The Power of EXPERT PERCEPTION Positioning

Who would you go see if faced with a life threatening medical diagnosis? A general practitioner or a specialist? You’d be drawn like a magnet to the expert, wouldn’t you? Well, this same decision making process works for selecting any business or professional your prospects trust with their business. The PERCEIVED expert has a massive competitive advantage in any marketplace.

So, are you the recognized expert in your niche and community? Do your customers and target prospect agree? Regardless of the business you are in – even in a business that is considered a commodity – there is usually a way to gain the EXPERT ADVANTAGE. (more…)

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How to Slash Your Marketing Spend and Increase Results Without Spending More Money [Part three]

3 Ways Profit Maximization Can Turbo-Charge Your Sales Growth

Marketing Spend Slasher #3 – Self Fund Your Marketing

What do I mean by Self Fund? By focusing your efforts on optimizing your profits, you can reinvest those “found” profits into advertising or other marketing efforts. Dr. D “saved” about $1,500 a month (see part two). So he could now reinvest “found money” into another form of marketing…PPC, SEO, direct mail, bigger advertisement, a tele sales effort etc. The new found profits literally pay for your “risky” marketing. It is like going to Vegas, winning big, putting your original money in your pocket and then gambling with the winnings…with no real downside whatsoever. (more…)

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How to Slash Your Marketing Spend and Increase Results Without Spending More Money [Part two]

3 Ways Profit Maximization Can Turbo-Charge Your Sales Growth

Marketing Spend Slasher #2 – Reduce Client Acquisition Cost

In coaching hundreds of companies, only a handful knew clearly what their cost per customer acquisition was…that is, the total marketing spend divided by the number of customers.

Why is this so important? Because, it enables you to significantly reduce your marketing spend, by first reallocating it towards lower cost alternatives.

  • Should you increase or decrease your Pay Per Click budget or pay to get higher in the rankings?…or drop back into a lower position?
  • Is SEO really paying off?
  • How about your tradeshow spend or
  • Display advertising?
  • Or what about the sales rep you hired?

All of these will result in different costs to get a customer.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE:

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How to Slash Your Marketing Spend and Increase Results Without Spending More Money [Part one]

Leveraging Profit Maximization In Order to Accelerate Your Sales Growth

At a live Internet Marketing Event I conducted a 90 minute workshop for the 600 attendees… from around the world. The audience survey results, over $32 Million in added profit by optimizing their current customer and prospect profits…without spending any money!!!

Now $32M should be reason enough to want to focus on optimizing profits (95% of the attendees said they uncovered at least $10,000!). Yet most businesses choose to want to focus on getting more customers… even though most have way more upside from optimizing their current business.

Therefore, I thought I would share 3 Keys of Profit Maximization over the next few blog posts.

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The “Problem” With 97% of Referral Systems

We have all heard that Referral Marketing represents one of the lowest cost and highest-leverage strategies on the planet. Why? The answer is simple. The cost to obtain a new customer from outside marketing is 500% to 1000% more expensive than a referral customer. Business owners can increase profits by 10% to 30% with an effective referral program.

But There is a BIG Problem

Unfortunately, this powerful business building strategy has been nearly put to death by many “business trainers” that touted its merits without teaching the HOW. As a result, business owners routinely make 15 common, totally avoidable, mistakes that keep them from having a continuous stream of high quality referral customers every month.

The Key is to “Activate” Your Customers

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The Buyer Decision Drivers Part 2

In my last post I shared the first 4 of the 7 buyer decision drivers.

Here are the final 3.

BUYER DECISION DRIVER #5 – Create “extraordinary value.”

Have you ever shopped for something and found yourself looking for the lowest price? Ever wonder why? As we stated earlier, all human beings, no matter who we are or what we do, we all want the best deal. But what is the “best deal?” Is it really the lowest price?

There’s that old saying that you get what you pay for. Would I shock you if I told you that your prospects could care less about price? They shop price because they’re forced to. Let me explain. What prospects really want is the best “value” for the price they pay. They’re more than willing to pay double the price if they perceive that you’re giving them four times the value. Now they know they’re getting the “best deal.”

So then why does price seem to matter so often? It’s because so few businesses are actually “unique.” They all look the same… and they all say the exact same things. They say things like “we’re the best, we have the lowest prices, the highest quality, the best selection, the most convenient hours and locations and we’ve been in business since 1431 B.C.”

We call these platitudes, and they mean absolutely nothing to your prospects. That’s because everything just mentioned was about the business, and your prospects don’t care one bit about your business. All prospects care about is themselves. They want to know how they will benefit from what you sell. How will their life improve if they purchase your product or service? (more…)

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The Buyer Decision Drivers Part 1

There are 7 buyer decision drivers every business must understand to become successful today. Fail to do these and you will never build the business of your dreams.

It’s critical that you commit these to memory. They’re based on fundamental human nature… and will be as applicable 100 years from now as they were 100 years ago.

BUYER DECISION DRIVER #1 – Everyone wants the “best deal.”

Your prospects, no matter who they are or what it is they’re buying, always want the best deal. That doesn’t mean the lowest price… it means the most value for the price they pay. They will gladly pay twice the price… as long as they perceive they’re receiving four times the value when they compare it to the price.

The key words here of course are “perceived value.” So what exactly do prospects value? They value finding the solution to their biggest problem, frustration, fear or concern. And that brings us to…

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Scientifically Get More Leads and Customers

Ongoing lead flow and a constant stream of new customers are critically important to the ongoing profitability of any business. In this issue, I want to share one simple strategy for getting more leads and turning them into customers – lead optimization.

As I’ve stressed in many of my messages to you, continual marketing optimization in all areas of your business will boost profits, often without spending additional money. To get more leads, better qualified leads and convert them into more customers, you must establish and monitor key lead metrics. Only by monitoring can you continually optimize your lead development activities.

Here are the lead metrics to measure:

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More “MC’s” Equal More Sales Automatically!

Although getting more prospects interested in your products or services (a Lead) is critically important for more sales, the effectiveness of your communications, AFTER you receive the Lead, is equally important.

Examples of a “Meaningful Communication” include getting the interested prospect to:

  • Speak with you
  • Read your sales letter
  • Watch your video
  • Come into your store
  • Dive into your product page online

If a prospect needs to learn more BEFORE they will buy, then failing to engage them in some form of a Meaningful Communication will result in losing them before you ever get a chance to move them through the rest of your sales funnel… and ultimately to a new customer.

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Marketing Success Secret

What I am about to reveal to you is something many businesses don’t employ. I call it “Leveraging Your Success™”. Leveraging Your Success™ is all about identifying what you do well, making sure it is done consistently and improving upon it for even greater success.

If you have a sales force, think about your top sales person. Have you carefully reviewed why he or she is successful? Have you in turn shared his knowledge and approaches with other sales people so that they can one-up their sales performance?

What about a successful headline you have used through one advertising vehicle, such an offline print advertising? Have you used that headline in other places to gain added success and more profits for your business?

Here are some key steps to Leverage Your Success™:

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Using The Power of Compliance to Reduce Refunds and Increase Customer Loyalty

Getting prospects to buy your product is just the first step.

Often products are returned because the purchaser failed to utilize the product as intended, whether due to inactivity or confusion.

Today, more importantly than ever before, it is critical that you ensure that your customers are effectively using your product and fully enjoy the benefits so they keep it, love it, and want to buy even more from you. >

The Power of Compliance is about first getting the customer to utilize the product as intended. Failure to do so will ensure it is returned for a refund and often will lead to the customer no longer purchasing from you.

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Compelling Advantage Convenience

Just imagine what it would mean to your business if your prospects refused to do business with anyone else. It’s entirely possible if you develop a powerful set of Compelling Competitive Advantages™ that differentiates you from the competition.

One powerful differentiator is SERVICE LEVEL. Differentiating yourself with service is especially powerful today when service (often substandard) has been outsourced to overseas agents and when many businesses reduce expenses in the service area.

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Crazy Profit Weapon

In previous articles I’ve shared with you some ideas on how to get more prospects and turn more of them into customers. But increasing profits doesn’t stop there. The real opportunity lies in how you handle your EXISTING customers. What’s great about getting more revenue from existing customers is you don’t have to spend more money on prospecting. And here’s some good news- ethically harvesting more profits from your existing customers is easier than you think.

One way to get more profits from existing customers is by raising your prices. YIKES…I know but stay with me while I explain.

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6 Simple Ways to Turn More Leads Into Customers

You’ve invested in one or more lead generation approaches to fill your sales pipeline and turn those leads into customers. Have you considered what you can do better to obtain more customers without spending additional money? Even a small percent improvement can yield significant returns lowering your overall cost of customer acquisition.

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