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Your Life in Advertising: It Starts Today

Your Life in Advertising: It Starts Today

Dear friend,
Today starts an exciting, new day. Today is the day you'll be free of bad, non-productive advertising. I'm going to take you on a short journey to advertising profits.
If you've been following me, you may recall my article about firing up your inner salesman. And I offered a free copywriting checklist to help get you up to speed.
Today I'd like to take a slightly different tact and get into the inner game or mindset of being a "sales" organization rather than a "technical" organization.
Keep in mind I'm addressing you the business owner wanting to grow your business to the fullest capacity. This could apply to fortune 500 companies as well but I'm primarily talking to small businesses with sales under 50 million dollars.
What's Your Plan?
Let's start by talking about your basic business premises. Ask yourself "where do I want to go"? Do you want your business to give you more free time? Do you want more prospects, profits, how about some more sales?
These questions may seem too simple or even silly, but you'd be surprised how many business owners I consult with that have no clue (or clear cut goals) who they compare to other businesses or how to gain a true competitive advantage over the competition.
It's funny that we humans can figure out some of the most complex things ever but overlook the obvious and simple ones. And it's oftentimes the simple and obvious located right under your nose that can give you that unfair advantage.
Don't beat yourself up... we ALL do this, myself included!
To illustrate my point consider these examples:
·         Modern flushing toilets were invented in 1775. Toilet paper didn't make an appearance till 1857.
·         The year was 2000 BC. That was great year because ice cream made its debut. But oddly the ice cream cone didn't come around till some 3900 years later.
So let's look at your business and see how we can make some obvious connects that could seriously boost your profits. Once you have a concrete idea or goal for business growth, you can now make a plan to get there.
Let's look at...
How Many Ways You Can Increase Your Business
Yes, this one is a tricky one. Think about all of the ways... 50? 100? Maybe 500? Yeah, mind boggling, right?
Here's some good news...
There are only three ways to increase your business: Count 'em... just three...
1.     Increase the number of customers.
2.    Increase average sale per customer.
3.    Increase the number of times the customer buys from you.
Pretty cool, huh? You need only to deal with these three basic categories. That's it! Your business will grow exponentially if you begin to combine these three categories.
Cool, right?
Hey, if you need help with this, call me! It's what I love doing!
Now that we have this out of the way let's talk about how to get your advertising to pay off. It's really simple. Drum roll, please... it's all about salesmanship. And I'm going to show you how to inject some serious salesmanship in every ad you create. And it's very easy to do.
I learned this trick from John Carlton, one of favorite mentors. And I forget who taught it to him, Gary Halbert I believe. No matter, cuz now you're going to learn it.
But first, you must realize that advertising is (or should be) nothing more than "salesmanship multiplied." I've ranted about this many, many times. Advertising is NOT about entertainment, being cute, or artistic. No! It's about selling your stuff! That's it!
OK. Enough!
Think about how your best salesperson presents a live, sales pitch in front of his/her prospect, then applying this to a print ad, or landing page or whatever medium you choose.
How To Write A Great Ad In The Quickest Amount of Time Humanly Possible
Are you ready for it? OK, here's how to do it. Go fetch your best salesperson within your organization. Now ask him/her to give you a sales pitch and record it! Yes, record their sales pitch while they are in full tilt "selling" action. It's best to record them while they are in front of an actual customer or prospect.
It may take a couple of times to shake out the jitters of "stage fright" but it's worth the effort. This recording is solid gold, my friend.
Once you've got a decent recording, then simply transcribe it to paper or your computer. This is the start of a very powerful and persuasive sales message. advertisement.
The job now is to edit out of the aaah's, um's, stuttering and irrelevant chatting.
Clean up the copy and smooth out the bumps where everything reads coherently. Next, put the copy in logical order. Use the prospect's questions to overcome objections.
Again, the idea is to translate your pitch onto paper. This is one of the most brilliant shortcuts to "writing" a good ad I've ever learned. And it works!
Be sure to add a paragraph that tells how to order and include your phone number, where to send money orders, checks, what credit cards you take and so on.

OK. There you have it... the "magic system" for creating a decent ad (that'll beat your competitors advertising) in the fast time. Plus, it's easy to together and extremely effective.
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