#1 – Increase The Number of Clients

This is probably a big “Well DUH..” moment, I am sure you knew this already.  In fact it is the way most businesses approach growth from day one. Get clients and keep getting more until you can’t handle it any more.

Unfortunately this is the least efficient and most expensive form of growth. Sales meetings, advertising, cold calling, flyers, television ads and on and on. Acquiring a new client can be expensive and time consuming. But it is an easy concept to understand since it is how every business starts…. with the very first one.

# 2 – Increase The Size of The Transaction

This is your fast-path to more revenue and exponentially more profits. And this isn’t always about raising your prices (although its a good idea). The famous saying “would you like fires with that?” immediately comes to mind.

I recently consulted with a local service business where we focused 70% of our effort on this topic alone. Even though they wanted to talk about the #1 way… we found immediate profits by adjusting our focus on method #2.

How?

The simple answer is we offered the service equivalent of “fries” and “super-sized cokes” while we had the customer in our drive-through.  Simply put, we offered more stuff to buy at the point of sale. The result was an estimated 17% increase in revenue and no increase in expenses. Think about that. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could take last years earnings and slap 17% on top with no increase in costs?

#3 – Increase The Frequency of The Transaction

If your selling pizza I bet you would like to see the customer return to buy more, more often. This is where followup offers, membership fees and loyalty programs can really kick things into high-gear. If your running a car wash service or hair salon two visits a month vs. one can really kick up the revenue quickly.

My favorite trick with loyalty programs is to craft them as a privilege and incorporate them with tactic #2 (think gold cards and platinum members).  For example, when a customer purchases a car wash you ask them if they would like to take the premium option. If they say yes, you then tell them that anyone who purchases the platinum car wash club card gets a 6 premium washes for the price of a standard wash. How does that work? Well you get them to pre-pay for the 6 premium washes at the standard price. And they get the first one today.

Some business owners might argue, thinking that they actually lost money. I would argue that they gained more guaranteed transactions and working capital. Anyway, you get the idea.

If yo have run any campaigns like this, I would love to hear your feedback. There hundreds of ways to use these concepts. The bottom line questions is …

Are you using them and if not when can you start?

Well not really a secret….

But very few people know about Sendpepper [1] which is the little brother to Office Autopilot. Sendpepper allows fledgling business owners to work their way up to the more expensive big brother.
Now it is important to note that it does not have all the features of Office Autopilot but it does provide you will a real opportunity to build out all your autoresponders. And…

It still lets you send postcards (weeee)!

Using postcards in combination with email is a really unique way to design a followup campaign. All with a few clicks of your mouse too since the postcard design tool is built into the system.

I know… that image is not the best postcard example, but you get the idea. Anyway, this is a fantastic alternative to the full application because it allows you to grow. You can always upgrade later but if…

…you need shopping cart features you will need Office Autopilot. This try and buy growth option is something you wont find with similar CRMs like Infusionsoft. Having said that, each of them have strengths and weaknesses (yea I have both).

Did I mention tagging?

If your looking for powerful features like tagging (for list segmenting) and have a smaller budget then look no further. That is another great feature of the baby brother version. Tags allow you to “tag” a person in your database every time they take some sort of action, like click on a link. This is powerful stuff that allows you to perform advanced email marketing tricks typically found in the BIG CRMs.

Why Sendpepper vs. Other Autoresponders?

- If you need tagging
- If you really need the postcard feature
- If you Want to capable of converting to full CRM later
- If you have a limited budget and a larger vision!

So there are a number of reasons you should consider the it but what about the reasons to avoid it?

What is not so great?

- User interface (my opinion)
- The way you sort lists or tags (kinda clunky)
- Post card costs (a little high)
- Administrative functions (settings spread in different areas)

Overall conclusion

A fantastic stater platform with room to grow. Powerful tagging and followup with post cards and email that you just wont find anywhere else for the price. A feature rich platform with an entry level price point that any new business can tolerate.

What do you think? Have you ever used Office Autopilot or its’ little brother?

FOX NEWS IMAGE

Just last week there was a MAJOR blackout in Southern California and I was smack dab in the middle of it.

A Blackout Doesn’t Seem Like a Big Deal….  Initially.

Your thinking oh, just a minor thing, they will have power back in a couple hours or something.

I was on may way to get my eldest daughter from school and none of the street lights are working in multiple areas. Pretty much everywhere we go… no street lights.  (Never mind the terrible traffic… that was a sight to see.)

While driving I noticed people started lining up outside convenience stores… long long lines.

All the gas stations have yellow tape around everything and they are waving people off. Essentially chasing them away.

So I think to myself… “Ok, maybe something important is happening here”.

Flipping on the car stereo I hear some troubling news….

” The two major power lines feeding southern California, Yuma Arizona and Baja Mexico are down and there is no specific news about how, why or when they will be restored….”

Keep in mind this is the Friday before the 10 year anniversary of Sept. 11th …. “freaking perfect!” Just when I decide to make a move to cooler weather, the “bad guys” figure out where California is.

That isn’t the biggest problem actually….

In an “every man for himself” scenario, which was unfolding in front of my eyes, I can hold my own. I am confident as a well trained ex-military guy that I can handle most situations.

But not with two little girls to protect, feed and care for.

It was me and my two little girls, totally unprepared and alone (extended family is in Arizona).  Bottom line…

I am unprepared for this event.

I immediately think of the events in Japan and New Orleans. They had it WAAYY worse but just like other catastrophes… no power means… no food, no gas and the potential for riots and looting. Granted none of this actually happened but in my head I was playing out different scenarios:

1. I could drive to some place more hospitable. Problem, no gas and really bad traffic.
2. I could just buy a bunch of food and water. Problem, most stores are closed, open ones are only taking cash and I have $10 in my pocket.
3. Ummm…. hope the power comes back on.

I have absolutely NO CONTROL over #3 and that is not a good feeling. And here is another thing I started to think about, there are other people in the #3 scenario. And some of them might do desperate things to survive. I am thinking to myself….

I REALLY Need to Be Better Prepared!

I mean, the people in New Orleans and Japan probably had more time to better prepared. Or maybe not. Maybe they just figured bad stuff just happens to everyone else and ignored the warning signs.

This whole incident reminded me of  Tim Ferris, in his book he talks about taking a leap, leaving your job or whatever BEFORE something bad happens. Essentially being prepared. I can’t tell you how many people think they are going to quickly jump into internet marketing and replace their lost job income, only to be disappointed later.

Despite this flawed planning, there are some important lessons and useful suggestions in the book. Suggestions that are best used prior to an actual catastrophe.

Have You Read Tim’s Book?

In his book, The Four Hour Work Week, he uses the example of having a health problem like a heart attack or some other catastrophe.

Ultimately I used his pretend scenario to think through my day job situation prior to make the leap into full-time entrepreneurship.

I had some real motivation too.

In a previous job, working for a major corporation, I thought I was safe, secure and untouchable. Working for a large corporation is actually not safe at all. They make decisions based upon numbers and stockholders, not long term logic. After almost five years of work I was part of a large unannounced lay-off.

So when I was reading this part of his book I was feeling the reality of the potential situation (without the illness part).

Here Is Another Cruel Example …

My father-in-law, after 25+ years working for a large drug company was given notice. He could either relocate to a new state 1,000 miles away from his home or take a severance package.

Behind the scenes I am sure the corporation was looking for a way to “flush” all the highly paid senior staff and replace them with “fresh blood”. In other words, young, hungry and lower paid workers but that is only an assumption.

My father-in-law later discovered, from some work friends, the drug company closed the new location all together a few years after. Leaving those who moved to this far off place…. high and dry. The problem, in general, is that…

You Never Know.

I know, I am wondering a little here but there is a connection between these events and stories. The bottom line is that you need to be aware risks and do more to reduce all threats to your livelihood and family.

The government can’t save you from floods and earthquakes. And your employer isn’t going to go the extra mile to make sure your employed….

Because The World is Changing.

You need to look out for yourself, stay educated, motivated and maintain an edge. Some take this concept to the extreme maybe to a level or crippling paranoia. That is not what I am advocating here… I prefer to manage risk but also take some risks too. Calculated risks.

If our still sitting on the sidelines, stop. Do not become complacent or assume that your J.O.B. is not at risk, it is. The world is different. You need a plan B and maybe an emergency survival kit (also referred to as a 72 hour kit).

This Free Resource Might Help…

If you have certain income goals, the only way to achieve them is have a plan. Consider it your pay-cut or layoff survival kit.  I created a income calculator as part of my Internet Street Fighter Program. Here is a simplified variation I call the Offline Cash Calculator.

Of course it assumes that you are interested in pursuing the offline niche as an income source and that you have excel. It is fairly self explanatory, you have three columns and each represents a financial target based upon what you charge and how many clients you get. This will allow you to determine what you need offer and how many clients it will take to hit your cash flow targets.

If you have questions or comments please leave one below.

P.S. – If you are interested in discussing this in-person I suggest you consider joining me at the Offline Underground event in Las Vegas in October. I will be covering pricing strategies and “client getting”. But you don’t need to rush to signup if your busy or far away, probably wont work out for you… as we are nearing capacity and raising the price anyway.

Source: Aweber.com

Discovered this by accident about 6 months ago. I am subscribed to my own lists, so when I send emails I always get a copy. But suddenly I had a problem…

My Email Broadcasts Were All Marked As Spam.

And I wasn’t sure why at first. But then as I looked through my spam folder I noticed that other emails, from marketing compnaies I wanted to hear from, were also marked as spam. That made we wonder….

What Were The Similar Elements That Could Cause This?

In this case it was a bit.ly link. So I tried sending a test email to myself with and without the bit.ly link and noticed that without the url shortener, it worked fine. This created a bit of a problem for me, I didn’t want to send long URLs but it seemed obvious that this was a potential problem for any type of free url shortening service. But after talking to a few friends…

I found a solid solution.

There is a free wordpress plugin, you may have heard of, called Pretty Link. It is really simple and fast to setup.

Download the Free Version of >> Pretty Link <<

Ok, once you have this installed, you basically have your own URl shortener. If you want to make it SUPER short then go buy a cheap domain like “url22.info” or some other creative domain, install wordpress and the prettylink program. Personally, I just tend to…

Install It On All My Blogs.

Which allows me to track and shorten content for each related blog topic. I happen to have the pro version with an unlimited sites installation license. Why? well one of my favorite features of the pro version is the ability to automatically find and replace keywords with pretty links. For example, on this post…

You Probably Noticed That “Pretty Link” Is Well…. a Link!

That is one of the cool features of the pro version. There are some other ones like Auto-Tweet and Shorten of all blog posts. If you look at my Twitter account, every time I post to my blog it also sends out a tweet with a shorter url. That is a really cool feature!

Click to Enlarge

Ok, I know… someone reading this is going to get their panties in a bunch cause I am going on and on about this tool. So… in all fairness lets mention one other shortening service.

Alternatively, Goo.gl Is A Good Choice For Shortening…

Except that Goo.gl can see WHAT your shortening and WHERE it is going. I am guessing they will use that information to find out “What your up to”. If your paranoid that might not be what you want. A fair number of marketers don’t trust Goo.gl 100%.

But If Your Not Paranoid…

Then Goo.gl is a great choice. You will notice that in the list of “Blocked Shorteners”, as provided by Aweber, that Goo.gl is whitelisted. I am guessing that it will remain a safe choice and remain whitelisted but this most likely means that they will start screening links.

And They Will HAVE To Screen Them..

Otherwise Goo.gl could end up being blacklisted by other email services. Of course bing / microsoft might do that just out of spite. Ha! Anyway I hope you found this information useful. Please leave a comment! And let me know…

What is Your Shortener Of Choice?

P.S. – As Usual, Best Comment Gets A Street Fighter T-Shirt!

P.P.S. – More About Pay-Per-Click for Local Marketing Next Week

P.P.P.S. – If you want to read more about this from my inspired source, go check out the Aweber blog post here

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a169mb