TheBusinessCommandos.com

When it comes to direct response mail, a pretty postcard or an
attractive envelope may look good, but it alone is not going to
persuade anyone to buy from you.
It’s important that the message contained in the letter or on the
postcard is just as attractive as the cover itself.

That said, think big. You want a big idea for your direct response
mailer. What’s the point behind what you’re sending? Is it to
introduce your product? Give a special price? Highlight your unique
guarantee? Drive traffic to your website?

Your postcard or letter should contain an idea that makes
customers think to themselves, “WOW, I have to do that right now!”
Remember, direct response marketing is all about giving people a way
to take action right away. However, you alone are responsible for
giving them the reason that makes them want to take action.

Without your big idea, you’ve spent possibly thousands of dollars on a
pretty design and attractive packaging. Most businesses don’t have that
kind of money to waste.

Remember the higher the response you get from your marketing, the more
profits you can re-invest to grow faster or support a better lifestyle.
And it all starts with you getting their ATTENTION!!

If we chose not to follow a proven system we are taking the long road, which is like Columbus journeying out to find new undiscovered land. Back then men were guided by impulses, gut instincts, visions and changing breezes. They seldom arrived at their port and when they did it was often by accident after a long roundabout course.

Every early seaman mapped his own separate course. There were no maps to guide them, no buoy showing a reef and no lighthouse showing a harbour. The shipwrecks were not recorded so many ventures came to grief on the same rocks as previous ones before them.

Fortunately business today does not have to be like that. There is assistance available to ensure you don’t fly blind like the early sailors and avoid coming to grief through not having your journey mapped out clearly in advance.

Rather than traveling like the early sailors, hit and miss without a clear plan, it makes good business sense to have a solid strategy mapped out to avoid becoming a shipwreck.

Mapping your journey at the beginning is the first step for success in business, as a successful business starts before there even is a business!

Read more at www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com when you enter the free members area.

Too many people start running a business and end up with the business running them as most businesses are operated via the business in a biscuit tin model. This is where the owner is just so busy just doing it, doing it and doing it with their head down and bum up with the belief that as long as they are busy they must be doing Ok, right….WRONG!

For the vast majority of businesses today that are still operating via this prehistoric business mentality, their businesses are treading water at best, but mostly dying a slow and unprofitable death.

This is because these type of business owners are busy working on the tactics side of the business. Inside the business biscuit tin, just going around and around and around, working on the lower value tasks that make minimal impact on the business that juniors could do, so the only way for them to improve the businesses profitability is to work faster. An extremely slow and ineffective strategy.

On the flip side Entrepreneurs step outside the biscuit tin and go to work on the strategy side of the business focusing on the higher value tasks that make the big difference. They identify the most profitable areas of their business and ensure they spend the majority of their time working on these areas to accelerate business profits.

The smartest way to Fast-Track your business success or anything for that matter is to follow a proven recipe, as the mistakes have already been made. So it makes good sense to follow a proven system or learn from someone with proven results.

It’s not a good idea to reinvent the wheel and be a pioneer. Remember what happened to the pioneers, they came home full of arrows.

To read more visit: www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com and claim your free copy of my book: “How To Make A Million Dollars In Your Business In The Next 3 Years Or Less”

1. Big Promise Headline

The headline of your sales copy is the most important part because if you don’t catch the prospects attention with your headline they will not read any further. So first you must craft a compelling headline that grabs people’s attention. Ideally your headline may be a benefit filled headline that spells out specifically why people want to read this now. Put the necessary time in to create a strong headline as it is considered that 80% of the power of your sales copy comes from the headline.

2. Paint the Positive Picture

Spell out to the reader how much better their life will be when they invest in your product. This is your chance to enter the conversation they are already having with themselves by talking about how things are usually done by the majority of people who continue to struggle and present your product as what the future can be like when they own your product that will give them more money, more time with family, less stress, bragging rights or whatever it is that your product can do and what your market actually want. Talk in their terms using the word you throughout your copy and filling it with benefits for the reader. It’s all about getting them to imagine how good things will be when they own your product.

3. Uniqueness

This is where you explain how your product is unique and different. People love rarity so you need to point out to them how unique your product is compared to what else is available in the marketplace. If your product isn’t unique at the moment, then you need to get creative and make it unique so it can’t be compared to competitors. This is where your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) comes into play, which highlights why people should do business with you as opposed to your competitors.

4. Benefit Filled Bullet Points

You need to include an extensive list of bullet points that highlight the benefits for the prospect in investing in your product. When you have a long list of bullets it’s best to bold every second bullet point to make it easier on the eye to read and generally try to break the bullet points up into groups of 7 rather than a very long list. The easier you can make the copy on the eye to read and flow the more likely you will get the person to read the complete sales letter or advertisement.

Put yourself in the prospects shoes to think about what they really want. For example people who are buying a drill, don’t really want a drill they want a hole.

The other important point to note here with regard to bullets is one of the main reasons you want to have an extensive list of bullets is that different benefits will appeal to different people and the more benefits you have listed the more likely you are to hit a hot button with more people, which broadens your market and increases your chances of getting the sale.

5. Outrageous Offer

From the outset I stated the most important part of sales copy is the headline, well not far behind the headline is the offer. The offer is absolutely crucial. You must have an irresistible offer for people to buy NOW! The offer needs to be a ‘no-brainer’ to make your prospects want to pull their wallet out on the spot and buy now. You may offer a free 30 minute consult valued at $297 when people invest in your offering now or they may receive some killer bonuses valued at $797 or whatever you decide. Just ensure it is so irresistible that they must have your product right now. Our online coaching membership site www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com is a good example as business owners and entrepreneurs can own a membership for less than the cost of a cup of coffee per day, plus they receive thousands of dollars worth of killer bonuses and they’re protected by a 12 month Double Money Back Guarantee, that states if they haven’t made at least 10 times their investment from applying the Business Growth Guru strategies, I will personally cut them a cheque for double their money back for wasting their time.

Be bold when you’re creating your irresistible offer, if you’re offering a boring me too type of offer that everyone advertises, you will get the same dismal results. So invest your time and money if need be to get some assistance and develop an outrageous offer people can’t refuse.

6. Proof

So now you’ve made all of these promises and explained how good your product is and what it can do for the prospect, well now it’s time to prove it! You need to present the reader with evidence that you’re a credible person to deliver on what you’ve promised with your bio revealing your background, past success and why they should listen to you. Include a long list of testimonials from past satisfied clients that have achieved great results with your product and case studies work well also of past successes. Just remember the market place is already saturated with marketing materials so you need to prove that you are the real deal. You will want to include at least one or more bullet proof guarantees to remove the risk for people in doing business with you. If you aren’t confident to guarantee what you’re doing, maybe you should be doing something else. At a minimum you should have a 100% guarantee for a set period of time spelling out to your clients that they can essentially try your product risk free and if it doesn’t do exactly what you said it would do for them you will give them their money back.

7. Call-To-Action…

Last but definitely not least is your call to action. You need to finish your copy off strongly, spelling out exactly what the reader must do next to take advantage of this amazing offer. You may finish with something like; to take advantage of this limited time life changing offer that will eliminate your money problems forever then click here right now. Do it right now because if you’re one of the first 27 people you will also receive the killer bonus package valued at $497. When they’re gone, they’re gone. Do it now and get Instant access before you let another life changing opportunity pass you by.

Just remember that you’ve put a lot of hard work into your sales copy and you need to finish off strongly to get the sale.

I find it alarming today the number of businesses who aren’t focusing on building a database and taking advantage of the ‘Back-End’.

There are countless examples of the value in building a database, including Google buying Youtube for $1.6 Billion. It is imperative to maintain and update your client data base to keep them informed of what is going on with your business and about any special offerings or promotions they may be interested in and keep that all important ‘top-of-mind-awareness’.

Having a database of clients that you have formed a good relationship with is one of the most valuable assets you can have in business today.

All of the money is generally made in the ‘Back-End’ of a business, not the ‘Front-End’ where most business owners focus on.

Your database allows you to market to your clients for life, offering new products from your product range to make their life easier and further grow your business. It’s simply a process of continuing to add value to your clients to help them get more and more of what they want.

It’s extremely important to know your metrics, to take full advantage of the ‘Back-End’ business strategy…

For example one of my mentors in the States used to manage a leading car dealership and they would buy Toyota Camry’s for $18,399 and sell them for $17,999, which was a $400 loss on the ‘Front-End’, whilst their closest competitor was selling Camry’s for $18,999 making a $600 profit on the ‘Front-End’.All of the competitors were complaining to the factory that my mentor’s dealership must have been getting the cars cheaper than they were and they were loosing all of their customers.

Here’s how it was possible, my mentors dealership knew their metrics and understood the business ‘Back-End’ strategy and they knew that on average every new car they sold people would spend on average an extra $1,400 in extras, so what looked like a $400 loss was in reality a $1,000 profit.

See the other key strategy they employed was to offer a value package with every vehicle, which would include things like, security system, insurance, sports add-ons, etc, which was made up of high margin items, so the retail price of the package was say $3,000 and customers could get it for $1,400 if they purchased now, plus if they took the value pack option they would get their finance for 4% instead of 6% making it an absolute no-brainer of a deal.

This is just one example of the power of knowing your metrics and ‘Back-End’.

Join the successful minority today, build your database and focus on your Back-End!!

Aaron Parsons.

Systems are the key to making your business work without you and more importantly systems ensure that the business does not rely on any one individual, which significantly enhances the businesses value and is a great form of insurance.

Imagine a business where one employee or maybe even the owner is the only person in the business who knows how to perform a key task. What happens if that key person whom the whole business relies upon has an accident and is laid up in hospital for six months, the business could potentially go broke, resulting in everyone loosing including staff, the owner, suppliers, customers, etc.

This scenario can be avoided through implementing solid systems throughout your business. The other major benefit systems have for business owners is that it opens up the market place when it is time to sell.

In most cases the business may be limited to people who understand that particular industry, where as if the business is fully systemized it allows anyone with the funds or the channels to get the funds to invest, providing a much larger market and more options for the business owner when they want to cash out.

As Michael Gerber said in his awesome book, “The E-Myth Revisited”…

Systems run the business and people run the systems!

For those who haven’t yet read The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, I would highly recommended you do, it would be one of the most important books for anyone in business to read!

Systems allow the business to deliver consistent results to clients, which is of utmost importance as you know yourself that the fastest way to disappoint a client is to deliver good service one time then poor the next.

McDonalds are the best example of the power and value of systems in a business as with McDonalds we have one of the best businesses in the World operated by sixteen year old kids. Good systems allow you to leverage someone of an average skill level into a competent manager as with the McDonalds example.

This is a key for business today as it is hard to find highly skilled staff, so you need to develop solid systems throughout the business that can be operated by people with the lowest level of skill.

I personally remember operating three of my parent’s business units when I was only 12 years old on some weekends. This was all capable due to the systems my parents had in place of course. The businesses were 24 hour heavy rigid towing, tilt tray towing and roadside vehicle breakdown services. The system used in this instance was simply a script stating the key information I needed to gather from customers when they phoned in and the next steps from that, which was to either call or radio the mechanic or tow truck operator and pass on the details for the job. This was in the days of no mobile phones I might add. Our communication whilst the operators were out on the road was through two-way radios.

Systems is where we really start focusing on the high value tasks within the business rather than the low value tasks, there is no use in you doing a $5 an hour task when you can be working on a $100 or even a $1000 an hour task for the business.

Systemizing a business really just comes down to looking at every task performed within the business from the initial enquiry right through to the end process of banking the cheque and breaking each step down into small bite size pieces, allowing you to implement a system so anyone could do the job after some short training.

So if your business is not fully systemized get to it and release those shackles, because if you don’t have solid systems in place you are effectively hand cuffing yourself and making yourself a slave to your business, which seems to be the case I see with most business owners over and over and over again.

There’s some great information covered on systems inside www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com

Over the years in business, I’ve heard a lot of people complain about how they can’t get any more business, how they can’t seem to explore new boundaries, how they can’t make any more money and how they can’t grow and share a bigger piece of the pie. These people all have one thing in common, they’re tied to the ground without knowing it!

Have you ever heard of a grown elephant try to break free from the chains at the circus even though they could do it effortlessly? Never! Why? Because when they were much younger and weaker they were bound by chains attached to heavy duty steaks driven into the ground. See the elephant adopted the belief from when it was young that it can’t break free. As a grown-up elephant, it continues to think that the chain is unbreakable and doesn’t even bother trying.

The point is that in business, sometimes we are bound to the ground without realizing it. We’ve been preprogrammed to think in a certain way from the start, hence, our boundaries are set.

The difference between a successful entrepreneur and the herd is that they continue innovating and looking for new strategies to accelerate growth and break those restrictive chains.

In a business sense, one of the biggest hang-ups I’m faced with is… “My Business is DIFFERENT!”

Too many entrepreneurs are circus elephants!

Immensely powerful, but stuck within their own limitations founded only on their own beliefs, bias and opinions.

I can honestly say my Business Growth Strategies have helped my clients achieve explosive profit growth throughout a broad range of businesses and they certainly can work on your business, irrespective of what business you’re in – provided you’re the RIGHT person, at the RIGHT time, hearing the RIGHT information.

I’ve never seen an exception.

If you choose, you can be the biggest obstacle to your success and continue doing what you’ve always done, which will continue giving you the same results… or if you are ready to Break-The-Shackles once and for all visit the following web page right NOW… www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com

Business Growth Guru allows you to tap into a goldmine of ‘Business Growth Tools’ that will be delivered to your inbox every week and the best part is this unique program is globally focused giving you access to highly valuable networks around the world giving you access to all sorts of money making ‘Joint-Ventures’.

If you find yourself ‘staked to the ground’, head on over to www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com and you even get an amazing FREE gift just for entering. Check it out, you’re got nothing to lose.

Yours in success,

Aaron Parsons.