Volume IV • Number 1 • January 2016 • $97
Sunny Days Ahead
MANNY’S BLOG: Be It Ever So Humble…
How to
YOUR BRAND: Consistency Counts expert interview with
FIX They Done Me Wrong
Shawn Casey Internet Lead Generation Master
January 2016
ABOUT STEVE
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. For over five years, Steve was the #1 “Dan Kennedy Certified No B.S. Business Advisor,” and was Runner-Up out of 25,000 members for 2010 GKIC Marketer Of The Year. 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. 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.
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www.SteveSipress.com www.SSSMarketingUniversity.com www.NewBusinessAcademy.org www.Facebook.com/SmallBizHelp www.Twitter.com/SteveSipress
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
SUNNY DAYS AHEAD
January 2016
Sunny Days Ahead
By Steve Sipress After living in the Chicago area for nearly 15 years, my beautiful wife Michele and I recently moved to sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. Michele has family in the area, and I have many friends and business associates here, so we’ve been thinking and talking about moving here for several years. One thing was certain: we knew we didn’t want to stay in the corrupt, insolvent state of Illinois.
Over-taxation, oppressive regulation, and completely corrupt politicians at every level of city, county and state government make being a small business owner or entrepreneur in Chicago – or anywhere in the state of Illinois – extremely frustrating and difficult, at best. I believe that every successful person in Illinois should make the same statement as I did, to send a message to the corrupt cronies who continue to run the state into the ground that their game of “Robin Hood” tax, spending, and
government kickbacks and corruption needs to change. I’ve done my part to send that message by taking my business and my tax dollars out of the state of Illinois. When I posted a video online to let my friends and fans know about my move, I was completely unprepared for the response. That video was viewed over 1,000 times in the first few hours after I posted it to my Facebook page, and received well over 100 comments and “Like’s.”
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January 2016
SUNNY DAYS AHEAD
Several people even shared my video onto their own Facebook walls, as an example of the freedom that a successful entrepreneur can build for himself. Others commented about how “motivating” and “inspirational” my story was.
To me being an entrepreneur (and being an American in general) is all about freedom. For years, I’ve been working to craft a lifestyle of freedom for myself – building a business in which I can work where I want, when I want, and with whom I want.
I never thought of it that way, because to me being an entrepreneur (and being an American in general) is all about freedom. For years, I’ve been working to craft a lifestyle of freedom for myself – building a business in which I can work where I want, when I want, and with whom I want. I think it’s a shame how far too many business owners box themselves into a corner and create a lifestyle with a lack of freedom. I’ve helped thousands of small business owners over the past three decades or so, and most say that a big reason why they went into business for themselves was to achieve the freedom that comes with owning their own business. But unfortunately, most quickly discover that their business owns them. Instead of working “whenever they want,” most small business owners work long hours. Instead of building a successful business that gives them an enjoyable, affluent lifestyle, most small business owners make huge sacrifices and often make little or even no money. Here in Arizona it’s easier to find healthy food, healthy people, and – most exciting to me – healthy businesses, eager to grow and expand. I spent nearly the past decade trying to convince my fellow Chicagoland small business owners that even though that it’s tougher than ever to do business in the state, there are still strategies
and tactics they can use to grow their businesses. The overwhelming majority of them were impossible to convince, and remained pessimistic, refusing to invest in the growth of their businesses, insisting on waiting until this stagnant economy somehow just “blows over” and things “return to normal.” In my short time here in Arizona, however, I’ve discovered that “normal” for small business owners in this area is an attitude of optimism and excitement, and an eagerness to discover and implement aggressive business growth strategies and tactics to have plenty of fun and make tons of money. My kind of environment, for sure. Yes – in case you can’t tell – I’m extremely happy about my move. Here are two big lessons…
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Regardless of whatever is going on with the overall economy, every small business owner can and should be focused on the only economy they have control over – their own personal economy and the trajectory of their own business. Plenty of businesses fail in boom times, and plenty of businesses experience massive success in down times. The solution to improve your own income and lifestyle is to concentrate on your own small world, and take all the ACTION you can to keep moving in the right direction.
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Every small business owner can build a life of complete freedom. I’ve done it myself over and over, and I’ve helped many small business owners and entrepreneurs do it, too. I know what steps to take, and perhaps more important, what NOT to do, in order to make total freedom a reality. Contact me if you want my help to make freedom a reality for YOU and your family, too.
To find out more about Steve Sipress and how he can help you have more fun and make more money with your business, see the Inside Cover Page. To get new money-making strategies and tips every weekday from Steve and other top business-building experts from around the world, go to:
www.RhinoDaily.com
*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.”
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January 2016
EXPERT INTERVIEW
expert interview with
Shawn Casey Internet Lead Generation Master
The internet provides a lot of opportunities for you to start something smaller, with very low overhead, instead of the traditional way we would have thought of it 20 or 25 years ago.
Steve Sipress: Shawn Casey, welcome to the Rhino Daily podcast. It is fantastic to have you here! Shawn Casey: Thank you very much, Steve. I’m glad to be here. Steve: I’ve got to ask you right off the bat, because I know your background, before you became a superstar with marketing on the internet, you had a career as an attorney. I have a law
degree. I never practiced, but – how do you… My mom never understood what I did. How do you tell your family, “I’m not going to be a lawyer anymore. I’m going to do marketing on the internet?” Shawn: My transition started before the internet, so that was probably easier. But I had gone into business running a direct response marketing company that was primarily focused in the real estate and small business education fields,
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starting in 1995. So I practiced law for 10 years, kind of started learning about marketing and doing some speaking around the country before I stopped practicing law, and then in 1995 I quit practicing law, and started full time being an entrepreneur. And then it wasn’t until 1999 that I started on the internet, when I looked at the internet and what was happening, and realized this was a great direct
EXPERT INTERVIEW
response medium that I could run an ad, track results, and see exactly what was going to happen, and it was going to become something really big, if for no other reason, then for that. Steve: Well, the results speak for themselves. Since things were happening for you, they could still not be sure what you do, which I’m sure they are, but it’s tough to be against it when you get the results that you get. Shawn: Yes. Steve: So I know we have a bunch of attorneys that are listeners to the Rhino Daily podcast, so it must be very freeing for you to be doing what you want, from where you want, when you want, instead of into the corporate world, even in the business you transitioned into, I’m guessing. Shawn: Well, it’s definitely been very different, and a lot of times I do meet attorneys whose question for me is, “How do I get to do what you do, because I don’t actually want to practice law anymore?” I think there are lot of lawyers that practice law who would rather not, but it’s hard to break out of anything that you’ve become successful at, and you’re making good living at, and transition into another business. And even… I’ve met a lot of doctors who, as they get older, are just tired of the grind and the stress, and want to transition into another business. And certainly the internet provides a lot of opportunities for you to start something smaller, with very low overhead, instead of the traditional way we would have thought of it 20 or 25 years ago, where my retirement plan, or my next business life plan, after I stop being a corporate guy, whether it’s a doctor, lawyer, or just somebody in the corporate grind, would be to buy a franchise, or open up a brick and mortar store and spend a minimum of $100,000, and possibly a million dollars, before we open the door. Over the last two weeks, I built an e-commerce store with my own two
January 2016
I built an entire e-commerce store, where we stock no products, we outsource all the purchase and delivery, and we started advertising yesterday, and we did a couple of hundred dollars in sales yesterday, and we’ll do hundreds of thousands in sales out of this store, and we literally, physically have bought no inventory, we have no store front. hands, because I needed to see how the software works so we can integrate some other stuff with it, on a platform called Shopify, which is used by hundreds of thousands of people now. I built an entire e-commerce store, where we stock no products, we outsource all the purchase and delivery, and we started advertising yesterday, and we did a couple of hundred dollars in sales yesterday, and we’ll do hundreds of thousands in sales out of this store, and we literally, physically have bought no inventory, we have no store front. We do have customer service personnel, but compared to what we would have had to do in the old days… And I know I have less than $1,000 out of pocket to open the doors. It’s a different world. Steve: Well, that’s a fantastic – I was going to say story, but it’s more than a story, it’s a real life story. It’s a fantastic example. So people – pretty much all the listeners of the Rhino Daily podcast – have pretty much brick and mortar, normal, “real” businesses. It sounds like not much, “Hey, you brought in $200.” But that’s with extremely low overhead. And as the saying goes, the first dollar is the most important one. It’s the proof of concept, and now it’s a matter of scale. This is what you do over and over and over again. So let me ask you, just to see if I can cut through the clutter for the listeners, is there a universal first step that people need to take? Because otherwise, it’s just so confusing to get started. Shawn: Sure. What we’ve done with this particular… The reason we built this store, two reasons: One is that we have
an existing business in this niche, and we knew that these people buy products, so we wanted to be able to sell products to them, instead of referring them to other people, because then we can make a bigger margin selling it ourselves. And then we also, at the same time, looking at that niche, knew that we could drive traffic to the store, to add more people into our prospect and customer base for that niche. So, it’s really just another marketing channel for us for a business model that we’re already in. But we chose that niche, first of all, because we know that they are people who are responsive, people who make multiple purchases, and most importantly for online marketing is you’ve got to be able to figure out who your audience is and where you can find them. When we’re working with clients on creating marketing plans, or helping them to refine a marketing plan, a lot of times we’ll ask somebody, “Who’s your customer?” and the answer is, “Well, it’s everybody!” Well, you can’t advertise to everybody, unless you’re just going to buy broadcast TV, or random ads on the internet, and your advertising costs go through the roof. But if you’re advertising into a specific market, such as lawyers for example, if you want to advertise to lawyers, you can find them. They like certain things, they’re on certain websites, they belong to certain organizations, they subscribe to certain magazines, and you can identify what those are, and you can advertise to the people that have an interest in those things.
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January 2016
EXPERT INTERVIEW
On our store, we’re advertising directly on Facebook, to people who have expressed that they like multiple items in the niche. And Facebook now, in the advanced version of their software platform, you can advertise not just to people who say, for example, that they like lawyers – because that could just be some random person, like mom likes her son the lawyer, so therefore Facebook says, “Oh, she likes lawyers. She’s probably a lawyer.” But you could advertise to somebody only who says they like the American Bar Association webpage, and they like their State Association webpage, and they’re a graduate of a specific law school. Steve: [laughter] In other words, pretty sure that person is a lawyer.
done over and over again. Which is why incredibly quickly, I’m guessing, you’re going to get to what you do, which is to bring in those hundreds of thousands of dollars. For some people, they just think that’s so out of the realm of possibility, or they’ve gotten lost in the maze of all the shiny objects that are out there, with people teaching what to do on the internet. I know that you make it really clear what steps to take, how to get this success. So you’ve talked about the first step. Is there… I know we only have about a minute left on today’s episode, but after they do that, are they pretty much downhill from there? Is there any real important other thing they need to do?
Shawn: Absolutely. Admitting that you’re an attorney is the first step towards recovery. [laughter]
Shawn: Well, what we want to identify, and we really look for in our business, is something that we can duplicate. So, if I can run an ad that costs $5, and I can get $10 back, then I can run that ad again and again and again, and I can scale that ad up in volume into a market with potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of prospects, and I can broaden my interest into other markets or other interests on Facebook.
Steve: So, you’re not including that they like lawyer jokes. I know there’s a lot of those going on.
And that’s why I can say, when I can run a test and I immediately get results, and I can identify where those results came
Shawn: Right. Pretty sure, because it would be pretty random otherwise. But it makes a huge difference. Steve: And not a lot of people, who aren’t lawyers, like to admit publicly that they like those kind of lawyer things.
from, then all I’ve got to do is do more of it. It is literally like a classic sales thing for any business, which is: If you know that you can take leads and turn them into buyers, you just need more leads, because they’ll automatically become more buyers, once you’ve built the sales process. Every business needs traffic of some sort. Visitors to your website, people walk in your door, people that make your phone ring, and then converting them into something else. And the internet, where you can do all of that, for what we do for example in the e-commerce store, where we don’t ever have to talk to anybody, you can ramp it up much more quickly than if you’ve got to train another sales person, you’ve got to build another store, you’ve got to do things that are much more complex than simply letting electrons in computers do the work. Steve: Well you’ve certainly… We’ve just scratched the surface. I know I’ve got you for one more day. So, I would love in tomorrow’s segment, if we can get into a little of this, about this scalability aspect. Because I know that’s really where you are one of the ultimate experts in the world, and I think you can really help people out. Can we talk about that tomorrow? Shawn: Absolutely!
Shawn: Right, absolutely. Steve: Okay, I love it. And that’s of course The WOW Strategy™, the first “W” is the Who. You’ve got to really know Who they are, and how you can reach that Who, and then you’ve got to put together your message, your Irresistible Offer, which I’m guessing is what you have in your e-commerce store, is a bunch of really fantastic offers. Shawn: Correct. And they’re tightly targeted to exactly who we’re advertising to have come to those pages. Steve: Right. So $200 on the first day with just a little testing, and now it is a matter of scale, which is what you’ve
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Shawn Casey is the former CEO and co-owner of a two-time INC 500 Company who walked away from that lucrative position when he saw the potential of the internet in 1999. He’s started several different internet-related ventures whose combined revenues exceed $50,000,000. Shawn has helped over 500,000 entrepreneurs in 142 countries to start, grow, and manage their online businesses. In 2011, he was named the Internet Marketer of the Year. For information on his amazing software, plus free training videos, go to:
www.WebFire.com
YOUR BRAND: CONSISTENCY COUNTS
YOUR BRAND:
Consistency Counts
January 2016
You have to back up your brand with quality – consistent quality.
By Jim Palmer
When you define who you are and create your mission statement, you have to promote it in order to build your brand. You have to promote it on everything and everywhere – business cards, email signatures, websites, URLs, video channels. Wherever you put your name, you should include your brand. Consistency counts. Think about a few examples. If I were to flash an image of swoosh, you’d know the company. Mouse ears? Got that one, too. How about “ding”? A particular airline uses a sound very effectively in its branding. And branding is about more than a logo, an image, a sound or a tagline. It’s the whole look and feel of the company. It defines you and what you do… and stand for. And for most entrepreneurs, they are their brand, and they are their business. What I tell my coaching clients is this: You must anoint yourself the go-to expert and create celebrity expert status, and then boldly, confidently, and continuously promote it at every opportunity. When that famous swoosh logo was introduced in 1972, the company name was included with it. Because of consistent use, that simple logo has come to represent not only athletic shoes, but it’s launched an entire industry of athletic wear, and because of the various athletes who have served as
spokespersons, it has also come to represent la crème de la crème – champions excelling at their games. The company name is now even a bit superfluous. No one needs to see the name any longer to make the connection with championship quality. The logo says it all. It’s really branding at its best. That said, you have to back up your brand with quality – consistent quality. If you’re not delivering quality every time to every customer, your brand will never gain traction. Or you’ll start getting bad word-of-mouth advertising. “Oh yeah, that’s the company that never delivers on time.” Branding can be bad as well as good. Your credibility, like the quality you deliver, also contributes to your brand, and your credibility is built on your track record. You can’t make it up. You can have the slickest marketing materials in the world, but you won’t grow your business without credibility. If I say I’m the Newsletter Guru, I’d better have the expertise and experience to back that up. Especially in this day and age. Social media has changed the way every company does business. There’s no way you can control everything that’s said about you online, so you’d better make certain you’re delivering what you say you’ll deliver in order to reduce the possibility of negative comments about your company in forums, chat rooms and review sites. In fact, take it one step farther and over deliver. Exceed your customers’ expectations at every turn.
Jim Palmer is a marketing and business building expert and host of Newsletter Guru TV and Stick Like Glue Radio. He is known internationally as “The Newsletter Guru”— the go-to resource for maximizing the profitability of customer relationships. He is the acclaimed author of six books, and was a featured expert in five more. He is the founder and President of Custom Newsletters, Inc., parent company of No Hassle Newsletters, No Hassle Social Media, The Newsletter Guru’s Concierge Print and Mail on Demand, Magnetic Attraction and Retention Training Program (MARS), Success Advantage Publishing, Double My Retention, Stick Like Glue Radio, and Newsletter Guru TV. Get Jim’s profit-boosting video “The Power of Zero” plus other free business-building resources at:
www.TheNewsletterGuru.com
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HOW TO FIX THEY DONE ME WRONG
January 2016
HOW TO FIX They Done Me Wrong
By Sydney Barrows What’s your procedure for handling bad publicity? How do you counter bad reviews on Yelp, negative comments on other internet sites or less-than-complimentary stories in the media? Of course the easiest way to handle it is to keep it from happening in the first place, and I can hear you muttering, “Easier said than done, lady,” as you roll your eyes as far back as they’ll go.
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LET ME ‘SPLAIN YOU, LUCY
Think about it: when you get angry, do you feel calm or energized? Energized and aching to retaliate, right? To teach them a lesson, to get them back, to spread the word about how awful they are so that other people don’t give them their business so that they’ll suffer financially. Before the internet the only options available were to tell as many people as possible, to report them to “the authorities” or the BBB, to contact the media, or to sue. The “common knowledge” was that a disgruntled patron told 10-20 people about it and a satisfied person 2-5 (depending on whose statistics were being quoted).
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DAMAGE CONTROL
Another option is to control the narrative. When something goes awry, do whatever it takes to make it up to the client – the more dramatic the better! This way the story is, “They done me wrong, but listen to what they did to make it up to me!” That’s a story that the “victim” will enjoy telling and people will enjoy hearing. And will remember. And human nature being what it is, what they’ll remember is how you went out of your way to save the day and the more dramatically you can do that, the more often the story will be repeated. And remembered.
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THINGS SURE HAVE CHANGED
Now there are so many ways to “get the word out” that it’s hard to keep up with them all. And a majority of the time, once a review is on a website, it’s there for good and could haunt you for years to come. One option is to relentlessly collect positive reviews and post them frequently, saving a few aside to put up if/when someone says something nasty. For those sites like Yelp where this isn’t possible, come up with a campaign that rewards customers who post positive reviews so that at least they outnumber the bad one(s).
HOW TO FIX THEY DONE ME WRONG
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“EASIER SAID THAN DONE, LADY”
Yes, that can be true. Especially when so many of us are hardwired to win, to have to be right, or need to make sure the other person “knows how stupid they are.”
Let me say this about that: Winning is making sure the client doesn’t do something that’s not in your best interests. He’s the one who wins if your reputation is damaged, not you. Being right is doing the right thing for your business, not your ego. Allowing the patient to be right is the right thing to do, which means that in point of fact, you are right! As good as it may feel to rub in a customer’s face what a complete and total idiot he or she is, when you do this the only one who is genuinely stupid is you, because you’re hurting your business and will have to live with that terrible review and reputation forever. And that’s stupid.
Being right is doing the right thing for your business, not your ego.
January 2016
What’s the lesson here? It’s not that the customer is always right, it’s that you’re always right when you act like they are. Unless the cost to make them happy is ridiculous, pay it and chalk it up to the cost of doing business. If you have a creative accountant, you might even be able to write it off. And don’t do it grudgingly, either. The more gracious and over-the-top you are about it, the better the story the SOB will have to tell. And that’s the goal, to have people out there telling everybody who will listen how wonderful you are.
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AND THE WINNER IS…
You can’t buy that kind of publicity. But you can pay for it by overdelivering on making it up to someone who feels they’ve been wronged by you, or your business or practice in some way. When your policy is “the customer is always right” and you over-deliver on “sorry, we were wrong,” you’re the one who ends up being right. And the winner!
And that’s your Sales Choreography lesson for today, boys and girls. This is just one of the little tricks I have up my sleeve. On the face of it, it sounds counter-intuitive, but when you really think about it, it’s the best thing you could do for your business. If you’d like to stand out by doing things differently than everyone else, if you’d like your name to be the one on people’s lips, in a good way, then you have to be a bit unconventional sometimes. In a good way. Push the edge of the envelope, as they say. In a good way.
There are a number of consultants and coaches who specialize in working with solo-preneurs, entrepreneurs, small business owners and professional practices, but it’s probably safe to say that none of them have such a “unique and unusual” history and “professional qualifications!” A descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims, Sydney was born into an affluent family in Philadelphia. After losing her job in New York’s fashion industry, she worked the phone for an escort service. She opened her own escort service, and gained a reputation for providing high-class prostitutes. She was arrested in 1984, and has since become a best-selling author of business books and has enjoyed a highly successful career as an author and business consultant. In 1986, she wrote The Mayflower Madam: The Secret Life of Sydney Biddle Barrows, an autobiography providing an insider look at the inner dynamics of the prostitution industry. An instant best-seller, the book was named one of Fortune magazine’s 10 best business books of the year, and has since been used in the curriculum at Harvard Business School. Barrows has since authored three more books, and also works as a private business consultant. Sydney invites you to spend an hour on the phone with her so you can get some great Sales Choreography strategies and ideas for your business, so you can ramp up the impressions and experiences you deliver to your clientele. To schedule a complimentary 30-minute private conversation to talk about it further to see if it’s right for you, email:
Sydney@SydneyBarrows.com
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January 2016
FAIL FAST LIKE GOOGLE’S CO-FOUNDER: The First Step to Marketing
Fail Fast Like Google’s Co-Founder: The First Step to Marketing By Matt Bacak Several years ago, my wife attended an event put together by none other than the all-mighty Google and a few other big name companies. One of the things she told me that really hit her hard was when the co-founder of Google said that one of the reasons they were so successful at Google was because they fail fast. This is a key in business, especially internet marketing. Fail fast because the faster you fail, the quicker you can get to making the big bucks. Another way to look at it and something I’ve always told my clients is, you don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going. You can figure out what the right thing is as you go but if you don’t get started, you won’t get anywhere. So what do I do when I notice what I’m doing isn’t working? What steps do I take to get myself back on track to making millions? First things first. I always look at my numbers. I harp on this again and again because many people just don’t get it. If you don’t have numbers, you don’t have a business. If you aren’t looking at your numbers constantly, if you aren’t tracking your opt-ins, your sales, your traffic, you aren’t running a business. You’re playing with a hobby. So I look at my numbers. The numbers can tell me if my sales are down, where my traffic is
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You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going.
You can figure out what the right thing is as you go but if you don’t get started, you won’t get anywhere.
FAIL FAST LIKE GOOGLE’S CO-FOUNDER: The First Step to Marketing
January 2016
going, where my traffic isn’t going, it will tell me all these things. When I look at my numbers, I can see exactly where I’m losing people and I can start plugging the holes. Now once I start finding that I’m losing people in a certain area, I ask myself some more questions like when did my sales start decreasing? Is it the product that I’m selling or is it the execution of my sales technique? Am I being consistent? Consistency is an integral piece of maintaining customers and making sales. Your swipe files should be consistent with the product you are offering. Also, they should be consistent with you, your image and your overall business. The bottom line is are you being consistent with what you’re offering to your consumers and how you’re offering it to them? One of the biggest mistakes I see new marketers making is that they aren’t connecting with their audience. A lot of marketing is about eliciting a certain emotional response within a prospective and exploiting that response to get the desired result, a sale. If you aren’t making an emotional connection with the reader of your email, you aren’t going to make a sale. You won’t establish trust and likability with them and in turn, you won’t get them to turn out their pockets for you. So to get that emotional response you’re looking for, you need to have a complete and detailed understanding of your target audience. Once you know exactly who you’re marketing to, you will know exactly what to say and how to say it to connect with them. Your number one goal in business is probably to make money and that’s admirable. We all want to make money. But the fact is that your first goal as a business owner should be to seek out and fill the needs of your customers. By doing that, you will make money. By getting started today, taking one little step at a time, you can and will succeed. Like I said before, you don’t have to get it right, just get it going. Or in the words of Google, fail fast.
One of the biggest mistakes I see new marketers making is that they aren’t connecting with their audience. A lot of marketing is about eliciting a certain emotional response within a prospective and exploiting that response to get the desired result, a sale.
Matt Bacak is considered by many an Internet Marketing Legend. Using his stealth marketing techniques, he became a Best Selling author with a huge fan base of over 1.2 million people in his niche as well as built multi-million dollar companies. Matt is not only a sought-after internet marketer but has also marketed for some of the world’s top experts whose reputations would shrivel if their followers ever found out someone else coached them on their online marketing strategies. There are many strategies to making money on the internet, but nothing makes sense unless you have a big list. Email Marketing is the most profitable way to make money on the internet. When you build a list of hot and hungry prospects you control your future. Discover how to use the internet and turn your computer into a cash gushing machine. Signup right now for Matt Bacak’s FREE online newsletter to find out how to do exactly that - Go here:
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www.SteveSipress.com I RHINO MONTHLY
I 11
January 2016
MANNY’S BLOG
Be It Ever So Humble… Have you seen the Time magazine article “The Amazing Science Behind Pets That Find Their Way Home?” Even if you haven’t, I’m sure you’ve heard anecdotes about pets displaying incredible navigation skills after jumping out of a truck, being stolen, being given away, or being abandoned. You know, the inspirational story like the cat that traveled two months and 200 miles – and deposited two months and 200 miles worth of heart-warming hairballs on the threshold. (The cat could’ve made it sooner, but …you know all those “George Washington Slept Here” signs? There are 100 times as many markers indicating “George Washington’s Cat Slept Here.”) Probably the most regular display of mind-boggling navigation is when certain species of birds migrate with the seasons. You can ask my neighbor the birdwatcher about this phenomenon. (You’ll recognize him; his hair line has migrated to Capistrano.) With canines, it has been a matter of trial and error. We couldn’t depend on those foldy things humans call maps. Ironic that you can be “all thumbs” when you don’t even HAVE thumbs! One mercifully unnamed ancestor came up with the “trail of bread crumbs” method. He patented that idea, but blew all his money on a sack of magic beans. Another dog procured a pair of Ruby Slippers and developed the mantra “There’s no place like home.” The mantra became “There’s no place like the dumpster” after she
unwittingly chewed up the slippers. We tried using Siri, but dialects such as German Shepherd and Great Pyrenees really blew her mind. There are also limitations to our version of GPS (Gathering Pooch Scents). Some dogs just memorize umpteen trees, bridges, alleys, fields, hills, buildings – yet their owners can’t remember to put out fresh drinking water. I’m just saying. Some animals get around by attuning to the earth’s magnetic field – which seems natural for a guy with a magnetic personality like mine. Others employ an even stronger innate sense – the deep-rooted realization: “Oh, no – I think I forgot to set the DVR.” Before proceeding, perhaps we should talk about the elephant in the room. No, I mean literally the elephant in the room. Where the heck did he come from? As he tells it: “I lived in a circus tent here years before this house was built. I finally made it back. Would’ve bought a ticket years ago, but my pay is peanuts. Admittedly, the benefits are nothing to sneeze at. Believe me, you wouldn’t like me when I’m sneezy.” Mostly you hear about birds and mammals, but occasionally a goldfish makes its way home. When that happens, the fish is invariably in a bad mood. (“I was just taking a nap and the next thing I know, I’m meeting the Ty-D-Bol man! Did you people ever think of checking my pulse???”) Here’s hoping that scientists will find practical applications for their research on animals. Maybe they can help veteran politicians learn to navigate back to their original principles. Oops. Got lost in crazy thoughts there.
Manny (full name “Emanuel” or “Dog With Us”) is Steve and Michele Sipress’ crazy, rambunctious cocker spaniel. He has a weak leg (despite a mostly-successful 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.
12 I RHINO MONTHLY I www.SteveSipress.com
PETER’S LAWS
July 2015
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RHINO MONTHLY Volume IV Number 1 | January 2016
CONTENTS:
1 Sunny Days Ahead 7 Your Brand: Consistency Counts By Steve Sipress
By Jim Palmer
8
How to Fix They Done Me Wrong By Sydney Barrows
www.SteveSipress.com/magazine
Fast Like Google’s 10 Fail Co-Founder:
The First Step to Marketing By Matt Bacak
12 Be It Ever So Humble… Manny’s Blog
2 Shawn Casey INTERVIEW WITH
Internet Lead Generation Master
Publisher Steve Sipress Successful Selling Systems, Inc. 20701 N Scottsdale Rd Ste 107-509 Scottsdale AZ 85255 (p) 773-236-8134 (f ) 847-232-1535 Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
w w w.AskSteveSipress.com
Layout & Design Bobbie Miltcheva www.33graffics.com
Publisher’s Notice: Copyright 2016 Successful Selling Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Neither the author nor the publisher make any express or implied warranties concerning the legal or ethical appropriateness of any of the marketing documents, materials or instructions in or enclosed with the magazine and/or your use of the same. If in doubt about the appropriateness or legality of any materials or instructions, you should obtain competent guidance, just as you would with any marketing documents, materials or marketing plans you have develop ed or would develop on your own. In the interests of disclosure, we want to b e op en ab out how we may, from time to time, make money from this mag azine. Certain third-party links contained in this magazine may be affiliate links for which we get paid a commission if you buy the product or service through the affiliate link.