Discover How Richard Lomax And His Team

Can Kick Your Marketing Into Gear,

And Bring A Constant Stream Of Willing

New Customers To Your Door –

- Just As The 7 Businesses Featured

In This Email Have Experienced…

First, I wonder if you can relate to any of these 4 common marketing obstacles?

Marketing Obstacle 1:

Your marketing is reactive. You tend to react to last minute bargain offers, throw together an advertisement in a hurry to meet a deadline, and then cross your fingers and toes and hope that it will work.

Marketing Obstacle 2:

You procrastinate. Perhaps you’re thinking “Where on earth do I start? There are 101 things I could do in my marketing, but I’ve got no idea which is most likely to work, so therefore I’ll leave it for today until I’ve got a better handle on what to do”.

Marketing Obstacle 3:

You’re not sure what words to use in your marketing. Maybe you feel you’re not very good at writing about your products or service in a way that prospects will understand and want to buy from you.

Marketing Obstacle 4:

You’re easily distracted. Once you make a start on your marketing you easily get distracted with customer or admin related work, or some other daily fire-fighting duties, and then sometimes it is weeks, or even months, before you look at your marketing again.

Well, you’re not on your own… in our experience these 4 obstacles prevent many businesses from enjoying the success they are perfectly capable of achieving.

HOWEVER, for the past 2 years, a growing number of businesses have found a way to overcome these obstacles quickly and easily, which has led to some remarkable sales results:

“I joined the Marketing Mastermind Club to rekindle some of my sales and marketing skills and stimulate me to be more proactive and effective at my marketing.

A few months on, not only has our marketing activity been stimulated but so has our turn over! We are actively marketing with new sales letters, adverts, flyers, leaflets and we have improved our website, all produced or altered in line with the advice and help from the Marketing Mastermind Club and my Mentor. The effect on our turn over has been a 200%+ improvement on our retail shop turn over in May & June. Fantastic!”
Robin Tuppen, Proprietor, Cuckmere Trug Company, June 2011

“Having had zero response to several adverts I decided it was time to get some marketing help. I was desperate to attract new business. Joining the Marketing Mastermind Club signaled the beginning of a new successful era for my business.

The unbelievable thing was that almost from day one my fortunes changed. Since having access to Richard Lomax’s strategies and methodologies through the Marketing Mastermind Club, I have attracted work – I’m like a magnetic field!”
Richard Whidborne, E Griffin Consultants

“Being a member of the Marketing Mastermind Club has certainly improved our marketing response.We were originally impressed with Richard when we included some of his ideas and strategies into some marketing – and they worked!

I particularly like being able to listen to the Tele-seminar and webinar CD’s in my own time. They are all fascinating, but the main benefit to me is being able to cherry pick the ideas that are suited to the wholesale jewelry industry and incorporate them into our marketing.

Incorporating these ideas has definitely improved the response we get, and helped to clarify our marketing goals”.
Jeremy Gilbert, St Justin Ltd

Find out all about the Marketing Mastermind Club, and how you can take advantage of a fantastic trial offer …..

Over the last 26 years Richard Lomax has helped tens of thousands of businesses to achieve successful new ways of marketing themselves, so that their response rates and sales turnover have leapt forward.

The key to his success is not just his marketing knowledge and experience, but the fact that he works closely with his clients, not at arms length.

As you are probably aware, Richard Lomax usually only works with clients who pay significant fees for his one-to-one consultancy, or attend one of his seminars.

Having realised that his help was out of financial reach for many businesses, two years ago he set up the Marketing Mastermind Club which gives all businesses, no matter what their budget, access to his marketing strategies and know-how.

The Marketing Mastermind Club provides detailed advice and hands-on guidance on how to make Richard Lomax’s strategies and methodologies work in your specific circumstances.

When you adapt and apply the strategies and methodologies that he’s using every day in his own business, and in the marketing of literally hundreds of other companies around the UK, you’ll quickly see more customers coming into your business. You’ll stop thinking about slashing your prices, and disappointing results will be a thing of the past as you see consistent high growth from your new sales campaigns.

“My business was ripe for expansion and I recognised that for this to happen I needed some effective marketing. Over the years I’ve read a lot of marketing books but I needed help putting this information into practice. The Marketing Mastermind Club seemed too good to be true, but it’s fantastic. The guides and reports are easy to put into practice and the feed back on the first sales letter my Mentor assessed was first class. It has left me in no doubt that the Marketing Mastermind Club is the catalyst my business has been waiting for. Watch this space!”
Paul Baker, Great Choice Ltd

Members of the Marketing Mastermind Club have access to this crucial information, and the hands-on help they receive gives their marketing a new-found direction.

In turn, the higher sales revenues they experience result in a positive and up-beat mindset regarding the growth and success of their business.

Because we want all businesses to have access to this help and information, we have set the cost of membership at only £39.00 per month.

And to remove any hesitation or doubts you may have about joining the Marketing Mastermind Club, I would like to offer you an opportunity to experience the benefits of membership for a full month — for just £9.95.

This trial offer however is only available between
14th July and 14th August 2011

You invest just £9.95! That’s all. No catches. No small print. (Even your £9.95 has a complete money-back guarantee!)

A £9.95 investment will give you the chance of a lifetime to make a huge change to your marketing effectiveness.

After the month’s trial, you decide if you wish to continue your membership at the full price of £39.00 + vat per month. Even then, there is no contract, and you can cancel your membership without notice.

GRAB YOUR £9.95 TRIAL NOW either by ringing me, Sally Stanton, on 01692 538800 or email me on sally@common-sense-marketing.com so that I can process your membership. Or click this link and claim your place.

So What Will You Receive As a Member of the
Marketing Mastermind Club?

1) A Marketing Strategy Review With Richard Lomax, Plus an Activity Plan Specific to Your Business

On joining the Marketing Mastermind Club you will be gifted a Marketing Consultation with Richard Lomax to review your business and develop a bespoke marketing strategy and plan of activities. This eliminates the guess-work about what you need to do, and in what order.

Every new member of the Marketing Mastermind Club receives a marketing consultation with Richard Lomax. This consultation is gifted to you as a new member. It would normally cost £1,497

The purpose of the consultation is to set goals and targets for your marketing and confirm the strategies and methods that will deliver the increased sales revenues you are seeking.

The consultation enables a bespoke marketing and activity plan to be developed, and includes what needs to be done next, when and by whom in your company.

It will re-kindle your enthusiasm and belief, and eliminate any possible procrastination. The result is almost immediate profitable action.

Your consultation is recorded, and sent to you along with your Marketing and Activity Plan to listen to again and again or to share with colleagues.

All the marketing strategies and methods that Richard Lomax discusses during your consultation are ones which he uses with his private clients, who pay anything up to £25,997 per year to help them achieve significant sales growth. They are therefore not just theory, but tried, tested and proven to work.

2) You Are Appointed Your Own Marketing Mentor

You will be given your own experienced Marketing Mentor who can answer your business growth questions as they crop up, and provide you with help and guidance whenever needed. This is one of Richard Lomax’s expert team (who also work with Richard on his private clients) and all are experienced at applying Richard’s strategies to a huge range of businesses.

They’ll introduce you to new tactics and strategies to keep you several steps ahead of your competition. Contact with your Marketing Mentor is by a 0800 hotline telephone number or by email.

Your Marketing Mentor will also conduct a quarterly review of your progress to update and keep your Marketing Plan on track.

Here are some examples of the ongoing advice at your disposal from your Marketing Mentor:

• Say that you are writing a new sales letter.
  ~ You can instantly email the draft to your Marketing Mentor to get constructive critique and feedback that will maximise its response.

• Perhaps you are preparing a new email campaign,
  ~ and you want some urgent advice. You simply pick up the phone ad dial the 0800 HOTLINE number and speak to an expert who will guide you in the right direction.

• Say you are revamping your website.
  ~ You can receive an instant check-list of the key strategies you need to consider, that will help to maximise the number of enquiries and sales your site delivers.

• Perhaps you need some feedback on an advert or help coming up with an attention-grabbing headline.
  

• Or your Google pay-per-click ads aren’t getting enough response,
  ~ or not enough clicks convert into sales leads. Your Marketing Mentor will be available to improve them.
  

“Having a marketing mentor has proved very useful to bounce ideas off. When developing a new idea to promote my business, it is a real boon to be able to pick up the telephone or contact my Mentor via the Marketing Mastermind Club’s forum for a second opinion and to discuss the idea. Having a marketing professional to help with decisions not only enables me to improve my marketing but also helps avoid wasting time and money on less effective strategies.”
David Kinsey, Period House Pathologist

GRAB YOUR £9.95 TRIAL NOW either by ringing me, Sally Stanton, on 01692 538800 or email me on sally@common-sense-marketing.com so that I can process your membership. Or click this link and claim your place.

3) Access to an Aladdin’s Cave of Marketing Know-How and Ideas

Access to hundreds of downloadable how-to articles, templates, reports, letters and proven ideas to apply to your business, 24 hours a day.

These are the exact same strategies that Richard Lomax shares with his private clients to help them achieve significant sales growth.

Immediately you become a member of the Marketing Mastermind Club you’ll have free access to hundreds of how-to articles, detailed tutorials & valuable special reports which show you step-by-step how to create advertising, sales letters, email campaigns, and web pages that almost magnetically attract new prospects and clients into your business.

You’ll see templates, spreadsheets, manuals, PDFs, checklists and much more to help you get started on new sales campaigns, and avoid the expensive and frustrating mistakes you’ll probably make by using a trial and error approach!

The Marketing Mastermind Club
isn’t about useless theory or empty hype.

What you’ll see when you join the Club is a wide range of market-tested, and carefully refined strategies, tactics and methodologies that are proven to work.

Use them in your business; borrow, tweak and adapt these approaches -get feedback and guidance from your Marketing Mentor as you need it — and very quickly your marketing and business growth skills will become the dynamic driving force in your business to create all the wealth and personal success you deserve!

There is also a forum on the website for you to ask Richard’s team any marketing questions.

Here are a few examples of the type of questions we get asked on the forum:

>> Why aren’t more of my website visitors making enquiries or buying?
Can you take a look at my site and tell me what I’m doing wrong?

>> How can I get my sales team to be more successful and not waste time chasing lost causes?

>> How can I get more people to sign up for my online newsletter?

>> I want to write a series of email newsletters, but I don’t think I’ll have enough ideas for content.
What can I do to generate ideas?

“The beauty of Richard Lomax’s marketing strategies is that it is ‘Common Sense’. This makes them easy to put into practice.

Having had a good look at our marketing with his strategies in mind, we immediately overhauled our main website and are working on the others. Some of these Common Sense strategies can be translated into how we talk to our prospects on a one-to-one basis which we can use on a daily basis.”
Phil Needham, Hornbeam Chartered Accountants

4) Fresh Marketing Ideas from Monthly Tele-seminars and Success Interviews

You will receive a personal invitation to monthly Webinars and Tele-seminars held by Richard Lomax, explaining new methodologies, strategies, ideas and approaches to put to work in your business.

Interviews are also held with successful entrepreneurs who reveal their most profitable marketing strategies and success tips. These Tele-seminars are recorded and available on the Marketing Mastermind Club website. We also send you a CD recording by post every month.

You’ll have the chance to learn proven new sales strategies every month to keep you ahead of the competition, and step-by-step you’ll develop a powerful marketing “machine” that constantly drives your forwards and upwards.

We’ll cover a series of essential marketing strategies past topics have included:

* How to use direct-response marketing for big returns from all your business growth activities

* Web site performance secrets that generate multiple times more online enquiries and sales

* Market positioning to set you apart from others and become the only logical choice for prospects to buy from

* How to quickly generate profitable new income streams from your business

* The secrets to effective sales messages for emails, letters, advertisements and direct mail

• Also interviews with successful entrepreneurs to find out how they built their businesses

“Last week’s Tele-seminar was the first one I’ve listened to. I was so impressed by it! Richard Lomax’s interview techniques were very good. The advice and information I gleaned from it was so useful I spent the whole of the Tele-seminar scribbling notes, despite knowing that I’d get a CD recording sent to me in a few days. Joining the Marketing Mastermind Club has given me access to quality help and advice that’s worth a lot of money”.
David Walton, Managing Director, Advensys

NOW IT’S UP TO YOU TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY:

The Marketing Mastermind Club is here to help you… so take advantage of it… that’s what it’s for!

Grab this £9.95 trial NOW, and generate thousands of pounds in new-found sales revenues and profits in the coming days and weeks, and onwards

PLUS — When you join the Marketing Mastermind Club you’ll also receive a huge £1,844 Members Welcome Pack completely FREE including:

• Your voucher for your Telephone Marketing Consultation with Richard Lomax who will review your business and develop a bespoke marketing strategy and plan of activities. Value £ 1,497
• A CD folder containing two audio CDs taken from the Marketing Mastermind Club Webinars. The box folder which holds them is designed to take future CD’s that will arrive over the coming months. These CD’s provide priceless practical marketing strategies to apply to your marketing. Value £198
• A Free Business Owner’s guide: “How To Design Effective Money-Making Direct Response Advertising” Value £ 149

If you find that you’re anything less than thrilled with your “Marketing Mastermind Club” £9.95 membership, simply send us an email letting us know before your 30-Day Trial is up. We’ll cancel your membership immediately; no fuss, no delays.

And we’ll even refund your £9.95!

So as you can see, there’s absolutely NO RISK to you… just thousands of pounds worth of free tools, training and support for the next 4 weeks!

And as a thank-you for giving the Marketing Mastermind Club a fair trial, you may keep your £1,844 Welcome Pack, even if you decide not to continue your membership.

I urge you to take action now either by ringing me, Sally Stanton, on 01692 538800 or email me on sally@common-sense-marketing.com so that I can process your membership. Or click this link and claim your place.

Activate Your Trial NOW and Claim Your £1,844 Welcome Pack.

Welcome to the Marketing Mastermind Club!

Warm regards,

Sally Stanton

P.S. We focus on RESULTS not theory…

“I’m very excited about the future of GPS Document Management. The business is expanding (even getting work in from areas we wouldn’t normally have considered). As a result of Richard’s strategies, I can see turnover increasing by £500,000 – £1,000,000 in the next 5 years, despite the recession.”
Richard Smith, MD, GPS Document Management

“We’ve done half a million pounds this time last year, and now we’re at a million pounds. And I’m estimating that if I carry on using Richard’s help and strategies in the way he is suggesting, I would have to say that we would treble the size of our business in the next five years. It’s readily achievable.
The money that’s spent working with Richard is a no brainer! To grow our business to this size — it doesn’t make any sense not to do it.”
Julie Jerum, Boucon Network Communications

“Richard’s advice made lots of sense – I was very impressed.
His advice enabled me to build a framework for my marketing over the next few months and within days I had put his advice on headlines to good use; to grab attention for a mini campaign we’re running this summer.”
Ann Brown, General Manager, JDT (UK) Ltd

“Don’t be frightened… Richard really does take time to get to understand you and your product and services and he’s very practical down-to-earth pragmatic in his approach. He won’t bamboozle you with a whole load of marketing theory.
He’s great actually, he really is. For us he’s a real God-send. We’ve been looking for good marketing help for years and years, and I’m delighted that we’ve found Richard.”
Keith Bedingham, Chairman, Verax International

“I have actioned much of the advice that Richard discussed with us. The beauty of this advice is that it costs very little to implement. I certainly came away loaded with new ideas and enthusiasm.”
Leila Watmough, Fraser Muir Holdings

“The next day, I promptly cancelled all the adverts I was running. There was so much valuable content in the seminar I needed a week to put all the ideas into action.
It was fantastically valuable – it really was – it crystallised all of our views. It allows you to come at the whole business of advertising from a completely different point of view.
I went to all my partners and said we must make all these changes.
I was really, really impressed with the whole seminar.”
Karen Agnew-Griffith, Woolley & Co, Solicitors

“It is practical, easy to apply – the content was brilliant – you know your stuff – there’s no two ways about it!”
Jacqueline Farnworth, Norwich Voice Coaching Academy

“Thank you for your time today. It was really interesting and informative.
Now that I have a plan and a goal to work to, I can finally see the ‘wood’ through the ‘trees’ and has really given me a boost!”
Laurence Downes, Sales Coordinator, Ace Security and Electrical Ltd

Part 2

In this second article I am going to explain the easiest ways for you to obtain effective testimonials for your business, and then how to use them effectively.

Consider This Scenario

The sale went great for you. It’s three months later and your client is absolutely thrilled with his new purchase. The person who bought from you comes up and says – “Your product is fabulous … it has saved us at least £1,500 a month since we’ve had it . . . at this rate we’ll save a minimum of £18,000 this year thanks to you.”

So you take your pat on the back and jot down a note to call them for hopefully repeat business sometime down the road, right?

WRONG!

You’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money nurturing and advising and helping and trying to land this client. They once were very worried about whether or not to even buy your product or service.

Now you’ve got to help other prospects (who are in exactly the same situation as your happy customer once was) understand there is no risk in doing business with you.

So you ask for the testimonial.

How though, do you do it?

Most business people find asking for and getting worthwhile testimonials a slightly embarrassing or uncomfortable task. They hate confronting people and asking for their help.

But you need to realise that if you’ve done a good job, you should have no hesitation in asking for a testimonial. Your clients and customers want to see you succeed and are pleased to help.

Incidentally getting a good testimonial from a client actually draws them even closer to you, because there is a fundamental psychological principle here that people will always act in a way that is consistent with their stated beliefs.

The very best testimonials are those that are spontaneous and un-requested, because they are most likely to be written from the heart and use everyday language that people relate to. The problem is that these unprompted testimonials are relatively rare for most businesses.

So we need to be proactive, and go out and actively create testimonials.

You need to act like a marketing professional and make getting testimonials (which your quality product or service deserves) a key part of your marketing system. Every happy client should be approached for a testimonial.

It will help to have testimonials endorsing each major benefit you offer, or for each major anxiety or problem your product or service helps overcome. Different people buy for different reasons, and you need to have testimonials to motivate each of these people.

Here’s The First Way To Create Testimonials For Your Business:

Evaluation and Feedback Form

You can create an evaluation and feedback form which asks your customer what they thought of their purchase, and specifically how it has helped them, what changes they’ve seen, and what savings or increased earnings they can pinpoint are due to your product or service.

After every time you make a sale or provide your service . . . you give the customer a postage paid evaluation form to fill out if it’s offline, or you send them an email which directs them to where they can complete a feedback form online.

Better still . . . if you word the feedback form right, they will tell you why your prospects buy …

For example, in a copywriting evaluation form, I would put in questions like these:

1. Please rank in order of importance WHY you used our professional copywriting services:

I don’t have time to write advertising,
You make my job easy by doing all the writing for me
You provide a complete strategy for taking leads through to new clients
Other. Please specify:

You get the picture?

Now this stuff is nice to know, because it tells you the main reasons why your customer bought from you. However . . . let’s relate this to the testimonial.

Later on in the evaluation form you add:

In question #1 you ranked the main reasons why you took advantage of our services. Please explain how we “delivered” on these benefits, and the specific benefits and results you’ve enjoyed.

Then you leave a big blank space for them to tell you how great you are concerning each specific benefit.

This works like a dream to get far more specific and valuable testimonials that talk about the results other prospects will experience, and this makes it much more powerful and persuasive.

On the evaluation form you should always end with an open-ended question along the lines of this:

IMPORTANT: Please summarise your feelings about our 100% guaranteed copywriting services and give any additional comments, suggestions, or praise.

Then leave another large blank space for them to write in their comments. Of course sometimes this will be left blank. But often this is where you’ll get really strong testimonials.

After this question, have a place for them to sign the form, and after they sign it, have two little tick boxes with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response alongside and ask “May I use you feedback for testimonial purposes?”

Here’s The Second, Highly Effective Way To Get Testimonials:

Write the testimonial for your customer!

Your clients and customers are naturally busy people, and there will inevitably be some very satisfied customers who (with the best of intentions) will never get around to filling in and returning an evaluation form.

Also, it’s often difficult for them to write the information you need in a spontaneous and natural way, and you tend to receive more formal and stilted phrases on which to base your testimonial.

So here’s a way you can get a completely natural testimonial, worded in a way that sounds very friendly and genuine. When you need to get testimonials quickly, and you want them to be specific and anecdotal, as we’ve discussed, the best way is to write the testimonial for yourself!

No, I don’t mean make it up or fabricate it. Simply make contact with your customer or client, and after some informal chat about them and their business, and how you’ve been able to help them, say something like…“I wonder if you’d be happy to provide us with a testimonial about your experiences with us.”

When they agree, as they always do, you then offer to ask a few questions and jot down some notes, and email a summary of them over for their approval.

Again, nearly everyone will say yes.

This means that you don’t have to chase your clients for their testimonial, which is not easy to do, and it also means that you get your testimonial written and approved much more quickly.

Also it means that you can vary the exact questions you ask them, to focus and highlight the specific areas of interest regarding their particular business or contract.

In this way you can get a series of testimonials from different people which support the different aspects and benefits of your product or service, e.g. technical performance, reliability, money-saving aspects, increased productivity, quality of facilities, politeness of staff etc.

You can also get testimonials which support different aspects of your service e.g. pre-sales advice, technical support, design ideas, installation and implementation, user training, and after-sales support, which you can then use at different stages of your sales process.

How To Present Your Testimonials Effectively

To make your testimonials do their job, they need to be presented in a format that maximises their impact. In a sales letter for example, testimonials are typically presented as one- or two-sentence quotations that are placed either in the text itself or at the margins (or as a side-bar in an email or on a web page).

But if you have a really good testimonial, one that’s distinctive and believable and strongly gets across the chief benefit of your product, you should find a more creative way to present it.

You can, for example, turn it into a big bold headline in large quotation marks, and highlight it with an eye-catching photo of the customer enjoying the benefit.

Perhaps the best way to achieve both powerful, unique language and a captivating presentation is to show actual customers in their natural environment speaking their own words. Nowadays, the technology to produce video testimonials and host them on your web site, or embed them in your emails, is very straight-forward and pretty inexpensive.

Don’t wait for your competitors to do it (and then make excuses as to why you haven’t), get out there and make it happen for you first!

Testimonials can be used effectively in any marketing format:
• Brochures
• Flyers
• Business Cards
• Websites
• Video Demonstrations
• Audio Demonstrations
• Covering or sales Letters
• Advertisements
• Posters
• Radio

As a guide, if you have room, the more testimonials the better. Particularly on a web page, or as an insert in a mailing piece, 4 testimonials are much better than just 2, and 8 are better than 4, and 16 are better than 8. Not because many people are going to read them all, but they scan and skim them and dip into the ones that interest them most.

What you are presenting is a weight of evidence that says… all these people cannot be wrong to buy from our company.

It’s that simple. More testimonials = more sales!

So If Testimonials Are That Effective
Why Don’t All Businesses Use Them?

In theory, getting testimonials should be one of the easiest things in the world to do. However, many businesses only have a few testimonials or don’t have any at all. Why is this?

The main reason is lack of time.

To ask a customer for a testimonial or send a questionnaire does take time and effort, and is not always the most urgent job on the to-do list.

Also not everyone relishes the prospect of discussing their performance with their customers, as it can be seen as a way of opening yourself up to criticism or unwelcome comments.

One of our customers also admitted feeling acutely embarrassed at sending a testimonial he had written about himself to his customer – “It was really awkward. I was worried that they didn’t agree with my comments”.

So what’s the answer?

The answer is to get a third party to obtain your testimonials for you. This removes any personal issues or fears, and doesn’t take up any of your valuable time.

In fact it’s far easier for a third party to ask your customers questions about your product or service, and obtain open and honest feed back.

Introducing The Common-Sense Marketing

Testimonial Service

We have recently introduced a new service which focuses on producing written, audio or video testimonials.

Here’s how it works…

Written Testimonials

You provide a list of customers and telephone numbers of clients who you would like us to speak to. We ask you to let them know that we will be ringing, so that they are happy to take our call.

For a really good selection of testimonials, we would also like you to indicate why you have selected them. This helps us to direct our questions and discussions.

When we call your customers we explain why we are calling, and have a good conversation regarding how they have benefited from doing business with you, and we encourage them to reveal useful facts, figures and quotes.

The testimonial is written immediately following the call, and is emailed to your customer for their approval.

The content of your testimonials is always dictated by what your customers say, but because our staff are experienced at asking the right type of questions and at translating what is said into powerful anecdotal wording, our clients are often amazed at what their customers have said!

The provision of a photograph of the customer to go with the testimonial can also be organised.

Here’s a comment from one of our recent clients about the testimonials we got for his business:

“Thank you for my testimonials, I am delighted with them. To have these accolades in writing is fantastic. I used them immediately in a proposal to a potential client.

They worked!

I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it, which makes these amazing testimonials that you have obtained for me so very valuable.”

Being able to send out evidence like this, proving that we are good at what we do, is very exciting.

We all know that good testimonials are fantastic to have and undoubtedly improve your marketing BUT, it’s not easy asking your clients what they think of you.”
Chris Brookes, Managing Director, Circuit Bureau

Audio and Video Testimonials

We can easily organise an audio recording of your client discussing their experiences of working with you, and the benefits and results they have enjoyed. This is sent to you as an mp3 to upload onto your web site or to email to prospects etc.

If you would like a video testimonial, we arrange for this to be done at your client’s premises.

Costs:

Written – £50 per approved testimonial
Audio – £75 per approved/edited audio testimonial
Video – Price on application, depending on duration, and travel requirements.

If you would like to increase your lead generation results, or maximise your conversions into new customers, using effective, anecdotal testimonials, simply call Sally Stanton on 01692 538800 or email her on sally@common-sense-marketing.com and she will talk through with you how we can obtain fantastic, effective testimonials for your company.

Part 1

ver the next two issues of Common-Sense Marketing Revealed I’ll be explaining why testimonials are so important to your business success.

In this Part 1, we will be exploring the reasons why testimonials work and how to recognise a good effective testimonial. In Part 2 I will be revealing the best ways to obtain great testimonials, and the most effective ways of using them.

“Get someone else to blow your horn –
and the sound will carry twice as far.”
Will Rogers

Anyone who’s been in marketing for more than a day understands the value of customer testimonials.

In my opinion they are better than any other form of proof; a really good testimonial can prove any claim that you want to make about your product. To do this however, the testimonial needs to tick a number of boxes.

What Makes Testimonials So Effective?

They make your prospects less nervous about buying from you because they see that people like them have used your product or service with success.

It’s human nature – when prospects listen to your sales presentations or read your marketing message they will often think to themselves “Yes, but will this product or service actually do what they say it will for me, will it actually deliver the benefits that are being promised?”

Your prospect is desperate not to make a mistake. And when they are not convinced they will put off making any kind of decision, which includes buying or contacting you.

Testimonials have two effects:

1) They make your prospects less nervous about buying from you because they see that people like them have used your product or service with success.

In a testimonial, a third-party is endorsing your product or service in their own words. This “endorsement” is much more credible and convincing than you praising your own product!

2) Testimonials can also get your prospects excited about buying your product or service because they bring alive the results and benefits that others have achieved.

But remember, testimonials only work well if they are true and believable. And the closer you can get to the naked, un-edited truth, the stronger your sales message will be. When working with testimonials, ask yourself, “How can I convey this customer’s experience as dramatically and truly as possible?”

The bottom line is this: Testimonials are valuable in both the business to business sales environment and the consumer world. They are a great support element for successful marketing, and you’re missing out on sales if you aren’t using them.

So, as long as you’re in business, you need to be in the business of gathering testimonials. And I can’t think of ANY exceptions… you need testimonials whether you are a computer manufacturer or offer a janitorial service. You need them whether you run a nursery or if you have an established restaurant. All businesses benefit from having good testimonials!

How to Recognise A Good Testimonial

When it comes to proving your claims, I must stress the importance of not using testimonials that ‘sound like’ testimonials. There are plenty of these around and are totally ineffective. For example:

“We enjoyed your product, and we’ll definitely buy from you again.”

“Your sales people are really excellent, polite and responsive.”

“I really liked how your product worked. It’s fast and easy to use, and
I’d recommend it to anyone”

These testimonials at first may look all right. However . . . they are not pointing to any specific benefit that your prospect is hoping for when they buy your product or service.

Good testimonials come directly from actual customer experiences. They provide a detailed picture of how the prospect’s life or business has changed as a result of their purchase. They need to be anecdotal and ideally tell a story.

The best testimonials are those worded in a way that catches your prospects attention, conveys a positive message, and does so with credibility.

“A damn good juicy steak!” is a testimonial I’d much rather use than “It’s succulent and tasty.”

The “damn” arrests my attention, the choice of words is believable, and the effect of using an adjective like “juicy” almost makes the mouth water.

Here’s an actual example of a testimonial we received from an attendee of one of our seminars:

“The next day, I promptly cancelled all the adverts I was running.

There was so much valuable content in the seminar I needed a week to put all the ideas into action.

It was fantastically valuable – it really was – it crystallised all of my own views.
It allows you to come at the whole business of advertising from a completely different point of view –

When you go along to other seminars it’s a bit like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs when they say – “You must network and you must have a database”, but your seminar didn’t treat me like an idiot and for that reason it was much more valuable.

I went to all my partners and said I’ve been to this fantastic seminar – we must make all these changes.

I’ve lent the free book to our marketing person and she’s raving about it. I was really, really impressed with the whole seminar.”
Karen Agnew-Griffith, Woolley & Co, Solicitors

Here’s another two examples that come across as very anecdotal and genuine -

“Having had zero response to several adverts I decided it was time to get some marketing help. I was desperate to attract new business.

Joining the Marketing Mastermind Club signaled the beginning of a new successful era for my business. The unbelievable thing was that almost from day one my fortunes changed. Since having access to Richard Lomax’s strategies and methodologies through the Marketing Mastermind Club, I have attracted work – I’m like a magnetic field!“
Richard Whidborne, e-Griffin Consulting

“Don’t be frightened… Richard really does take time to get to understand you and your product and services and he’s very practical down-to-earth pragmatic in his approach. He won’t bamboozle you with a whole load of marketing theory.

He’s great actually, he really is. For us he’s a real God-send. We’ve been looking for good marketing help for years and years, and I’m delighted that we’ve found Richard.”
Keith Bedingham, Chairman, Verax International

To be effective it is vitally important that the words used in your testimonials should:

* attract attention
* convey a benefit
* achieve credibility

A good third party testimonial which does this, and does it well, can be worth a small fortune. It’s worth investing your time to obtain as many as you can.

Watch out for the next update, when I will be revealing how to get testimonials that catch your prospects attention, convey a positive message, and do so with maximum credibility and impact.

Best regards

Richard Lomax

P.S. Not everyone relishes the prospect of discussing their performance with their customers, as it can be seen as a way of opening yourself up to criticism or unwelcome comments.

One of our customers also admitted feeling acutely embarrassed at sending a testimonial he had written about himself to his customer – “It was really awkward. I was worried that they didn’t agree with my comments”.

So what’s the answer?

The answer is to get a third party to obtain your testimonials for you. This removes any personal issues or fears, and doesn’t take up any of your valuable time.

In fact it’s far easier for a third party to ask your customers questions about your product or service, and obtain open and honest feed-back.

Introducing The Common Sense Marketing

Testimonial Service

We have recently introduced a new service which focuses on producing written, audio or video testimonials.

Here’s how it works…

Written Testimonials

You provide a list of customers and telephone numbers of clients who you would like us to speak to. We ask you to let them know that we will be ringing, so that they are happy to take our call.

For a really good selection of testimonials, we would also like you to indicate why you have selected them. This helps us to direct our questions and discussions.

When we call your customers we explain why we are calling, and have a good conversation regarding how they have benefited from doing business with you, and we encourage them to reveal useful facts, figures and quotes.

The testimonial is written immediately following the call, and is emailed to your customer for their approval.

The content of your testimonials is always dictated by what your customers say, but because our staff are experienced at asking the right type of questions and at translating what is said into powerful anecdotal wording, our clients are often amazed at what their customers have said!

The provision of a photograph of the customer to go with the testimonial can also be organised.

Here’s a comment from one of our recent clients about the testimonials we got for his business:

“Thank you for my testimonials, I am delighted with them. To have these accolades in writing is fantastic. I used them immediately in a proposal to a potential client.

They worked!

I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it, which makes these amazing testimonials that you have obtained for me so very valuable.”

Being able to send out evidence like this, proving that we are good at what we do, is very exciting.

We all know that good testimonials are fantastic to have and undoubtedly improve your marketing BUT, it’s not easy asking your clients what they think of you.”
Chris Brookes, Managing Director, Circuit Bureau

Audio and Video Testimonials

We can easily organise an audio recording of your client discussing their experiences of working with you, and the benefits and results they have enjoyed. This is sent to you as an mp3 to upload onto your web site or to email to prospects etc.

If you would like a video testimonial, we arrange for this to be done at your client’s premises.

Costs:

Written – £50 per approved testimonial
Audio – £75 per approved/edited audio testimonial
Video – Price on application, depending on duration, and travel requirements.

If you would like to increase your lead generation results, or maximise your conversions into new customers, using effective, anecdotal testimonials, simply call Sally Stanton on 01692 538800 or email her on sally@common-sense-marketing.com and she will talk through with you how we can obtain fantastic, effective testimonials for your company.

In my last two emails, I explained nine different ways to make a lasting impression on your prospect.

And one of the most popular (and important) mediums to use to talk to your prospects is your website. But that presents a problem…  First, you have to get significant numbers of qualified prospects to actually visit your site.

That’s why, this coming Wednesday 15th June at 5.00pm, I will be talking live to one of the UK’s most successful Search Engine Optimisation experts.

His name is…….

Muz Azar

Muz has helped dozens of clients reach first page ranking results, with many number one positions.  Here are just a few examples:

• A CD Duplication company initially leapt from Page 3 to Page 1 (position 9). They’re now position 1 or 2 for six search phrases.
• A car share company – on Page 4 (position 8) went to Page 1 (position 4)
• A company providing portable staging for special events and concerts was on Page 1 (but in position 3 under the shopping results).  Now they enjoy three times as much traffic to their web site after they moved up to position 1
• A company selling table tennis tables – with 50,000 searches per month for their main keyword search phrase – went from Page 2 (position 5), to Page 1, (position 4)
• A Video Interviewing business jumped from Page 8 to Page 1 (position 3)
• An enterprise offering products for the relief of tinnitus (ringing in the ears) went to Position #1 from page 2, for the term ‘Tinnitus Treatment’ This web site now outranks major authority sites including: Wikipedia, Bupa, NHS, and the BBC.
• Our own web site www.common-sense-marketing.com currently sits at the number 1 position on Google for the search phrase “marketing company”

Are you struggling to get good Google
search engine rankings?

Yes?….

Well search engines – Google in particular – keep changing the rules of the game.

If your budgets are big enough for you to purchase all your traffic, this is not an issue. But if you depend on (or want to get) free SEO traffic from Google, you MUST stay on top of all the changes that they make…

Two recent updates that Google have implemented sadly caused a lot of internet marketers and webmasters to lose their income completely… when their sites dropped like a rock from their previous first page positions.

So while it’s important to be knowledgeable about SEO changes… it’s just as important to NOT waste weeks, even months, getting bogged down doing SEO research.

One of the ways to overcome this challenge is to let somebody who is experienced (like Muz Azar) to help you reach the rankings on Google you have always wanted.

I will be interviewing Muz LIVE, on our Marketing Mastermind Club webinar on Wednesday 15th June 2011, at 5.00pm

This revealing discussion with Muz will focus on actionable strategies that will get you up to speed on exactly what it takes to get (or keep) high rankings in the search engines.

And how to keep a lot of free SEO traffic coming your way.

You will learn…

>> How to go about effective Keyword research and selection – so you can find the profitable niches of keywords that drive high web site traffic without costing a fortune

>> What are long-tail keywords, and why are they important?

>> On-page optimisation.. what are the important meta-tags? How do you use them for maximum impact on Google?

>> Page content and copy – discover the guidelines to follow so you can impress visitors, and get top approval from Google

>> Google Analytics – what are the key stats to look out for, and what should you ignore?

>> How does off-page optimisation work and why is it so important?

>> How long does it take to get good rankings?

FREE WEB SITE SEO REVIEW -
Discover what you need to do to get
first page rankings (and high positions) on Google

When you join this webinar, you will also have the opportunity to receive a detailed one-on-one review of the SEO-effectiveness of your web site. This will cover an analysis and audit of:

–> 1) Your current web site seo strengths and weaknesses

–> 2) A review of your existing keyword choices, including an analysis of competitor keyword activity, and generation of hundreds of potential long-tail keywords, relevant to your market

–> 3) Reverse-engineering of your competitors web site SEO, so you can see what techniques they have used to get to the top of the search engines, their back-link strategies, and keyword choices

–> 4) Assessment of your site structure to make sure your site is built to the specifications preferred by Google and other search engines. Plus how to optimise your html tags, how to write content in an SEO-friendly way, and how to inter-link the content on your site so you can rank highly for dozens (if not hundreds) of long-tail keywords, with minimal effort.

After the review, you will receive a number of reports, including:
Potential keywords to consider; Your current ranking for those keywords; Competitors link analysis; and a DPF document containing your current SEO strengths, weaknesses, and the next actionable steps you can take to really start improving your rankings for your chosen keywords.

You will also be sent a private link to a video of your session on Skype, so you can review your personal SEO action-plan whenever you want to.

This review will be offered to selected businesses only, and will be without cost or obligation of any kind.

If you would like to be on the webinar, receive access to a free MP3 recording of my interview with Muz Azar, and receive an oppportunity to have a one-on-one review of your SEO strategy with one of the UK’s top internet marketing experts, simply take a 30 day trial of the Marketing Mastermind Club, at the special introductory rate of just £9.95. But you must ACT NOW and join the club by 5pm Tuesday 14th June.

To arrange your no-obligation trial, please email sally@common-sense-marketing.com with the subject line “MMC Muz Azar offer”,  or call 01692 538800 and speak to Sally directly, or simply click the link below:

CLICK HERE TO TAKE YOUR

30-DAY £9.95 TRIAL

PLEASE NOTE:
As well as accessing monthly information-packed webinars and success story interviews, there are a host of other profit-boosting reasons why you should seriously consider becoming a member of the Marketing Mastermind Club. Take a tour of the Club here.

I suggest you print off the list below, then tick the appropriate space and count up your total score at the end. Be candid with yourself; since you (and you alone) will know the exact answers and their profit implications.

1.  Do you know exactly where all (or at least most) of your business is coming from and how to stimulate more people from those specific sources to purchase from you?

_______No (0)_______Yes (2)

2.  Do you know where your biggest source of untapped new business is and how to ultimately mine it?

_______No (0) _______ Yes (2)

3.  Do you have a keen handle on all your “marginal net worth” (profits), and “lifetime value” (sales revenue) factors for each segment or separate product line you market?

_______No (0) _______ A Few (1) _______ Most (2) _______ All (4)

4.  Do you have a powerful USP that comes across to the market you target as being the only viable solution to a problem they have – that you alone communicated to them – or an opportunity you alone identified?

_______No (0) _______Yes (2)

5.  Do you know what your attrition rate is and why customers stop buying from you?

_______No (0) _______Partially (1) _______ Yes, in both cases (3)

6.  Do you have attrition reduction or client loyalty programs in place to minimise inactive buyers?

_______No (0) _______Yes (2)

7.  Do you have comprehensive databases of your prospects and buyers that identifies everything from names, contact numbers, type of buying, what they buy, where they originated from, quantities of past purchases, etc.

_______ No (0) _______ Partial (1) _______ Yes On All Issues (3)

8.  Do you actively use all the data above to target different categories of prospects/buyers in different ways for different products or services?

_______No (0)_______Yes (3)

9.  Does at least 25% of your business currently come from referrals?

_______ No (0) _______Yes (2)

10.  How many formalised, referral generating systems do you have working right now that everyone in your enterprise with Buyer Contacts uses and follows?

_______ None (0) _______One (1) _______ 2 or more (2)

11.  Would you say your business is primarily being marketed tactically or strategically?

_______ Tactically (0) _______ Strategically (2)

12.  Do you have a reliable system of collecting and creating client testimonials and success stories?

_______ No (0) _______ Yes (2)

13.  If “yes,” how many client testimonials and success stories do you have?

_______ 1-5 (1) _______ 6-10 (2) _______ 11-20 (3) _______ 21 & over (4)

14.  Do you effectively and powerfully use your testimonials in all the marketing, advertising and sales efforts you do?

_______ No (0) _______ Sometimes (1) _______Yes, always (3)

15.  Do you have any strategic alliances (also known as joint ventures or host beneficiary relationships) actively in place right now?

_______ No (0) _______ Yes (2)

16.  Do you repeatedly test headlines in your advertising, direct mail, emails and web pages, or their equivalent (i.e., opening sentence of your presentations, sales calls, telemarketing scripts, greeting at trade shows, etc.)

______ No (0) _______ Yes (2)

17.  If “yes,” how many different headlines or equivalent have you successfully tested in the last 12 months?

_______ 1 (1) _______ 2-9 (2) ________ 10-20 (3)   _______ 21 or more (4)

18.  Do you have a systematic, ongoing follow-up system you follow and put into action for every prospect and first time buyer you acquire?

_______ No (0) _______ Yes (2)

19.  How often do you follow up past buyers/clients by phone, mail, e-mail or in-person?

_____ Never (0) _____ Once Every Six Months (1) _____ Once A Quarter (2)

_____ More Often (3)

20.  Do you know your allowable cost of acquiring a new prospect and/or clients and if “yes,” do you invest up to that amount in your marketing efforts to acquire new buyers?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

21.  Do you conduct proactive back-end marketing campaigns; i.e. do you keep either reselling clients ongoing quantities of your basic products/services, or you keep adding new additional products or services to the sales cycle?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

22.  How often do you spend a day or more of your time developing marketing for your business?

_____ Never (0) _____ Once Every Six Months (1) _____ Once A Quarter (2)

_____ More (3)

23.  Do you use risk reversal to close sales and differentiate your business from your competitors?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

24.  If yes, how many different ways have you tested reversing the risk?

_____ None (0) _____ 1 (1) _____ 2-4 (2) _____ 5 or More (3)

25.  How many of these key, marketing factors do you regularly test?

_____ Nothing (0) _____ Just Headlines (1) _____ Headlines, Offers (2)

_____ Headlines, Offers and Guarantees/Risk Reversals (3)

26.  Do you offer bonuses (either tangible or intangible) as an incentive to purchase your product or service now?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

27.  Do you do PR/media relationships/radio/newspaper/magazine interviews?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

28.  Do you write articles, special reports or a book(s) you use for promotional positioning?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

29.  Do you have a prime prospect list or lists you market to either by direct mail, e-mail, telemarketing, catalogues or sales personnel?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

30.  Do you have a continuous way to build a growing prospect/client e-mail list?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

31.  How often do you send quality e-mails out (educational/contact-based and not merely self-serving) that provide a benefit to your clients and/or prospects?

______ Never (0) ______ Infrequently (1) ______ Quarterly (2)

______ Monthly or More (3)

32.  Do you have a direct response-formatted website that is built around my Common-Sense Marketing principles?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

33.  Have you and all your people who have contact with your prospects and buyers had formalised consultative/advisory sales training?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

34.  Do you have successful ways to acquire new clients/buyers at a breakeven and that makes your real profit on the back-end?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

35.  Do you regularly educate and update your prospects and clients?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

36.  Do you really think your marketing makes irresistible offers to your prospects?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

37.  Do you have a written marketing strategy and tactical implementation plan you continuously apply and follow?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

38.  If “yes,” do you regularly monitor and measure results and performance of every element of that plan and adjust, replace, improve areas or activities whenever performance drops or does not exceed specific targeted benchmarks you’ve established?

_____ No (0) _____ Sometimes (1) _____ Yes, Always (2)

39.  Does your marketing, sales approaches and advertising activities focus on benefits or features?

_____ Features (1) _____ Benefits (2)

40.  Do you know the top five reasons why prospects don’t buy from you?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

41.  Do you have a compelling and persuasive way to overcome each of those five objections or resistance points?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

42.  How often do you invest time, effort and committed focus to learn better ways to improve the sales, marketing, profits and competitive performance of your business?

____ Never (0) ____ Once a year (1) ____ Twice a year (2) ____ Constantly (3)

43.  Are you effectively applying the strategy of “Positioning yourself as an expert” in all your sales, marketing, promotional and prospect/client communication?

_____ No (0) _____ Sometimes (1) _____ Yes, Always (2)

44.  Do you really know (and can you clearly verbalise) what your business’ biggest marketing problem is?

_____ No (0) _____ Unsure (1) _____ Yes, Absolutely (2)

45.  Do you know what the biggest untapped sales or marketing opportunity your business has available to it and can you state it clearly?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

46.  Do you know what areas of your marketing your business is weak, poor or ineffectual at doing, e.g. prospecting, follow-up, converting, re-selling, referrals, etc?

_____ No (0) _____ Yes (2)

---

The “Key” For Interpreting Your Answers

Now that you’ve completed answering all the questions in this assessment test, here’s how to see what it all means to you:

Tally up all the points your answers represent by calculating the point status of each answer you’ve given (use the number in brackets following each response). Once you get your combined total, here’s what it tells you . . .

• If your total points equal 20 or less, it tells you that your marketing is very weak, your opportunity for growth and greater profitability with a better marketing strategy to follow is almost assured . You are probably realising less than 15% of your real business/financial/marketing potential.
• If your total points equal 21 to 75, you’re marketing at a decent level; but your business has exceptional room for improvement. You can probably increase your overall performance by 80% or more, merely by better understanding and applying the marketing opportunities you have available.
• If your total points exceed 75 or higher, congratulations! You’re a very fine marketer already and should feel good about where you’ve come, so far. But, ironically, because YOU understand so well the real additional marketing opportunities available to your business – your business probably still has spectacular geometric growth possible if you decided to take your strategy and tactics to the highest performance levels possible. Nevertheless, I’m very proud of your level of success so far and would love to talk to you about what you are doing.

Wherever you and your business falls on the marketing mastery scale – opportunity exists to do what you’re already doing, but on a far more effective basis. And that’s without introducing other powerful Common-Sense Marketing strategies.

If you are committed enough to your business growth to take this relatively short test, then I’m certain you’ll be interested to review the opportunities to grow your business further at my 2012 Common-Sense Marketing Entrepreneurs’ Workshop that I’ll be conducting on February 23rd.

If you haven’t already requested the Workshop Profile Notes which reveal the SEVEN CRITICAL FOUNDATIONAL STRATEGIES that underpin the way that virtually all super-succeesful businesses manage and structure their business growth and marketing activities, then please send an email to Amanda@Common-Sense-Marketing.com with “Workshop Profile Notes” as the subject line, and I’ll make sure you receive your copy by return.

Please leave your comments, questions and thoughts regarding
the self-diagnostic questionnaire, in the box below.
I will respond personally to all comments.

Here’s the video that will have a major impact on how successful you and your enterprise will become over the next twelve months:

Download the guide below to help you develop the vision you need for your business. This is the key to it delivering to you the financial freedom and choices to do what you want with your life. Answer the questions, and then return your completed guide to me Richard@Common-Sense-Marketing.com

Simply click on the blue report title to open the report,
or right click on the title and select “save target as”
to download the report to your computer.
A Vision For Your Business

Please let me know how useful you’ve found this video, and what it means for your business, by posting your comments below.

 

The Richest Business Owners I’ve Known Over

Twenty Years All Agree  — Mindset Is The Key

If you hold positive, possibility-based thoughts, you’ll tend to produce satisfying, unlimited results.

This is not conjecture or esoteric theory. It’s the science of mind-action.

I’ve said it before but it’s so critical that I’ll keep saying it: 95 percent of business success and the accumulation of wealth through business is to do with mindset. Every highly successful business owner I’ve met over twenty years agrees — mindset is the key.

I’ll give you a current example…

A business owner approached me for private consultancy. He’s in a service-based business (I’m keeping his identity and business type private because he’s paying me a lot of money to advise him, and we’ll be applying strategies his competitors would love to get their hands on).

For years he has been perfectly content making enough money to support a modest lifestyle. He’s built a solid but small business turning over around £100,000 a year with a good profit margin.

But he got curious about what else was possible after reading my book “Success In Recession”.

During our very first conversation I challenged him. I said it’s okay to have a goal for moderate growth. But I asked, “If you knew you could achieve far greater growth, and build a multi-million pound business instead of setting your sights on half a million, or one million, would you do it?”

He told me it was an interesting notion but he didn’t believe it was possible.

I suggested he go away and do some research. I told him to find out how many customers are buying this service in his catchment area? How many other companies provide a similar service? Put pen to paper and calculate what turnover – conservatively – each of those companies are likely to be generating.

Then I told him to look at their marketing. How good is it? Is it institutional? Probably. If so, what percentage of the market did he think he could win when he markets his service with effective direct-response methods?

He came back to me two weeks later with some interesting facts. He’d found out that customers were buying over £300 million pounds of service a year. Nearly every competitor advertised institutionally, and those who attempted more meaningful and compelling marketing messages weren’t very good at it.

For the first time in his whole business career he saw massive, realistic potential. It had always been there but he hadn’t recognised it. For the first time, he understood how – with the right mindset and compelling, intelligent marketing – he could reach for the stars and take a few home. For the first time he was thinking big.

That is the key – as every highly successful entrepreneur recognises and possesses – the ability to think big and think possibility.

On that basis, I am about to start advising him. It will be an exciting journey.

I am often asked what other skills (other than marketing) a person needs to achieve not just a certain degree of success, but a level of success most business owners only ever dream of.

What does it really take to achieve your highest and most daring dreams?

Unlock The Doors To Success

Here are seven personal and managerial attributes that will assist in driving you to the top in any field.

1. Identify and quantify what success means to you.

Success isn’t a ‘thing’. Success to you, if you were in the Estate Agency business, might mean selling another one hundred properties a month and earning a personal revenue of £3 million. To another Estate Agent, selling just one hundred properties a month and earning his first million might be a dream goal. So the first thing to realise about success is that it is a matter of degree. What degree of success do you want?

2. Identify and define in detailed, specific terms your vision of success.

 The more you specifically identify and define your vision of what success means to you – and then visit that vision every day, visualising yourself as having already achieved it – the quicker you will achieve it.

3. Find, recruit, and utilise the external resources necessary to achieve maximum success.

If your vision of success seems out of reach in light of current resources available to you, find, recruit, and effectively utilise external resources that will enable you to achieve your vision.

4. Build and use stepladders to climb over walls, instead of trying to jump over them.

Perhaps the greatest single deterrent to achieving significant success – in any field – is viewing the distance between where you stand today, and where you want to be. Build a stepladder to success rather than trying to jump to your ultimate goal in one move.

5. Periodically review and, if necessary, revise your vision of success.

Your goals will change with time, experience, and achievement. So it’s critical to regularly review your vision. Examine where you’ve come from, where you are, where you want to go, and when you want to get there.

6. Be flexible!

Persistence doesn’t mean repeatedly flogging a dead horse. Thomas Edison completed more than 500 unsuccessful attempts before he discovered how to make an electric light bulb work. If he hadn’t been flexible, we might still be sitting in candlelight. Keep your goals firmly in your sights, but be prepared to be flexible to reach them.

7. Persist. Keep going and going and going.

The vast majority of super-achievers have ordinary IQs. Most have no higher education. What separates them from the masses is their persistence. They are willing to fail much more than 95% of the rest of the population. And every time they fail – or as I prefer, discover what doesn’t work – they get one step closer to their ultimate goal.

Art Williams lives in Palm Beach, Florida. He is the founder of A.L. Williams & Associates, now known as Primerica Financial Services. He went from earning $10,700 a year as a high school football coach, to building the world’s largest life insurance company with sales of $87 billion. Art said “All you can do is all you can do but all you can do is enough!” 

Let me know your thoughts and experiences of having (or not having) the right mindset and mental approach to success, and life in general, by posting your comments below.

Virtually all your competitors are obsessed with chasing their next sale. Which means there’s a BIG opportunity to steal market share from them, when you apply this clever (and thankfully uncommon) marketing approach…

To grab one of the twenty five telephone appointments that are set-aside in my diary, please call Amanda on 01692 538 800 or email Amanda@common-sense-marketing.com and lets have an informal chat about your business and the opportunities it holds, without obligation.

READ FULL DETAILS ABOUT THE £25,000 ONGOING COUNSELLING,
MARKETING STRATEGY AND TECHNIQUE PROGRAMME HERE.

There’s a simple strategy that few businesses understand, and even fewer actually apply consistently. It will have an immediate impact on your success and profits, and it doesn’t cost very much, if anything, to apply to your business.

You just need to focus on what your prospects are really buying from you…

Watch this 3 minute 42 second video that will dramatically improve your results IF you take it to heart and use it:

To discuss whether my Monthly Ongoing Counselling, Marketing Strategy and Technique Programme will help you achieve the sales and profits growth you are secretly dreaming of, please call Amanda on 01692 538 800 or email Amanda@common-sense-marketing.com and lets have an informal chat about your business and the opportunities it holds, without obligation.

READ FULL DETAILS ABOUT THE PROGRAMME HERE.