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Archive for the ‘Money Making Ideas’ Category

Picture it:  an administrative assistant, who is responsible for sorting the postal mail, brings the daily delivery to her desk for opening and distribution.  As she shuffles through the pile of promotional mailings, invoices, payments, and correspondence from customers (she can recognize most types of mail by the envelopes that they’re in), she comes upon something peculiar.

It’s not flat; there’s no way that it could have traveled seamlessly through a postage meter.  It contains more than paper.  It’s got depth!  She tries to determine what’s inside by squeezing the envelope in the area of the biggest bulge.  With that, she hears the unmistakable sound of a duck, “Quack!”  What in the world?…

Of course, the office employee opens the lumpy envelope first.  In it, she finds a cute-as-a-button rubber duck that quacks every time she squeezes him.  The letter that accompanies the duck is from an insurance company that is conducting a promotion for new customers.  The little quacking duck is a perfect likeness of the insurance company’s mascot.

The woman gives the duck a prominent place on her desk.  He makes her smile.  She makes him quack when coworkers walk past, making them smile.  When she knocks him over with a paperweight or telephone receiver, she sees the name and phone number of the insurance company on his bottom.  And most importantly (for the insurance company), she remembers their business name every time she glances at the duck, prompting her to not only recommend the insurance company to her boss, but to her company’s own clients.

The power of lumpy mail is two-fold:

• First, lumpy mail begs to be opened.  Can you imagine yourself throwing away a piece of lumpy mail?  Surely, you’d be wondering what was in there, and might even resort to fishing it back out of the trash to satisfy your curiosity.

• Secondly, the item in the envelope that’s responsible for its lumpiness will stay with your target for as long as they choose, effectively giving your company’s name a front seat in that target’s mind.

Many times, business owners focus on the letter that’s enclosed in their direct mail envelopes; when, in fact, their focus would be better placed on actually getting that envelope opened.  And it doesn’t matter who opens it…even if a gatekeeper at a large corporation is intrigued enough to set to it with a letter opener, your correspondence has a greater chance of completing its voyage to the decision maker’s desk.

Emails cost nothing to send.  But with direct mail, you’re paying for paper, envelopes, ink, and postage.  Unless people are opening those direct mailings, your spending is in vain.  Even with a conservative mailing list, you can spend hundreds, or thousands, of dollars in the blink of an eye.

Because you’re investing so much more in direct mail, high response rates are more than desirable.  Direct mail experts site 1 or 2 percent response rates to direct mailings as satisfactory, even impressive.  But if you want extraordinary response rates to your direct mailings, a lumpy mail endeavor could result in response rates as high as 25 percent.  That means that, even if your budget is so tight that you can only afford to send out 10 pieces of lumpy mail, you can expect a response from 2 or 3 of your recipients.

So lump it up!  Mix up the mail bag.  Make mail interesting again.  Maybe you haven’t the budget for big bulk mailing…but there’s nothing stopping an honest shot at some lucrative lumpiness.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

I’d like to share with you a quote that has both inspired and delighted me, by author of ‘Think and Grow Rich’ Napoleon Hill: “When Riches begin to come they come so quickly and in such great abundance that one wonders where they have been hiding during all those lean years….”

You see, recently several of my clients have been having BIG BREAKTHROUGHS in their businesses:

• Katharine went from zero to $100,000 in just 4 months….

• Moira made $30,000 in just 8 days…

• Melina made more in the last quarter than she did in the WHOLE of the previous year…

• Hazel has QUADRUPLED her prices and is attracting the high quality, committed clients that she wants…

• Wendy has gone from charging $40 an hour to offering $10,000 clients…

I could go on, but you get the picture!

So what do all of these women have in common? Aside from that fact that they are ALL my favourite clients They’ve ALL been using this same strategy to experience these BIG income leaps.

Want to know what it is?

Then JOIN ME on this special webinar ‘How to Have BIG Income Leaps in Your Business – Without Working Longer Or Harder’ that’s happening Wednesday 9th June at 1pm UK time.

Register here http://www.clientmagnets.com/bigincomeleaps/

On this webinar, I will share with you:

• The critical MINDSET shift you must make to experience BIG income leaps in YOUR business

• The ‘invisible wall’ that blocks big income LEAPS – and how to bring it crashing down!

• The simple strategy that can help you QUADRUPLE your revenues this year – yes, really!
• A specific action plan for generating YOUR BIG income LEAP

Spaces on this webinar are LIMITED. So reserve your spot right now by going to http://www.clientmagnets.com/bigincomeleap/

I look forward to helping you discover how to have YOUR Big Income Leap!

The process of justifying your price has two components: giving your prospects a reason to pay your price, and overcoming their objections to your price. If your price is in the high end range, I recommend offering  payment plans -  break up the payment into monthly payments or another payment installment plan. This enables you to overcome client objections about price, and increase your conversion by capturing more of your prospects.

When you’re offering a high-end product, some of you prospects may have a mental barrier to your price point based on their income, their cash-on-hand, or a variety of other factors that are beyond your control or your ability to predict. In many cases, this mental barrier can be overcome if you use monthly payments to justify your price. For example, if you’re offering a $1,000 workshop, someone looking at your materials might think $1,000 is more money than they have at the moment, or more money than they can afford to pay for a workshop.

On the other hand, if you offer them four easy payments of $250, that mental barrier of seeing the $1,000 number goes way down. It’s the same paying $1,000, but people don’t tend to think of it as $1,000 – they think of it as $250. This simple technique can go a long way toward overcoming the initial mental barrier about a price, and reducing your barrier of entry for potential clients, thus increasing your conversion rate.

In addition to using payment plans to overcome the mental barrier that prospects might have to buying your product, you can also use payment plans to increase registrations at your next event.   Use your payment plan options to encourage early registration. For example, if your event costs $600, you could give people the option of paying four easy payments of $150, or three payments of $200 or two payments of $300 getting closer to the event. While this all ultimately adds up to $600, many people, when given the option of paying $150 or $300, will choose to pay $150. This means you can get people registered earlier, as well as getting income from your registrations earlier, which can help you pay many of your event fees and costs before the event itself.

Recently one of my clients posted a query on my Mastermind Forum about payment plans.   They were concerned that a lot of people may register but fail to make all the payments. In my experience, very few people register, make one or two payments and then drop out. It’s very rare for this to happen.    Most people who register and make a payment,  stick with the plan and pay it all, or contact you to work out any difficulties. Using a payment plan isn’t administratively a lot more difficult than taking one payment up-front.

When you’re pricing your product or event, consider offering your prospects a payment plan. A payment plan can go a long way toward overcoming the mental barrier against your price, and can help you increase your conversion rate and get more people registered for your event!

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Lists are a big part of marketing a product or event. Your list consists of everyone with whom you have marketing contact, either in the form of mailing addresses, phone numbers or email addresses. If you have a limited list, you have only a small pool of ready marketing contacts. However, you can still plan a successful event without a big list by partnering with people who have good lists.

Find a Joint Venture Partner with a List
If you don’t have a big list, you don’t have to avoid planning an event or selling a product; you just have to get creative about how to do it. For example, if you’re planning an event but you don’t have a list, partner with someone who does have a list and who can help promote your event. You might ask someone with a good marketing list to speak at your event, in which case your guest speaker will promote the event to their list.

Select Someone Whose Audience is Complementary
One of the best ways to promote an event with someone else’s list is to select a partner whose audience is complementary with yours; not necessarily in competition. A competitor probably won’t want to share his audience with you, because then there’d be nothing to prevent you from swooping in and taking the audience away. However, a complimentary business owner might be happy to cross-promote your event to his audience, because it is another way for him to provide value to his audience, and he may find it to be a money-making opportunity.

For example, if you’re planning an event on teaching businesses how to effectively utilize the Web for marketing, you probably won’t want to partner with a competitor who offers the same information to clients. Instead, you might want to partner with a more traditional marketing firm, who can then offer your Web-specific information and services to their clients. Or if you make and sell artist’s painting supplies, you might want to partner with someone who sells canvases; not someone else who makes or sells supplies. Think about who might have complimentary lists, and contact them about partnering in your event.

Be Clear about Terms
If you do bring on a partner to help with list marketing, be clear about the terms of your agreement up front. You’ll need to negotiate commissions and percentages on your joint venture. Have a proposal ready when you begin your discussions with potential partners, and know how much you’re willing to negotiate. If you’re not clear enough up front, you may find that you miss out on an opportunity to build your own list, maximize your income from your event or find yourself in the middle of a disagreement with your new partner. Know how much you and your event are worth, and make sure your new partner can respect that!

Even if you don’t have a big list yourself, partnering with the right person can give you plenty of instant contacts, and help you build a list of your own. Don’t let a lack of a list hamper your marketing efforts. Find a good partner with a good list, or even multiple partners, and move forward to make your event a success!

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Value is a subjective term, a relative feeling.  If someone perceives the value of a product or a service to be high, he or she will naturally be willing to sacrifice more (time, money, etc.) to take advantage of its value.

So along that vein, if you want to build the price tag of your teleseminar (and I’m sure you do), you must increase its perceived value.  Consumers naturally think in a “what’s in it for me?” manner.  When you create a belief that what they’re getting from your teleseminar will greatly outweigh their investments of time and money, you have managed to increase the perceived value of your event.

Here are some ways to accomplish that high-value factor:

• Promise to disclose secrets. True secrets would be those things that aren’t common knowledge.  Or, even better, they are those things which you have discovered; things which you invented or uncovered that can make your teleseminar participants’ lives better.

• Promise to divulge your mistakes. Some failures, especially small ones, are inevitable, and can be instrumental in learning for success.  But if you can share the mistakes that you’ve made, to save your audience the time and grief that can come when they make those same mistakes, you will increase the perceived value of your teleseminar.

• Save your audience some time. When the information that you have compiled for disclosure on your teleseminar will save your participants hours, days, or weeks of research, you move them toward their goals more quickly, which is for most, invaluable.  For instance, if you can offer succinct, successful methods for doing something on a 30 minute call, for which people would normally spend 2 or more hours researching, you have created value.

• Quantify the cost. Ask yourself how much it would cost participants to unearth the information, on their own, that you’re planning to convey.  Consider resources they would have to buy, the traveling they might have to do, the phone calls they may have to make, and the time away from revenue-building that they would have to spend.

• Limit participation. If you limit the number of spaces on your teleseminar to 10, for instance, you will increase value.  Registrants will know that they won’t have to compete with 100 other people during question-and-answer time, and they’ll attach a noted value to that opportunity to have a voice.  You may have only expected to get 10 people on your call anyway, but by making a statement of limits, you increase perceived value.  This not only ensures that you get 10 people who are very interested in your topic, but will allow you to convert a stumbling block into a selling point.

• Offer extras. Gifts like transcripts, reports, templates, memberships, e-mail support, participation in a follow-up question-and-answer session, critiques of participants’ work, etc. will add perceived value and increase your revenue, as long as the gift you’re giving doesn’t out-cost your price tag differential.

Remember, if you create a high perception of value before your teleseminar, you must deliver on your promises.  Some of your best teleseminar customers will be repeat ones, so you’ll want to make sure that you do everything that you say you will, or your offerings will be viewed as fraudulent.

Success with higher price tags is all about perceived value.  Offer your audience what they’re looking for in a teleseminar, and incorporate the tactics outlined above.  Doing so will raise their perceptions of value…in a direct, upward relationship to your bottom line.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Video Marketing Secrets: this is a huge opportunity right now, and is THE way to establish yourself as an ‘overnight expert’ online. And it’s easier than you think. How you can get started, why you don’t need expensive film crews or equipment.

How to create EFFECTIVE videos that work like

TRAFFIC MAGNETS

to attract targeted traffic to YOUR site.

My Next “MARKETING* MASTERMIND Call…”

Tuesday, 25th May, 2010

8:00pm UK Time (3pm EASTERN, 12 noon PACIFIC)

TOPIC:  *Video Marketing Secrets*

This call is FREE for my hundreds of Marketing Mastermind and Stepping UP! members. They also get the CD and transcript of this call at no extra charge, plus a ton of other member benefits – such as access to our online members forum.

Not a member?  Then join the Marketing Mastermind Group today so you can take advantage of this call and all the other member goodies each and every month.

I look forward to “meeting” you on our call.
Best Wishes

Bernadette Doyle
www.clientmagnets.com

PS – Even if you can’t make the call, all Mastermind members receive a FREE CD of the call as well as a digital version of the audio and transcript! Take advantage now: http://bit.ly/SellingSuccess

The registration process is a key aspect of planning an event. The more registrations you get, and the earlier you can get them, the better you can plan for your event. With enough registrations or pre-registrations, you can pay deposits and completely fund your event without a penny of your own money. If you don’t get enough registrations up front, you may worry about filling the event or managing the costs of the event.

“Early Bird” Pros and Cons
Many people utilize an “early bird” strategy to get people to pre-register for events early. With the “early bird” marketing technique, you give people a discount for pre-registering far in advance of the event. Having the cash early offsets the discount, somewhat, and you can also price events slightly high so that the discount is the price you really hope to achieve, and so it looks even more attractive to prospects.

Unfortunately, the “early bird” marketing strategy has one major downside: once the deadline passes, people have no particular incentive to register. The deadline creates a false sense of urgency, and once that deadline is gone, the urgency is passed. You can use the early bird strategy effectively with other marketing techniques, but don’t count on it to carry your pre-registration efforts.

Plan a SERIES of Deadlines Leading up to the Event
One useful strategy for successfully marketing an event is to plan a series of deadlines leading up to an event. You might have price increases, or you might provide ‘bonuses’ or ‘extras’ for people who register before a certain date. For example, participants who register before a certain date might also get bonus materials, such as a handout, manual or guide.

Alternately, you could give people who register before a certain date an opportunity to participate in a one-on-one session with a lecturer or industry professional at the event, or other value-added session. By having a series of deadlines, you can continue to create urgency to register without simply extending your pre-registration deadline.

Provide Payment Plan Options
Another effective strategy for boosting pre-registration is to provide payment plan options. Break it down to payments that sound simple and relatively low, instead of demanding the entire registration amount up front. For example, if you’re planning a training course for four months away, you can offer pre-registration for $400, or four easy payments of $100 each.

Set deadlines for each payment to ensure your registrants don’t simply wait until the last minute to pay. The downside with this option is that it may require more administration from you, in that you’ll have to track each payment and may have to track multiple payments for each registrant. However, if this boosts your overall registration, you may decide that the extra administration is worthwhile.

Be Creative and Flexible with Pre-Registration
Above all, be creative and flexible with the pre-registration process. Utilize multiple techniques to boost your pre-registration numbers as much as possible, both to get an accurate idea of the number of attendees at your event, and to help finance your event deposits. With the right pre-registration techniques, you can plan a fantastic and successful event!

Want to learn more about how to make money with your own events? Visit our Event Money Machine Blog. You’ll learn about an amazing Telesummit being held later this month. Tickets to this event are FREE – so join our priority notification list to be the first to know when they become available.

What will your first (or your next) teleseminar’s topic be?  Before you answer, please consider that your teleseminar’s specific subject matter is the single most important element in determining your profit margin.  Your choice of topic will make the difference between a smashing success and a notable flop.

But how to choose the perfect topic?  Here are some points to remember when tackling this all-important task:

• Match your topic to the wants and desires of your audience. Read their e-mails carefully.  Listen to their questions.  Consider their feedback.  When you listen to your audience, they will define your teleseminar topics for you.  Answer their wants, and they’ll sign up.

• Don’t tell your audience what they need. Generally, people are not going to pay to learn something that you tell them they need to know.  They will only spend their money if your teleseminar promises to teach them about what they want to know.

• Don’t be intimidated by experts in your topic of choice. If people are asking you questions, they see you as an authority on your subject matter.  It doesn’t matter if you’re not the most knowledgeable, or the most accomplished, in your field.  All that matters is that you’re more knowledgeable than the people signing up for your teleseminar, and that you can deliver results.

• Don’t be fearful of lesser-known topics. It has been said that the best way to learn is to teach.  This is also true of teleseminars.  When you conduct a teleseminar, you become more confident, and more knowledgeable, in your chosen topic.  You will learn while you prepare for the call.  You will learn from participants.  You will conduct research in response to questions.

• Don’t beat a dead topic. Don’t be generic in your topic choice.  Challenge conventional wisdom, common sense, or commonly believed truths.  Put a spin on a topic to enliven interest.

• Know your audience’s emotional needs. Your topic choice must promise to satiate a common pain that is felt among your audience members.  Maybe questions that they pose to you indicate that the overwhelming majority wants to be healthier, be richer, or more confident.  Whatever their voices are telling you, respond to that.  Responding to an emotional need is virtually synonymous with instant revenue.

• Captivate your audience. People are busier than ever.  If your audience is comprised of busy parents, and you’re selling spots on a teleseminar about healthy eating, a topic like “Dangerous Foods” might attract more attention than a topic like “Healthful Foods.”  Your topic has to be deserving of a schedule change.

• Make it irresistible. Your topic should warrant schedule changes, word-spreading, and a buzz of excited anticipation.  As mentioned before, satisfy a want, and sprinkle in some creativity, and this hurdle should be easy to clear.

The biggest difficulty you will encounter when scheduling a teleseminar is getting people to sign up.  Topic choice is the key to breaking through that barrier; in fact, it is the single biggest contributor to a teleseminar’s financial success.

Sort out the logistics of the actual call later.  For now, pick a topic that your audience will be hard-pressed to ignore, and even harder-pressed to resist.  Captivate them from the starting gate, and you’ll finish as a winner.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

How many of you are in search of client utopia? You know what it is, because you’ve dreamed of it: an abundance of clients, knocking at your door, more than willing to pay for what you’re offering.

I’m here with another secret to arriving at that place you want to be.  It’s a real, honest-to-goodness strategy for getting interested parties to give up the money you want.  The plan is simple: you must ask for money.

When you learn to ask, you will receive what you’re asking for.  The shift in thinking occurs when you shed the fear of asking for money, and abandon the belief that if you simply make your product visible, people will come to you with open wallets and blank checks.  As nice as that would be, it will never be true.

You can do all of the right things:  the marketing, the web 2.0, the teleseminars, the presentations, the guest appearances; but just as important as all of this is asking for permission to share your product or service, in exchange for a monetary fee.  No one is going to volunteer.  You must recruit from a pool of people whose problems you can solve.

Confidence in asking for money comes more easily for some than others.  But, much like anything else, when you practice asking for money, your requests will start becoming easier to execute.  Every time that you receive what you ask for, your confidence will build, and your fear and misgivings will diminish.

Consider these points when asking for money:

• Place your request well. Disclose your pricing right after you plug the biggest and brightest benefits of what you’re selling.  You will feel excited about your product and secure in asking for money.  Your prospects will pick up on that enthusiasm, and will want to take part in it.

• Don’t dice words. State your price in a straightforward manner.  Keep it simple.

• Don’t make excuses. If you believe that your price is fair, so will consumers.  Believe in your price, and its value will shine.

• Be confident. You know that your clients get every penny’s worth from you.  When that assurance comes through in your words, your confidence will be contagious – prospects will mirror that confidence and more willingly part with their money.

• No pricing prologue necessary. Don’t give a big introduction explaining how you came up with your pricing.  Just put it out there and allow the benefits of what you’re offering to back up the price.

Asking for money can seem difficult as first.  But with my help, I feel confident that only the first time will be the most difficult.  As the money starts to flow, it will seem easier, and you will begin to grasp the concept of asking and receiving.

Often, confronting those things which you fear the most will deliver the most lucrative results (in this case, lucrative in the monetary sense).  Know that your product solves problems, make it evident to your audience, and when you present them with the price that you so richly deserve, you will be answering a question that they were already asking: “How much, and where do I sign?”

Bernadette has attracted a loyal following who rave about her down to earth yet inspiring approach. If you liked today’s article, you’ll love Bernadette’s marketing and success training products and programmes to help you develop a business that suits YOUR preferred lifestyle.

There’s little point in driving people to your website if you’re not able to capture their business once they get there. So, before you try to draw the crowd, make sure the fundamentals are in place.

There are three foundational things that you need in place before you try to get your business name in front of potential clients.

•    A List Manager.

Because I didn’t have a list manager when I first started, I had to manually send out the free report I had offered to a hundred people. You don’t want to do that. A list manager is your database – the place where you store all the names you’re going to collect – and it enables you to handle the “subscribes” and “unsubscribes” automatically. You don’t have to spend any time on it, or hire an assistant to do it.

Some examples of list managers are 1ShoppingCart.com, Total Business Cart, Constant Contact and  AWeber.

•    An Ethical Bribe

What are you offering that is interesting and enticing to the clients you want? You need to present something so tempting that people will be eager to hand over their name, their email address, possibly even their mailing address.

Consider using a free report, a teleseminar, or an audio. These can all work very well in helping to build your list. If you don’t think you have enough expertise, consider interviewing an expert, and use that as your giveaway.

Spend some time thinking about what that enticement is going to be. Make sure your offer is congruent with the people you want to attract. What will have those clients flocking to you?

For example, high-end marketing clients probably won’t be interested in a program titled “Marketing on a Shoestring.” Psychologically, you’re going to attract the cheapskates with that title, when what you really want are the money people. So make sure your pitch fits the people you’re pitching to.

•    A Squeeze Page

It used to be enough to have a box on your website that says, “Sign up here for our free newsletter.” These days, you will find that less than 10% of people who visit the page actually sign up.

A squeeze page is a standalone page that has one goal – to get people to join your list.

For example, use a squeeze page to promote a teleseminar. That page will contain the teleseminar topic, the details about the teleseminar, and a box where people can sign up. There is no navigation bar leading to another section of the website. There is no other information.

Here’s an example of one of my squeeze pages:
www.clientmagnets.com/steppingup

I’ve found that about 70% of visitors say yes, compared to the 10% who click on that box somewhere in the corner of your website. This is where you will capture the person’s details.

Once you have these fundamentals in place, you can begin to focus on the promotional things you need to drive traffic to your site.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com