Cheap Route Marketin

Cheap route marketing.

Years and years and years ago in what feels like a galaxy very far away and when I was a hairdresser building my salon businesses something happened that gave my salon more power whilst costing me not a single penny more. It gave me, more clients, more money, more loyalty and even more power than I already had.

My system of positioning was so strong it propelled my salons to the top very fast.

I replicated what I did with my salons into OrangeBeetle.com and that also put me on a stage with the likes of Jay Abraham and Jay Conrad Levinson not long after I began my new consulting and copy business.

Here's what cost me nothing yet paid me handsomely.

The other salons could see how packed my salons were. They could easily see my prices were 3x higher than theirs was. They could also see I would use certain words, certain actions and certain procedures to create my business success. That of course got the other salons very nervous so most of the big established guys started doing this. The copied me. They copied my adverts, copied my services, copied my words and would even steal my staff to copy them.

Once a guy came to my salon for a job. His name was Matthew. I employed him. One thing with Matthew was he was obsessed with his own hair, he loved his own hair and couldn’t walk past a mirror without checking his own hair. Anyway around six weeks later Matthew didn’t come into work. In fact he never came back and I had no idea where he was until one of my staff showed me an advert in the local paper.

It was an announcement that after 'training' at my salon Matthew was now back at his own salon with new everything! It turned out the other salon had made an agreement with Matthew. They would pay him extra to come and work in my salon. He was to learn everything he could as fast as he could and then return to base!

Obviously I wanted to kill him...

...but the effect of his working at my salon was negative for them and positive for me and here is why? They wrote words I wrote but never understood the actual reason I wrote and used each word. Because they simply copied without deeper knowledge they could never support what they were saying with their services. This increased my position and reduced their position in the town. Their adverts looked like mine, their staff had all worked in my salons, and they tried and copied almost everything they could to be like my salon but failed miserably. In fact whilst we were the biggest and busiest salon in that town after just 18-months they eventually almost reduced their client intake to what looked like zero from the outside and focused on teacher trainings!

For me looking back there was a huge lesson and it’s a lesson you’d be smart to listen to. They too the cheap route and in fact a lot of the 35 salons in that town did the same. They tried to copy and it backfired on them. The result was more for my business and less for their business because no one like a cheap copy.

For example when I think and use lets say one particular word I do something with that word that is then used as a power tool within my businesses. For me once that word is used ‘live’ it is as good as chiseled into stone. Once that word is believed and accepted it then becomes part of an expectation for the customer and if that expectation isn’t met you lose a customer and your competitor gains one. When any tool is used in business it has always got to be part of one coherent thought. That thought has to be woven through everything and if it isn’t woven through everything you are making a huge mistake… HUGE! The initial idea is carefully constructed and created through doing something incredibly detailed with your client. That clients mind has to be deconstructed and then a small series actions have to take place once the buyers mind or pathway has been worked out. In those thoughts and themes you customer base also has groupings. Young, old, older and so on. Can you see where this is going?

So doing a direct copy cannot and never works! Samsung smart phones are great but they aren’t cool like Apple – copies never are!

But Alan this is cheaper!

I don’t care.

Cheaper is a word and it’s a word I cannot work with in my own business and I will tell you why.

When I started writing words and creating strategies for my clients around the year 1998 or even before I could write for my salons but didn’t really understand how to write for other industries. I couldn’t spell (still can’t) and never got to grips with grammar (still haven’t). So I bought a couple of books. Both books were maybe £10 in total.

Once I learnt what I needed to learn I pushed my services out and started getting paid as high as $50,000 for writing sales copy! Now correct me if I am wrong is that a good investment or not? Yet it still sounds like cheap route right? Around 4 years ago I needed to take a quantum leap and travelling faster than the speed of a 58,000 MPH meteor to get to my next level.

Yes I had copied over the years but I also had a ton of people endlessly copying what I was doing. I found one guy that had the information I wanted. I knew this information would not only take me to an even higher level in business but I knew it would pay me back many, many times over. The problem was I had no cash but I also knew once I bought it I would make the cash.

He wanted - $5,000 for a sixty minutes chat! I scraped the cash together as this was just after my divorce and bankruptcy.

In sixty minutes I got the information I wanted in I would say 120 seconds or two minutes! The rest I already knew and had been doing. It was the best investment I made at the time because it helped me to nail a new deal for a huge amount from a new client and now friend!

Sometimes you just have to go for it and invest and if you are the type of business person that likes to try and go cheap first well I am afraid you deserve what you get… cheap brings cheap, a little brings a little – it’s a simple law of nature is it not? Here’s what cheap also does.

Burns your cash and burns your time. I have had so many people over the years tell me that they want to work with me but try cheap first. They try cheap once, twice, three times and more.

They lose months, years and some even go bust and start all over again. I don’t know about you but I hate travelling cheap, I go business or first class always!

How about you?

By the way that hairdresser above that loved his hair named Matthew that worked for me for six weeks. I saw him a few years after that and he apologized to me for his actions and blamed it on his youth. It was fine I told him, we shook hands and smiled but I had to laugh when he walked away with his now very baldhead shining in the sun!

Bastard serves you right!

If you NEED premier, first class, business class marketing that actually is created in a bespoke way to suit every aspect of your business I am ready to help you make the coming few months your very best ever.

Are you?

I only create with one or two clients a year – will that be you? You know how to get hold of me using the form here.