People hate to be sold on anything.

How many times have you heard that? Well, I’m here to tell you it’s a lie.  How about this one:

“People hate to be sold, but love to buy”. This statement is a half-truth.
It’s true, people do love to buy things for themselves and as gifts. But I’ll show you that they also love to be sold. In fact everyone loves to be “sold” because when people are being “sold” on something they are following and doing something that gets them closer to what they “want”.

But anyone who starts out in business may believe that “people hate to be sold” is true and make decisions that effect their business based on this misinformation.

On the other side of this coin, there are also a lot of entrepreneurs who hate to sell. They hate being pushy or believe they need to be pushy in order to make sales. That’s also not true. If you’re in this category, then this short post will be like a breath of fresh air to you.

The truth is: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Marketing, Sales | No Comments »

One of the most profitable things you can do for your business, is to understand exploiting the actual value of your customer. It’s been called the Marginal Net Worth and the Lifetime Value.

What is the current worth of one of your customers or prospects? It’s the total profit of an average customer over the lifetime that they do business with you. That includes all subsequent sales minus advertising/marketing and your fulfillment expenses.

Let’s say the average customer brings you $75 per sale. They re-purchase 3 more times in a year. Their average order amount is $300. On each $300 reorder, you make $150 gross profit. The average life lasts 2 years. Every new customer is worth $975.

You reach the $975 by adding the $75 initial profit to the 3 other purchases each year of $300. Only $150 is profit, so $150 times 3 equals $450. If they do that for 2 straight years, that’s $900 plus the original $75.

If this is our average customer and they’re worth $975 in profit and it only costs you $30 through your advertising/marketing expenses to get them, every time you spend $30 you receive $975 back.

You would be foolish not to Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Marketing, Sales | No Comments »

I’m currently in Jamaica where it’s 80 degrees and sunny.  When I was leaving Michigan we had several inches of snow and freezing rain, a couple of days ago.

The resort has internet access in every room, so it makes it easy to run things from here.  When I logged on to my computer today I had several emails with cash in them.  (That is emails informing me that a payment was processed for something that someone bought.)

So while I was getting a nice Caribbean tan and building sand castles with my kid, I made money.

A few years ago I started to think how can I make money while I’m not working.  I started picturing this in mind.  The idea was planted in my mind.  I thought a lot about it.  I started doing research into different options, and do you know what happened?  The opportunities started presenting themselves to me.

There’s a saying that Luck is when Opportunity meets Preparation.  That’s very true.  As we were boarding the plane going through gate, Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Law of Attraction | 2 Comments »

There’s an old saying that you should find a need, fill it, and you’ll get rich. It’s not really true.

To magnetically attract more business, you need to find a want and fill it. People don’t always want what they need. They need to eat right, but they don’t. They need to stop smoking, but they don’t. They want to be more healthy.

You want to sell them what they want, but give them what they need.

Your prospects and customers are people just like you and me and they’re going to respond to messages similar to ones we might respond to. They’ll get turned off by the same things and exaggerations that we do. Filling their needs and wants typically involve things like - convenience, long-lasting, time-saving, better-looking, more functional stronger guarantees, better service, etc.

We never know which hot button is their buying button. We need to test one feature or benefit against another until we discover what their hot buttons are.

Your objective is Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Marketing | No Comments »