Volume III Number 7 I July 2015 I $97
How to Use Stories to
Sell Like Crazy IN YOUR EMAIL MARKETING
INDEPENDENCE DAY AND
IRRESISTIBLE OFFERS expert interview with
Peter’s Laws The Creed of the President and the Passionate Mind
MANNY’S BLOG: Chips And Wires And Puppy Dog Tails…
The
Secret
of Getting Referrals
Ari Galper No-Pressure Sales
July 2015
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.
ii I RHINO MONTHLY I www.SteveSipress.com
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
WHY RHINO?
June 2015
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www.SteveSipress.com I RHINO MONTHLY
I 1
June 2015
SUMMER READING FOR ENTREPRENEURS
Independence Day and
IRRESISTIBLE OFFERS
I I’ve helped thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals implement The WOW! Strategy™ over the past four decades, resulting in many millions of dollars’ worth of revenue and profits.
And none of them causes anyone to run to do business with the company making the offer.
own businesses and those of my clients to help business owners understand the concept.
In other words, they are not truly Irresistible OFFERS.
This month, I expect to see a treasure trove of them.
The most important part of The WOW! Strategy™ is the “O” – to create an Irresistible OFFER. In my experience, that’s also the toughest part for people to get right.
Extending such timid, non-compelling offers causes business owners to get weak or no results from their advertising and/or marketing, which causes frustration, cash-flow issues and a loss of hope based on the belief that “___ type of advertising/marketing doesn’t work for my business.”
Thousands of American businesses will seize this month’s Independence Day holiday as an opportunity to come up with Irresistible OFFERS.
We’re all used to extremely weak, easily-resistible offers from businesses, like “Get 25% Off!” or “Free Estimate!” or “After 9 Sandwiches, Your 10th One is Free!,” so naturally there’s a tendency to offer the same kind of ineffective offers ourselves. BIG MISTAKE. None of those causes anyone to think, “Wow! What’s the catch?” or “That just sounds way too good to possibly be true!”
One of my specialties is helping business owners and entrepreneurs create Irresistible OFFERS that attract floods of their ideal customers, clients or patients.
This will be similar to last year’s Veteran’s Day deluge, when vets could start their day with a free cup of coffee from Starbucks, Roy Rogers, Einstein Bagels, or Krispy Kreme, grab a free breakfast at Denny’s, Friendly’s, Bob Evans or IHOP, head over to Sport Clips or Great Clips for a free haircut before grabbing a free lunch at Applebee’s, Chili’s, TGI Friday’s, Sizzler, Arby’s, On The Border, California Pizza Kitchen, Max & Erma’s, Shoney’s, Red Robin or Olive Garden.
I often share examples of Irresistible OFFERS I have created and used for my
They could then have gotten a free post-lunch massage at Massage
None of that is good for business owners. And none of it is necessary.
2 I RHINO MONTHLY I www.SteveSipress.com
SUMMER READING FOR ENTREPRENEURS
Envy or Ideal Massage, have taken advantage of a free car wash at 7-Eleven, then headed to dinner at Famous Dave’s, Tony Roma’s, Claim Jumper or McCormick & Schmick’s before finishing off their day with free ice cream from Handel’s or free frozen yogurt from Orange Leaf or Menchie’s. In addition to these national and regional chains, thousands more local businesses got in on the action, offering free services to active and/or retired military personnel. One such local business owner is my client, Jon Bockman, second-generation owner of Bockman’s Auto Care, who raised his business up from the brink of bankruptcy to a million-dollar success by implementing smart marketing based on The WOW! Strategy™. All six bays of Jon’s shop are busy all day long every year on Veteran’s Day,
thanks to his “Free Oil Change For Veterans” Irresistible OFFER. Just like all the other national, regional and local businesses who extend such no-strings-attached Irresistible OFFERS (and even some who add various far-less-than-irresistible requirements and restrictions, such as “*Must purchase a meal to get a free appetizer”), Jon gains tremendous goodwill and produces positive feelings about his business not only from all of the veterans who take him up on his gracious offer, but also from the many more non-veterans who aren’t eligible for the free oil change yet feel respect and appreciation for Jon just seeing that he extends that free service to U.S. veterans. Such goodwill and positive feelings lead to tens of thousands of dollars in ongoing revenue for him, a figure that grows every year he does this.
That’s one of the keys to coming up with your Irresistible OFFER: Calculating the Lifetime Value of a new customer, client or patient, so you know how much you will be happily willing to invest in order to attract one. And whenever you have the opportunity to tie yourself to a charity or popular cause (in this case, patriotism), that’s an extra boost to the power of your promotion. But you don’t have to wait for a major holiday – you can, and should, create Irresistible OFFERS immediately, and use them constantly. If you want help creating your own Irresistible OFFER to attract a flood of your ideal prospects, I offer readers of this magazine a free 1-on-1 Strategy Session. Yes, that’s yours for the taking, whether you’re a U.S. veteran or not, whether it happens to be a holiday or not, and whether you purchase a meal with your appetizer or not.
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
June 2015
To request your free 1-on-1 Marketing Turnaround Strategy Session with me, go to: www.SteveSipress.com Let’s work together to create your very own Irresistible OFFER, so you can attract a flood of your ideal customers, clients or patients, all year ’round!
www.SteveSipress.com I RHINO MONTHLY
I 3
July 2015
EXPERT INTERVIEW
expert interview with
Ari Galper No-Pressure Sales
I was thinking to myself, “Man! This is a dream call. There’s no resistance. They’re loving what I’m telling them.”
What happened was: I used to be a Sales Manager at a software company, and I managed 18 people about a decade ago. We were launching the first online website tracking statistics package (now it’s free on Google – it’s called “Google Analytics” – but actually, back then it cost a lot of money). Our company was the first one to launch that. We were a fast-growing, very exciting company. My job was to handle the large accounts, and there were real big opportunities. For about eight months, this offer kept crossing my desk: This contact for a big company kept calling me, I was calling him, and finally we all agreed to a conference call to move the deal forward. It was a big opportunity, Steve. Really, if I close this one sale it would double revenue to the whole company in one sale. So you can imagine: at Christmas time, if this sale happens, everyone’s getting bonuses. Steve Sipress: I’ve been a student of yours for almost 10 years now, maybe. We’ve met in person a couple of times, so we’re a little bit familiar. And you’re familiar with how you figuratively saved my sales life when I was in a really crummy dead-end job where I was calling on current clients of a company, and they hated the company. So there was so much pressure, and so much distrust, and so much dislike, it was worse than cold calls! Then I came across your program, and it changed everything. It’s almost as if you could paint a picture of me driving a car off a cliff, stopping, hitting the brakes, and turning around – thanks to your program.
So I know you’ve told it a million, billion times but I absolutely love to hear your story of how you started in this “Eliminating the sales rejection” and all the pressure of all the typical sales garbage that’s out there. Could you please for my listeners tell that story just one more time? Ari Galper: Sure. First of all, thanks for having me, Steve. I really appreciate it. It’s good to talk to you again. It’s been a long time. I’ll talk to you now about “Unlock The Game,” as I call it, and my story behind the concept that we discovered about a decade ago, which still is alive as it ever has been today.
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So… Office was excited, I was getting high fives in the parking lot coming in to the office for the conference call... So it was a great day. It was four o’clock on a Friday afternoon – I’ll never forget it. I went into the conference room with my boss. We closed the door behind us. Because everyone was listening in the windows, I closed the blinds. I’m like, “Guys, relax, okay?” So I go into the conference room, there’s a big conference table, and in the middle of the table is a speaker phone, and it’s time for our conference call. I hit the speakerphone dial button and it turns on, I dial the number, and it calls right into their company. And my contact – a really nice guy – says, “Ari, thanks for
EXPERT INTERVIEW
having us here, thanks for being here. We’re really glad to be here today. Let us now tell you who’s in the room...” Next thing I hear: “My name’s Mike, I’m CEO.” I’m like, “Yeah! CEO!” I’m writing down his name. “My name is Julian, I’m Head of Marketing.” I was like, “Yeah! Marketing!” “My name is Steve, I’m Head of IT.” Everybody in that room was a decisionmaker. This was the call we all hope to get as often as possible, because we know this is when it all comes together. So there were like eight people in the room, all the key heads of the company, and I began to introduce myself, explain what we do... Then I begin to give a live demo over the internet of the statistics we collected on their website ahead of time, to show them how we can track their website – the online data. So I started showing them to the web – all of their information.
And as I’m showing this to them, I heard these noises on the phone call, like, “Wow! This is great! This is amazing!” Then they started asking me all kinds of questions: “How does it work?” “How do we install it?” “How do we implement this thing?” “How do we get it going?” Of course they had all the right kinds of questions, and I had all the right kind of answers. And I mean, Steve, there was so much chemistry on this phone call, it was like a love fest on the phone. You know what I’m talking about? You’ve been there before? Steve: Yeah, I call it “Getting ‘YES’d’ to death.” Ari: I was thinking to myself, “Man! This is a dream call. There’s no resistance. They’re loving what I’m telling them.” I got the high five from my boss on my shoulder, and he’s in the corner of the room calling the Porsche dealership for his new car he wants to order, because the bonus is coming in. We’re pretty much on a high right now. He’s pretty
Somewhere along the way, it has become socially acceptable not to tell the truth to people who sell.
July 2015
pumped up, and so am I. It was an amazing call. They’re like, “Ari, this has been great!” The call comes to an end, and the guy says to me, “Ari, this has been amazing. Look, let’s do this, Ari. Give us a call in a couple of weeks, follow up with us, and we’ll move this thing forward.” I’m like, “Wow! This could not be more perfect! What a perfect ending for the call: “Move things forward.” So I said my good-byes. I said, “Thank you so much.” I took my arm and my hand and I reached for the speaker phone in the middle of the table. And as I reached over to hit the “Off” button, by complete accident – and now I say “Divine Intervention” – my thumb, instead of the “Off” button, hit the “Mute” button instead – by complete accident. I hit the wrong button, right next to each other (it’s kind of a poorlydesigned phone). I hit the “Mute” button, and a small click happened, and they thought I’d hung up the phone. In that split-second, the Devil appears in my left ear, and the Devil says to me, “Ari, go to the dark side. Be a fly on the wall. Listen to the call. You’ve got nothing to lose. Go where no one’s ever gone before in sales: Listen to the call as if you’re a fly on the wall.” And in my right ear, the Angel appears and says to me, “Ari, are you crazy? Don’t rock the boat. This is a perfect ending to the process! Just hang up the phone, and call them back in two weeks and close this deal!” Now, Steve, you may know the story, but who do you suppose won that battle between the Angel and Devil? Steve: Yeah, I won’t ruin it for my listeners… But I love the story. Ari: Okay, so the Devil won that battle. And in that split-second, I don’t know what went on inside me, but I pulled my thumb back. They started talking amongst themselves, thinking that I had
July 2015
EXPERT INTERVIEW
left the call. So I know you know the story, but I’ll ask your listeners: What do you suppose they were saying to themselves, thinking I had left the call as I was listening in? You probably think they’d say good things, like, “Hey, this has been great!” or “This is fantastic!” But let me tell you exactly what they said – verbatim, word for word. I’ll never forget it. It changed my life, and it’s why we’re all here today. What they said was this: They said, “We’re not going to go with him. Keep using him for more information, and make sure we shop someplace else.” It was the exact opposite of what I thought would happen. Steve: I’ve heard that story before, and
it still hits me right in the gut. Ari: Steve, it was like, “Knife in heart, twist.” I was literally… I’m pretty white – I was even more white. I was like a ghost in the room. I was like, “What the…? What?!” I was frozen. My boss, in the corner of the room, drops his phone – because he’s ordering his new car – he drops his phone. He’s like, “What the…? What?!” And I just sort of snapped out of it, I hit the “Off” button, I looked at the wall and said to myself, “What did I do wrong?” I was a student of sales. I had all these CD’s in my car of the “gurus,” I’ve got the books at home, I’ve got the
So that was the whole idea behind Unlock The Game: it’s taking the pressure out of the process.
shelves of manuals. I attended all of the corporate training programs on selling. I was a good student. And I asked myself, “What did I do wrong?” And the first epiphany, the first big idea, hit me. You can tell me if you agree with me on this one or not. What I realized is this: I realized that somewhere along the way, it has become socially acceptable not to tell the truth to people who sell. It’s perfectly okay to say things like, “Sounds good. Send me information, I’m definitely interested,” without having any intention of buying at all. And that was the first huge wakeup call. Steve: Well, just to magnify that, I think it’s not only in sales, it’s in everything. It’s certainly in dating: “I’ll call you,” and it’s in politics: “You can keep your doctor if you want.” We’re just so used to it that I guess people just have such little respect for salespeople that instead of just saying… You wouldn’t have been as heartbroken if they just told you it, instead of you overhearing it. You would have been a big boy and moved on, and possibly even been able to have a conversation about it. Which brings me to a question I have: You talked about studying sales, which I’ve done my whole life, too, read all the books, went to all the courses, had all the tapes in the car all the time, whatever. And so it ends up as soon as I started studying your Unlock The Game stuff, which is perfectly named, because it’s getting rid of this “game” of selling – this “battle” and this “boxing match” and all that stuff. It flipped everything on its ear for me, and “Rules” of sales and training of sales became Sales Myths. Can you share with my listeners some of these Myths that you help people overcome? Ari: Sure, I will. And just to real quickly finish the story, one last point I want to make is that I realized the reason why they weren’t comfortable telling me the truth was because they were afraid that might be pushing me to sell harder, to put pressure on them. So that
6 I RHINO MONTHLY I www.SteveSipress.com
EXPERT INTERVIEW
July 2015
was the whole idea behind Unlock The Game: it’s taking the pressure out of the process. Let me now get into the Myths. There are a few Myths we have to address right now to kind of, what I call, “clean out the cobwebs” or “detox the conditioning” – whatever you want to call it. We’ve been so wired to think a certain way about sales, that if you don’t change that thinking, you’ll never break the whole chasing game, chasing what I call “ghosts.” So let’s deal with number one: The first Myth is that “Sales is a numbers game.” I’m sure you’ve heard that before in your career, and everyone on this call probably… Steve: Of course we’ve heard that one: “Sales is a numbers game.” Ari: It came from the old Manager. You made a phone call and got rejected, and your boss says, “Get back on the phone. Make more calls. Because the more contacts you make, the more sales you make.” It’s kind of an old-school mantra. Well, we discovered in our research – in our current client base today – we discovered that sales is not anymore about how many contacts you make, it’s about how deep you go on each conversation, how good you are at connecting with people. Not how many contacts you make – how you good you are at building trust with people, how good you are at making people feel comfortable talking to you, and telling the truth. It’s not anymore about the behaviors, about how many contacts you make, how many meetings you have, how many calls you do… All of those behaviors are totally irrelevant now. The new milestones are about how good you are at trust-building – not how good you are at muscling your way through those behaviors. Does that make sense? To listen to the full interview, go to:
We discovered that sales is not anymore about how many contacts you make, it’s about how deep you go on each conversation, how good you are at connecting with people.
Ari Galper is the World’s #1 Authority On TrustBased Selling and creator of Unlock The Game®, a new sales mindset and results-oriented approach that has revolutionized the world of selling. With a Masters degree in Instructional Design, which strongly analyzes the way people learn, and supplying nearly two decades of experience in direct selling in a variety of industries, Ari has pioneered a breakthrough sales system – Unlock The Game – through his experience working with iconic companies such as UPS and QUALCOMM over the past twenty years. Built on the concept of authentic communication and trust, his visionary approach to selling relieves the pressure for both the seller and buyer, producing profound results. With over 45,000 subscribers, clients and members (growing at over 1,000 per month) from 38 different countries, including business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals, Ari has trained the best of the best and continues to be the most-respected and -followed sales thoughtleader in the industry. Ari’s mission is to help business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals break through their fears of selling as well as create better lives for themselves, their families and, of course, their clients. Unlock The Game is quickly becoming the standard for how to create genuine trust for anyone who sells a product or service. Get a Free Test Drive of 10 Free Lessons at:
www.UnlockTheGame.com
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I 7
July 2015
HOW TO USE STORIES IN EMAIL MARKETING
How to Use Stories to Sell Like Crazy In Your Email Marketing By Heather Seitz
If you are not using the element of story in your email marketing, you are missing out. To understand the reason why story can be so powerful in marketing, let’s look at a reallife example. Amber and Jerry own a small bed and breakfast in Vermont, and until the 2008 financial crisis it had done quite well. In the aftermath of the crisis, they started to get cancellations for the 2008 holiday season.
At first there were just a couple of cancellations, but soon they snowballed into an avalanche. In fact, they lost 83% of their reservations in less than two weeks. Out of sheer desperation, Amber decided to try a creative email campaign to attract guests. She knew that if that campaign didn’t succeed, she and Jerry would lose the bed and breakfast within 90 days. Not only would they lose the business they’d run for 27 years, but their life savings, too.
Amber’s email campaign save their business? If it did save the business, wouldn’t you want to know why the campaign was so effective? What if the newsletter promised to reveal the answers in an upcoming issue? If the story resonated with you, the odds are that you would eagerly await the next issue. The right story told to the right audience can boost engagement and conversion like crazy. The facts of Amber and Jerry’s bed and breakfast email promotion could have been relayed in a dry, boring fashion and lacked the same conversion power. The reason why is the power of story. In fact, Amber’s email campaign was a success because she used story to capture the imagination of their subscribers and they did indeed fill up for the season. There are many reasons story can be incredibly powerful when used in marketing.
Now, imagine that you own or manage a bed and breakfast business and you just read that story in an email newsletter. Wouldn’t you be curious to know what happened next? Did
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The right story told to the right audience can boost engagement and conversion like crazy.
Here are just a few… Appeal: People like stories a lot more than regular marketing messages. The vast wealth and power in television and Hollywood is proof enough that people around the world pay good money to be entertained by stories. When you add a story element to your email campaigns, your subscribers will have a greater interest in reading them. Suspend disbelief: We are conditioned to shift out of a rational and critical thinking mode when we’re told a story. If told well, we’ll sit through the most outlandish stories because we want to find out what happens to the characters involved. Since credibility and belief are key elements of effective marketing, using story can boost conversions by allowing the audience to be less critical. Curiosity: Capturing the attention of your subscribers is one of the biggest challenges to email marketing. One way to increase engagement and conversions is to use curiosity. Television shows and movies are famous for leaving their audience with a cliff hanger ending to encourage them to watch the next episode or sequel. It is the power of curiosity more of than the quality of the story that brings the audience back. Emotional connection: Stories bring out emotions and engage an audience when done well. The viewer can relate to the characters in the story and can feel empathy, sympathy, loyalty, and those emotions can create a bond and a level of engagement that regular marketing cannot. Trust: Stories have the power to build trust because the audience gets to know who they are and what they stand for. Stories have been used in all cultures from the before the beginning of civilization to connect generations and pass on lessons and lore. Human beings are literally wired to respond to stories to this day. How can story be applied to marketing? While telling good stories can be more art than science, the good news is that there are familiar story archetypes that can be adapted to your marketing.
HOW TO USE STORIES IN EMAIL MARKETING
Here are 5 ways you can use stories to sell like crazy in your email marketing:
1
SUCCESS STORY:
Customer testimonials and case studies are success stories. Told from the perspective of a customer, these can be a powerful way to help your marketing be more relatable. Your prospects can read about a success story and identify with the customer because they may have a lot in common. In a different way, your own story of using your product can be a success story as well. It doesn’t have the same perceived objectivity as a customer’s story, but it can help you bond with your prospect because it helps them to get to know you and your product in the context of a story.
3
2
July 2015
CAUTIONARY TALE:
A lot of insurance company advertisements use the cautionary tale. In other words, they show some poor guy or gal watching their car get smashed by a falling piano and the not so subtle warning to the viewer is that if you don’t have insurance you’re exposed to risk. The insurance agent in these ads, like the famous Flo character in Progressive commercials, is presented as the hero who saves people money while protecting them from loss. Similarly, if you’ve ever heard a life insurance pitch, you’re familiar with the cautionary tale of what happened to some family when the breadwinner died without coverage.
PARABLE:
We all know famous parables like the Tortoise and the Hare. These are a form of cautionary tale except that instead of using a real story they rely on fictional characters. The message of slow and steady wins the race has been used to sell long-term investments, where the foolish hare who seeks fast gains loses out to the savvy Tortoise who invested wisely for the future. The power of parables is that they borrow a cultural credibility, because so many people grew up hearing them in different forms, whether in kids’ books or in movies or stories told at bed time.
4
THE UNDERDOG:
Everyone loves to root for the underdog. Whether it’s Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, Jack Bauer in the television series “24,” or the biblical David versus Goliath, the underdog captures our imagination. Similarly, the story of the scrappy Apple Computer going up against the IBM PC and Microsoft or Avis competing proudly as “We’re number two, we try harder” against Hertz, are compelling marketing stories. The opening story about Amber and Jerry was an underdog story.
5
ORIGIN STORY:
Smart companies use their origin stories to their advantage. Henry Ford revolutionized the car industry with the Model T. Apple was born in a garage. Domino’s pizza was founded on the 30-minute delivery guarantee. Because almost all business success involves hard work and some luck, there is almost always a story you can use in your marketing.
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July 2015
HOW TO USE STORIES IN EMAIL MARKETING
When it comes to email marketing, you can use stories to sell your products or even affiliate products. You can talk about the problems that the product solves in story terms. You can also use a story to open your email and tie that into a promotion at the end. For example, Amber used this technique to build up interest for last minute reservations for their bed and breakfast. She used the backdrop of the financial crisis to tell stories of how her father had brought her and her brothers and sisters to live in the country when times got tough. The stories she shared were about the importance of creating family memories, no matter what was happening in the outside world. She pointed out that we can’t control the economy or the craziness in Washington, D.C, but we can create memories. Of course, a nice holiday getaway at a bed and breakfast was a perfect opportunity to create some memories. Her story resonated so well because many people were genuinely alarmed at the time, and a getaway to a peaceful bed and breakfast was therefore very appealing. Whether you use stories from customer testimonials, your own company origin story, or parables, you can capture the imagination of your email subscribers by using story in your marketing. At the very least, your emails will stand out from all the other messages in your subscribers’ inboxes.
Heather Seitz started her career online back in 1999 during the Dot Com boom and worked at a number of startups prior to starting her own digital marketing company. She has sent millions of email messages and has learned what works and what doesn’t. Heather has built a highly successful email marketing and deliverability company, and works with some of the top marketers in the world on a daily basis. She has helped develop campaigns across a variety of industries and campaign types, such as marketing sales funnels, re-engagement campaigns, affiliate promotions, product launches, and more… With over 14 years in digital marketing, and email specifically, Heather is able to help take your email campaigns to the next level – AND get your messages to your subscribers’ inboxes! Sign up for the EmailDelivered Pulse newsletter for articles, tips, and recommended resources related to email marketing and email deliverability at:
www.EmailDelivered.com
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THE SECRET OF GETTING REFERRALS
The Secret of Getting Referrals By Dan Kennedy
July 2015
2. The customer gives you referrals to people who may be good prospects and allows you to use their name as an endorsement. Either type can be extremely valuable in multiplying your customer list.
There has never been any argument in advertising circles that the most effective business advertising is word-of-mouth advertising. That’s why direct selling is so dramatically successful as a method of marketing every imaginable product and service, and why direct selling is such a great business in which to be. As a direct salesperson conversationally telling another person why you like a particular product, you are much more convincing advertisement than any TV commercial or magazine ad. The tremendous persuasiveness of your personal endorsement of a product is what word-of-mouth advertising is all about. Much to the chagrin of professional ad agencies, such word-of-mouth advertising cannot be purchased. But you, as a direct salesperson, can put this special type of advertising power to work for your business. Because you are fortunate to be on friendly, personal terms with your customers, you can enlist their aid in promoting your services. You can actually turn your present customers into a personal advertising department. All you need to do is master the right way to ask for their help. DEVELOP PERSONAL RELATIONS
AVOID PRESSURE The most important thing to remember is that this kind of help cannot be bought from your customers. It must never seem like you are offering a bribe in exchange for a list of names. As a rule, people will not “sell” their friends to you. Offering an “inducement” also might raise doubts about the quality of your services. If they are as good as you say they are, why should you bribe people for their recommendations? Remember two very important things about human nature: first, people usually enjoy telling others about products they try and like. Second, people like to be appreciated. One way they get appreciated is by being helpful to others. In short, offer an incentive for help without appearing to be paying for it. SHOW APPRECIATION In this way, you’re thanking the person, not bribing them. They’ll be pleased, won’t feel guilty, and will be more willing the next time you ask.
If you learn how to properly ask for their help, your customers will enthusiastically go to work advertising your business. This will help promote your services, lead you to scores of new services, and give you all the valuable benefits of word-ofmouth advertising. There are two types:
The next time you call on that customer you should remember to again thank them for their help. Report to them on the reactions of the prospects they suggested. Let the person you know you did call on them, that Mrs. Jones did become a customer and purchased such and such, and that Mrs. Walters was interested but wished to purchase at a later date.
1. The customer actually becomes an advertising agent and tells others about you and the service you provide.
In many cases, after reporting these results, you can obtain a couple of additional prospects from them.
Dan S. Kennedy is a serial, multimillionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; adviser to countless first-generation, from-scratch multimillionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up. His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. Check out Dan’s Elite Gold Crown Program and receive his Look Over My Shoulder Newsletter by going to:
www.EliteGoldGrownProgram.com
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July 2015
MANNY’S BLOG
Chips And Wires And Puppy Dog Tails… I’ve been sharing breathtaking observations with you since 2010 (and believe me, sharing doesn’t come naturally ---GRRRR!), but I can’t remember being so upset about a news item. According to “Tech Times” and other sources, an animal welfare researcher at the University of Melbourne predicts that within 20 years robotic pets will have largely replaced flesh-and-blood pooches, felines, hamsters, and turtles.
Think you’ll get away from worrying about pets being in “heat”? Ha! You’ll have to worry about them being in heat, being in cold, being in overly humid conditions, walking near a magnet… Do we really want someone messing with the memory of Charles “Peanuts” Schulz and issuing a book called “Happiness Is A Warrantied Puppy”? The theological implications of the changeover are staggering. Who wants to sit through a showing of “All Dogs Go To Recycling” with a young child? Our innocence is about to be shattered. Five-year-old girls will tell people they meet, “And I’ll get to have my own pony, as long as I finish all my vegetables and put away my crayons – or, taking a shortcut, if I learn how to operate mom and dad’s 3-D printer behind their backs!”
In an overpopulated world filled with allergies and restrictive landlords, electronic pets will supposedly be a cheaper, more convenient way of having a four-footed (or whatever) companion.
Electronic devices do get lost or thrown away. I wonder if society is really set up to handle packs of feral robotic pets roaming the streets? They’ll be stealing cable, turning vehicles upside down for their batteries, and whatever else it takes to survive.
Surely this misuse of artificial intelligence wouldn’t appeal to a sane person. Who could take pride in an exchange such as this: “What’s up, man?” “Just keepin’ it unreal, dude—just keepin’ it unreal”?
Who needs kids flushing their worn-out electronic goldfish? (“The city has not seen a sewer overflow in five years – but please carry a lightning rod to the bathroom with you in case of another wave of short-circuits.”)
Sure, robotic pets will spare you the embarrassment of a visitor finding a “present” on the carpet or receiving an overly friendly greeting, but a new set of embarrassments will emerge. (“Yikes! I just discovered the batteries on this electronic cat expired six months ago.”)
How much fun will it be to watch a dog with a built-in GPS? (“Hmph! Why chase my tail when I always know exactly where it is?”)
Does it irritate you when your dog keeps tugging the other direction on the leash? Just think about having a pet with auto-correct functions. (“Yes, master – I will now F-L-E-T-C-H the stick, just as soon as I get through S-N-I-T-T-I-N-G and rolling C-L-O-V-E-R”).
Do we really want parrots that squawk “Awwwk! Polly wants a RAM upgrade”? Let’s stop this trend before it really gets started, and put our minds to more productive tasks. Like maybe replacing fleshand-blood animal welfare researchers with robotic animal welfare researchers who could…
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
By Dr. Peter H. 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. Sign up for Peter’s video and email blogs at:
www.Diamandis.com
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RHINO MONTHLY www.SteveSipress.com/magazine
Volume III Number 7 | July 2015
CONTENTS:
2
8
Independence Day and Irresistible Offers By Steve Sipress
How to Use Stories to Sell Like Crazy In Your Email Marketing By Heather Seitz
11 12 13
The Secret of Getting Referrals
By Dan Kennedy
Chips And Wires And Puppy Dog Tails…
Manny’s Blog
Peter’s Laws
By Dr. Peter H. Diamandis
4 ARI GALPER INTERVIEW WITH
No-Pressure Sales
Publisher Steve Sipress Successful Selling Systems, Inc. 869 E Schaumburg Rd #237 Schaumburg, IL 60194 (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 2015 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.