Lesson #5

Are You Still Struggling to Make Your Yellow Page Advertising Highly Profitable?”

If you’re struggling to make your Yellow Pageadvertising highly profitable, here’s your solution that brings your profits right to you.

The 3 Most Common Advertising Myths that Cause Advertising to Fail.

The first myth is that if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. That myth was perpetuated by Emerson who lived and died a poor preacher. He had no experience in business, and no successes. I don’t think it’s wise to follow the wealth and success advice of someone who had neither.

I like to describe business as a three legged stool. It takes all 3 legs for your business to remain standing.

The first leg is your skills, education and training.The second leg is your office, equipment and vehicles.And the third leg of your stool is your marketing that automatically feeds your business new clients.

Without all 3 legs, you will never have the success you deserve in business. The truth is a guy with excellent marketing and an average product will do better than a guy with an excellent product, and average marketing. Now I’m not saying to not have a good product or service, all I’m saying is that when you dovetail great marketing with the excellent skills and products you already have… that is when you position your business to be most profitable.

The second myth that causes business failure is that if you grow your business at faster than 20% per year, you will go broke due to cash flow problems. Well now that America is more mobile than ever, more people are moving due to job changes and retirement than ever before. The current rate an average business loses customers is now 19.6%

So if you are only growing your business at 20%, you’re only replacing the clients you’re losing. To maintain only 10% growth per year, you need to attract 30% new clients. And to achieve more aggressive growth of 25% per year you would have to attract 45% new clients after you factor in the rate of attrition of your existing clients.

The third myth is that you should be doing Image advertising. Image advertising is like Nike, Coca Cola, and Target where you advertise to build your logo and Image in the consumers mind.

What they forgot to tell you was that it cost these companies about $150 Million dollars and about 5 years to build that image. Then it costs about $5-10 Million per year to maintain that Image. Image advertising is totally unrealistic for any small business person. What small businesses need to be using is Direct Response Marketing in their Yellow Page advertising. Direct Response Marketing is effective, efficient, and professional. Direct Response Marketing is “the quickest path to the sale”.

Why Yellow Pages?

I’ve seen my clients double and triple their profits from their Yellow Page advertising once they’ve included the direct response Yellow Page advertising triggers I teach. And there’s Billions of dollars of goods and services sold every year thru the Yellow Pages. It’s where the High-end BUYERS are. With Yellow Pages, the audience is far more predisposed to buy than any other Media.

Consumers pick up the Yellow Pages to make a purchase a staggering 84% of the time!!! And the largest segment of Yellow Page buyers industry statistics show are the high income earners. The 5 reasons you want to target the high income earners are;

1) They’re least affected by swings in the economy

2) They’re worth 500% more in lifetime customer value than any other market segment

3) They’re loyal to service and convenience not price

4) They’re the fastest growing segment of our economy

5) Targeting them enables you to do less and make more, so it improves your margin on every sale! We’re going to cover more about why it’s imperative that you target this high-end group later in this letter.

Now, here are 4 HUGE reasons the Yellow Pages gives you a competitive advantage:

1) Yellow Pages is the Media of buyers. Industry studies show that an astounding 84% of prospects that pick up a Yellow Pages directory make a purchase!

2) The second HUGE advantage is Yellow Page advertising gives you perfect timing of the delivery of your marketing message and offer. It’s the only Media that does this automatically. Your prospect sees your advertising at the exact moment that they’re ready to buy! PERFECT TIMING OF YOUR MARKETING MESSAGE IS A HUGE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE!

3) The 3rd HUGE advantage is that the biggest group, 38%, of all Yellow Page buyers are the top 20% of income earners that control 47% of ALL the disposable income. While most business owners think that the Yellow Pages is the Media of “price-shoppers and tire-kickers”, savvy marketers are reaping HUGE profits by serving the elite status, expensive tastes, and luxurious wants of this group of high-end, free-spending consumers.

4) The 4th HUGE advantage is that most Yellow Page advertising is interchangeable with their competition. They do nothing to stand out as different in a way that their ideal target prospect would find attractive. This makes Yellow Pages the ideal Media to apply Direct Response Marketing.

The Yellow Pages is a business owners Gold Mine as an Evergreen source of new cash clients. This creates an automatic conveyor belt bringing you qualified, presold new clients to build your business year after year!!!

I teach my clients to use 3 Medias to build your database of ideal clients. The first Media is Direct Mail. The second is Yellow Pages. And the third is Val Pac, Money Mailer, piggyback type mailers. So this applies to both the Yellow Page advertising and Val Pac/Money Mailer piggyback mailers you should be using to build your database of ideal clients.

And once you have dynamite direct response Yellow Page advertising with these 12 response triggers, that does well in the most competitive Media side-by-side with all your competitors, you can easily and quickly remodel it into a newspaper or magazine ad, Free Standing Insert, postcard, flier, door hanger, website, or other promotional piece so there are 7 more ways to leverage this information.

Even if you don’t ever do Yellow Page advertising, you can use these strategies in other Medias very profitably and very successfully.

What are the Problems with Yellow Page Advertising?

You may have already tried Yellow Page advertising and not got the profits you expected. It’s not your fault that you didn’t get the results you thought you would, and here’s why…

· The problem with Yellow Page advertising is it’s the most competitive Media, so you really need to know what you’re doing.

· It’s the only Media where you’re listed side-by-side with all your competitors’ ads.

· It’s expensive. You pay monthly payments all year, even for a bad ad.

· It’s not like regular advertising that you can cancel after a month.

· You have to sign a contract for what’s essentially an annual lease of the space, and you pay every month whether the ad is profitable or not.

· You can’t make changes in your advertising until next year, once it’s gone to press.

· It’s not a good Media to test in. It would take 5 years to do 5 single variable tests.

· You can’t choose where your ad appears on the page.

· If your ad lands in the wrong place on the page, response can plummet by 10 times. I once had a small in-column ad that returned $10 for every dollar I spent on the ad. I was really happy with that, so I placed the exact same ad the next year. I didn’t change a coma or a character. Everything was identical, but the ad landed in a bad spot on the page and my response fell from 10 to 1, to 1 to 1. That was an expensive lesson to learn because I had to wait a whole year to fix the problem. That cost me a lot of money!

· And then there are the Yellow Page reps.

Here Are 7 Things that Make Me Really Mad About Yellow Page Ad Reps.

1) They want to design your advertising, but have no real education about what causes prospects to respond to Yellow Page advertising. They are only trained in upselling you extras that frequently do not increase profits or response.

2) They give you all kinds of horrible advice to steer you in the direction they want you to go.

3) They’ll say, “We’ll just use the information on your business card”.

4) They’ll tell you things like you need more open space to draw the eye. But I’ve never seen a prospect respond to blank space. The truth is, “Blank space never sold anything to anybody”. If blank space worked, you could send out blank postcards with just your phone number, and get response. Of course that doesn’t work in postcards, and it doesn’t work in Yellow Page advertising either. It’s always the ad with the most compelling bait, and the most “reasons why” that wins the most profits and new clients possible.

5) They’ll lie to you and tell you you’ll get “as many proofs as necessary”, but the system is set up to give you your proof at the last minute, frequently without any time to make the necessary changes. And more proofs just mean more trips and work for the rep. So they delay getting you your ad proof, and then a bad ad goes to press. And guess who gets to pay for the bad ad all year. Yea you, that’s right.

6) Your business hemorrhages profits every month because you took their advice. What you didn’t realize is that they are under orders to homogenize all the ads. To make them all look the same. Because Yellow Page publishers feel that it creates a liability issue for them if they design 1 ad better than another. That is why you absolutely have to take over all typesetting and layout to get exactly what will guarantee you the highest profits and the most new clients possible.

7) They’ll give you a list of commonly used words under your Yellow Page heading so that “you can look just as professional as the rest of the ads”. But that is horrible advice because what you want your advertising to do is stand out in a favorable and positive way that highlights your uniqueness. I suggest that if you are ever offered a list of commonly used words under your Yellow Page heading, that you use it as a guide of the words to avoid using in your Yellow Page advertising. Then you’re guaranteed to stand out as different.

With all this misinformation, it’s amazing anyone gets outstanding results from their Yellow Page advertising. It’s no wonder so many business owners have tried Yellow Page advertising and failed. It is really the Yellow Page sales reps. and publishers that I feel are responsible for making none of the ads stand out to the prime target prospect.

The Solution

What’s essential in any business is a consistent supply of new clients. The Yellow Pages is my favorite Evergreen marketing strategy. It allows you to have a continuous flow of prescreened, presold prospects. Once it’s set up, it works automatically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a whole year!

Here’s 10 Things You Will Want to Include in Your Yellow Page Advertising

1) What you want to do in Yellow Page and all print advertising is to stand out as different in a favorable way, and to offer more than your competition.

2) You want to answer the 2 key questions in your ideal target prospects mind.

3) You want to have your ad 10 times more credible than your competitors.

4) You want to learn what words to never use in your Yellow Page advertising.

5) You want to learn how to expand the profits of your ad without having to pay for a larger, more costly one.

6) You want to take control of the layout, and have it reviewed by an expert before it is published.

7) You want to use the 4 secret words that double Yellow Page advertising response.

8) You want to permanently eliminate the need for referrals.

9) You want to know when is the right time to pay extra for color in your ad or a white knockout background, and when those extras are a total waste of money.

10) You want to give your ideal target prospect the highest number of and most compelling reasons to call you IMMEDIATELY.

You do that by using the 12 Yellow Page Triggers, I’m going to share with you in a minute, or at least use The 6 Essential Triggers, no matter how small your Yellow Page advertising is.

That brings up two common misconceptions about Yellow Page advertising:

1) Misconception number 1 is that the physical Yellow Pages book will be replaced by the Internet. I thought that too in 1998 that there would be no more physical book by the year 2000, but the reality is that the Internet just added another Media. It didn’t replace one. The same thing happened when email was introduced. There were experts who said that postal mail would cease to exist and be replaced by email, but what happened is it just added another Media. Postal mail still thrives today, and so do the Yellow Pages. Yellow Pages just celebrated their 130th year with the highest usage of Yellow Pages ever! The truth is the Yellow Page advertising is more viable than ever today because many businesses are distracted by the Internet and trying to make their websites convert to sales. Customers are still going where they are trained to go, to the printed Yellow Pages to find what they want.

2) Misconception number 2 is that Yellow Page advertising doesn’t work. It isn’t the Media that doesn’t work. It’s your use of the Media that didn’t work. I built 3 businesses on Yellow Page advertising alone, and know of several businesses that generate over $1 Million dollars a year in revenues from their Yellow Page advertising!

Is Advertising Ethical and Professional?

Some business owners feel that advertising is unethical and unprofessional. Let me tell you the story about Dr. Kellogg who invented Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. Dr Kellogg was a Doctor that felt advertising was unethical. And the story goes that Mr. Post came to visit Dr. Kellogg’s health spa as a client. While he was there, he was reported to have stolen some recipes and shortly after his visit came out with “Postem”- a copy of Dr. Kellogg’s health drink. He then came out with “Post Toasties” which was a copy of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

Mr. Post became the first cereal millionaire not because he had the product first, but because he advertised his product first. This happens all the time in business. If you don’t advertise, it’s just a matter of time until you’re beat by a competitor who does. Maybe you’re already getting beat by your competition. I don’t think that operating your business at half its’ capacity increases your professionalism or makes you look more ethical! Every strategy I teach is both ethical and professional. Here’s what you can do to beat your competition every time with your Yellow Page advertising.

Highly Profitable Yellow Page Advertising

The most highly profitable Yellow Page advertising has a good headline with the most compelling reasons to respond, based on the ideal target prospects most cherished wants, and the other 11 Yellow Page Triggers. What you want your ad to do is stand out, not blend in with the other ads. The “design factory” at the publisher has over 20,000 ads to layout to complete the book, and can commit less than 20 minutes total to the planning, content, and physically layout your ad. The layout guy quickly sees that if he can do each ad in only 15 minutes, he looks like a hero to his boss, and he can take a long lunch break. This is not the system you want to do any of the creative part or layout of your Yellow Page advertising.

BUT HERE’S THE MOST SURPRISING THING! The Yellow Page publishers’ goal is to have all the ads look as much alike as possible so that no business can claim another business got preferential treatment or more time spent on their ad. The publishers’ goal is to have the ads all look the same to reduce complaints that one advertiser got more attention or preferential treatment! They feel there’s a liability issue there so they homogenize your ad content. If you have the publishers do ANY of the layout of your Yellow Page advertising, YOU’RE MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE THAT KILLS PROFITS! Your ad will have no chance to stand out from the competition.

Let’s Review the 12 Yellow Page Response Triggers

1) USP- Unique Selling Proposition-Your USP should take into consideration both positioning and targeting. What most Yellow Page advertising targets is the low end, price-shoppers. I suggest that you target the underserved high-end prospect by giving them choices that suit their elite status, expensive tastes and luxurious wants. The highest profits will come from serving the top 20% of income earners that control 47% of the disposable income. That’s why it is essential to the health and profitability of your business that you target this market segment. 38% of Yellow Page buyers are in the top 20% of income earners that have 47% of the disposable income!!! I’ve had Walt Disney’s grandson worth a half a billion dollars call on my Yellow Page ad. Barbara Mandrel the award-winning singer, Tim Salmon of the California Angels baseball fame, professional athletes, famous actors and musicians all called me from my Yellow Page advertising. I can tell you from experience; this is where the high-end shoppers go to make a purchase. Remember these people are avid consumers. It would be impossible for them to get a referral right before they buy everything they’re going to buy. And that’s when they go to the Yellow Pages to make a purchase.Most business owners make the mistake of sending their message to everyone and not defining a narrow target market that would be less expensive to reach, and more profitable to sell to like the high-end consumer. You want to know how to stand out as a specialist, not a generalist. What you want to do in the targeting of your Yellow Page advertising is speak to a specific type of tree, not the forest.

2) A Benefit-laden Headline- The reason you want a great headline is people scan the headlines just like they would if they were reading a newspaper. Then they return to the headlines that were interesting to them to read the rest of the copy under those headlines. If you don’t attract your ideal target prospect with your headline, what’s in the rest of the ad doesn’t matter because they won’t ever read it.

3) Guarantee- Yes, the “G-word”. G-words are so good; they are music to your prospects ears. Your G-word you want to communicate is your GUARANTEE. The reason that you want to put a guarantee in your ad is it reduces the risk of the prospect doing business with you. Your guarantee shows that you take pride in your business, and that you are willing to stand behind what you do. This is also an easy way to separate your business from your competition. A guarantee gives you a competitive advantage over everyone that doesn’t have a guarantee.

4) Testimonials- The reason you want to use testimonials is they are 10 X more believable than anything that you can say about yourself. Testimonials are one of the most potent weapons a business owner has in his arsenal. They can’t be overused. Not only do testimonials provide social proof that you are a good value, but the feedback from your clients is the best market research you can get, at any price. How valuable would it be to you to know what every patient is happy or potentially unhappy about, but not mad enough to complain about in person?

Testimonials as market research tell you 4 very important things.

a) What else you could sell your ideal target prospect.

b) What frustrates your ideal target prospects?

c) What attracted them and what will attract others just like them.

d) It will identify the nut cases that are determined to make sure you never make a penny on them that need to be immediately purged from your business. You just respectfully decline their business and refer them to your competition. Let them get bogged down because they have no system to side step a problem client.

The other thing that testimonials do is they accelerate the “word of mouth” referral process. People can see what others have said without having to be there to hear it themselves. You can use this to dominate the most high-income prospects in your area and your competition will never figure out what you are doing. People look to others behavior to see what would be a good decision for them, and they use others testimonials as a decision making shortcut. That’s why testimonials work so well in Yellow Page advertising.

5) Offer- The reason that you want to have an offer is because it causes the ideal target prospect to call you first. The offer is what causes people to call you right now. Scanners will read the offer first, and be triggered to read the whole ad if they find the offer interesting, and compelling. But the offer must appear in the right place in the ad and in the right sequence. This is critical.

6) Phone Number, Offer for FREE Advice- There are tricks of how to position your phone number in the ad, and how to display multiple phone numbers to increase response. They have to do with the layout, which is too complicated to explain here.

7) Photos and Graphics- The reason that you want to use a good photo or graphic is because studies have shown that this is where the eye is drawn to first in the ad. Ads with a photo or graphic will be more responsive than an ad without a photo or graphic. But putting the photo or graphic in the wrong place in the ad can draw attention to the ad next to yours. This is a mistake I see in a lot of Yellow Page advertising which winds up drawing the attention to their competition’s ad. That’s a costly common mistake. Also using a photo that does not directly relate to your marketing message is another mistake I see in a lot of Yellow Page advertising.

8) Bullets- The reason you want to have bullet points is so that your ideal target prospect can easily scan the list of benefits you offer. The bullets should list all the reasons why a prospect should choose your business over any and all other choices.

9) Secondary Means of Response- A Secondary Means of Response gives your ideal target prospect answers to their questions 24 hours a day, and gives you a big competitive advantage over your competition. Prospects are not all convinced in the same way. Give your prospects multiple reasons to respond. Recorded messages are perceived to be more truthful than a live person, because you can’t change it as you go along. People are more likely to believe and trust a recorded message than someone “live”. So not only is it a waste of time to do it in person and say the same thing every time they call, but you lose some credibility. And after listening to the recorded message, prospects will call you presold and ready to buy now. I transformed my incoming call from, “What do you charge?” to “When can you do it?” That’s the difference in preselling that a FREE recorded message can do robotically for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

10) Call to Action- Having a clear call to action can double your Yellow Page advertising profits. What you want to do is spell out, in words a child could understand, how to order and what to do next.

11) Choose the right size ad and heading selection to maximize exposure and response. You definitely want to avoid ad sizes that get you positioned in a bad spot on the page, because it kills response.

12) Psychological Sequence, Continuity, and Layout- Your Yellow Page advertising format needs to match your target prospects emotional wants and train of thought. Just like selling in person has a sequence, so does ALL print advertising. You want to build as much value and credibility as possible before you ask for them to call you. The eye needs to flow thru the ad and 12 Yellow Page Triggers in an uninterrupted path to gain the most trust and credibility. The layout chapter diagrams exactly how to get the eye flow and the exact locations of all 12 Yellow Page Triggers so you will get the layout perfect every time for the highest possible profits.

Bob Blagg, The HVAC Marketing Guy
http://www.hvacprofitsecrets.com/
bob@hvacprofitsecrets.com

Lesson #4

There are two types of advertising.
One will make you rich.

One will waste your money.

Institutional, or image advertising is a waste of money.

Fortunately for you, most of your competition doesn't know this, so it continues to produce this drivel. Most advertisers, regardless of the industry they are in, run institutional advertising. This includes most HVAC contractors. It is easy to recognize: It never offers compelling reasons for a person to favor the advertiser with his or her business. Its claims (if present at all) are pathetic: "We're nice, and should you ever need your furnace cleaned, please call us. We'd sure appreciate it." Compelling, huh?

Let your competition waste its money on institutional advertising, and instead spend yours on advertising that creates calls from people who can't wait to hire you to clean their furnaces. This type of advertising is called direct response.

Direct Response Advertising

Any advertising, in any media, can be direct response. The difference between direct response and institutional is that direct response is designed to produce an immediate response: an action, a visit, a call, a purchasing decision. At best, institutional advertising produces results some time in the future (which may not arrive in time to be of benefit to you, given today's hypercompetitive market). Direct response, however, concentrates on results now.

Direct response tells a story. It is precise and compelling. It focuses on your customer (what's in it for him or her). And because it always makes a specific offer, it is accountable. You will soon know if it worked and how well it worked.

If you still don't understand what I am saying, hang this on the wall in your office:

A direct response ad contains all of the following:

1. A headline
2. A created interest in the service or product
3. A created desire in the prospect
4. A specific offer
5. A deadline or cut-off date

Knowing the difference between institutional and direct response advertising is a key weapon.

From now on I don't want you to waste another dime on traditional, unaccountable advertising.

There is no way you can succeed and pay your bills just using "image" and "exposure" advertising. While image and exposure advertising are guaranteed to feed your ego, they are also guaranteed to empty out your wallet at the same time!

So there is no need to use image advertising just to "get your name out there" when you can use direct response marketing to produce consistent, predictable measurable results, while at the same time "getting your name out there."

From now on we want every dollar invested in your advertising and promotion to produce a direct, quick and measurable return on that dollar, plus some profit. Most advertising representatives have little or no understanding about that kind of marketing. The only thing they do know, and therefore, the only thing they can recommend, is to say the same things in your ads in the same way that everybody else in the HVAC Industry is saying.

But YOU need to be different so you can stand out from the rest of the crowd. We'll cover exactly how to find out what makes your business unique in the next section, but for now I want you to get an understanding about why most marketing doesn't work.

You see, people are sick and tired of seeing the same ads. While the wording may be different, the ideas are the same. I don't know about you, but it takes a lot to get my attention when reading a magazine or a newspaper, and most people feel the same way.

Think about it:

I'm glancing through my favorite newspaper and I notice your ad. I pause for just a minute. Now answer this question for me:

Why should I respond to your ad?

What makes me think that you aren't like all of the rest?

I'm busy, and I'm disappointed with the results I've had from HVAC Contractors. And the rest of the ads say the same thing as yours., so why should I call you?

Do you see the problem you face? If you're going to succeed in the HVAC business, you must be unique. You must go beyond the ordinary, the typical, and the "same old, same old." Your ads must stand out. The only way to really accomplish this is to understand how to motivate your potential client or customer to take ACTION. This can easily be accomplished once you understand...

Psychology 101

Why do you do what you do?

Why does anyone take action of any sort?

Like everything else in life, it goes back to the basics.

For our purposes, Psychology 101 is simply this: Human beings do things for one of two reasons:

The first is to GAIN PLEASURE.

The second is to ELIMINATE PAIN.

That's it ! Period!

Look at any advertisement on TV, newspaper or in a magazine, and the focus of the ad is either to provide pleasure (happiness, health, wealth, safety, love, acceptance) or take away mental, emotional or physical pain. Sometimes a combination of both is used.

Often the first part of the ad talks about the pain you will experience if you don't buy their product or service, and the second part is the pleasure (release from the pain) you will receive if you buy their product or service.

Sometimes just the pleasure principle is reinforced. It talks about all the pleasure (satisfy a want or need) you will gain if you buy their product or service.

So in everything you do, you must understand that these are the two primary motivating factors for EVERY human being.

Answer The $64,000 Question.

Every single person who reads your ads, letters, brochures and promotions has only one thing on his or her mind. "What's in it for me?" That is the $64,000 question!

In other words, what will I receive if I do business with you? What is the BENEFIT I will receive? Will you take away my pain (emotional, spiritual, physical), give me pleasure (satisfy a want or a need), or a combination of both?

With this in mind, think of your prospect's favorite radio station as WIIFM. That's what your prospect wants to know - What's In It For Me?

You see, people really don't care about the name of your business, where you got your training, how long you have been in business, the professional organizations you belong to, or if you have won awards, etc.

Please understand that as far as advertising and promotion are concerned, no one cares about these things but YOU. Your potential clients just want to know one thing -

"What's In It For Me?"

By putting your business name or your name at the top of the ad or featuring it prominently in the ad, you have just violated the first rule of effective advertising and promotion and that is:

1. Your ad must capture the prospect's attention.

The best way to do that is with an attention-grabbing HEADLINE. If you don’t capture your prospect's attention, they will skim over your ad as if it didn't exist.

2. Your ad must maintain the prospect's interest.

Keep your ad focused on what the prospect has to GAIN (pain-pleasure principle) if they use your product or service.

3. Your ad must pass the "So what?" test.

What is the "So what?" test? The "So what?" test happens every time someone hears a radio or TV ad or sees a sign, flyer or advertisement of any kind that you have created. There is an internal dialog going on every time a person considers someone who makes a claim about a product or service. It isn't something that most peop1e are consciously aware of, but they will say to themselves, "So what?"

When writing an ad, letter, poster, flyer or anything else, you must answer a person's "So what?" automatic, unconscious response right at that moment. A good thing to keep in mind when you write your ad is to say to yourself after every headline, sentence or paragraph, "So what?"

For example, if your ad says you are a member of the XYZ professional organization, or XYZ has been around for 20 years, or it is family owned and operated," the prospect is thinking, "So what?" The reason why they are unconsciously asking "So what?" is that you haven't told them how your product or service specifically BENEFITS them.

Here's another example of "So what?"

"Attend a Free Seminar on Carbon Monoxide.”

Most people will respond on an unconscious level - "So what?" If you want to capture their attention and overcome their unconscious response of "So what? ," you must tell them how the seminar will BENEFIT them.

Let's try it again keeping in mind that we want to offer a BENEFIT. How about this:

"Free Seminar Reveals How YOU Can Protect Yourself and Your Family from Carbon Monoxide,"

or "Attend Our FREE introductory seminar on… (Fill in the blank.)."

Do you see the difference?

The second headline offers a BENEFIT , How YOU Can Protect Yourself And Your Family from Carbon Monoxide,"

Maybe your ad states, I have been in business since 1985

Once again, 'So what?'

Or the ad may state, "I have studied with …” or I have trained with … (certain individuals and organizations)."

Once again, "So what?"

Those are all "ME" messages. The only person who cares is YOU! Remember WIIFM! From now on you must learn to eliminate the "ME" messages from your advertisements and promotions. The ONLY thing that is important is what the BENEFITS are that you have to offer your potential client.

Take a look at all of your promotional materials. Look at your letterhead, business cards, promotional flyers for upcoming events, book or audio tape covers, magazine or newspaper articles, websites - everything. Does it say something about you or what you do, or does it give a clear presentation of the BENEFITS that someone will receive as a RESULT of doing business with you?

Unless it clearly articulates the BENEFITS that someone will receive by working with or doing business with you, then your marketing message has failed.

I hope you get the idea by now. Everything you say in your advertisement has to be translated 1nto a benefit for the client. If it doesn't answer the question WIIFM?, then it has no business being part of your advertisement.

4. Your ad must move your prospect to action.

Your ad should prompt the reader to pick up the phone and call you and request more information, schedule an appointment, walk into your place of business, etc. And it should compel the prospect to take action immediately. If readers don't take action immediately, they will forget about you.

I'll show you some tips later to help motivate your prospects into taking action right away.

Your headline should have a strong statement of BENEFITS, and if possible., it should include a powerful guarantee. The guarantee can just be a guarantee of satisfaction. (More on that later.) Your entire offer is basically summarized in the headline.

The body copy explains that you can help prospective customers, clients achieve what the headline offers. This is usually a solution to a problem.

You then address their concerns in an informative, relaxed atmosphere.

The final step is a Call To Action, which includes an incentive for not delaying that action.

Your ad must hit on the prospect's basic need to gain pleasure and/or eliminate the pain of an undesirable situation.

What need or want are you fulfilling In your client or customer's mind? Have you ever asked yourself what your clients or customers REALLY want or need in the product or service you offer?

You must know what your client's basic needs are in relation to your product or service. In other words, why would people want your product or service? What are the main reasons that people would use your product or service? Not the reasons you think, but their reasons for being attracted to your product or service.

How do you find out this information?

ASK!

It is amazing how many business owners never ask. It is the obvious thing to do, but almost nobody does it! Yet this is an amazingly simple way to give yourself an, edge for all your future marketing efforts,

You will find out something else as well. They will be delighted to tell you what they think... These are the same people that keep you in business, so why not ask them and listen to what they have to say? Remember, your business is there for them, not you.. .

Another aspect is that people love to give advice. When you went into business, didn't your friends and family give you advice? Well, your clients or customers are just as anxious to give you advice. The main difference is their advice is useful!

This information is very important. You will find out what your clients like, what they don't like, and what you can do to improve your product or service.

Bob Blagg, The HVAC Marketing Guy

http://www.hvacprofitsecrets.com/

bob@hvacprofitsecrets.com

Lesson #3

How to Produce a Continuous Stream of HVAC Clients Who Easily
Come to YOU

Okay, "How do I do that?"

I don’t know why but most individuals in the HVAC business believe one of the biggest lies concerning marketing and promoting their business. It is about how to get high ­quality new clients.

Your business has a product or a service and it has customers or clients. It must also have sales to prosper or it will die. It must be promoted through advertising, including word of mouth and, to be ultimately successful, it must develop a presence in the marketplace.

The HVAC Profit Secrets Toolbox is designed to show you how to create that presence. Once you have mastered the principles set forth in this program, your referral clients will multiply to the point where your biggest problem will be how to tactfully say "no" to new prospective clients. In addition, your professional status will increase within your community.

How is this possible?

First of all you must realize that you provide a much needed product or service. There are HUGE markets with new clients with new problems and concerns entering the marketplace everyday.

There are new people needing your services every day. But they won't know of YOU unless you TELL them.

That makes sense. Doesn’t it?

You must begin to focus on the fact that there is far more business out there than you can possibly handle once you understand how to attract the people who want and need your service.

Let me tell you if paying clients aren't lined up for your products or services the ONLY reason is because YOU are the one keeping them from your door.

Please forgive me for being so blunt, but I need your attention. I need you up to embrace something that most HVAC contractors never consider, namely, that the marketplace is their best friend.

Only your best friend will tell you if you are doing something that is not appropriate. If your business is not what you think it should be and your referrals are less than you would like, then there is something wrong with how you are promoting and presenting yourself. Your best friend (the marketplace) is telling you that you are doing something incorrectly in terms of your advertising and promotion.

Do you ever wonder why your clients, who seem happy with your products or service, are not referring other clients to you? At some level you may even blame them. Unfortunately it is easy to blame others for our lack of success. The endless excuses we create for ourselves only prevent us from dealing with the only person responsible for our success - ourselves. However, when we refuse to be accountable for our results, one thing is for certain - we are destined to fail.

You must begin to understand that the marketplace is your best friend and when things aren't going as well as you would like, it will tell you that you are off course. It does this by sending you a very important message that says:

IF YOU KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING, YOU WILL KEEP GETTING WHAT YOU ARE GETTING!

This unmistakable message in our business shows us the harsh reality of what we are doing in an effort to tell us that we are on the wrong path. If we don't pay attention, we will keep getting what we are getting.

When it comes to promoting and marketing our business we must be willing to adjust our advertising and promotion until it produces the results we desire. One of the reasons most businesses keep getting the same results is that they use the same marketing, advertising and promotion as their competitor. You will soon learn that this can only lead to disaster.

Let me start off with a very important tip that will save you a LOT OF MONEY! You must take control of your marketing and advertising. This means that no matter where you do your advertising, NEVER, EVER let any advertising sales representatives or anyone working in their office create your ads for you.

You must face this harsh reality. If these people really knew how to design ads that could create a flood of new clients, do you think they'd be out there selling advertising for a living? No! They'd be in their OWN BUSINESS doing it for themselves!

The job of an advertising sales representative is to sell you as much advertising as they can, not to help you to prosper.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Over the past several years, I have developed, tested, and perfected powerful, client-marketing strategies that produce GUARANTEED results - and, without you having to spend thousands of dollars on expensive advertising campaigns or reduce your client fees.

These amazingly simple strategies can deliver more clients and increase your income doing what you love to do more than anything else you've ever tried. Frankly, these deceptively simple strategies work so well; you'll never again have to worry about getting NEW clients.

In fact, many times when our clients have used these techniques as instructed, the flow of new clients was so immense; they simply couldn't handle the increase. They had to stop running their client-generation strategies because they were generating more new clients than they could handle. So be prepared. You may have to do the same!

More importantly, you don't need any special skills or a degree in marketing to get these strategies to work for you.

Just as important, besides producing phenomenal results, these strategies cost very little to put into action.

As you will learn, most of the client-generation techniques that are being taught and used today simply don't work. If they did, you'd be prosperous, not frustrated!

But here's the truth. If those techniques aren't working for you now, there's no way they will work any better in the future. If you continue to use them, you will put your business and your prosperity at serious risk.

Please stop and consider what you just read!

It's time for a change, isn't it?

Don't you deserve success now?

The good news is that if you follow the strategies I am going to share with you, you could easily have them up and running and bringing in new clients within a few weeks. Not only that - your marketing and advertising costs will be just a fraction of what you'd pay to do things the way you have been doing them with mediocre or no results.

Why do these strategies work so well, while others seem to fail so miserably?

Well, simply because they're based on little-known but proven psychological and marketing principles.

I can teach you that the ability to effectively and predictably generate a constant flow of new clients is about knowing human nature and using this knowledge to benefit yourself and others.

You can provide the best products or service in the universe, but if nobody knows about you and you don't have a constant flow of new clients, the reality of the situation is that you will fail at doing something you really love to do.

The problem is when people go into business, they know all about what product or service they are going to sell, but they know little or nothing about getting it sold. The end result is that most people in business know very little about how to get people into their business.

My goal is to assist people in the HVAC business who are good at business (doing what they love to do) be good in business (making money doing what they love to do). Being good in business is all about having a steady stream of happy and satisfied customers or clients spending money with you on a consistent basis.

The HVAC Profit Secrets Toolbox will be a turning point in your life - a turning point not only because of the huge increase in your business and income, but because it will take the financial uncertainty out of your business and replace it with absolute confidence that you can succeed at doing what you love to do.

Bob Blagg, The HVAC Marketing Guy
bob@hvacprofitsecrets.com
www.hvacprofitsecrets.com

Your Advertisement Will Be 5 Times More Profitable If It Has This

What is the one thing that 99.99% of all the HVAC print ads lack?

A HEADLINE

When you read the newspaper, would you read an article without a headline? No. The headline gives you a "shorthand" for what the article is about. The Headline is what lets us know if we want to read the article.

It’s the same with your advertisement. The Headline tells the reader "HEY! This concerns you! Read this!"

Most ads fail to generate a profit. Here’s one major reason; The reader never read the ad. Why? There is no Headline to tell the reader why they should read the rest of the ad. The headline tells the reader the benefit of reading the ad. What’s in it for them.

"But Bob, I used a Headline & it didn’t make any difference."

Here’s why a Headline fails;

The Headline is your company name. Always a mistake. Nobody cares about your company name. It promises no benefit. It creates no value.

The Headline is somewhere other than the top of the ad. People read from the top down, just like you are doing now.

The Headline is "cute, witty, or funny". Readers only care about one thing; "How does this benefit ME". "Cute, witty, or funny" conveys no benefit. There is now desire to read the rest of the ad.

Here’s what a Headline needs;

A strong reason to read further into the ad.For example, my Headline "Air Conditioning problems?" targets a specific group of people. It implies that if they read the ad, that their Air Conditioning problems will be solved.

The Headline "Do you make these 7 mistakes when looking for a HVAC contractor?’ pulls you into the body of the ad. Do you know the key word? "These". The word "these" pulls you into reading the rest of the ad.

A little known secret; If you put quotation marks at the beginning & end of your Headline, your readership will increase by 25 % . Quotations create the illusion that you are actually talking to the reader.

When I create an ad, I put 80% of my effort into the Headline. Why? Because if the reader doesn’t read the ad, they won’t come into my store. And if the reader doesn’t connect with the Headline, they won’t read the rest of the ad.

We changed one thing in an ad we ran. We took the headline out of the top of the ad & put it in the middle of the ad. Our gross sales from the ad went from $18,000 a month (generated from the ad) to $0. I’m not kidding. Same ad, same offers. The only thing we changed was the position of the Headline.

That’s how important your Headline is.

Bob Blagg, The HVAC Marketing Guy
http://www.hvacprofitsecrets.com
bob@hvacprofitsecrets.com

Lesson #2

The Real Truth About the "HVAC Business"

I have noticed that most people in the HVAC Industry are very good at what they do. But, when it comes to attracting new clients, they are not as successful. Because of this the majority of people in the HVAC Industry don’t make very much money doing what they love to do. In fact, many are starving. It's pretty sad.

Why is that?

Before you can help people solve their problems, you need to be able to reach potential clients with your message. This is called "marketing."

Do you want to see most HVAC business owners cringe just mention the words "marketing" and "promotion". When ever I bring up the subject of marketing all I hear is "I just want to run my business, but I hate marketing and having to promote myself and my business."

But understand this - Everyone markets himself or herself all the time. So the question is this: Do you do it very well or very poorly?

If you are in business, you are also a marketing company, whether you like to think of yourself as such or not. That's because every business is in the business of getting new clients or customers and offering its products or services to them.

Marketing and promoting are nothing more or less than the means of finding people who need what we offer and letting them know how we can help them solve their problems.

Begin to change your opinion of marketing and promotion, and see it as a focus of your energies on how you can offer solutions to people's problems.
Do you have a problem with "selling?” Just let people know how you can help them solve their problems, you don't need to "sell" anything to anyone. Besides, no one likes to be "sold," but everyone wants his or her problems solved!

Forget about selling and concentrate on solving people's problems, then there is no "selling" necessary. This helps you to begin to look at your "HVAC" business in a different way. I want you always remember that "selling" is simply about letting others know (either verbally or through the media of advertising) how you can improve their lives.

I know you have put a lot of time and effort into being very good at what you do, but you have not put as much time or effort into being as good at getting new clients and building your HVAC business.

Remember whether you are already successful or are just getting by in your HVAC business, you are still need to spend some time and effort attracting NEW clients. So why not be the best at it that you can possibly be?

The bottom line is that you can be the best in the world at what you do, but if no one knows about it, you're going to go broke doing it. (Reread that line!)

Your marketing skills are the key that will allow you to reach your potential as a HVAC contractor and allow you to live the life you desire doing what you love to do. The HVAC Profit Secrets Toolbox will show you how to accomplish this in a very short time.

Hopefully, you have a better understanding concerning the concept of "HVAC marketing." The bottom line is that you can market and promote any business and still remain "honest" and ethical because they are not mutually exclusive.

So if you want more clients, more business and more money doing the work you love - read on!

The key to success in any HVAC business is attracting a steady stream of NEW clients. If you have tried to get new clients and have failed, don't feel bad. Let's face it; if it were so easy to attract new clients, every HVAC business would be successful (and prosperous). But you and I both know that simply isn't the case.

No matter how good you are at what you do to keep growing and increasing your income (or even just staying in business), you must continually keep bringing in a steady stream of new clients. Therefore, you must face this very important fact:

25%of the success in ANY HVAC business is determined by the service or product being offered.
75%of the success in ANY HVAC business is determined by the MARKETING of that service or product.

Australian marketing consultant Winston Marsh advises, "Be a better marketer of what you do than a doer of what you do and you'll get rich."

Think about it. When you need a doctor, who do you call?

Most likely it will either be:

(1) Someone you used before, or

(2) Someone who was recommended by a friend, or (3) Someone you found by looking in an ad, probably in the Yellow Pages. The same thing happens in your field.

People decide they need help and either: (1) go to who they used before, or

(2) Ask for a recommendation or

(3) Look for an ad.

The thing is, you must face the fact that you have competition.

How are you going to stand out from the crowd so you get the clients you want to help?

Today, when it comes to furnace cleaning, duct cleaning, air conditioner replacement etc., people have the option of choosing from hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals, services, and products. And even though many of them may not be as effective as your product or service is, it still leaves you faced with the following challenge:

1.Keep bringing in a steady stream of NEW clients, or

2.Never get your business to a profitable and prosperous level, or worse, risk going out of business and doing something you really don't want to do. This means that the most important business skill you can learn is How to Produce a Continuous Stream of Clients Who Easily Come to YOU!

Lesson #1

Are you ready to turn your business into everything you know it can be?

Here is lesson #1.

It may seem simple at 1st but if you really think about it, it is very powerful.

So lets get started.

One of mentors Dan Kennedy will often begin his speeches by offering someone in the audience $100 if they can correctly tell him what business they are in.

If he is speaking before a group of dentists, they will say that they are in the 'dental business.' If he is speaking for plumbers, they will say that they are in the 'plumbing business.' Restaurant owners will say that they are in the 'restaurant business.'

Dan then calmly puts the $100 bill back in his pocket and tells everyone, no matter what group he is speaking before, that they are in the 'marketing business.' And that is the exact business you need to be in, if you want to be wildly successful.

In my HVAC Profit Secrets Toolbox, I show you an ad from a client of mine who went from almost bankrupt to over $1 million dollars in sales in less then 1 year.

One of the main reasons for his explosive growth was that he changed his thinking from being an HVAC Contractor to being someone who marketed HVAC services. Believe me; this change in thinking had a profound and immediate impact on his business and on his finances. It can do the same for you.

Here is an insightful quote from Charles Revlon: 'In the factories we make perfume, but in the stores we sell hope.'

Mr. Revlon knew that he was not in the perfume business; he was in the business of marketing and selling hope.

Too many business people are infatuated with their product and miss the whole point of what their customers are really buying. You need to really question what business you are really in and then get into the marketing of that business.

Do that and watch your business skyrocket.

So What Business Are You In?

If you want to me to let you know when each lesson is posted please e-mail me.

These lessons will come directly from my HVAC Profit Secrets Toolbox marketing manual which is available via my website, www.hvacprofitsecrets.com.

Bob Blagg, The HVAC Marketing Guy
http://www.hvacprofitsecrets.com
bob@hvacprofitsecrets.com

Do You Practice Ostrich Marketing In Your HVAC Business

The other day I was reading the book Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch. In his book John talks about Ostrich Marketing.

He says "Ostrich Marketing is practiced by business owners who simply have no idea what to do with their marketing so they do nothing----- they stick their heads in the sand and hope. I think you know the results of this practice.

So are you practicing Ostrich Marketing in your HVAC business?

If so do you know why? Well I will tell you.

In the book the E-Myth Revisited written by one of my mentors Michael Gerber. He asks: Where were you before you started your business?

Well if you are like most people I know, you were working for somebody else. You were probably a service technician and more then likely you were the best technician at the company you worked for.

Then one day, for apparently no reason you were suddenly stricken with what Michael Gerber calls an Entrepreneurial Seizure.

You found yourself saying something like this: What am I doing this for? Why am I working for this guy? I know as much about this HVAC business as he does. If it weren't for me this company wouldn't be making any money. Any dummy can can run a business. I am working for one.

So you started your own HVAC business.

On that day you made as Michael Gerber says. The Fatal Assumption that if you understand the technical work of a HVAC business, you understand a business that does HVAC work.

The technical work of a HVAC business and a business that does that HVAC work are two totally different things.

So as I said you maybe a great technician that knows when people call you to fix their problem you will be able to dazzle the customer with your abilities.

But the only problem is that the phone doesn't ring when you need it to.

Because you don't understand the marketing of your business.

If you are anything like I use to be, you are always asking yourself why was it easy to become a great technician but very hard to become a good marketer of my business.

Well just like myself, you had plenty of people at work that could always help you when you struggled with a particular repair. You also have access to a lot of technical training available through your local wholesaler as well as groups like RSES, trade schools and others.

But when I wanted to learn the marketing end of my business I found that there was no one to turn to. I went and talked to other HVAC business owners, but they knew less then I did. I went and talked to many of my local wholesalers, but they didn’t have a clue and they did not offer any classes that could really help.

I also looked at the supposed marketing gurus. They all claimed they could help. But even though they may have been good marketers they didn’t really understand the HVAC business and it’s customers.

So what did I do? I spent 100s of hours and 100s of thousands of dollars, buying and reading all the books on marketing, I could find. Then I spent even more time figuring out how to take everything I learned and make it work in the HVAC industry.

Over the next 12 to 18 months I will be posting the lessons you need, to make your HVAC business everything you know it can be.

If you want to me to let you know when each lesson is posted please e-mail me.

These lessons will come directly from my HVAC Profit Secrets Toolbox marketing manual which is available via my website, www.hvacprofitsecrets.com.

Bob Blagg, The HVAC Marketing Guy
http://www.hvacprofitsecrets.com/
bob@hvacprofitsecrets.com