*** Every weekday for 30 days, I’m going to be giving you one “big idea” to solve your biggest marketing challenge. To submit your problem for consideration, follow the format today’s subscriber used, and then hit “reply” with your own specific details and challenges ***
Today’s e-mail comes from Stan Kinder, from Virginia. Stan owns my book and is a Seductive Selling Newsletter member. Here’s his marketing challenge:
“I broker the buying and selling of dental practices in the Baltimore/Washington market – my biggest challenge is filling my funnel with prospective sellers. I am newer and less established than my competition. I read your stuff religiously. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks, Stan Kinder”
This is a great question and I like how Stan gets right to the point. I can’t stand people who, when you ask them what time it is, instead of just saying, “eleven-fifteen,” they build you a damn clock, instead.
Being concise is something that all busy people appreciate.
Anyway, it looks like Stan has two problems really. One, is front-end leads. If you remember, some time over the last few days I mentioned how front end leads is usually every single businesses biggest problem. And it’s also usually the ONE solution for virtually every marketing and cash-flow problem you’ll ever have.
Getting more qualified leads for your business is like having cleaner and fresher air to breathe into your lungs.
The second problem Stan has really isn’t a business problem. It’s a perceived problem, and frankly, it’s his own issue. He feels “being new” is a problem and implies a lack of credibility with his customers.
This is a common problem many businesses experience, but it’s really not an issue with your customers. The same way, for instance, that losing your hair typically isn’t an issue with your wife. It’s more of a personal perception of a flaw, as opposed to an actual flaw.
The good news is, the solution that fixes Stan’s first problem, also is the same solution for his second problem (again, which really isn’t a problem).
The BEST way to fix this is to use two-step lead generation, driving qualified leads to a free report. And “No,” this isn’t the first time I’ve said this is the solution to front end problems.
The truth is, two-step lead generation has been the foundation of success for virtually every single super-successful direct-marketer I’ve met, or am even aware of. And I’ve studied LOADS of different marketing over the years – pieces that date as far back as the early 1800’s, in fact.
Again, just to give you a VERY brief review of how this works, in Stan’s case, he’d want to send an advertorial to dentists, that is going to prompt them to want his free report. (I have an example of the exact kind of lead generation advertorial you will want to use for this, on page 66 in my book.)
The biggest problem he is going to have is to actually get the advertorial in front of the dentist, but here are two workarounds for this:
1. Advertise in dental trade magazines. Trade magazines are actively read by most people.
2. If he is using direct mail, have the corner card of the envelope (the return address) come from another dentist.
Alternatively, you can use things like FedEx, or bulky mail, to get to the dentists, but be prepared to use a number of different mailings. On the other hand, the value of each one of these clients is probably fairly high, so Stan should be able to afford to do this from an ROI perspective.
The report should probably be called something like, “How To Sell Your Practice For TOP Dollar In 90 Days Or Less, So You Can FINALLY Get A Big Fat Check For All Your Years Of Hard Work!” This assumes, of course, getting top dollar is the primary motivation for selling their practice (if they want to sell).
The free report Stan wants to offer will drive the dentists to some kind of a ‘Free Practice Preparation Assessment’ or something like that. It should be a consultative appointment that’s perceived to offer value and inform the dentist — and it should do this. But the goal is for the dentist to meet with Stan and use stan as the broker of his or her practice.
And see, this free report positions Stan as an expert, since it’s going to educate the dentists on how to sell their practice for top dollar, and how to avoid making the biggest and most costly mistakes dentists typically make in this situation.
It also generates a ton of leads for Stan to start communicating with, on a regular basis.
With positioning like this, along with some unconventional guarantees Stan can use (as shown in GREAT detail in Chapter 24 of my book), this becomes a no-brainer on the part of the dentist. No one’s even going to THINK about asking Stan if they should work with him over someone else, simply because the positioning two-step lead generation has given him, already sets him so far apart from his competition, it’s not even funny.
(Note: for complete info on two-step lead generation, including how to put together advertorials and free reports, go here.)
O.K., so get rolling on this, Stan. And then let me know how it all turns out.
Send in your submissions while you still have time. I’ll be using the best ones as examples over the next few weeks.
Now go sell something, Craig Garber
P.S. Would you like to know how to make more money in your business — a LOT more money, in fact?
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