Well, what a crazy few weeks!

Big thanks to everyone who played along at home during the recent public launch of ‘ProfitHacks’ – I really appreciate everyones feedback to the videos, participation in the insane livestreams, the standing ovation from those who were at the ‘Experts Industry Association’ conference where I spoke, and especailly to all the launch partners for supporting and promoting the program to thier communities. [It was extremely humbling that some of the smartest people I've learned from over the years, felt that my program was worthy of thier endorsement - Dan Kennedy, Brian Tracy etc etc ]

Given my day-to-day is primarily the ‘real world businesses’, I learned so much about doing an info-product launch, and will break it down in/on an upcomming edition of the PreneurCast show… to share the learnings I had.

But for those who missed the party, (the product is currently closed as we start the Q+A sessions next week), here’s a list of links to some of the cooler stuff we did, content partners released and conversations I participated in as part of the launch.

There is a tonne of take-away lessons and learing here for you to swipe + deploy in your own businesses, without having to invest in the course itself.

Enjoy!

http://eddale.co/profithackswebinar/
Ed Dale and I did a jam packed webinar titled ‘How To Go From Working Full Time To Your Own Business Without Doing It The Hard Way’ – we’re we talked about the transition a lot of entrepreneurs face when moving from the stable paycheck to the ‘self employment’ world.

http://www.noblesamurai.com/…/is-this-the-new–seo/
The amazing team over at NobleSamurai, did a number of substance rich blog posts (and videos) talking about, thier area of expertise, SEO and how a number of the core fundamentals of ProfitHacks supports and overcomes a lot of the challengers ‘SEOers’ are currently facing.

http://www.noblesamurai.com/…/how-to-uncover-an-extra-…-day-to-grow-your-business-profits-3362/
Antother great post by the Samurai bots on productivity. Did you know a report by McKinsey & Company in July 2012 found that the average worker spends 28 percent of their week managing email – That means out of a five day week, you spend about a day and a half answering email! INSANE !!

http://www.noblesamurai.com/…/how-to-create-high-quality-products-fast-3400/
I love this post by Eugene and the team. Linking (pardon the punn) Roger Bannister’s beating of the 4min mile with business and productivity.

http://profithacks.com/live/highlights/
This is a replay of the final livestream we did as part of the launch. Yes there is a hard pitch near the end.. but the first half of the video is all content; particularly focused on “A Blueprint to ProfitHack Your Business” – It covers the process, system and steps I suggest ‘newbies’ follow while working to make the transition from pay-check to entrepreneur.

http://successsculpting.com/1356/secret-productivity-hacks-to-increase-productivity/
in this podcast with Stephen Pierce, for ‘The Success Sculpting Show’ I discussed the concept of Core Vs Mechanics; and how this one distinction can free you up from unnecessary tasks in your day. How to be more productive as an entrepreneur and employee. The importance of leverage; and how to really apply it for massive productivity gains. Why you need to start relaxing and exercising more, to increase productivity at work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziKIixRERuk&vq=hd720
In this webinar Eugene from Noble Samurai and I answered lots of BIG questions their community were asking, including: What do I do if I’m just starting out and can’t afford to employ a team? I’m just dipping my toes into Internet marketing – where do I start? How and where do I find a trustworthy, affordable VA? What’s the best way of increasing quality, targeted traffic to my website? How do I create good quality content in a short amount of time?

http://profithacks.com/mindset/
As part of taking Profit Hacks to market, we did a intenal beta-launch to some of Rich Schefren’s clients… This video except is taken from the morning session of a closed-door client day we had in Florida; where business owners from all over the world who were applying the ProfitHacks strategies in thier projects come to hang out, network and get one-on-one support from me and the team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJnP3LfzJKU
In this exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from our beta-launch livesteam, Rich and I give the story behind the Profit Hack system… and how you can use it to get the maximum amount of leverage (and profits) in your business with the least amount of effort. This Directors Cut also features clips from real-live people who were already using the Profit Hacks strategies to “revolutionize” their businesses.

http://carriewilkerson.com/how-to-work-86-less-days-per-year/
This is one of many guest posts I wrote for our support partners (affiliates) during the launch. This article focuses on how saving 86 days of work per year can be achieved but only if you change ONE element of your work processes.

http://www.profithacks.com/experts-academy-interview/
While I was hanging out in California at the ‘Experts Industry Association’, New York Times BestSelling Author Brendon Burchard and I had a conversation about ProfitHacks and how it applies to coaches, speakers, authors etc etc.

ProfitHacks Launch: The Best Bits… is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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If you’re numerically challenged, don’t panic.

It’s basic maths, and I’m even going to give you a free tool that does all the number-crunching for you.

The reason I’m telling you this now is because I don’t want you to skim down the article, see a bunch of numbers, and immediately hit the “back” button. Despite initial appearances, this isn’t going to be a complicated article to understand.

But it is one of the most important articles you’ll ever read.

And I really, really want you to read, apply and benefit from this.

Simply put, what I’m about to reveal can almost double the profitability of your business.

And who’s going to say “no” to that?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning.

The 7 Levers of Business are specific aspects of business that are each directly linked to your profitability. We refer to them as levers because, if you “pull” on any of these elements by improving them, even slightly, your profits will increase accordingly.

The 7 Levers of Business are…

1)      TRAFFIC: Every person that visits your website or walks into your store adds to your overall traffic. Basically, we’re talking about first-time visitors.

2)      OPT-INS: This refers to individuals within your traffic who take a step that goes beyond that of merely looking, but comes before the buying stage. On a website, this might refer to people who register their email address through a lead capture form; in a shop, this could be someone who tries on an item of clothing in a changing room.

3)      CONVERSIONS: This is the percentage of your “opt-ins” who take out their credit card and commit to spending money.

4)      ITEMS PER SALE: Nice simple one – this is the average number of items purchased by each customer.

5)      AVERAGE ITEM VALUE: To get this figure, divide the total value of all the items you’ve sold in a given period by the total number of items sold in that same period.

6)      TRANSACTIONS PER CUSTOMER: On average, how often do customers make repeat purchases?

7)      PROFIT MARGIN: After you’ve subtracted the cost of making sales, what’s the average profit margin of each sale as a percentage?

Before we go any further, the first question you should be asking yourself is, “am I able to calculate each of these elements?” If not, drop whatever you’re doing because your business is in trouble.

Unless you have a way of calculating this information, then you have no way of knowing if your business is even profitable. You could, without being aware of it, be making a loss on each sale and every customer purchase is driving you closer to bankruptcy!

To be clear, I’m not saying you should be able to quote, at a moment’s notice, the latest precise numbers for each of these seven levers. But you should at least have the resources in place to be able to sit down, and in a reasonable amount of time, work out your current metrics.

If you don’t have the necessary resources, you should install Google Analytics, talk to your accountant, or do whatever you have to do to get the numbers for each of the seven levers.

Next comes the fun part.

I’m sure it won’t come as any shock to you if I said that increasing one of these levers by 10% will increase your profitability by 10%.

Obvious, right?

So, if we increase all seven levers by 10% each, by how much will our profitability increase?

Most people would answer “70%”.

But they’d be wrong.

Increasing all seven levers by 10%, actually increases overall profitability by…

94.8%

Yep, profitability almost doubles!

If you’re mathematically-inclined, you probably already understand why this is the case.

Otherwise, let’s work through an example to prove that this is the case.

CLOTHES STORE EXAMPLE

Imagine that you own a clothing store and you’re going to work out your metrics for the last 12 months.

1)      TRAFFIC: 100,000 customers walked through your door during the last year.

2)      OPT-INS: 20% of your customers try on a garment in the changing room. That’s 20,000 opt-ins altogether.

3)      CONVERSION: 20% of people who try on a garment go on to make a purchase. 20% of 20,000 opt-ins, equals 4,000 customers.

4)      ITEMS PER SALE: Let’s keep it simple and say that each customer purchases one garment. So, 4,000 garments were sold to new customers.

5)      AVERAGE ITEM VALUE: Let’s say the average item value is $100. Total sales are $400,000 ($100 × 4000 garments).

6)      TRANSACTIONS PER CUSTOMER: Again, keeping it simple, let’s say that you don’t currently receive any repeat business, so the number of transactions per customer is 1. Total sales are still $400,000.

7)      PROFIT MARGIN: After wages, energy bills, and purchase of stock, your profit margin on each sale is 50%. Your net profit, then, is $200,000 (50% of $400,000).

Straightforward so far?

Good. Now let’s look at what happens if we increase each lever by a mere 10%.

1)      TRAFFIC: 100,000 customers increased by 10% comes to 110,000 customers.

2)      OPT-INS: You increase your opt-in rate of 20% by 10%, bringing it to 22%. That means that 24,200 people (22% of 110,000) try on a garment.

3)      CONVERSION: You increase your conversion rate of 20% by 10%, bringing it to 22%. So, your total number of sales is now 5,324 (22% of 24,200).

4)      ITEMS PER SALE: A 10% increase of 1 item per customer is 1.1 items per customer. This simply means that one in every ten customers purchases two garments. Total items sold are now 5,856 (1.1 x 5,324 – rounded down).

5)      AVERAGE ITEM VALUE: Average item value has increased from $100 to $110. Revenue is now $644,160 ($110 x 5856).

6)      TRANSACTIONS PER CUSTOMER: As with items per sale, this increases to 1.1 which means one in every 10 customers now comes back another day to make a second purchase. Revenue is now $708,576 (1.1 x $644,160).

7)      PROFIT MARGIN: Margins have increased from 50% to 55%, which makes your net profit $389,716.80 (55% of $708,576).

And there’s your proof.

In the first example, your net profit was $200,000. But in the second example, by increasing each lever by just 10%, your net profit increased to $389,716.80, almost doubling your bottom line.

Aside from being a rather cool mathematical trick, the significance is that this strategy allows you to double your profits, simply by slightly improving your existing numbers.

This is far easier than the alternative.

If you’re receiving 100,000 visitors a month to your website, setting out to double that to 200,000 is difficult.

Really difficult.

But increasing your traffic to 110,000, a relatively small 10% increase, is much more achievable, perhaps by spending a little more on PPC or a little more time improving your SEO.

The same is true of your sales conversion percentage.

Doubling your conversion rate is also difficult to do, but improving it by 10% can be achieved by testing some different headlines, or by adding a trust seal.

You could aim to focus on just one lever per month, for seven months.

And at the end of that time, you’ll have almost doubled your profits.

This strategy is so much easier than trying to fix everything at once. Spend a whole month on just one lever and you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.

We could spend a whole article on each lever, considering how it can be improved. However, what you often find is that, when you focus on just one aspect of your business, you quickly notice leakages, namely areas where you’re underperforming due to something that can quickly be fixed or improved.

Before you know it, you’ve made a 10% increase and you’re ready to move on to the next lever.

Oh, and by the way, although increasing each lever by 10% almost doubles your profits, increasing each lever by 20% increases your profits by…

Wait for it…

258.3%

If you want to run some numbers of your own, there’s a free calculator that you can use at http://www.7leverscalculator.com/.

7 Levers of Business (or How to Double Your Profits) is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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We’ve started to play around with some video adaptations of our marketing podcast.

In this episode, Dom and I discuss the Marketers Filter, a way of evaluating your use of various marketing channels which will help you get the most from them. I explain how to use Cialdini’s Influence factors and The Marketing Symphony as example frameworks to check against.

If you enjoy this, make sure you check the other episodes that have had the video touch on our Youtube Channel.

The Marketing Filter is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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We’re now witnessing an age where an entire generation of flourishing businesses came into existence online, built a customer base entirely through Internet marketing, and have never known anything else.  Although I applaud their success, I’m also aware that they’re missing out on a huge opportunity to greatly increase their marketing reach.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that online marketing is all these businesses have ever known, and there is a perfectly understandable reluctance to try something new.  The larger issue is that offline marketing is seen by many as a backward step.  It’s almost as if advertising that doesn’t involve a computer or mobile phone screen is perceived as old-fashioned, dated, and a futile attempt to reach a diminishing audience.

This kind of thinking, whether conscious or otherwise, is deeply flawed.  It’s true that, as a species, we’re spending increasing amounts of time online; but the vast majority of people are still spending the bulk of their time on activities that don’t involve the Internet.  Newspapers, magazines, television, radio, public transport, advertising boards, and direct mail, all provide marketing opportunities that cannot be reached via an Ethernet cable.

It’s also important to realize that, just because someone uses the Internet regularly, doesn’t mean that online advertising is the best way to reach them.  My fiancée, for example, visits Facebook on an hourly basis, but rarely uses the Internet for anything else.  All the pay-per-click and search engine optimization in the world isn’t going to get her attention; in fact, unless you’re spending lots of money on Facebook advertising, you’ve got virtually no chance.

My fiancée is not unique in her online activity.  There are millions of people who go online every day to tweet, update their Facebook status, check their emails, and little else.  Take a moment to pause and think about what that means.  There is a huge group of people out there, with easy Internet access, but who have little or no chance of being reached by your marketing message.

If that wasn’t motive enough to start exploring the offline marketing avenues, here are three more very good reasons why you should be “Going Analogue:”

1)  More Traffic . . . Better Conversions

It goes without saying that if you advertise in magazines and publish articles in newspapers you’re going to generate traffic; but you’re also going to see a boost in your conversion rates.  The core reason for this is the trust that is generated by offline advertising.  The Web is still seen as a place where any two-bit business, not to mention myriads of scammers, can market their wares.  By contrast, offline advertising is seen as something that is only within the budget of established businesses (even though the costs are often far lower than most would imagine).  Additionally, if a person likes and trusts the magazine or newspaper within which they’ve seen your advert, you’re effectively receiving an implied endorsement that is going to impact the way in which your website is perceived.

Another residual effect of advertising in offline media is that you’re then in a position to add “As seen in . . .” labels to your website.  This will have a measurable effect on your conversion rates.

2)  Become a Market Leader

Anyone can publish a blog and dress it up in fancy graphics; but it takes a real expert to be featured in a newspaper, or interviewed on the radio.  There is a company in the UK that does virtually no traditional advertising, but their Managing Director writes for several publications, including a column in a national newspaper.  This media presence, along with word-of-mouth recommendations, has made them the leading provider in their industry with over 25,000 clients.

What most don’t realize is that muscling your way into established offline media channels is easier than it appears.  Producing a constant stream of fresh, original content is a challenge that all radio stations, television channels, and publications face; so if you have expertise in a particular area and are willing to write articles or be interviewed, then you could be exactly what editors and content directors are looking for.  Get your name out there and make it known that you’re available.  If you can own this space, then people will visit your website already confident that you’re an expert and a market leader.

3)  A New Experience

Hardcore Web surfers have experienced pretty much every imaginable online advertising technique.  Video marketing, autoresponders, upsells, and one-time offers, have become so passé that Internet marketers have to keep coming up with new twists to maintain worthwhile conversion rates.  You can sidestep this problem by using offline marketing to attract visitors that have Internet access, but have little or no experience with the aforementioned advertising methods.  Attract new visitors using offline advertising and you’ll find that these individuals are far more receptive to your sales funnels.

None of the above is intended to dissuade you from making full use of online marketing.  In terms of speed and cost, the Internet is still a superb way to advertise your products and services.  The purpose of this article is to convince you to “Go Analogue” and discover (or rediscover) the range of fantastic options that exist for you to promote your business.  The most successful businesses brand themselves right across the digital and analogue world, combining the two for maximum effect.  I urge you to join them.

For more information about ‘Going Analogue: Offline Marketing in an Online World,’ check out: www.GoingAnalogue.com.

Going Analogue – Three Reasons Why You Should Be Advertising Offline is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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Are you the bottleneck in your business?

Marketing online (or off) is a “team sport” nowadays. But finding a team, and managing them, can be difficult. (A lot of people I know who are outsourcing are getting frustrated while their outsourcers miss deadlines and fail to get the quality of work done that’s truly needed.)

That’s why the guys over at Noble Samurai asked Davey J and I to put together a brand-new Video Series that reveals the RIGHT WAY to do Outsourcing.

They’ve just released the 2nd video which you can check out over at:

http://www.noblesamurai.com/blog/outsourcing/outsourcing-video-2-the-content-leverage-system-2761/.

In this video, I talk about:
●   How to become a market leader in your niche in just 30 minutes a day
●   How to systemize content creation to produce high-quality videos, audio and reports -– all on auto-pilot
●   Why you should only work on the core elements of your content creation, and outsource the ‘mechanics’
●   How to ethically hijack traffic from some of the most popular web properties like YouTube, iTunes and top article directories
●   The 11-step process that quickly and easily creates thousands of high-quality backlinks to your site
●   Plus much, much more!

You’re guaranteed to get some gold nuggets out of this free blog series.  If you want to know the secret of how to work ON your business rather than IN your business, you need to watch these two videos.

Enjoy,
Pete

Outsourcing Made Easy is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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If you’ve been playing along at home and enjoying the podcasts for awhile, you’d be aware of the two PreneurCast podcast episodes that have stood out from the pack: the 7 levers episode and the mastermind episode.

Out of all the episodes Dom and I have recorded so far, these two got the biggest response of tweets and emails telling us how much they learnt and what they’ve got by implementing the strategies we shared.

So I thought I’d run an idea past you all.

What if we put the two powerful concepts together: the power of a structured weekly mastermind group of like-minded, goal-oriented entrepreneurs, mixed with the power the 7 levers can bring your business when implemented into your business over a structured 7-week period?

So what I’m thinking is a small mastermind group of maybe 6 or 7 PreneurCast listeners, myself and Dom – ok, so Dom doesn’t know this yet; but he’ll be on board…

…and we meet each week for around 90 minutes to work on each other’s business.

Every week over the 7-week period, we’ll delve deep into each one of the 7 levers, and mastermind how we can implement them in each person’s business.

We’ll cover:

●  increasing the traffic to your business
●  increasing the opt-in rate you’re currently getting
●  different strategies for skyrocketing your sales team’s conversion rates
●  ways to increase your average sales value (we’ll spend an entire week on this)
●  ways to make your customers buy per items per sale
●  …and some really cool and easy ways to increase the number of times your customers buy from you each year
●  plus a tonne more stuff which will result in your profits increasing.

…and the beauty of the 7 levers, as you know, is that we only need to increase each of the 7 elements by just 10% and it will result in the profits of your business almost doubling.

Let me say that again for you… if you haven’t already got it from listening to The 7 Levers PreneurCast episode.

Here’s what it will do for you.

If you just increase each of the 7 levers by just 10%, the profits you’ll be able to take from your business will almost DOUBLE.

That’s means in just 7 weeks, by increasing each of these 7 levers by just 10%, you’ll be taking home a bunch more cash each and every week.

This is going to be more than the typical ‘business development’ course you invest in, read and have to implement on your own… we’re going to get together EVERY week and work ON your business together to make sure to take action and implement what we cover quickly and effectively.

Now, there are three major factors that make this important to you and your business right now.

Firstly, with the economy in its current state, it’s vital for your business, whether it’s an online business, a service business or a bricks and mortar business, to make sure you are getting the most of what you’ve got. And that’s what the ’7 Levers’ are all about — maximising what you’re currently doing in your business. Getting just that extra 10% from each of the 7 levers which will result in your businesses profits almost doubling.

Mix that with the fact that the world is getting smaller which is making it easier for your competition to reach your clients and steal them from right under your noise. You need to have a proven system you can go to, rely on and implement in your business.

And with the power of online tech like GoToMeeting, we can conduct this effortlessly each week to make sure you not only get the lesson delivered directly to you no matter where you are, but we can easily communicate with the entire group during our mastermind calls.

So if you’re interested, here’s what you need to do.

Fire off an email right now to support [at] preneurgroup [dot] com with the subject line ’7 Levers Mastermind’.

As I said, we’re only going to have a handful of people in this mastermind group and it will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Now, there will be an investment for this; but I can guarantee you it will not be anywhere near the $5000 I usually charge as a minimum for personal coaching. (Think Groupon-style discounts here.)

This will be the first mastermind-style group I’ve ever done as a ‘coaching group’…  I’ve participated in many groups, as I mentioned on the mastermind episode. It was a mastermind group that got me my first book deal, got me introduced to the team at Ernst + Young which resulted in me being a Southern Region Finalist in their Global Entrepreneur of the Year Awards and so much more…

I won’t be charging anywhere near what I charge for one-on-one; but I also know I’ll never charge anywhere near as low as this first mastermind group will cost.

So if you want to work with not only me, but Dom and a handful of other proactive entrepreneurs, shoot an email to support [at] preneurgroup [dot] com with the subject line ’7 Levers Mastermind’ and we’ll be in touch.

Pete

P.S.  And if you’re keen, there’s no obligation on any level; but we will fill the spots on a first-come, first-served basis. So email us right now to ensure you’re at the head of the pack.

I look forward to working with you to implement the 7 levers in your business. And if it’s not for you right now, Dom and I will catch you next week for another PreneurCast episode.

Here’s What I’m Thinking is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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Check This Out –
www.GoingAnalogue.com

As Frank Kern (finally) mentioned this week during his 2011 State Of The Internet Address - “Most of us are probably making the same mistake… most people are just relying on the internet to get customers.”

I’m amazed no one else has ever really come out and said this before – because it’s fundamental to running a successful business.

I first presented on this whole ‘going offline’ concept at an exclusive online marketing event hosted by Ed Dale back in 2008 … and really loved sharing some of this stuff during all 3 Challenge.co conferences around the world in 2010.

So, after being part of this marketing community and a faculty members for Challenge.co + Challenge Plus for around 3 years and due to amazing feedback and Ed’s pushing, I have finally decided to put together a course to help you discover how to boost your website’s traffic + increase conversion rates with a bunch of little known, yet easily implemented offline marketing techniques.

If you don’t use offline techniques to generate new business you are literally leaving money on the table, it’s pretty obvious… BUT

I see so many people obsessed with running an online business and doing online marketing. So obsessed, they become blinkered and forget they are actually running a real world business with only a single channel to market – which is the web.

Whatever you sell, the chances are you have a bigger marketplace offline – people who don’t avidly search Google every day for your services – yet people who would still buy what you do or what you sell.

Have you ever stopped to consider these people, this untapped marketplace and these new and undiscovered channels to market?

… and the best bit is, in the program I show you how you can put easily implementable systems in place so you can use and leverage what you’re already doing in your “online marketing” to reach these people offline – very very cost effectively.

There is a short 6min video covering everything about the course, and why I (along with Ed Dale + Frank) think this is going to be one of the biggest shifts in the internet marketing community in 2011.

Check it all out at:
www.GoingAnalogue.com

Speak soon,

Pete

Someone Agrees With Me – Finally !! is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose By Tony Hsieh.

The visionary CEO of Zappos explains how an emphasis on corporate culture can lead to unprecedented success.

Pay new employees $2000 to quit. Make customer service the entire company, not just a department. Focus on company culture as the #1 priority. Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business. Help employees grow both personally and professionally. Seek to change the world. Oh, and make money too.

Sound crazy? It’s all standard operating procedure at Zappos.com, the online retailer that’s doing over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales every year.

In 1999, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined Zappos as an adviser and investor, and eventually became CEO.

In 2009, Zappos was listed as one of Fortune magazine’s top 25 companies to work for, and was acquired by Amazon later that year in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

In his first book, Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Ultimately, he shows how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life.

Delivering Happiness Book Review is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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See, I’ve been looking for a way to implement the same automated follow-up marketing offline via direct mail for about a year, and not a single direct mail print company (in Australia or USA) offered a solution. They all offered the ability to do a mail merge (variable data) print run, if I wanted to arrange a once off promotion, but nothing that even resembled an automated follow up sequence of post-cards and/or greeting cards.

Anyway, a friend ‘pitched’ a card sending business model to me over a year ago, which I completely blew off. It was an MLM business-model and he used the standard network marketing pitch as well – I had too many other projects on the go, didn’t want another income opportunity chewing up my time, and felt that I’d have to sell “snake oil”.

BUT, then after helping him out in a completely unrelated area, I got one of these cards as a small thank-you note… and the thing that stood out for me was:

The cards (and envelope) were printed in his own Handwriting – With a Local Postage Stamp !!

Yep, the platform they use to print these cards allows customers to fill out a form and have their handwriting uploaded as a custom font — blew my mind ! Just imagine how high the ‘open rates’ of these cards are – 98%+ ? (Puts the open rates of even the best email copywriters to shame.)

So, after a quick conversation I also learned that the platform allows clients all over the world, to not only send out single cards, bulk mailings, birthday/anniversary cards on pre-set date (which is cool in itself) …

BUT you can set-up an auto-responders style sequence, where clients can get a ‘thank you for buying’ postcard immediately, 17 days later a ‘hope it’s all going well’ two-fold card, then a ‘it’s probably time for a refill’ postcard 45 days later etc etc etc.

As I talk about in the ‘Preneur Hierarchy’ section of the book, the easiest people sell to are your existing customers, right ? Well, this is that follow-up, stay-in-touch, up-sell, back-end real-world marketing program on auto-pilot.

The thing that really annoys me, is they don’t really ‘pitch’ the auto-responder feature of their service – They are more focused on people sending one-off thank you cards to friends and family.

The other amazing thing is that it costs a lot less than $1 per card… and that includes postage!! (You won’t find hallmark anywhere near that price – and the quality is identical to me).

There library has over 10,000 card designs, but you can obviously upload your own designs (in under 2mins) for custom promotional mailings.

This is one of the best direct response marketing services I’ve ever seen…

Now regarding, the often dirty term ‘Multi-Level Marketing’ – Firstly, let me say:

You can become a customer of their service WITHOUT joining the MLM structure.

I wanted to make this clear again, because I am not trying to pitch you on ‘joining my downline’, I really do believe the direct marketing service they offer is a powerful one.

If you want to also have a opportunity to make some (good) coin along the way, great… They offer some very healthy sign-up commissions, plus a (residual income) $% of every card printed and sent from people (customers) in your downline. But, that side of things is all explained on a video over at their site.

Either way, I really encourage you to check out their direct mail services.

I’ve arranged a 7 Day Free Trial, so you can send 2 or 3 one-off cards to friends, customers or even yourself (to see the quality first hand) and trial their direct mail marketing platform.

Just visit http://bit.ly/7DayCardTrial, ignore the crappy site layout, and click the big banner at the top of the page, then follow the simple sign-up process.

If you have any questions at all, feel free to shoot me an email anytime – I’d really love your thoughts and feedback.

That link again is http://bit.ly/7DayCardTrial

Speak soon.

Pete

P.S. Did I mention that once you’re a client they upload your OWN friggin handwriting as a font – and include a couple of signatures too !!!

P.P.S. Direct Mail Auto-Responders = No Spam Filters + Really High Open Rates + Less Competition (no one get’s “handwritten” mail anymore, unless it’s a bill)

P.P.P.S. Go and visit http://bit.ly/7DayCardTrial

P.P.P.S. And yes… given that it’s an MLM model, when you sign up for an account and implement this offline auto-responder service in your business, I will make a few bucks. But if you join their entrepreneur program I’m more than happy to ‘coach’ and help you grow your MLM business.

Forget Email – Offline AutoResponders Is Where It’s At In 2010… is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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‘Going Analog’ Sneak Peak is a post from: Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams
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