Direct Advertisers - sales advice and tips for bloggers. Make money by the #2 best method of monetizing your blog/site.
I’m debating in my head whether I should write the common sense pre-meeting stuff like: first impression counts big time; therefore, dress appropriately (no, you don’t have to be in a suit and tie, khaki pants and blue shirt since you mentioned to the person you are meeting that you are a blogger, which obviously means you’re not a banker in suspenders, but you should still look respectable, clean, spiked hair but looking like they were just done today and not last month, etc); be ready for the meeting which means read the next series of post and that will get you ready for the best meeting you will ever have. OK, that’s all I’ll say about common sense 
You got an appointment to see the guy for ten minutes - with your watch down. Great. The moment you hang up the phone your brain is probably pumping huge amounts of dopamine and serotonin levels and you feel euphoric.That’s what it’s all about; Getting the meeting. It’s not exactly a sale but at least this euphoric blitz will keep the brain fooled into thinking that you actually like this whole calling thing and you’ll dial another number. That’s what you really want because bringing sales down to the lowest denominator it is “a numbers game”. The more people you call, the more meetings you will get, the more sales you make, the more money you make. Someone once told me a story about Walt Disney.
“Walt Disney came up with this crazy idea that he wants to build a theme park for kids and families. He had a vision that it will be huge and people will come visit the park and spend lots of money year round forever. He took the idea to his banker to get this financed and the banker looked at him and told him he’s crazy and should see a shrink. Walt did not stop there, he went to another banker and was told the same thing. And another. And another. He went to 301 banks. And if he stopped at that there would be no Disneyland today because it was the three hundred and second banker who gave him the money.”
Remember, you are not the only one calling on these people. The guy you just called gets at least ten calls a day from sales reps. Most likely not bloggers but still that’s a significant time he’s got to spend on the phone each day fending off people who want his money. Selling is a game of trust - I said that before already and all sales coaches will tell you that at the very beginning of their session.
You closed the meeting because you have laid a brick of trust at the very beginning of the phone conversation. Now you have to keep adding to that ‘trust’ wall by adding more bricks. That’s why it’s called relationship building. So, here’s the next brick.
After you finish your warm calling, right before you pack up for the day, write a Thank You card to the people who agreed to meet with you. MAKE SURE YOU HAND WRITE IT - do you remember what that is blogger?
Handwriting is very powerful, especially today when there’s so little of it. It means you care. It means you pay attention to detail. It means you take that extra step. It means “Trust me”.
You can customize your card on the computer with your picture or your blog’s favicon or your logo. I have my cards with my picture on it. (Hint: take a look at real estate agents’ ads in the yellow pages. Or mortgage brokers. or insurance brokers. What do they have in common? They all have their face in the ad. Why? Trust)
Trust me, it works.
The First Approach method has very simple rules: ask permission and ask for 10 minutes; nothing less and nothing more. If someone asks you to tell them something over the phone reply:
“John, it would not be fair for me to do so, I would ruin my integrity because I specifically asked for only sixty seconds of your time because I know your time is valuable, I don’t want to take up more. That’s why I only want to secure ten minutes of your time in person and you will get all the information you need to make an informed decision. If you decide after ten minutes that you don’t see a fit, I will never bother you again; and it will only cost you a total of eleven minutes. Ten minutes is all I’m asking for. If you are busy this week let’s pencil a time in next week.”
The power of the sixty seconds permission question at the beginning of the conversation is amazing because it gives you so much credibility which you can use to climb over all objections. The reason why that is is because objects are simply trust building mechanisms and if you can proof to be trustworthy every time, you’re in.
Now go and make those phone calls.
Very often people will tell you on the phone to send them something through the mail. And 99.99% of the time when you call again you will find out that they don’t remember seeing anything come in through the mail. Remember Rule #4: your mission is to get 10 minutes of face-to-face.
Answer in the following manner: ” John, I don’t mind sending you information through the mail but I know from personal experience when I get something sent to me I most often give it a few seconds and toss it into the garbage. It’s a waste of time. If you grant me permission to meet with you for only 10 minutes, I will tell you all the information that you need and if you don’t think there is a business opportunity I will never call you again and waste your time. 10 minutes is all I am asking for.” STOP…DON’T SAY ANYTHING…ENJOY THE SILENCE. > There is a ‘yes’ on the other end of the line, you just have to really want it.
There are more objections, so stick around…
Remember Rule #3? Ask for 60 seconds of a person’s time? That ’sixty seconds’ question is the trust building question which is the foundation of your entire conversation. When the person on the phone gives you any objection which tells you they don’t want to meet with you tell them: “[name], I understand that you probably get tens of these types of calls daily and your time is valuable. I also value my time. I would not call if I did not think that I can offer you something of value. When I say ten minutes, I mean TEN minutes, not twenty or forty like others do. I even put my watch down to make sure that I stop exactly at ten minutes and will setup a followup meeting if you think there is a possibility of doing business. Again, all I am asking for is ten minutes.” STOP. SAY NOTHING MORE no matter how long the pause is.
Why should he not give you ten minutes?
If the objection continues to be that of time, “offer to come-in very early in the morning, 8am for example. and tell him that you will bring coffee.” That usually does the trick.
Time is not the only objection. There can be others. I will go over them in detail in the next post. You must understand, the rule is that it can take 5-9 closes before you get a definite reply. But at least then you know for sure.
You got the name, you picked up the phone, you called the direct number at 7:45am, you got the guy who owns the organic/herbal store around the corner from your house - you’re ready to make a sale… nice, big money, every month.
Whatever. Remember what I said before… selling is building trust and a relationship. Start with the following Rule - Rule#3: 60seconds… ask for SIXTY seconds of their time but…
Here’s what you do when you get the owner of your local business on the phone:
You have the name and the number of the CEO. What do you do next? Call. But don’t call at lunch time. Don’t call at 9am. Don’t call at 3pm. These guys are busy. They’ve got stuff to do. Yes, they are waiting for your call because you will offer them something that they cannot refuse but still, your call needs to come in at the right time. So what’s the right time?
Rule#2 - Always call the top executives between 7:30am and 8:30am or 5:30pm and 6:30pm
Bloggers live high-life. They get to wake up whenever they want to and go to sleep whenever they want to. But these corprorate/busienss types especially at the very top, they’re trained and disciplined to come in early and leave late. There are a few reasons why calling before work hours and after work hours will get them on the phone:
Early:
Late:
Rule #2.1 Always call with a clear purpose. And the purpose of a warm call is to schedule a 10 minute face-to-face meeting.
Rule #2.2 Always use *67 when making the call
Rule #2.3 Never, ever, ever, leave VOICE MAIL
When was the last time you called back someone other than your friend or family member who left you a voice mail? That’s right. They won’t call you back either. There are sales coaches who say VM is a selling opportunity… well, don’t listen to that advice. It is not.
Did you ever hear yourself or others on a voice mail recording? First of all VMs are not your studio quality recorders so your voice sounds distorted. Second, most people have, through time, adopted a voice mail/telephone personality which is different from your regular self. And thirdly, rule #2.1 states that you are calling with a clear purpose to schedule a meeting, how are you planning to do that with a voice mail? Are you just going to say that you will be coming to their office on Tuesday morning at 9:30 so be pen-me-in into the calendar. I don’t think so. Don’t leave a voice mail. Call until you get through. I once called a guy everyday for two months straight. But when he picked up the phone I made sure that I got a 10 minute meeting with him and I’ll tell you how in the next post.
Every relationship had to start with a first approach at some point in time. The right first approach is crucial to a good start of a relationship. In sales this first approach often takes the form of a cold call. [Wikipedia entry: Cold calling is the process of approaching prospective customers or clients, typically via telephone, who were not expecting such an interaction. The word "cold" is used because the person receiving the call is not expecting a call or has not specifically asked to be contacted by a sales person.] Cold calling is probably the toughest aspect of selling and the biggest deterrent for most people. Read on and I’ll teach you how to turn every call into a warm call, meaning the person you talk to will want to talk to you.
A few days ago I read/listened to Yaro Starak’s Blog Profit’s Blueprint. In the last part of his e-book he talks about the monetization of your blog - making money. Yaro claims that Recursive Affiliate Income is the holy grail of blog monetization and I will not argue with him on this. It is the most simple and effective way to monetize, however, with the number of bloggers constantly on the rise I am sure that the basic economic rule of supply demand has an affect on the commision one makes from these programs. He gives an example of 50% but I doubt any one is willing to part with 50% of their revenue. But again, it is a very simple process and it is recurring, therefore, I will not argue that it could be considered number one method by bloggers.
The number two spot on Yaro’s top monetization list is Direct Advertisers. For me personally, this takes the number one spot for a few reasons:
The reason why Yaro did not make this the number one spot is because you create labor for yourself having to attract sponsors. That is true. There is labor involved. But if you work smart, you won’t have to work hard. I mentioned in an earlier post that there is a change happening at the local community level where businesses are beginning to turn away from traditional yellowpages advertising to online advertising. I will teach the average blogger, who has very little direct-sales experience how to sell.
You don’t want to miss my next series of posts. What I will provide in my posts are knowledge and experience I have gained through: working with and being mentored by the best sales people in the printing industry (one of the toughest sales), attending the best sales courses, and knocking on peoples doors and cold calling for ten years.
Let me give you and example of one of my mentors: started selling at the age of 20 back in mid sixties. He was making $30000 to $50000 a week by selling business forms. If a buyer made excuses to not see him because of lack of time, he would sit in front of the receptionist for an entire day, sometimes for days waiting to get an opportunity when the buyer would show that he has time to meet. I learned a lot from this man. A lot.
Another one, not my direct mentor because he was in his prime when I was just a junior, was a hunter. In his office the main poster on the wall was Scarface. He did not care whom he will walk over as long as it gets him the money. To his customers he was an angel, to his support staff he was nice as long as they produced results, if he could not get what his clients wanted all hell broke lose. I observed him a lot when I was a junior and later on filtered out the stuff that I thought worked well from those which conflicted with my morals. He alone managed over 5 million dollars of revenue.
These are just two examples. I have many more of great salesman with whom I worked and from whom I learned the skills.
A seminar like this would cost thousands. I am going to go step-by-step to reveal how to sell directly to a customer. Everyone will benefit from this seminar:
My suggestion to you is that you RSS to this blog because if you are serious about any of the above points then you want to know this stuff.
I would like to share with everyone trying to make money online through their blog or web site an observation which I made through my two years of publishing a successful local community ethnic newspaper. What follows next is a quick facts about the newspaper and my observation of the changing perception of small shop owners and advertisers. At the end you will increase traffic to your website, you will generate more income from ads that you sell yourself, you will get great publicity and exposure in your community, you will feel great about yourself and you may even lose a few pounds.
Facts about my newspaper:
The way I started was simple. I got up. I dressed. I ate breakfast and I hit the street. Walked into every local business, introduced myself and the newspaper (for the first issue I had a colour inkjet printout of the front cover). And I asked for their business. [Keep in mind that I am a professional salesman and sales coach which means that it may be a tiny bit easier for me to do this, simply because I have been doing it every day for the past ten years. But continue reading, I can make a salesperson out of every person, if they want to.]
Local businesses (small shops) don’t do Internet in 2007 and have crazy thoughts of its demise
Remember I started publishing the newspaper in early 2007. Selling newspaper advertising wasn’t a piece of cake but it wasn’t hard at all. Local store owners either advertised in newspapers, on the radio, through flyers distributed to mailboxes or Yellow Pages. No one once mentioned the word Internet. Actually, one lady in an upscale clothing store told me that the internet lost its flare and slowly will become just something that you use once in a while (she bought 4 months worth of colour quarter page ad space after 30 minutes of talking).
In mid-2008 I began noticing a change. Store owners started asking me about online advertising. The most common statement was “I want to appear on Google when people search for the products/service that I offer.” Some of my customers, when I came to renew their contract were objecting and when pushed to the wall they admitted to having paid over $1500 to Yellow Pages to have their ad appear at the top of their online listings pages (did not read the fine print that their ad will appear at the top of the listing on a rotating basis depending on the number of people who purchase that same spot). Others were telling me stories how their friends and friends of friends are getting great results from online advertising on Google. None had any clue how it worked and how much you had to pay.
This trend does not appear to be just a fad. I think there are a few reasons why this is happening:
1) Current economic conditions – monkey see, monkey do… businesses look at others cutting down their spending and they follow, soon everyone is following and saving. But businesses know they cannot survive without advertising, so they again look at others and they hear that the Internet offers great opportunities to advertise at low costs with targeted ads… only pay when your customers click, very small initial investment.
2) Google snowball – the snowball (or maybe balloon) has picked up momentum, as per my observation, and the ball is growing bigger and bigger sticking everyone to itself and growing. [The Internet is a funny thing... I remember in the nineties the scary word in the printing industry was “paperless”. But all stats were pointing in quite the opposite direction. One of the largest paper consumers for printing was Microsoft. Then in early 2000 things began to change. Paper mills are shutting down. Newspapers are going under. Companies print their business documents internally only when they need them and only as many copies as they need. The same thing is beginning to happen with advertising. I think Yellow Pages’ days as a paper directory are numbered.]
Early bird call – “Gold Rush”
Based on my personal observations, when selling advertising for my newspaper to local community business owners seeing them not care about online advertising one year and the next starting to talk about it, ask questions and blindly pay for it, out of habit, to the business directory guys, I think it is obvious that there is a new wave of advertisers waiting to be captured right around the corner of every blogger’s home. You just have to have courage and a few skills to make some money for yourself.
In my next post I will tell you how to contact your local businesses, speak with the owners and get appointments to see them in person without any possibility of rejection. It’s a great feeling when you accomplish that. I guarantee, you will be jumping up and down like a kid.
In the last post I said that I will clarify what I mean by Online Marketing. So, here’s my definition. I’ll define Online marketing by breaking the two words and explaining them individually:
Online – by means of digital communication/interaction
Marketing – persuading someone to take an action
In plain, grammatically correct English my definition for Online Marketing, therefore, is:
“Persuading someone to take an action by means of digital communication/interaction.”
I will elaborate more on the two terms to give a clearer picture of what this blog will be about:
1) Digital Communication/Interaction
(everything digital that someone has to look at) for example:
2) Persuading someone to take an action
Let me explain this one with a simple example in a progressive point form:
1) My two year old son says: “Daddy I want drink”.
1) I don’t react.
2) My son repeats again: “Daddy I want drink”.
2) I reply: “OK” but continue to do what I was doing.
3) My son repeats again: “I want drink”
3) I reply: “I’m going” but don’t move
4) My son starts to cry “I want drink”
4) I get up and start moving towards the kitchen
5) My son’s crying does not stop but intensifies
5) I make sure that I encounter no disruptions on my way to the kitchen
6) The cry turns into an ear popping screech “Driiiiink”
6) I scramble to find the sippie cup
7) Screeching does not retreat and on top of that I hear mother’s voice “Give him a drink”
7) I pour the juice into the cup and give it the kid
#8) Looks at me with an expression that is hard to decipher but puts the cut into his mouth, relaxes and smiles.
This illustration demonstrates three things about persuading someone to take action:
1) you need a clear goal;
2) it takes effort (I’ll explain this point in another point but note in your memory the last number associated with me giving my son the cut, it’s actually quite important);
3) Anyone can do it because by nature we have been equipped to persuade from the moment we are born in order to survive.
This ends my introduction into this blog.
Everything from now on is going to be fun and informative and leading to my goal: SUCCESS.
My background is in print and “traditional” marketing and my career path within these fields has been SALES - traditional door-knocking, cold-calling, rejection after rejection after rejection selling. It all began here: one year after entering university Netscape came out with their web browser; for two years before that the internet was text only, available to higher education institutions and WWW did not exist. My studies focused on traditional print and media marketing. No one yet knew what the future of the internet holds and so the only subject that was added on was web site creation using Adobe Page Mill.
Today, I am at the point where, I think, typesetters must have beet at a few years after Apple introduced the first Mac in mid eighties – either join and move forward into the future or cling on to the old and die. After working hard for the past ten years, with great success, selling print to mid and large organizations, specializing in traditional direct marketing, publishing and editing a newspaper and selling advertising to fill the pages and pay the bills, all the while observing with great interest the evolution of online marketing and opportunities it brings, I’ve decided it is finally time that I choose the former and boldly head into the future. Sure I still have my print business running - my customers not only depend on but crave the “best” service in town that my company provides. Yes, I will still run a traditional newspaper… because I love it and because there are still millions and millions of 45+ people for whom the idea of sitting in front of a computer screen to read pages of information is nonsense. I also have a long-time theory, which Malcolm Gladwell also mentioned in one of his books, that direct marketing in the form of door-knocking sales people will come back with a great force and will generate great fortunes for some who will be able to take advantage of the solitary generation of ipoders who are only used to Facebook type social interaction and will say ‘yes’ to anyone who appears as a live person in front of them; I am ready for it.
However, now I want to be where the action is - ONLINE. How will I get there? A tried method: if you want to truly learn something do it with the idea of teaching others. I am a mevin by nature so I want to share information with others naturally; imitate the best but add my own spin on it; ‘kaizen’.
This blog is going to be:
Some, probably those people comparable to the typesetters who chose to stick with lead typesetting machines, will say that I am at a disadvantage because there are big fish in the pond but I consider myself having a great advantage: I have great knowledge and experience of the old ways of selling and marketing which I know I can apply to the new because no matter what the new is it always holds the old in itself; the pond is really an ocean or better yet it is a universe that is constantly expanding (hence also the reference to Sisyphean in the name see the first post); many big fish get comfortable with their ways and either don’t evolve or they do it at a much slower pace - there are always opportunities to jump in and steal the thunder.
I plan to dig deep and research the topic of online marketing not only as if it was my PhD thesis but with the goal to make that six figure cheque. The journey, I will note here on this blog in simple straight forward English. Join me, help me and stick with me and I guarantee the reward will be worth it.
In the next post I will explain what I mean by Online Marketing just so that we are on the same page.
Let me explain the name before I explain the blog. The name SisyMoney is a combination of two words – that’s right two words. One you can easily figure out and if you can’t than don’t worry this is a place for you too. The first word “Sisy” comes from the name “Sisyphus”.
Sisyphus comes from Greek mythology and the following is from Wikipedia: He was a king. Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce but was avaricious and deceitful, violating the laws of hospitality by killing travelers and guests. He took pleasure in these killings because they allowed him to maintain his dominant position. From Homer onwards, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. He seduced his niece, took his brother’s throne and betrayed Zeus’s secrets. As a punishment from the gods for his trickery, Sisyphus was compelled to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he could reach the top of the hill, the rock would always roll back down again, forcing him to begin again, for eternity. The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus.
Today, the name can be used as an adjective “Sisyphean” meaning that an activity is unending and/or repetitive. It could also be used to refer to tasks that are pointless and unrewarding.
When you put the two words together SisyMoney you should start to get an idea what this blog is about. I will give a full explenation in the next post.
