MONEY- MAKING MONTHLY
Volume II Number 8 | August 2014 | $97
THE Monthly Magazine For Sharp Entrepreneurs
9 E H T
ETERNAL TRUTHS ABOUT MARKETING THAT EVERY ENTREPRENEUR NEEDS TO KNOW By Brian Kurtz
CAPITALISM
2.0 By Dan Sullivan
JOE POLISH & DEAN JACKSON Interview STEVE SIPRESS About The WOW! StrategyTM
ABOUT STEVE | AUGUST 2014
About the Publisher, Steve Sipress
If you want to grow your business slowly – or just maintain it as is, you’ll have to do that all on your own. But if you want dramatic growth in your income and lifestyle, then Steve’s out-of-the-box and time-tested strategies and tactics could be the keys to your dreams. You can benefit from Steve’s coaching experience and expertise to revolutionize your business – yes, even in this challenging economy – at one of the many in-person entrepreneur events he hosts, OR from the comfort of your own home anywhere in the world. You can also learn basic and advanced direct response marketing strategies and tactics from 150+ hours of video instruction, plus use any or all of Steve’s multi-million-dollar, proven “done-for-you” marketing materials at SSSMarketingUniversity.com. That website has been called The Single Most Powerful Client Attraction Program Available Anywhere, and you could be using it to skyrocket your income anytime you want, 24/7, along with hundreds of other sharp, successful business leaders. If you’re just starting up your new business, you’ll want to take advantage of all of Steve’s training, guidance and resources at NewBusinessAcademy.org. Steve is a successful and award-winning serial entrepreneur, who has created and built nearly a dozen successful companies of his own, and he can help you do the same – more quickly and easily than you’ve ever imagined. In fact, you can immediately use plenty of his simple and powerful strategies and tactics that work especially well in this current frustrating economy. You can discover the basics of Steve’s powerful “The WOW! Strategy™: How To Solve All Of Your Marketing Problems” by watching a short video at www.SteveSipress.com. Steve is a celebrated author, speaker and business coach who has established profitable businesses and helped thousands of ambitious and aggressive business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and sales professionals all around the world. He has written numerous newsletters and articles on sales and marketing for a wide range of publications and has appeared on radio and television, helping millions of people along the way. If you want the very best, hard-hitting, no-nonsense, caring advice and help you can get, then “Straight-Talk Steve” could be exactly what you and your business need most. You may even receive an invitation to work with other ambitious entrepreneurs, business owners, executives and professionals like yourself who want to learn and implement better, more effective ways to market their businesses and grow their incomes, thanks to Steve’s “$uccess $uper$tars” personal coaching program. Whether you’re a current or future business superstar, Steve can help you get exactly where you want to go as quickly, easily and powerfully as YOU want – with massive results both short-term and long-term.
Pg II | Money-Making Monthly Magazine | www.SteveSipress.com
www.SteveSipress.com www.SSSMarketingUniversity.com
www.NewBusinessAcademy.org
www.Facebook .com/SmallBizHelp
www.Twitter.com/SteveSipress
“An Incredible Experience!” "When we first started, I was terribly in debt and we were just a few months away from bankruptcy. We started seeing a boost right away in our business, we took what Steve's given me and we just started implementing and implementing, and it's just totally transformed my business. Steve has helped me with my laser focus, he helps me implement, he's taken my business to a whole new level. We went from a half a million dollars to a million dollars in two years. It's just an incredible experience to know that where you think you're just dead and things are horrible, to now anything is possible. I can see taking this to a whole new three or four types of businesses -- it's going to be huge. Steve is all business, he is an unbelievably smart, brilliant man. I can't say enough about him. Everything he's told me, I've made so much money it doesn't matter what it costs. They don't make enough money in this world that somebody could pay me so I would stop listening to Steve. Steve is the exact reason why I have a retirement fund now. It's probably illegal how much fun I'm having!"
Jon Bockman
Owner, Bockman's Auto Care Sycamore, Illinois
CAPITALISM 2.0 | AUGUST 2014
Capitalism In the past 200 years, capitalism has made great strides in increasing employment and the quality of life for more people in more places than any other structure. Even Karl Marx, the greatest critic of capitalism, wrote in 1849 that there had been nothing in prior human history to compare with the extraordinary changes this economic approach had already brought to all aspects of human affairs in a very short period of time. He thought the majority of these changes were — and would continue to be — negative, but in fact they turned out to be positive.
2.0
By Dan Sullivan
Leadership transformation. Motivation can only come from the transformation of leadership at the top. This transformation must be simple, easy, rapid, and immediately obvious to everyone in the organization. And it must be entrepreneurial — meaning that the leader is, first and foremost, prompted to multiply their own productivity and results. They must love multipliers, first individually, then organizationally.
Capitalism 1.0 We can usefully consider all the progress made in capitalist societies up until now to be “Stage One.” Until very recently, just having a secure job, reasonable working conditions, and decent pay was considered the best that one could expect from capitalist employment. And, in many parts of the world, people are just entering this first stage of capitalism. There’s a growing dissatisfaction with work as it exists; yet, there’s no coherent, simple, universal methodology for transforming the capitalist system and the millions of organizations operating within it.
The “10/90” class system. I believe The Multiplier Mindset is the doorway to Stage Two. Here’s why: Up until now, businesses and other organizations had to find ways to be productive with only a small percentage of their members focused on creative and innovative work. In today’s most creative and productive organizations — in all sectors — there’s a “10/90” class system: Ten percent of the people in any organization of 10 or more will be the creators and innovators, while 90 percent will function as non-creative implementers. The creative 10 percent are the first-class citizens; everyone else is second-class or lower. This is seldom stated openly, but everybody knows the score, and most people — whether at the top or the bottom — accept it as normal. The dissatisfaction with this class system is growing quickly in advanced economies, both in the private and public sectors. It shows up in low morale, absenteeism, turnover, inefficiency, non-accountability, and inconsistency — all leading to decreased productivity.
A change is needed. When it comes, it will be widely appreciated and rapidly accepted. We are ready to expand the practical, day-to-day opportunity to be engaged in innovative thinking, activity, and achievement to every member in every organization.
About Dan Sullivan Dan Sullivan is founder and president of The Strategic Coach Inc. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker, Dan has over 35 years’ experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups. Dan’s strong belief in and commitment to the power of the entrepreneur is evident in all areas of Strategic Coach® and its successful coaching program, which works to help entrepreneurs reach their full potential in both their business and personal lives. He is author of over 30 publications, including The Great Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, Creative Destruction, and How The Best Get Better®. He is co-author of The Laws of Lifetime Growth and The Advisor Century. Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K. New workshops are also being held in Los Angeles and Vancouver. Dan and Babs reside in Toronto. To download your free copy of The 80% Approach digital book and audio, and to watch Dan’s presentation of The 80% Progression, go to: www.StrategicCoachFreeGift.com Volume II Number 4 | Pg 1
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MANNY’S BLOG | AUGUST 2014
Manny’s Blog
HURRY,
LASSIE TIMMY FELL DOWN A BLACK HOLE!
Science fans, I saw a really interesting story on CNN the other day. What’s that? Yes, I’m one of the few viewers who still watch the Cable News Network. I originally got hooked because I though it stood for Canine Noshing News. Just like I originally thought A&E stood for Arfs and Entertainment. And I really thought that History would eventually get around to a documentary about my long-lost favorite blanket. (“That smelly old blanket is history, boy!”) Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Physicist Harold White (head of NASA’s Advanced Propulsion Team) recently unveiled a detailed design for a theoretical spaceship that would utilize warp drive to travel at speeds faster than light (186,000 miles per second). Warp drive, of course, is the technology they almost take for granted on “Star Trek.” I’ve always thought I could make improvements in the “Trek” dialogue to bring in more of the canine demographic. You know, like“To boldly go where no man has marked his territory before” and “He’s dead, Jim. (Pause) Let’s ROLL in him!” You know who is an unsung“Star Trek”expert? Steve is. He’s always uttering these incomprehensible things like“Stay off the sofa,”“Wipe those muddy paws,” and “Don’t you dare tip over the neighbor’s garbage can.” Klingon – he must be speaking Klingon. (Except I don’t think the phrase is supposed to be “Indeed, today is a good day to de-worm, boss.”) If made functional, White’s warp drive would literally transcend space, bending space-time both in front of and behind the IXS
Enterprise concept ship. (My friend Butch is already proficient at bending space-time BEHIND himself. With any luck, the vet will get his fiber intake regulated, though.) White claims the ship wouldn’t really violate any of the laws of physics. (You know the laws, such as the law of inertia: “A body at rest will remain a cat.”) It does bend the heck out of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. What punishment do you get for bending a rule like that? A rolled up newspaper seems inadequate. Maybe they threaten you with a rolled-up Rupert Murdoch? White’s propulsion system seems more practical than the one I dreamed up. And it uses a lot less throat spray. (“Mush! Mush! C’mon, just a little bit faster!”) Warp drive is a worthy goal because conventional spaceships would take 75,000 years to reach the nearest star – and because it’s way cool to say,“I hung my head out the window at 186,000 miles per second.” (Come to think of it, faster-than-light CAN OPENERS would be pretty awesome, too.) Of course if we do become capable of traveling to the far reaches of the universe in a short amount of time, we have to be concerned about what sort of alien life forms we might encounter. Maybe the weird extraterrestrial who did all of Einstein’s GROOMING. Oops. CATTY comments again. It’s only logical to blush and get out of here at warp speed.
Manny (full name “Emanuel” or “Dog With Us”) is Steve and Michele Sipress’ crazy, rambunctious cocker spaniel. He has a weak leg (despite a mostlysuccessful back surgery), grey hair, is totally deaf and partially blind. But he still enjoys barking at the mailman and landscapers, pulling dead frogs out of nearby ponds and chasing after his beloved squeaker toy. He loves everyone (even the mailman and landscapers), and everyone loves him. Volume II Number 4 | Pg 3
WHY CELEBRITY TRAIN WRECKS GRAB YOUR ATTENTION | AUGUST 2014
Why Celebrity Train Wrecks GRAB Your Attention
By Peter Diamandis
Millions of years ago, our brains became wired to remember about 150 people as “close friends.” This is probably because early hominid tribes gathered in communities of that size. Today this explains why an infantry company organizes around that size, and why smaller companies (e.g. < 150 in size) do better per-person than larger ones. This phenomenon of having only 150 people you consider close friends is called “Dunbar’s number,” and its implications are impressive. But you’d be surprised who your brain considers a close friend. Science shows that a lot of celebrities, from Lady Gaga to the 6 p.m. news anchor, make it into your “top 150” and the implications impact how you think. I wrote about this in Abundance, and I’d like to share this short excerpt from my book with you.
example – we treat those authority figures as friends, which triggers the in-group bias (a tendency to give preferential treatment to those people we believe in our own group) and makes us trust them even more. Once we start believing that the apocalypse is coming, the amygdala goes on high alert, filtering out most anything that says otherwise. Whatever information the amygdala doesn’t catch, our confirmation bias – which is now biased toward confirming our eminent destruction – certainly does. Taken in total, the result is a population convinced that the end is near and there’s not a damn thing to do about it. This raises a final concern: what’s the truth? If our brain plays this much havoc with our ability to perceive reality, then what does reality really look like? It’s an important question.
About twenty years ago, Oxford University evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar realized that humans evolved in groups of 150, and this number – now known as Dunbar’s number – is the upper limit to how many interpersonal relationships our brains can process. In contemporary society – where, for example, the nuclear family has replaced the extended family – very few of us actually maintain 150 relationships. But we still have this primitive pattern imprinted on our brain, so we fill those open slots with whomever we have the most daily “contact” – even if that contact comes only from watching that person on television. Gossip, in its earlier forms, contained information that was critical to survival because, in clans of 150, what happened to anyone had a direct impact on everyone. But this backfires today. The reason we care so much about what happens to the likes of Lady Gaga is not because her shenanigans will ever impact our lives; rather because our brain doesn’t realize there’s a difference between rock stars we know about and relatives we know. On its own, this evolutionary artifact makes television even more addictive (perhaps costing us time and energy that could be spent bettering the planet), but Dunbar’s number never acts alone. Our brain is a wonderfully integrated system, so these processes work in concert – and the symphony is not always pretty. Because of amygdala function and media competition, our airwaves are full of prophets of doom. Because of the negativity bias and the authority bias – our tendency to trust authority figures – we’re inclined to believe them. And because of our local and linear brains – of which Dunbar’s number is but one
About Peter Diamandis Recently named one of the “Top 50 World Leaders” by Fortune Magazine, Dr. Peter H. Diamandis is an international pioneer in the fields of innovation, incentive competitions and commercial space. In the field of Innovation, Diamandis is Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, best known for its $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private spaceflight. Today the X PRIZE leads the world in designing and operating large-scale global competitions to solve market failures. Diamandis is the New York Times Bestselling author of Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think. Abundance was #1 on Amazon and #2 on New York Times. Get connected to Peter Diamandis at: www.AbundanceHub.com
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*FACT: 95% of Small Business Owners work WAY
too hard, have WAY too much stress and make WAY too little money – then go out of business in their first five years.
Steve Sipress The WOW Strategy™ Creator
I help Small Business Owners who want A LOT more out of life systematically attract their ideal customers, clients or patients using The WOW! Strategy™, so they totally transform their income and lifestyle.
To request your personal, 1-on-1 The WOW! Strategy™ Session, go to:
Jon Bockman Sycamore, IL
“Steve is all business. He is an unbelievably smart, brilliant, brilliant man. I can't say enough about him. Steve has put probably more, I would say, thousands, and thousands, and thousands of dollars... I mean, I probably can't even put a true figure on it, because it keeps coming back, and keeps coming back, just more and more money all the time.”
“One suggestion that Steve gave me, well, without question, put $300,000 more in my bank account. And we are going to be using it forever. This is not a one-time deal. We’re going to be using this idea that Steve helped us with... and we’ll be using it until it doesn't keep working like it is. And so, the value over time could literally be way over even the $300,000 number.”
Mary Forte Bensenville, IL
Keith Lee Seattle, WA
“He's helped me learn how to market my business, and today I can say that we're more successful than we've ever been… I needed to learn how to market the business better to create more revenue, and that's what Steve has helped me with. The financial difference is considerable. We've probably close to doubled our revenues. We're on track now to do another close to $500,000 more than we did last year. So that's awesome. I do owe all of that to Steve.” Volume II Number 4 | Pg 5
THE WOW! STRATEGY™ | AUGUST 2014
The WOW!
Strategy
™
Joe Polish & Dean Jackson Interview
STEVE SIPRESS For The “I LOVE MARKETING”
Podcast
Dean Jackson: Hey, everybody. It’s Dean Jackson. Joe Polish: And Joe Polish, and welcome to I Love Marketing. How’s everyone doing? I guess they can’t respond, can they Dean? Dean: I’ll respond for them. Everybody is doing fantastic. Joe:
That’s wonderful. Okay, we’ve got a good friend and a special guest today. He’s going to talk about some awesome stuff. His name is Steve Sipress, and I’ll give you the quick bio on Steve. He’s a successful serial entrepreneur. He’s created and built over a dozen successful companies of his own, while helping thousands of other ambitious and aggressive business owners, entrepreneurs, executives and sales professionals all over the world do the same over the past 35+ years. He’s assembled a team of the world’s best business-building experts, as the publisher of Money-Making Magazine, the Rhinodaily. com blog and the Rhino Daily Podcast. He has written numerous newsletters and articles on sales and marketing for a wide range of publications. He has appeared on radio, television and in international media and is the bestselling author of several books. He has won many awards for both marketing and sales, and he is the creator of The WOW! Strategy™: The key to helping small business owners solve all of their marketing problems.
Steve Sipress: I am doing absolutely fantastic, thank you, and thanks for that great introduction, Joe. Joe:
You are welcome.
Dean: I’m excited. This is going to be good. I watched the ... You sent me over the video – the 10-Minute Talk – and I’m excited to get to talk to Steve today. Joe:
Yeah. Absolutely. Steve, obviously, I shared your bio, but for those that don’t know you, what else did I leave out? What do the people need to know about you since you’ve been teaching direct-response and business-building for a long time, but what do the people need to know before we get into some questions?
Steve: Well, I appreciate that, and I don’t want to take people’s time with too much about me. But I’ll tell you, you can kind of deduce a little bit about where I come from by knowing that my mom was a school teacher for 45 years or so. My dad was in sales and then later owned his own business. So I’m kind of the ... it’s real natural for me to be the combination of those two. I love to teach, and I love sales.
And he’s also in the Genius Network, and he did such an awesome 10-Minute Talk at the last one, I was like, “We really got to do an episode on all the stuff that you know.” Steve, how are you? Pg 6 | Money-Making Monthly Magazine | www.SteveSipress.com
And actually, the first time I discovered direct-response marketing was simply to help me do more sales, in my sales career. And I kind of ignored all of the marketing stuff, thinking “I’m not in marketing, I’m in sales” and kind of was a little dense to it and didn’t pick it up very quickly. So I owned my own businesses, and really saw myself as a sales person for years, but when I started implementing this direct-response marketing, then it really took off.
THE WOW! STRATEGY™ | AUGUST 2014
And instead of just doing it, I love to teach. I love to coach people, and so I offer ... My clients get a combination of help with their sales, their marketing and with accountability, which I think is a big piece of the puzzle that’s missing from a lot of people that claim to be teachers and coaches out there.
like, “This just sounds like exactly what you do with us, and this guy is making money with it.”
So I placed my own ad, and as it ends up later on, I found out probably 15 years later that that was a direct-response ad. I put a headline, I put an offer, I had a money-back guarantee, I had a toll-free number. I did all of this stuff, and man, the response was crazy!
So flash ahead to almost 20 years later – that built into a multi-million dollar success and so forth, but I still didn’t get it. About 20 years later, I was a Yellow Page rep. I was doing sales for a Yellow Page company, which was miserable. What I found out after two months of training, where we were told, “The Yellow Pages is the greatest thing on Earth” and whatever, and this is 2004 or so, so the internet was already around and business owners were starting to kind of ... to lose faith in the Yellow Pages a little bit, and rightly so with the ads they place.
But anyway, I was told how great the Yellow Pages is and how much it helps people, whatever. And then I went out on the job, and the first call I made to what was a current advertiser. These are supposed to be, I would think, happy to hear from me. “I’m your new rep and let’s talk” or whatever.
Steve: Yeah. See, I was ... Actually, it was long before I knew what direct-response was, because while I was in my last year of law school, back in 1984 (which is amazing in itself, that it’s been 30 years), I had a hobby which is now well-known as fantasy sports, fantasy football, this is like well-known stuff. But back then, it was for just ultimate sports fan geeks like me and my friends and I thought that ... we all thought that I kind of invented the game. There was a whole bunch of early versions back then because there was no computer. This was an unknown thing, and I just put a bunch of friends together and we got in a room and we drafted players onto our teams, and we traded them, and I was the one who took the responsibility of being what they call the Commissioner of the league, which is just a thankless job of keeping all of the statistics by hand and sending out weekly newsletters and updating everyone on the standings and keeping track of everything.
And it was worse than a cold call. At least a cold call, they don’t know you. In this case, they hated me and they didn’t even know me (which I hoped they didn’t know me, if they hated me, but anyway). I was miserable, and I was like, “This is really bad. This is worse than cold calling.”
And I was looking for help and I just remember typing into the internet or whatever I was doing, I was looking around and reading books on sales, on marketing, on how to attract leads, how to do better cold calling, and I came across ... Again, I didn’t know what it was called but I came across people that were using and teaching direct-response marketing.
Basically, coming from kind of Dan Kennedy’s “Magnetic Marketing” school of ... Before you’re going to start cold calling, warm them up with some marketing. So that’s the first… and that really turned the world on its ear for me, Dean.
I went from hating every second of that job to hardly working at all. I mean, I was working on my marketing all the time, not working like the other reps. I wasn’t sitting there pounding phones and getting hung-up on, and walking in the door and having to take the first hour of every meeting just to build rapport and get any semblance of respect from them.
So put all three together, and I look to help people get great response and open ... I love to see light bulbs go off and open their eyes to a whole new world of business where ideal clients are kind of chasing them and the world is their oyster. You guys both know that happened to you when you both found direct-response marketing and started using it.
Dean: Um-hmm. Steve: So that’s what I love to do, is help people make that ... get that big change happening in their life. Joe:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Dean: What was your first experience? What was your first experience with direct-response? Where did the light bulb come on? Joe and I both told those stories. What was the first thing that you did, that you said, “Wow, there might be something to this direct-response.”
I turned that into a business when I graduated law school. One of my buddies who was in the league found some obscure little one-inch classified ad in the back of The Sporting News – an obscure sports magazine for fanatical sports fans – saying, “Hey! Get to be your own ... own your own team in your own league.” It was just an unheard of thing, and he was
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THE WOW! STRATEGY™ | AUGUST 2014
Joe:
I was able, through direct-response marketing, to have amazing referrals and amazing leads contacting me, and then walking in the door and then saying, “Hey, come on in and help us out” and “What do you got?” and “Please help us, with all your knowledge and your skill” and whatever. I set every record at that thing, and won every award and promotion and trip and whatever they can give out at these corporate sales job things. After a few years of that, I realized, “What am I doing? Why don’t I just go get my own leads for myself and ramp back up my failed consulting business (which had failed not because I wasn’t giving people good advice, just I wasn’t getting any good clients)? I started using that marketing for myself and took off from there. Isn’t it kind of amazing, how it becomes like a savior for so many people that really, it’s that one area of how do you attract and position yourself so that people come to you and you don’t have to do the drudgery of cold calling and what not? What were you going to say, Dean?
Dean: I was just saying, you have this moment, where you flip the switch and you know what that’s like. Now, you know you’re never going to have to make another cold call or you’re never going to have to look for business again. You know you’ve got the formula to get as much as you want ... Joe:
Steve, how would you actually define direct-response for people that ... I mean, most people that listen to I Love Marketing and follow you, of course they get it, they know it, they understand it, that’s why they listen to all of us. But for people that don’t really quite understand it, what’s the best way that you define it? I have ways that I do it and stuff but I’d love to hear your definition.
Steve: Well, I was going to say thanks for putting me on the spot with two geniuses of direct-response marketing, but I’ll give my feeble attempt. I try to keep it real simple. Just the name of it, “direct-response,” I look it as cutting out the middle man. We are going directly to a prospect for a response.
what people would think is “general awareness” or “branding” marketing. Joe:
Right, right. Yeah, I’ve always love to just think of direct-response as: Image advertising, institutional advertising, most of what you see in that world, is “get your name out there” brand-building. And direct-response is, “get your name out there and get a response back.” It’s something that’s trackable, something that’s specific.
When you did the 10-Minute Talk at a recent 25K meeting, you started off with, “You’re about to have solutions” to a whole variety of stuff that you laid out. Then, you’re saying, you’re not paying to get warm and fuzzy feelings, that we gotta sell something. And that’s what direct-response really does. I’d like to have you speak to that, because so many people are enamored with the whole concept of “build the brand” because it sounds like the right thing to do.
There’s a lot of people that refer to it that are very successful. There is a lot of big companies that are always being talked about and admired in the media that certainly have a very successful, very admired brand. And small business owners think that they can somehow just easily replicate that, and they can’t.
Steve: Well, nor should they really want to and I will explain what I mean by that. But I will say that building a brand is something that’s fantastic and enviable and awesome. It is something you’ve done with multiple brands. Anyone in my circle – any top marketers – walk around and say, “The 25K Group,” “The Genius Network.” Everyone knows what that means, what it stands for, what you’ve built there, what you’ve put together. That’s a brand.
The good news is, you didn’t pay a single dime to make people “aware.” As far as I know, I don’t think you have a “25K blimp” and I don’t think you had a “25K NASCAR” and I haven’t seen the “25K Stadium” yet. You’re not paying for all of this “awareness.”You’re actually getting paid every time somebody hears about you, because you’re doing direct-response.
So I brought up at the 25K talk, one example is the “ShamWow.” People listening to this way in the future might be dating itself, but still it’s been a couple of years or so since that was non-stop infomercials with a ShamWow. They cut a piece of chammy into a few pieces and make millions of dollars. It isn’t because the piece of cloth is the greatest thing on earth, it’s because of direct-response marketing. So I asked
So we’re getting an immediate response – yes or no. Whether they’re buying something or getting some free information or clicking on a link or whatever they’re doing, we’re getting an immediate response. And also very important, it’s something that we can track. Those are the two key hallmarks that I use to differentiate direct-response marketing from
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THE WOW! STRATEGY™ | AUGUST 2014
for a show of hands in your group, Joe, how many people have heard of ShamWow? Every hand in the room went up. To me, that’s proof of the power of branding through direct-response marketing, because ShamWow never paid a dime for anyone to be aware of it. Every time you became aware of it, they were making money. It was from an infomercial, it was from an ad, it was from someway of selling.
Joe:
So the beauty is we get to build a brand, but we don’t pay some agency or some millions of dollars. The company isn’t worried about our logo, and getting focus groups as to what color and shape our logo should be, and all that nonsense. We just keep selling so much. So to bring it down to Earth, to a local business, in a local community, by providing good service and sending out a newsletter, being a part of the community – doing direct-response things – you get well-known in your community without having to just “get your name out there.” It’s a great alternative. Yeah, exactly. You’re absolutely right. You take something like a towel – an absorbent towel – and you turn it into this theatrical pitch that brought in millions of dollars. You never ... There’s no one that’s going to take an absorbent towel and they’re going to build a brand around it, that’s going to be the biggest one on the planet – unless, it was “The Oprah Towel” or something like that.
Steve: Well, yeah. I bought one at a county fair or something, where the guy is doing the whole shebang and whatever. I bought the thing, and I brought it home, and I was like, “Look what I ... What did we get here? What am I doing? This is awesome!” See, now, I have the ultra respect for the marketer that did that. Other people would go, “Oh, this is a scam. That’s a scam.” I call it marketing.
Joe:
I think comes up for direct-response… and I’ll say this: Over the years of doing this, I have a friend named Jerry who has this line that we say all the time which is: “For those that get it, no explanation is needed. For those that don’t, no explanation will do.”
The people that really grasp and understand this, see the application of this psychology – this applied psychology – to pretty much everything that you’re selling. Some people that don’t get it or want to fight it or want to defend nonsense that flat-out doesn’t work, will say, “Well, I don’t ... I would never respond to an infomercial” or “I don’t buy that sort of stuff.” They make comparisons like that which are just nonsense.
It’s someone that’s fixated on themselves, versus what a direct-response person is fixated on – the marketplace. One of the things you broke down in that 10-Minute Talk are the three basics of direct-response: Who it is – Who’s your target market? – just like what we talk about in “The 8 Profit Activators.” The first one is “select a single target market at a time.” So “Who are they?” “What’s the offer?” and “Ways that you get that offer to the who.” When you really can identify and think from the standpoint of the prospect, the client, the patient, the person, the customer, then you will construct messaging to reach them and to sell that person – not just try to look good. Dean: Well, I want to talk about some of the things that Steve applied this to. So bringing it up to the current day, a lot of times, people say, “Well, to do directresponse, you guys are talking about print ads and classifieds and things, and that was in the ‘80’s. You might as well be saying the 1800’s sometimes. And people are saying, “Well that’s ... now everything’s online. Nobody does print, or nobody does traditional stuff.” Meanwhile, back at the ranch, here we are, all three of us, still doing print ads and traditional directresponse things that are still crushing it.
They convinced me to buy a piece of chamois, just cut into a few pieces, because I thought, “One for the boat, one for the car, one for this, we can’t do this all day, it soaks up like it’s the greatest thing on Earth,” and there goes my 20 bucks times how many millions of people? It’s awesome.
Steve: That’s my last “W” in The WOW Strategy™, is the Way of getting your offer to your target market. There are Ways that haven’t been invented yet, that we’re going to be using in a few years or ...
Right. Exactly. Exactly. And Steve, the thing the people need to get is they’ll… See, one of the resistance that
To listen to the entire interview, go to: www.SteveSipress.com/magazine Volume II Number 4 | Pg 9
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9 ETERNAL TRUTHS ABOUT MARKETING THAT EVERY ENTREPRENEUR NEEDS TO KNOW | AUGUST 2014
ETERNAL T R U T HS
ABOUT MARKETING
EVERY
THAT ENTREPRENEUR
By Brian Kurtz
NEEDS TO KNOW I believe that marketing is critical to every kind of business… and that’s why I recently did a presentation on an online conference for entrepreneurs…many of whom are not marketers and most of whom don’t want to get all that involved (directly) in their marketing either. I knew I could be of service…since I believe that “nothing happens” with your product or service until you decide to aggressively sell it…within the boundaries you determine are right for your business. I believe over 50 entrepreneurs opted-in to my weekly e-mail after my presentation…and I am dedicating this article to them…my new heroes who may not be “full-time marketers,” but they get it as far as paying more attention to this aspect of their businesses. I applaud them. Let me share now what I shared with them…and I have a feeling that there will be some nice reminders for the experienced marketers reading this as well... 1. Be involved in all of your marketing efforts, even if you outsource everything: Those of you who run your own businesses – and have a background in some directresponse medium – don’t need more encouragement on this one. But if you tend to focus on many other things beyond marketing (e.g. product development, finance, etc.), never let go of the marketing reins completely. Know everything that everyone is doing inside and outside your organization. Every marketing message is a representation of you, your brand or both. Look after your marketing efforts like you would your own child. 2. Marketing is not evil: I totally understand mission-based businesses and the need to be “elegant” or “classy” with all marketing and sales messages. But always remember this: Consider it irresponsible to not bring your product or service to the marketplace with the same passion with which you created it in the first place. I know there’s a line each of us won’t cross – and that’s personal taste and
quite subjective – but there’s nothing to be ashamed of when you are bringing something you’ve worked your entire life for to as many people as possible. That may require copy platforms and creative considered more “aggressive” than you thought you would be comfortable with, but as long as it is always in the spirit of making a bigger impact, sell hard. 3. Advertising opportunities are now infinite: I’ve used this line before…and it’s worth repeating in this conversation. Telling entrepreneurs who are more handsoff with their marketing to run away from anyone who claims they can be your “one-stop shop” for all marketing, creative and media buying is one of the best pieces of advice I can give based on a career of “buying a la carte” from only the best experts working in their expertise. And this one is true no matter how hands-on or experienced you are with your marketing efforts. 4. SingleChannelMarketingIsSoBoring.com: Don’t go to this website, because it just re-directs to my website: BryanKurtz.me… but I DO own this URL to prove a point. I will warn any entrepreneur or business owner who will listen – hands-on marketer or not – to ask lots of questions about the diversification of media being used on their behalf. I recommended that those they put in charge should talk about how the company/product/service can be a solution in multiple channels…single-channel marketing is not only boring…it’s also quite dangerous. 5. No one spends enough time on lists: I’m quoting Dick Benson on this premise (for the 47th time this year)… because I can’t emphasize enough to business owners enough that they must pay close attention to their customer list, prospect list and how they look for new lists at a very detailed level. Not doing so is a prescription for disaster. It is a function that is truly the lifeblood of our businesses. To ignore lists…and to not make lists a top
Pg 10 | Money-Making Monthly Magazine | www.SteveSipress.com
9 ETERNAL TRUTHS ABOUT MARKETING THAT EVERY ENTREPRENEUR NEEDS TO KNOW | AUGUST 2014
priority…is a huge mistake. And making sure you talk to different segments of your list based on their relationship with you is critical to maximize success. 6. If applicable, use your personal brand in your marketing: For many of the marketing superstars who reside on this list…superstars who know how their personal brand is totally in synch with their products and services…I don’t need to emphasize this too much. However, many entrepreneurs and business owners are squeamish about putting themselves “out there” in a big way for fear of sounding boastful and not genuine. To that, I will quote baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean (and I think John Wayne used this one too): “It ain’t bragging if you did it.” 7. Customers refund transactions…not relationships: I used this in a recent blog post in the context of that “cheap medium” called e-mail – and that e-mail should not simply be used to pound your list (and your customers/prospects) into submission. How I presented this concept to the “non-marketing-expert-but-savvy-entrepreneur”: I asked them to understand LTV (Lifetime Value) at the deepest level…which gives all marketers the most leverage and the maximum chance for success in multiple channels. I don’t think I have to remind you about this much more than I have here. 8. Credibility and transparency trumps all: Again, creating proof elements through testimonials, case histories and professional endorsements are about building the case – not bragging. And when you make a mistake or want to show vulnerability, people always appreciate transparency. Isn’t the cover up always worse than the crime? There are countless stories in the world of marketing where a business fessed up to something they were not proud of or failed with, and came back stronger than ever. But once there’s a cover up, you’re doomed. 9. Always think “direct marketing”: Measurable and accountable advertising is what you always want…and don’t let anyone sell you a brand and image advertising “campaign” without showing you some kind of return on your investment (ROI). We’ve been saying for years that the Internet is the ultimate direct marketing medium and that will never change. But ALL marketing is direct marketing in my world. Asking for an acceptable ROI is standard operating procedure as far as I’m concerned. Just because a lot of stuff is cheap doesn’t mean you should get sloppy measuring results. I hope there was at least one good reminder in this list of something you might have forgotten about, no matter how committed you are to your marketing efforts…and no matter how involved you are in the day-to-day marketing activities of your business.
About Brian Kurtz Brian Kurtz helped build Boardroom, Inc. to over a $100 million company. Brian has overseen the mailing of approximately 1.3 billion pieces of third class mail over the past 20 years. He has been able to market and sell newsletters and books via direct response television (infomercials) and using e-mail and the Internet in huge numbers. At the height of his infomercial success, he was responsible for buying media in excess of $80 million, and sold over 3 million books via direct-response television over a three-year period. And since he’s never met a medium he didn’t like, he’s learned the ins and outs of every possible medium where direct marketing lives and thrives. Brian is proud to have cut his teeth in the offline world of direct marketing, and finds that the principles he’s followed over the past 30+ years all apply to any and all “new media.” He is committed to educating any and all online marketers who will listen, and is also committed to “learning while teaching” – because there is still so much to learn. Brian recently discussed some very important concepts about how best to treat your customers/prospects/ friends/followers with another top direct-response marketer, Joe Polish. Watch this powerful video titled “Everyone Is Going Right… Time To Go Left!” by going to: www.BrianKurtz.me/steve Brian is also the host of the upcoming not-to-bemissed event, “The Titans Of Direct Response,” featuring Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham and more. For complete details, go to: www.TitansOfDirectResponse.com
Volume II Number 4 | Pg 11
IN TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES: MARKET SMARTER, NOT HARDER | AUGUST 2014
In Tough Economic Times: Market Smarter, Not Harder By MaryEllen Tribby “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is a motto your more resilient and clever CEO’s and marketing professionals adopt while their meek counterparts tend to bury their heads in the sand during these tough economic times. Yes, times are still tough, and people are still scared regardless of their current income level. And rightly so, many people who are in decision-making positions feel a sense of responsibility to their employers, their colleagues and their staff. Unfortunately often these folks have a kneejerk reaction and cut marketing dollars before weighing the consequences. In reality, cutting your marketing budget in a bad economy is the last thing you should do. This is not the time to focus less on marketing … rather the opposite. The beauty of marketing in the 21st century is that many of the marketing channels available to you are cheap, easy and fast to execute. The cost of entry has never been lower (and I am not just talking email marketing), and there has never been more niche markets available. It has never been easier with today’s technology to accurately measure the impact of your marketing efforts and make educated decisions about going forward to plan cohesive multi-channeled marketing campaigns. Smart companies that continue to grow and prosper during hard economic times understand the value of multi-channel marketing. Create strong customer relationships. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of multi-channel marketing is that it provides great customer relationship building opportunities. Direct mail and email allow you to stay in front of your customers while letting the customer learn about your product on their own schedule. Telemarketing allows you to provide additional information and answer questions your customers may have. Regardless of which channels you use, you should never promise anything that you aren’t going to be able to deliver. In fact, you should always be over-delivering on the promises you make in your marketing copy. Remember that integrity is the key. Choose efforts that help you pick the low-hanging fruit. Never forget to market most often and most strongly to those loyal customers who buy from you. Direct email marketing, well-written and based on a compelling offer, is critical. It is easy to implement and extremely cost effective – allowing you to communicate with your customers as much as you (and they) want. It also gives you the ability to test, see what’s working, and quickly react to generate more sales. It allows you to make your message as timely and relevant as possible. For the most part, direct e-marketing is a two-step process. The first step is to develop a list of people who will accept your promotional messages. This list is built by asking for your customers’ email addresses.
Pg 12 | Money-Making Monthly Magazine | www.SteveSipress.com
IN TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES: MARKET SMARTER, NOT HARDER | AUGUST 2014
The second step is to send them your direct response promotions. These are usually longer sales letters, much like direct mail. Some forms of marketing don’t cost you a dime. You can create online buzz about your product through social media. This can take on many forms: online forums, message boards, blogs, video blogs and social networks (such as LinkedIn, Twitter, FaceBook, etc.). Use social media methods to stimulate conversation about you, your business, and your products. The key is to be genuine. To ensure the buzz is positive, you have to promote yourself gradually and organically by developing real relationships with your desired audience on targeted social media sites. It is also imperative that you are involved in the conversation on your own site, pages and accounts. To ignore your own customers is an unforgivable mistake in today’s interconnected world. You must always be answering their questions, responding to their complaints, exploring opportunities, announcing new products, listing upcoming events and reminding them of deadlines. The list is endless. Want to drum up great PR? Get to know the media. Of the many channels of marketing, public relations is one that every business should embrace. That’s because it is nearly free. If you have a good writer on staff, your only cost will be the event you are publicizing and the small amount it takes to mail or email out your own press release. When it works, it really works, going from regional to national to international faster than it takes to write up a conventional advertising campaign. The trick is creating successful, newsworthy stories. It’s very important to target your press releases to specific publications and media outlets whose customers you want to reach. Rather than sending out 1,000 general press releases about a story that has general appeal, it’s much more effective to send out a dozen or so targeted press releases containing stories that are exactly right for the intended audiences. It’s simply quality vs. quantity. Don’t go it alone. Many small business owners balk at the idea of joint ventures. They don’t like the idea of splitting revenues. They like selling their own products, because they keep 100% of the revenues. This is the kind of thinking that destroys a business. When a joint venture is executed properly, it doesn’t subtract from the business — it adds to the business. There are many ways to do joint ventures, and the best ones are those that pair up businesses with asymmetrical resources
and skills. To find your joint venture “soul mate,” think about the major players in your marketplace. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each. Ask yourself how you might benefit from working with them. Make a list of potential partners and develop a strategy to approach them and show them how they could benefit from doing business with you. The idea is to develop joint venture relationships that are easy to maintain, financially profitable, intellectually rewarding and long-lasting. Regardless of how many channels you use and which ones they are, smart companies understand ROI (return on investment). If you see a company — perhaps one of your competitors — advertising often and in multiple channels, chances are it is a healthy company. Study that company. Is there something they are doing that you can implement?
About MaryEllen Tribby MaryEllen is the proud Founder and CEO of Working Moms Only .com, the world’s leading media company for the empowerment of the working mom. Prior to founding WMO, MaryEllen was Publisher & CEO of Early to Rise where she was responsible for growing the business from $8 million in sales to $26 million in just 15 months. Before that, she served as President of Weiss Research where she led the company to $67 million in sales from $11 million in just 12 months. MaryEllen is a highly sought-after business consultant, speaker, and author. Her first book, which she coauthored with Michael Masterson, is Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions For Your Business. It hit #1 on Amazon.com within just 10 hours of its release. If you have been yearning to start a business, but are confused, overwhelmed or scared about the thousands of programs out there, go to: www.MaryEllenFreeGift.com
Volume II Number 4 | Pg 13
MONEY-MAKING MONTHLY Volume II Number 8 | AUGUST 2014
www.SteveSipress.com/magazine
This Month’s Money-Making Info
1 3
Capitalism 2.0 By Dan Sullivan
HURRY, LASSIE, TIMMY FELL DOWN A BLACK HOLE! Manny’s Blog
4
Why Celebrity Train Wrecks GRAB Your Attention
10
9 ETERNAL TRUTHS ABOUT MARKETING THAT EVERY ENTREPRENEUR NEEDS TO KNOW By Brian Kurtz
12
In Tough Economic Times: Market Smarter, Not Harder By MaryEllen Tribby
By Peter Diamandis
FEATURE ARTICLE
6 STEVE SIPRESS About The WOW! Strategy
JOE POLISH & DEAN JACKSON Interview TM
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