EP118 Unplug

Industries don’t realize the real stuff that works aggressively for marketers, and those are the things we find offline. In this episode, Ken Courtright talks about these fundamental offline marketing techniques that can help you elevate your business. He explains why these help in making mega-millions for businesses and why we need get into people’s faces to do some deals.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Unplug

In episode 117 I talked about going offline. I talked about why not try Valpak, radio, billboards, Sirius or remnant radio. I went through a series of things you could do if the internet never was invented. I’m going to stay in the same thing. We’re going to stay offline. We’re going to talk about stuff that works aggressively, it’s fantastic, and it’s not necessarily free. Most of the nuggets I drop on this podcast are free or nearly free. This one is a couple of bucks, but it is worthy of talking about. We have helped many companies make many millions of dollars with the following techniques. I have to talk about it. There’s a challenge in our society and that is, we are engrossed on the internet, we’re blind.

We have web blindness, and we have forgotten that people still need real touch. People still need to hold things, they need to see people, they need to lock eyeballs, and they need to shake hands. This and every episode leading up to our Digital Footprint event is sponsored by Digital Footprint. If you haven’t heard about it or seen it, check out DigitalFootprint.net. Check out the speaker lineup, look at some of the videos from past events. There’s a reason Forbes recommends it is a can’t miss, must-attend business conference. It’s like my podcast on steroids. You’re not just getting it from me. You’re getting it from countless people that have major businesses that don’t do anything but teach and serve.

Nothing is coming off that stage, but the greatest business nuggets. These are all my friends, we don’t pay speakers to be there, and they are doing it because they want to do it. It is an awesome event. Love to have you there, check it out DigitalFootprint.net. If you can’t afford it, jump on iTunes, give me an honest review of this podcast. You’ve got to do it on a laptop or a desktop. If you give me an honest review, then email me Ken@IncomeStore.com I’ll pick up your ticket and your meals. If you can afford it, give me a review anyway and pay for your ticket. If you truly can’t afford it, you know how that works.

Unplug, this is awesome. Why? Society’s brains are pickled. The Internet has been around for years since Al invented it. We’re blind to some fundamental techniques that drive massive business. Here’s a couple of them, direct mail, cold calling on the phone and knocking on doors in person. I gave some of you the willies. Some of you dropped your coffee. Some of you might have gone to the bar to get a drink. Direct mail done the right way is powerful. Picking up the phone and cold calling is huge. I’ve helped companies make mega millions cold calling on the phone. I’ve helped companies make mega-millions of teaching techniques on how to knock on doors.

Let’s talk about a couple of these for a second. I would recommend if you have not read Dan Kennedy’s No BS Marketing to the Affluent and Direct Marketing or The Ultimate Sales Letter. Look at how he describes what’s called a shock and awe box. I’m going to give it to you in my words and I’ve covered this at least twice on podcast, but not this way. Could you imagine in this digital society, we’re constantly getting hit up on Skype, email, text and all these digital sales machines that use local numbers to mask this and mask that. We’re bombarded. There’s a package mailed to your home or business, it’s not an envelope, it’s like a shoebox or a mini shoebox. It’s physical, it’s like Christmas in August and you’re like, “What the heck is this?” It’s labeled to you, it’s handwritten, and then you open it and there’s a handwritten letter to you. Inside is, there’s all these little gadgets or gizmos or handwritten letters or pieces of art worker, whatever but it’s all to you.

You get to the bottom of it and you’re like, “Wait a minute.” You read it and somebody says something to you like this, here’s the one I received, “Dear Ken, what an amazing company. I’ve been tracking you for over six months. Congratulations on hitting the Inc 5,000 list for the second or third time. Sounds like one of your products, and they named one of our new products is going to be a real barn burner.” It was the full-page letter written to me. Some of the stuff, I don’t know where they found it, we’ve never published it. It’s not on our website. I don’t know where they got their information, but they were spot on.

Honestly, I remember reading this going, “This one is the greatest salespeople I’ve ever met in my life.” They took the time. They did the homework. They knew who I am. They know what our company does. They understand me. I could not wait to do business with this person, at full price. I didn’t ask for a discount. It was the law of reciprocity. I could not wait to talk to this lady. Here’s one for you, I can’t tell you, and how many people I have helped do direct mail to fill restaurants or hotels. There are many great companies out there that you can engage with, that will give you direct mail rates way less expensive than you could ever do.

Professional, thick envelopes, everybody opens them. At least 85% of the people open them. You offer some, “I’ll pay for your lunch or your coffee if you come and hear me blab for an hour on what we do.” Insurance people and financial people have been doing this for years. It is profound when you realize when you offer people something of how much they’ll come. I used to tell people, “Start your presentation. I know you came for the steak dinner. Let’s eat and then you got to listen to me blab for an hour.” That is the scripts I wrote for people, and it works. When you get real with people, it works. We’re in such a digital society. People are aching to communicate with real people.

Here’s a couple more, cold calling. When is the last time you talked to a cold calling company that will not use a dialer? They will pick up the phone, they’ll run their list of your perfect client, and they will pick up the phone and dial for you and present a script and see if they could set up appointments for your sales reps. If you’re not trying that, there are some companies out there that will do that on a small retainer and then do it commission only. It’s free. You’ve got to try it. Here’s my final one for this podcast, knock on doors. Do you have a product where you could walk into small businesses and there are 14 million small businesses where you could knock on doors and say, “Is the owner in?”

Any chance I could show you something that could help you grow your business. In the ‘90s, we had 40 salespeople from 1992 to 1997. We had an outdoor and indoor electric sign company that was attached to our consulting company. It was the feeder of many leads of business and that buys a byproduct of walking in the door, no appointment, no business card, we walk in the door and say, “You know we’re going through town? The reason we’re in your town, we know you have no sign company in this town. Matter of fact, there is no sign company for the next three towns. Here are some testimonial letters from people we’ve already serviced in your town in years past.” Our testimonial letters were our business cards.

Here’s the point, we would knock on doors, we say, “You have a wooden sign. Is there any chance we could show you something? I can do a presentation in under five minutes. It would increase your business by 10% to 50%, if not 100%. Honestly, I’ll be out of here in ten minutes if you don’t like it.” People couldn’t wait to hear what we had. We got up to 40 sales reps. We were doing millions of dollars with no appointments, sales reps. We had a rule in the office it was this simple, you knocked on enough doors until every month you could do ten photographic presentations where you’d knock on a door, get an appointment, they’d say, “I’m interested in that.” You take a picture of their storefront, you’d superimpose what it would look like with an electric sign, and then you come back and present a proper sign installed with permits. I can’t tell you how much business we did with no appointments.

Here’s the thing, when’s the last time you unplugged or are you like I talked in episode 116 where you’re in your sacred cow? If you haven’t checked episode 116, go back to it. Are you in your sacred cow where you’re stuck and you’re still doing what you did 2, 5, 10 years ago? I don’t know what podcast it was. It was 50, 60, 70 somewhere in there. It’s where I talked about 439 of the Fortune 500 companies from 1955 are gone. Why? Guess what? The products they sold are still around. The industries they were in are still around. How come the biggest companies in this space, 400 and almost 40 of them are gone? It’s this simple. They were stuck doing the marketing that got them there. They could not unplug and try new marketing techniques, when all their competitors, they changed with the times.

They changed into TV, they changed into radio, they changed into highway billboards, and they changed into the new technology. Here’s what I’m telling you, there’s new technology, called the internet. You know how many people have left traditional media to go online only because they think that’s the gold rush? The prices that you can get for direct mail and cold calling companies, they’re giving it away because everybody’s left them. It is profound what’s happening with offline marketing. I’ve been reading many books. I’ve been talking to many people, and I’m counseling many people to go back to the Dan Kennedy ways, the Seth Godin ways, and the Zig Ziglar ways. Go back to belly to belly, get in people’s faces and do some deals. I’m unplugging.

Important Links:

• episode 117 – previous episode
• DigitalFootprint.net
• No BS Marketing to the Affluent
• Direct Marketing
• The Ultimate Sales Letter
• episode 116 – previous episode

• Here’s How »

• kencourtright.com
• Today’s Growth Twitter
• Ken Courtright LinkedIn