By: Dean Jackson & Joe Polish

  LISTEN

  READ

In this summary you are going to learn how to trigger 8 Profit Activators that will create a Breakthrough for you in your business results. And that breakthrough starts when you stop thinking of your business as ONE thing, and divide your business into 3 core divisions:

First, the Before Unit is in charge of finding, identifying, educating and motivating people to come into your business for the first time.

Second, the During Unit delivers the experience that people have when they’re doing business with you, starting from their first contact with you.

And lastly, the After Unit is all about nurturing lifetime relationships with all of the people who already know you, like you and trust you, so that they do business with you again and so that you can orchestrate referrals.

Within these 3 core divisions lie the 8 profit activators, when combined, will quite literally change your business forever.

Let’s get started.

Before Unit: Profit Activator
#1: Narrow Your Focus and Select ONE Target Market (at a time)

Who are you going to serve?

The big mistake that a lot of business owners make is trying to think about and capture the broadest possible audience for their business, trying to be too much to too many people. It’s like being a pig farmer, versus an albino pig farmer. Especially if you have a product specifically geared for albino pig farmers, and where albino pig farmers make 10x more profit than the regular pig farmer.

I bet that if you looked at your business right now, you’d find that the top 20% of your customers or clients are providing 80% of your profits. The other 80%? They exist to supply all of the headaches and none of the profit.

Imagine for a moment that you had the complete freedom to focus all your efforts on marketing to those “most profitable” customers? Do you think that would make a difference in your business?

Here’s a great example of that thinking in action. Check out the website WeShootBottles.com If you have bottles you need photos of, wouldn’t you rather trust your bottle in the hands of someone who focuses ONLY on photographing bottles?

Now, I’m not suggesting that you limit yourself in any way. I’m suggesting that you pick ONE target market, and make DOMINATING that target market your absolute focus. Then, when youʼre dominating that single target market, move on to a second target market, and start dominating that one too!

Before Unit: Profit Activator
#2: Use Direct Response Offers To Compel Prospects To Call YOU

Good direct response offers are kind of like car accidents - you think that the people who react to them are - as Dan Kennedy would say - “Idiots! Morons!”. But when it’s your turn to drive by the scene, you slow down, crane you neck, and prove once and for all that you fall for it just the same as everybody else. It’s almost impossible NOT to pay attention to the accident. That’s how you want your marketing to be like.

However, there’s a twist. Your marketing in this system will not be about YOU or what you have to sell. It will be about THEM, and something that’s on your prospect’s mind already. Your direct marketing efforts will be to convince your prospects that you have some information that would be insanely valuable to them.

There are a multitude of ways to accomplish this - you can use consumer awareness guides, offer free reports or free recorded messages that share 3 important attributes:

(1) a compelling title that (2) really articulates what they really want, and (3) in a way that they’re compelled to call and get that information. They see that it is completely and exactly what they’re looking for. So, they feel safe to call, or signup, or do whatever they need to do to access that content.

To the prospect, you seem like a saint! You’re not asking for their credit card or trying to close the sale on the first day. But all the while, you are thinking like a chess master taking that first step in a sequence of events that within 2 or 3 more moves will end up with your prospect meeting with you in your office, or coming to your store, or whatever your mechanism for closing the sale happens to be. But first, you need to get your prospects into that sequence. Compelling direct marketing will get you there.

Before Unit: Profit Activator
#3 - Patiently And Systematically Educate And Motivate Prospects To Meet You...When They’re Ready!

The third Profit Activator is all about leading people through your sequence so that when they are ready to buy, they will buy from you.

Most people aren’t ready to buy from you today. Your job at this point is to provide educational materials to them in order to help them make the best decision possible. However, embedded in that education will be the motivation to actually make the decision to make the purchase you want them to make, and to make it with you. Don’t make the mistake that some people make and only focus on the educating portion of the equation. Balancing education and motivation to purchase is a precious skill, and the I Love Marketing program will teach you how to do it.

The information you are providing them creates the trust and rapport you need to actually close the sale. Even if you never speak to them or meet them in person, that trust and rapport will be there.

The reason that this method works is simple, and has its roots in a simple psychological truth: people are silently begging to be led. They don’t want to lead. They want someone to tell them what to do...and make it EASY for them to do it.

The final key to this method is to automate it using tools like auto-responders, free recorded messages and even direct mail. This will take some getting used to, because you’ll be accustomed to having to work harder to produce better results. Instead, you’ll be focussing on simply “how much money did I put in”, versus “how much money came out the other end”.

During Unit: Profit Activator
#4 Present Your Unique Service Offer In A Way That Makes It EASY To Get Started

Your During Unit starts when you have your first meeting with somebody who’s motivated to move forward and do whatever it is that your business does. So, that means the first time they open up the door at your retail store or they come into the office in your professional practice, or so on.

Profit Activator #4 shows you how you can present your service or product in a way that makes it effortless for them to get started.

For instance, Joe Polish teaches carpet cleaners to offer a “carpet audit,” which takes people around their house showing them how they can improve their carpets, and would then offer to clean a free room with no cost or obligation of any kind. They can try the services risk free and see the difference it can make.

Making it easy to get started further increases the trust and rapport you have with your prospects, and makes it easier for them to say yes to the sale.

During Unit: Profit Activator
#5 - Deliver a “Dream Come True” Experience Designed From Your Client’s Perspective

Ultimately, Profit Activator #5 is about mapping out that customer experience so that the end result will be that people that are so excited about you and your service that they’ll want to introduce that experience to their friends and family.

To do that, you need to figure out what experience is going to turn your customers into raving fans. One of the best client experience design exercises is to ask two simple questions.

1. What does everyone LOVE about [insert your category here]?
2. What does everyone HATE about [insert your category here]?

Don’t censor yourself by thinking “well I can’t do that”...or “that’s impossible”...just let your mind go, and then ask yourself “If I could do it...how would I do it?”

Then, go out and build the best customer experience you can, from beginning to end.

It’s important to realise that the reason you want to create this “dream come true” is so that you can orchestrate referrals for your business, which as you already know, is the least expensive and most effective way to grow your business.

So, if you want to nurture lifetime relationships and orchestrate referrals, it’s only going to happen if you deliver world-class service before, during and after the sale, so they have a smile on their face and they tell other people about you.

During Unit: Profit Activator
#6 - Provide After Sale Service - Even After You’ve Already Been Paid

Most people think the sale is over after they collect the cheque. However, there’s a reason that your after sale service is included in the During Unit and not the After Unit. It’s because the most successful people in any industry know a secret - that little things done after the sale for the customer can have an outsized effect.

There’s a saying that a true test of character is what you’ll do if nobody else is watching you. For the customer, the equivalent of that saying is what you’ll do for them when there’s no expectation of getting paid.

It doesn’t need to be significant, either. Let’s just say you just finished a carpet cleaning. What if you start thinking about adding an element of an after-sale service, which could be a follow-up phone call or a pop-by, or something the next day, or within the next 3 days after that experience, just to check in on people, to maybe drop by and bring them something that’s going to keep their carpets fresh, or a bottle of stain remover stuff?

Of course, it’s all about the timing, and knowing how to harness the euphoric feelings of joy and happiness that are running through their minds. And as the saying goes, “The difference between lettuce and garbage is timing.” So, you want to focus on the timing.

Here’s the key - people will have the most opportunities to refer you in the period right after the sale. If you just got your carpets cleaned, for instance, it’s the next 10 or so visitors in your house who will comment on how great they look. If you’ve just dropped by that same day with an unexpected gift, that’s a powerful reminder for your customer that they should give their visitors your name and number.

After Unit: Profit Activator
#7 - Nurture Lifetime Relationships And Focus On Lifetime Value

Wouldn’t it be great if you could buy repeat business insurance? Well, now you can. Here’s how.

There’s been so much evidence to prove that it’s 5 to 6 times more expensive to get a new customer than it is to get someone who has done business with you before to simply do business with you again.

You should be able to get a 20% annual yield from your relationship portfolio, which are all the people who know you, like you, and trust you. So, if your average sale is $150, and if they’re going to be a client for the next 5 years, that immediately takes them up to $750. And then if they just refer one person that immediately doubles them and their lifetime value, to $1,500. That’s where the 20% annual yield is, is one time in 5 years.

It’s the least expensive portion of your marketing mix. It’s the one where you can have the biggest impact with the least amount of money, because they already know you. And in many cases, you’re the incumbent provider of whatever it is you do.

So how do you capitalise on this?

There are so many ways that you can increase the lifetime value of a loyal client, by talking about an ascension plan; where you’ve got a product line that somebody can use other products that you have; where you’re able to solve more of their problems or to offer a higher level of service for people; where you can deepen the relationship with them and they’ll want to get closer to you; where you’re building out your entire catalog of products and services that you have available for people.

Profit Activator
#8 - Orchestrate Referrals By Giving Your Clients The Opportunity To Feel Great

The second part of the After Unit is orchestrating referrals. Orchestrating referrals is about really doing things, saying things, and communicating in a way that make referrals happen on purpose. Everybody gets “passive” referrals, but this is about making them happen on purpose.

The biggest adjustment in your thinking is realising that the REAL reason people refer is not as a favour to you, but they do it to make themselves feel good. The fact is if you’ve ever had a great experience with someone, it’s just natural human nature to want to tell other people about it.

Think about the last time you recommended a book or a movie to somebody. Usually, I recommend the book or movie to the person because I know that we’ll be able to have a great conversation about it after they experience it themselves.

However, no referral can happen until two people are in a conversation. Your clients are in conversations all the time that are related to your business.

BUT...in order for that conversation to turn into a referral...three things have to happen.

1. They have to NOTICE the conversation is about [something related to your business].
2. They have to THINK about YOU.
3. They have to INTRODUCE you into the conversation.

The moneymaking idea is to be aware of what those “high probability” conversations are, and make sure that your clients know EXACTLY what to do to introduce you into the conversation.