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WEALTH
Build
Trust and Bigger Sales Will Follow
Want
to turn a modest $300,000 company into one doing 100 times that
in sales? A critical step is to gain your customer's trust.
Several
years ago, marketing expert Jay Abraham was called in to consult
with a firm that specialized in selling precious metals as investments.
Previously,
their model was to make a hit-and-run, one-shot sale - then
move on to the next and then the next prospect. Jay had them
implement a revised strategy to consciously try to bring in
quality prospects by thoroughly educating them about precious
metals.
They'd
start by making a relatively small initial sale to get the customer's
feet wet and help him feel comfortable with the firm. They'd
then guide them upward - from silver to gold, from gold to platinum,
from platinum to rare coins, and from rare coins to gold stocks.
The
bottom line?
When
Jay first met with this little company, they had a few thousand
prospects and were doing a paltry $300,000 a year. Within 24
months, they were doing $500 million a year and had 150,000
clients and 800,000 prospects.
-
Charlie Byrne
[Ed
Note: Please join Jay Abraham in a live, one-of-a-kind, business-building
teleconference workshop next Tuesday, April 5. Your participation
is at absolutely no expense to you. Sign
up now.]
A
Sweet Solution for Those on Statin Drugs
30
million people worldwide are now taking statin drugs to lower
their cholesterol. While these drugs certainly work for this
purpose ... what's the cost?
Statin
drugs are not only financially expensive, they carry a host
of side effects, including cramping, weakness, and liver toxicity.
They also interfere with the body's production of the vital
enzyme CoQ10.
If
you or someone you know is considering an alternative to statin
drugs, consider the natural supplement policosanol. A number
of studies have shown that policosanol is just as effective
as statin drugs at lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol. It has the
added benefit of raising HDL (good) cholesterol ... and there
are virtually no side effects.
You
can find policosanol online or in most health food stores. But
insist on a brand that is derived from sugar cane wax. Policosanol
that comes from wheat germ has not been shown to have the same
effect on cholesterol.
(Source:
Nutrition
& Healing E-Letter)
- Jon Herring
WISDOM
What
We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate
"Let's
face it: Business today is drowning in bullshit. We try to impress
(or confuse) investors with inflated letters to shareholders.
We punish customers with intrusive, hype-filled, self-aggrandizing
product literature. We send elephantine progress reports to
employees that shed less than two watts of light on the big
issues or hard truth."
(Source:
"Why
Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighters Guide")
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TODAY'S
MESSAGE
4
Ways to Boost Your Online Business
by
David Cross
Jude
Meadows was already a success. In fact, as VP of Personal Systems
at Hewlett Packard in London, she was at the pinnacle of a 20-year
career in the Information Technology field. But in 2004, she
made a life-changing decision. Jude quit IT to set up a small
online business with some friends selling organic oils and natural
bodycare products.
She
contacted me for help and I spent a few hours with her one weekend
to give her some advice about doing business online.
In
a recent e-mail, she told me the good news ...
"As
a Director at Compaq and then VP at Hewlett Packard, I had some
experience of selling and marketing via the Internet. However,
this was with the backing and resources of a huge organization.
I had little idea how to take on something like this from scratch.
"My
main concern was how to get customers to our site, how to get
them to buy once they are there, and how to get them to come
back and buy more.
"Now,
after just eight months online, our sales are approaching a
few thousand dollars a week - and we are on a roll. We even
had two venture capitalists approach us last month wanting to
invest in our business! I'd say that the majority of our online
success has come from using just a couple of your initial suggestions."
People
are always asking me for advice about running an online business.
I am happy to give it and even happier when, like Jude, they
let me know how I have helped them.
In
my experience, there are four simple, core concepts that every
business should consider as fundamental to success in the online
marketplace. These principles have worked for years for clients
of mine, including Agora Publishing, International Living, and
Oshadhi. And whenever I consult with a new client, these are
the ideas I share with them.
Idea
#1. Collect E-mail Addresses
This
is the most successful technique that my clients have used to
build their online businesses. It gives you a virtually free
way to communicate proactively with your customers and potential
customers. Once they give you their e-mail address, you can
tell them about products and services, news, and special offers.
It is almost guaranteed to produce future sales.
So,
at every opportunity, don't forget to ask people to give you
their e-mail address - on your website, whenever you speak with
them on the phone, at checkout, and so on. I've even seen companies
solicit e-mail addresses on their business cards. What to say?
See Idea #2.
Idea
#2. Give Away Valuable Information
From
your customers' perspective, it seems that everybody wants their
e-mail address so they can sell them stuff. As a result, people
are becoming more and more reluctant to give it to you - unless
you give them something of value in return.
Offer
a free report, a free subscription to your online newsletter,
money-saving (or money-making) tips, or some other information
that they can use, and your potential customers won't mind giving
you their e-mail address. In fact, they'll want to give it to
you so they can receive things like "10 Money-Saving Ideas
You Must Know When Buying Car insurance," "How to
Stop Your Cakes From Flopping in the Oven," "How to
Get Paid When You Travel Abroad," "How to Get a Great
Credit Rating When Moving to the USA," and so on.
The
trick is to make your free information useful and relevant to
the products and/or services that you are selling.
Idea
#3. Search Engines = Free Business
To
be successful online, you need a website and you need to be
well-placed in search engines for the keywords and key phrases
relevant to your business.
There
is a common myth that a search engine listing can't help you
make money online - that people use search engines only to grab
free information. My belief is that though the sales process
is different online, search engines are just another way to
direct people to your website. It's then up to you to convert
those people from vaguely interested browsers into paying customers.
In
the model that has grown Agora Publishing from $0 to more than
$90 million a year in online sales over the last 6 years, websites
are used less as one-stop direct sales tools and more as a way
to encourage people to sign up for free newsletters and other
information. The idea is to give them useful ideas and resources
- and then give them the opportunity to buy whatever you're
selling. This is a very powerful way to generate sales.
Let
me share an example with you. One client of mine started using
search engine "optimization" in earnest in October
2004. "Search engine optimization" means making sure
that the content of your website is written in a way that is
not only interesting and readable, but also easy to find by
people who are using search engines to look for information.
In the one month between the end of December 2004 and the end
of January 2005, my client tracked over $54,000 in online sales
as a result of making the effort to do this.
Idea
#4. Measure
"Trust
in God, but make sure your camels are tied up," says the
old proverb. In other words, it's good to try out new marketing
ideas - and Michael Masterson's "ready, fire, aim"
approach is the best way I know of to do that - but it's also
important to know if a promotion is really working. You may
"believe" that something is working, but unless you
can measure your results, it's simply conjecture. (See "Word
to the Wise," below.)
You
measure your results by analyzing certain statistics (sometimes
called "Web analytics") to see if your objectives
are being reached. Are people buying, requesting information,
spending enough time at your website? Are search engines referring
more people? Is your income from the website going up or down?
For your e-mail efforts, what was the "open rate"?
How many people clicked-through on the links? Did your e-mail
get past the spam filters? Above all, is your business growing
- profitably - as a result of your online efforts?
Start
with these first four ideas. Once you've got those working for
you, here are a few more ideas that can give your online business
an added boost:
Nobody
is born with a complete understanding of the way business works
on the Internet. But there are some people who know a lot about
it. They have already spent time listening, learning, observing,
and trying new things. Their experience can save you years of
hard work and worry. And if you're lucky, one (or more) of them
will take you under their wing and guide you to repeat their
online successes.
[Ed.
Note: David Cross is Senior Internet Consultant to Agora Publishing
in Baltimore. He is responsible for brainstorming and testing
new ideas and developing new Internet marketing campaigns. Prior
to working with Agora, David was CEO of a European software-development
and Web-hosting company. He has extensive direct-marketing and
sales experience, including work as a guest presenter on QVC
in the UK.
David
will be hosting Agora Learning Institute's "Online Marketing
Bootcamp" this summer. He will show attendees how to build
a million-dollar online business using Agora's $100 million
Internet marketing secrets.]
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TODAY'S
ACTION PLAN
Are
you already marketing your product or service online? If you're
not, I'm guessing that David Cross inspired you to get started
today. And if you are, I'm sure you're already thinking about
how you can use some of his ideas to accelerate your profitability.
Do
something every single day, no matter how small, that takes
you closer to achieving your ultimate business goals.
DUMBEST
THINGS IN BUSINESS AWARD
To
Joseph Minder
"James
Joseph Minder, chairman of gun maker Smith &Wesson, is forced
to resign when newspaper reporters discover that, before becoming
a corporate exec, he'd spent 15 years behind bars for a string
of armed robberies and an attempted prison escape."
(Source:
the 2005 edition of "The
101 Dumbest Moments in Business" by Adam
Horowitz, Mark Athitakis, Mark Lasswell, and Owen Thomas)
WORD
TO THE WISE
"Conjecture"
(kun-JEK-chur) is a statement, opinion, or conclusion based
on guesswork. The word is derived from the Latin "conicere"
("to infer").
Example
(as used by David Cross in Today's Message): "You may 'believe'
that [a promotion] is working, but unless you can measure your
results, it's simply conjecture."
