Vishal BhatiaIs Ignorance an excuse? FORGET IT!
Sometimes the simplest things make ALL the difference.
It’s rarely due to anything complicated.
Many of the ultra-rich, ultra-successful are there with ordinary, ‘mundane’ businesses.
- Tom Monohan and Dominos — PIZZAS!
- Howard Schultz and Starbucks — COFFEE!
- Ray Crock and McDonalds — BURGERS!
There are never ending examples.
Mega success cannot be due to upbringing or environment either. We’re awash with stories of people from humble beginnings rising to fame and fortune in all walks of like.
David Beckham was from a ‘humble’ background, Simon Cowell was not poor but his rise is astronomical.
W. Clement Stone built the World’s largest insurance company in the depths of the Great Depression… He began by ‘hocking’ newspapers on street corners!
So, success CANNOT come down to upbringing or environment alone.
And, when you really study what makes people ultra-successful, or not even ultra-successful, just way more successful than the ‘average’ at whatever they do, then there’s one common trait that flows like a river of gold through them all…
THEY DO WHATEVER IT TAKES. THEY DO WHAT OTHERS WILL NOT.
And in 99% of cases those things they do are not done by others for one simple reason…
SLOTH! Lack of ACTION! PROCRASTINATION! EVEN FEAR! You see as 3 time New York Times #1 Best Seller Robert Ringer (I recommend his book ‘Action’) so eloquently put it:
ACTION… CREATES… GENIUS… POWER… AND MAGIC…
It catapults you to the front.
It IS what makes the difference….
And the fact you’re here means you ARE one of the people that does indeed take action. You’re in the right place. You’re in the playground of action takers and today I have something for you to take action on if you’re not already.
A MEGA Opportunity For You
Remember how last year, just before Christmas, we had a big drop in temperature?
Well… I was sitting in my nice, warm cozy lounge, with a freshly ground Starbucks coffee (I am a little addicted to it and have to brew my own at home…) and playing peek-a-boo with my daughter when all of a sudden I became painfully aware of how cold the room was becoming…
I hopped up and headed out to the thermostat (quietly muttering something like “Shaila – why have you turned it down? I know you like to reduce your carbon footprint but it’s freaking freezin’ outside and my Starbucks is cooling too quick”). It was set at 75F which frankly should have been fine.
I headed back to the lounge, scooped up my daughter and then cantered like a little pony with her in my arms around the rest of the house across the chilly solid oak floor to the heating control unit to make sure it was on.
Red light – check. Yep, it was on.
And stood there in the high ceilinged room with big patio doors and windows in the ceiling. I pulled my daughter closer because it was more like 55F in there, NOT 75F.
It hit me – smack in the face
The furnace had broken (or something had at least). Now, many Dad’s would try and fix it themselves but frankly I’m about as handy at DIY as Simon Cowell is at being tactful.
So, there was no way I was going to start fiddling around in the basement scraping my knuckles trying to fix something I had no ability to understand.
So, I cantered back to the lounge, which was at least a little warmer, lit a fire, grabbed the iPad and did a Google search for furnace repair companies in my area.
All the websites looked exactly the same. I had no way of deciding who I was going to call, so I called all five from the first page.
Three went to voicemail, one number didn’t work and the last guy picked up but sounded like a cowboy and wanted $100 up front. He took ages to arrive and was far more expensive than the guy who fixed the furnace before.
When he eventually did turn up I had to show him my furnace. Which would’ve been ok if it wasn’t right at the back of my basement…
I had to traverse a long, steep, winding staircase, shove my way past endless piles of rubbish (I even stubbed my toe on a plastic Star Wars figure from 1982) then wave my flashlight around looking for the unsightly thing. All the while standing on a freezing cold concrete floor and making small talk with the smelly, bearded ruffian of a repair man who insisted on talking about baseball. What’s even worse though…
The second the beam of my flashlight hit the furnace I noticed a tiny blue sticker, which on closer inspection, was a calling card left by the lovely repair man who fixed my furnace before.
I had half a mind to tell this bloke to get out and call the other guy, but with baby upstairs, Shaila would have been well within her rights to throw a ‘wobbly’ if she had to go without heating for much longer.
Now… here’s the thing:
If the original repair man (who did a great job) had simply kept in contact with me on a regular basis (rather than leaving a tiny sticker on my furnace without even telling me), I would have called him in an instant and he would have had my business then and probably forever.
For him probably multiplying my customer value 3, 4, 5 even 10 or 20 times over. Even better, had he offered me a monthly service contract of some kind I would have spent money with him every single month and been happy to do so for the peace of mind…
And, do not you even begin for one second to think “Hold on Vishal, I’m not a furnace repair technician, this doesn’t apply to me!” It DOES apply to you.
Whatever Business You Are In, By Simply Maintaining Regular, Personal, Informative, Timely Contact with Your Customers, EVEN AFTER they Have Apparently Stopped Spending it with You, Can Multiply their Lifetime Value to You by as Much as 10 or More Times Over and In Turn Keep You In Style For life!
Yet… almost no-one does it… Why?
Well frankly:
1. Because they don’t know they should.
2. And if they do know they should, they don’t because they’re LAZY and they FALSELY see it as a COST, NOT a PROFIT generating activity… MISTAKE COLOSSUS!
So… Here’s what to do…
The Simple, Easy to Do Secret to Multiplying Customer Spending and Referrals…
Regular communication in PRINT.
A Well Designed Newsletter is Worth It’s Weight in GOLD…
It Is the MOST Important Marketing Tool… EVER!!!
A MONTHLY (and when I say monthly I mean every single month WITHOUT FAIL) newsletter.
It’s really quite simple. The most important thing is to send your customers is something they look forward to receiving.
HOWEVER — it must NOT be your average, boring business bulletin however; it needs to be fun, engaging and interesting.
Let me take you through the numbers and show you why newsletters are so powerful.
Now, please keep in mind this is just an example and the numbers will be different for your business. But, the principles hold true and I hope you’ll see just how lucrative this can be…
Let’s assume you have 1,000 active / recently inactive customers (how many past customers you should send you newsletter to is dependent on a number of factors…).
Using Pareto’s Principle – the 80 / 20 principle, we can be pretty sure that about 20%, or 200 of those 1,000 people will actually read it…
That means that for every 1,000 newsletters you send, something like 200 will end up being read.
Each and every newsletter should be interesting, engaging and talk about more than just your business. BUT, each and every newsletter should also contain:
1. A reminder of HOW and WHY they buy or bought from you.
2. A TIME or QUANTITY LIMITED specific OFFER of the month for something from you.
Now, if you have a good relationship with your customers and the special offer you’ve made is good, then you should expect around 3% to 5% to take advantage of the offer. MONEY YOU LIKELY WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN OTHERWISE.
But that’s JUST scratching the surface…
You see, you are in a very powerful position. Your customers (or at least the majority of them) – know, like and trust you.
And, our natural human tendency when we respect an authority, an expert, is to TRUST their opinion on things outside of the core thing we approach the expert for.
And herein lies a GOLDMINE
Your customers, or at least a percentage of them, will HAPPILY spend money on things outside of your core business WHEN YOU TAKE THE TIME TO RECOMMEND THEM.
Naturally those things must be of high quality and of benefit to your customers but there’s no end of products that fit that bill.
Think for a moment about good old Wal-Mart and Costco… For years we went there to get our groceries and nothing more… But what can we buy there now?
Well… Insurance, CLOTHES, banking, EVEN HOLIDAYS and prescription glasses.
What does that mean to Wal-Mart and Costco and the like? Well… They pick up a huge percentage more of an average householders yearly spending on just these items.
And we happily let them sell this stuff to us because… we TRUST them… And the same principle applies to your business.
The only trouble is that I suspect your customers don’t visit your business (either in the real world or virtually!) as often as the average consumer heads to Wal-Mart or Costco…
So you should deliver your new exciting purchase options for your customers in your NEWSLETTER — EVERY single month (and in your other marketing media too…).
You could sell any complementary partner products and services (and in turn they do the same for you) to completely unrelated products and services.
Use your newsletter correctly and you will keep customers longer, they will refer more people to you and they will spend more with you.
Now, that was the good news… What I’m about to tell is not such good news…
You see, had you been following this advice since you started your business, then right now you could have banked a very significant sum of money. Indeed had I used this strategy myself from the start when I began in business then it would have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to me… And that is very pessimistic BECAUSE that extra money could have been reinvested into making even more.
Bad news out of the way — let’s move on…
Now remember… What’s important here is, because these people already spend money with you they know, like and trust you. They will be more than happy to spend money with you in other ways as well, as long as you present your offers to them in the right way.
A huge lesson is buried in that last sentence and if you take it to heart, you’ll be able to make massive leaps in your income very quickly.
Your customers will always be extremely receptive to buying from you because they’re already used to giving you money, simple as that.
You can boil this lesson down to a simple statement:
Be In As Many Businesses At Once As You Possibly Can!
The more products and services you can offer to the same audience the more money you’ll make.
Consider an example of a normal chiropractor. For most chiropractors their biggest headache is simply getting enough clients in the door. But, by using that to their advantage and turning their loyal following of customers into people who trust you on all matters of health and fitness they can multiply the value of the customers they already see. A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER is the GLUE that allows you to do this.
Your newsletter can, without question, be the MOST POWERFUL marketing tool you will EVER have. IF you use it correctly and IF you send it EVERY SINGLE MONTH.
So, what should be in your newsletter?
The ANATOMY of a Newsletter that Customers READ and MAKES YOU MONEY
First off; let me make this CRYSTAL, CRYSTAL, DIAMOND clear.
There is no magic formula for your newsletter and indeed this one you’re reading right now is different than most and different to what I’m going to suggest for you (I use this format because it’s worked out best for me… that’s all).
Second, your newsletter must NOT be… BORING…
How should your newsletter look? Good question.
Honest answer… Who CARES… As long as it gets read.
That means it could be laid out in pretty text blocks with nice pictures or it could be as simple as a letter (more like this one).
Here’s what IS important.
It MUST be CONSISTENT every single month. People must KNOW what it is and look forward to receiving it.
And I’ll let you into a ‘dirty little secret’ almost nobody knows… UGLY marketing outperforms ‘pretty’ marketing in nearly every case. Not least because it looks like it has come from a PERSON… a real, living breathing person with experiences just like the readers… rather than a giant, nameless, faceless corporation that cares about nothing but profit…
HOW LONG SHOULD IT BE?
As long as it needs to be. I’ve seen 2 page newsletters work very well and regularly use 8, 10, 12 page newsletters myself to great effect.
If you have a choice between getting ONE page out on time or skipping a month because it isn’t all ready… SEND THE ONE PAGE!!!!
And send it to very existing customer, every past customer, every supplier, partner, EVERY influential person in our local area…
Look… for just a few cents you can build a ‘force-field’ around your existing customers, reactivate old customers, build relationships with people of influence and SELL YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES and other stuff to them all — in a NON-THREATENING, friendly environment…
DO NOT BE FOOLED into skipping sending your newsletter.
It is the most powerful customer retention and value increasing marketing tool you WILL EVER come across. It has the power to make you very, very wealthy.
Most people will not take this advice. Most people will not send their newsletter. Most people ARE AVERAGE. Most people live life full of regrets. You are not one of those people. Take this week to create and send you first newsletter. All you need to do is:
1. Write it.
2. Send it…
Hop to it…
