The get motivated seminar is coming to the Cleveland area in two weeks.  There has been a big media blitz advertising the amazing panels of speakers who will be there live.  You can hear Bill Cosby, Colin Powell, Brian Tracy and others at this all day event for only $1.95 per person or $9.95 for the whole office.  Is this too good to be true?  What is the catch? 

I have not done any research into this seminar because I want to see if anyone can confirm or deny my suspicions or what will go on at this event just using my marketing sniffer!  Below are my predictions about this event. 

• Every one of the speakers is an author and will be heavily promoting a book and or course – Good marketers know that the real money is made on the back end of an event through the books, CDs, courses, subscriptions, etc.  This event is lowering the attendance price to pack the arena and make some heavy back end sales.
• Email addresses will be collected for the chance to win some big prizes – Marketers know that the money is in the list.  If they give you something in exchange for your email address, they can continue to market to your as long as your allow them.  Chances are you will stay on the list and buy something eventually.
• There will be many upsells at this event – Your ticket will get you a seat, but you will be able to upgrade to ‘gold’ or ‘platinum’ level seats close to the stage.  There will also be opportunities to buy limited spots to have lunch or an intimate meet and greet with your favorite speaker.  Private coaching opportunities may present themselves as well.
• The event promoters will be cross-selling you to attend other events – Don’t be surprised if they present you with more premium conferences to attend in the future for a much higher price. 

I don’t begrudge these people from trying to make a few bucks.  It’s the American way, right?  If you wind up going to this event, please check in with me and let me know how it goes.  Remember, you don’t have to spend a single dime more than your admission price if you don’t want to.  Be prepared for a sales pitch every ten minutes here.  If you are weak and don’t know how to say no, then don’t go, these guys are pros!

Referrals are great sources of pre-qualified customers.  They already know about your business and the service or goods you provide.  Most of the time all you just have to ask them for the sale since most of the educating has already been done.  Isn’t that the best!

Your current, happy customers are the best evangelists for your business.  A few words of recommendation from them are one thousand times more powerful than a full page letter from you.  A customer can give first hand testimony in a way that cannot be disputed the way a sales pitch can.

• Customer: “John is the best in heating & cooling.  He promptly fixed my furnace on a Saturday night during a snowstorm for a reasonable price.  You should consider using him.  I highly recommend him.”

• Business: “John the heating & cooling guy delivers prompt, friendly service at reasonable prices.  Call today!”

It’s the difference between see what they did for me versus this is what we can do for you.  Who are you going to believe more – the first hand testimony or the unknown guy seeking your business?

Building your army of evangelists is not too hard.  Most of your current customers would be willing to refer your business if you just ask them to!  Ask them to refer you, but make it easy for them and give them an incentive to do it.

My kids take karate and we are up at the dojo 4 nights a week.  They love it and we like the results we are seeing in our kids.  Halloween is almost here, so right after class their sensei handed each child ten eye catching, glossy postcards with a spot for their name.  The postcard offered a free week of classes.  The children and parents were told they could hand out the cards to their friends or pass them out with Halloween candy.  Every card that was redeemed would earn that family a credit towards their karate fees.

My kids want to hand these cards out to all their friends and invite them to join.  I want to hand out as many as I can to help reduce the cost of karate.  We would have recommended them anyhow, but now that we have these postcards and an incentive we definitely will get the word out.  We are now evangelists for the dojo!

You can recruit your own army of evangelists no matter what business you are in.  There are only three things you must do to have your customers proclaim your name to the world.  Ask your customers to make a referral and make it easy for them to do.  Give them some business cards, postcards, stationary, example email, social media copy, coupons or whatever would help them make a referral with little effort.  Incentivize the request with a reward program such as discounted services, freebies, gift cards or whatever else would motivate them.  Don’t forget to track the referrals, send reminders and publicize the rewards given.

Now get to work on building your army today!

Virtual Real Estate

Real estate is essential to conducting business.  You either buy it or lease it, but you can’t conduct business without it.  Today there is another type of real estate you can’t live without and that is virtual real estate.

Virtual real estate is the presence of your business in the online world.  Your virtual real estate portfolio can consist of many things such as a website, directory listings, major search engine listings, a blog, facebook page or profile page.  Your virtual real estate portfolio is built by making small investments of time and money, but the return on these investments is great!

Unlike other real estate, your virtual real estate portfolio can be built with very little capital.  Your real estate in the virtual world could cost you as little as a few hundred dollars with minimal monthly maintenance fees.  That cost could be returned to you with as few as two new customers depending on your lifetime value per customer!  After that you have a steady positive return of cash coming into your business!  Can you say that about all your other marketing investments?

Getting started in virtual real estate is relatively easy, but you can waste time and money in the wrong investment.  Like other real estate investing you should hire a qualified advisor to guide you through the process.  Money spent with an advisor seems wasteful to the do it yourself type entrepreneur, but an experienced advisor will help you get returns on your investment much faster.

Are you ready to start building your virtual real estate portfolio?  Advisors are standing by here at Unfair Share Marketing.



I had to share this article with you that shows a restaurant business using text message coupons to bring customers in.  Read the article here.

Their messages are short & sweet and very clever:

Woman: Tell your hubby/boyfriend to take you out 2 Craigos tonight if he really loves you

Men: It’s only 2 for $10.99 tonight!  Time to man up to the buffet!

The response rates with text coupons are very high!  This restaurant claims to have an 18% response rate.  Not too shabby.  They use text coupons to fill their dining room on slow nights.

The article ends in an online poll asking people if they would like to receive coupons via text from their favorite store or restaurant.  22% said yes they would like to or already do.  74% said no, they don’t like advertising on their phones.

Interesting, but I think that they may be missing a very important point.  Getting coupons by text requires your permission.  Just like honest marketers use the opt-in to get your permission to email, text message coupons are only sent if you sign up.  These message are not sent over your phone like unwanted advertising.

I would love it if my favorite shop would employ text message coupons to invite me in for limited time deep discounts.  (maybe I should talk to the owner next time I am in!)

Text message marketing works well if you use best practices in the campaigns.  Always allow easy opt in and opt outs.  Give them substantial, limited time discounts you don’t give elsewhere – Make your text message coupon club exclusive!  Don’t send too many messages – two messages at the very most in one week.

Text message coupons are still very new to marketing, but catching on quickly.  There is still some hesitancy to adopting this new media, but once people get it they will embrace it.  Take care of your customer text list and don’t abuse it and your customers will return the favor in business.

Additional Articles:

Text messaging a big hit for bars??

RedBox uses text message service to help user find nearest location.

A juicy offer presented to a hungry consumer should get them to bite.  Good offers motivate a consumer to take action.  Are your offers yielding less than great results?  Maybe your offers are dull and not enticing.  Let’s look at what makes an offer enticing enough for a consumer to bite.

• An offer has to give an incentive to act now and be rewarded now.  The reward for taking action should be immediate upon the sale.  Buy one get one is an immediate reward for taking action.  Giving something away with every sale is an immediate reward.  Offering a nice discount off the purchase is an immediate reward.  A bad offer is giving them the reward on subsequent visits.  Save those for customer loyalty programs.

• A juicy offer gives a substantial discount to move the customer into action.  A cheap 10% off your $25 order is not good enough.  A better offer is $3 off a $10 order.  Buy one get one is good, but buy one get two is great.  You need to stop thinking like a business owner for a few minutes and think like a consumer.  Would this offer get me to buy?

• An effective offer creates a sense of urgency to act.  This is accomplished by either limiting the offer to the first X customers to respond or to place an expiration date.  You can limit your fantastic offer to the first 10 people who respond.  This will force the consumer into a quick decision to call or come into your business.  Another way to do this is by placing an expiration date on the offer.  An offer open for longer than 2-3 weeks doesn’t create a sense of urgency, so be careful to not leave your offer open to long.

To get consumers to bite on your offer you must make it enticing enough to make them take action.  Your offer should reward them immediately with a substantial discount, but only open for a limited time.  When you incorporate these three items into the offers you make, your response rate should increase and customers will be sprinting to your door!!

Hiring a marketing consultant is something every business should seriously consider given these tough economic times.  Now more than ever, your small to medium sized business needs to be at the top of it’s game to survive these lean times.

A marketing consultant will conduct an in-depth interview to gauge where your business is at, what your goals are and how they can help to improve your business.  Many times, someone outside of an organization can see things with a bit more objectivity and can make suggestions that have been used successfully in other businesses.

Marketing consultants can help you accomplish various goals:

• Increase the number of potential customer leads
• Improve how many leads turn into customers (conversions)
• Decrease your advertising budget while increasing business
• Improve the effectiveness of your advertising (response rate)
• Turn customers into repeat buyers who refer new business
• Raise the average revenue per customer
• Get fantastic exposure on the internet via major search engines

As a business owner, you don’t have time to research and learn all the various marketing and business practices then try to decide which ones to implement.  A professional will assess your business and your goals and recommend specific actions to take that will improve your business.

Hiring a marketing consultant could be one of the best investments your business makes today.  Most of the time, a consultant will more than pay for themselves when a business implements their suggestions.