Amazing way to market your website offline...?

[AndrewCavanagh]

Here's an amazingly powerful way of using the law of reciprocity in the offline world that you can adapt to create 1 person or an army of people offline marketing your website and making money while they do it:

1. A gentleman approached my table and handed me a card.

On the card was a message something like "The person who gave you this card is deaf. This card has instructions for some of the must used sign language. We suggest you give any donation in exchange for the card. Suggested donation $2."


2. The gentleman who gave me the card waited till I read the card and looked up at him and he repeated the line on the card "any donation" politely.

His enunciation was poor suggesting that he could indeed be deaf (a cynical person might have suggested he was faking it).


3. I gave him $2!


4. He said "thank you" and signed it. I notice the first sign on the card was "thank you" so I knew what he was signing to me.


Now this is an amazing marketing strategy that I'm sure could be adapted.

Here are the strengths:

# You can walk into any business like a restaurant, hand the card over and then ask if they mind you giving out the cards to their diners. They will find it very hard to say no to a deaf person but the same method would work if you were collecting for a charity, children or any cause perceived as worthy or selfless.

# The cost of the cards is minimal. Postcard size...say 5 cents or less to print one.

Even if you're getting just 25-50 cents a card you'll make a good profit.

But I would expect most people will hand over the suggested donation.


# The card can lead to a website that has some kind of lead capture and upsell.

This is the real power of the marketing method in my opinion.

If you create a system like this that works you can teach it to someone, have them do it and keep the money they collect.

You get the leads to your website...free, high quality lead generation.


# If you give something of value (like the card teaching sign language) you're also performing a valuable service to the people who get it.

Neat idea all round harnessing the power of reciprocity.

Think of how you can create an information card in your niche that has value then start handing it out yourself or get cute kids to make money handing it out, get someone who wants to make extra cash handing it out etc.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[Alex Liu]

This reminds me of the world no. 1 salesman who sells car. (I forgotten his name)

I went to his seminar and he said one of the way he spread his name card is going to some sport events and throw out the cards when a team scored.

[AndrewCavanagh]

His name was Joe Girard and I hadn't heard that story before...very funny.

Joe was the 9 Year Old Shoe-Shine-Boy From Detroit Who
Sold More Cars Than Any Other Man ALIVE"

He was listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records for selling more cars than any other man in history.

Joe Girard's amazing sales record of 13,001 car sales in 15 years was audited by Deloitte and Touche - one of the largest accounting firms in the world - and EVERY car sale was at retail...

There were no fleet, wholesale or used cars in those figures.

Joe Girard grew up in one of the roughest ghettos of Detroit and worked as a shoe-shine boy where he discovered one of the greatest sales secrets.

He learned that if you talk to more prospects and clients you'll get more sales.

Joe was smart and a hard worker - almost to the point of fanaticism.

But he wasn't always lucky and after a real estate business deal went bad one horrible day changed the course of his life forever.

For months he'd been out of work and one day his wife told him they had no food left in the house and his children were begging for something to eat.

So he talked a car dealer into letting him sell cars by promising to take a desk in a back room and make all his sales from cold telephone calls.

He sold a car the next day and borrowed ten bucks off his boss to buy groceries for his family.

“Before long
he was selling more than enough cars
to make a living almost entirely
through cold calls...”


But there's a limit to the hours you have in a day and making cold calls and trying to talk people into buying a car this way is excruciating, emotionally draining hard work.

Then Joe stumbled on one of the best kept secrets of selling cars.

He realized that the people who came and looked at cars and talked to him about buying a car often didn't buy straight away.

Often they didn't buy at all.

Sometimes they bought a car off another dealer.

Often one of their friends or their family would buy a car too.

Joe realized if he stayed in constant contact with everyone who walked onto his lot they'd come to him first when they were thinking of buying a car.

“And the more people
he stayed in contact with the more people
would seek him out...”


So Joe began sending greeting cards to every one of his clients.

If they bought a car from him they got a greeting card every month.

Then he started sending those greeting cards to every prospect who walked into his car yard.

Then everyone who called.

By the time he retired from selling cars Joe Girard was sending out an astonishing 13,000 greeting cards every month.

And every one of those months he'd average 72 car sales at retail...

Imagine the commission you'd pocket if you were selling 72 cars every month.

Now here's Joe Girard's biggest secret to selling cars...

“You Don't Need To Be
A Great Salesman When You're
Sending Out
13,000 Greeting Cards Every Month!”


Think about it.

A certain percentage of people who walk on to your car lot or your showroom floor are going to buy anyway - almost despite the salesman in some cases.

Joe Girard's greatest secret was not that he was a great salesman.

His greatest secret was having an automated system where he sent out 430 personalized greeting cards each and every day...

And out of those 430 some came in to buy a car.

Or they sent their friends and family.

Enough so that he sold nearly NINE HUNDRED cars a year or an average of around 3 cars every working DAY.



The method is different but the principle is the same.

If you devise a method where you are constantly contacting your best prospects in a way that draws them to you you're going to do a lot of business.

In this case you may be able to get people to make money handing out a card with valuable information that leads to more valuable information on your website.

That's powerful and I'm sure the idea of it would make that old shoe shine boy from detroit smile with avaricious glee.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[Phil Spinelli]

His greatest secret was having an automated system where he sent out 430 personalized greeting cards each and every day...

Enough so that he sold nearly NINE HUNDRED cars a year or an average of around 3 cars every working DAY.

I wonder what his expenses for the cards were and profit per car sold?

[AndrewCavanagh]

Now you're getting technical but it is a very good question.

I know he had at least 2 full time staff members who did nothing but write and send cards all day long.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[cremaster]

Originally Posted by Phil Spinelli

I wonder what his expenses for the cards were and profit per car sold?

Well, he lived on the same block as Henry Ford Jr.

So, I'm pretty sure he was doing okay for himself.

He also kept asking Henry Ford Jr. to buy a car (Joe sold GM)!

[AndrewCavanagh]

Originally Posted by cremaster

He also kept asking Henry Ford Jr. to buy a car (Joe sold GM)!

Yeh that sounds like Joe.

Never miss an opportunity to sell even if you're trying to sell a GM car to the manager of the Ford company.

I doubt he expected Henry Ford Jnr. to buy a car but took great delight in trying.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[logosi]

Interestingly enough, that very scenario happened to me not so long ago. I had taken a sign language course earlier in life, so I was able to wish him well and to "Have a good day". I'll admit I hadn't thought of it from a marketing standpoint, but I still have the pen he gave me.

[Phil Spinelli]

I was going to buy his book before but never got around to it.

I wonder, is there any samples of the cards he sent out in it?

[AndrewCavanagh]

In the book How To Sell Anything To Anybody Joe does mention how he sends out 12 cards a year but he doesn't give you samples.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[Vector]

Thank You Andrew, great story and lesson.

Jay

[trafficwave]

Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh

If you devise a method where you are constantly contacting your best prospects in a way that draws them to you you're going to do a lot of business.

In a word: AutoResponders

I've told people over and over again... "I'm good, but I'm not THAT good." I just make sure I get my offer in front of as many people as I can and I follow up with them relentlessly.

Law of numbers.

Reminds of my experience in telemarketing sales many years ago. I was nowhere close to having the best pitch in the room. Others were much smoother and had it down. Yet, I consistently performed in the Top 3 week in and week out.

One of the people that were genuinely better at the job than I was got really upset and asked the manager why I kept beating them. They had heard my pitch and I wasn't very good.

The manager pulled up a report on his computer and said, "You want to know why? Look at this. When the phones are ringing, you're all on the phone. When the incoming calls stop, you guys sit there and whine about the phones being dead and Rooney starts dialing for dollars."

It was just that simple. They would take about 20 to 30 calls a day. I took the same amount of calls. But when the phones weren't ringing, I was going through the database and making outbound calls. My call stats showed me making 3 times as many pitches each day on average.

The law of numbers was on my side.

I hate talking on the phone, now. I'm sure glad my AutoResponder makes contacts and follows up on my behalf!

[Phil Spinelli]

One of my friends is the top sales person for a company that sells those $8,000 whole-house water systems.

He does the same thing, when there are no leads coming in, he's knocking on doors.

He's the top sales person at every company he works at. He's a good person too, and very knowledgeable about many things.

I've had people tell me "he really cares", he's not like the rest of the sales people I meet.

He told me he closes 50% of every home he enters.

[AndrewCavanagh]

Originally Posted by trafficwave

One of the people that were genuinely better at the job than I was got really upset and asked the manager why I kept beating them. They had heard my pitch and I wasn't very good.

The manager pulled up a report on his computer and said, "You want to know why? Look at this. When the phones are ringing, you're all on the phone. When the incoming calls stop, you guys sit there and whine about the phones being dead and Rooney starts dialing for dollars."

It was just that simple. They would take about 20 to 30 calls a day. I took the same amount of calls. But when the phones weren't ringing, I was going through the database and making outbound calls. My call stats showed me making 3 times as many pitches each day on average.

The law of numbers was on my side.

I hate talking on the phone, now. I'm sure glad my AutoResponder makes contacts and follows up on my behalf!

Great story.

What's even more powerful is for someone to be making that initial contact of your prospects in the offline world for you, driving them to a website you've set up THEN following up with them by autoresponder to get them to the point where they're ready to buy.

The new frontier is combining different marketing methods online and offline to multiply your results and profits.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[trafficwave]

Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh

Great story.

What's even more powerful is for someone to be making that initial contact of your prospects in the offline world for you, driving them to a website you've set up THEN following up with them by autoresponder to get them to the point where they're ready to buy.

The new frontier is combining different marketing methods online and offline to multiply your results and profits.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

I'm not really sure how the company I worked for those many years ago would have implemented that strategy back then, but .... sure ... that would have been a good way to go about it, too.

They didn't have any complaints, though. They closed tens of thousands of dollars in new business on a daily basis.