9

Step Four. Discover how the 5 best communicate/sell to your target database.

Call up each of your top 5 information competitors. Pretend to be a customer ask each of them to send you their sales literature. Ask where they are advertising. Find out, if possible, how they get their leads. Solicit their mailing pieces. Visit with their top salespeople. Let their telemarketers try to sell you. What benefits do they emphasize? What features do they brag about? Gather information. Let your subconscious simmer about it.

Step Five. Discover what info/service/feature is missing from above.

Let their salespeople sell you. Become a customer. Get their product. Rip it apart. What makes it so special? Is it a matter of design? Is it a matter of marketing? Find out their strengths. Probe for weaknesses. Notice how other upstart competitors are making inroads into the market share of the top 5 companies. How are these smaller companies surviving? What do they say to draw away customers from the big boys. What niche are they exploiting?

Ask your target database what they don't like about your competitor's product. Ask them what they would add to your competitor's product to make it perfect. Ask them what they would delete from your competitor's product that is not necessary. Ask them to design it exactly the way they want it.

And remember, at the top of the list of competitive advantages is ease of use and quick results.

Step Six. Create a competitive advantage. Position your product better.

Remember, people are lazy. If they have a choice between easy and hard they'll take easy EVERY SINGLE TIME! If they have a choice between fast and slow, they'll take fast EVERY SINGLE TIME. If they have a choice between simple and complicated, they'll take simple EVERY SINGLE TIME. If you can provide these things at a price that is a bit lower than your competitor, odds are that you'll steal a bunch of business.

Now, a word about competition. Sometimes a beginner starts with what he or she feels is a unique idea and naively rushes off to start a business. Soon they discover that someone else is already marketing this idea...sometimes with a very similar title...and they get discouraged.

First, understand that there is an enormous number of people in the world. If you can just entice 1/1000 of 1% of the population in North America (that's 2,500 clients!) into your funnel and take care of them.....you'll probably be set for life. (Remember the LTV of a customer. If each of your customers spends just a $1,000 with you over the next ten years, that's TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!)

Second, remember that big companies can get knocked off by smart competitors who start from scratch with long, long odds of success. MCI is doing extremely well against ATT. Federal Express is doing extremely well against the US Postal Service. Compaq computer company is doing extremely well against IBM. The Discover Card is doing extremely well against MasterCard and Visa. Even Robert Allen did extremely well against all the other real estate books and seminar operators that I leap frogged over in the 70's and early 80's. New technology and super charged marketing can deal a mortal wound to your competitor. Just because they've been around for 100 years doesn't mean you should go back to your day job.

You should read the book "Positioning: The battle for your mind." by Trout and Ries. Great book. It will teach you how to position your "David" product against a "Goliath" competitor.

When you are done positioning, your product must be better. Emphasize your competitive advantage in such a way that makes your competitor's product appear obsolete. MasterCard did this with American Express. "It's everywhere you want to be." Their ads showed how American Express is not accepted everywhere.

"When you absolutely, positively have to have it overnight." Just saying that emphasized the fact that the US Mail was a dinosaur and that Federal Express was the new pony express. People were willing to pay 50 TIMES the price of a first class stamp just to get their information 3 times faster.

To gain a competitive advantage, your information must be,

faster

cheaper

smaller

simpler

easier

more efficient

prettier

more secure (guaranteed)

more features

better value (combining features)

better design

better service

more advertising

better advertising

more available

Step Seven. Create your ad.

As I said before, marketing is the key. Having determined your competitive advantage, you have to create advertising that causes people to ACT! I go into great detail on this subject in my advanced course on Info-Preneuring (Call 1-801-852-8700 for information.) We cover the following information:

Advanced Impact Marketing: One Powerful ad can make you a fortune.

How to get your message across in the overcrowded airwaves.

How to get your customers to beg to do business with you.

Ethical strategies for persuading anyone to buy from you-NOW!

Breakthrough results: 10 ways to double your ads response rate.

You ad should emphasize the Ultimate benefit your product promises. What is the amazing miracle cure your information can provide? Dr. Jeffrey Lant, one of the leading experts in selling Information Products says that some of the major Ultimate Benefits are:

Financial Stability

Health

Love

Security

Salvation

Self-regard

Community and peer recognition

Independence

Sexual fulfillment

Beauty/desirability/ personal attractiveness

The headline of your ad should promise an Ultimate Benefit as well as your competitive advantage. The copy of your ad should describe as many other benefits as you have space to describe. Of secondary importance in your ad are the features of your product.

What is the difference between benefits and features?

Features describe your product. Benefits are what your customer gets when they use your product. When you talk about your product, you are doing "feature" selling. When you talk about results, you are "benefits" selling.

For example, when airlines want to sell you airline tickets to Hawaii, how do they do it? Do they describe the kind of aircraft you'll be flying in? Do they brag about the airline meals? Do they describe the leg room? Or do they show you pictures of palm trees, sand and sun? Palm trees are benefits. Leg room is a feature. You'll get more people to Hawaii with palm trees.

Features are for the head. Benefits are for the heart. Features are about logic. Benefits are about emotion. Emotion will outsell logic ten to one. Logic may be an important part of the sale....but only after you have engaged their emotion.

There is a lot more about marketing than I can cover here. It is, in fact, a lifelong study. There are shortcuts, however. Tricks that we pros have learned. Words that can double sales. Phrases that can cause your phone to ring off the hook. Strategies that can cause people to beg to do business with you.....as impossible as that might sound to you now.

When you see me speak to an audience, you will see people literally leap out of their seats to do business with me. After speaking for many years, I have discovered and perfected a scientific set of principles that cause people to take action immediately. These principles work EVERY TIME! I hope I can have a chance to share this information with you personally.

Step Four. Discover how the 5 best communicate/sell to your target database.

Call up each of your top 5 information competitors. Pretend to be a customer ask each of them to send you their sales literature. Ask where they are advertising. Find out, if possible, how they get their leads. Solicit their mailing pieces. Visit with their top salespeople. Let their telemarketers try to sell you. What benefits do they emphasize? What features do they brag about? Gather information. Let your subconscious simmer about it.

Step Five. Discover what info/service/feature is missing from above.

Let their salespeople sell you. Become a customer. Get their product. Rip it apart. What makes it so special? Is it a matter of design? Is it a matter of marketing? Find out their strengths. Probe for weaknesses. Notice how other upstart competitors are making inroads into the market share of the top 5 companies. How are these smaller companies surviving? What do they say to draw away customers from the big boys. What niche are they exploiting?

Ask your target database what they don't like about your competitor's product. Ask them what they would add to your competitor's product to make it perfect. Ask them what they would delete from your competitor's product that is not necessary. Ask them to design it exactly the way they want it.

And remember, at the top of the list of competitive advantages is ease of use and quick results.

Step Six. Create a competitive advantage. Position your product better.

Remember, people are lazy. If they have a choice between easy and hard they'll take easy EVERY SINGLE TIME! If they have a choice between fast and slow, they'll take fast EVERY SINGLE TIME. If they have a choice between simple and complicated, they'll take simple EVERY SINGLE TIME. If you can provide these things at a price that is a bit lower than your competitor, odds are that you'll steal a bunch of business.

Now, a word about competition. Sometimes a beginner starts with what he or she feels is a unique idea and naively rushes off to start a business. Soon they discover that someone else is already marketing this idea...sometimes with a very similar title...and they get discouraged.

First, understand that there is an enormous number of people in the world. If you can just entice 1/1000 of 1% of the population in North America (that's 2,500 clients!) into your funnel and take care of them.....you'll probably be set for life. (Remember the LTV of a customer. If each of your customers spends just a $1,000 with you over the next ten years, that's TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!)

Second, remember that big companies can get knocked off by smart competitors who start from scratch with long, long odds of success. MCI is doing extremely well against ATT. Federal Express is doing extremely well against the US Postal Service. Compaq computer company is doing extremely well against IBM. The Discover Card is doing extremely well against MasterCard and Visa. Even Robert Allen did extremely well against all the other real estate books and seminar operators that I leap frogged over in the 70's and early 80's. New technology and super charged marketing can deal a mortal wound to your competitor. Just because they've been around for 100 years doesn't mean you should go back to your day job.

You should read the book "Positioning: The battle for your mind." by Trout and Ries. Great book. It will teach you how to position your "David" product against a "Goliath" competitor.

When you are done positioning, your product must be better. Emphasize your competitive advantage in such a way that makes your competitor's product appear obsolete. MasterCard did this with American Express. "It's everywhere you want to be." Their ads showed how American Express is not accepted everywhere.

"When you absolutely, positively have to have it overnight." Just saying that emphasized the fact that the US Mail was a dinosaur and that Federal Express was the new pony express. People were willing to pay 50 TIMES the price of a first class stamp just to get their information 3 times faster.

To gain a competitive advantage, your information must be,

faster

cheaper

smaller

simpler

easier

more efficient

prettier

more secure (guaranteed)

more features

better value (combining features)

better design

better service

more advertising

better advertising

more available

Step Seven. Create your ad.

As I said before, marketing is the key. Having determined your competitive advantage, you have to create advertising that causes people to ACT! I go into great detail on this subject in my advanced course on Info-Preneuring (Call 1-801-852-8700 for information.) We cover the following information:

Advanced Impact Marketing: One Powerful ad can make you a fortune.

How to get your message across in the overcrowded airwaves.

How to get your customers to beg to do business with you.

Ethical strategies for persuading anyone to buy from you-NOW!

Breakthrough results: 10 ways to double your ads response rate.

You ad should emphasize the Ultimate benefit your product promises. What is the amazing miracle cure your information can provide? Dr. Jeffrey Lant, one of the leading experts in selling Information Products says that some of the major Ultimate Benefits are:

Financial Stability

Health

Love

Security

Salvation

Self-regard

Community and peer recognition

Independence

Sexual fulfillment

Beauty/desirability/ personal attractiveness

The headline of your ad should promise an Ultimate Benefit as well as your competitive advantage. The copy of your ad should describe as many other benefits as you have space to describe. Of secondary importance in your ad are the features of your product.

What is the difference between benefits and features?

Features describe your product. Benefits are what your customer gets when they use your product. When you talk about your product, you are doing "feature" selling. When you talk about results, you are "benefits" selling.

For example, when airlines want to sell you airline tickets to Hawaii, how do they do it? Do they describe the kind of aircraft you'll be flying in? Do they brag about the airline meals? Do they describe the leg room? Or do they show you pictures of palm trees, sand and sun? Palm trees are benefits. Leg room is a feature. You'll get more people to Hawaii with palm trees.

Features are for the head. Benefits are for the heart. Features are about logic. Benefits are about emotion. Emotion will outsell logic ten to one. Logic may be an important part of the sale....but only after you have engaged their emotion.

There is a lot more about marketing than I can cover here. It is, in fact, a lifelong study. There are shortcuts, however. Tricks that we pros have learned. Words that can double sales. Phrases that can cause your phone to ring off the hook. Strategies that can cause people to beg to do business with you.....as impossible as that might sound to you now.

When you see me speak to an audience, you will see people literally leap out of their seats to do business with me. After speaking for many years, I have discovered and perfected a scientific set of principles that cause people to take action immediately. These principles work EVERY TIME! I hope I can have a chance to share this information with you personally.