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The Sales Process
How To Get More Business & Increase Your ROI For Free
January 7, 2011
The first time I heard about this skill was from a gentleman by the name of Mike Dillard. He called it the Million Dollar skill and the more and more I studied about it, the more I realized that it truly IS the Million Dollar skill.
If you learn and master this skill, you can sell ANYTHING… and that makes you a VERY valuable resource not only to your own business but to any other business owner who wants to increase their Return On Investment (ROI).
You can use this skill to generate thousands of leads, sales, & referrals by just doing the work ONCE.
If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m talking about learning how to write sales copy.
NOTHING in business happens until the sales copy is written. Whether it’s a sales letter, lead capture page, promotional video, audio, or any other mode of communication… NOTHING happens until the sales copy is written.
Think about it…
The Wall Street Journal is a very well known newspaper. They have sold hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars worth of subscriptions by simply mailing out a 2 page sales letter that was written for them. That’s it!
Here is a copy of the letter if you want to look at it: The WallStreet Journal Sales Letter
Rolls Royce even had a sales letter for their 1958 model written by one of the best advertisers in the world… David Ogilvy.
If you learn this skill – which I HIGHLY recommend you do – you will then become a Million Dollar Person. Businesses will pay you tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds, to write a sales letter for them. And a lot of times, if you’re good enough, you’ll get the opportunity to get commission from the sales that your letter generates.
That’s freakin’ awesome!
Fortunately for you, it actually isn’t a hard skill to learn. It’s not one of those things that you have to be born knowing. With some hard work, patience, and dedicated effort… you too can become a great Million Dollar copywriter.
How?
That was actually a question that was on my mind for a long time when I was first starting out. I did some research on the subject and found out that copywriter courses go for literally thousands of dollars… and I really didn’t have that kind of money to spend at the time.
So I did the next best thing… I copied.
Don’t get me wrong here… I didn’t use someone else’s sales letter as my own. That never works.
What I did was this… I looked for proven sales letters. For example the Wall Street Journal Sales letter amongst many others. I looked for proven copywriters… John Carlton, Yanik Silver, Eben Pagan, David Ogilvy… just to name a few.
And I found all of the sales letters that they had written, printed them out, and copied one every night by hand.
After 30 days of doing this, the philosophies behind writing effective sales copy were internalized.
So try that… and let me know what your results are after the 30 days are over. You can always come back to this blog and post any questions or comments you may have.
Also, I’m going to be listing different web resources on this post when I find the good ones… so make sure to come back and check them out.
Here they are:
- web copywriting
- Copy Blogger
- Ink Thinker (Good one!)
- Grok Dot – A Marketing Optimization Blog
- Bob Bly’s Copywriting Blog
- Peter Stone’s Copy Blog – One Sales Letter Away From Wealth
- Dianna Huff’s Business-to-Business Blog
- Dynamic Copywriting by Charles Brown
- Good Copywriting – Copy That Sells
- John Carlton’s Marketing Rebel Rant – MUST Visit this site. This guy’s a freakin’ genius… for real.
- Michael Masterson’s Blog
- Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Paper Blog
- The Copywriter Underground
- January & McTighe’s American Copywriter
- David Garfinkle’s World Copywriting Blog
I’ll make more updates in the upcoming days and weeks…
Talk soon,
Arman Vakili
Thanks For Visiting: www.How-D0-I-Start-My-Own-Business.com
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How To Combine Email & Social Media Marketing For Mass Exposure
January 4, 2011
If there is one thing people in Los Angeles understand, it’s the fact that you can never have TOO MUCH exposure for you or your business.
It kind of goes back to the old saying, “there’s no such thing as bad press”.
But we are in a pretty crazy time right now as far as marketing methods for the modern era. With the arrival of all these different social media sites, and the roles that they play in people’s lives… the consumer marketplace has turned into a very open conversation amongst all of our potential customers.
I am always in search of information that can help me expand my reach and market-share, and today I ran across an article on Entrepreneur.com that helped me do just that. The specific columnist that is responsible for this article is Gail Goodman.
She is a frequent contributor to several leading business sites, and has a VERY good grasp of what she’s talking about. Check out what she has to say about the role that email & social media marketing will play in your own business in 2011.
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For email marketers, there only appeared to be one major trend that mattered in 2010. It’s a game changer that presents both opportunities and challenges for businesses to connect with customers. You guessed it: It’s the impact of social media. You can’t just “talk at” customers anymore. They now expect to be part of the conversation and part of your business story. Social media has irrevocably changed the email marketing landscape.
Persuading readers to share the content of your email content is the key here. This is accomplished by providing content that demonstrates you’re in touch with what’s important to customers and you provide information that not only solves their problems, but also entertains them and asks for their feedback and participation.
Email marketing and social media are complementary. While email offers a way to directly contact your customers via their inboxes, social media provides new ways to share your content and engage in conversations with networks of people. One without the other is an incomplete solution to your marketing needs.
As you plan your email marketing campaigns for 2011, take advantage of the opportunities to reach new prospects, revive existing customer relationships and recruit new fans who can spread the word about your business.
Here are five things you can do to create a more social e-mail experience in the new year:
- Make every message shareable. Include a Like/Tweet button or a social share bar in every email newsletter. The “Forward to a Friend” feature lets subscribers share your newsletter with another person by email. But by adding social icons at the top of your e-mail, those same people can now share it with their entire Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn networks. That extends your reach to a highly qualified audience of prospects.
- Kick-start your social presence using your email marketing list. Invite e-mail subscribers to connect with you on social networks. Include links to your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages in your e-mail marketing communications. Don’t forget to provide reasons why subscribers should join you on social media destinations — and how that experience will be different from your email communications.
- Include a “social call to action” in every email newsletter. Don’t rely solely on social media icons and buttons to get readers to visit your social media outposts. Entice readers with a link to a hot conversation you want to continue on Twitter (or another discussion destination), or to an exclusive contest or survey you’re featuring on Facebook.
- Solicit feedback and find newsletter content. Use crowdsourcing on social media sites to find out what topics are trending with your customers. Invite questions and feedback, and join the conversation. Then use the frequently asked questions and the feedback gathered as material for newsletter content. At the same time, spark a conversation and continue it via email and social media. Don’t forget to include and encourage social media feedback in every issue of your newsletter.
- Cross-post to all your communication channels. Always post your newsletter content on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Keep conversations going by re-posting different snippets across social media channels. Even better, fan the discussion flames by sending out a separate email letting readers know about conversations happening on social media and inviting them to participate.
You may find one social media channel works better than others for sharing content and sparking conversation, depending on where your customers spend time. But you won’t find out until you dive in, test the waters and monitor your results.
Email marketing has undergone some major changes since I first started working with small businesses, nonprofits and entrepreneurs many years ago. Today’s opportunities for email marketers to share content and reach customers on social media were unimaginable back then. Now they’re here — so let’s all take advantage and get the party started.
Here’s to a happy, prosperous and social 2011.
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Told you it was an awesome article, didn’t I?
Before I leave, just wanted to give you a last reminder to share this information with all your friends on Facebook & Twitter that can use this stuff. You can use any of the buttons below or you can even “like” us at the top of this post.
Talk soon!
How To Develop A Million Dollar Sales Funnel
November 30, 2010
So let’s talk sales.
Before you write any sales copy or even create a product… you REALLY need to understand the sales funnel concept and how it works for your business.
Imagine a funnel that has five different filters in it, with the fifth filter covering the very entrance of the funnel.
Now as you pour your “traffic” into the funnel, the group of people who pass through the first funnel at the entrance are your new prospects… leads. These are actual contact information of people who are interested in the product or service you’re offering.
To pass through the next filter, your prospect would need to buy a fairly inexpensive product from you. This is called the Self Liquidating Offer (SLO). Usually the SLO goes for $17 – $67… and the price really determines what you’re offering and how much value it has.
A little side note about the SLO… it really doesn’t matter what the customer ends up paying towards the beginning. The money IS NOT in the SLO. The SLO is there for 2 reasons only: 1st to offset your advertising costs, but 2nd and more importantly… to set in effect one of the most powerful laws of selling:
It is 5 times easier to someone who has already bought from you, than it is to sell to a brand new prospect.
And the person doesn’t necessarily even need to buy something… as long as they actually PAY money for something, it has the same effect. Here’s what I mean…
I have seen several examples where someone is giving away a “Free CD” or a “Free Video” and “all you have to do is pay for shipping and handling”.
So in the eyes of the prospect, they’re not actually buying the product… they’re just paying for the shipping, which they can live with.
But for you, it doesn’t really matter… the whole point is that they actually use some of their money to pay for something that YOU are sending them.
Now, you can actually sell them a low-priced eBook… or you can send them a “free” bracelet to introduce your brand of jewelry to them. Either way… you win.
The next series of filters are going to offer MORE value to your prospect, for a higher price. For every filter that your prospect passes through, the price to pass through the next one will be higher.
And of course, the value of your product must be higher.
Here’s an example of this in the information product world:
- 1st Filter – eBook download. (Free)
- 2nd Filter (SLO) - Audio Download. ($17)
- 3rd Filter (UpSell 1) – CD – ($27)
- 4th Filter (US 2) – DVD – ($37)
- 5th Filter (US 3) – Seminar – ($97)
- 6th Filter (US 4) – Personal Consulting – ($197)
The easiest way I know how to do this with information products is to start at a “big picture” point of view. Your free product explains the big picture to your prospect and WHAT they need to do. The SLO is the fundamental steps of the HOW-TO… and each UpSell after that is the specifics of the different steps they need to take.
You can do this also with physical products.
My friend makes home-made jewelry and her “free offer” is 3 bracelets of your choice for free… just pay for the shipping and handling. And she has bigger packages for sale later on in her funnel.
You can apply this concept to any business. All that you have to do is brainstorm ideas for different products that you can add to your product line.
There really is no limit to how far you want to go with this. Your sales funnel doesn’t really have to end with your products. You can use other people’s products as affiliate promotions and always add them to your sales funnel. As long as you have a list of interested prospects that you can go to, you can offer as many products as your heart desires.
Pretty cool, huh?
Try out these ideas to see how many different products you come up with. If you have any comments or questions, you can post them below.
Looking forward to reading your feedback,
Arman Vakili