Are you proving proof Coffee News success and do you compare Coffee News with the opposition?

The Hammering Salesman is successful because he compares his services with the oppositions services and he provides proof of that.

And his potential clients find it fascinating.

He is a shatter proof glass salesman.

This is how he became the most successful shutter proof glass salesman:

• He made an appointment with someone who would be interested in buying shatter proof glass.
• He took with him a hammer, a piece of glass from his opposition and a piece of glass from his company.
• At the meeting he would demonstrate; using the hammer to first shatter the opposition’s product and then try and shatter the glass that he propose.
• The glass from the opposition shattered in 1000′s of pieces…. flying all over, and hisglass broke in 1000′s of pieces but it stuck together. Proof that his glass is shutter proof.

The question I have for you:

Are you comparing Coffee News to your opposition?

Do you have an easy way to compare Coffee News to newspaper classifieds and to those booklets dropped at homes?

And do you have visible or believable or third party endorsed that Coffee News are better?

If not you are leaving money on the table.

Why not tell me what you do?

Just think how you can create a database using a company like http://www.smsmalls.co.za/ to educate your readers —not spam — on Coffee News or educational ideas from your Coffee News advertisers. (It’s important that you inform people that they may get educational news from Coffee News).

The other way is to get more subscribers to your online Coffee News magazine, for example the one used by Paarl/Wellington Coffee News. Winners of the competitions are people who are subscribers to the online mag. Now you can use your online mag/newsletter to add value to your Coffee News paper advertisers.

Here’s the great ideas from Trish.

I run a competition all the time, and I’m also currently running a separate competition for waiters.  The monthly comp has proven very successful in building loyal readership, and in getting an idea about reader response.  For the prize, I’ve found a number of advertisers have offered one, which gives them more exposure (eg the Persian Carpet lady offered a prize of two Persian table mats – hugely popular!!), or else I offer a meal voucher usually from the Coffee News outlet of the winner’s choice for R150 or R200 (which I usually stump up too), also hugely popular!  Last month we had 245 responses – all by sms to my phone, which I respond to!  Occasionally restaurants offer to sponsor a prize.

 

The waiters’ competition is to challenge them to hand out copies of Coffee News to their customers, and to ask the customers to sms their waiter’s name and restaurant name to me.  It hasn’t taken off in the way I had hoped – I need to do the rounds of the restaurants again to speak to managers and waiters again, but it is beginning to have an effect. Some of the waiters are excited about it. The prize it R100 cash – which I cough up, but if it gets more copies into readers’ hands, it’s worth it.

Thanks for the tips, Johan.

I received an email from a current advertiser in which she states that she has not received any response from her ad.  On the other hand, I have had people tell me how much they like her ad and what a great idea the business is (they run errands, etc).

I invited her to participate in a vendor expo,in which she seemed very excited about, but then didn’t return any calls or emails and didn’t do it.  I have invited her to a professional group that I belong to, but she hasn’t come and also invited her to join the Chamber, but again, she choose not to. She has stated that she sees this ad as a tax deduction and nothing more and at the end of her 6 months she wants out.

I replied saying that I am sorry to hear that she is disappointed and suggested (again) some ad changes, that she has agreed to try.  Is there anything else that I can do?  Any and all help is appreciated.

I don’t have a lot of sympathy with this kind of victim mentality. If your advertiser wants to stop advertising with you it means you have done a poor job of educating the advertiser, and you have  done a poor job of creating value…..even if it’s apparent value.

Your job as a Coffee News owner is not to sell advertising….it’s to create relations and to educate. You are an educator. Teach the people advertising. Teach the people marketing. Give them stuff. Give them a monthly marketing class for free. They will beg you to advertise.

Turn what you do around.

1. I have a realtor that has been with me for almost 5 yrs he says he will “ Never leave Coffee News.“  He plays a game with the papers as well… whenever his ad is below the fold he turns the papers over so his ad shows.  He’s known as the “Coffee News Realtor Guy “and he loves it. Rod Coffee News owner

2. We have a realtor in every edition, 3 of the 4 for multiple years. They all advertise a specific property each week, one includes a photo of the property with a brief description and contact info of the agent. The other just list a brief description of the property with her picture. None of them will give up their slot. I think it is also a bit more of a ‘farming’
   than a ‘hunting’ philosophy as well. The ad keeps their agency front and center with the readers for when they have a need and a specific property is intended for prospective buyers. This is a tough real estate market and it will only take 1 call to pay for a lot of advertising.
3. My realtor has been getting multiple calls each week since I talked her into adding the 2nd ad with the picture and description of a house. Hope this helps. Gene.

You need to collect testimonials from your advertisers. If they have something to say, let them say it on paper and keep it. You will find selling your ads becomes a lot easier when other advertisers do the talking for you.

By The Way: If you want to give your advertiser a bonus then teach him, for free, on how effective testimonials are. Search Google and find an ebook on testimonials or write your own  and share it as a gift.

Coffee News South Africa A Small Business Opportunity

How do ensure you have fun while making money with Coffee News? You need to break it down and do  the seemingly difficult stuff first:

1. You need to set a budget and a forecast. In other words you need to know how much you spend to get one advertisement and you need to decide how many advertisements you want every month. And at what rate you will grow your paying advertisers.
2. Keep graphs on the number of advertisers, the number of actual paying advertisers, the number of advertisers who renew, the number of 13, 26 and 52 week advertisers. 
3. Also keep a graph of the number of people reading your Coffee News and your blog newsletter. If you have not got a blog get one and integrate a newsletter like this one.
4. Let’s say you need about 10 ads to break-even. Then you have another 22 to make money with. In general you can have a net turnover of R19 000 after you have paid the printer and royalties.
5. If you have a system in place to ensure the money comes in then you don’t have to focus on collecting and begging for money. Get this system in place and ensure it’s automated.
6. Sell ads for long periods; 13 weeks, 26 weeks and 52 weeks. Never sell an ad for a month because the advertiser wants to check it out. If she wants to check it out you have not done a great selling job and the advertiser does not  have the guts to be in business.
7. Focus on advertisers who advertise already. There’s no sense in trying to convince the paint shop owner who is stuck in his hole. Don’t waste your time.
8. Go where the money is. People who advertise already have money and are sensible. That’s not all. When you walk into a business you will no if they are successful or not.
9. Decide who spends a lot of money on advertising. If you can find a guy who spends R2000 and more on advertising then go for them. Who are they? Real estate agents, motor car dealers, franchise businesses. Check out the businesses with fancy pick up trucks and delivery vans. 

Sit down every day and think what drives your business and drive the good stuff. And then measure.

As you may know I am putting a little ebook together on advertising. Here’s an introduction

Some time ago a fisherman had a problem. He had this fish cage in the water right where big and small fish were. He noticed that many large fish came to visit him, made use of his offer and then disappeared again. He also noticed that some of his large fish never came back. But he saw them at his friend’s cage. This was upsetting. After all the work he did giving fish what they want they had the audacity to leave him.

The fisherman made another starling discovery. There were many small fish reading the story that he left on the door of the cage. But they all stopped there. They read and disappeared. But as these small fish grew fatter his friend collected most of them.

He gathered all his courage and asked his friend why he was so successful? The friend said it’s pretty simple. But he was not sure if he wanted to share the secret. This secret has been part of his family for ages.

However he noticed how desperate his friend was and decided to help.

You already have your cage where the fish are but you have a problem. You are only attracting the few big fish who want what you have on offer today. Most of the fish coming past your gate and reading your story are not ready or don’t want what you have. They don’t want it when they read it. They do want it tomorrow but then they have moved on.

You have no bait for the small fish who want it later. You must add other bait that will attract them to you even if they don’t want to take your main offer.

Let me say that to take your main offer is a major commitment from the fish and they cannot or will not make that commitment yet. What I want you to do are to offer something they want today! But something that does not need any major commitment from them.

The other problem that you have is that when you do catch a large fish, and you exchange the offer, you let the fish go. This is a waste.

I want you to go and create two cultivation pools; one for the big fish that grab your offer, and another pool for small fish who are not yet ready to make the major commitment.

Then I want you to change your story on your cage door. Tell them about your major offer but also share information about your cultivation pool. Tell the fish that you will feed them tips and secrets on how to survive. You will share “For Free” when they become part of your cultivation pool. The cultivation pool is their place where they can grow huge with knowledge. And only when they are ready can they take you up on your offer or they can leave. There’s no obligation.

But you may say that I am stupid telling them there’s no obligation. This is a long story and I will suffice to say that I am getting more fish in my cultivation pool because of my “no obligation” statement. I think it helps fish coming into my pool because they feel at ease.

But that’s not all. You must also offer a cultivation pool for the large fish who took your offer. This will keep them happy until they are ready to take another offer.

It is that simple.

If it’s that simple why are more fisherman not using the cultivation pool?

Not so long ago a friend was burgled. A few minutes after I learned about the incident I was on the phone and I asked if I could assist. My friend said that he would appreciate it if I could research home security systems and advise him.

I knew a local provider, even the name of the business, but not the phone number. That was unfortunate because I have done business with Hawk Eye Security. I have met the owner at various events. And his technicians did some work at my home; they are pleasant and professional.

Hawk Eye advertised in every possible off-line publication. They were involved in, and sponsored, many local events. Peter, the owner is well known and liked in the community. He grew up here.

I, therefore, felt that Hawk Eye Security was a trust-worthy business I could recommend with confidence. Unfortunately I did know Peter’s or Hawk phone number. And I went searching on Google. I entered “Hawk Eye Security.” Nothing. Hawk Eye Security did not exists, at least not according to Google. The alternative was the Yellow Pages but we treat this 5 kilogram book as a dangerous implement. The Yellow Pages is not easily accessible.

Google provides easy alternatives. I phoned another security company and spoke to a pleasant man. He was in the business for 6 six years. It was obvious that he knew his story because he fed me with advice. And the more advice he gave me the more I liked him. At the end I asked him to call my friend in need. He said he will.

But what about Peter and Hawk Eye?

Eventually I found his number via Google. He was listed on an obscure classified ads site.

I phoned Peter but he was not available. I told my story to the staff and ask them for advice. They said Peter was the only one able to help me. I asked if they have a brochure that they could email or fax to me. Nothing. I asked for Peter’s cell phone number.

The assistant hesitated and eventually told me she could not share Peter’s cell number. The next thing I was transferred. Another assistant told me that Peter is not in. I explained again that I wanted info. He could not help me. Reluctantly he gave me Peter’s cell number. I left a message and Peter phoned me back later the afternoon.

This is what this book is all about. Peter spends mind blowing amounts on advertising and sponsorships but he is wasting most of it.

What can we learn from this?

1. Advertising is more than placing an advert.
2. Your staff needs to be educated.
3. Staff is not incompetent the boss is
4. Your staff needs tools to communicate and sell when you not there
5. The boss is not the only seller
6. You must be visible online
7. You need to ensure your advert is not designed to sell
8. Your advert needs to cater for people who want info
9. When people ask for info you need to collect names and email addresses
10. You need an automated system to follow up with these people until they spend money with you
11. When they have paid you for services or products proved, you need to keep them well fed with info and tips until they spend again

I call this process the Creation Of A Cultivation Pool. And as I said, I will include the final mind map with the ideas on how to set the record straight.

Please share this with your friends on lets get the mind mapping the problem experienced by small businesses.

You cannot really say if newspaper or any advertising is working or not until you start using some simple ideas to make it effective:

1. Start measuring your conversion rates. Like how many people respond to your ad, how many people just ask for info (do you have electronic info and a newsletter available for them?), how many pay you after reading your ad?
2. Publish two ads at anyone time and measure the conversion rates for each ad. Keep the best and change the the other until it becomes the best. Therefore always have a control to measure your new ad.
3. Calculate the average profit per customer for the time a customers continue to spend money with you. When you have this info you will know how much can spend on advertising given a conversion rate. Therefore if you spend $80 bucks to get one client and the average client profit is $300 bucks then you should continue with the ad.
4. Use the same ad in two different publications and measure the conversion rates for the two publications. Over time stop the ad in the worst performing publication and find another publication to compare against your control-publication.  

Image by Sailing "Footprints: Real to Reel" (Ronn ashore) via Flickr

Today I read this request, from a small business person, on cold calling. And I thought that you may be able to help.

I was wondering if some of you could help me out. When you have to go out cold calling what do you say to get the best results? I guess what are some of your lines? I have trouble sometimes not getting to make contact with a decision maker and only hand off information to a receptionist behind the desk. I am not sure if the focus should be on going in to get an appt with a specific decision maker on advertising or if you just go in and try to start selling them on coffee news. Just need some help with boosting sales.

I had a look at the request and though I may be able to help with the last part of the request, therefore I did not address the issue of getting past the gatekeeper.

Here’s my proposal on how to handle the cold call when you got trough to the main Mac:

Cold calling is like asking for the kiss on the first date.

There’s nothing wrong with asking for a kiss on your first date as long as you can handle the smacks you’ll get.

Mostly these smacks are 90 people saying no and 10 saying yes.

It become pretty painful at the end of the day as you feel personally injured because of all the nos.

But you know that.

My point is that when we expect the sale or appointment (the kiss) when we cold call (ask for the kiss) we miss the point.

By the way: Most Coffee News ads also expect the kiss on the first date and we will have to change our approach to ensure more success for our advertisers. But that’s another related story.

Getting back to your question:

What should you say when you cold call?

Here’s what I do:
————————————————————————————————————————————
Say you call and the potential advertisers answers you then start
"Hi Jane here I am from Coffee News.
I am sorry…. did I interrupt you?…………….(give it some time)
I am calling because I want to share a FREE small business marketing book with you called "Learn Why Jean Daum’s 17 Marketing Secrets Rocked The Small Business World"

Would that interest you?
————————————————————————————————————————————-

This approach means that you are not selling anything

You are pre-selling…..

You are giving and the floor is open for easy discussion

You can now ask for the contact details to send the free ebook

(You can have an ebook or a hard copy)

Then you should try and get an appointment

If you don’t get the appointment you have the email address and hope the free ebook will do the selling for you.

If you have an appointment see that as the bonus.

This is what I do:

1) Set up a blog with free tips

2) Make my cold call and offer the free book

3) Get the email address, name and phone number

4) See if I can get an appointment

5) Add the email address to the blog/newsletter

6) As soon as the email is added to the blog newsletter an autoresponder dispatch ebook

7) Once a week I publish more tips on my blog that gets emailed to all my subscribers

8) Now I can cultivate them and after some time of cultivating they will give me the kiss because they now no and trust me.

You’ll notice that the process is not focused on selling but on designing a system to create trusting relationships.

I have written many articles on the subject but this one may be the most relevant as it covers cold calling.

I am at this moment creating such an ebook for the South African small business people like the Coffee News Marketing agencies. If you want a copy subscribe to our free tips newsletter (see top right for the subscription box).

Regards

Johan Horak