I debated just jumping the counter and rushing through that metal door with the clear circle to rescue the fallen service provider.

As I contemplated this daring rescue maneuver, the barista walked in through the front door of the café.  “How long have you been waiting?” they asked, surprised that I was standing at the counter.

“Five minutes, I think” I said, relieved that I didn’t make a fool of myself trying to save the phantom helper back there. I was going to finally get some service.

“You should have come and got me, I was right outside,” he said with a hint of aggravation in his voice.

Infuriated didn’t begin to describe the anger that was welling up inside of me.  I wanted to storm out of the building.  To show this thoughtless worker what happens when you give poor or, in his case, nonexistent service.  The desire for coffee outweighed my anger, though, and I asked for a large cup with a scowl.  After receiving my coffee, the young barista hurried back out the front door to his friends at the outside table.

This story may sound familiar to you.  You may have experienced service like this at one point of another in your life.  Whether at a coffee shop, retail store, or in a business meeting, you may have been given poor customer service. While many would argue that getting bad service is a small thing, that there are far more important things to contemplate, how we treat each other is an important factor in how society works.  Without kindness and respect, society tends to become a less productive and enjoyable place.  That’s right, good customer service could be the one thing that keeps society from falling into chaos…maybe.

So, going back to the story, what customer service errors were performed?

1. Nobody was there:  This one is pretty obvious, but you can’t give good customer service if you don’t have somebody on campus.  If I had been a less than honest customer, I could have just filled up a cup of coffee and left without a word of admonishment.  For us honest customers, though, not having somebody there makes the company look unprepared and unprofessional.

2. He didn’t greet me:  When he did come into the store, the barista didn’t say “Hello, welcome to [insert business name]“.  There wasn’t a smiling face.  Instead, he was shocked that I was there.  Upset that he had to do his job.  This presented his business as one that isn’t expecting business and not worried about the customer.

3. He didn’t apologize for his mistake:  This might sound like I’m being a crybaby; but when someone makes a mistake, it’s good sense to expect them to apologize for the error. Instead, the barista acted as though it was my fault for not seeking him out, even though he wasn’t wearing his [Big Coffee Company Logo] apron while he sat with his friends outside.  For all I knew, he was just a guy in a black shirt and khaki pants.  Somehow, it was my job to know that he worked there and to relieve him of his duties of chatting so that he could serve me.

4. He didn’t learn from his mistake:  After helping me, the barista simply went right back outside to enjoy the afternoon with his buddies.  I only imagined how many others would be mis-helped, or un-helped, that day.  And so I left with my coffee, never to return.

So what are the remedies for our Barista’s behavior? And what can you do to make sure that you and your employees give great customer service?  Here’s a practical guide to great customer service:

1.  Be There:  Not just on campus (though that’s a start) but in position to help customers, too.  It may be that you need to be right at the door, somewhere on the sales floor, or behind the counter. It depends on the service or product you provide and the business that you run. The main thing is to be visible and to be ready to aid the customer when they enter into your space. (You have to be there in your mind, also.  Mental focus and readiness our important factors in providing great service).

If you only work with customers online or by phone, be “there” when someone inquires via email or phone call. That doesn’t mean you have to be available at all times of the night. Like a business, you can set hours and days of operation.  Just clearly state them on your website and/or advertisements.

2. Greet Them With A Smile:  No matter what you do, you need to look and sound like you are excited and happy to interact with your customers.  Saying “Hello” and “How Ya Doin’” are easy to do and go a long way, as well as saying “Welcome to [Your Business]“.  If you do this with a smile, that can take that greeting to the next level.  Happiness, like all emotions, is contagious.  More often than not, the prospect will smile back. Even if they don’t, they’ll know that you are happy to see them (and that’s always a plus).

If you work over phone or email you can still convey a smile and a warm greeting.  The inflection of your voice over the phone gives an indication of how you feel and whether you are smiling or frowning (try it).  Your emails and letters can indicate a warm or cold tone depending on the verbiage and personality you put into each message.

3. Apologize and Make It Right:  If you do make a mistake (and they happen to everyone), make sure that you apologize to the customer.  You’d be surprised how many service people act like the barista did towards me.  They pass the blame back to you because that’s how we act in other things.  We don’t want to be seen as being wrong, and we definitely don’t want to make our company look like it’s wrong.  But sometimes you will be, and even if your not (i.e. the customer is just being negative and looking for problems), just do this:

-Apologize for the error

-Ask how you can make it right

-Do it (make it right)

-Thank them for bringing it to your attention

-Write it down (so you don't do the next thing...)

4. Don’t Repeat Errors:  If you are constantly making the same mistakes, your business will start to suffer and customers will start to look elsewhere to do business (I do now for coffee).  The best way to prevent this is to write it down and analyze it.  If you write mistakes (and compliments) down and periodically go over the most common errors (and positives) in your business, you can learn how to not repeat errors (and to repeat positives).  By seeing common errors and positives on display (where only workers can see them) your employees will have it in their mind what they need to focus on during the day to make customer service better.

The previous ideas are not mind-exploding revelations.  They are things that many of us will be told and say “I totally agree with that”.  However, poor customer service still exists today and it can be prevented by implementing these four practical ideas about customer service.  If we will be present in body and mind when we interact with customers, be warm and friendly (even if you don’t want to be) when we interact with them, acknowledge and correct our errors, and record our actions (positive and negative) for company evaluations, we will improve our businesses and the experiences of our customers.

Do you have your own practical guide to customer service?  We would love to hear how you wow your customers.  Leave a comment an let us know.

Fortunately, at this year’s SuperConference, Dan revealed his five step formula for selling to those more successful prospects.  The steps are simple, but they can have a profound impact on how you sell and whether or not these high profile prospects will  buy from you.

1. Use Flattery

Simple. Right?  Compliment them.  Acknowledge what they do well.  Remind them of their successes.  Let them know that you know how great they are.  Everyone likes hearing others brag on and compliment  their successes – but only if the compliments are sincere.  So, before you jump on the flattery bandwagon, be sure you are sincere with your compliments and praises.

2. Honest Acknowledgement of the Situation

They know that they are bigger and more successful than you…so don’t beat around the bush, just get it out in the open.  Acknowledge to them that you know they are smarter, bigger, richer, more talented, more successful, and better looking than you.  Don’t stop there, though. Use this acknowledgement to lead them into step three.

3.  Smack Them in the Face

Make a big reveal, which will in turn position you as the person they need.  Often, you can accomplish this by asking a simple question to which you know they won’t have the answer – you know the answer, though, because you researched it before you showed up. Once you do this, move to step number four.

4.  Establish Authority

You’ve knocked them a little off balance, but, unlike a boxer in a title fight, you aren’t going to knock them to the canvas. Instead, help them recenter their balance by establishing yourself as the authority on the matter.  You do this buy providing them with a satisfactory answer to the question you asked in step three.  This displays your value to them while also nurturing dependence on you for the solution.  Next it’s time to apply a little sales pressure using….

5. Exclusivity

Find some way to offer exclusivity to them, IF they choose to do business with you.  It may be that you won’t do business with any of their direct competitors.  It may be that you will not take on any new clients while working with them.  It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you make them feel as if they are the only one!

Now here’s an example of how to apply all five steps:

(Flattery) Mrs. Prospect it’s a privilege to be with you today.  I wanted to congratulate you on such an amazing track record.  It’s not often a company is able to pull off 12 consecutive quarters of double digit growth, much less be able to do it in the middle of a recession. Prospect responds

(Flattery) I also wanted to personally thank you for all of the work you do for the American Heart Association.  From a very young age my father had heart problems, so I have had first hand experience in seeing how the contributions companies like yours have made directly changes lives. 

Prospect responds

(Flattery/Acknowledgement) I don’t see how you do it.  I mean you’ve got over 10,000 employees, 13 divisions, locations around the globe, and a family at home.  I just have myself and my assistant, and I often get completely overwhelmed from all the inquires we get.  When time permits, I’d love to pick your brain about your time management practices. 

Prospect responds – And you transition into your presentation with a question

(Smack in the Face) What percent of your current customers are referring business to your company? 

Prospect looks at marketing VP.

Marketing VP looks at Sales VP.

No one knows. 

(Establish Authority) I completely understand. You must have a million irons in the fire, and this metric is an easy one to ignore.  Ignoring this one metric is costing you at least $5 million a year in revenue, though.  Here’s how:  in your industry, one out of every ten customers will provide you with the name and pertinent contact information of a friend or family member when asked. 

You currently have 100,000 customers, and if we were only able to obtain industry norms, we should be able to generate 10,000 referrals in the next year.  I really believe that with your exceptions customer relations we can get almost double that number of referrals within 12 months.  Assuming we keep the same annual customer value of $500.00, that alone would generate $5 million in additional revenue next year. 

Prospect Responds (likely without showing much interest)

Not only do I believe we can increase revenues by $5 million in the next 12 months through referrals, but I’ve also identified 12 ways we can increase the annual value of each client.  So, with my strategies and techniques and your brilliant implementation, I believe that together we can increase revenue by $10 million next year alone. 

Prospect Responds

(Exclusivity) Here’s the way I work.  We’ve spent X hours doing research on your industry.  We’ve studied all your competitors, and we know their strengths and weaknesses.  When I take on a new client, which I don’t do very often, I offer them complete and total exclusivity.  That means that once we start working together, I will not even consider working with one of you competitors.  It’s just you and I.  Would you like to get started on the 15th or 25th of the month? 

Conclusion

Selling to those more successful than you doesn’t have to be complicated.  Actually, by using these five steps, it can become fairly easy.  Leave a comment below and let me know the most common objection you receive when selling your product or service.

What is Hardcore Selling?

Hardcore Selling is about taking away a persons free will and having them act in a way they habitually wouldn’t. 

Sound harsh? Manipulative? Cruel?  Actually, hardcore selling is the polar opposite of those things when you truly understand your prospects and customers.  People are inherently indecisive.  They can’t make a decision, and they rarely make the right decision.  Believe me.  I realize it seems a bit strange, but according a Gallop Poll 85% of Americans don’t believe they’ll have enough money to retire.  On average Americans don’t retire until around the age of 67 years old.  So why, after spending 40 some odd years working, don’t they save enough money to retire?

Simply, people rarely make the right decision. Most people inherently know they make poor decisions, which is why they don’t like making decisions.

Why Customers Can’t Make a Decision

Wife:  What do you want for dinner? 

Husband:  I don’t care.  What do you want?

Wife:  Do you want to go out for dinner?

Husband:  I don’t care. Do you want to go out for dinner?

Wife:  I don’t care.  I guess.  What type of food do you want?

Husband:  I don’t care.  What type do you want? 

Wife:  I don’t know.  What do you think about grabbing some Italian?

Husband:  Sure.  Italian sounds good.  Where do you want to go?

Wife:  I don’t care.  Where do you want to go?

Husband:  Doesn’t matter to me.  I’ll let you choose.

Wife:  How about Olive Garden? 

Husband:  Sounds good. 

Wife:  Okay, what time do you want to go?

Husband:  Umm, I don’t care.  What time would you like to go?

Wife:  I don’t care either.  How does 7:00 sound? 

Husband:  Sounds good. 

Sound familiar?  If not, listen to your friends and co-works talk while trying to make a decision.  This is not an uncommon conversation.  Actually, it’s commonplace.  Here’s why your prospects and customers can’t make a decision:

• Incapable – they don’t have the ability or knowledge required to make a decision
• Poor Value Judgement – When someone buys a new set of golf clubs rather than save for retirement, they are making a poor value judgement
• Cheap – they gravitate toward the lowest possible price
• Negligent – they just don’t make a decision
• Habitually Indecisive – most people are guilty of this.  They can’t make a decision easily. Ever.

What does this mean?  It means that you can’t trust your prospect or customer to make the right buying decision.  You, as the professional, have to be willing to do everything in your power to help them make the right decision – which may very well be purchasing your product or service.  You have to be willing to offer your product or service in the most compelling way possible; and if they don’t buy, you MUST be willing to followup.

What Customers/Prospects Do After You Offer Your Product or Service

Most people are mistaken about what happens once you offer their product to a prospect.  Most incorrectly assume that their prospect rushes out and buys from a lower priced competitor.  Actually, that rarely happens.  We assume this is the most common decision simply because it’s the most visible – meaning you see or hear that your prospect has purchased from your competitor.  Rarely do you hear or notice that your prospect hasn’t done anything or decided to wait another three months to make a decision.

You see, the two most common results for your customer after not buying from you is to either do nothing or simply delay their buying decision.  If you sincerely believe that your product or service will have a positive impact on the life of your prospect, their decision to wait or do nothing can’t be an acceptable decision for you. If you sincerely believe that your prospects lives would be better with your product, you owe it to your integrity to adamantly try and persuade them to at least buy from you competitor.

Let me give you an example to help illustrate this point:

You sell fire detection systems for homes, and today you have a scheduled appointment with John Doe.  John lives in an older, less affluent part of town.  You arrive on their door step at exactly 2:59 – and confidently knock on their door.

Mrs. Doe opens the door and you see three small children, one with a toothless grin that reminds you of your nephew.  As your ushered in to their living room, you spot Mr. Doe sitting in a well worn recliner.  He’s glued to the flat-screen television on the wall, intermittently shouting praises or frustrations at the players running up and down the court on the screen.  Only after a stern word from Mrs. Doe does he notice you’ve entered the room.

Something about the smell of the room reminds you of the local ballpark.  Your nose indicates traces of pizza, popcorn, and cotton candy.  As you’re making small talk, you notice the thread-bare sofa, the holes in the carpet, and small finger prints scattered across the walls.

Mr. Doe is quick to let you know that they have no intention of buy your fire detection system, and they are only interested in the free $25 pizza gift certificate they get for sitting through the presentation.  He quickly fills you in on their financial situation. He was laid off three months ago and hasn’t been able to find another job.  Little Tommy suffers from ADHD and his medications cost the family $100 a month more than they can afford.

The more he talks, the more unsure you feel about even attempting to sell them your $1,295 fire detection system.  After all, they can barely afford Tommy’s medications.  There are so many things that they need.  Christmas is only a couple of weeks around the corner; and if you sell them your fire detection system, you will certainly be taking away the children’s Christmas presents.

So, you decide to do what any kind-hearted, compassionate sales person would do. You don’t even attempt to close them at the end of your presentation.  You say your goodbyes, wish them well, hand them their pizza gift card, and quickly move on to your next presentation.

Just a few days before Christmas, you begrudgingly grab a copy of the newspaper to begin the daunting task of selecting a gift for you wife.   There,  right on the front page of the paper in bold font is the address reading Family of Five Killed in Horrific Fire.  As you scan the article, you can feel the blood drain from your face, and you get a queasy feeling in your stomach….it was the Doe’s.

Should you have pushed them to buy?  Should you have used every closing technique in the book?

You Have to Truly Believe

Do you truly believe in your product or service?  Does it bring value to your customers?  Does it make a difference in their lives?  Does it prevent them from suffering needlessly?  If not, you need to find a new product or service to sell. If your like us at Ugly Mug Marketing, though, you passionately believe in what you sell.

At Ugly Mug Marketing, if we don’t believe what we are selling will truly benefit a particular customer, we will refuse to let them buy from us.  If we know a new website will benefit a business and they don’t want to buy from us, we’ll provide them with a list of our competitors and encourage them to buy from them instead.  We believe in what we do…how about you?

Since first going online in 2000, Ryan has driven more than 1 BILLION clicks to his web properties and sold millions of dollars worth of products and services in over 300 niche markets.

Today Ryan privately consults with companies for EQUITY. That’s right, he’s so in demand that he can charge ‘nose bleed’ consulting rates and still take a piece of the company. Why? Because what he knows makes his partners MONEY and lots of it.

Ryan was one of the keynote speakers at Dan Kennedy’s SuperConference this year.  I was very familiar with who Ryan was thanks to my careful study of the internet product launches over the past 10 years.  No doubt about it, Ryan is an internet marketing guru, and when he speaks I listen.

What Ryan Deiss spoke about at the SuperConference completely shocked me!  Ryan is known for being a master internet marketer, so I was expecting to hear all the latest dos, don’ts, and newest internet marketing techniques.  Ryan only spent a few minutes talking about online marketing, though.  Instead, he spent most of his time talking about business growth…which was awesome.

Business is Simple

Ryan started his talk by saying, “business is simple…it’s just we like to make it seem difficult.  It’s simple, but not easy.”  He went on to explain that ALL businesses can really be boiled down to three core components:

1.  Traffic

2. Conversion

3.  Fulfillment

If you think about it, he’s exactly right.  No matter what business you’re in, everything you do fits into one of those three areas.  We sell websites.  If we don’t get traffic (to our website, to our inbox, and making our phone ring), we can’t sell a website.  If we can’t sell (convert) a website, we can’t build (fulfill) a website.

Sure we do lots of other things.  We have drip sequences with dozens of steps.  We spend countless hours designing and coding websites, we returned hundreds of emails and phone calls…but all of these things fall under all those three core components.

What was Ryan’s point?  Don’t complicate business for the sake of complicating it.  If you say business is difficult, it will be difficult for you.  Focus on making your business simple, and it will stay simple.

Spend More to Acquire Customers

Ryan echoed what Dan Kennedy shared the night before…you have to be in a position (and willing) to spend more to acquire a client than your competitors.  Doing this gives you huge leverage over you competitors.  It gives you the ability to stay in the fight longer for each customer.  It also forces you to:

• Think strategically about your business
• Discover ways to increase the lifetime value of each client
• Place more value on the relationship you have with each client
• Discover how to better serve and meet your clients’ needs

Understand the Market Cycle

All of business (and life) tends to be cyclical.  Trends tend to repeat themselves over and over throughout history.  Ryan did a great job of explaining that you have to be sure that you match the current market sentiment.  The example he gave was the recent decline in the prices, and numbers, of online product launches.

A couple of years ago it was very common to hear of a huge product launch happening every other month.  The products where typically $1,997.00, and the gurus would brag about how they sold out within only a few hours.  Well, today if you’ve been watching what’s happening on the internet you have probably noticed far fewer product launches, and typically much lower prices.

This reduction in the number and the prices is a reflection of the market sentiment.  The economy has slowed and people are far more skeptical of online product launches.  So it wouldn’t make sense for you to spend a bunch of energy and effort trying to launch an expensive product online.

If you want to know what will work now, take a look at what worked in the previous recessions.  What sold well in your market and industry?  How did people make buying decisions?  Why did people make buying decisions?

Give Them What They Want…Sell Them Other Stuff

If applied, this one principle could have a profound impact on your business.  What is it in your market that clients want?  For example, in our industry (web design) people want a website that helps them grow an existing business, or launch a new business.  What if we offered our website conversion and traffic generation system for free, and then sold them other stuff (like a new website design, social media management, an offline marketing campaign)?

How about in your market?  What do your customers want?  Is there a way that you can provide it to them at a better price, and with better service, than your competitors?  If you could, do you believe you could gain some quick traction and leverage in your market?

Ways to Increase the Lifetime Value of Your Clients

• Slack Adjusters – products and services you add on to existing products and services
• Speed and Automation – use systems to help decrease your cost of providing your product or service
• Supplements – additional products that may interest your market
• Done for You - provide premium “done for you” services for your clients
• Coaching - provide paid coaching to help your clients achieve results
• Continuity - Figure out ways to bring value to your clients on a regular basis
• Post-sell Followup - Follow up with clients after they buy – ask how you can further serve them.

Questions to Get You Started

• What is the lifetime value of my clients?
• What additional products or services can I offer them?
• What is the end result my clients are hoping to achieve when using my product or service?
• Why do my clients purchase from me instead of my competitors?
• How can I better serve my clients?
• What other similar markets would my products or services be of value to?

Conclusion

Many of us are sitting on a gold mine of potential revenue…it’s just waiting us to go and get it.  Getting it really isn’t very difficult.  It’s just a matter of figuring out how we can better serve our clients.  Stop worrying about revenue.  Stop overly complicating business.  Start serving.  Do exceptionally well…and everything else will take care of itself.

Leave a comment and let me know what one thing you can start doing today to better serve your customers.

So, you want a new website!?!  I’m thrilled for you!  Honestly, I am.  It’s a great venture that can lead to exceptional growth in your business.  I hope that after you read this, you consider contacting uglymugmarketing.com about the prospect and logistics of having a website.

But first, we need to have one of those one-on-one talks.  You know the type of talks I’m referring to, don’t you?  Yep, the kind of talks that makes you completely uncomfortable; but at some point in the future (weeks, months, or years later), you’ll be thankful for that conversation.

You see, after building over 60 websites during the past two years, we’ve seen our fair share of people approach us with eyes glazed over.  They have this grand illusion of how having a new website will suddenly catapult them toward success.

Many assume, because their website will have a global reach, their message or product will quickly spread virally.  All their friends and family tell them how wonderful their message and/or product is.  What most don’t realize is that their family and friends are just being kind.

However, the underlying issue isn’t about whether or not their message or product is great and worthy of sharing. The real issue is they don’t understand what a website actually is. What it is capable of doing. What it  can’t do.  You see….

A website is nothing more than a communication tool. 

If your message and/or product sucks, your website can only communicate that to the world.  If you’re message and/or product is truly amazing, a website can help you by allowing others to spread your message.

A website is no different than running television commercials.   All televisions commercials can do is broadcast your message out to viewers.  Just because you run television spots, it doesn’t mean that people will buy your product and/or message.  So, please first make sure your message and/or product are truly remarkable.  It’s the only hope you’ve got.

Getting a new website is a lot like getting a new car.  When you first lay eyes on your new car, you immediately fall in love.  It’s so clean and shiny.  It makes people stop and stare.  You can’t help but smile with pride and satisfaction.

Before you purchase your new car, you take it for a test drive. If you’re like most people, you notice two things:

1. The new car smell.
2. How quiet it is.

Although nothing’s changed about the car you’ve been driving the past five years, that “old” vehicle seems completely and totally unsatisfactory now.  It’s as if there is some mind-altering substance in that new car smell.

The exact same thing happens in the web world.  You look around, and discover your competitors website is new and shiny.  It makes you stop and stare.  It all makes sense now.  You’ve been struggling.  They’ve been thriving.   It’s because they have an amazing website…right?

I doubt it.  If that’s what you choose to believe, more power to you! Before you go, though, please allow me a few minutes on my soapbox.

New Car Expectations

Think back to the time when you purchased a new car.  You were so excited as you drove it off the lot.  You couldn’t wait to bring it by to show your friends, to watch their eyes fill with envy.  Despite all the new excitement, you had realistic expectations about your new ride.

It didn’t matter that the car only had 27 miles.  It didn’t matter that the car had all of the best safety features available.  It didn’t matter that car had a state of the art navigation system.  If you pulled out of the car lot and drove over a pile of nails, you knew you would get a flat tire. Yet you still signed the papers and bought the car.

Or even worse….

You could drive out of the car lot, and have some crazy old man run into the side of your shiny new car and total it.

Still, you were completely okay with this because you new that was just part of owning a car and things like this happen from time to time. In your mind, though, buying a new car was worth the risk, and you were prepared for these events because you carry insurance.

The same is true of a website.  You can buy a website with all the bells and whistles.  You can hire a former coder from the F.B.I. to help insure your website is as secure as Fort Knox.  You can have your website integrated with all the latest and greatest social media tools.   And….

Two Days After Your New Site Goes Live … It Could Crash

How could it crash?  Maybe it’s some crazy hacker somewhere wanting to add another site to their list of chaos.  Maybe you accidentally uploaded a file that was contaminated with a virus or malicious code.  Maybe the place you have your website parked (hosted) had an issue.

Where You Park Matters

So you proudly pull out of the car lot in your new ride, and you remember you need to stop by the grocery store and pick up a loaf of bread.  As you circle the parking lot, you spot a place right up by the front door, but the cars on either side are parked really close to the lines.  You make the wise decision to park at the very back of the parking lot and walk instead of taking the chance on someone dinging your new car with their door.

Your new website is a whole lot like a new car.  You have to be very careful about where you park (host) it. Making a hosting decision based on what is the quickest, cheapest, or the most convenient can lead to a nasty dent in your website.

Just because a hosting company has tons of ads, attractive celebrities, and really cheap prices doesn’t make them the best solution for hosting your website.  It simply means they are masters of marketing.  You need to give careful consideration when deciding where you’re going to host your website.

Here are a few things to consider:

What is their server up-time?

What large companies use their hosting services?

What type of customer support do they offer?

Are their hosting services scalable?  (As your traffic grows, do they have the ability to move your site to larger servers?)

Do they offer email hosting?

Here’s Why Where You Park Matters

Hosting your new website with one of the big discount hosting companies is like squeezing your new car between two others just to keep from walking an extra few hundred feet.  Sure you’ll save some time squeezing in the space, but there’s a really good chance you’ll come out of the store and discover a nice new dent.  This is exactly what happens when you host your website at one of the large discount website hosting companies.

More than likely you won’t need a fully dedicated server at this point, which can be fairly expensive.  You’ll most likely be able to find a really great company to host your website for around $20 – $40 per month.  Sure, that seems like a lot more than those $5.00 per month hosting specials you hear advertised, but it’s important to keep the monthly hosting price in perspective.  You likely just spent (or are about to spend) thousands of dollars on a new website, so don’t let trying to save a few extra dollars each month cause you a lot of grief.

The discount host companies place your website on what’s referred to as a shared server.  This means they put your website on a server with dozens, if not hundreds, of other websites. Crammed together like cows in a slaughter hauler.  Having multiple websites on one server isn’t the big issue, though.  What the other websites on the server are doing and how secure they are kept is the issue.

The hosting companies place partitions between each of the websites on the server, which usually prevent the other websites code from getting into your server space.  99% of the time there isn’t an issue even if files were to some how cross between these partitions.  However, it can occasionally happen, and this is often where it gets ugly.

What happens if you just spent thousands of dollars having your beautiful new website built, and now all of your website files are corrupted by malicious code from another website on your server?  Even if your website developer codes everything flawlessly and supplies you with good security precautions, these malicious files can quickly cause your website to disappear off the internet.  Whose fault is it?  I promise you that your website hosting company will not accept responsibility for this.

In this event, you’re left without a website, just a bunch of code that doesn’t work thanks to the malicious code.  What would you do if you found yourself in this situation?  What would you do if you were in a wreck in your new car and it wasn’t drivable? You would call your insurance company right?  After all, that’s why you pay them each month.

Sure, you would pay your deductible, but that would be much less than having to pay out of pocket to have your car repaired and made like new.

In the web world, commercial support is like auto insurance.  Commercial Support is what keeps you from having to worry about the worst-case scenarios.  Often, you can get protected from the unknown and unexpected for a small monthly fee.

Commercial Support for your website will likely vary in price based on the complexity of the code in your website.  The more complex the code (i.e. a custom ecommerce website) the more you’ll pay for commercial support.  This is based on the number of hours that would be required to correct any issues that may arise.

Maintenance Will Be Required

Could you image purchasing a new car, and then never expecting to fill it up with gas (or electricity), or never having to have the oil changed, or the tires rotated?  Of course not!  Maintenance is just part of owning a car.

Sure, if you wanted, you could skip getting your oil changed and save a little bit of money…but these savings would only be temporary.

You’ve Got To Change The Oil 

Your car needs oil to survive.  It lubricates the moving parts of the vehicle, inhibits corrosion, improves sealing along with several other things that keep the car alive.

Content is the oil of your website.  It is the lifeblood that keeps customers coming back and moving through your website.  It keeps your site from gradually corroding into an inefficient heap.  Without fresh content, your website will fall apart at the seams.  Updating content regularly will keep your website fresh, and it will keep customers coming back for more.  This can be done by simply providing updated information on your product(s), business, or the general information.

*Hint: Sometimes changing the placement of pictures and already existing items can be used as a stop-gap between content changes, but it should not be relied on heavily.

When the New Car Smell Wears Off/And Other Bad Things

The first time you have a cheeseburger (or southwester veggie wrap) in your car…or your second cousin asks you to haul a piece of antique furniture for her…or you put your under-5 year old child in the car seat.  These are just a few examples of when your car goes from having that “new car” smell to “just another” car smell.

What do you do to combat this?  You get air fresheners, take it to car cleaning/detail shops, and buy products that will keep it looking and smelling like when you drove it off the lot.  Still, it never returns to that initial luxury.

Your website is the same.  As you experience higher volume customers and you add and change content/files, chances are you will have glitches with your site.  It happens to everyone.  If you let it pile up like fast food bags on the floorboard or grime and dirt on the paint job, your website won’t be very attractive or desirable to others.  You can forget about how great your car runs. If it stinks inside, nobody is going to want to ride with you.

The same is true for your website.  You can have the best content on the web, but if people keep having trouble accessing it because you don’t maintain your website (or have someone maintain it for you), they’ll go find someone else to give their business.

A quality host will provide you this service of keeping your website glitch and problem free, and their are several web technicians that can be contacted for this same service.

Please make sure you’re asking the right questions when you talk to these people.  You shouldn’t be asking how many things can you do to prevent my site from messing up.  The wrong person could use that question to exploit you into fully “shampooing” your whole website when all you need is a change in one line of code.  Even an honest person might recommend services to you that you don’t really need because they have a bias towards them or they are being overly careful with your business.

The best approach is to ask “what can and will I do when [specific problem] happens?”  That will narrow the list of options down so you won’t feel overwhelmed with the decision, and they won’t feel pressured to offer you unnecessary services.

It’s Going To Go Out of Style 

In the end, all of the maintenance and care you put into your vehicle wont change the fact that it just won’t be cool one day.  Every few years, you see a dramatic change in the models of cars.  Car companies adapt them to the changes in the dynamics and culture of the marketplace.

Your website will go out of style, too.  Is it unfortunate? Inconvenient? Frustrating?  Yes.  Is it unforeseen? It shouldn’t be.  If you are keeping up with your clients and their interests, you should know when a change is needed.  If you’re really tapped in to the culture, you’ll be able to have a good idea of what it should look like.

Regardless, just like with a vehicle, you’ll need to trade in your old website for a new one eventually.  If you went with a good host and developer before, the changes should mostly be cosmetic. Remember, the main thing a good vehicle changes is the body design.  A car company will update a quality engine design very rarely*. If you have a quality website provider, you should only be making surface level changes that appeal to your customers and their changing preferences.

*Ford used the same style of V8 engine in the Mustang for the first 30 years of its manufacture.  This was after 3 full generations of design changes and multiple different body kits were implemented.

And, if you are considering getting a new website, check us out.  We can help guide you through the process of determining what web solution is right for you.

At the Super Conference there were over 15 speakers who covered a wide variety of topics, though all of the topics dealt with how to leverage where you are and what you have into success.  It was great to hear what others are doing, and to learn what’s working and what isn’t working for them.  Dan Kennedy kicked off the conference with a talk on his Magic Bullets for Business Success, so I’ll kick off this series of posts with his magic bullets and what I’m doing to implement them in my business.

Financial Leverage

No, you’re not doomed because you don’t have much money.   Instead, you’re most likely doomed by the wrong financial mindset in – and about – your business.  Sitting at the SuperConference, it was as if Dan was speaking directly to me about my mindset regarding my business, specifically, how I go about attracting clients.

“Most business owners make a HUGE mistake by trying to get new clients using the absolute cheapest way possible.  If you’re going to succeed you have to do the opposite of what everybody else is doing.” 

Dan used one of his very successful consulting clients as an example.  Dan said he completed a very detailed analysis of the business, and went to the client and said, “You need to print a full-color catalog of all your services, and mail it out to this particular list of qualified prospects. The first thing that client asked me was,  ’Can’t we just print it in back and white, and do we really need to send it to so many people?’”

It wasn’t that this client couldn’t afford to print a full-color catalog or mail it to all those people. It was that they simply had the wrong mindset, and it’s that same mindset that I’m guilty of as well.  It’s the “get new clients the cheapest way possible” mindset.  Fortunately for you and me, this is the default mindset everyone has.  I say fortunately because by shifting your mindset it gives you an easy advantage over all your competitors.

You need to be willing to spend more attracting clients that your competitors are willing to spend.   Don’t worry, it won’t take much.  All your competitors, even you up until now, have tried to figure out the cheapest way to attract new clients.  The willingness to spend more attracting clients eliminates most of your competition because they are stuck using the cheapest methods of attracting clients.

Being willing to spend more also forces you to think strategically about your business.  If you’re going to invest a lot more upfront to attract the client, you have to be more strategic about maintain and increasing the lifetime value of your clients.  It also forces you to focus on your clients needs and ensuring that you are serving them well.

If you’re anything like me, this concept seems foreign.  However, try detaching your emotions and think about it strategically.  I think you’ll find it makes perfect business sense.

Smart Place Strategy

What is your product or service? To whom do you sell?  What is their underlying motivation for buying?  Is it fear of loss, or potential for gain?  Now, into what other completely different markets can you move your products or services?  Dan Kennedy used the example of one of his clients, Guthy Renker, the company behind products like ProActiv and WEN.  He talked about how initially their product was marketing specifically to female teenagers.  Once they had captured this market, they began marketing to teenage males. After that success, they started marketing young adults still struggling with acne.  Same product, just positioned slightly differently for each market.

Celebrity or Brand Advantage

If neither you nor your brand is famous, then you’re just another option for prospects to consider.  You have to start – TODAY – working on either building celebrity or attaching your brand with celebrity.  Doing this strategically can make you THE go-to solution.  Dan is certainly a master at both creating and using celebrity to command much higher prices.

Take a look at how GKIC marketed the 2012 Super Conference.  Notice how they used celebrity to promote the event.  What about you and me…how can we use celebrity?  Dan gave two ways to use celebrity:

1. Use Co-Branding – find a celebrity and buy their fame.  Think for example about Chuck Norris and the Total Gym, Suzanne Somers and the Thigh Master, Jessica Simpson and ProActiv, and William Shatner and Priceline.
2. Find Dead Celebrities – Here are a few dead celebrities that are often used in advertising:  Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, Princess Diana, Babe Ruth, Arthur Ashe and Jackie Robinson.

It’s easy to dismiss this Magic Bullet as too difficult for an entrepreneur with limited resources.  However, I would challenge you (and myself) to look for ways to pull this off.  I’d love to hear what you’ve done, or any ideas you may have for using celebrity to market your business.

Big Idea Advantage

All it takes is one big idea, even if it’s implemented poorly, to catapult your business towards success.  Big ideas can come in the form of many things.  For example:  a USP (unique selling proposition), Speed, Urgency Leverage, and Exclusivity.  I’ll give just a short example of a company that has successfully used each.  Hopefully one of them will spark and idea in your mind.

USP – Domino’s.  They are the best example of a company skyrocketing toward success all because of their USP.  And that famous USP was – Delivered in 30 minutes – or it’s free.

Speed – E-Trade is a great example of successfully using this one.  They took the brokerage industry, which was known to be slow and expensive, and made it quick and inexpensive.  No longer did people have to go through the process of  calling their stock broker, waiting for her to return their call, and then finally placing an order.  E-Trade gave people the ability to make trades instantly.

Urgency Leverage – All of the companies selling gold as an investment are masters at leveraging a sense of urgency.  They use urgency in two different ways:

Buy now because the value of gold has skyrocketed and will likely keep going up.

Buy now or else tomorrow the price could be 10% higher.

One Per – All of the top fashion designers use this.  After all, who wants to show up on the red carpet wearing the same dress as that “other” celeb?  So, what do they do?  They only make one dress.

Process (Systems) Advantage – Both McDonald’s and WalMart are masters at utilizing systems and processes to crush their competitors.

What We’re Implementing at Ugly Mug Marketing

We’re constantly working on things at Ugly Mug Marketing.  To the casual observer, it would appear that my job is to make things uncomfortable at Ugly Mug.  And honestly, that evaluation isn’t far from the truth.  I’m a firm believer in the saying:

If it doesn’t challenge you…then it doesn’t change you!

I don’t want our company to ever get comfortable with our success.  That’s not to say we can’t take time to celebrate our successes along the way.  We just need to continually challenge ourselves.  Here’s a list of what we’re implementing and how we’re going about doing it:

Paying More – The whole concept of paying more per customer was foreign to me prior to the Dan Kennedy SuperConference, so it’s taking a little time for it to sink through my thick skull.  As it’s sinking in there, we’re busy working on a more deliberate and intentional marketing system.  I’m both proud and a little ashamed to say that over the past three years we’ve spent less than $300 dollars on advertising.

I’m proud because during that same period Ugly Mug Marketing has grow by over 100% in revenue each year (and is on pace to do it again this year).  I’m ashamed because we could have grown much quicker had we developed an outbound marketing/advertising campaign. So, now we’re working on building an outbound marketing/advertising campaign.

Place Strategy – As part of our outbound marketing campaign, we are looking for very specific markets we previously neglected in which we can place our products and services.  We are going to specifically create products and services that appear to be specialized based on the market we are targeting.  Same product/service, just positioned to appear as if it were specialized.

Celebrity  - I’ve been fascinated for years with how an ordinary person, or company, turns themselves into a celebrity.  I even wrote a blog post for my friend Neil Patel on his blog Quick Sprout about this exact topic.  One way to create celebrity, or at a minimum authority, is to become a published author, which is one of the projects on which I’m currently working.

For the past six months I’ve been quietly working on the book.  Not sure of the title yet, the general theme of the book will be: So You Have a Website…Now What?  The book will detail the exact steps people can take if they’d like to get the most from their website.  I hope to be releasing the book around June 15th.

Systems -  I’ve been in love with systems ever since reading Work the System by Sam Carpenter.  The book does an excellent job of detailing the importance of implementing systems in your business.  We’ve always had good systems in place at Ugly Mug Marketing, but these systems were not centralized.  For new leads, we were using Aweber.com, Google Docs, and AllClients.com.  They all worked well, but we just patched all three systems together to get the result we wanted.  It wasn’t streamlined.

Since attended the Dan Kennedy SuperConference, I made the commitment to streamline all of our systems.  The first place we’ve started working is on our marketing and lead capture system.  We’ve ditched the patched together approached and now we’ve centralized everything under one system.  After much talk and debate we decided to go with Office Autopilot.  (Warning: if you click the Office Autopilot link and sign up, they will send me a really large commission check.  So large, I’ll probably take my family out to eat at McDonald’s with all the money…just saying.)  I spent a lot of time debating between Infusionsoft (which is a great application) and Office Autopilot, but ultimately chose Office Autopilot.  I may do a post at some point in the future talking about the advantages and disadvantages of each, and why I chose Office Autopilot.  (Let me know if you’d like me to write that post.)

Are you currently using any of these Magic Bullets in your business?  Leave a comment below letting me know what’s working in your business.

Often times, it’s the little things that ultimately lead to failure.  You may lose the sell.  You may lose a client.  You may lose money.  You may lose a significant other. In all cases, it is very likely that little things lead to your loss.

You lose the sell because you didn’t return their call the same day.

You lose the client because you didn’t reassure them you were the best choice.

You lose money because you spend more than you make.

You lose your significant other because you neglected them a little each day.

The winning horse usually only wins by a fraction of a second…just a little.

The winning golfer usually only wins by a single stroke…just a little.

The Nascar racer usually only wins by a few tenths of a second…just a little.

It’s clear that a little goes a long way in the entrepreneurial world.

Recently, I attended Dan Kennedy’s Super Conference in Dallas.  I waited  an extra day (just a little) to book my hotel. That little delay cost me a room at the hotel where the conference was being held.  I ended up having to stay at another hotel down the street.  I wasn’t too upset though, because this other hotel, The Adolphus, was far nicer than the hotel where the event was being held.

I booked my stay through American Express’ Fine Hotels & Resorts program.  I was confident that if AMEX recommended it then my stay would be fabulous.

When I arrived at the hotel, I indeed felt as if I were one of their famous guests (They’ve had Queen Elizabeth II, The Vanderbilts, U2, Oscar de la Renta, Donald Trump, and Babe Ruth stay at the hotel, just to name a few).  When you first walk in, you can feel the history and significance of the place. The decor and atmosphere had a classic vibrance that enchanted me. I knew I was in for a great stay.

At the check-in desk, the lady handed me my room key and an envelope with my name written in calligraphy on the front. “I hope you enjoy your stay,” she told me with a warm smile.  This envelop had me curious.  I didn’t know what in the world could be inside it, but I couldn’t open it because I had my luggage in one hand and my coffee in the other.

As soon as I got to my room, I sat down my luggage and quickly opened the mysterious letter, and here’s what I discovered:

Notice any little mistake?   Someone printed the nice letter upside down on the the hotel’s letterhead.  What was meant to be a nice personal touch ended up creating a negative perception.

So what about your business?  Are there any little subtle negative cues that you are sending  to your prospects and clients?  None that you can think of, right?  Yep, I’m the same way.  You see, we are too close to our business, so it’s very difficult to notice mistakes.

For me, this blog post is a great example.  Once I finish writing, I’ll go back through and re-read it to make sure everything makes sense and I didn’t make any grammar or punctuation errors.  Sometimes, I’ll even read a post aloud to try and catch mistakes. Still, even when reading them aloud, I tend to overlook mistakes.  Our minds are great at reading, hearing, understanding, and interpreting what it is we meant to say instead of what is actually on the screen.  That is why having an editor is important.  Before I ever publish a post, it goes to an editor to review and correct any mistakes.

So, my question for you is…who is looking out for and helping you correct those small business mistakes that you may be making?  Do you have someone to provide an outside eye and a different perspective?  This is a critical mistake that many most entrepreneurs make.  You have to be willing to be honest with yourself.  You have to be willing to get others to look at your business.  Yes, you have to let them see the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Think about all the large successful companies out there.  What do they have in common?  Correct, a Board of Directors.  The purpose of this board is to bring them an outside prospective and accountability.

I know. I know.  You’re thinking, “yeah, but it’s just little ol’ me, and I honestly don’t want anyone else to know how much I’m really struggling right now. ” I know. I once sat in the same place as you.  I didn’t want anyone to know that I wasn’t super successful, or that I didn’t know if I would be able to pay my bills next month.

Let me be completely blunt…

If you are going to succeed, you first have to get over yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about you controlling the way your company is perceived in the market.  I’m not advocating running out and telling the world that your business is struggling to survive.  That would be disastrous, but it would be equally disastrous for you to neglect or ignore your deficiencies. I want you to be completely honest with yourself and begin turning to others for accountability and a different perspective .

If you’re ready to catapult your business to the next level, then you need a Larry.  What’s a Larry?  Well I’m so glad you asked.  You see, Larry is my business coach.  We’ve been working together for about two years.  Larry is my outside set of eyes.  Larry keeps me accountable.  Larry tells me like it is, and often has very difficult conversations with me.  Many times I get off the phone, and I’m not very happy with Larry.

A few years ago I found myself asking – “Do I need a business coach?”  And the answer was yes.  Because without Larry, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Hang on…I hear the excuses starting to flow through your head….

“But Wayne, you don’t understand. I really don’t have the money to hire a coach.”

I didn’t either!  I hired Larry when I really couldn’t afford to hire him.  I really could have taken that money and used it for many other things that we really “needed”.

When I first hired Larry, I was having the common problem of too much month and too little money.  We had two small children with a third on the way.  My wife wasn’t working outside the home, so it was just me “bringing home the bacon”.  We certainly could have used the money to help pay our bills, or to purchase a nicer vehicle, or take a nice trip each month…

BUT we wouldn’t be where we are today if we had.

So, be honest with me. Who are you going to ask to be your outside set of eyes?  It doesn’t have to be someone you pay, although I would argue it should be someone you pay.  Regardless, you need to find someone to be those outside set of eyes.

So if you’re asking…

Do I Need a Business Coach

My answer would be an emphatic yes!

If you are still reading, you’re probably wondering about The Adolphus and the Super Conference.  Well, my stay at The Adolphus was excellent, and despite their little mistake, I would stay their again when visiting Dallas.  The Super Conference was amazing as well.  Over the next few weeks I’ll share some of what I learned, and what I am specifically applying in my businesses.

Here are a couple of photos:

Here's a photo with Dan Kennedy

Photo with Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Million Dollar Mailings – Denison Hatch

This is an inside view of what can really go into direct mail designs and how creatively utilizing this simple tool can really drive your company towards success. Hatch provides examples of real-world successful mailings as well as the thought process behind their creation.  Amazon describes it as “an exclusive inside’s look at the art and science of direct mail creative technique — copy approaches, design, formats, offers — unlike anything ever before assembled. This new and updated edition includes an overview, complete with illustrations, of new trends in direct mail.”

The Robert Collier Letter Book – Robert Collier

Another gem of a guide to direct response copy writing, Collier shares successful ways of selling products through proper advertising. Knowing that words are the core of any sales and marketing message, this provides insights into making sure your verbiage works for you in a number of ways. The Letter Book teaches you what you need to know to say the right things with any direct marketing method.

Influence – Robert Cialdini

“Every entrepreneur, especially the bootstrapping type, needs to persuade people. Cialdini explains the 6 reasons why people say ‘yes’ and then teaches you how to use and defend against them. A classic.” -Demian Farnworth

“Written in a narrative style combined with scholarly research, Cialdini combines evidence from experimental work with the techniques and strategies he gathered while working as a salesperson, fundraiser, advertiser, and in other positions inside organizations that commonly use compliance tactics to get us to say ‘yes.’ Widely used in classes, as well as sold to people operating successfully in the business world, the eagerly awaited revision of Influence reminds the reader of the power of persuasion. Cialdini organizes compliance techniques into six categories based on psychological principles that direct human behavior: reciprocation, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity.”

On Writing Well – William Zinsser

This piece offers the fundamentals of writing effectively, along with more complex insights from a distinguished writer, teacher, and successful author.

“As the subtitle indicates, the book is specifically directed at nonfiction writing, but many of the concepts also apply to fiction. With over a million copies sold, and in its thirtieth anniversary edition, much of the information has already been worked into other writing guides.” – Mike Klaassen

Writing Online – Sean Platt

Writing copy online can differ immensely from something that will run in print. This guide for making great copy covers a variety of topics from blogging, to social media, to SEO, and building reader fan bases, to name a few. Knowing how to utilize this digital access to millions of potential clients all over the world at one time is critical in today’s market. Be sure to get your hands on a copy of this gold mine, because without it your copy may just get lost in cyberspace.

The Ultimate Sales Letter – Dan Kennedy

“In this new edition of his top-selling book, author Dan Kennedy explains why some sales letters work and most don’t. And he shows how to write copy that any business can use.”

“The techniques described by the author in this simple but effective book are easy to learn. The author explains a systematic process in writing the ultimate sales letter that gets read and achieves results. Overall, he describes 28 steps involved in designing, creating, and getting your sales letter to the right prospects. The book is less than 200 pages long and doesn’t take more than a couple of hours to read. It does take a lot longer to implement the ideas presented though.”

CA$HVERTISING: How to Use More than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make Big Money Selling Anything to Anyone – Drew Eric Whitman

Whitman teaches you dozens of well-guarded secrets that he learned during his 25+ years in the ad business, including:

*60% of people read only your headline and what to do about it *Captions under photos get 200% greater readership than non-headline copy *Ads with sale prices draw 20% more attention * To double your ad’s attention-getting value, you must enlarge it 400% *Four-color ads are up to 45% more effective than black and white *Prices ending in “95″ are less effective than those ending in “99″ *The psychology of size… page positioning… typefaces… pricing… social proof… and color *How to make people believe what you say *How to persuade people to respond *Effective tricks for writing psychologically potent headlines *What mistakes to avoid at all costs *What you should always/never do in your ads *Expert formulas, guidance, tips and strategies *And much more.

The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less – Mark Joyner

The marketing methods of the past are losing effectiveness as consumers are getting smarter and smarter and have less and less time. What is needed is a new way of doing business – a method that is simultaneously socially responsible and far more effective than “old” marketing. This new way is The Irresistible Offer.

But what is The Irresistible Offer? Simply put, it’s the best (and maybe only) true alternative to the traditional form of selling with its sentimental manipulation, marketing trickery, and decreasing effectiveness. The Irresistible Offer is so good and so easy to understand that buying from you becomes a no-brainer for your customers. But it’s not a one-time special or a “unique selling proposition.” The Irresistible Offer is the offer that defines your business and becomes your raison d’etre.

Ogilvy on Advertising – David Ogilvy

The entire premise of Ogilvy on Advertising boils down to one simple statement (coined by Claude Hopkins nearly 80 years ago in his book Scientific Advertising): “Advertising is salesmanship.”

Copywriting is all about selling what you’ve got, be it a product, service, or idea, with your powers of persuasion. Ogilvy expands upon this premise to make you the master of your advertisements.

Tested Advertising Methods – John Caples

“A legend in advertising for more than 60 years, John Caples’s classic work has been updated to retain all of the candid analysis and invaluable award-winning ideas from the original while bringing it up to date on the many changes in the field.”

This book contains all sorts of goodies for today’s copywriters, with copious advertising examples that have withstood the test of time. If this isn’t on your bookshelf, it definitely should make its way into your collection soon.

How to Write a Good Advertisement – Victor O. Schwab

This Marketing classic is one book you should take note of, if you haven’t already! While there may be more up-to-date Copywriting How To’s out there, it’s always important to go back to basics and learn from the legends.

“From headlines to body copy, this little book does a wonderful job of explaining the basics of writing a good advertisement.

Written in 1964, the content is a bit dated in its references but the basics of good copywriting haven’t changed.”

Do you have any recommended reading for entrepreneurs?  Please share your recommendations in the comments below.

When I absolutely have to have copy that sells, there’s only one person I call…and that person is Demian Farnworth.  Demian is one of the most gifted copywriters I’ve had the privilege of working with, and trust me, I’ve worked with quite a few of them.  Demian writes for some of the most successful bloggers in the world, and when he talks about copywriting I take notes. 

If you wanted to pay Demian to coach you on being a better copywriter (which you can’t do) you would spend hundreds of dollars per hour.  However, Demian graciously agreed to share some of his secrets for writing seductive copy.  Here’s Demian:

If you take a peek at LinkedIn data on startup DNA you’ll see a pretty standard view of the typical entrepreneur…

He or she lives on the east or west coast, went to the right business schools, worked for the right companies and is fluent in computer science or engineer.

While these entrepreneurs make very good product developers and innovators they usually aren’t the best salespeople…in person or print.

That’s a problem because no matter what your product is…you need to sell it. And being seductive in your approach will help you do that.

The cool thing about learning how to write seductive copy is that what you learn about print can easily be applied to face-to-face encounters.

The Seductive Headline

Spend enough time writing direct-response copy and you will learn what works. If you get in the habit of testing and measuring everything you write…then you can zero in on what really works.

This is true for the headline, which is the most important part of any copy you write. It’s especially the most important part of any advertisement.

Why is it so important? One word: self-interest.

Your first step is to figure out what your readers and customers are concerned about—what interests them. From that write a headline that will catch their attention and suck them in.

Of course you have to know your audience.

Take college men for example. The most successful headline ever written for this segment had a one-word headline: Sex.

Surprisingly enough they were selling textbooks…but that one word was enough to get their attention.

The Seductive First Sentence

After the headline comes the first sentence. Joe Sugarman says that a sales letter should be like a slide. And the only objective behind the first sentence is to get them to read the second sentence.

And so on.

But the first sentence has to be so good that people are launched into your copy. The headline’s objective is to capture your customer’s attention. The first sentence is to compel them to stay in the copy.

If you look at a great writer like David Sedaris you can learn some great tricks to writing first sentences. Here are some examples:

• “It is his birthday, and Hugh and I are seated in a New York restaurant, awaiting the arrival of our fifteen-word entrées.”
• “When Hugh was in the fifth grade, his class took a field tip to an Ethiopian slaughterhouse.”
• “I was on ‘Oprah’ a while ago, talking about how I used to love too much.”
• “My sister Lisa became a woman on the fourteenth hole of the Pinehurst golf course.”

Each of these sentences has a great element of suspense. You have to continue to read to figure out what is going on.

To write great first sentences like that you have to know a few things. Let me explain:

• Write a really ugly first draft. Don’t worry about the first sentence. Just write until you can’t write anymore. And who cares how awful it is. You just need a first draft so you can get all your thoughts on the page. Write yourself silly.
• Find the hook. What unique angle can you take—violence or sex, bizarre people or strange questions—that will make people scratch their heads?
• Ditch the first paragraph. When it is time to edit…get ruthless. Throw out the first paragraph or two, and then figure out your hook.
• Read. Study the greats like Hemingway and Sedaris. But also study people in the advertising field like John Caples, Eugene Schwartz and John Carlton.
• Make a list of great first lines. Anytime you find a great first line—it could be in a newspaper article or a work of fiction—copy and paste it in a list [I use Evernote]. Use this list as your cheat sheet.
• Use this list. Pull out your list any time you are writing a first sentence.

The Seductive Body Copy

Have you ever seen this happen?

• Right on the dust jacket of a book you get the answer to losing weight?
• Smack in the middle of a sales letter you see the secret to raising a fast horse?
• Right there on the DVD sleeve is the 4-step formula for running your fastest marathon ever?

YOU might think this liberal use of information is great…the problem for the business, however, is that you are not giving the customer any reason to buy.

You’ve immediately satisfied your customer’s gratification, which will kill seduction every time.

What you have to do is avoid over educating the prospect so that you suggest something tantalizing, but…don’t tell them what it is!

Ever.

In other words, the dirty little secret to seducing readers is that you need to leave them hanging until they buy the product. You have to give them something to get worked up over.

If you gratify their desires too soon your prospect will disappear. This means you have to tease your prospect by…

• Promising them you have what they want.
• Painting a picture of how their life will be when they get your product.
• Prove to them how you will fulfill their desires.
• And push them to act. .

Let’s look at that last point in detail.

The Seductive Call-to-Action

Anything you write needs to end with some sort of request for action. It could be to sign up for your email newsletter or to mail in a voucher.

Whatever it is needs to seduce. It needs to convince them they are stupid for not acting.

How do you do that?

Of course most of this work is going to be done in the sections above, so your CTA will simply be the trigger to getting them off their duff.

From writing to design, creating effective call-to-actions involves ten techniques as explained by Jeff Boag:

• Lay the ground work. All the copy leading up to the CTA—from your headline to your first sentence to your body copy—must communicate the emotionally-laden benefits of buying your product. And these benefits need to matter to your prospect. Not you.
• Offer a little extra. One of the best ways to increase CTA conversion rates is to offer a sweetener. No, this is not what you put in your coffee. It’s something you’ve held off until now. For example, “Buy now and you’ll get free shipping.” “Free shipping” sweetens the deal.
• Offer several smaller CTAs. Things like “View video” or “click to continue reading” are smaller, low-commitment CTAs that train your prospect for the big CTA.
• Use active verbs. Think words like “Buy,” “Subscribe” or “Call.”
• Get the position right. Front and center is a great place to position a CTA. If you can’t do that, then upper right on desktop views and upper left on mobile views is idea. Test it, though.
• Use white space. You can draw prospects eyes to CTAs through the use of white space. The more white space you have around a CTA the better.
• Use an alternative color. Use a different color to bring attention to your CTA.  
• Make it big. CTAs should stand out. They should be bold and big. Your prospect should NOT miss the CTA.
• Position CTAs on every page. Every single page on your site should have some kind of CTA. Limit your CTA to your home page or a special landing page and you risk prospects never seeing it because they didn’t land on the right page.
• Keep it simple. Once your readers decides to respond, minimize the amount of information required to complete the CTA. Ask for too much and you risk losing prospects who abandon ship.

Your Turn

The above content will hopefully get you up to speed on writing persuasive and seductive copy. But naturally, like all things, it will take time and plenty of practice to get world-class copywriting chops. In other words, don’t get discouraged if you’re not an overnight success. You’ll eventually get there.

What copywriting tips would you offer an entrepreneur to help him or her write seductive copy?

About the Author: Demian Farnworth is a freelance writer who hustles the finer points of web copy at the blog The CopyBot. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

The Questions a Great Headline Must Answer

A lot of responsibility rests on your headline.  It’s responsible for stopping people in their tracks and piquing their interest.  A great headline needs to answer each of the following for the reader:

• -Who Cares? – Why should your reader care?
• -WIIFM – What’s in it for me?
• -Why should I keep reading?

To successfully answer all three of those questions it’s critical that you have a crystal-clear picture of who your prospect is and what the conversation is that is going on in his mind.  To paint a clear picture of my prospect I typically write down a short description of my prospect.  Here’s an example:

Joe is a 45-year-old male, who is at the beginning stages of his mid-life crisis.  He finds it more and more difficult to stay in shape and at his ideal weight.  He is an avid golfer and loves watching college football.  He drives a Chevy crew-cab pickup truck, and his wife drives a BMW 3 series.  blah, blah, blah

This helps me stay focused on the person that truly matters – the reader.  The more you know about the product or service you are writing about, the more difficult it is for you to write from the reader’s perspective.  By writing a brief bio about your prospect, this will help you get into the mind of your prospect and write to his needs and wants.

Your goal should be to enter the conversation in your prospect’s mind.  The concept of entering the conversation in your prospect’s mind was introduced by one of the greatest copywriters of all time – Robert Collier.  (If you don’t have a copy of Robert’s book The Robert Collier Letter Book, you should track down a copy today.)

6 Questions to Help You Enter the Conversation Taking Place in Your Prospects’ Minds

1. What television shows are they watching? (American Idol, The Bachelor…)
2. What magazines are they reading? (People, Vogue, The Economist…)
3. What are their hobbies?  (Golf, Sewing, Snow Boarding…)
4. What is happening in their state, country, region?  (March Madness, Super Bowl…)
5. What holidays are they currently celebrating?  (Valentines, Easter…)
6. What do you suspect they talk about around the proverbial water cooler?  (Their boss, their spouse…)

By this point, you’ve probably spent about an hour and you haven’t even started writing your headline, and that’s completely okay.  Rush through the headline process and all your other work will be in vain.  Many of the best copywriters often say they spend as much time writing the headline as they spend writing the entire rest of the piece.  So, don’t worry about spending too much time on your headline.

What Does It Do?

What does the product or service you’re writing about do?  Does it help people improve or gain a certain advantage?  Does it help prevent people from losing something?  Or, does it do some combination of the two?  People will only respond to your message for the following two reasons:

The ability to prevent loss.

The opportunity for gain.

You have to know which of these reasons your prospects will respond to and determine if you can somehow incorporate this into your headline.  For example:

A Little Mistake That Cost a Entrepreneur $10,000 Last Year

This speaks to the fear of losing money unnecessarily.  It states that the mistake was little, which implies it will be easy to prevent making this same mistake.

Today… Discover $5,000 of Monthly Revenue Hidden Right Before Your Eyes

Starting a headline with the word “Today” causes readers to associate your content with the events and circumstances that have taken place in their lives today.  It also hints that they can discover the solution to making more money today.

Simple-to-Use Headline Formulas

Feeling overwhelmed?  Not sure how to start writing your headline?  Give these proven headline formulas a try:

___________  That Other ____________  Don’t Want You to Know About

Marketing Secrets That Other Lawn Company Owners Don’t Want You to Know About

Discover the Secret of _______________ and Cut Your ___________ in _______________

Discover the Secret of Autoresponders and Cut Your Administrative Costs in Half

The Secret of ________________

The Secret of Making Money While You Sleep

How I Improved My _________________

How I Improved My Profit Margin in Less Than Two Minutes

Advice to ____________ Who Do/Don’t _____________

Advice to Entrepreneurs Who Don’t Want to Work More Than 10 Hours Per Week

Who Ever Heard of ____________ And Still/Only ________________

Who Ever Heard of an Entrepreneur Working 2 Hours a Day And Still Making Over $1,000 A Day

Conclusion

Writing headlines doesn’t have to be complicated or complex, but it should be taken seriously; after all, if you don’t get this part right, nothing else matters.

Do you have a process or tips for writing better headlines?  Please share them in the comment section below.