Who's your enemy?

Every movie's villain makes the whole movie fun and keeps things moving. In a fun post, one marketing author suggests we, as marketers, also need villains.

What's your number one enemy?

Our blogger friend suggests:

"The weight-loss blog's No.1 enemy is fat. The productivity guru's enemy is clutter or poor time-management. The web designer's enemy is ugly and non-user friendly site architecture."

He points to a site here which lays out "what we're fighting for" and "What we're fighting against." (See right side, bottom quarter.)

"Enemies" are not specific people of course, but conditions, attitudes and habits.

What are you against, as it relates to what you are for, marketing your product?

For an example of the enemies we chose in the little start-up I am part of, check out the affiliate link at the top left of this page: Are Your Vitamins Safe?

Can you see what we positioned as our 'enemy'?

What's YOUR enemy as it relates to what's most important about your product line?

Then tell the world. Start here, by telling US.

In case you want the little one...

Customer magnate:

This coming Tuesday, and the following Tuesday, two third parties will introduce the 3 Scripts 100 Customers 100 Days CD program. They're big players, with hundreds of thousands on their lists. This is a first for me. Fun.

Anyway, I have about 400 of those left.

That's the 5-CD 3 Scripts 100 customers 100 days program, based on the classes I did from July 2003 to June 2006. It's the most successful program I've released in the past 3 years.

I'm pretty sure they will all be gone in the next week or sooner.

I am telling you because I am not reprinting the 3 Scripts CD program. I am replacing it with the expanded and newer 12-CD Customer Enchilada program.

The 5 CD program is $49.

The newer expanded 12-CD one is $137. It's based on the New School program (for which students paid $619 for the customer part, which this program is), is $137.(With the orange book it's $147, see both options here.

So if you'd like to get the little orange 5 CD 100 Customer program while I still have it, now is the time.

Either way...they'll be gone forever soon. If not this week, next week. Because both promoters have lists that dwarf mine.

It's here if you want it. $49. Get $8 discount too.

Offer good through March 31 (this Monday.)

To get the $8 discount, DO THIS: Enter the code: shipfree

at the end of the order process. It will prompt you. Then you save $8.

shipfree. It knocks off $8.

Can't get the free shipping code to work right, so we're just knocking off $8 ok?

OK that's all. :)

P.S. I fixed that code, and it's working right now. shipfree. It knocks off $8.

How to prevent customer Lulu from quitting the product

How do you get a customer who sticks with the (product/service) program? Compare these two scenes.

1. You've been convinced and persuaded to buy Product X from a friend. You even tried it.

2. You learned about Product X from a friend. After some consideration (and perhaps trying it), you realized it's really what you want. Product X harmonizes with your values.

When the spouse starts in, which purchase will you defend more?

The $64,000 question:

How do you present the product or service you have, so the other person gets to decide, on their own, that this product (or service) is in harmony with what they want - or not? (Trying it is often not enough, especially if you've promised big results that they don't notice.)

Open for wild and woolly ideas from the floor...

Saying it makes it unso, say some.

Is there anyone here who doesn't think their product, their business or their offspring isn't the greatest?

And in case the other person didn't notice, who ever misses an opportunity to say that out loud to anyone listening?

Here's one way others react to that:

"I'm reminded of a new trend I'm seeing more of, which is the act of declaring whatever you're working on 'the best ever,' 'the best in the world,' etc.

Saying it doesn't make it so. In fact, it probably makes it unso."

So writes Seth Godin here.

Sigh.

Do you know how to inspire curiosity in your product? Instead of "There she goes again!"

Three of the 12 CDs on the expanded new Customer Enchilada program here are devoted to that. (Special ends tomorrow. Then it will be gone.)

No doubt you have ideas too...

How to find high class local resellers for your product

Here's a way to find local and professional resellers. People with their own clientele - people you don't have to teach, motivate or drag to meetings.

And they'll sell the product if they love it. And they cost zip.

Combining Google with staying local.

Say you market a natural energy product.

1. Google entrepreneurs who have clients that are likely to have an interest in that product.

E.g. enter: Chiropractors in Wichita Kansas

Fill in any professional entrepreneur type, from upscale hair salons to alternative MDs in any city and state in the US.

2. Find one of the 'lists' or directories.

For most every category in the search results, you'll see a directory - sometimes several. Search those for lists by area and their specialty. You'll see their address, maps, and phone numbers.

3. Using some of the friendly scripts in the orange book, you can contact a group of 15-20 of them per day. Do all of one kind to start (e.g. all chiropractors, or all personal trainers) so you get familiar with them. Then find the one or two who might want a product like yours to check out and maybe carry.

One gal in our class called a group of chiropractors in her town, and one of them invited her to speak at an upcoming local event for chiropractors in the region (!!)

Most all entrepreneurs understand wholesale-retail spreads.

In my last company, I contacted alternative medical doctors in the San Francisco Bay Area, from the Yellow Pages. There was no Google then.

One of those MDs still orders 5-10 boxes of the product to this day, some 12 years later(!)

I know because the group I sold my business to shows me the reports now and then.

There's more detail on this reaching out method in CD 12 of the expanded new Customer Enchilada Priority Program here.

Do-it-yourself-ers can get started just with this info, yes?

Results: YES 296; NO 17

1. Would you use your product if you weren't selling it?

1. Yes 296 (95%)

2. No 17 (5%)

Out of 313 people, 296 of you would use the products even if you weren't selling it.

Do you think there are others out there like you, who'd use the products even if they were not selling them?

Would you give Lulu a chance to be your customer - like many of you said you were - years before you decided to sell it?

Want to learn to create a following of customers who are like you?

December 31, 2008: You have 30 customers who love the product, and each earns you $10 per month. That's $300/mo.

Would it be worth $147 one time - to learn to earn that - each month?

296 to 17.

Can you beat those customer-lover odds?

Check out the special Customer Enchilada Priority program here. Less than $147.

The Priority Special rates and extra bonuses will be gone tomorrow.

Customer Enchilada Priority Package

TWO PACKAGES.
#1 with book (top). #2 without (bottom).
CHOOSE THE ONE YOU WANT. USE THE DISCOUNT CODES ATTACHED TO THE ONE YOU WANT.

Customer Enchilada Priority Package #1
12 CDs and 'orange' book (above)
If this link doesn't come up go to the Order page here. The item is in the
CENTER ot the order page. HERE

$147

PACKAGE #2

PACKAGE #2: CUSTOMER ENCHILADA package WITHOUT the orange book (click here)

$137

The Customer Enchilada Combo special

Tomorrow is the special day. Tuesday, March 25.
Noon PT 1PM MT 2Pm CT 3PM ET

Customer Enchilada Combo special will be available then.

It's for product lovers who aren't enjoying recruiting, and who don't want to quit. Instead, they want to create a customer following. It could get big like AOL, or how about just 100 loyal customers who earn you, say, $10/each per month?

You will learn belly-to-belly and online ways to find product lovers like you. Without pressure, hype or manipulation. (It's all New School.)

Here's what you get:

*12 CDs plus the 'orange' book If My Product's So Great, How Come I Can't Sell It? (Reg $147)

*Extra Bonuses - no charge:
1) Haystack Course MP3s ($65 audio program of the $129 Haystack course, not available to public)
2) WebTalk Program Part 2 (you got part 1 - on a blog post here.)

1. First 33 to order: Pay $107 for complete package, including bonus extras.

2. Second 33 to order: Pay $117 for complete package, including bonus extras.

3. Third 33 to order: Pay $127 for complete package, including bonus extras.

After that, the Customer Enchilada Combo package is $147 with no extra bonuses.

Discount codes will be working tomorrow at NOON PT. Email coming tomorrow with order page and discount codes.

Q & A.

Q. “I have the 5-CD 3 Scripts Set.”
A. This is expanded and better, with all new info. All CDs newly recorded.

Q. “I have a 12-CD Customer enchilada program.”
A. Then you don’t need this one, UNLESS you want to give the program to a friend and keep the extra bonuses for yourself.

Q. “What’s in it?”
A. Includes how to build a repeat customer base from cold market to warm market, belly-to-belly to online. How to speak in an engaging personal style. How to go first; how to make the right ones come to you. Intro on how to market in today’s skeptical, price conscious market place. The CD titles are available on the order page which will be accessible tomorrow.

Would you use it if you weren't selling it?

Here's a question to ponder - a few people have been surprised by their honest answers and have found something else to market:



Results so far here:

Kim, why did you change?

John Fogg asked me that a few years ago.

"Why did you change from a rabid recruiter to the customer queen?"

In 2003, going after customers in NM was considered really dumb.

Why go after customers they asked, when "all the money's in the recruiting?" (Most companies still pay much better for recruiting than repeat customers.)

Anyway, here's why I changed.

In June, 2003, after some 8 years of consulting with thousands of reps from almost 100 different companies, I saw that many were just fading away. They were quitting. They did not want to recruit.

But it was all they were told to do.

Interesting tidbit: Nearly ALL those quitting were still big product lovers. They decided to stay with the product but not recruit anymore.

Then I got two surprises from my work with a few of the companies directly:

1. Only 3% of a network marketing company's reps sell enough product each month to get a check each month.

2. About 97% of the income a good product company gets comes from the product orders placed by 'wholesale customers' - former reps who've stopped recruiting.

That told me recruiting and selling is much harder than the companies and recruiters let on. And it's even harder today, in this recessionary time.

The good news: There are plenty of people who care about their health, the environment, good skin care, and clean household products, and who will pay a premium to get the high-grade stuff.

If AOL and cable TV can build repeat monthly customer empires, why not us?

1,000 repeat customers paying you $10/ea gives you $10,000/mo
300 customers paying you $10/ea give you $3000/mo.
30 customers paying you $10/ea give you $300/mo

Before you read further, ASK YOURSELF:

WOULD YOU USE THE PRODUCT IF YOU WEREN'T SELLING IT?

If YES, do you think others would, too?

Instead of quitting the business, how about taking a page from the AOL and cable TV model, and build up a repeat customer base?

Hundreds of people have done that instead of quitting the business.

Why not you?

P.S. The new and expanded and Customer Enchilada program will be released this Tuesday at NOON PT. We will have 99 special deals available - something for the first 33; second 33 and third 33. Hehehe.

Tell ya tomorrow what the deals are.

The customers: They haven't enrolled anyone yet!

I mistakenly posted this on the main blog. So here it is here, where I intended it to be...

Shelagh comments this to the post: "Networkers, quick: What's a customer?"

"Many of our customers are Distributors who think/say they are building a business, but haven't enrolled anyone yet!"

I wonder how many of them discovered doing the business wasn't something they enjoyed, and now they say they're building a business, just to pacify their upline?

We all want everyone to build, it's true. And most everyone is taught to hit on their customers, hard, to enroll others.

But only 1 in 100 will really consider sales, which NM is. And when people discover they don't like doing it, they stop. It's hard to force someone to do what they don't enjoy.

So maybe we can be grateful that they are at least staying on as customers?

Perhaps they'd be more interested in bringing in another customer, instead of enrolling more distributors?

Or perhaps they know someone who really does love sales?

From 27 customers to 2,783 in two years, with this little script...

Want to hear how one gal, new to mlm, went from 27 customers to 2,783 in two years, using a little script and some attitude?

Go to this page, SCROLL TO the VERY bottom, and click on #1.

Remember - SCROLL TO the VERY VERY bottom of the page. #1.

It's a 20 minute audio interview we did...she's since gotten her numbers up to 7,000 customers, but this is how she started from zip.

Enjoy this Easter Sunday!

Click here. Scroll to bottom of page. Click on #1.

P.S. The details on the little things she did, and many more others have done with fun and success, will be available to you this Tuesday. Noon PT.

"I don't want customers, I need Directors," she said

Tonight a gal emailed me saying "Oh I didn't know this Customer Enchilada Priority Notification group was about customers, I don't want customers. I do $10,000/mo in purchase volume and I want to break new Directors."

Oh. Cool.

Let's say a new Director does $500 in business. For which she gets 20%. So $100.

The number of people who want to build a business is at BEST 1 in 100. And usually, after that initial order, that's all they do.

Here's the CUSTOMER option.

Say the product she sells costs a regular customer $50/mo.

Customers are ten times more available than recruits.

More like 1 in 10 or 15. That's if you go to those with a problem and similar world view to yours - e.g. something for women with night sweats who want something natural. (Like in the WebTalk Part 1).

So if she knew how to approach them in large numbers at once, the way we will show in the WebTalk Part 2, she might get ten in 6 months. Her PV would be $500/mo (10 x $50)

Say they also pay her 20% for the customer orders.

In six months, she would make that same $100 she'd get from her Director .

Not just once, but month after month. (10 customers x $50 = $500 x 20% = $100).

Getting Directors isn't the only way to make money in NM. Your company has to pay you at least 10% for just customer orders though. If they don't, recruiting, though much harder, is the only option you have to earn anything.

Tomorrow I'll announce the timing of the release and the special extras for the first 99 people who sign up for the expanded Customer Enchilada program. It will be available Tuesday, exactly at NOON, PT.

Kim's Customer WebTalk #1

Here's the private and exclusive for-customer-enchilada-priority-notification group link:

Kim's customer WebTalk Part 1.

12 talking slides about some new perspectives on getting the attention of potential customers...

Give them time to download. Use the SPACE BAR on your keyboard to move from slide to slide. Sometimes you have to click twice. It's not as fast as TV yet, these computers.

Click here.

Networkers, quick: What's a customer?

Someone who BUYS stuff. Not who sells stuff.

The latter would be sales people. Or network marketers.

Part 2: WIN $147 CE: How does your product give Lulu what she wants?

This continues the post announcing WIN $147 CE the contest here. If you posted something already, thanks. The challenge to you was to complete this statement:

"Lulu, here's how this product gives you what you want."

Everyone who responded asked Lulu, in some way, if she'd like to buy your product.

That's what you want, but is probably not what Lulu wants. Not really. Here's the next question. Look at your answer and then tell:

What are you thinking Lulu wants?

WIN $147 CE: How does your product give Lulu what she wants?

Good sales and marketing folks know they need to give people what they want.
"Give people what they want and you'll be rich!"

Sounds good.

Let's try it. Take your favorite product and show us how you'd complete this sentence. [Lulu is someone you've just met through a friend.]

Use the principles in Post #1 and #2 in this blog (scroll down to see those) and tell us how you'd complete this statement:

"Lulu, here's how this product gives you what you want."

Winner gets the new and expanded 12 CD Customer Enchilada Program - $147 value. It should be out within two weeks. We'll take entries for the next 72 hours. Starting now, March 17, 1:55PM CT.

P.S. It's a little tricky, just like marketing. Hehehe.

Does your company pay 10% or more?

For "just customer" repeat orders? Or for preferred-type customers?

Anything but one time retail orders, I mean, and not counting any distributor orders.

If yours does, comment at the end of this post. Tell 1) the name of the company and 2) the range of percent OFF THE TOP they pay - off what the regular customer pays for the order.

NOTE: If your company uses a points system, where the points are what you are paid on, but the points are less than what the customers pays for the product, figure out the percent based on what the customer pays in dollars, so we are comparing apples to apples.

E.g. if you are paid say 10% on 100 points, but the customer pays $130, figure out how much you are paid on the $130. Tell that. OK?

People want to know what companies pay at least 10% for regular type customer orders. Based on what the customers pay in the language we all understand: dollars.

Don't count special one time retail sales. They're usually higher priced, but they do not encourage 'repeat' (residual) income like auto-ship or preferred customer programs do. Because there's no price advantage to the customer. And no, signing them up as a rep doesn't count. Defeats the whole purpose of 'just customers.'

Remember most mlm companies are totally distributor-driven, which is why most of them don't pay for just customers. It's changing, slowly but surely.

So whose company pays 10% or more for just customer orders? And what types of product do you market? (Skip technical names - use nutritional, weight loss, legal, skin care, personal care, household, etc.)

Building trust and credibility for your niche: Case study in progress

Customer Enchilada Priority Notification Tip #2 (this follows tip #1 - scroll way down to see it.)

Example from the new start up I own part of. Fill in the numbered parts with yourself and your own information.

1. Dr. Heidi sells a whole food multi.

[What do you sell?]

2. One big reason she sells it: She's been into nutrition for 30 years, and she knows most regular vitamins are synthetic. She's known for years that most synthetic vitamins go right through you. Jargon: they're not bio-available. That's a big reason people laugh and say Americans have the most expensive pee on the planet.

[What's a big reason you sell your thing?]

3. She wonders if some people who take vitamins (without giving it much thought) might want to know that they're probably synthetic and don't do much.

[What's something your potential customers might want to know, given their existing habits - e.g. in this case, Dr Heidi's potentials are those who already take vitamins.]

4. She writes an informational piece - a white paper - without selling her product. She might have put it on a blog, an audio podcast, or maybe made a video. She made a web page introducing the idea: "Are Your Vitamins Safe?"

[What information piece can you write? And if you don't write, what topic can you search Google for and edit those into a nice piece?]

Want to see the "Are Your Vitamins Safe?"

Will you promise not to steal this content? It's copyrighted. Will you write your own thing, from your own point of view, using YOU and YOUR hot buttons re your product?

Promise?

OK here it is. Are Your Vitamins Safe? (opens in new window)

5. She made that first page you see above, a 'Landing page." That's a single page, with enough information and proofs to interest the right persons, no one else. But stops short of telling everything. Open the kimono just a little...

(The proof here is encouraging the reader to check the label on their vitamins right now, for some of these ingredients.)

[What's your mini proof?]

6. She adds a little drama. She does not finish the whole piece. Instead, she puts a "subscribe" button on the bottom of the page - so those who want more info on this topic, i.e. potential customers later on, can sign up to get the rest of the report.

Others skip on to the next thing. NOTE: No one posting these "Are Your Vitamins Safe?" affiliate links on the Internet through emails and blogs, etc. hears 'no.'

7. People who really want this info (not lookers or spam bots and spiders) open the 'confirmation email' and click the link inside. That does two things: 1) it makes the person clicking it a 'double opt-in' lead and 2) that click releases the rest of the report.

[You can do the same thing or team up with someone.]

7. She puts the link, "Are Your vitamins Safe?" as many places online as she can. Her affiliate link assures those clicks and opt-ins are hers, should they buy her whole food multi at some point down the road. Anytime someone buys from that click, she earns between 20-28% off the top of the order. (This is a two-tier affiliate program so there are no minimum buy-ins to earn the percents.)

[Once you have a piece you like, you can put out the links also.]

Note: Nearly 500 people this past month have opted in to get the next informational email for this whole food multi.

That was the first informational email. There are about 7 more in the queue. All on the house, all educational for people who might have an interest in this whole food multi.

The next info piece is: Three ways to drink more and not get as drunk. Another: Alcohol? Two tricks to minimize the skin damage - if you don't want to give it up.

[What would your topics be given what you market and who you are?]

There are many ways to market online, and this is just one. Some people focus on social websites, like Facebook and MySpace, and others, like me personally, focus on blogs and marketing campaigns like this.

Hope this helps you a little. It's a start, yes?

This describes a customer driven program. We're looking to build trust and authority with our potential customer market with these kinds of online information campaigns. Affiliates have free access to these reports, to help spread the word.

Priority Notification Tip #1

This blog is for Customer Enchilada Priority Notification Members only.

From the email sent 3.15.2008

Customer Enchilada Priority Notification: Tip #1

It was June of 2003. I was losing customers and I knew I had to
change what I was teaching.

After 8 years of focusing on recruiting, my students
were dropping out of the mlm business in bigger numbers than usual. The companies didn't matter. They were dropping out of all of them.

Many had run effective recruiting ads which had gotten highly
qualified sales people to respond. But the minute people found out
it was mlm, they declined or just hung up. Other callers were
trying to cross recruit them.

I decided to test something new with my students - and happily, it
ended up being a way many of them were able to stay in the NM game:
Learning to build a base of repeat customers for their product.

Just customers - people not also selling the product.

And the results were so good we wrote a book about it - "If My
Product's So Great, How Come I Can't Sell It?"

In mlm it's possible to earn repeat (residual) income from just
customers. Like cable TV or AOL. Recruiters don't talk about it,
but you can do it if your company pays you to find repeat customers who are not also selling the product.

#1. Does your company pay you AT LEAST 10% of the top of
any repeat or preferred customer order. More is better. Why?

Otherwise it isn't worth doing the hard work to get the customers
in the first place. There are easier ways to make money.

#2. Does your company have a category for just (repeat) customers - people you don't have to push to become sellers?

Exercise.

1. Picture YOU have 300 repeat customers by Dec 31, 2008.

2. Your company pays you $10 for each order.

3. With 300 repeaters, you'd be earning about $3,000/mo.(300
repeaters @ $10/each per month.)

Question: How can you get those customers without doing the hard sell - without being seen as a pest or a nag?

Tip #1: CHANGE THE QUESTION you ask yourself.

Instead of the old stand-by:

"What can I do to get them to see the value of this product? And buy it and stay on it?"

Change that to:

"What goal might my potential customer have, that I can help them move a step or two closer to?"

That means you have to know where your potential customer would like to be that they're not, yet, as it relates to what you have to offer them. Your job is to move them closer to it, even one step.

How could you know where your potential customer might want to be, where you can help move them toward that place?

Ask yourself: What has the product done for you? From where to
where did it move you in some part of your life?

*This is step one in defining who your best potential customer is
- because you can help someone get to where THEY want to be, just like your product helped YOU get somewhere you wanted to be.

You might help the person make a move or two forward on the board game - but as you help your prospective customers move closer to THEIR goal, they will naturally be interested more and more in what you have to sell.

Because you've built up trust and credibility. You're proving you are helpful to THEIR goals.

So the question is: What can I do to help move Lulu, who wants what I wanted, move closer to HER goal (of say, wanting to lose weight and keep it off)?

That first step will not be selling your product. You'll help her make an interim move towards that goal instead. To build her trust and confidence in you. That comes first. A sale comes after that.


This exercise enables you to 1) see if there's a market for your product and 2) learn how to help that someone in that market with your new focus.

If you can really help someone get closer to where they want to be with something you're selling, selling is not only not evil, it's more like a calling.

Think?

Next: Something we did in our new little start up to start building
up credibility and interest in our product. A new list of well over
400 new opt-ins in the first couple of weeks.