Recently, I sent out a post about how to generate multiple streams of customers. The logic being  if one marketing strategy falls over you have other ways to generate new business.

But the reply I got back was anything but convinced, with one guy wondering what planet I was from. And questioning my perspective of reality.

His belief was that my strategies cost heaps of money and don’t tap into your total market. And then he said there wasn’t a form of media which reached 20% of his population. And suggested I must be a lunatic to suggest you use them all.

Fair enough - everyone is entitled to their opinion. And I figured there might be one or two other people out there who felt the same, (hey, even my wife questions my
sanity!) so thought I’d take a moment to answer these questions in detail.

1. They cost a lot of money: No, they don’t. I can test most strategies quite cheaply.

Cost to send 1,000 faxes: less than $200 Cost to distribute 1,000 flyers: less than $200 Cost to test google adwords: less than $100 Cost to test an email joint venture: $0 Cost to test a referral program: less than $1 per existing customer Cost to test a newspaper ad: a few hundred dollars.

The bottom line is this stuff doesn’t cost a lot to test. The trick is to try it out once… see if it works… and then dump it if it doesn’t, or keep doing it over and over again if it does.

The risk/return ratio is huge. If you find something which works, you can use it over and over and over again and earn tens… even hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result. If it doesn’t work, you blow a few hundred dollars. Even if you strike out 9 out of 10 times, you are still on a winner if you follow this system.

2. They won’t even reach 20% of my population

Who cares? It doesn’t matter what percentage of your population they reach. All that matters is your return on investment. If you’re a hairdresser who lived in a town with 100,000 people in it, I think you’d be very happy to get even 1% of your population. % of population means nothing - return on investment means everything.

3. Small businesses have the problem of limited financial resources, limited human resources and deal with media who don’t care what results they get

So if you have any other questions or concerns, please send them through as I’d be more than happy to provide further clarification where needed.

I think this is really critical to your business, especially when you consider the tough economic climate we’re facing at the moment - and no doubt over the next 12 months.

One of the biggest problems I see with businesses in today’s tough economy is having too few methods of generating new customers. For instance, some businesses rely on a phone directory, some rely on google adwords, some on telemarketing and others on press advertising.

But relying on just one or two methods of generating new customers is flawed because it is not solid. You are putting all of your money into one model, kind of like putting all your money into one company on the stock market. That company goes belly up and you’re looking at the very same future for yourself.

The bottom line is it’s much better to diversify.

For instance, what happens if you generate 90% of your business through an ad you run in the local radio station and that station goes out of business or changes ownership meaning you can no longer affordably advertise in there any longer?

What happens to your flow of phone calls from new customers?

It’s the same if you get everything from fax streaming and the laws change (as they did in the United States) or your google adwords get more competitive and the cost per click skyrockets.

Truth is, every business should be looking at getting multiple channels of marketing working for them - some of which may include:

Newspaper Advertising

Pay Per Click Advertising

Fax Broadcasting

Flyers

Sales Letters to their target market

Industry Trade Magazines

Joint Ventures

Telephone Directory Advertising

Shop a Docket

Newsletters

School Newsletters

Sidewalk handbills

Postcard mailings

Internet Advertising

Seminars

Referral programs

Every new marketing approach should be tested to see exactly how well it works and either kept or discarded depending on whether it makes you money or not.

Let’s look at a few examples of which strategies to test for specific businesses:

Carpet cleaner

a) Place an advertisement in a phone directory

b) Do joint ventures with a local pest control
company

d) Advertise in google adwords (location
specific if possible)

e) Send sales letters to larger companies in
your area (to get larger contracts)

f) Send out flyers to your local area

g) Set up a referral program to get your existing
customers to recommend you to their friends
and family

Retail shop selling jewelery

a) Advertise in the search engines

b) Do a joint venture with the local “high end”
clothing stores offering your customers a gift voucher

c) Advertise in the newspaper before Valentines Day

d) Advertise in the newspaper before Mothers Day

e) Create a free report about how to choose the best diamond ring for your future bride and advertising it in the newspapers and online

f) Create a newsletter to send out to your existing customers

Accountant

a) Send out a sales letter to local businesses offering them a free report or free consultation in relation to your services

b) Hold a seminar about how to manage your business more effectively / legally save tax / protect your assets, etc.

c) Do a joint ventures with other businesses who have B2B (business to business) lists such as solicitors, consultants, etc. offering a free report or complimentary consultation.

d) Distribute a regular newsletter to your target market.

e) Create a list of “Top 100″ clients and keeping in touch with them on a monthly basis with various tips, ideas, suggestions, etc.

Internet business selling information products

a) Advertise with banner ads

b) Advertise through pay per click search engines

c) Get high up on the rankings for non-paid searches

d) Use small offline ads to direct people to your web site and track the results

e) Send out postcards directing people to your web site

f) Create articles and distributing all over the place online to direct traffic to your web site

g) Send people to your web site through videos on youtube, etc.

h) Do joint ventures with other people in your target market.

Problem is, most business owners don’t have enough time to get through the day, let alone work out how to create all these new strategies. And that’s why I created More Customers Made Easy - where you get most of the work done for you with samples and sometimes fill-in-the-blank templates allowing you to do it all without paying a marketing professional thousands of dollars and without spending months trying to educate yourself on how it all works.

What I discovered was truly shocking.

I could make about 20 calls an hour.

The market was so specific (they had to have a particular type of roof) that on average I got to speak with somebody every 1-1 ½ hours.

And even worse, they had 20 other telemarketers trying to do the same thing.

Crazy stuff!

And that brings me to the purpose of this post: how to replace prospecting.

The bottom line is nobody enjoys cold calling.

The second bottom line is nobody enjoys receiving a cold call.

Don’t get me wrong – cold calling works and if you’re just getting started and have no other tools at your disposal, keep pounding the phone.

BUT do so with the awareness that you’re working at just a smidgeon of your true profit potential.

Let me explain what I mean by referencing the example above. Let’s call the example above the OLD SCHOOL and the alternative direct marketing example the NEW SCHOOL.

In the OLD SCHOOL a salesperson makes one contact per hour.

In the OLD SCHOOL the contact the person makes doesn’t really want to speak with him / her.

In the OLD SCHOOL the conversion is lower even once you have locked in an appointment.

Let’s compare this to the new school.

In the NEW SCHOOL a salesperson can make 5 times as many contacts per hour because their client does not screen their calls and actually wants to speak to them.

In the NEW SCHOOL the conversion is higher once you have locked in an appointment.

Therefore in the NEW SCHOOL one person can do the job of five people and get better results.

Truth is, cold calling is essentially archaic.
Your prospects don’t like it. You don’t like it.
Nobody really likes it. Sure… it gets you sales eventually, but a horse and cart will get you from Sydney to Darwin in several months as well.
An aeroplane will get you there in an afternoon.

So how do you set up your prospecting in the NEW SCHOOL?

Step #1: You need an ad or sales letter to generate a lead for free information or an offer of some kind.

Step #2: You need to deliver on your offer

Step #3: Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Once you generate the lead, you need to set up automatic follow up systems to those who have put their hand up as being interested in your offer.

Think about it. With this system in place, I could have decreased the size of their call centre from 20 people to 4 people… invested the remainder of the money in advertising and marketing: and improved their results while slashing their costs.

Food for thought!

When I was working on a piece of copy, I’d start getting ideas while I was in the shower, lying in bed at night, and basically while I was focusing on things other than writing.

This happened intuitively. But since then, I’ve learned that dozens of other leading copywriters… from Gary Halbert to Joe Sugarman…do exactly the same thing.

They incubate.

What the heck is incubation? Basically, it’s the process of taking a break from your work and doing something pleasurable while your brain sorts the information around and comes up with a solution.

So let’s say you’re writing a sales letter for your business.
The first thing you should do is go over all the material about your subject, ask yourself a series of questions about your business to get your brain ticking.

Questions like: What are the benefits? What are the features?
What’s unique about my product or service?

Think about what you want to write. The angle. The ideas.
Jot down a few headlines and some of the main points you want to cover.

Jot it all down on paper. Visualise the end result you’re aiming for. And then…

Go To The Beach

Or take a shower. Or go and have a cup of coffee, a jog around the block, put on some music. Whatever.

Don’t think about writing copy.

It’s time for your subconscious mind to get busy and come up with a solution. You don’t need to do anything about it.

Of course, you could also switch to another project, and come back to the sales copy once your subconscious mind has had time to sort through the various solutions to your marketing problem.

The point is: get out of your own way and just allow it to happen.

Remember, your mind will take everything you know about your product or service, copywriting, advertising, marketing and psychology and come up with the appropriate solution.

You wake up in the morning, gather your weapons and head out to combat. Some days you come back with a boar, other days your family goes hungry.  The pressure is on you every single day to make the ‘catch’. It’s a battle.

Now imagine yourself as a farmer…

You plant your seeds and wait for them to harvest. In the meantime, you nurture them and treat them like your baby.

When they’re ready you simply start harvesting your crop.

In my experience, most businesses are hunters not farmers:

• they cold call to generate new customers
• they spend forever getting a new customer and then forget about  them
• they chase after the quick fix
• they advertise for the direct sale rather than the ’shy yes’ which will germinate in the future

This became blindingly obvious to me when I created some copy for real estate agents a few years ago.

- I would write an ad offering a free report.
- Without fail, they would receive calls from those ads.

However if the sale didn’t come off right away… they would

NOT put them on a database
NOT follow them up
NOT nurture them

… even though they had responded to an ad which identified them as their specific target market.

… even though each sale was worth several thousand dollars

… even though it would cost less than $12 a year to keep in touch with them

Why not? Well, I believe it’s because we live in a world of instant gratification. I remember reading a book, a long time ago now, by M.Scott Peck which said one of the keys to happiness was to be able to delay your gratification. In a marketing sense, that means…

Accept the fact people may not buy right away

Put them on a database

Mail them something every month to stay in touch and position yourself as an expert

And like a farmer, wait for that customer to harvest. (of course you can touch base with them by phone in the meantime and nurture the relationship personally)

Most people won’t do it. It’s too much work. Writing letters & keeping in touch. They would prefer to knock their head against a brick wall cold calling and doing things the hard way because at least they feel like they’re keeping busy.

But by doing this… you’re being ineffective. I know because that’s how I used to operate. Heck, two of my first jobs were as a door to door salesperson (selling cleaning chemicals to
businesses) and a telemarketer (selling hotel cards) and I can tell you that business gets a lot more enjoyable when you are…

- an invited guest (when others call you because you have educated them of the benefits of your services)

instead of…

- an uninvited pest (where you cold call and use other archaic marketing methods)

The most important thing you can take away from this message is to become a farmer. How do you do this? Simple:

1. Build a database
2. Nurture your database

… and prepare yourself for a rich harvest in the near future.

If You Can Vacuum, You Can Rug Doctor

And I couldn’t help but think what a clever phrase that was. You see, after grabbing their brochure to check out their marketing I realized that The Rug Doctor positions themselves as a cheaper alternative to using a carpet cleaner while still achieving professional quality results.

Obviously, a lot of people would think they can’t possibly clean their carpets like an expert and that’s why this phrase works so well.

Let’s look at a few other businesses who could apply this sort of phrase to their marketing…

- If you were selling a teleseminar series,  you could say…

If you can pick up the telephone, you can (whatever the benefits you are selling)

- If you were selling a ‘how to’ handyman course,  you could say…

If you can use a hammer, you can…

- If you were selling a gourmet cooking course, you  could say…

If you can make baked beans on toast, you can…

Are you starting to get the picture? Good. Basically, this phrase can be used whenever your prospect is
thinking: ‘that’s too hard for me. I’ll never be able to achieve that.’

Here’s another twist of the same concept for a resume writing course by the American Writers and Artists
Institute:

Imagine… making $30,000… $50,000… $70,000… even $150,000 per year or more — in just a few hours per week — with a system that’s as simple as turning on your computer…

To finish off with, I’ll give you two other strategies which take this objection out of the customers mind…

1. Without

Who Else Wants To At Least Double Their Income Without Working Longer Hours, Without Spending Thousands Of Dollars, Without A Higher Education

Or…

Give Me Just A Few Minutes A Day, And I’ll Show You How To Quickly And Easily Play The Guitar… Without Complicated Theory.

In fact, it’s so easy a child could do it.

2. Even If…

How to make a fortune on the internet… even if you’re a computer dunce like I am.

So there you have it. Three strategies for taking away the ‘it’s too hard objection’…

1.    If you can ___________, you can_________
2.    Without
3.    Even if

I hope you can apply these tips to your business and if you are already implementing these revolutionary advertising strategies, I’m sure your bank account is already enjoying the experience.

And it’s…

NOT finding a common interest

NOT talking in their unique language (i.e. talking differently to accountants than you would to hairdressers)

NOT making them feel special

NOT telling them how wonderful they are

Have you ever noticed how quickly people develop rapport when they are talking about someone they despise?

For instance…

- Members of a family being angry with another member of the family
- Environmentalists who hate industrialists
- Keen political followers hate the opposite side
- Two countries having a war (one country hates the other side)
- Business Owners hate the tax man
- And just about everybody seems to hate lawyers

You get the picture! The reality is that often the best way of creating rapport with your reader is to define a common enemy.

Here’s a simple paragraph so you can see how you can use this strategy in your ads and sales letters…

Think the tax man is operating in your best interest? Well, here are just a handful of examples of the ways
our government has found to spend the hard earned money you pay them for taxes:

(give examples of how much they spend on election advertising, silly research, etc)

Then follow this up with a sub-headline like…

You can (and should) stop supporting this ridiculous waste of money

Before you finish reading this copywriting secret, you might want to grab a pen and paper and answer
this question:

Who is your prospective customers enemy?

I’m going to tell you to work on your weaknesses within your strengths.

What?

‘What’ is right.

Let me explain: A friend of mine markets his business using a number of different mediums…

Fax
Internet
Classified Ads
Direct Mail Postcards
And a handful of others

Now, recently he measured where his sales were coming from. And the majority were being generated online from the internet. His quarterly statistics looked something like this:

Internet Income: $31,000
Classified Ad Income: $0
Fax Income: $5,000

What do you think he should do? Well, let’s take a look at the additional income he could generate if he could improve any one of these areas by 20%:

Internet: $6,200
Classified Ads: $0
Fax: $1,000

Makes sense doesn’t it? Sure. The internet already generates strong results for my friend. But there are certainly areas for improvement.

Let’s break take a look at what would happen if he lifted his results in a few different areas:

1. Subscription / Squeeze Page: 20% lift
2. Sales Copy To Quote: 20% lift
3. Increase Visitors: 20% lift

For the sake of simplification (and to protect my friend’s figures) let’s make up a few numbers:

Current Visitors: 700
Current Conversion On Squeeze Page: 10%
Current Conversion To Quote: 10%

As a result of this, he’d be generating 70 subscribers a week and converting 7 of these subscribers into clients.

Let’s take a look at what would happen if he could generate a 20% lift in each of these areas:

Current Visitors: 840
Current Conversion On Squeeze Page: 12%
Current Conversion To Quote: 12%

Now he’d be generating 100 visitors per week (an increase of 30 visitors per week) and 12 quotes per week. He has increased the number of quotes he’s generating by 71% (and consequently his turnover) as a result of a 20% shift in each of these three areas.

Based on this, his quarterly turnover from the internet would jump from $31,000 to $52,700. A $21,700 increase which is four times the amount he was making as a result of his fax streams – simply from increasing the weaknesses in his strength by a mere 20%.

Your priority for this week should be to analyse where the majority of your business is coming from:

If it’s from the Yellow Pages – how can you increase the results of your yellow pages ad?

If it’s from walk by traffic – how can you increase the amount of walk by traffic you generate?

If it’s from word of mouth – how can you increase the number of referrals you generate?

For instance, if I was promoting a business opportunity, I might excite the prospect about the potential of the product, and then tell them it’s…

NOT labour intensive (as little as a few hours a week) NOT network marketing NOT real estate or stock market oriented NOT a hard business to learn

Let’s look at what this strategy achieves…

1. Curiosity: Once somebody knows what the opportunity is, they might pre-judge it, and say ‘Oh no, I’ve heard about that. That’s not for me’ without having the necessary knowledge to truly make that assumption. This allows you to keep them interested long enough to convince them of what you have to offer. Or alternatively, to send away for a free report / CD or whatever whereby they give you their details and you get an opportunity to provide them with a full sales presentation.
2. Covers Objections: Think about it. If people have a predisposed bias against network marketing or real estate or stock market oriented businesses, then they are not going to respond to your advertising if you feature this in the ad. But when you tick off all the objections they may have (network marketing, labour intensive, real estate / stock market oriented, hard business) then you knock over those objections without giving anything away.

Makes sense?

But this isn’t just for the business opportunity market. For instance, if you were a gym selling a fitness program, you could say you can lose weight…

Without hunger
Without pills
Without low energy
Without giving up tasty food

Notice I used the term ‘without’ in this case instead of ‘not.’ That’s an alternative way of doing it.

Let’s look at another business. Imagine you’re looking to hire a plumber and you’re flicking through the yellow pages. How would you respond to someone who told you they could fix your pipes…

- Without waiting around for a plumber who shows up hours late
- Without getting your house messy (because we’ll take off our shoes before we come in
- Without paying through the roof for call out charges

Bang. He’s just knocked all your objections off their stand and differentiated his business with three quick sentences.

How can you apply this strategy to your business?

Should you avoid the issue? Or should you address it head on?

Well, firstly you should know that whatever you are selling within your copy is only one option, a choice; he has other alternatives.

Sure, your prospect may not know of them. But as a result of your copy, you could motivate him to seek other alternatives.

And that’s why you should seek to methodically invalidate every other option other than your own that he may consider.

But how do you do it without advertising them at the same time? After all, if you give attention to them, you’re essentially offering advertising his business for free.

As you can see, this is quite a touchy subject. Here is one approach you could use for a real estate agent:

Seven “Deadly” Mistakes People Make When Choosing A Real Estate Agent

Mistake # 1: Choosing a real estate agent without enough experience

Mistake # 2: Trusting the agent to give you an accurate appraisal

Mistake # 3: Underestimating the lust of the agent to sell your property for whatever he can get

Mistake # 4: Wasting your hard earned money paying more commission than you legally must

Mistake # 5: Giving in to confusion. Spending thousands on advertising without really identifying which strategy will work for you best

Yada. Yada. Yada.

You get the picture, right?

The whole aim is to put question marks in the mind of your customer about your competition. And highlight your strengths - and their weaknesses.

Here’s a sub-headline you could use for copy about financial services:

A Critically Important Warning About “Financial Planners” To Avoid. Why Most Financial Planners Don’t Have Your Best Interest At Heart

(Insert your industry for financial planners. And use this for yourself)

Or what about this line if you’re using a self development program:

Frankly, there are a ton of lousy self development seminars out there. Get-rich quick events held by people who are almost dead broke. Events by hyped up gurus who leave you punching the air, only to come down like a ton of bricks a few days later once they have your money.

Nothing like that here at (your company)

Are you getting the picture?

You don’t need to name your competition personally. You simply need to place doubts in your prospects mind about the alternatives.

Use these templates in your business. And gain a definite edge over your competition.