Keep From Crippling Your Business With These Marketing Mistakes day 6 Dave Negri 248

"Keep from crippling your business with these 20 marketing mistakes" and today is our last day. It's true, Marketing Mistake number 16: Using catchy tunes, jingle, slogans and mottos instead of real solid reasons to have people buy. Do you monitor your competition? How about just asking your What they want? But here's one. It's using-- number 16 is using catchy tunes jingle slogans and mottos instead of real solid reasons to have people buy. Say you've heard them, they're everywhere, they're on the radio or in a television. In fact, you probably catch yourself seeing your humming at least a couple of different jingles or tunes throughout the course of the day. You know, you can't get that crazy thing out of my head. You find yourself quoting some catchy slogan or motto you've heard or read the question you can ask is if they're so catchy. And I find myself singing them, humming them or quoting them. Aren't they working? Aren't they doing their job? And the answer is yes, of course. They're working and yes, they're doing their job. So, if jingle slogans and tunes are working and doing their job, then why not use them? It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish with your advertising. And, here's the key one, your marketing dollars. So, if you want new customers, you want more customers, people who can and will come to your place or business or pick up the phone and call you for services willing to give you their money then these tunes jingles and slogans may not be the best use of your money. Why is that? OK, listen. Here's a funny thing and I've read the article not too long ago-- it could have been a long time ago. But what's the difference? You know the Eveready battery? Bunny did it. He's been around going around and now they have a new furry guy. There's millions of dollars, and I mean millions and millions and millions of dollars, on that one stupid thing. Having let it go back and forth. Now if you asked people what's the battery associated with that bunny. More than 50 percent can't tell you. They just think it's a cute bunny. So, what has been the purpose of spending millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars? I don't know but I know you don't have millions and millions and millions of dollars to spend on marketing like that to get you were. You want people, you want instant credibility, you want instant access, you want instant results right now. And that's why we're talking about direct response marketing and all we do. So as a business owner, you have to decide whether you want your dog on your postcard, you want a pretty song to go along with your marketing or not. Really, that's the basic thing. So, you know your letters, your ads, your promotional campaigns, need to be treated like commissioned employees. Yeah, you wouldn't send employ out singing a jingle or tune or say "hey here's my dog. See how cute he is on my card."-- No! You want results. So, that's what you need to do. They need to be--there needs to be an accountability to the results that you want. So, you wouldn't allow your Sales people to go call on prospects and customers and like you said sing us the jingle, research a slogan, you want results. Silly? --sounds silly, doesn't it? It does. Yet day in and day out, you hear all this type of advertising. But remember here is the key: your ads and letters, your marketing should provide information about your products and your services, make an enticing offer, give compelling reasons why they should buy and why they should take action now. And remember, you know from our discussions about accountability and testing previously, each ad should be able to be measured as to its effectiveness. It's all about being effective and getting the results, you want. So, number 17: Not monitoring your competition. You know a lot of people say "Well, I don't have competition". Listen, everybody has competition. So, you learn a lot from your competition. Sometimes, they can be your best source of what to do and what not to do. And you should set up a system to periodically research your competition to see what they're up to. Some of the things that you should consider are: Who are they? How big are they? What major and secondary product lines they carry? What is their advertising strategy? Where do they advertise? How big are their ads? How often do they run? Why were they run them? You know in what communities? or What papers or just postcards? Who their target market is? How they connect their contact with them? How they answer their phone? You know this is kind of important. How many salespeople do they have? Who their sales people call on if they call anybody at all? Say I know I have my roofing contractor. He doesn't allow his sales people to go call on people. All the leads are generated through the company. And so, he gets to monitor them as they continue to grow. And he knows exactly where they're going and how they're doing. So, he controls everything and you know what? We're glad. Matter of fact, a lot of times you know they'll get some and they'll be you know doing a neighbor's house and they will come by and say "hey can you give me an estimate" and he goes I can bet you're going to have to call. "I can't do it today because I have this huge schedule of things that have to be done. But if you call my assistant then she will put you on a schedule.". See, it has to go back to the company before they can't do anything on their own, which is a great way to monitor things. Yes. Monitor your competition so that you can become better and you know, in your competition that mean you guys have to be enemies. In fact, your competition to be one of your greatest allies of sources for additional untapped income. You know, maybe things that you do that they don't do or things that you do that they don't do and you can cross-reference the sales say, you know, like I don't do commercial paper. So, I would refer that to a commercial painter. So, I mean just because I do painting it doesn't mean anything. So, here's this and here's one that I'm going to give you is a bonus. I don't think I've ever talked about this before and they may have. But I don't remember. Listen go through Google go through all the people in your Web pages. You know, they come up first, second, third, or fourth, whatever's on the first--first page and call them. See how they answer their phone. Now, there's going to be surprising things to see even if they call you back, would be one. And here's an intro you, want to actually see how many people that are on Google that are not no longer in business. Yes, really. No longer in business. And you're going to want to get their phone number and have a read directed to yours. That's a whole other marketing strategy altogether. But, if you pick that up man it's going to be worth mega mega bucks to you. Marketing mistake number 18: Failing to ask your customers what they want. So, number 18 are getting down to the wire here. Failing to ask your customers what they want. That's an interesting one. What do you mean by that? Well, listen, everyone in business from insurance companies to computers, cars, clothes, stores, service businesses, they all respond with something like: low price. Well, that's not true! Because if you take a look around and what people spend their money on, what they drive, what they wear, what they live, where they live, what were they doing now? Even quickly come to the argument that that goes right out the window. It's not all about price. So, yeah, nearly every business, if you exhibit hesitation in buying, the salesperson and that's you, too, the owner, will, you know, always try lowering the price as the first resort. That's because we are so conditioned to price-- cheap prices. But it doesn't have to be that way. So, let me give you an example of what happened to me one day. It was kind of funny. I had a lady and I went over. She wanted a painting and she wanted everything painted. The walls, the ceilings, the doors, the door jams, the baseboard. And so, I put together a price on everything. Because I always try to give them what they want. And then later on, give them what they need per say. So, we get all done and give the price she comes out and she goes "wow! that was a lot more than I anticipated or was expecting to spend." I said "OK. So, you know, you asked me for a price to pay everything. What-- let's go over from what I see that does not need to be paid and why? can we do that?" She goes "Well yeah sure." So, we took a look at everything and actually the ceilings you painted maybe one did in the whole place. So, I said well that's going to save you a tremendous amount of money. And then we would there's a couple of little things that didn't need to be done and we just had it from there. But did I lower the price. I did, but I didn't. I didn't give her a cheaper price. I gave her price based on what we were going to do. We just lowered the price in essence by what she really needed to have done or wanted to have done. And so, when someone comes to you and says "Wow! it was a lot more than I anticipated", then you know, then you need to work from there and not just go low as I can give you a discount. Because that's not necessarily what we're looking for. They're just not sold on what has to be done. So, I always ask, well, you know, what don't you want painted? or what don't you want cleaned? You know, the way this is everything written in stone this is exactly what you want. So, we can go back and take a look at what you really want and sometimes we don't listen. Sometimes we do and we give them. But, we just need to go back and really go back to and say "What do you really want me to do?" What are-- you know. So, and, you know, from the amount of time that you've been in business, you have a tremendous amount of experience and expertise on what you've seen will work with what, or what won't work with a lot. And so, just be-- forget about the price issue. Be more concerned about giving them the value of what you have and maybe not charging as much, not by lowering your price but by lowering the amount of services you're going to do. Does that make sense? And, you still get your--you still get your margins, which is what you really need, is your margin. Now, that's just a particular sales situation. So, there's other ways. There's lots of ways to find out that you can determine on the wants of your prospects or your customers and that's just surveys and questionnaires. Whether by phone or mail or some of the easier and most effective ways to do that. So, you can follow up after purchase. Find out how they liked the product or service they bought. See if there's any questions on how to use it and ask if there's any other products or services that they might be interested. See, you're opening up that door. Remember, we talked about it before. They're into buying mode. They just bought that they want to buy some more. And they said "Well, you know I had thought about this after you left". So, that's another thing. Here's a couple of reasons why people won't spend their money with you. You know what? We've already discussed that people buy what they want before they'll buy what they need. Think about that. They'll buy what they want before they'll buy what they need. There's no trust. You haven't established a level of credibility, trust or believability. They need to make a purchasing decision. And of course, there's no value. You haven't created enough value or perceived value in their minds equal to, or to exceed the value with money that they're willing to exchange for your services. What is perceived in the customer's mind is reality. So, perception is reality and there's a nobility. Some people, genuinely, don't have the ability to pay for the item. They have financial problems or loss. And, see those aren't your customers. So, once you've established the level of trust, people believe you and they can afford it, then you'll be able to make a bigger sale by selling them wants to the needs. Remember, it's what they want, it's not what they need. So, just take the word "need" out of the vocabulary and you'll actually be much better off for it. Marketing mistake number 19: It's not working with joint ventures. This one. Number 19 is one of my favorites. It's not working with joint ventures because I do work with joint ventures. That's why it's one of my favorites. So, what is a joint venture? It's a teaming up with another business can be one of the most profitable things you can do. And they, in turn, become a win ,win situation for the both of you. So, here's how it might begin. Let's say-- I'm going to tell you what I did and I've done it numerous times and it works great. And I have the ability to do marketing so this helped me out a lot, too. So, I have roof companies-- roofing contractors who sell Roof cleaning for me and for them. And we've created a joint venture. I do-- I put the marketing material, I put together their "Thank You's", I put together their warranties--the warranties I have and I send them out. So, the only thing they have to do is sell them. Sell the service and I'll get a call or I'll get e-mails and say "Dave, this has got to be done". And, I also just did that with a new one the other day I was out and about. And, as I was doing some painting at a house and they were having the screens removed during the hurricane here. It wiped out the guy's screen enclosure, and it was torn down and these guys were there. So, the owner was there and I noticed on the side of his truck, you know, we do pressure cleaning. So, my question was to him: "Do you guys do fresh cleaning or do you sub it out and use other people to you know to do that for you?" So, he says we-- because I don't do pressure cleaner 'cause we don't do that anymore as we've just been too busy replacing screens and doing repairs and stuff like that, he says. But I do have, you know, people that I refer out. And I go "Can I ask you a question?" he goes "Oh yes, sure". I say" Would you rather make money by referring them out? Or would you just rather refer them out? “He goes "Explain to me Lucy." I say here's what we do, is we pick it in marketing programs. We do route cleaning, we do pressure cleaning and we do, you know, know painting. So, what we've done in the past is we've worked with business owners-- who would be in our marketing materials for them. And, then they could just refer us to their customers, or you know, you guys do the proposals. Send me, you know, it needs to be done and I'll schedule it and I'll do it. And then you collect the money and you keep, you know, the markup. I'm going to tell you it's X amount of dollars for me to do this. And your upcharge it and you keep the profit and you send me a check. He goes "Oh, I liked that idea". He goes "Send me some more material". I said "Awesome. We'll do that". So that's-- it's just that simple-- joint venture. Now, do I have to go out and get his customers? --No, he's got his customers. He's going to either sell them or refer them and I said I even put down I said: Listen. if you guys are too busy, I'll go do the estimate and I'll do it on your paperwork. It doesn't matter to me. Because we both win. So, I have two customers now. I have him as a customer and I have his customer, who becomes my customer in the interim after we've done business. So, is that a unique-- that's a great way to get customers. If you've never thought about it before, it needs to be part of your arsenal for getting and keeping business because it's like gravy. You don't want to spend any money in marketing because you've created a relationship. And that relationship will grow and continue to grow forever. So, do you have to stop at one? -- No! You can do as many as you want! And it always becomes a win win for everyone because it's something like this guy, he doesn't want to do it anymore. And he would rather make money then referred out. So, always appeal to the pocketbook.   Marketing mistake number 20: Risk Reversal. So, this is one of a lot of guys are afraid of. I mean literally afraid of and that's risk reversal, not using risk reversal. So, suppose that customers are not happy with a purchase that they made from you. Do you have to give him a 100 percent money back guarantee? -- You don't have to. Could you offer it? -- You could. Do you think they'll take advantage of you? -- in your mind you're saying yes. Listen. I'm going to tell you from past experiences over the 26 years. Well, I'm going to just go for the last nine because this is what I actually put on all my proposal. We have a tear up your check guarantee. If we can't make you completely satisfied with our work, then we're going to tear up your check. Has anyone ever take an advantage of me on that? -- No. So, but why do I do it? Because it's a risk reversal. The people would say "Well, if he's willing to do that, then I can trust him hopefully to do the right thing at the right time, give me everything he said he's going to do". Now, even-- and I try to give to you with everything. We'll do with our painting. We'll give it a 10-year warranty guarantee on painting for certain things. Now, do other guys do that? -- No! That's why I do it. I've seen five years, I've you know, do a ten year to press the point that I'm going to stand behind everything I do. Have I ever had to go back and do a warranty call? -- No but it's there. I've done-- you know, it's a crazy thing even. I know there's a lot of guys who claim they won't give a guarantee I'll give you two thousand days. And I dropped it down because of the humidity and the heat and the rain in Florida. The 24 months. Do I ever get called back on a warrant for that? -- Yes. Do I go back? -- Absolutely. Because I am-- I honor my word, first of all. But, I charge enough in there to figure that into an hour. That's going to take me an hour to go back and catch up. So, why not do more than when everyone else is willing to do. And when you do that, you create that risk reversal. You want them to be able to feel good about doing business with you. So, if all the risk is on them, that hey I'm going to let all this money and there's nothing in it for me, then they are going to be a little hesitant. You want to take as much hesitancy away from them as possible. So, it could be a money back guarantee. I am not saying it has to be. I mean, I just saw something that was kind of interesting the other day it was on the TV. Certain plumber for every minute they're late from their scheduled time or their appointment. I believe that they'll knock five dollars off the bill. So, if they're 10 minutes it's 50 bucks. After 20 minutes that's a hundred bucks. So, it sort of makes them-- how do you say-- So, it makes them accountable is because of what it does. And, me calling as a person who wants the service done. If that's out there, then dude I'm going to call them before I would call someone else because people showing up on time in the service industry is rampantly bad. So, these guys have overcome that with, you know, with this particular guarantee that they're using. And there is another one of them a carpet cleaner I knew who didn't answer his phone all the time. You know, because you try to answer your phone when you can. And so, what they did was, to get the people to leave a message, he would say listen "I'm so sorry that we could not answer the phone at this particular time. But, if I don't call you back in ten minutes-- within ten minutes-- then I will give you a 25 percent discount or 25 dollar discount off of the service that we're going to give you. How's that?" So, you know, the sky's the limit. You just have to be creative on what you're going to do to do that risk reversal and remember it is risk reversal. So, I'm excited that we finally got to finish this up. If you did not get your free download on the-- this whole report that they put together for this series, then you can do it on this show notes page also. And we're making it available to you for free. I mean, normally, it's probably-- I'll not even tell you what I charge for it. So, it's a material. It's FREE. I want you to have it for free. I want you to grow your business. I want you to be the best you can be. And I want you to grow your business to-- it being a lifestyle business for you. And not that you run the business and the business doesn't run you. So, until the next podcast. Be profitable. 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