snakez0r

If you think they won't ask for a big discount you should ask them what discount they want and then negotiate from there. If I was selling spaces at $400 each, I'd do the adjoining space at $300. It just depends on how badly you need to fill the spots really..

Ashleydupray

[QUOTE=timpears;5250566]In order to make the impact that these cards show, you need to have the full sized cards. Either get some samples printed at a printer, or get the sample pack from Bob. It is only $17 and well worth it.

I can't PM can I get the link to order the Sample pak also
is it possible to get the file so if I need more?
Thanks
Ashley

hourstoincome

Hello everyone. I have been following this post for two weeks now and just wanted to say, Thank you Bob Ross for this amazing business opportunity and thank you all for your input on the subject! Here's what I've done so far to persue this :

1. Got my business license
2. opened a business bank account with two savings accounts
3. Designed my 16 Ad mock up
4. Branded my Postcard
5. Created a Business logo for my business cards and shirts

I'm itchin to get started!! Now I just need to find a printer and a good company to embroider some shirts for me. Just thought I would share what I have taken action on.

How is everyone else doing with this? Any other success stories or stories of taking action? I always like hearing this stuff. It keeps me pushing forth. Thanks, Robert

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hoffman

Hi Bob, many many thanks for sharing your exp. I think it's a great great great idea.

BUFFALOBT

My second card is going out this week...my partner in another state is working on his first...we offer a turnkey model for those who just want to sell and we do everything else.

RedShifted

If you are itching to get started, you can go to a craft store and buy iron on letters just to start. I just bought a black collared shirt and ironed them on. Although I will be getting black embroidered shirts in the future.

Just stay focused and stay positive and you will do fine. If you have ANY problems, just shoot someone who has already done this a pm. I can even show you how I got my leads. I made about 3 different methods to find people, 1 which worked very well. It will find you the most targeted leads possible, and show you how to make people very interested in this. It involves "grading" their ads, and sending them personalized reports. One more method surveys people, one in person, one by email. The one in person works much better.

Good luck! - Red

ps. people have requested for me to write up a detailed way of doing it which I DO eventually plan on doing in the future. For now I can just help through email if you're having any issues.

BUFFALOBT

I forgot to mention the most EXCITING part of how we do it...we get 100% of our advertisers using email!

NO cold calling...NO walk-ins...NO direct mail...NO appointment setting...beautiful baby!

Andrew johnson4

Is this possible. I want to earn this money in one year. Can you help me by providing some other information.

rjohnsen

Please PM me the details on your offer.


Thanks.

BUFFALOBT

PM sent thanks-

BUFFALOBT

Happy to share any details please email me at bill(at)TheNeighborhoodSaver(dot)com thanks-

BUFFALOBT

Email me at the above address and I'll send you our Neighborhood Saver Home Based Business Opportunity pdf for your review- thanks again.

jimnastics

Can you US guys tell me how much your USPS direct to door service costs? I'm trying to find a similar service over here in the UK.

BUFFALOBT

14.5 cents...

jimnastics

Silly question, but per unit I take it?

BUFFALOBT

You are correct!

jimnastics

Thanks mate, found a similar service over here for 6p per unit which is good

RedShifted

BuffaloBt what does your method involve? Can you speak a little bit about it here? (assuming you're under the 50 post count rule). You don't have to give all the details away, but when I was getting my prospects by email, the closing rates were a lot lower, and I was exhausting my list of prospects rather fast.

This was important to me because the list I use to pitch my prospects is ULTRA targeted, I want to PRESERVE that list for the long term, and when I started sending too many emails, over a few weeks, you will condition a lot of local businesses to IGNORE YOU.

So my question is: Are you getting targeted leads or are you just marketing by numbers?
Do you have to do a bunch of follow up calls after you send the email?

A part of me doesn't like the idea of getting ALL your prospects by email. These are LOCAL businesses you are ideally trying to market to. If these businesses keep getting emails from you every week offering your services, pretty soon a good portion of them will just ignore you. THEN if you try to go in person, because you didn't work on that trust from the begining, it makes it that much harder imo. I just prefer the route of working on trust from the first impression, which is why I stopped using email myself and now use a personalized report, that I drop off to targeted businesses. No pitch involved, and you close a lot more local businesses than emailing everyone in your state.

All I'm saying is for newbies trying this, you DO want to try going into these businesses. Do not be tricked into thinking you can run this entire business by email, you're going to HAVE to talk to the owners at one point or another, so really, why not make a good first impression and just go in?

I have my own method that allows you to do this, w/out pitching a thing to the business owner. You waste less leads, you don't get tons of businesses becoming conditioned to ignore you, this also allows you to stay much more local. I feel in a way like I'm trying to compete against BuffaloBT, I'm not. I just honestly believe for the long term, you need to a more personalized method than email. It motivates your clients that much more to wanna use you, trust you, and stick with you long term.

-Red

ps. heres one more fact to consider. These local businesses get approached almost EVERYDAY by sales reps for valpak, money mailer, and super coups. These sales reps often GO IN to these businesses to sell their service in person. If this is what your competition is doing, and you're just sending emails, its going to make it that much harder. Valpak does everything, they cold call, email, do walkins, so you really need to be going into these businesses to compete against giants like this and steal their clients. You don't need to be pushy, but you DO need to be bold, and thats hard enough to do with email alone.

hourstoincome

Thanks for the responses guys. RedShifted, I like the idea of iron on letters. Ill have to look into that. I would like to learn your way of getting leads. So far I have decided to get mine by ground pounding, but it sounds like you have put a nice twist on it. Have you completed your first campaign yet? I would PM you but I dont have enough posts. Can you PM me your email address? Thank you

Buffalo. Just curious.. How has your response rate been ? Thank you

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hourstoincome

By the way everyone, I just called Office Depot and they said they can print me out some 9x12 postcards for my mockup. They will print full color on both sides. Only thing is that they dont do UV coating but they do offer laminate. They use 110 card stock which is apparently a little thinner than 14pt but I think once it in laminated, it will feel close to the same. Anyway just thought I would spread the word. Most printing companies want you to order a minimum of 100 cards and that just deosn't cut it for a mockup that your just using to sell ad spaces. Hope this helps

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BUFFALOBT

Hello Red!

All of your points are more than valid- thanks for sharing them.

The great thing about this model is that there are so many ways to be successful at it...key is to do whatever works best for you.

To give you some background, I am a "short cut" kind of guy...always have been. Just one of my numerous flaws. I have a weak work ethic, and low motivation to work hard at anything. I call this "working smarter not harder".

So for me- being able to find 14 advertisers to pay me $450 to advertise in The Neighborhood Saver all using email to find them is priceless! It's very cool.

Now- I DO end up calling them to "share" our program with them and answer any questions they have, but they all respond to my email first. It's awesome when you find the ones who "get it". Do I want to talk anyone into advertising, or sell something to someone? The answer of course for me at least is NO.

I have approached this business model with 3 things in mind:

1)how can I be successful at this doing the LEAST amount of work,
2)how do I make this as much of a "no brainer" for business owners as possible, and
3)how can I offer this as an opportunity for others to build a business?

Other than giving away ads for free, I think I'm pretty darned close on all 3 points.

OOPS...I almost forgot to answer your questions about the emails- sorry bout that.

Here we go...BIG SECRET...I email all of the Valpak, Money Mailer, rvsp, Home Mag, etc. advertisers and SHARE our program with them!

Thanks,

Bill

RedShifted

Thats too funny. We do definitely think alike as far as working smart goes.

THAT WAS THE FIRST THING I DID was collect all the mailers from Valpak, Money Mailer, and Super Coups. It just clicked in my head one day after I had bought Bob Ross's WSO and checked my mail. I opened up Valpak, saw some horrible ads inside, and wound up going to the businesses who had the worst ads.

I did a report on their ads identifying all the weaknesses in their ad copy. Such as no headline, no social proof, no call to action, all features and little benefits. So what I did was put together a quick personalized "report card" so to speak, stapled their ad to the report, walked in and did a 30 second intro about who I am and what I did.

I got about half of all the businesses I did this for to call me back.

You wanna know something else I did?
Not sure if anyone has thought of this but I was preaching this a couple months back. You can OPEN POBOX's in wealthy towns, to recieve all the mailers that are sent to those towns. It is more than worth it imo. This also helps you expand your business and list of prospects into wealth towns and neighborhoods.

Anytime I'm at a friends house or family, if I see a Valpak pamphlet, I ask them if I can keep it. Its a really awesome way to find clients, and moreso you'll notice a great deal of these people are FED UP with Valpak. They have no idea why its not working for them, and you can just come in quoting stats like "Valpak only has a 2% exposure rate, my postcards have 100% exposure" ORR "we don't advertise your competitors, valpak does".

I have a list of stuff like this to build percieved value.

Anyways, nice going. I just wish I could find leads this easily in my other businesses. =]

-Red

sultantamara

Hi Bob,

your idea just Great, and also give me idea to do the same way, thnks for your share and information

By the way who create the lay out design ? I mean it's from you or from client ?


Thanks,
Sultan

olamilekan2

Thanks for Sharing This, Can This Method Be Used In The United Kingdom

Morando Stores

moneylab

Red,

when you say Valpak only has a '2% exposure rate', can you clarify what you mean by that? That sounds like very valuable competitive intel, thanks!

olamilekan2

@ jimnastics

Can u please tell me the service you found in the UK. I from from Manchester, UK. Thank you

Morando Stores

jimnastics

@olamilekan2

Sorry, I should have said! It's Royal Mail's own "Door to Door" service:

Door to Door - more than just leaflet delivery | Royal Mail Ltd

Seems to be exactly what we need for the idea in this thread. Prices are good, and the service seems decent. The only thing I can't workout is do the leaflets get dropped with a) the normal post or b) on a separate leaflet dropping round? I hope a, otherwise they could just get dropped with a load of other junk. People are much more inclined to look at a leaflet that came with their normal post, as their mind is already in the "I should look at all this post as it could be important" frame, rather than the "oh look another junk mail drop, I'll bin it all".

jimnastics

Just found this:

"How it works:
Your leaflet or sample is delivered with the mail, so your audience is in the best place, and the right frame of mind to take in your message. Because delivery is made by our uniformed staff and the trusted brand of Royal Mail, your door drop will stand out from other circulars and leaflets delivered by hand or as inserts with local papers."

Perfect.

olamilekan2

@ jimnastics

Thank you for sharing this. Really appreciated.

Morando Stores

Ashleydupray

Here's my advice. NEVER listen to a man-Ever. Every time you do you will regret it. Do what you need to do for YOU!!!

Unless that man is BOB ROSS

Ashleydupray

Pierre who did your designs?
Gina

Sorry I saw your answer.
NVM

RedShifted

Well it is valuable yes. Although its definitely more valuable when you can explain it like you're asking now.

Explanation is simple. You may also want to bring Valpak IN WITH YOU when you pitch. I'm huge with using props anytime I can just to show people I'm prepared. After you say that, take the Valpak mailers out, say:

"what I'm asking mr/ms xxx, is do you want your ad to be buried in this tiny little envelope, with 50 other coupons - many from your own competitors.. orrr do you want your ad to pop out on this giant, glossy, seen-by-everyone postcard, where you won't have a single competitor?

"...and for an even better price?"

"look mr/ms, do you realize when someone gets your ad in valpak, they have to scurry through 50 other little tiny mailers just like yours? That means they have a 2% chance of ever actually seeing your offer - not only that, they will see your competitors, and they will see offers from branded dealerships that aren't actually good deals at all. A lot of these types of "deals" in valpak irritate people because they know the manufacturers are just offsetting their 'savings' by raising the price first, many people know this about car dealerships. Did you know that this bothers a lot of people who read valpak? Do you think it would bother YOU next time YOU opened a valpak? If you knew your genuinely valuable offer was just getting mixed in with a bunch of counterfeits?"

At this point its very hard for them to argue, so just for the kill imo.

"so let me ask you, how much is it worth for you NOT to have to put up with all that? I'm not quoting you an unfair price am I? I've factored in postage, I've factored in what its going to take to create you an effective offer... valpak doesn't do any of this for you. (look away and kinda shake your head, take a deep breath) Look ok, sometimes I get worked up about this mr/ms (the more you plug their name the more they will like you, common psychology dictates that people love to hear their own name) >> but all Valpak cares about is designing you the prettiest little coupons they can, and I hate to break it to you mr/ms xxx.. but pretty doesnt sell.

What I will actually do after a blast of value building like this, is I build just a bit more rapport to make sure they're on the same page. Then I just take out my contract and start filling it out.

This is called "assumptive closing", and its worked for me on various occassions. You know why? Because it shows this certain level of confidence in your product it is so infectious a lot of people won't even argue with you. Some WILL, and if they still aren't ready, just keep focusing on rebutalls.

Then take the contract out again and keep filling it out. "Ok so which size ad would you like? This ad, this ad, and that ad are taken so far, so I only have these sizes available... oh look we just so happen to have a smaller spot available like you were asking before.. if you just sign here now, we can collect the deposit and get a proof to you by X date".

I have to say one reason I think I've always closed a certain amount of sales is because I love confrontation with people. I even enjoy arguing with people too, I consider it an art somewhat. A lot of the techniques I learned to sell my mailers I wound up learning from my older brother who's been selling high contract jobs for his whole life. When you want to talk about REAL SALES PRESSURE, selling postcards isn't even close imo.

So don't stress out about it. Some people in here thing $500 or $700 is a lot of money. Its NOT. I'd say $15,000 is a lot of money. THOSE are the types of jobs you should get stressed out about.

So just go in relaxed, KNOW you're going to have to call out the owner various times on what they say and be OK and CONFIDENT about that fact. I have an interesting pitch in the way where it can look to outsiders like I'm yelling at someone, or shouting my pitch sometimes, but to the owner it comes off as assertiveness/confidence in what I'm selling. I never back down, if they have an objection, I ALWAYS have a rebutal on the tip of my tounge. Have this all prepared before you go in, it will help you close that much more effectively.

This is really ALL you need to get by them, be truely confident in what you sell. Don't face your clients with half of your body facing away from them, this makes people insecure - square up with them, keep your hands out of your pockets, lock eye contact with them and don't break it till they do first. These are very important nonverbal cues that you have NOTHING TO HIDE, and that what you PRESENT TO THEM is actually WHAT YOU DO FOR PEOPLE. Stuttering is ok if its done out of enthusiasm and not insecurity. You can even twist your words around and not be the best speaker.

But DO NOT get insecure about this stuff. Just be ENTHUSED, EXCITED and CONFIDENT. There are MUCH LARGER things in life to get insecure about, selling postcards imo is not one of them. I might just be saying that because I've sold various things, things that cost a lot more than this service (which are much harder to get leads for and that means that much more pressure to close a deal), but if it intimidates you that much there are still other fundamental ways to come over your fear rather than me just telling you to "be confident" about it. Don't just give up on this plan if you feel you can't go in confident enough. There are SO MANY ways to break your "sales cherry" for a lack of better words. Ways that don't even involve pitching people if thats what you need to get your rear out of the house.

Maybe this post helped some maybe it didn't, but its how I sell. I don't have a lot of posts left in this thread, but I will continue to post right up untill I reach my limit and after that people can just pm for assistance.

-Red

sodomojo

How much are busier owners paying for valpack?

Ashleydupray

Red,
I loved that especially the arguing part. It is a blast. There is nothing better than when they have objections and you can hit everyone between there eyes with your answer.
Good on ya.
Ashley

hourstoincome

So I am about to start selling my ad spaces in about a week from now and am just curious about response rate. How has your response rate been guys ? Anyone had good results besides Bob Ross? Thank you

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n0luck

nice idea. Im gonna try this. thanks!

tybrid

Hi Blog Diva, are you designing 9x12 ads for fellow warriors? if so, what is your pricing and can I see samples? how did the 9x12 mailers work out for you?

Thanks,

Tybrid

AfteraDream

Got a question. Bought WSO and reading more tips on this thread too but it didn't adress it:

Would it be better to have businesses to repeat every month or would they benefit more from advertising once every two months. Some wont have the margins, some may not gain new clients every month so to not oversaturate their potential leads, I'm thinking non-food businesses could be better off advertising every 2 months.

Assuming that other businesses will want to do ads with you after first one it gives an option to sign a contract with them for 3 advertisings during half year span.

It also rotates ads on your cards with fresh offers.

moneylab

I plan on doing one every 3 months here, I'm in a small market plus we are highly seasonal (tourist traffic); businesses are extremely tight-fisted during the off-season. I also want the flyer to remain unique and as you said, 'fresh'.

AfteraDream

Yeah my area is small, only 5k houses. City is much bigger so expanding is possible, but for starters it will be good.

AfteraDream

Yeah, my first bunch would be smallish 5k houses so I don't want to blast them with the same coupons over and over again.

Hopefully someone has already tested this thesis..

JohnGaltMarket

There's money to be made ! D

payperman1000

Definitely sounds like a winner to me..I'm going to have to give this a shot

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theultimate1

Bill... You are "THE SH!T"!!! (and I mean that respectfully... I hope using the word sh!t didn't come across in a different way, since I meant to use it colloquially). Mr. Short Cut avoids cold calls and knows to hunt for proven advertisers... WOW WOW WOW!

If you were a girl around my age, I don't know about advertising, but I'd definitely try to talk you into marrying me

Awesome post that, Thank You Bill. I'm sending an e-mail for the review copy still though

SB274

LOL that cracked me up.

BUFFALOBT

TOO FUNNY! Thanks for the compliment!

nstephan

Coupon sites have been poping up all over the place but they rarely have quality coupons, I stick with Retailmenot, or a couple others. Found a good coupon for and e-cig, Joye 510 Atomizer, have yet to try it but seems like a good product.

Anyone have any thoughts for the best door to door marketing or how to narrow down the right zipcodes to send too? The post office has a pretty cheep method but don't feel it takes into effect, smokers, non smokers, or age groups, and such?

nice thread!

snakez0r

If a business advertises regularly (every card you post out) they are showing their customers that they are stable and reliable. This is especially important for the non-food businesses.

Besides, can you fill every spot on the card if some businesses are only advertising once every 2 months?

At the end of the day it's a win-win situation for them to advertise consistently. If they want to advertise bi-monthly because they can't afford it, offer them a discount for booking in the extra months or offer them a free upgrade to a larger ad (unless of course you can fill that spot with a full paying customer).

itssahil

Wow Wow Wow,

That is a perfect idea. Its a simple yet amazing way to earn.

Well! Thanks man.. But I have a question. I am from India and I do not have much knowledge about postal guidelines. Here are few more basic questions.

How should I proceed?
Where should I search for my first advertiser as this is pretty new thing in my area and it will be hard to convince people on this.
Should I name my postcard like : Sahil's Postcard or anything other. Is it good to do so?
Will my postcard will only contain advertisement or some other content as well?

There are many more questions revolving in my mind. But I will surely try this. I feel myself lucky that I read this today.

Thanks a lot!

KabirC

Almost done with my mock-up, but I am wondering. Where do you get the files for the retail EDDM labels? The local postal customer and then the box for the postage.