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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