TheBusinessCommandos.com

Today I have a big tip for you where most people get it wrong in business…

There are so many seminars, websites, books and programs out there today loading people up with more and more tactics… the result, people walk away all excited because they’ve learned all this new stuff…

…And a few days pass, then weeks pass and all of a sudden they find nothing has changed.

Have you ever thought about the reason why?

This is another key lesson I got from my time in the Special Forces… You see in the Commandos we did spend a lot of time working on different tactics to employ in certain situations, there’s no denying that.

And I believe it is important to be armed with a range of tactics at your disposal… But the BIG missing link for most people is STRATEGY!

Strategy is where Commandos excel!

We were drilled like you wouldn’t believe in the art of strategy and strategic thinking… Without an effective strategy, the best tactics in the world are totally useless!

Most people get obsessed about tactical details before they embrace a strategy… and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place.

In the Commandos, before a mission for instance, countless hours were used focused purely on strategy… As our commander wisely put it, you must invest the time to craft a winning strategy, it’s the foundations of success and with an effective strategy everything else falls into place.

It is so true in business too.

A lot of people are running around today loading up with the latest and greatest marketing tactic and what they miss is the simple fact that without an effective strategy there tactics are worthless!

This is another important reason why you really need to get along to The Business Commandos Boot Camp where I pull back the curtain on Commando Strategy for business. Use access code “STRATEGY” when you register for complimentary tickets.

One of Jim Rohn’s great sayings was “Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better”.

This is your invitation.

Your future is what you make it!

Aaron Parsons.

P.S. Bridge your potential and performance gap at: http://www.TheBusinessCommandosBootCamp.com Remember to use your special access code “STRATEGY” to claim your complimentary tickets.

Henry Ford was taken to court back in his day by the Washington Post for of all things being ignorant…

Ford took it all in his stride until he finally got sick of the two dollar questions being fired at him from the prosecutor and he stood up slammed his fist on the bench and said;
“Why on earth would I bother filling my head up full of useless information when on my desk I have a row of buttons that I can push anytime I require and have an expert give me the answer immediately?”

Henry Ford was a very successful person I’m sure you’d agree… Here’s the big thing; The row of buttons you and I have at our finger tips are more powerful than Henry Ford could have ever dreamed of. We have a much bigger advantage than him if armed with the right knowledge and acted upon.

There’s an army of over qualified experts all over the world ready and willing to work for you for as little as a few dollars per hour. Oh and did I mention that some of these people have multiple University degrees, they are very good at what they do.

If you require an information product, basically if you can think it and explain what you want they can make it for you.

“Be the general of the army, not a soldier in the trenches”

Before you look to outsource, first you must map your strategy so you can stop doing the two dollar an hour jobs and start focusing on where the real money is made.

Don’t fall for the head down bum up approach to business running around like a chook pecking the scraps off the ground, which is easy to get sucked into with no blueprint to follow.

To find out more and put yourself into the drivers seat to leverage this phenomenon join The Business Commandos Inner Circle at: http://www.TheBusinessCommandosInnerCircle.com

The most valuable asset any business has, whether it be an online business or offline business is a database of people who are interested in what you have…

In fact it is really a database of people who you have developed a good relationship with who are interested in what you have to say and offer.

Building your database is an ongoing daily task, remember it’s all about building the relationship and staying in contact with your prospects so that you are their when they are ready to buy.

A good point to keep in mind when building your database is that each time you get a new addition to your database it is future income, now I’m not saying that you will sell to everyone that enters your database, however you will obviously sell to a percentage of your database.
So if you’re struggling to see the value in focusing on your database, just think of it as future revenue.

There are many different strategies you can use to build your database and let’s start with someone traditional offline business examples;

A good one for a traditional bricks and mortar business is to run an in-store competition where people enter their details into the draw to win a prize that can be something you’ve packaged up in house or you may even offer a holiday to gain more attention. This allows you to capture peoples details so you can stay in contact with them to build the relationship and send out special offers to generate more business.

Here’s an example from a café business I worked with;

Everyone who entered the café was invited to enter the draw to win a free lunch, which created street talk “Who said there’s no FREE lunches?” and was an effective marketing strategy in itself generating more clients.

With the details that were captured was the clients birthday, then every year just before their birthday we sent them an invite to come in for their free birthday cake that we had made specially for them. Now the key here was that how many people celebrate their birthday by themselves?

Yes these people would bring all of their friends and family, which sky rocketed the cafes sales… Then the café would also capture all of the extra peoples details and the whole thing just ‘Snowballed’ BIG time.

See how simple it can be to massively increase your sales - simple strategy, BIG results!! And a great example of the benefits in building your database.

For an online business you can simply use an auto-responder on your website to capture prospects details. To get a great cost effective auto-responder system go to www.autowebbusiness.com

Generally you will offer a free report, book or audio in exchange for your prospects details. The information that you are giving them should be good quality information to help them get what they want, as this is the first step of the relationship building process and if you help them get what they want then the law of reciprocity comes into play and most people will want to repay the favor.

The beauty of an auto-responders is that you can have it all set-up automatic, so that as soon as they enter their details the they will receive their FREE gift and also receive messages from you, even if it is just once per week with helpful information for them, which allows you to build the relationship and to ensure that you are there when they are ready to buy.

These messages can be all pre-written and entered into your auto-responder. Remember most people won’t be ready to buy on first contact and auto-responders are a great way to stay in touch without any extra investment of your time.

For an example of the auto-responder process just enter your details and claim your FREE gift we offer here on our website.

Auto-responders give you great leverage, do it once and get paid forever!

Lumpy mail is a very effective strategy to secure Attention and increase your response with your direct mail campaigns. If you’re trying to get the Attention of a key prospect, lumpy mail will help you stand out and be remembered.

I’ve even heard of someone sending a CEO of a large company a $1200 golf bag to get the CEO’s attention and get his foot in the door for a presentation. Mind you this deal was probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, I’m not by any means suggesting you use a $1200 golf bag. You must know your numbers and stack the odds in your favor.

When a prospect receives a lumpy piece of mail they are curious to open it and see what is inside. You know yourself when something arrives in the mail for you and it’s an odd shape and you can feel that there’s something different inside, which makes you want to open it immediately to find out what it is.

There are many lumpy mail pieces you can use including the following;

· One red sock with an invite to an event where they will get the second red sock to make the pair

· A tape measure – “Do you measure up to today’s standards in ________? Get our Free report on the 3 biggest mistakes made by business today.”

There’s a few to get you started and we haven’t even scratched the surface. I remember a copywriter I know who sent a lumpy mail piece that turned up in a large express post bag with a pair or red underwear inside and a note saying; “I’ve sent you these undies, because when you read my offer, you’re going to shit yourself” – Now I must clarify, this individual knew his market and they loved the joke. So pick your mark if you plan on any outrageous campaigns like this one.

Remember your lumpy mail is to grab their attention, then your message must end with a call-to-action as to what they must do next. Whether you’re offering a free report, seminar or consultation, you must make it clear to your prospect the next step.

Attention is the currency in marketing today and Lumpy Mail will help you cut through the clutter and get response from your market.

P.S. This and a whole lot more will be covered in detail at The Business Commandos Boot Camp

1. Stake your claim…

The marketing matrix pictured below is the foundations for marketing;

It all starts with targeting the right market. So you must be crystal clear on who you’re trying to reach. Who are you aiming at? Quite often people play blind archery and they’ll be firing off arrows with a blindfold on just praying they may hit a target. What a waste of m~oney!! Think of each of those arrows as a dollar. They’re just throwing out money everywhere, a totally ineffective strategy. So get clear on who you’re talking to, your target market.

Then you need to craft your message so you enter the conversation that your prospect is already having with themselves in their own mind. So you find out what your target markets life is like each day? Because if you’re targeting corporate CEOs, you’re going to talk to them a little bit different maybe than if you’re targeting mums at home, working a home business and looking after a couple of kids or whatever it may be. So you need to be crystal clear on what specifically they want. Your message is all about having an attractive hook that appeals to them. Otherwise you won’t get them into your web. (more…)

Check out the following 3 videos to help you achieve all of your business and personal goals and make this year your best year ever!!!

One of the fastest ways to grow your business is to give your products away for free allowing people to try before they buy. With this strategy you must know your lifetime customer value.

Let’s use a hairdresser as an example. The average value of a sale when a client comes in is $60. Minus the $20 cost to service the sale, which leaves $40 in profit. A client returns on average 8 times per year, which makes them worth $320 in profit per year. And on average each client stays with the business for 4 years, which makes every new client that comes in the door worth $1,280 on average to the hairdresser.

If this hairdresser offered his service FREE for first timers, in most cases he is giving away $60 to make $1,280. Not a bad deal at all!

Too many business owners and entrepreneurs today still struggle with this concept, but as you can see with this example, providing you know your numbers and the odds are stacked in your favor, it makes good sense to give your product away for free to attract more new business.

I also know of a Deli that used this concept when they first opened for business. They did their maths and figured rather than spend a fortune in advertising, it was cheaper to give away FREE lunches for a whole week, which they did and their business went Gangbusters from day 1.

Now a key concept to employ when using this strategy is to combine some magnetic marketing with it to help get the new client into the habit of shopping with you. Here’s what I mean; If we use the hairdresser example, the first step involves giving away the first haircut free, then before they leave hand them a coupon to be redeemed in the next 60 days for a special offer for their next haircut. Then when they come back the second time do the same again with either the same offer or a different offer to attract them back to you and after that the majority will stay on as repeat clients.

There are countless other examples of this powerful strategy and I’m sure you get the concept.

Yours in success,

Aaron Parsons.

P.S. The Ultimate Entrepreneur Boot Camp is only a week away, only a few seats left, book yours now at:
http://www.TheUltimateEntrepreneurBootCamp.com

Viral marketing is an extremely effective internet marketing strategy. It’s called viral because it spreads like a virus. With the each new person it comes into contact with being a host and on it goes from there.

It works pretty simple, you tell 2 people, then they tell 2 people and so on until it gets out of control.

It doesn’t take many levels to result in exponential growth for those who employ this powerful strategy. The example below demonstrates the results with each person telling 4 people and what happens after just twelve levels;

1. You - 1
2. Your Friends - 4
3. Their Friends - 16
4. And on it goes… 64
5. 256
6. 1,024
7. 4,096
8. 16,384
9. 65,536
10. 262,144
11. 1,048,576
12. 4,194,304

Note the compounding effect that takes place towards the end.

To send your product viral it must have the ‘WOW’ factor that creates street talk and gets people talking about it. It must offer outstanding value and you will need to offer an incentive for people to want to share it. It must be useful to people to make it spread.

Submitting articles to article directories is a viral strategy, which involves you supplying some good quality content – usually around 1 page in length and submit it to directories like www.ezinearticles.com or www.articlemarketer.com and at the bottom of your article will be the author box with your details so those who like what they read can find you at your website. Some of your articles will get picked by ezine publishers too, which helps them spread.

Don’t expect overnight results when submitting articles, it’s like planting lawn seed, the grass doesn’t grow straight away. You plant the seeds today to reap the rewards in the future and the beauty of the internet is you will continue to get a trickle of business years down the road as your article continues floating around in cyber-space.

Hi Folks,

Just wanted to share an extremely effective marketing strategy with you called Magnetic Marketing.

Magnetic marketing involves giving your clients some thing of tangible value when they do business with you that they can redeem on their next visit. This is designed to attract them back to your business for repeat custom.

If you have a mechanic shop for example with every service you may leave a $20 discount voucher off the next service, which expires in 3 months time. So when the person needs their car serviced again they are more than likely going to call you, otherwise they would be effectively wasting $20.

This works especially well when you are trying to attract new clients to your business. Here’s how it would work for a dry cleaning business. First you would send out vouchers for Free dry cleaning to the people you are targeting for this marketing campaign and then when the people who took you up on your offer come back in to pick up their dry cleaning, you would give them a 50% discount voucher for their next lot of dry cleaning, which would expire in 30 days. When they come back you would give them another 50% voucher off their next dry cleaning bill also to attract them back to your business again and get them into the habit of dealing with you. From then on you would treat them as a normal client.

The psychology behind this strategy is that firstly you offering a no-brainer offer that your prospects would be just throwing money down the drain if they didn’t take you up on it and then you’re following up several times with more magnetic marketing offers to get them into the habit of dealing with you.

For this to be effective obviously you must deliver excellent service.

You don’t have to use discounts with your magnetic marketing, you can offer holidays, free meals at restaurants, gift packs or whatever else you can come up with that is appealing to your target market and makes sense to give away to attract a new client or keep an existing client.

Get creative, you could even partner up with other businesses and work together on this one.

Yours in success,

Aaron Parsons.

Doing Everything Yourself…

An ongoing challenge I see with business owners and entrepreneurs is that their businesses have stopped growing because they are not making enough time to work ON it!

Too many fall into this deadly trap trying to do too much themselves and finished up being so busy running their business that they’re not working ON their business. Essentially working flat out and getting nowhere!!

Are You Spending All Your Time on the Trivial Stuff?

Let’s face it, you generally wear a lot of hats when you own your own business, however you don’t have to wear them all yourself. Most business owners who are struggling to keep their head above water have fallen into the doing everything themselves trap, event he tasks that they know they’re not good at… Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

Those who continue in this doom loop end up like a person stuck out in the middle of the ocean continually treading water until they eventually get tired, sink and drown.

Pretty soon the passion they had when they started their business rapidly disappears and their desire drowns in a flood of behind-the-scenes work. Eventually they wake up one morning feeling burnt out with a negative mindset and stuck in a massive rut.

I am speaking from experience here, as I fell into the ‘do it all myself’ trap myself and it was not a pleasant place to be ‘stuck’ in at all. And you know I hear quite often in society you are told that you must work hard… Why? Is it because everyone else is stuck in a doom loop?

I certainly learned the hard way that it’s not necessarily about working hard, but more about working SMART! In fact if you find yourself working hard you’re likely to be doing something wrong. After all we are all on this planet for only a limited time, so doesn’t it make sense to enjoy our time here. It all starts with working smarter and here’s where it begins…

Thank god I found out about virtual assistants (VA’s). A virtual assistant is a free lancer who takes care of all that “busy work” for you. And because virtual assistants work independently themselves, they work on demand when you need them and save you the costs of hiring someone full-time.

Thanks to technology your virtual assistant can live down the road from you or on the other side of the planet… It’s up to you. (For more on outsourcing, grab yourself a copy of my Ultimate Outsourcing Manuscript at www.TheBusinessCommandos.com )

Moving forward, before you dive in to any task in your business STOP, and ask yourself “Is this the best possible use of my time?” If not outsource it to your virtual assistant.

For the next week, keep a journal of all your activities and sit down and review it at the end of the week. Identify which activities you really need to do and which you can delegate.

Your virtual assistant will both save you and make you a fortune as your valuable time gets freed up to work on the higher value tasks like marketing, innovating and growing your business.

You will get back to thinking big and quickly regain your creative energy you had when you first started your business in next to no time at all.

Take massive action now and get your life back!

Yours in success,

Aaron Parsons.

P.S. If you haven’t joined www.BusinessGrowthGuru.com yet, head over and check it out now whilst all of the awesome bonuses are still available. And don’t forget to tell all of your friends!