Is Your Business - Just OK?
OK is Not OK!
Here’s Why Marketing and Advertising Are Like Saving Strawberry Seeds.
An average business means an average wage and an average wage can only give you an average life. That’s not ok.
But first a short story about strawberries. It’s a secret ritual I never share. I will today. Don’t tell anyone it’s still a secret!
At the end of the year, I love to collect seeds from certain plants - strawberries being one of those plants. The seeds are so small, so tiny and so miniature they are easy to lose so I put them in an old envelope. Then at the right time of the year in the spring, I plant them.
One old strawberry from the year before gives around 50 seeds (I think). Once I plant the seeds each seed gives me a new plant (around fifty new strawberry plants) and each plant gives me (at a guess) thirty new strawberries and then, of course, I repeat the process again next year.
The point being?… I invest some time into this secret little project. I save ONE strawberry, I save seeds, I plant seeds, I get fifty new plants I get around 1,500 mouth-watering, sweet-tasting, drippingly delicious strawberries from a single investment into one strawberry.
If we put that into financial terms it would be considered a damned good investment, wouldn’t it?
Your marketing can be just like that.
Marketing and Advertising Is Like Saving Strawberry Seeds - A Good Investment When Done Well
It’s a good investment - a damned good investment.
Yet most advertising fails at the very first hurdle and that’s not OK.
Most companies that advertise go with big brand advertising agencies. They get the glitz, the glitter and everything that LOOKS OK. Do they get results or are the results just OK?
I have seen far too many case studies over the decades to suggest otherwise.
Almost every client I work with during breakthrough or mentor already have all the bells and whistles of marketing. The digital, social, webpage, magazine ads and so forth. Yet it’s an investment that isn’t paying off. That is why they come to someone like myself.
One Client – One Investment – Huge Harvest
““Alan thank you mate!!! From our first call you identified the marketing channels that we’re relevant to my business and showed me how to use them like a seasoned pro.
I had struggled for months and spent hours trying to build a wordpress site for my business. It looked amateur at best. You threw open your contact address book for me and put me in touch with his your team.
When I asked him for a quote I was expecting to be writing a big cheque – I was wrong! 3 weeks later I had a professional website, and with your guidance – high converting – for a fraction of the cost I was expecting.
When I think back I really regret the precious time I wasted trying to build my own site. You taught me the importance of leverage and finding the right people to work with very, very fast!
By the way … You also increased my return rate by a massive 30% using just a single marketing technique… Thanks Alan!
Big thanks Alan for the systems, advice and direction, it’s working fast!”
”
Good marketing transforms lives – I know it does I have seen it happen. I have witnessed first-hand people going from broke, stressed, depressed, suicidal, shattered and hopeless to healthy, wealthy, shining and happy due to the power of good powerful, measurable direct response marketing.
Good marketing has a vision, it has skill sets, it has thought, it has the buyer in mind, it has sales in mind, it has a response in mind and only sells what people really need in their lives.
Good marketing serves the greater good and never abuses the buyer.
Good marketing is built around a great product you’d want your wife to buy, it’s built around a service you’d be happy to pay for, and it’s built around quality, and desire and feeds the soul of the buyer. It has to give back not just take.
Ultimately though if you are the guy in business you of course have invested time and effort into your business. You have probably invested a lot of money into your business. You have probably worked early, worked late and sweated out the hours 7 days a week trying to figure out which is the right way to go and yet – still not getting the exact results you’d like.
Results Like These
If you could only increase your business by another 11% - 23% - 53.4% or even 83% (all real numbers) your life would be so much different now.
Deadlines are looming for you
Invoices need to be paid
The product needs to shift and shift fast
Your office bills need to be covered
And now your health is starting to suffer because you can see what is coming unless changes happen and happen fast. You can’t sleep through worry; you work 7 days a week thinking that’ll help.
So you network more and chase more new business and yet still you aren’t getting the results you need. Now you’re getting to a stage where you are starting to think about what will actually happen when the business folds.
Will you get a job, will you start again or can you create something brand new that’ll be even better than what has gone? Once you calm down your mind returns to reality and that reality is your life is tied around your business and it has to work.
Marketing – what marketing? You did an advert in a magazine that didn’t really work that well or maybe it did, you don’t know because you don’t measure or track or test your adverts. Was the advert any good? Well, the graphics guys in the agency created it so they must know what they are doing and must be creating great adverts for you but the truth is you’re just not sure. You even tried some direct mail. It was one of those things you scribbled at home based on an advert you had seen. The response was nothing, not even a single enquiry.
Despite all of this you know you have a great service you also know you have a great product and you know your marketplace really well and know they are buyers. And despite that, despite the hard work and the facts – you are sinking like a small hopeless boat in a storm of a non-spending market (at least not spending with you).
Every time you tell and share this with your wife or partner or husband they are not sure what to say yet they still say, “it’ll be fine darling” but that’s not what you want to hear because you know it won’t be fine unless something magical happens and happens fast.
Your business is facing the certain death of the slowest kind and once it does your life will be changed again and that means starting all over again. It all feels so painful for you doesn’t it?
You look back over time, as you lie awake in bed wondering what you could have done in your business better?
You spent 37 years creating products that are verging on brilliant and finally went on your own just 3 years ago.
You know people buy a similar product in bucket loads.
You know yours is the best and you know what you have changes lives yet – it’s currently destroying yours.
You know about marketing but haven’t really done any over the past 3 years.
Yes you run one advert, yes you tried direct mail but as far as you are concerned marketing is a cost.
You have it created at cost and you have it displayed in media at another cost and does it work?
You have no idea all you see is cost, cost, cost and more cost so how can you possibly afford marketing with all the invoices that are stacking up high around you.
Another week goes by, another month drags slowly, painfully as you watch the life of your business slipping away. If death of your business is coming you need it to come fast because the pressure on yourself is becoming so great you can hardly bear it any longer.
Today is Monday and you are feeling slightly optimistic, you have an idea and you think it might work. Last weeks takings weren’t as bad as they have been so you are getting a rush despite the huge pile of invoices that must be paid. That is until the man in the black ill fitting suit walks in and asks for you by name.
You know its official and you have a feeling that it is a man from the revenue chasing the outstanding amount that’s been hanging over your head for 11 months now. You’re right it’s the revenue and they have just destroyed your day with a notice to pay within four weeks or they are shutting you down.
Once he has gone your blood pressure has gone through the roof and honestly you feel like crying. Your office door is closed tight and locked as you stand at the window overlooking the car park at the back. It’s so quiet you can almost hear your own heartbeat…budum budum budum … how much longer can you take this assault on your business and on your health?
You know people love your product, you know people buy your product yet at this point in time you have no money to make anything better and you feel you have tried everything. You have four weeks to generate sales of £17,000 to pay your invoice to the revenue. If that doesn’t happen, your business is going to have its final cardiac arrest and end forever.
Where will that leave you, where will that leave your 3 kids, where will that leave your wife, your home and everything else you have gathered into your life? You speak to someone who claims expertise. His reputation is good, it’s very, very good.
Over the next seven days you create sales of £15,400 Over the next 3 weeks you gain sales of just over £60,000. Over a period of 3 months your turnover and sales have gone over £120,000 Your happy, your wife is happy and everything is feeling secure for the first time in many, many months and years.
What happened?
I’ve seen that happened to real clients. I’ve also seen it fixed with real clients. Marketing is never a cost when done properly it’s an investment that transforms lives. I hear from businesses involved with Advertising agencies that have no idea what they are paying, have no idea if their advertising is working and have no idea if they should or shouldn’t be doing it.
I also hear from entrepreneurs that create great ideas and great business but are just focused on the product, focused on the services and focused on what looks good on the surface.
Marketing to these guys is a huge expense and after all – they believe if they simply create great product and service the buyers will come. Yet the reality is you must have
Solid strategies
Strong visions for the company
Challenges laid out
Tactics to overcome them
Mission statements
Recognise strengths
Positioning
Structure
Traffic and conversions
Retention strategies
New customer acquisition plans
Packaging
Quality testing
Pricing
Guarantees
Research research research
Timelines
Costings
Marketing strategy
Testing strategy
Advertorials
Graphics Development
Brainstorming
Consulting
And a hell of a lot more if you want to generate real success in your business.
Your Market Share is OK - OK is Unacceptable Yes I know you might have a market share right now but so what. Are you reading this and thinking but we are doing OK? Is OK really good enough for you? If your staff is doing OK are you happy? If your son is doing just OK at school are you happy?
Yet you tell yourself that OK is good enough when actually it isn’t. OK is a point you have gotten to where you have almost given up, become a fat cat in a fat castle yet are not sure what is next – you are doing OK and hoping OK will be good enough. OK is the crossing point between decline and destruction. OK is a point where the spirit has given up and will accept what comes next. OK is the moment when we tell ourselves it will or it won’t happen but surrender our future to the wind. OK is nothing its just OK. Is that what you want, to be JUST OK?
I don’t believe that’s what you want and I don’t accept that is what you need. You need to be the best. You need to be number one. You need to be the first option for your buyers. You need to be the greatest, the champion the winner at all times. Yet right now you don’t have the skills so you are settling for OK. OK means sleepless nights, OK means stress, palpitations and long dasy with long nights. It means having to stare at that pile of invoices daily and hoping, praying that the man from the revenue doesn’t arrive to slap you with a closing order.
OK Isn’t what you want! I am looking for clients that don’t want OK. People that hate OK and want to erase OK from the dictionary forever. You don’t want something that is just fine. You won’t settle for anything less that genius, brilliant, out-of-the-park and success that you no longer call OK but a success that is clearly a true success. I want to partner with you. I want to share my skills with you, my 30 years of creating marketing with you. My success strategies and tactics that have created incredible successes for clients – I’d like to do the same for you. Of course not for nothing because nothing for me is just OK I don’t want or even do OK.
Yes I have saved businesses from certain cardiac arrest
Yes I have changed lived over the years using strategies and tactics that most would never dream of
Yes I have written copy that has hit home runs almost over night for some clients
Yes I can create powerful direct mail, adverts, emails, web copy and more.
AND I want to do that for you.
But if I do it for you… “What are you willing to pay me if I give you what you want?”
I am looking for ONE CLIENT to work closely with over the next 12 months. The perfect client would be …
Already started and have an infrastructure in place
Have a budget for marketing
Recognise the need for powerful marketing
Understand the urgency of marketing
Recognise the value of marketing
Understand the importance of creatives within your business
Are open to conversations on
Advances
Royalties
Commissions
Overrides
Fees
Retainers
Stock options
Barter
And have come to a moment in your business when you finally realize that outside help is needed to grow, survive, expand and become a market leader. Now… If that sounds like you, I am looking for a client just like you.
Now I won’t work for nothing but I am willing to talk through some ideas that will be mutually beneficial to both you and me. I cant and won’t do anything without a reward so let me ask you again before you hit reply… “What are you willing to pay me if I give you what you want?”
I will do my best to give you specifics I will do my best to track and measure our success together I will describe in detail how I will do it for you Is this for you? Here’s how you know.
Do you need urgent changes in your business or?
Do you recognize the marketing you have is poor and it cannot carry on?
Do you see a need to bring in an expert that you can work with?
Do you need powerful, potent, sizzling and profit inducing marketing?
Soon I/we will be heading to our summer retreat in Tbilisi in the republic of Georgia. Before I go in May I will be chatting with a handful of people just like you I would love to work with, help and generate real wealth with.
I can make a difference to your business and of course we can both make a difference to each other’s lives. All you have to do (if you got to the end of this email I know you’re interested) is hit reply and lets start a conversation.
It’ll work like this… We will talk over the phone and take it from there, no commitment just a simple short conversation to see if we can help each other. Will you be the big client I am looking for?
Stop thinking Stop delaying Stop procrastinating Hit reply and let’s talk right now Finally a short story
Carrie is a businesswoman that had a house full of unpaid invoices and the revenue men threatening to shut her down. She had been in business over 8 years. Her staff hated her and had walked out. Her marketing was non-existent. She was in debt for tens of thousands. Frankly her business was a mess and so was her personal life because of it.
Just four weeks after she hired me I increased her business by 53.4%. 11 months later her business had increased by 116%. I showed her how to create windfalls. One generated £24,000 in a single campaign. I showed her how to use direct mail, advertising, the web and many more ways to make creative marketing that works.
After 18 months she has gone from almost failed to a total success with three thriving businesses under her belt.
I told you it was a short story – but very real and very true.
I am sat here waiting to know if you’ll be my one client I am going to dedicate my time to this next 12 months. Hit reply or go to my contact page right now.
Alan Forrest Smith