I’ve been digging around on my hard drive lately because I have a very bad habit of writing things to publish and then never publishing them. Here is an article I wrote a long time ago, but the story and the message still applies today. I think this was writen in early 2007.

Unless you’ve been on a deserted island since February 14 I am sure you heard about the Jet blue mess.

Briefly due to snow storms they had something like 9 planes sitting on the tarmac for six to ten hours, toilets overflowing, no food, bad air, just and all around bad situation. They also canceled 1000 flights and didn’t get back on schedule for a week

If you are a business owner there are a number of big lessons being taught here. If you are a consumer there is one big lesson being taught here.

As a business owner you have to look at your customer service department.
What is the worst thing that can happen in your business?
What plans do you have in place if the worst happens?
Do you have established policies and procedures?
Do you give authority to people that work with your customers?
Do you hire people in these positions that have common sense just in case there are exceptions?

Another lesson is don’t sell your product so cheap that you can’t support the customers service expectations.

Don’t promise what you can’t deliver and make sure your employees don’t either.
Don’t boast in public how good you are if you know in your heart your not.

David Neeleman, the CEO of Jet Blue stated in an article in INC. magazine in 2006 that he was not in the aviation industry he said, “We’re in the customer service business.”  OOPPS!

Here is my customer warning and a small rant. You have heard it from your birth “you get what you pay for!”

Jet Blue sells cheap transportation. Because of that they couldn’t support their customers in this situation.

Years ago when I was in sales I would ask my customers this question. There are three things I can deliver to you, quality, service, or a low price. Which two out of the three do you want because you can’t have all three?

As a customer if you choose to be cheap and you get stung you don’t have a huge argument to stand on. With that being said no matter what you buy you have some expectations, just make sure the complaint fits the price you paid.

In Jet Blues case I think ten hours on a runway is a little excessive. As a consumer you can vote with your pocket book and by telling others about your bad experience.

Now go sell something,
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I had a shocking experience today that forced me to make this post.

I live in Mpls. MN and on the radio stations in my area I am hearing a radio
commercial that is bashing other banks that use push button phone trees
when their customers call in.

You know what I am talking about, push 1 for Spanish, push 2 for English,
then push 1 for this department, then push 2 for this department and so on.

Most people I talk to get pretty frustrated with this and the bank that is doing the
ad doesn’t use phone trees. A human actual answers the phone, what is this
world coming to?

Who would have thought that a great USP, (unique selling proposition) would be
we actually answer our phone?

Well, my shock of the day was when I called Swanson’s today, they are a very well known vitamin company. I figure the are well know because even my 83 year old mother orders from them.

Back to the shock… yah, you guessed it, Katie answered the phone on the first ring!

I had to pause a moment to adjust to the fact that I was talking to a human and didn’t first have to push 2 so they knew I spoke English, and then the #3 button to talk to a sales person.

So how does this apply to your business? If I really need to explain it you may want to think about a career change.

Now go sell something,
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More thoughts on your small business advertising, the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule.

Applying this rule to your advertising can save you money and make you money in any economy. The bad news is that it’s when times get tough that people start to pay attention.

I’ll guarantee you that 80% of your prospects, customers, clients, whatever, are coming from 20% of your advertising. You need to be testing and tracking your advertising to see what is a cost and what is an investment. By doing this you can start to figure out where you are wasting money and plug the leaks. That money can be plowed into successful methods, which will generate more profits so you can arrive at your bills with cash.

As a side note, I have many clients tell me that one form or another of advertising is to expensive. That’s rubbish and I’ll prove it. Let’s use direct mail as an example. Let’s say you sell  $50,000 cars, if you mail out 10,000 pieces to every household to a zip code sort I suspect your results will not be very good. If you mail out 10,000 pieces that are from a sorted list like, income level, car enthusiasts, previous sports car or high end car buyers and owners, people that subscribe to luxury car magazines, people that subscribe to the Rob report, and so on I suspect your success maybe a bit better.

The first method is going to be cheaper to do, but it will cost you more in the end.

Do you see the point, it’s no always the how, it may be the who, what, where, when. The only exception I would make to that is the Yellow Pages. Most small business owners are finding out that the yellow pages are dying as the cost goes up. Why, you ask? It’s because of what got you here, the Internet.

Now go start testing and tracking.

Then sell something,
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In my last article I brought up the 80/20 rule and talked about how 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers.

I want you to think a little more about 80/20. Actually you can apply the principal to a lot of things in your business.

If you have employees I’ll bet 80% of the work comes from 20% of them.
If you have sales people I’ll bet 80% of the sales comes from 20% of them.
If you have vendors that you buy from I’ll bet 80% of your purchases comes from 20% of them.
If you look at your advertising I’ll bet 80% of your prospects comes from 20% of your ads.
If you look at your internal problems I’ll bet 80% of those problems come from 20% of your employees.
If you look at customer problems I’ll bet 80% of those problems come from 20% of your customers.
I’ll bet 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of the products or services you sell.

You can go on and on applying the principle to many aspects of your business and personal life.

So what’s the point? The point is you need to look at everything you do in your business. You need to analyze and test. You need to constantly improving. The Pareto Principle is just one of the ways to look at things. If you know who your problem customers are maybe they are not worth having as customers. If you know what the products or services that you sell are the biggest contributors to your bottom line, maybe you should focus on those and forget the rest. I think you get the point; “constant improvement” will keep you ahead of your competition and make you more money.

Great copy is made, not born. It is derived from proven test results designed to do one thing and do it well: sell.

Effective advertising doesn’t always use “grammatically correct” English. It uses short sentences, fragments. Like this.

It convinces you to buy, and buy now. Period.

It talks about benefits, not features. It sells on emotion and reinforces the decision to buy with logic.

It paints a compelling picture and irresistible offer that forces your prospect to act and act now! And if it doesn’t, then you drop that ad like a hot potato and go with one that does.

Effective persuasion is like your top salesperson–the one who continues to break all your sales records year after year–on the job 24 x 7, multiplied by thousands or millions! Just imagine if that salesperson, the one with proven results, could be multiplied as much as you wanted.

Now that would be effective (and cost-efficient) marketing!

And that’s the kind of proven marketing you need to employ.

Come back often, as I continue you to provide you with FREE business boosting information.

Now go sell something,
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Use takeaway selling to create urgency in the prospects mind.

When you limit the supply of a product or service in some way (i.e. takeaway selling), basic economics dictates that the demand will rise. In other words, people will generally respond better to an offer if they believe the offer is about to become unavailable or restricted in some way.

And of course, the opposite is also true. If a prospect knows your product will be around whenever he needs it, there’s no need for him to act now. And when your ad is put aside by the prospect, the chance of closing the sale diminishes greatly.

It’s your job, therefore, to get your prospect to buy, and buy now. Using scarcity to sell is a great way to accomplish that.

There are basically three types of takeaways:

1) Limiting the quantity
2) Limiting the time
3) Limiting the offer

In the first method, limiting the quantity, you are presenting a fixed number of widgets available for sale. After they’re gone, that’s it.

Some good ways to limit the quantity include:

· only so many units made or obtained
· selling off old stock to make room for new
· limited number of cosmetically-defected items, or a fire sale
· only a limited number being sold so as not to saturate the market
· etc.

In the second method, limiting the time, a deadline is added to the offer. It should be a realistic deadline, not one that changes all the time (especially on a website, where the deadline date always seems to be that very day at midnight…when you return the next day, the deadline date has mysteriously changed again to the new day). Deadlines that change decrease your credibility.

This approach works well when the offer or the price will change, or the product/service will become unavailable, after the deadline.

The third method, limiting the offer, is accomplished by limiting other parts of the offer, such as the guarantee, bonuses or premiums, the price, and so on.

When using takeaway selling, you must be sure to follow-through with your restrictions. If you say you only have 500 widgets to sell, then don’t sell 501. If you say your offer will expire at the end of the month, make sure it does. Otherwise your credibility will take a hit. Prospects will remember the next time another offer from you makes its way into their hands.

Another important thing you should do is explain the reason why the offer is being restricted. Don’t just say the price will be going up in three weeks, but decline to tell them why.

Here are some examples of good takeaway selling:

“Unfortunately, I can only handle so many clients. Once my plate is full, I will be unable to accept any new business. So if you’re serious about strengthening your investment strategies and creating more wealth than ever before, you should contact me ASAP.”

“Remember…you must act by [date] at midnight in order to get my 2 bonuses. These bonuses have been provided by [third-party company], and we have no control over their availability after that time.”

“We’ve obtained only 750 of these premiums from our vendor. Once they are gone, we won’t be able to get any more until next year. And even then we can’t guarantee the price will remain the same. In fact, because of the increasing demand, it’s very likely the price could double or triple by then!”

Remember when I said earlier that people buy based on emotions, then back up their decision to buy with logic? Well, by using takeaway selling, that restriction becomes part of that logic to buy and buy now.

What for your next tip latter today.

Now go sell something,
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There’s a well-known structure in successful sales letters, described by the acronym AIDA. There can be a lot more to a sales letters structure, but this will keep it simple and on track.

AIDA stands for:

· Attention

· Interest

· Desire

· Action

First, you capture your prospect’s attention. This is done with your headline and lead. If your ad fails to capture your prospect’s attention, it fails completely. Your prospect doesn’t read your stellar copy, and doesn’t order your product or service.

Then you want to build a strong interest in your prospect. You want him to keep reading, because if he reads, he just might buy.

Next, you channel a desire. Having a targeted market for this is key, because you’re not trying to create a desire where one did not already exist. You want to capitalize on an existing desire, which your prospect may or may not know he already has. And you want your prospect to experience that desire for your product or service.

Finally, you present a call to action. You want him to pick up the telephone, return the reply card, attend the sales presentation, order your product, whatever. You need to ask for the sale (or response, if that’s the goal). You don’t want to beat around the bush at this point. If your letter and AIDA structure is sound and persuasive, here’s where you present the terms of your offer and urge the prospect to act now.

A lot has been written about the AIDA copy writing formula. I’d like to add one more letter to the acronym: S for Satisfy.

In the end, after the sale is made, you want to satisfy your prospect, who is now a customer. You want to deliver exactly what you promised (or even more), by the date you promised, in the manner you promised. In short, you want to give him every reason in the world to trust you the next time you sell him a back-end offer. And of course you’d rather he doesn’t return the product (although if he does, you also execute your return policy as promised).

Either way, you want your customers to be satisfied. It will make you a lot more money in the long run.

Watch for your next tip.

Now go sell something,
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You must write to be scanned.

Your layout is very important in a sales letter, because you want your letter to look inviting, refreshing to the eyes. In short, you want your prospect to stop what he’s doing and read your letter.

If he sees a letter with tiny margins, no indentations, no breaks in the text, no white space, and no subheads…if he sees a page of nothing but densely-packed words, do you think he’ll be tempted to read it?

Not likely.

If you do have ample white space and generous margins, short sentences, short paragraphs, subheads, and an italicized or underlined word here and there for emphasis, it will certainly look more inviting to read.

When reading your letter, some prospects will start at the beginning and read word for word. Some will read the headline and maybe the lead, then read the “P.S.” at the end of the letter and see who the letter is from, then start from the beginning.

And some folks will scan through your letter, noticing the various subheads strategically positioned by you throughout your letter, then decide if it’s worth their time to read the entire thing. Some may never read the entire letter, but order anyways.

You must write for all of them. Interesting and compelling long copy for the studious reader, and short paragraphs and sentences, white space, and subheads for the skimmer.

Subheads are the smaller headlines sprinkled throughout your copy.

Like this.

When coming up with your headline, some of the headlines that didn’t make the cut can make great subheads. A good subhead forces your prospect to keep reading, threading him along from start to finish throughout your copy, while also providing the glue necessary to keep skimmers skimming.

Next tip comming soon.

Now go sell something,
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The More You Tell, The More You Sell.

The debate on using long copy versus short copy never seems to end. Usually it is a newcomer to copy writing who seems to think that long copy is boring and, well…long. “I would never read that much copy,” they say.

The fact of the matter is that all things being equal, long copy will outperform short copy every time. And when I say long copy, I don’t mean long and boring, or long and untargeted copy.

The person who says he would never read all that copy is making a big mistaking in copy writing: he is going with his gut reaction instead of relying on test results. He is thinking that he himself is the prospect. He’s not. We’re never our own prospects.

There have been many studies and split tests conducted on the long copy versus short copy debate. And the clear winner is always long copy. But that’s targeted relevant long copy as opposed to untargeted boring long copy.

Some significant research has found that readership tends to fall off dramatically at around 300 words, but does not drop off again until around 3,000 words.

If I’m selling an expensive set of golf clubs and send my long copy to a person who’s plays golf occasionally, or always wanted to try golf, I am sending my sales pitch to the wrong prospect. It is not targeted effectively. And so if a person who receives my long copy doesn’t read past the 300th word, they weren’t qualified for my offer in the first place.

(I used to be a golf junkie and I read a 26 page sales letter about about a set of $4,000 golf clubs. To answer your question, no, I didn’t buy them.)

It wouldn’t have mattered whether they read up to the 100th word or 10,000th word. They still wouldn’t have made a purchase.

However, if I sent my long copy to an avid die-hard golfer, who just recently purchased other expensive golf products through the mail, painting an irresistible offer, telling him how my clubs will knock 10 strokes off his game, he’ll likely read every word. And if I’ve targeted my message correctly, he will buy.

Remember, if your prospect is 3000 miles away, it’s not easy for him to ask you a question. You must anticipate and answer all of his questions and overcome all objections in your copy if you are to be successful.

And make sure you don’t throw everything you can think of under the sun in there. You only need to include as much information as you need to make the sale…and not one word more.

If it takes a 10-page sales letter, so be it. If it takes a 16-page magalog, fine. But if the 10-page sales letter tests better than the 16-page magalog, then by all means go with the winner.

Does that mean every prospect must read every word of your copy before he will order your product? Of course not.

Some will read every word and then go back and reread it again. Some will read the headline and lead, then skim much of the body and land on the close. Some will scan the entire body, then go back and read it. All of those prospects may end up purchasing the offer, but they also all may have different styles of reading and skimming.

Which brings us to the next tip, stay tuned.

Now go sell something,
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If you’re going to make a single change to boost your response rate the most, focus on your headline (you do have one, don’t you?).

Why? Because five times as many people read your headline than your copy. Quite simply, a headline is…an ad for your ad. People won’t stop their busy lives to read your copy unless you give them a good reason to do so. So a good headline promises some news and a benefit.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “What’s this about news, you say?”

Think about the last time you browsed through your local newspaper. You checked out the articles, one by one, and occasionally an ad may have caught your eye. Which ads were the ones most likely to catch your eye?

The ones that looked like an article, of course.

The ones with the headline that promised news.

The ones with fonts and type that closely resembled the fonts and type used in articles.

The ones that were placed where articles were placed (as opposed to being placed on a full page of ads, for example).

And the ones with the most compelling headlines that convinced you it’s worth a few minutes to read the copy.

The headline is that powerful and that important.

I’ve seen many ads over the years that didn’t even have a headline. And that’s just silly. It’s the equivalent of flushing good money spent on advertising right down the toilet.

Why? Because your response can increase dramatically by not only adding a headline, but by making that headline almost impossible to resist for your target market.

And those last three words are important. Your target market.

For example, take a look at the following headline:

Announcing…New High-Tech Gloves Protect Wearer Against Hazardous Waste

News, and a benefit.

Will that headline appeal to everyone?

No, and you don’t care about everyone.

But for someone who handles hazardous waste, they would sure appreciate knowing about this little gem.

That’s your target market, and it’s your job to get them to read your ad. Your headline is the way you do that.

Ok, now where do you find great headlines?

You look at other successful ads (especially direct response ads) that have stood the test of time. You look for ads that run regularly in magazines and other publications. How do you know they’re good? Because if they didn’t do their job, the advertiser wouldn’t keep running them again and again.

You get on the mailing lists of the big direct response companies like Agora and Boardroom and save their direct mail packages.

You read the National Enquirer.

Huh? You read that correctly.

The National Enquirer has some of the best headlines in the business.

Pick up a recent issue and you’ll see what I mean. Ok, now how could you adapt some of those headlines to your own product or service?

Your headline should create a sense of urgency. It should be as specific as possible (i.e. say $1,007,274.23 instead of “a million dollars”).

The headline appearance is also very important. Make sure the type used is bold and large, and different from the type used in the copy. Generally, longer headlines tend to out pull shorter ones, even when targeting more “conservative” prospects.

Stay tuned for your next tip.

Now go sell something,
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