Your LinkedIn Profile is very important because it’s what anyone who refers you will use as
an introduction starting point.

If it’s weak, they won’t want to send anyone in their network to it.

This article identifies 6 ways you can inject some selling power into your LinkedIn profile.

1. Use your usual name. The one people know you by. And the one they will search on. If your clients and prospects know you as Bill Baker and you use William Baker, chances are they won’t find you.

2. Include your picture. And use one that shows you smiling. Remember, this is where you have an opportunity to send a message that you are a pleasant person to associate with. The last thing you want to do is look like the latest misbehaving celebrity on The Smoking Gun mug shot list.

3. Use LinkedIn’s Professional Headline to sell yourself. This is the most important part of your profile. When you join Groups in LinkedIn, a small profile of you will show up on the left hand side when you’re participating in group activity. Gerry Black, Helping Small Businesses Identify and Fix Costly Marketing Gaps is going to give me a lot more marketing traction than Gerry Black, Owner, Relax Communications. Simply go into Edit Your Profile and edit your headline to say what you want it to say. Now! Or you won’t do it.

4. In your profile, there’s a line where you can list your website. You can leave the default at My Company or edit it to give the reader a clear message about what you offer. The hyperlink to my site says, Marketing and Copywriting Help. Try to put something there that will make people click if they have an interest in what you offer. Google will pick up on this as well. Google likes LinkedIN.

5. If you display your Twitter link, make sure it isn’t set to “Yes, share all Tweets.” LinkedIn is a business environment. Not all Tweets are business related. You will upset some people if you’re a frequent Tweeter or Twitterer and prone to ranting about your neighbour’s cat or why the good laundry detergent never goes on sale.

6. In your Public Profile, make sure your name is there. Also, in the Summary section, use plain English. Save the jargon and buzzwords for your Specialty section.

That’s it for today. See ya next week.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Ontario who works with clients in Canada and the United States.

I have been busy this week learning about Social Media Marketing.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking this multi-headed mysterious monster marketing strategy doesn’t seem to be going away. In fact, it’s growing exponentially in popularity.

And that’s exactly why you may want to stick your toe in the water and see what it’s all about.

Charlie Cook has been hosting a terrific free teleseminar series on Social Media Marketing this week and today I wanted to pass along some big time tips from Linked IN expert Jan Vermeiren that can take you from newbie to not-so-newbie in a hurry.

Here are are 5 LinkedIn Fundamentals – from a pro – that you can use right now to start boosting your business:

1. Have the right attitude – Many people join LinkedIn thinking it’s like turning on a tap and watching new business leads come out. Not so. In fact, Jan doesn’t even like to describe LinkedIN as a medium for “give and take.” He finds the word “take” negative. He prefers “give and receive.” I’m with him.

2. People do business with people they know, like and trust – You’ve heard me bang this drum many times. And with good reason. It’s an immutable marketing “truth”. LinkedIn provides you with all kinds of opportunities to share information with others. You can do it one-on-one, join discussion groups, answer questions and on and on. LinkedIN, like much of the Social Media phenomenon, is the “new town square.” And each time you share, you have an opportunity to develop your KLT factor.

3. After you sign up on LinkedIN, check out the Advanced Search Screen – This, according to Jan, is the most important screen on the site. Here’s why: Let’s say you your target market is marketing managers at pharmaceutical companies with sales of $50M a year. You’re based in Dallas and you want to bump up your national client base. Using the advanced search, you type in all the parameters that pertain to what you want. eg. United States, Marketing Managers, pharmaceutical companies, $50M annual sales etc and watch the names that pop up on Linked IN.

4. Check who you are connected to! You gotta love this! Once you start building your connections, you will see that your target prospects are likely connected in some way to people in YOUR network. In other words, you have an opportunity for a referral.

5. Leave LinkedIN – Huh? I’m just getting going. Why would I want to leave?? This tip is why Jan was giving the presentation and I was sitting in my chair listening to him. Once you find someone who is a potential prospect that has a connection with one of YOUR connections, you pick up the phone and ask YOUR connection to send a “Magic Email” introducing you. Now, the level of relationship you have with your connections will determine the content of the email intro. It’s only intended to be a short hand off with a bit of background information which paves the way for a potential mutually beneficial discussion between you and someone in your connection’s network. Is THAT cool or what??!!

That will give you some idea of the potential of LinkedIN as a business tool. Next week, I’ll include some stuff about setting up your LinkedIN profile.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Ontario  who works with clients in Canada and the U.S. .

Got an email the other day from a client for whom I did some work about 18 months ago.

When he and I first met, his web site was in a sorry state. The design was weak. The copy was bland and completely void of emotion. My job was to write the web copy and the client’s SEO “guy” would optimize the site and create a PPC ad campaign.

Here’s the email he sent:

“I’m really taken aback. I went and looked at last year and saw that we did not get a single job from the website or our online ads. We got a couple calls, but they amounted to nothing. This winter we got about three hundred dollars in work from one job. We obviously need to make some changes.”

So here we are, a year and a half later and his site is doing virtually nothing to grow his business.

My “Spidey” marketing senses tingled immediately signaling there was more to this story so I sent him the following questions:

1. Can you please send me the google ad that ran?
2. How many clicks did you have on the ad that ran last year? How often did it run? When did it run?
3. How many unique visitors did you have to the site every month?
4. What was the organic traffic to the site eg. the traffic sent by search engines?
5. Are you reviewing google analytics or is your SEO guy doing it?

After reviewing the responses, two problems were evident.

First, his site was only averaging 1.3 daily visitors. And that’s simply not enough traffic (even assuming the SEO guy was targeting the right audience with the PPC ad) to produce meaningful results.

Second, he was relying on his “web guy” to keep an eye on the road.

So how could a business owner go a year and a half with a web site that wasn’t contributing to his bottom line and not raise a red flag?

Here’s what I think may have happened:

The offline marketing ideas I had given him during the time we worked together were effective enough in generating results that he failed to realize his site was essentially parked in the garage. He was doing well. And that drew attention away from the non-performance of his web site. The fact is, he probably could have been doing even better if he had been aware of the issue earlier.

How about your marketing efforts? Are you regularly checking to see how each element of your marketing plan is performing? Do you know what to look for?

Here’s a partial list of web site sales killers I see every week that I know are costing business owners a fortune in missed opportunities:

Home pages that greet the visitor with Welcome To Our Site.

No benefit headline to grab attention on home page. (this is one of the most expensive omissions a marketer can make)

Copy using the words “we, our and us” instead of “you and your”.

Web copy that completely ignores what the reader is looking for and instead lists products and services.

No emotion in the copy.

Vanilla testimonials that contain no quantitative evidence to show the reader what real results he or she can expect.

No call to action telling the reader what to do next in the buying process.

No use of a lead magnet eg. a free offer of a report, guide or a consultation that requires the reader provide an email address.
Big graphics instead of copy. Graphics don’t lead people to buy.

No marketer would allow this to happen intentionally. Many simply don’t realize the impact it has on their web site’s ability to generate sales leads. Just like my client didn’t realize his web site wasn’t earning its keep.

We are all so busy these days, it’s tempting to hand off the marketing reins to someone else for monitoring while we attend to the onslaught of other “urgent” things that come at us during the week.

Ultimately, as business owners, we are the ones who need to keep our hands on the steering wheel.

You don’t have to be an expert but it’s important to know enough to be able to recognize what’s effective and what’s not when it comes to attracting and converting prospects into profitable clients and customers.

Gerry Black is a marketing copywriter based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada who works with clients in Canada and the United States.

In their book, Mass Affluence, Paul Nunes and Brian Johnson identifiy three strategies
their research revealed as viable for helping all marketers capitalize with the
moneyed masses.

And make no mistake, there are moneyed masses – despite what we hear in the news
everyday. All you need to do is employ marketing strategies that give customers
a chance to spend more.

Remember , your customers buy what they want to buy. Your job, as a marketer, is
to make sure you create value they want and are willing to pay for.

So here’s what the research revealed in a nutshell:

1. Give customers the chance to spend more. Offer new premium versions, adding on
product upgrades and differentiated service levels to existing offerings.

2. Honour customers with the recognition they desire. Create status levels that
reward willing-to-spend customers.

3. Offer the right price to the right customer.

For today, let’s focus on the first strategy.

If you are unwilling to raise your prices for your products and/or services, try
creating premium and deluxe versions of the same products and services offered
optionally, at a premium price.

Here’s why:

In almost every case, if a premium or deluxe version of a product or service is
available, no less than 5% to 20% of your existent or traditional customers will
opt for it.

Since the profit margin built into the premium version is usually substantially
greater than in the basic offering, the 5% picking the premium can actually create
a 50% or 100% increase in profits from the same number of units of sale.

Take the “concierge ” floor at a hotel for example. Typically, the rooms may or
may not be slightly larger or better turned out but still, they all have a bed and
a bath and require the same linens, towels, maid service, and electricity; key access
in the elevator (added cost: zero); a lounge with continental breakfast and evening
snacks (cost: a few bucks per guest); and two newspapers outside your door.

The price difference may be anywhere from 20% to 50% of the basic room for those
who want the “special” treatment. But the added cost may be 2% to 5%. That differential
item, the upgrade, carries a much higher markup than does the basic room.

Here’s another example:

Say you’re a business coach. You offer one-on-one coaching sessions for a set fee.

Your client can opt for your basic program or take advantage of your premium membership
coaching program that includes the one-on-one coaching sessions and a monthly group
coaching session via teleseminar featuring a  special “guest” coach on a specific
topic followed by a Q&A.

You offer the premium program at an additional 25% markup. The teleseminar cost
is minimal. These days, most attendees expect to pay the LD costs. Your “guest”
will be happy to trade his or services for the exposure to your clients. (cost:
zero)

Presenting to one client or twenty five has a minimal impact on your costs. You
pay for the extra lines but the impact of the 25% price differential makes that
insignificant.

Does your business lend itself to this approach of including premium offerings?

If so, you may be on the verge of discovering a strategy you can use to significantly
boost your profits.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in Canada and the US.

In marketing, knowing your prospect’s needs, wants, challenges and problems are important keys to selling them.

Now suppose you had a way to know almost exactly what your prospect wants when he or she lands on your web site or reads your email marketing message? Think that would be give you a better chance to make a sale?

OK. Well, the first two things your prospect is looking for are universal and if you aren’t taking them into consideration with all your marketing, start today and watch your sales jump.

Thing 1: People want useful information when they are looking to solve a problem or fulfill a need. Drop the welcome to your site stuff and the here’s a list of all the services and products we offer.

Thing 2: They want information quickly.

So, useful and quick. Understanding and acting upon that alone and will put you so far down the track ahead of most of your competitors.

However, you can leave them in the dust by supercharging your marketing with an understanding of what your prospect is experiencing or thinking at the time they are presented with your marketing message.

While you can’t know exactly what’s on your prospect’s mind, you can make some pretty good guesses based on information you already have. What it comes down to is having a clear understanding of who your ideal client is and why they bought from you.

Something tipped the scales in your favour that made your current clients pick you when it came down to making a buying decision. After all, they probably had many options.

If you aren’t quite sure, start asking. When you have an understanding of why they chose you over your competitors, you’re in a position to develop marketing messages that tap into your prospect’s brain.

And your road in is your prospect’s Reticular Activating System.

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the “attention center” of the brain. It works 24/7 and determines what we pay attention to by acting like a filter. It’s impossible for the brain to focus on everything it is exposed to during a day so the RAS keeps your brain on track by allowing it to focus on what’s important to you.

Here’s a common example of your Reticular Activating System in action.

You decide to buy a new car. Let’s say it’s a CHEVY TrailBlazer. From the minute you start looking for a place to buy it, you will see CHEVY TrailBlazers everywhere you look. That’s your Reticular Activating System allowing you to see them.

Now, think of how that can impact your marketing.

Your prospect has needs and wants. And he or she frames up many of those needs and wants in the form of problems that need solutions. By presenting your offering in the form of a solution to a problem, your marketing will tap into what your prospect is thinking -giving them EXACTLY what they want.

If your prospect is looking a service and visits a number of websites which are presenting the same pick-me sales message – here are all the products and services we offer blah blah – think about how you can cobble together a marketing message that immediately shows up on your prospect’s RAS radar because it matches up to what he or she is really searching for – a solution to a problem.

Think that will increase your chances of attracting attention?

You can bet it will! Which is why it’s so important for you to establish your main marketing message – your USP – and make sure you promote it on your website and in all your other marketing as a solution to a need or want your prospect is searching for.

That way, instead of surfing past your message because it looks like so many others, your prospect’s Reticular Activating System will send a message that says, “Hey, stop, that’s what you’re looking for!”

Happy selling.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Canada who works with clients in the US and Canada.

There’s a time-tested school of thought professional direct mail copywriters draw upon to inspire them to create attention-grabbing and compelling promotions.

It goes like this: Picture your prospect sorting through his or her daily mail standing over a trash bin. The primary objective is simple: dump as much of the stuff as possible.

A typical sort might include the following three categories:

*’forget it, no interest’
*’this is a must keep.’
*’this looks like it could be of interest, I’ll take a closer look.’

A similar approach is used by people looking for products and services on the internet.

Your prospect arrives at your web site with his or her finger on the mouse.

Because they have been conditioned by a seemingly never-ending sea of boring, self-promoting, hard-to-follow web sites, many have very low expectations.

They are LOOKING for a reason to click away – almost as soon as the home page fills the screen. Unfortunately, many marketers make it easy for them to press the button.

The real tragedy is that many of those same marketers have everything the prospect wants. They just don’t know how to communicate online.

Selling is selling. Face to Face. In ads. Via email. And especially on your web site.

You can have all the traffic in the world but if your content doesn’t grab your prospects’ attention and lead them through your sales story, you may end up with very skinny children.

Here are 7 questions your prospect wants answered:

1. What exactly is your service or product and why should I be interested? You have 3 seconds to answer this question. Otherwise, click: lost sales opportunity. Most home pages do a poor job which is why many business owners view their web site as a cost instead of an investment in what should be the most cost-efficient, productive salesperson they could ever hope to find. And make no mistake: it’s the “why should I be interested?’ part of the question you want to focus on. Put another way, they are really asking ‘What makes you different from your competitors?’

2. Will it work for me? The information on your home page must instantly send a compelling message to the prospect that says, “If you have a need for what our product or service does, we GUARANTEE it will work.” I’m not saying you must offer a guarantee but you must provide the kind of details that leave no doubt in your propspects’ minds that you can solve the problem or satisfy the need they’re bringing to you. Remember, you have the upper hand here. The prospect is looking for something. That’s why they came to your site. It’s your job to demonstrate why you have the best solution.

3. What kind of results can I expect? If you have won the “attention and interest battle”, you’re on your way to the front of the stage where you will have an opportunity to continue making your case. Make sure your answer takes the following into consideration: We think in pictures. That is, we “see” how a service or product can improve our lives. Your job, as a marketer, is to paint a picture that will allow the prospect to “see” how your product or service will improve their lives. Once we’ve done an effective job of engaging the prospect emotionally, we need to include logical reasons why this is a sound buying decision. As you know, people buy for emotional reasons (make me look better, feel better etc) first and then back up their emotional decision with logic eg. (these guys have an impressive customer list, the
organization has been in business for 11 years etc).

4. Who else has used this service and what were their results? This is where we need to offer irrefutable, third-party evidence that we can deliver. That means sprinkling compelling and meaningful testimonials around that leave no doubt in the prospect’s mind that they are in good hands. I wrote an article that I give to clients that offers a simple system for getting strong testimonials from your clients and customers. Not the “Mary was so nice and helpful’ blah blah that really does nothing to hammer home the true value you deliver but quantitative feedback you can use to extract winning testimonials. It’s simple to use. If you’re interested, email me and I’ll send you a copy.

5. How exactly do your services work? What’s the process and structure? This is an important part of the process. It demystifies your offering by helping the prospect establish some expectations. It increases the prospects comfort level. Especially if they have to answer to someone else. If you don’t do this, you run the risk that some
prospects will may away. Details sell and bring your offering to life.

6. Are you credible? Do you have the experience to help me? The prospect must be convinced you are the real deal. This is no time to be shy. Get your track record in front of their eyes – on the home page where it can win the day. I often see clients burying credentials in their site. Sadly, the reader never gets that far. That’s the kind of a selling ammunition you need on the front line – your home page. Make sure to highlight an industry awards you’ve received. For some businesses, a client list and numbers of years in business are other facts that can be used to convince the prospect.

7. What do I have to do next to get and use your services? Probably the second biggest mistake (and just as fatal) many web marketers make. They don’t identify the next step in the buying process for the prospect and invite him or her to take it. Huge mistake. And very costly. Prospects are lazy. Complacent. Easily distracted. Not self action-oriented. Guess what they do when we omit this step? Right. They just drift away after all the hard work we did to keep them in front of our message. Missed opportunity. Happens all the time.

Once your home page provides answers to the questions above, your conversion rates – getting your prospect to take the next step in the buying process – will increase.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.

There is no better new customer than a referral from a happy customer.

But most businesses don’t have a plan in place to generate referrals. They simply take them as they come without giving much thought to how they might be able to create a steady stream of referral business.

Before you can do that however, it’s important to understand the following referral truth.

Satisfied customers do not send referrals in droves. The referral avalanche comes from clients and customers who are enthusiastic, inspired and awed from their experience with you.

Bottom line: Being good ain’t good enough if you want tons of referrals. If you continue to simply meet your customer’s expectations, your referral rate won’t change.

So what can you do to have your customer rave about you?

Consider what one dentist did. He provides dental care to children. After attending a seminar on creative thinking, he identified a number of things he could do to tailor his practice to the needs of his patients.

Here are some of the things he did:

*He redesigned his office to provide maximum comfort to his target market. He lowered the reception staff into a pit behind the counter so they were at eye level with the patients.

*He hung giant photographs of each dentist and dental assistant along with descriptions of each person’s hobbies and interests, so new patients could pick their dentists and assistants based on having something in common.

*He gave away free bicycles! Every patient got a “homecare follow-through Report Card” for his or her parents to fill out. If the Report Card came back to the dentist with all As, the child got the bicycle. (Imagine – there’s little Johnny riding around the neighborhood on his new bike and people ask him who got it for him and he answers, “My dentist.”)

*He called each new patient at home the evening after treatment to see how the patient was feeling.”

*He called each parent the day after the the child’s treatment.

*Each new patient left the office the first time with an autographed “8 x 10″ glossy of his dentist and dental assistant.

The result of his creative thinking?

He multiplied his practice by ten in just one year without any  increase in his advertising budget.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.

“I’m caught in a trap…I can’t walk out…”

When Mark James aka Francis Zambon wrote those lyrics in 1968 as part of Suspicious Minds, I doubt he had us in mind. I’m sure Elvis didn’t.

But those words ring true for many business owners struggling today trying to maintain margins. 

They are mired working IN their business leaving little time to work ON their business.

But are they really trapped?

Or are they just more comfortable with the devil they know (12 hour days) than the devil they don’t (finding more efficient ways to generate profits and freeing them up to do other things)?

Let’s face it…learning new things takes us out of our comfort zone. But in order to maintain our success in today’s noisy and crowded marketplace – complete with economic downturns and new competitors springing up all over the place – we need to keep up with times.

And that means a willingness to venture into the unknown.

Otherwise, we`ll be left behind. Maybe not today. But eventually. The days of reaction are over. As business owners, we need to be out in front if we want to making sure our businesses continue to thrive.

Especially when it comes to marketing.

For many business owners, marketing is a mysterious, money and time sucking black hole that is to be avoided at every opportunity.

Why? Because for some, the few, unconnected marketing tactics they’ve used have produced little in the way of profitable results. 

And that’s the problem. Marketing is not series of one-shot deals. It should be an organized system that constantly being monitored for effectiveness.

At the end of the day, as a business owner, you are really in the marketing business – not the business of delivering the product or service that delivers benfits to your clients and customers.

Perhaps  you`ve never thought of it that way.

Although the reasons for making marketing a priority are many, here’s one that supercedes all the others.

Without a focused effort on creating a marketing system now – many business owners won`t be working one-hour days – forget 12 – as they find themselves losing ground to competitors who embrace the need for a marketing system

These savvy marketers understand the importance of implementing strategies and processes that automate their marketing efforts and equip them with the modern marketing weapons they they need to attract the attention of prospects, keep them “warm” until they’re ready to buy.

Many business owners are leaving tons of money on the table by not addressing three common marketing leverage points:

• They are trying to one-step prospects into buying. This is probably responsible for more lost selling opportunities than any other marketing mistake.
• They lack an automated, easy-to-implement and manage follow up system. The fortune is in the follow-up. Very few people buy friom us the first time they come across our offering. It’s the back end where the profit lies.
• They have no organized system in place for upselling or cross selling. This is a win-win situation and yet very few business owners do it. Clients who have already indicated they WANT the value the business owner can offer want to know more ways they can  benefit. It’s up to us to tell them.

And a marketing system isn`t simply for attracting new clients. You can use it to inform, educate and manage your current stable of clients and customers thereby reducing the time you spend on the phone or writing emails.   

If you`re tired of hacking your way through the marketplace jungle with a dull butter knife, try implementing some simple, inexpensive systems that will address the three leverage points above.

You`ll probably be able to cut your 12-hour day in half – and have plenty more profit to show for your efforts.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.

Attract Web Traffic The ‘Virtual” Water Cooler Way

There are of many ways to drive traffic to your website. And savvy online marketers know most of them.

But what about the rest of us?

What can we do to attract prospects if we don’t have deep pockets to run a pay-per-click Adwords campaign or can’t flash our web site URL on Oprah?

Well, here’s a simple, effective and unintimidating strategy you can use to attract a steady stream of qualified prospects to your web site.

Start posting.

Next to Adwords and article marketing, posting to online forums can be one of the most effective marketing activities you can engage in for instantly driving traffic to your web site.

And here’s a bonus - it won’t cost you a penny. Sure you’ll have to invest your time but you have to do that anyway to grow your business.
 

OK. So what exactly is posting? Posting is simply replying to comments other people have made in an online forum.
 

First, you need to find a forum that relates to your business or area of expertise. A Google search using relevant keywords coupled with the word “forum” will reveal a number of forum discussions.

For example, say you were financial planner. You could Google “financial planner forums” and the search engines will deliver plenty of forum options for you to choose from. And you can further define the parameters of the forum by using additional keywords like “financial planner trends forum”.
 

A word of caution: Look for a forum that is active and has lots of members. A good example of an active, lively forum is warriorforum.com.

Most forums will ask you to create an account if you want to post replies to different “threads” or discussions you take part in.

Now , here’s where the rubber meets the road.

The secret to effective posting that will generate sales leads for you is to build an identity in that forum community. To do that, you need to be active and consistent. Schedule your posting in as part of your regular marketing activities. Try to make 3-5 five posts a day to various threads that are in the forum.

This sounds a lot more overwhelming that it is. A reply can simply be two or three sentences. A half hour of posting each day will quickly elevate your status in the forum.

So what do you post? Well, you can initiate a post by asking a provocative question or introducing a controversial topic or you can simply read through the existing posts (which are categorized so you can see areas of interest) others have made and reply to those where you can add value.

Forum discussions are intended to be an environment where ideas are exchanged and counsel is given.
 

It isn’t a place where you go to flog your latest product or service. If you flagrantly enter posts that are of a traditional selling nature, you will be shown the door.

Besides, you will attract a lot more prospects to your site by giving insightful and practical advice on how to address a certain issue or solve a particular problem that relates to your area of expertise than you will acting like the Slap Chop guy.
 

Now, here’s where your marketing mileage ramps up.

In exchange for your participation, you are allowed to create a profile that every forum participant can see and a signature that appears at the end of every post.  
 

When you join the forum, you will have an opportunity to create your profile. You can use your real name or a made up name that reflects your expertise. You can also include your pet’s name, your hobbies, your expertise or profession – whatever you want. The idea is to let your profile reflect who you are.

Along with your profile, you’ll be asked if you want to create a signature. Make sure your signature makes it easy for people to visit your site and suggests to them that it might be worth a visit.

Happy profitable posting!

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.

Many marketers miss out on profits because they try to take a selling shortcut that almost always fails. They proceed directly to their offer instead of taking time to develop the “know, like and trust” factor that is almost always required before a sale can be made.

The website version of this is a marketer who simply lists products and services and expects the prospect to read the list and call up to order.

Marketers who use this one-shot approach are almost always disappointed in their results.

Thanks to master copywriter Gary Bencivenga for today’s lesson. The universal law of selling identified below is your key to higher profits.

In every sale, either in person or in your marketing efforts, there are at least two sales that have to be made, not just one. This is true of anything you sell, and the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can become a master at selling anything, in person or in your sales copy.

The main sale, of course, is the product or service you ultimately want to sell. But before you can even get a chance to sell your main product, you must first sell your prospect on giving you an audience.

That is known as the sale before the sale. In short, you must sell the chance to sell.

Legendary life insurance salesman Frank Bettger used this principle to become one of the greatest salespeople who ever lived. Bettger was such a crummy salesman that he came close to quitting before he stumbled upon one of the most powerful strategies for selling anything.

On a vacation, while standing on the deck of a ship about to dock in Miami, Bettger noticed that the ropes needed to moor a great ship to the dock were tremendous. They were  very long and as thick as a man’s thigh. He wondered how any seaman, no matter how strong, could ever lift such a thick rope, let alone hurl it so that it would reach the pier.

So he decided to watch how it was done…

He discovered that the crew doesn’t even try to throw the heavy rope, known as a “hawser.” Instead, he saw a solitary crewman hurl a little iron ball, called a “monkey’s fist,” which was attached to a thin rope about the size of a clothes line. He tossed this monkey’s fist to a longshoreman standing on the pier, waiting to receive it. When the longshoreman caught the little iron ball, he started to haul in the thin rope attached to it. This thin rope, in turn, was attached to the huge hawser, which Bettger then saw moving through the water as the fellow on the dock hauled it in.

And that’s how the big, unwieldy hawser gets tied to the moorings on the pier.

Throwing the hawser was too big a first step for any sailor, just as it’s too big a first step for any marketer to approach ice-cold prospects and instantly persuade them to buy.

So this is the little-known but amazingly reliable formula for opening – and then closing – many, many more sales, in person or online. Make the first step for your prospect irresistibly easy to take.

Resist the temptation to start off trying to sell your product. Break it into smaller steps. As a first step, offer something that makes it easy, irresistibly easy, for your prospect to say yes.

There are countless ways you can achieve this gentle, seductive first step in your marketing. 

I have found that offering valuable, free information that targets your prime prospects is the most versatile, economical and usually most effective execution of this strategy. It works so well because it not only makes it much easier to open the sale with your best prospects, but also sets you up perfectly to close it.

If you sell a course on Internet marketing, you can offer a free e-book such as, “The 100 Most Successful E-mail Advertisements Ever Written.”

If you manage a real estate office in, say, Huntington Beach, you can offer a free “Trend Report – Sale Prices of Huntington Beach Homes, Condos and Co-Ops over the Last Six Months.”

If you’re a chiropactor, you can advertise a free guide, “My Seven Best Secrets for Having a Pain-Free Back in Just Six Weeks.”

If you sell a course on public speaking, you can offer a free CD, “Secrets of Getting a Standing Ovation Almost Every Time You Speak.” 

All these examples “throw the monkey’s fist” – they make it much easier for prospects to lower their guard, give you their time and allow you into their busy lives. This is how you make the sale before the sale.

It’s the same as courtship. You would never dream of walking up to a total stranger and asking him or her to marry you. The first step might just be a flirtatious conversation, which leads to a date, which leads to more dates, which lead to an engagement, which leads to a marriage proposal, which leads to a lifelong relationship. Trying to race to the ultimate destination from an ice-cold start just won’t work.

Romance your prospects in the same way. Make the first step easy, non-threatening, enjoyable, irresistible! Then make the next small step the same way, and keep going until you’re both in love. 

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.