leverage &mastermind marketing system &optimization Martin Lee on 17 Jun 2007 01:14 pm
How to Uncover Your Greatest Opportunity
In my earlier post on the Mastermind Marketing System, I mentioned that my copy was still lying in my bookshelf. I received a feedback from Paul, one of the regular readers of my blog.
“You must listen to the Nightingale CDs although it’s more of an introduction to Jay than anything more sophisticated.”
I realised that he has a very good point, so I decided to finally get down to listening to it. I will be writing a very detailed summary here as well. To get the ball rolling, here’s the first installment of a 12-part series:
Good and bad leverage
Bad leverage is when you buy something using debt and hoping it will either go up in capital value so you can flip it or that the income will cover your monthly repayment.
If something goes wrong, you will be hit badly.
The upside leverage in your marketing and strategic activity is Optimization.
Costs you the same to do things differently yet the results are so much better. Optimization is about getting the highest and best performance and results in everything you do.
Your goal in business is to get the maximum result possible from the minimum time, effort, expenditure and risk. Ask yourself this question:
“What is the best use of this ________ ?”
The same effort, the same expense, the same sales force, the same people could and should and will produce far greater upside yield. Could be two, five or even twenty times better.
Always focus on the geometry of your business. Engineer activities that produce compound and exponential growth rather than linear results.
Marketing, Strategy and Innovation – The 3 key components to you producing massive results.
Making Money Connections
The human brain always doensn’t make the powerful connections immediately. Those who can make the most profits.
Example:
Around 2000 BC, man discovered ice-cream. It took another 3000 years before someone created the ice-cream cone.
In 1773, someone created the modern flush toilet. Toilet paper came along 100 years later.
Jay is a profit maximizer who can connect the dots. Seeing things in super logical manner that most people don’t.
How do you engineer true breakthroughs? More marketing, strategic and innovation breakthroughs.
From the top companies who do so, this is what Jay discovered.
They travel outside of your industry to look for the breakthroughs.
When you start doing so, you start to see all kinds of different ways that other people use to generate leads, sell to them, etc.
People in one industry pretty much follow the same basic revenue generating mechanism. All try to get customers the same way. Try to sell the same way. The most you can expect is to get results slightly better.
If you are the only player who does things differently, you can make your company perform massively better.
A successful process that is as common as dirt in one industry can possibly make you the dominant player in another if you are the first to adopt it (or a combination of it).
The odds are high that you have a limited number of customers, products you can sell and number of times your customers can buy from you.
Switch your thinking from tunnel vision to funnel vision. Able to funnel all the successful strategies in other industries and choosing the appropriate ones for your business.
Focus on the outcome of what you are doing, not what you are doing.
People don’t buy your product or service. They are buying your results.
Figure out what you are doing and optimize your results by adopting successful methods in other industries.
Note: The Nightingale Conant website where mastermind marketing system is being sold is currently being revamped. Therefore, the links I provided earlier will not work. Once I get the correct link, I will update them accordingly.
on 17 Jun 2007 at 5:34 pm 1.John said …
i went through the system, and i was thinking about direct mailing but i have not found a list broker that will be able to get me a good list. And singpost is charging high rates and just sending postcards instead for sales letters. what can i do about it?
on 17 Jun 2007 at 10:34 pm 2.Martin Lee said …
Hi John, by mentioning singpost, I assume you are talking about Singapore.
It really would depend on what product or service you are trying to market. Your approach will have to be different depending on whether yours is a mass market product or not.
If it is a mass market product, you can still send use postcards. However, the objective of the postcard is to prequalify the prospect and not to make the sale. Offer a freebie that the prospect can call/sms/email to request for.
Then, you can follow up with the salesletter subsequently.
If it is not a mass market product, you might be better off running space advertisements in the relevant niche publications to do lead generation. Then, mail your offers to the generated leads.
Hope that helps.
on 21 Jun 2007 at 10:11 am 3.Paul said …
This is a great way to start. I listened to my copy of Mastermind Marketing in the car so I had it on my To Do list to listen to it again but this time take notes. I think you are on the way to saving me a job.
On John’s point I would make two comments;
1) Jay recommends the power Parthenon – using multiple ways to generate leads and revenue streams because it’s so much more stable than the “diving board approach”.
2) Test, test, test. On principle I like postcard marketing provided the headline and offer are strong but you are limited to getting some simple response – perhaps a visit to your website to learn more.
on 30 Jun 2007 at 2:52 pm 4.Martin Lee said …
Hi Paul, glad you found this useful. You owe me a coffee! Just kidding. 🙂
Yes, I will definitely be talking about the Power Parthenon thing sometime later.
on 21 Apr 2008 at 6:53 pm 5.Peter said …
Guys,
Great post. I would add that all of Jays info is superb. The man really knows his material.
Like all things though, it can only be of use if you apply it. Knowledge in action!
on 13 Dec 2008 at 12:39 am 6.zig ziegfried said …
Postcards are an excellent medium few businesses are paying much attention to these days. It’s a device that has to be physically handled .. before the recipient either responds to the CTA or pitches it. Unlike email spam, people are accustomed to recieving fewer and fewer postcards and it has become that much easier to stand out. Just remember, the ‘right’ message — to the right audience — in the right medium, and you’re more than half way there.
If you’re doing business to business, keep in mind the intended recipient often is not the one handling the mail and it could get filtered out and pitched in the trash without the intended recipient evenknowing it arrived. Business to consumer … you’ve pretty much always have a green light, business to business .. proceed with caution. If the size of the business you’re mailing to is small (a 1-15 man shop) you’re probably okay. Anything larger, and your response rate will drop off considerably. Of course, you have to facotr in all facets of your economics in your front and back end marketing strategy … and ultimately what your model can tolerate in terms of ‘customer acquisition costs” … There’s a lot to it .. you just have to develop a sound stratgy … and be willing to test test test.
Post cards are also an excellent way to inexpensively test a list before rolling into larger tests.
One final point. You rpost card should really have the look and feel of old world ‘telegram’ … nothing fancy .. hot off the wire look and feel to it. The slicker it is (color graphics are sometimes a detriment)the better.
We’ve done extensive postcard front end lead generation for lots of clients and have experienced first time response rates as high as 33%. And that was with a difficult CTA purposely built in to further qualify prospects.
Finally, we’ve always advised our clients to use a live stamp (no indicia, no bulk mail) Yellow Canary / Black Ink in Courier font always out performed every other format.
You can buy continuous feed post card stock from compulable.com. Come in boxes of 4,000 and the run about 1 cents a piece. Your postage and list will always be the biggest expense.
WARNING: When you drop your postcards … always unbound them (Never bind your outgoing mail with rubber bands) and you might even want to consider dropping or instructing your letter shop to drop over several locations at various time intervals so they don’t get sabataged. IT happens!
Oh, you can always test various CTA on the same postcard (email, website url, 800#, POTS line, SASE,) Different people like to respond different ways so try to make it easy for them … just be willing to track your figures and keep a close eye on your stats because this will give you a lot of valuable feedback you can use in the future.
POstcards are excellent also for reaching out to your house lists and informing them of current offers, upcoming events, and will offer you an edge in getting out impoirtant announcements that may otherwise remain in a sealed envelope they don’t get around to opening.
POWER TO THE POSTCARD!!
on 14 Dec 2008 at 12:36 pm 7.Martin Lee said …
Hi Zig,
Thanks for sharing. Like the tip about not binding the postcards when you drop them in.
Simple but it could make the difference between a 1% response rate and 0%!