When Groupon sells a Groupon–say, a $25 coupon for $50 of belly-waxing services–Groupon collects the $25 immediately (from the subscriber’s credit card). Then, sometime later, the subscriber generally goes to the belly-waxing salon and gets his or her belly waxed. And, sometime after that, Groupon remits a portion of the $25 to the belly-waxing salon.

What this means is that, when Groupon is growing rapidly, as it is now, it collects a ton of cash from its subscribers long before it has to deliver some of the cash to its merchant partners. And that generates positive cash flow.

This is how Groupon can generate cash even when it is “losing money” on its income statement.

The full-year cash flow statement for 2010 illustrates this.

Groupon “lost” $413 million in 2010 on its income statement. In the same year, however, it generated $72 million of cash.

So What?

The benefit of positive cash flow is that Groupon’s operations can fund the company’s growth even while the company is losing money.

Of course, the benefits of this positive “cash-cycle” won’t last forever. When Groupon’s growth slows, the cash that it has to deliver to the merchants that did Groupons last quarter will start to equal (or even exceed) the cash that Groupon collects from customers who buy Groupons this quarter, and the company’s cash-flow statement will look more like its income statement.

(Amazon went through this transition, too, and it can be a painful one.)

In other words, at some point, unless/until it turns profitable on an income statement basis, Groupon will have a cash hole to fill. And the only way it can sustain its positive cash flow while losing money on the income statement is to keep growing rapidly. If the growth stalls before the company turns profitable, cash flow will turn sharply negative.

But, for now, even though Groupon is “losing money,” it is generating cash. And it can use this cash to fund operations and growth.

Source: businessinsider.com

In a stock market bubble, investors stop thinking about what they’re buying and start looking around them to see who else is buying it.

Joe Investor sees a sizable group of other investors piling into a stock or sector, driving the price higher. He figures they’ve thought things through, so he’ll go along for the ride.

Jill takes Joe’s lead, figuring he knows what he’s doing. Jerry follows Jill. Julie follows Jerry. The blind are leading the blind.

Well guess what?

There are marketing bubbles too…

Some marketing tactic or strategy is hyped beyond all reasonable expectation… newbies who don’t know any better jump in… and a bubble is born. As the hype grows, it creates a kind of vortex that sucks in more and more people. The number of dupes and the number of promoters both skyrocket.

Some investment analysts are calling the recent LinkedIn IPO a warning sign that a new tech bubble might be upon us. The stock debuted at $45 and immediately started gyrating between $80 and $120, hundreds of times 2010 earnings. In plain English, there was no justification for these prices.

Groupon and Facebook are planning IPOs as well, and they will most certainly garner the same kind of senseless, nosebleed valuations. The bubble will balloon and burst. And overnight, billions of dollars will change hands, just as they did during the dot-bomb bust of the late nineties. Foolish investors holding these stocks will get the shirts ripped from their backs.

With marketing bubbles, the damage is subtler…

Bubble stuff. All about Facebook and Twitter and mobile marketing and Groupon and other so called “game changers.” Now I’m not saying there is no value in these things. It’s just that they are hyped into the ozone… out of all proportion… beyond anything even remotely real.

In the world of investing, the basics are things like earnings growth, return on equity, and profit margins. The boring, common sense stuff that allows you to rationally compare one stock to another. In the marketing world, it’s return on resources invested (RORI). Is marketing this way worth my investment? Is it the best use of my resources?

The fact that there are umpteen million users with a Facebook account makes for great hype. Heck, if it were a country it would be the third-biggest. But what does that mean in terms of the RORI for your particular business?

Most people who market with social media haven’t a clue. Their behavior is driven purely by peer pressure.

And then there’s the whole Groupon thing…

We’re seeing Groupon copycats popping up everywhere, like Whac-a-Mole. They’re hyping the slashing and burning of prices to blue blazes. There are even Groupon wannabes for information products. I’m willing to bet that if it hasn’t happened already, you’re about to get pitched by one of them.

“Let us expose your company to the multitudes,” they say. “You’ll gain hundreds, perhaps thousands, of brand-new customers. All you have to do is let us sell your $1,000 info-product digitally for $17 bucks and pay us a commission.” Come again?

Let your decision on all things bubbly be based on good old-fashioned RORI, not peer pressure.

Source: Daniel Levis

The number one sin of all marketing is to be “Boring.” In fact, 72% of all Direct Mail (which this book addresses) is sorted over a wastebasket.

Bill shows page after page of outrageous marketing that never gets thrown away. Such as yellow legal-paper letters, little kids crayon letters, lumpy mail with nickels pasted to them, holiday cards that show a turkey saying, “Eat Ham!” Now that’s funny; I don’t care who you are!

However, what I like best is that Bill is not just some ordinary consultant or guru who only tells you how to do it. He’s actually done it all himself! Bill has owned the number one men’s retail store in Baltimore and many of the examples are from his very successful campaigns.
Everyone will enjoy these fun filled, exciting marketing ideas that will make their marketing stand out from the crowd.

Outrageous Advertising That’s Outrageously Successful: Created for the 99% of Small Business Owners Who are Dissatisfied with the Results They Get From Their Current Advertising by Bill Glazer is available for an outrageous price of $4.95 but I don’t know for how long.

Best marketing strategy from Bill Glazer

Small business marketing strategies with Bill Glazer

So, how do you really Win and Keep customers? Simply by delivering what matters most to them. Is it that simple?

Crucial messages need not be complex. The simple message of Simply Better is that in single-mindedly pursuing differentiation, many companies have failed miserably in their stated goal to be “customer-focused”. Except for relatively rare instances, customers care little for the addition of unique features and clever innovations. What they really want is the reliable delivery of “generic category benefits” – products that *work* and reliable services that take place on time. Although companies often dismiss this as “table stakes”, the data show that businesses fail to deliver these basics far too often.

If time is of the essence, it is my editorial duty to let you know that you will find most of the important ideas of this book in the authors’ MIT Sloan Management Review article, “Don’t Be Unique, Be Better.” Barwise and Meehan do not entirely dismiss the conventional wisdom that competitive positioning and differentiation require companies to offer customers something they cannot find elsewhere, but they do insist that this has distracted companies from maintaining a true customer focus and from delivering the essential category benefits valued by customers. The only area in which differentiation is clearly the right way to go, they argue, is in your advertising and marketing messages. Elsewhere, they urge companies to think “inside the box” by refining, perfecting, and delivering on the essentials that customers badly want. The failure of companies to do this has created deep customer dissatisfaction.

The good news in this is that organizations that adopt a true customer-centric perspective can generate a low-risk, high return opportunity. To help your business reach this state of genuine customer-centricity, the authors first explain how customers see your brand and make purchase decisions. They then explain how to convert that understanding into a clear view of what customers really value. These are the actual (and potential) generic category benefits. The book also examines the management challenges to creating these benefits.

The last chapter of this book sums up by providing five rules to becoming “simply better”:

This last principle refers to the authors’ discussion of important arguments in favor of managers getting out of their offices and directly interacting with customers. This kind of immersion works because it avoids distorted images of customer reality, it helps filter indirect data such as market research, it acts as a source of storytelling and anecdote, and it spreads the results of both learning and the act of learning.

If you decide to read this book, rather than the excellent article-length distillation, you’ll find some other fine points that often go well beyond the article. Contrary to the usual concentration on measuring customer satisfaction, Barwise and Meehan make a strong case for measuring and monitoring the drivers of *dissatisfaction*. They add to what seems to be a recent trend by emphasizing the risks and drawbacks of flanking strategies that require strategic innovations, arguing that it is usually better to be an excellent imitator. Chapter 6, “Customer-Focused Mind-Set“, sets out a refreshing (though not truly original) view of “fast and right processes and a pure air culture”. These honor the practices of “hard work decision making”, “accountable experimentation”, and a culture in which challenge and debate are seen as forces for good throughout the organization, and where no one expects an easy yes to proposals.

Source: Patrick Barwise “Simply Better” Winning and Keeping Customers by Delivering What Matters Most

Is Social Media a Fad?
You can either promote your Business or Cause using? Social Media, so people will follow you or keep traditional advertising with big pocket budgets.

Video Part 2…

Did you know these Human Capital stats?
Perhaps the sources and references for the data contained can be argue, but the trend is clear.

The Value of Influence

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Most people are excited about this because they love to see someone challenge Google’s empire. But me, I’m excited for a different reason. I can smell a new avenue for some mega-effective SEO.

Before I go any further. I don’t think Facebook is going to be knocking out Google just yet. They’ve got a lot of work to do to compete with Google’s extremely advanced search engine, but you never know what else Facebook has up their sleeve.

So here’s how it’s going to work.

Facebook is giving webmasters 2 tools to use to index their page for Facebook Search. 1- “Like” button to install on their pages that Facebook users can click. 2- A set of tags that allows webmasters to tell Facebook what their site is all about.

The search results that Facebook gives will be based on how many ‘Likes’ the page has received and the information provided in the tags. Essentially creating a search engine based on “likes” instead of “links”.

Here’s why you need to get your SEO skills warmed up and ready.

We’ve seen what Facebook did with Ads, so I think it’s fair to say their search engine has some strong potential to become a big time player, Especially since they have Bing powering it.

Since Facebook is giving us the opportunity to improve our search rankings with them by utilizing some pretty sweet tools, it should be worth getting in on. And like most SEO campaigns, it’s a good chance to save dough and get continuous results without continuous work.

Do you think Facebook Search will succeed? Let me know your thought, comment below!

Source: Ryan Deiss

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Honda has unveiled a new digital affiliate marketing campaign to promote its hybrid sports coupé, the CR-Z. The marque has also appointed Elvis to handle its pan-European direct marketing and digital advertising account after a pitch against undisclosed agencies.

The CR-Z work has been created by relationship marketing agency HS&P and targets ambitious and affluent individuals.

The online campaign includes social media elements and launches today (11 March) and will be accompanied by a series of direct mail and email communications.

Running alongside the above line advertising, the campaign aims to generate leads for Honda’s ongoing prospect relationship programme and create buzz and WOM surrounding the CR-Z ahead of its launch in June.

The CR-Z is a coupé sport hybrid – the first of its kind that challenges the conventional use of hybrid technology.

Lee-Anne Crossley, marketing communications manager Honda, says: “Even in a challenging market, there are going to be customers who seek fun, excitingly designed cars – especially if they also offer an affordable ownership experience. With its striking design and advanced technology, The Honda CR-Z is a very likely candidate for ambitious and successful individuals; this affiliate campaign will seek out these individuals and entice them”.

Source: MarketingWeek

2. Domino’s Pizza trials world’s first ‘Social Affiliate’ tool

Domino’s Pizza is claiming a world first by trialing a new ‘Social Affiliate’ tool, a widget that combines social media and affiliate marketing.

The tool enables anyone with a personal web space, such as a social network page or blog, to host advertising from nominated brands.

It aims to complement more orthodox affiliate marketing strategies, which use ‘professional affiliates’, by enabling any consumer to promote products or services within a framework of designated brand guidelines.

Internet users can earn revenue whenever a sale is driven from their social network or blog page.

To access the widget, publishers can sign up and download a dashboard to track the sales generated through their web page. The Quantum dashboard plugs into the Affiliate Window network reporting system.

An online PR and blogger outreach campaign will launch the ‘Social Affiliate’ tool to drive awareness and encourage downloads. This will be supported by an online media campaign later this spring.

“Brands benefit by aligning with sites run by fans who are more likely to drive a sale, while site owners can generate revenues from their Facebook page or blog,” said Dan Clays, managing director of BLM Quantum, the company which developed the tool.

Source: UTalkMarketing

In a nutshell, it is the ability to get your marketing messages out to mobile devices, using SMS technology, otherwise knows as text messaging.

I’m not talking about spamming text messages out to cell phones, I’m referring to a building a permission based list of people who want your messages. This can be done in one of two ways…

1. Via signup forms at your website that include a field for a cell phone number

2. Via “mobile keywords” that people text to your “short code” mobile number after they see it advertised somewhere, such as at your site or on radio, tv, print, email, etc. (You know, like text “freebies” to 69302 for free web business products.)

This technology circumvents the growing problems with getting opt-in emails through spam filters and into recipients email boxes.

Text messages are getting somewhere near 90% open rates which trumps the less than 25% open rates of even the best email lists.

That’s exactly why more and more businesses are moving toward this technology. And it is also why you’ll be seeing a LOT of related offers from Internet marketers this year and beyond.

As I mentioned, I had three such offers in my email inbox this morning. Two of those three offers were from well-known marketers offering a web based service that facilitates mobile marketing.

After further investigation though, I discovered that their new sites were merely “white label” versions of a service called Trumpia.

After this quick sponsor message from yours truly, I’ll tell you all about Trumpia and why it’s catching on like wildfire.

Trumpia is one of the leaders in providing mobile marketing tools to businesses.

Their web-based service is sort of like an autoresponder service, but with the addition of instant messaging and text messaging capability.

It is surprisingly affordable and even offers a free trial.

I recently took the free trial to see how easy it was to use. To my surprise, I had a web page up and collecting info in about 25 minutes.

I used Trumpia to build a free alert service where I’ll be giving away some of my products for free.

See this example.

I think you’ll agree that the interface is sharp and the service easy to use. And the possibilities from a marketing standpoint are endless. You can use it to send out coupons, gifts, appointment reminders, special offers, and well, just about anything that your clients or prospects might consider valuable info.

I think this may be one of those technologies that makes a big difference for a lot of businesses. After all, cell phones are rapidly evolving into full blown hand held computers, and people are on them all the time now. I know I surf the web constantly on my iPhone and I see more and more people attached to their handhelds like they are some kind of electronic security blanket.

Growing a list of clients and prospects you can reach in an instant, is comparable to the early days of email list building. Those of us who got in early and grew really large, targeted lists, really did well. (Of course you need to offer value to your list members too!)

Trumpia is already making quite an impact for some early users. The following link to their blog contains some case studies showing the different ways their clients have been getting “instant” results: (pun intended)

More Live Examples

If you would like take Trumpia for a test drive, use my affiliate link below and you’ll get DOUBLE the number of emails, instant messages and text messages. The promo code is “bizweb” and it should be automatically entered when you sign up at this URL…

Test Drive Trumpia

On January 8th, Google released a mobile keyword tool that allows AdWords users to see mobile search volume from within their AdWords account.

Source: Blog

By now, your company’s power-tripping “get out of my way and let me handle it” computer specialist has become a cliché. Everyone has an “IT guy” story. Saturday Night Live even created a parody of him… a caricature of the computer geek who has terrorized millions and millions of office workers for the past decade.

They control your computer. They control your Internet access. They control information. Many of them, handed a tiny bit of power for the first time in their lives, enjoy it immensely. My publisher’s IT guys even have even given themselves the nickname “IT Overlords.”

Enter “cloud computing.” Enter the era of the laid-off IT guy.

You see, right now, most major corporations include enormous IT departments dedicated to storing and sharing mountains of data. They also own a pile of pricey, custom-developed software that only works on site.

That’s why cloud computing is catching on so fast. Eventually, companies will be able to sell off their server farms, send their files to someone who can manage them more efficiently… and fire their IT guys.

And that’s just the first step. Once things get rolling, companies will be able to plug into the cloud for any IT need – hardware, software, web hosting, networking, etc. And costs will fall, since payment is based on usage not actual hardware. Finally, businesses will be able to focus on what to offer rather than technical details of how to offer the service.

Some of tech’s biggest names are leading the cloud computing charge. For example, Google’s internet-based word processor and spreadsheet program are fighting to replace the desktop version of Microsoft’s Word and Excel. Saleforce.com’s application allows businesses to centralize software while paying as they go with monthly license fees. VMware’s “virtualization platform” allows data centers and servers to run more efficiently.

Leading IT research firm Gartner estimates cloud computing revenue will grow at an eye-popping 25% annual clip over the next few years. By 2013, the firm expects the industry to top $150 billion.

Fortunes can be made by catching this massive, long-term trend. However, you won’t find any five or ten-baggers in the names above. At over $60 per share, Salesforce.com is trading at a stratospheric 100 times this year’s estimated earnings. VMware is not much better. At 40 times earnings and seven times 2010 revenue, the stock is one bad quarter away from a bloodbath. And tech darling Google only gets a sliver of its revenue from cloud computing.

A better way to jump in today is through the more obscure service providers. These companies provide the physical servers, hosting space, and a means to communicate with them. Prominent names include Equinix (EQIX), Rackspace (RAX), and Terremark Worldwide (TMRK).

I expect to see massive consolidation in the industry over the next decade. The biggest tech names will likely gobble up the smaller players as a cheap way to gain access to the latest breakthroughs. Early shareholders will reap the windfall.

We create epipheos.

Umm, can you be more specific…?

Descriptions are usually long, boring, and forgettable. BUT experiences that create amazement, discovery, and inspiration are life changing. They change people to a point that causes them to try new products, adopt new practices, and even re-think the way they live life.

We LOVE (and specialize in) creating exactly those kind of experiences and we believe that an epipheo is the best way to do that.

You got my interest…

Give us a shout. We’re looking forward to turning your idea into an epipheo.

2. Meaning: Getting ahead by slashing prices is cutting your own throat. You MUST take a lead from Starbucks and deliver an entire customer experience. Move UPSTREAM, not down.

3. Your marketing plan MUST include Google. Love ‘em, hate ‘em, Mother’s Milk or Big Brother, there is no avoiding this fact.

4. If your marketing plan ONLY includes Google, you’re an accident waiting to happen. You must invoke the Unlimited Traffic Technique and elevate your conversions to a level where you can compete on any level playing field. Once accept this reality, you liberate yourself from the mosh pit of misery and mediocrity.

5. If you have a successful affiliate business and it’s still standing, congratulations. You still have time to move to higher ground. Time to move NOW.

6. Regardless of where you buy clicks, if you don’t have an Autoresponder sequence, you’re leaving 2/3rds of the money on the table.* Social Media is a freaking a waste of time compared to just TEN well-written emails. In my opinion if you don’t have AR’s in place you’re lucky to still be alive.

7. The principle of the Slight Edge says: If you’re just 5% better than everyone else you get 50% more of the spoils.

8. There is no such thing as One Single Ideal marketing message, anymore than there is One Single Ideal shrub in the jungle. What you need is a toolbox of effective hooks that work with different kinds of people. That is the premise of the Swiss Army Knife.

9. Market Research is crucial. In 2004 you could afford to sling mud against the wall. Not in 2010. Ask your prospects the right 3 questions and sort the data right and your chances of success in a startup go from 5% to 50% overnight.

10. Most people now are on the defensive. They’ve shuttered their doors and windows and they’re trying to ride out the recession. That’s just slow motion suicide. Those who prevail have decided to be 21st century alchemists and every single day they’re trying to figure out how to deliver a more awesome customer experience.

1. Conversion rates in free-fall: Your conversions are half what they were 18 months ago. But the clicks still cost more than they did then. What do you do about that?

2. “What are Google searchers actually looking for?” Your market is shifting unpredictably. Prospects who search Google aren’t asking the same question they were asking this time last year. Your market is more complex now and your position in the food chain is different. Have you changed accordingly?

3. There are growing numbers of deeply competitive markets where not one single advertiser is turning a profit. There are some niches where this shouldn’t be terribly surprising; certain parts of the business opportunity market have been this way for years. But now I’m seeing this in other, unexpected places. There is a constant churn of new advertisers and/or “stupid money” that is artificially inflating bid prices. (Yes, even at a time when “stupid money” isn’t supposedly available.) There are all kinds of crazy reasons for this but the bottom line is, you need a way to determine if this is going on – and how to overcome it.

4. Affiliates are hyper-intelligent and they’re everywhere. If you’re not an affiliate, odds are you’re competing with some. If you are an affiliate, odds are you’re competing with a whole bunch of ‘em. (Unless you’re in a market where they all got slapped.) 5% of the affiliates are making 95% of the money. Which group are you in?

5. Google relies heavily on real human beings to review websites. If a Google editor gives you a Quality Score of 1, all the HTML changes in the world will never fix it. If you don’t have an ace Google rep (which generally requires a monthly spend worth of $15,000), it may be impossible to get a straight answer as to why your QS suddenly dropped to 1. But real human beings with $500, $1,000 and $5,000 monthly ad budgets still have to make their businesses work! I’m going to show you how to get around this and play ball with the big boys, no matter what your budget is.

6. When you ask a question, some nameless, faceless person at Google pats you on the head (“Thank you for using Google AdWords”) and sends you a useless, cut-and-paste, non-answer to your question that was written by a committee of recent college grads (Hint: with hundreds of thousands of reasonably funded and fairly ignorant advertisers entering the market on a regular basis, you’re little more than a commodity to Google. Commodity = pawn on a chessboard. Expendable.)

7. Google’s Content Network can deliver gratifying quantities of quality traffic, but to most people it’s a mysterious, money-sucking fog. (Did you know that the colors and layout of the Google AdWords interface are scientifically designed and meticulously tested to vacuum out your wallet while you remain placid, comfortable, unaware?) Only those who know how and where to slice and cross-section their Content Traffic get the rewards.

To know more advance details, well, my colleague Perry Marshall has written a very helpful e-course that you can find out about it here: 2010 Definitive Guide to Google AdWords

I want to show you how to put your Internet privacy completely back in your own control, by doing two simple things. I’ve tested all kinds of things that claim to help you retain control of your privacy online. The results, quite frankly, were generally terrible. Most programs resulted in an unacceptably poor Internet experience… and not much certainty I was doing things a whole lot safer than I was before.

First, I’ve switched my free e-mail provider.

I have switched out of Yahoo and Google over to Hushmail, a privacy-focused e-mail provider based in Canada. The benefit here is U.S. authorities can’t cite the Patriot Act and get whatever they want.

Second, I’m now surfing the Internet securely and anonymously.

I am currently using what I’ve found to be an extraordinary service… from CryptoHippie (www.cryptohippie.com). Long-story short, it makes it so nobody – not Google, not even your Internet service provider, not the government, and (theoretically of course) not a hacker – can track your Internet activity back to you.

This service is not free, but it’s worth every penny. (I tried the “free” and cheap services, but you don’t want them… You surf too slowly to be functional and they’re potentially even riskier than doing nothing at all.)

Third, Internet browsing

One thing you can do is run your Internet browsing program (like Firefox) from a USB flash drive… you know, the little thumb-sized drives that plug into your USB port. You can actually plug these into any computer and start up Firefox straight off of the USB flash drive. You can then leave without leaving a trace on the computer you used. Or, if you’re a bit more computer savvy, True Crypt (www.truecrypt.org) is quite an impressive little security program. But True Crypt really takes security pretty far. Check them out. They’re worth it.

Have you seen The Most Interesting Man in the World?

I’m referring to the TV commercials for Dos Equis beer. They star a rugged-looking, silver-haired man who is always surrounded by beautiful women.

In one version of the commercial, he arm-wrestles a Third World general and releases a grizzly bear from a trap. In another, the narrator relates that even his enemies list him as their emergency contact and that the police often question him just because they find him interesting.

If you are a student of advertising, you know this is a knockoff of David Ogilvy’s famous ad campaign: The Man in the Hathaway Shirt.

If you don’t know the history of this ad, you should.

In Brief: It was 1951. Ellerton Jette, a shirt maker from Waterville, Maine wanted to grow his little business into a national brand, but he didn’t have much money. He had heard about the advertising prowess of David Ogilvy. So he booked a meeting with him.

“I have an advertising budget of only $30,000,” he told Ogilvy. “And I know that’s much less than you normally work with. But I believe you can make me into a big client of yours if you take on the job.”

If he’d stopped there, Ogilvy would have thrown him out of the office. But then he said something that sold the great salesman.

He said, “If you do take on the job, Mr. Ogilvy, I promise you this. No matter how big my company gets, I will never fire you. And I will never change a word of your copy.”

There is a big lesson here. So let’s stop for a moment and talk about it.

What Ellerton Jette did was a little bit of genius, in my opinion. In two short sentences, he changed the mind of one of the most powerful men in the world of advertising. At the same moment, he made himself a very rich man.

Not a week goes by when I don’t get a letter from a complete stranger who sees me as his David Ogilvy. They are direct and to the point. “I know I can get rich if you help me, Mr. Masterson,” they say. “So how about it?”

What makes them think I have the time, if not the inclination, to help them? It never even occurs to them to offer me something in return for what they are asking.

Jette’s $30,000 budget might have put $3,000 in Ogilvy’s pocket. Though it was a paltry sum then and a mere pittance now, at least it was something. But what really cinched the deal was the two promises Jette made.

Going into the meeting, Jette knew he had one chance to forge a relationship with Ogilvy. He somehow understood that Ogilvy, as successful as he was, had two big problems. He worried that his biggest clients would walk away from him. And he hated it when his clients screwed with his copy. So, instead of thinking only of his own goals, Jette took the time to figure out how he could offer Ogilvy something that would be of immense value to him. (This, by the way, is one of many lessons you will learn when you read my Special Theory of Automatic Wealth.)

When Jette made his two promises, Ogilvy realized that he was talking to a businessman who would eventually become a partner. He could see that Jette was a man of good faith who would let Ogilvy be in charge of his marketing. And that he would reward Ogilvy with a lifetime of loyalty.

Now, let’s get back to the story of the Hathaway shirt ad…

After accepting Jette’s offer, Ogilvy spent days doing in-depth research on Jette’s client base. He came up with dozens of ideas. The one he settled on was a campaign built around the image of a distinguished man in a romantic location dressed in a Hathaway shirt. He selected a model that looked like William Faulkner and booked the first photo shoot.

On the way to the shoot, he passed a five and ten cent store where he bought a few cheap eye patches. At the shoot, he asked the model to wear an eye patch for a few shots.

The moment he saw the photos with the eye patch, he knew.

The Man in the Hathaway Shirt campaign was an instant success. The ads were carried in papers around the country, and were mentioned editorially in Time, Life, and Fortune. Before long, hosts of imitators appeared. Other companies ran ads featuring eye patches on babies, dogs… even cows. A cartoon in The New Yorker shows three men looking into the display window of a shirt store. In the second panel, they are coming out of the store, with eye patches on.

And the copy was brilliant. Here’s the first line of the first ad:

“The melancholy disciples of Thorstein Veblen would have despised this shirt.”

Grabbing the prospect’s attention with an entertaining story or idea or photo is essential for any sort of advertising campaign. But you have to do more than that. You have to sell the product. And to do that, you must link the initial sentiment created in the headline with the final emotion needed to close the sale at the end.

2. Twitter will get sold to a larger company for less than the $500 million they turned down from Facebook in 2009.

3. The next rage in pay per click is cookie-ing visitors on your site and then having targeted contextual ads “stalk your prospects” on other sites as they surf the Internet. Jonathan Mizel will cover this extensively in a January 29 teleseminar.

4. By 2014 the newspaper will be drastically different than it is now. Most local papers will have vanished; large pubs will consolidate down to just a few like the New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Sorry, but there’s no need for 200 different newspapers to all be running the same stories from the wires; it’s duplicate content. Meanwhile a minority of high-traffic bloggers will be identified as doing better research with better reporting and less bias than the traditional media.

5. The music industry is headed in the same direction. The bands that succeed during the next 10 years will be the ones who figure out how to connect directly to their audience via social media and direct marketing. Recently I had a conversation with a recording artist whose advance for making a CD has shriveled from $50K+ down to $15K now, because piracy and digital distribution are shrinking the pie. He can’t depend on them to bring him an audience anymore. (Does that sound at all familiar?) Neil Peart of Rush said essentially the same thing, reporting they want to do an album in 2010 but the record company won’t pay for it. The band is now in search of some other mechanism. I predict that membership and continuity models are the future of the music industry.

6. There will always be demand for excellent content, regardless of what happens to TV networks, record companies, etc. Case in point: DVD and iTunes sales of TV series like “24″ and “Lost” are strong, because those shows are superbly produced. I bought the first four seasons of 24, myself. The worst place to be in media is in the “expensive bureaucratic mediocre middle.”

7. I gave away some Amazon Kindles for Christmas this year, and electronic books are most definitely on the rise. Electronic readers are awesome, they’ll become the norm, and the future is not bright for traditional printing and publishing models. However… excellent magazines and books will NEVER disappear. Ever.

8. The traditional HTML website site hand-crafted by an HTML editor and uploaded via FTP is fast becoming a relic, replaced by Content Management Systems and platforms like WordPress and Joomla.

9. There is a small, vocal minority of people that insist that in biology, evolution is entirely purposeless and random. This crowd dominates the current academic scene and cooks up anti-scientific theories like “Junk DNA.” My professional experience in our fast-evolving, “darwinian” online world tells me, evolution is supremely intelligent, NOT random. The intellectual Berlin Wall of 19th century Darwinism will crack in 2013. A 21st century version of evolution is coming, one that doesn’t sneer at religion. I blogged about this last week.

10. Wikipedia will silence its critics. Obviously it’s immensely practical and it’s worked, having entirely replaced the traditional encyclopedia. However, vandalism is a constant problem for some categories. Wikipedia has always had a reputation for smearing controversial people and topics. But they’re cleaning up, and for the most part doing an excellent job. I made a donation for the first time the other day and I think Wikipedia has made a huge contribution to the speed of getting research done. Nothing has done more for bringing the Open Source movement to the masses.

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“Would I buy from me?”

Be honest. If you launched your marketing campaign on yourself, would it compel you to work with yourself?

I’ve learned over the years that selling homes is not as much about sales skills as it is about relationship-building. Don’t get me wrong; it is very important to be able to sell, but think about your best sales experiences, your best clients, and I’ll bet you’ll see that you built great relationships with them, whether they were buyers or sellers.

This is an important aspect about our business that many, if not most, real estate professionals completely miss. It’s not entirely their fault – we don’t learn about relationship-building in our licensing classes, and our whole industry is in a “that’s-way-we’ve-always-done-it” mindset when it comes to marketing.

We mail postcards, send business cards to our spheres of influence, maybe email our latest listings to a group of people. Does any of this truly seem like relationship-building stuff to you?
Not long ago, I wrote an article titled “

2 is the Magic Number.” In it, I cited statistics compiled by the National Sales Executive Association, which recently reported the following:

2% of sales are made on the 1st contact
3% of sales are made on the 2nd contact
5% of sales are made on the 3rd contact
10% of sales are made on the 4th contact
80% of sales are made on the 5th –

2th contact

Aside from not generating enough leads for their business, the single-biggest mistake I see agents make is the lack of consistent follow-up. If 80 percent of all sales are made between five and 12 contacts, it obviously requires follow-up to achieve any real level of success.

So many agents invest good money to generate leads, then make a phone call to each prospect, mail a postcard maybe, and if there’s no immediate sale -– poof, they disappear from that prospect’s radar. This is a huge mistake, and it leaves massive amounts of money on the table.

What I have found is that you must have consistent, constant contact with the prospects in your database. And not just your business card or a generic greeting card at the holidays – I mean real content, information they can use. Articles. Resources. Even entertaining stories about yourself and what’s going on in your life. This is the stuff that builds trust, fosters real relationships and leads to sales and referrals. This is the stuff that gives you loyal clients for life.

In my business, I sent out a monthly, hard-copy client newsletter full of advice, tips, educational articles, funny stories, etc. It got to the point where I would get it out a couple of days later than usual, and I’d get calls and emails, “Where’s my newsletter?”

When you have prospects and clients like that, THEN when you send an email with your latest listings or your “deal of the week,” you will get a response. I have seen it first-hand in my business. You must build the relationship first. Don’t you prefer to do business with those you trust? Wouldn’t you rather work with someone you know?

Your prospects are no different, which leads us back to the all-important first question: Would you buy from you? In other words, is your current marketing building the relationships required for sales success?

* Dotcom stocks were heading straight up in one of the biggest orgies of manic stock buying the world has ever seen
* Banner ads were selling at massive (and irrational) premiums
* Pay-per-click advertising (then offered by just one company, GoTo.com) was considered an oddity
* Yahoo was the 800 pound gorilla in Internet media
What a difference ten years can make

Today:

* The NASDAQ still hasn’t come even close to recovering its Year 2000 heights
* Banner ads are sanely priced
* Yahoo appears totally hopeless
* Pay-per-click advertising (mainly in the form of Google AdWords) has taken over the world

The turn around

In spite of the crash of bogus Internet companies, the Internet itself was as solid as a rock – and it was going to grow, this time for real.

The big change was that Internet advertising was going to be based on careful calculations of ROI (return on investment.)

In a way, this was nothing new. Old school direct marketers have been tracking the profitability of their ad buys for decades.

Thanks to its PPC revenues, some say that Google is poised to take over the earth.

Not so fast Google

Here’s what absolutely won’t change in the coming decade:

* The Internet will continue to be a central part of hundreds of millions of people’s lives. If anything, it will become even more central as the Internet solidifies its position as the “central switching station” for all media: text, audio, video, buying, selling, communicating, chatting, gossiping etc.)

* Consumers will continue to seek VALUE in their purchases and if my crystal ball is working, they will be even more militant about getting value for their money in the years to come.

* Advertisers – the ones who are going to survive that is – are going to become even more sophisticated about tracking their results and making sure they get the best possible value for their money.

What this is going to look like is smart Internet marketers diversifying away from Google AdWords.

AdWords will continue to be an important part of the mix, but anyone who is not taking energetic, aggressive steps to free themselves from dependence on Google for their traffic is going to have cause for regret.

Strategy for System 2010

Copywriting is the switch that turns raw traffic into money.

I don’t know how to state it forcefully enough but here goes: Traffic is worthless without masterful conversion and conversion is just a fancy word for ad copy, so in a very real way the whole game of Internet marketing boils down to copywriting.

In all the noise about Twitter, Facebook and other “mindshare building tools” a lot of internet marketers have lost sight of what matters in Internet marketing.

To bring us all back to reality in 2010, I’m bringing in two Big Guns of the copywriting world to System 2010 – both multi-decade veterans who write real ad copy for real companies selling real products to real people.

The other piece of the puzzle: traffic

Great copywriting, as important as it is, is not enough.

You need the second part of the equation: traffic.

I’m a big fan of SEO, article marketing, JVs, viral marketing and all the other “free” ways you can drive traffic on the Internet. Over the years, we’ve offered scores of trainings and master classes on these subjects.

But none of these methods can hold a candle to the simple, reliable method of simply buying the traffic you need.

If you want to maximize your potential on the Internet, buying traffic is where it’s at.

If you’re already a traffic buyer you already know that Internet traffic is the Eighth Wonder of the world.

You can buy a little, test it, amplify what works and turn off what doesn’t.

It takes skill, know-how and paying attention, but knowing how to buy Internet traffic comes as close to money-on-demand as anything on earth.

That’s right folks. Finding the best deals in town this holiday season has become a lot simpler. Holiday season sales, discounts, deals, and offers – you can find it all on your mobile phone in the form of mobile coupons. You can simply show these coupons to the retailer (or wholesaler depending on who offers the discounts) and redeem the offer.

So, what actually happens is

1. A local business, an electronics showroom for example, adds a mobile coupon to Google Local Business Center listing.

2. You go to google.com on your mobile phone and search for some good deals on DVD players.

3. The Place Page shows that a showroom nearby offers a 10% discount on Blu-ray players and gives three Blu-ray discs for free.

4. You get a message which says that you should show the coupon on your phone at the participating business to redeem the offer.

5. You go to the showroom, show the mobile coupon, and buy the DVD player at a discount and get all the free stuff.

6. You walk away with a big smile on your face.

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? What this means to you, and millions of other mobile users, is that you do not have to go through newspapers, magazines, and billboards looking for the best deals this holiday season. You can get all the information you want on the go right on your mobile phone. It is a lot more convenient and saves a lot of time as well. So, get ready to shop till you drop.

As a member of the Perry Marshall Marketing Letter & Renaissance Club, you’ll receive the following:

1. Perry’s Quicksilver System which contains 6 audio interviews:
– Deal Making vs. Asset Building: Jonathan Mizel on Internet Business Strategy
– Confessions of a Big-Ass Marketing Guy with Bill Buell of Big Ass Fans
– How to Dig Rocks out of the Cold, Hard Ground and Sell Them for Lots of Money
– How to Exponentially Increase Advertising and Direct Mail Response
– From Squalor to Splendor: Philippe Matthews and the Shock Philosophy for Breaking Mental Barriers
– An Intent to Act, A Triumphant Sperm, and a Scrape with Death with Tom Hoobyar, CEO of ASEPCO

2. Five special reports:
– How to Attain Unfair Credibility Over Your Competitors, by Charging for Information Everyone Else is Giving Away Free
– How to Generate Hot Sales Leads and Eliminate Cold Calling with Education-Based Marketing
– Selling and Marketing on a Zero Budget
– How to use Savvy Direct Marketing Techniques to Land a New Job, On Demand, Anytime, Anywhere, with No Begging, No Career Counseling and No Monster.com
– How to Reinvent a Service & Consulting Business with a Single Sheet of Paper

3. Two advertising critique certificates whereby you can send Perry any email message, web page, ad, sales letter, press release, brochure or newsletter, and he will review it and give you his insight and recommendations about how to make it more effective.
4. Membership in Perry’s Renaissance Club
5. Free consulting call-in days two to four times a year
6. MP3 download: Two Killer interviews with direct marketing veteran and Internet pioneer Ken McCarthy
7. My Career as an Enthusiastic

Perry Marshall’s marketing newsletter is rapidly becoming a ‘must read’ publication for entrepreneurial direct marketers everywhere, online and off.
- Ken McCarthy, The System Seminar

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Google Analytics is a no-nonsense software that comes with a load of features that can give you important data and statistics about how your customers “behave” as they browse your website.

This includes a tracking feature that allows you to trail every single visitor on your website: where they come from- whether it’s display advertising, pay-per-click networking, and yes even email marketing campaigns and digital collateral materials like PDFs—and discover which page potential customers spend the most time on and which page pushes them to abandon your website all together.

It’s a pretty powerful tool that provides all the data you need so you can single out which of your marketing campaigns actually converts to revenues and which ones bomb.

And one of the best things about Google Analytics? It has practically all the benefits of those complex and costly “enterprise- level” analytics tool but without the hefty price tag. In fact, you can sign-up and use it for free!

Google Analytics is the great traffic insights equalizer—enabling small businesses to be at par with multinational companies and global conglomerates. However, it’s really a sophisticated tool that’s disguised as a simple one. Most business owners still can’t believe that it’s capable of delivering a host of valuable traffic data—so much so that they don’t maximize everything that Google Analytics can do for their company.

You simply cannot make that mistake—especially when you’ve already got a traffic generation powerhouse in your hands.

So, fire up your company’s traffic strategy. Cut through the guesswork. Skip the trial-and- error scenarios. Start firing up your stats to get the right kind of traffic with the Improve your Website with Google Analytics Strategy Cashmap.

The Strategy Cashmap’s step-by-step guides will help you figure out how to achieve your desired traffic results—and eventually the well-deserved record revenues—faster than you can say, “Increase my traffic, please!”

Download the Google Analytics Strategy Cashmap now for free and you’ll be on your way to learning:

* How to make sense of all the data you receive – including how to tell when the info is important and needs your immediate attention

* The eleven ways to retain visitors and build more traffic (Apply these simple steps and see near-instant improvement.)

* How to delegate “success tracking” so you can focus on other aspects of your business

* How to identify the precise page where you lose visitors on the way to the “goal page” (if you know where the problem is, you’ll know where to start to improve your website)

* The secret step that tells you if the changes you are implementing are truly improving your website (or if you should re-evaluate your strategy)

Source: Google Analytics Strategy Cashmap by Mark Joyner
Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics by Brian Clifton

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You simply plug into one of these detailed maps… follow along from point “A” to point “B” all the way to “Z” and beyond… and your business just continues to grow.

It’s quick and easy, which means you spend less time reading, and can begin implementing these winning strategies right away!”

Simpleology Cashmaps by Mark Joyner

Simpleology Cashmaps are developed for several internal processes that face any entrepreneur and business owner to systematize and automate procedures that can be delegated or outsourced with simple steps to follow.

You get the high level strategy cashmap free, often with a video or audio walkthrough up to an hour long but if you want the detail action cashmaps, you have to buy on the one-time-offer upsells or pay more later.

1. Traffic through Viral Marketing Contests & Bonus: Making Money with Squidoo Cashmap Packages + Traffic Explosion Cashmap Club $37

2. Traffic Through Viral Marketing Contests Action Cashmap $37

3. Conquer Your Competition with Competitive Intelligence & List Building Cashmap Packages + Traffic Explosion Cashmap Club $37

4. Conquer Your Competition with Competitive Intelligence Strategy Cashmap FREE!

5. Online Affiliate Income – Social Media Marketing $97

6. Traffic Through Back Links,Content Distribution&Dynamic Linking & Outsource Cashmap Packages + Traffic Explosion Cashmap Club $37

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28. Kaizen Club $47

29. The Great Formula eBook

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32. Simpleology Great Teachers Series: Jacque Fresco Teaches Drawing $297

33. Rise of the Author FREE!

Go watch Michael’s video where he will explain how he’s able to produce this kind of money, and how you can do the same. He’s pulling the video down shortly, so go watch it now:

Affiliate Launch Blueprint

IS THIS VIDEO DANGEROUS?

There are certain kinds of people who should definitely NOT watch this incredible, money making video. The first type of person is the whiner… the one who complains about how everyone else is making money and not him.

That person is going to be very upset when he sees what Michael is teaching, because it’s so drop dead simple and effective that they will no longer have anything to complain about.

The second person who should definitely NOT watch this video is the excuse maker. I’m sure you’ve seen this before. It’s the person who looks at the gurus and gives all the reasons why they’re making money and he’s not.

This video will definitely remove all excuses from his vocabulary, because the affiliate launch blueprint is SO simple, and so idiot-proof, that they will be forced to make money if they apply what Michael is teaching!

Are you one of these people? If not, then go here and watch Michael show you how to make bursts of quick cash anytime you want using the Affiliate Launch Blueprint

HAS THE VIDEO ALREADY BEEN PULLED DOWN? (better check)

Michael hasn’t officially launched the affiliate launch blueprint yet, and he only made this video for his own small list of rabid followers. I convinced him to leave it up a little longer so that you can check it out, but there’s a good chance that it’s already gone.

Go and watch how Michael creates bursts of $500-$2,500 anytime using this new, never-before-seen system.
Here’s the link one last time:

—>>> Affiliate Launch Blueprint

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Toyota has grown profits quarter over quarter for 50 consecutive years.

Today, the company grosses over $200 BILLION in sales, and recently leap-frogged both Ford and GM in one fell swoop to become the largest and most profitable car company in the world.

The Big Three have been laughing at Toyota since the early seventies, calling it an annoying fly that just needs to be swatted. And, at the same time, they arrogantly refused to do what was necessary to build better cars.

Meanwhile, the modest little sewing machine company from rural Japan eventually shamed them, surpassed them, and pushed them to the brink of extinction.

While the Big Three chased trends and pursued the whims of various management personalities over the years, Toyota stayed true to a set of unchanging, guiding principles that allowed it to deliver superior value to the consumer. That’s it.

The Company would probably be successful in ANY industry, since its secret is not so much how it builds things, but how it approaches the process and mind-set of building things.” That’s an intriguing thought, isn’t it?

So what are those guiding principles and mind-sets …
and what parallels can we draw from them
to build better online businesses?

Genjitsu and Genchi Genbutsu — Yes, them’s Japanese words. Genjitsu means “facts, or reality.” The Toyota culture believes facts are the basis of sound decision making. And Genchi Genbutsu means “go and see the problem first hand.” In other words, improve quality by exposing the truth.

While Big Three executives look at problems through a long chain of command, Toyota executives are routinely out on the shop floor, with their teammates, witnessing the source of the problem first hand.

In online business, too many people take guru advice as gospel and close their eyes to the obvious. They implement some idea or process in their sales funnel, and then never bother to check it against other alternatives to see if it is really the best thing for them to do.

For example, social media marketing gurus are telling you how transparent and intimate social media marketing is and what a wonderful traffic generator it is for this reason. You look at their Twitter page and you see they have 50,000 followers and you’re duly impressed.

But they’re also following 50,000 people. And they’re telling you that’s how you get people to follow you. Follow them, and they’ll follow you back.

Do you think this person actually looks at their Twitter account or has any meaningful interaction with the people they’re following? Imagine trying to follow a 100,000 Tweet stream. What value does this strategy add to anyone’s life? None.

Kaizen —a system of continuous improvement to which every Toyota employee from janitors sweeping floors to top management is expected to keep top-of-mind while they work.

According to Taiichi Ohno, former Toyota executive vice-president, “Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious and boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month’s manual should be out of date.”

What Toyota has managed to cultivate is a culture obsessed with the relentless pursuit of perfect quality and zero waste — never-ending striving toward an unattainable goal — where ALL work is a scientifically controlled experiment carried out by the people who do the work.

This is, of course, analogous to testing in online marketing. An online business is very much like a production line, with inputs, processes, and outputs.

Each aspect should be approached as an ongoing experiment, where the lessons learned are as treasured as the profits earned. Toyota’s continuous improvement process is based on PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act).

A process is planned and put into production. Then it is continually checked for opportunities to reduce waste and improve quality. Those opportunities are then acted upon to actualize the improvement. Rinse and repeat.

Few marketers approach their business processes in this way. Like the Big Three, they stop at PLAN and DO. But without CHECK and ACT, you never raise your starting point and your processes never improve.

Horenso — A Toyota invented acronym derived from the Japanese words hokoku (giving a thorough update to someone), renraku (staying in touch on a subject), and soudan (consultation about an issue).

All Toyota employees are rigorously trained in the art and science of clear and concise documentation.

Work must be interchangeable. If someone is working on a process or problem, it is expected that this person keep detailed records. That way, if they should go missing in action or be reassigned, another skilled worker is be able to pick up where they left off and carry on without missing a beat.

This is a huge one for many small online business owners — even solo-preneurs. A small company can function without ever truly documenting its processes and procedures. But you can’t grow effectively or ever reach your true potential until you do.

Lessons learned will be lost and mistakes repeated … you won’t be able to delegate effectively … and you will never extricate yourself from the day-to-day operation of the business.

There is something about documenting your processes that clarifies your thinking. Horensu is as much about individual efficiency and effectiveness as it is about team-work.
What’s good for the future is good for today …

Another major Toyota business principle is to remain focused on the long term.

Executives are encouraged not to look at the stock price, or become overly fixated on the financial numbers, but rather to pay close attention to the things that actually contribute to the numbers — such as creating enhanced customer value.

The Big Three, on the other hand, are trend followers, fixated on quick profits and the latest management fad.

Similarly, many online marketers forfeit the long-term value of their brands and lists in the hopes of instant riches.

Source: How Toyota Became No.1 by David Magee

You might have read about it, seen it on a video or heard the buzz in the internet circles.

According to Rich Schefren:
“A cashmap is a well-planned and systematic approach to building your online business from the ground up… or from whatever stage you’re at right now. You simply plug into one of these detailed maps… follow along from point “A” to point “B” all the way to “Z” and beyond… and your business just continues to grow.

It’s quick and easy, which means you spend less time reading, and can begin implementing these winning strategies right away!

And the part that matters most to you is… you end up with more money… and more time to enjoy it. Isn’t that why you started an online business in the first place?

Now… how’s this different from a mind map?

They’re nothing alike. You see… a mind map is without structure. A mind map is like having some of the elements that could lead you to success. But following them in no particular order.”

Simpleology acquired Cashmap Systems LLC in January 2009 and since then has brought a series of cashmaps to the market including the list building cashmap.

Each set of cashmaps is split into two:
1 – the system cashmap – which gives you the top level view of the process as it moves through the major steps in the process
2 – the action cashmaps – which show and explain the detailed steps involved in the individual major process steps.

Free List Building Strategy Cashmap
Mark Joyner and Simpleology are giving away the free List building strategy cashmap when you open a Simpleology account (easy to do and free) and you also receive an audio recording which walks you through the list building process.

When you join Simpleology you also have access to a lot of other free stuff including Simpleology 101, the excellent time management course.

My advice is to join Simpleology today!.

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1. Eat lunch at a diner and write a message to your
customers on the paper placemat. Photocopy the placemat
(stains and all) and mail it to your customers.

2. Send your customers an empty popcorn bag with a letter
inside along with a movie ticket.

3. Mark up your sales letter with hand-written scribbles -
whether online or offline

4. Send your customers a handy testimonial form that asks
them specific questions about what they liked

5. Turn a brown paper bag into an envelope

6. Send letters in an “X-Ray Film: Do Not Bend” envelope

7. Build a promotion around an oddball holiday, like
National Pistachio Day

8. Steal one of the 100 Greatest Headlines Ever Written

9. Go back through the last year and mark (a) the
promotions that flopped, and (b) the promotions that hit pay
dirt, and decide what made the successful ones work. Re-spin
and run again.

10. Look at all your advertising pieces and ask, “What’s
the FIRST thing people see when they look at this?”

11. Identify something the media is saying that you
disagree with and boldly proclaim to your customers how the
newspapers and TV stations are LYING to them.

12. Mail your customers a wallet with money-saving coupons
inside

13. Try a fear-of-loss offer instead of benefit-of-gain

14. Identify a project that doesn’t currently have a
deadline, and set one

15. Identify an ad that doesn’t currently have a deadline,
and create one

16. Mail a letter with a grabber attached to it – some
physical item that demands attention. Even a penny or rubber
band can boost response

17. Crumple up a letter inside a pill bottle. When
unfolded, the letter says, “This is what the doctor
ordered…”

I STOLE every single one of these from Bill Glazer’s book
“Outrageous Advertising that’s Outrageously Successful”
which you can get for $19.95 (CHEAP!!!). You should steal
some ideas from this book, too:

Source: Outrageous Advertising by Bill Glazer

I just got back from a meeting my largest client held for its top brass.
Although my role is to provide ideas, I take as many notes as the next guy. One good idea from anyone can mean millions in profits.
I’ll be sharing some great business-building ideas with you in the coming weeks. Today, I want to begin with the one on top of my list: the importance of innovating.

As I pointed out in Ready, Fire, Aim, no matter what size your business is, there are only two ways to keep it growing.

(1) Increase revenues with sustaining innovations — by continually improving the products you are currently producing.

(2) Use disruptive innovations to create a new market, expand an existing one, or move into a different price category.

Sustaining innovations are perhaps the easiest to produce, because their need is apparent. (A microprocessor that enables computers to operate faster, for example, or a laptop battery that lasts longer.) Plus, the technology comes from existing research.

Apple does a fine job of sustaining innovations. That is one reason its customers are so cult-like in their loyalty.

But Apple made its greatest recent stride with the iPhone — a disruptive innovation. Disruptive in that it provides much more than cellphone users have been used to at a comparatively miniscule price. It is already eating up huge bites of the market. And when Apple’s contract with AT&T expires next year, sales will soar.

Improving your products incrementally will keep them fresh in the minds of your customers. That will mean continued renewals and back-end sales. But if you can introduce new products to the market — then you have the opportunity to double or triple your revenues in a matter of months.

Initially, disruptive innovations perform poorly compared with established products. But because they are often cheaper, simpler, and more convenient, they can create new markets.

When the transistor radio came out in the 1950s, it had very poor fidelity. It couldn’t, therefore, compete with the market for stereo systems: adults. But its portability and low price made it enormously popular with teenagers.

You want sustaining innovation so you can hold on to your existing customers. And you want disruptive innovation so you can expand and eventually dominate your market. Every smart businessperson wants both.

At ETR, we are constantly looking for ways to make our newsletters and information products more useful. We want our customers to get used to things getting better. We hope this will separate us from the competition. And, of course, we hope we’ll be rewarded for our efforts with more customer spending.

We also understand the importance of developing new products. In fact, we are committed to creating at least one brand-new product every three months.

For your business to succeed, you need two parallel processes: one that allows for sustained improvements, and another that gets you into different markets.

Both processes start in your head.

For one thing, you must recognize that coming up with incremental improvements is entirely different from creating something radically new.

You may need two sets of people and procedures to do both well.

If you run a new product idea through the regular channels, it will no longer be innovative by the time everyone has finished “polishing” it. It will be just another modification of what you are already doing.

Most senior executives I know claim they care about product improvement, but don’t walk their talk. When improvements are suggested, their first response is to worry about the costs — in terms of money, manpower, and time.

To create incremental improvement, you have to believe that it will pay off. Eventually. That’s a head thing.

And to create an environment where disruptive innovation flourishes, you must recognize that any sizable growth will come from ideas that are far afield. This, too, is difficult for most entrepreneurs. And with good reason. Their success is based on what has worked for them in the past. Not on moving into the unknown.

So your first step is an internal one: Make a commitment to innovation, both sustained and disruptive.

Your next step is a matter of communication. You must persuade your key people to believe in both types of innovation. You must give them a vision and inspire them to achieve it.

Your third step is one of implementation. You need two separate systems. Incremental improvements can be done with your core team. But the radical ideas — those will probably have to be developed on the side. (I like to bring in copywriters and marketers from other industries to brainstorm disruptive innovations.)

Ultimately, whether or not you keep the two processes separate doesn’t matter. What matters is that you become a business of “making things new,” as Ezra Pound once said.

Your customers — like all customers — are always on the lookout for new and better. If you don’t provide it for them, your competitors will.

Source: Michael Masterson

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