Originally Posted by J smith

Robert: you should probably talk to that lady owner again (but perhaps after you get some toher place to sign up) and explain to her that not ony is putting stuff in people's mailboxes a federal crime, but "doing it yourself" isn't free.
1,000 flyers is going to cost her $50-100 in paper alone, another 50 to 100 in ink (her printer probably isn't going to work any better after pirnting 1k flyers either) Then she has to get in her car and spend gas money and most important her time, to do what? Save? Save what?

Between ink, paper and gas costs she's already at $200 or more. How many flyers can she place in one minute? 2? 3? Let's say it's 2 flyers per minute, that's 500 minutes or over 8 hours. So not only is she spending over $200 but she also has to spend 8 hours of her time doing this.

And for what? So she can reach one tenth of the people your ad would? So, 8 hours of her time (and a lot of head ache) gets her 1,000 flyers or she can pay you an extra $400 and spend her day doing something more fun than driving around sticking flyers into mailboxes, and reach 10 times more people.

I just don't see how she can say no to that. I mean, if she agrees that doing 1k flyers is worth it, then you should have no problems closing her. Now if she says advertising doesn't work at all, that'd be different.

A question for Bob Ross:
"That's well over $10,000 to send out a mailing of 10,000 pieces. You can explain to them that by grouping local businesses together, using your special print source, and taking advantage of certain post office incentives... you can bring the cost down to around a thousand dollars each space. "

If you place 16 ads on a card, then wouldn't "around a thousand dollars each space" result in around 16,000 which is more than the original 10,000 which is the starting point in the paragraph I've quoted?

It's a nice idea to quote a higher price while you build up value, as that helps convince them that getting it at lower price is even more worth it. But I am curious as to what prices I should quote to prospects.

I was planning to go with a $500 per spot, $400 if you buy it now. But $500 is my target price, so if I wanted to quote a higher price before dropping it down, what price should I quote?
Granted I guess I can go with the whole: direct mail would cost you a buck each, doing this size postcard yourself would be at least 50 cents. Now I am offering it at 7 cents each, but right now, because I really want to get it out there I am offering it at just $500! And if you buy right now you get an amazing 20% discount on top of that!

Anyway, got a sample postcard design made, just need to get it printed up and then I am off cold walking

PS: Bob, going to buy your wso tomorrow. This is an awesome thread, thanks a lot for starting it!

Originally Posted by TWalker

No Bob has suggested it is almost exclusively checks made out to your business name. Others suggest using a credit card scanner like squareup.com.

Originally Posted by J smith

A question for those who've got their postcards made/designed, as well as those who posted theirs in this thread. Has anyone actually been able to fit 8 full, equal sized ads + branding on their card?

The card TWalker posted above for instance has 8 ads + branding, but the 2 ads on the bottom right are clearly half sized. Also the ads vary in size to a decent degree, so much so that the business of the top right might feel they got screwed compared to bottom center.

The "Titan Value" postcard that was posted by someone earlier in this thread also has a similar design, as does the design I got from my graphic designer.

So, has anyone been able to fit all 8 ads + branding? And if so, could you post your card (or pm it to me)
And also, do you guys put your branding on both sides of the card, or just one side?

Originally Posted by thedog

That's awesome!

Even pulling this gadget out in a meeting will give you so much cred.

Now I just need an Ipad

Originally Posted by Eddie Spangler

Can someone help me craft a smooth answer to this objection. I know the answer but my explanation gets wordy, Need a short and effective way to answer-

If I start offering coupons won't I just train customers to expect a deal in order to come in?

Originally Posted by believemarketing

your question is your answer...

coupon is a that thing that gets people come back for more.... people like getting things cheaper, it makes them happy...

Originally Posted by Eddie Spangler

Can someone help me craft a smooth answer to this objection. I know the answer but my explanation gets wordy, Need a short and effective way to answer-

If I start offering coupons won't I just train customers to expect a deal in order to come in?

Originally Posted by Eddie Spangler

Can someone help me craft a smooth answer to this objection. I know the answer but my explanation gets wordy, Need a short and effective way to answer-

If I start offering coupons won't I just train customers to expect a deal in order to come in?

Originally Posted by Robert Domino

Update:

But here's the kicker. My wife decided to have date night there anyway since we're actual customers there once in a while. Later during the dinner, we heard the waitress talk with the lady owner and say something like $600 is INSANE but it's a good idea so they should "print on bright paper and do like my uncle and drive around and put it in people's mailboxes".

I'm actually not upset at all. I know they're completely oblivious to the real costs of advertising. I can imagine this lady driving to 1,000 homes to drop off sheets of paper and then figuring out that even "free" has a cost in time, gaz, printing paper etc. It will probably bring them "some" sales, on a small scale, but nowhere near what 10,000 of these giant postcards could.

Originally Posted by Eddie Spangler

Can someone help me craft a smooth answer to this objection. I know the answer but my explanation gets wordy, Need a short and effective way to answer-

If I start offering coupons won't I just train customers to expect a deal in order to come in?

Originally Posted by J smith

And why wouldn't it work for a cleint? Depending on what business it is, they might only need 2-50 clients to get their money's worth (not even including life time values of clients, just from the initial transaction) Is it that hard to believe that a restaurant advertising some nice special deal will get 50 people out of 10k it was sent to? That's only 0.5% response rate, which is about average for a postcard.

Originally Posted by Robert Domino

I whole heartedly agree. However, it seems like a lot of these small time owners "don't get it". Because they suck at marketing, their lifetime customer value might be $50 instead of $500 so they can't comprehend the value.

Even more so, they most likely think in terms of immediate sales, aka "I'll probably get 25 people paying 10$ and I'll lose money".. They don't have a referral system, they don't have a bounce-back offer, they don't have any systematic system to attract and retain customers.

I can see teaching them and making them see the light, but that's another can of worms. For this model to work without pulling your hair out, you seem to have to pluck the low hanging fruits.

Originally Posted by Eddie Spangler

You seem to be off to a rough start, can you tell me What mediums do the small businesses in your area spend advertising on?

Originally Posted by Robert Domino

Dan Kennedy always talks about the danger of lowering prices too much.

IE We used to go to this Japanese restaurant every so often and pay full price, about 10-11$ per person.
Then they came out with 2 for 1 dinners every tuesday. So for 3 months we went there every week and dined in for 10.84$ TOTAL + tip, less than what it would cost to go to Subway.

Since they went back to the normal price, we never went back. We got into the "bad" habit (for them) of thinking their dinner is worth 2 for 1. When they canceled it, it's a sudden price increase of 100% for us and all of a sudden, you feel bad about it.

That's the objection people have about coupons. They feel that if they discount too much and too often, then people will just hold out and develop the habit of only coming in when there's a huge sale. Coupons work well but they have to be used wisely.

Originally Posted by Robert Domino

Update:

lol. Went back to the second place tonight as scheduled. The lady seemed mildly interested but almost had a stroke when I pitched the price down from 1$ for direct mail to 50 cents if you did it all yourself to 8 cents standard rate to 6 cents per card if you acted now.

Then the money objections started. "The economy is bad, we're not getting a lot of business", "$600 is almost a day's worth", "We don't advertise", "I can't discount any more".

Even though I believe I handled some of these objections pretty well, ie "that's exactly how you spark business, as these postcards have been very successful for restaurants". "you don't actually need to discount more since you're already offering specials. All you need to do is advertise the offers that are currently working well for you", it ended up with the good old "I'll have to think about it".

I don't want to be sarcastic but if they insist on not advertising, it's no wonder they aren't doing well. A better salesman might have closed them, since they expressly said that it was a good idea.

But here's the kicker. My wife decided to have date night there anyway since we're actual customers there once in a while. Later during the dinner, we heard the waitress talk with the lady owner and say something like $600 is INSANE but it's a good idea so they should "print on bright paper and do like my uncle and drive around and put it in people's mailboxes".

I'm actually not upset at all. I know they're completely oblivious to the real costs of advertising. I can imagine this lady driving to 1,000 homes to drop off sheets of paper and then figuring out that even "free" has a cost in time, gaz, printing paper etc. It will probably bring them "some" sales, on a small scale, but nowhere near what 10,000 of these giant postcards could.

With that said though, here's where I'm reaching out to people who have been doing this with a serious question. I had made a list of restaurants in a 15 miles radius and it amounted to 20 + national brands (ie McDonalds, Arbys, etc).

Out of those 20 restaurants, 8 of them are very small neighborhood type places in a very small town (3,000 homes.. yes, 8 small restaurants for 3,000 homes). And I pretty much struck out on 2 of the 12 bigger ones. That doesn't leave a lot of room for error. I would have to successfully close 50% of them to start filling up the card nicely. Even if I aim for only 10 advertisers on the first card, it feels like the pool of potential advertisers is low now.

Basically, my question is, with the numbers I've given, is this area too small to support the card? I wanted to do one here and then have something to show when I scale it up to the bigger city (which has 70,000 citizens) instead of these 20,000 spread out over 2 1/2 zip codes. From everyone's feedback restaurants are what get the best results, and I only have ~10-12 of those prospects left.

Sorry for the long drawn out post. It's not the rejection that worries me since I didn't set the bar high in the first place. What worries me is the low number of prospects. If you get a 10% response out of 1000 then you're doing great. But if I get 10% out of 20-25, that's horrible.

I wonder if I should stop wasting time with this low-baller area and immediately move on to the bigger city (people earn more there, there's more addresses per zip code, several of them already advertise in the newspaper aka more low hanging fruits). Or should I grind my teeth on this place and gain experience, "pay my dues", with low expectations, so I'm better prepared when I go to the other place?

Thanks for the feedback. I'm usually more of a "behind the scenes" person, like I've made some pretty good money with online affiliation. To take action in the real world is tough for me so I don't want to give up but at the same time, I don't want to struggle finding 5-6 advertisers and barely break even.

PS: There's obviously more than 10 prospects if you count the non-restaurants, but since these have gotten the best results according to Bob Ross and others I've asked, they're what I focused on in this message.

Originally Posted by RedShifted

Hey I see what you're doing and there are lots of salesmen on this forum so trust me everyone has their own little way of selling.

But before I ever got into sales I use to do PU (pickup). Of women, when I was younger. Somewhat immature at the time yes, but the stuff actually worked great for getting a woman home with you.

And what was advised in PU is one of the same core principals I use today. Which is simple, DO NOT trigger resistance. And this has everything to do with positioning. When you approach a woman, you can position yourself as the courter, the one who benefits most, or you can position yourself as something valuable. People with high social status rarely approach anyone.

So my "approach" for women was actually not an approach at all. It was an approach that came off like I wasn't approaching anyone, if that makes sense (you can read more about this in the M3 Model of Seduction).
I'd open the girl up, and demonstrated active disinterest. This doesn't mean saying "I'm not interested", this means opening her up in a way that showed I wasn't interested. For instance, 0 flirting. Having evasive stand offish bodylanguage. Only locking eyes if she did something worthy of approval. And if she said something I didn't like, I didn't agree and say I liked it, I forced her to qualify to me that much more or made it known I was interested in other things. Once again not by saying it, but by actually focusing on other things the second she said something I didn't like.

There are deep psychological forces at work in every person you meet.

My brother is one of the best salesmen I ever met in my life. For the first 10 years of sales he was aggressive, overt, always trying hard to close people.

He closed some sales, but for the most part all he did was trigger resistance.

When you go into these business's I say don't qualify your service or product to them. Don't talk about how its the best or other business's have been successful using it. Say "did you know that x business down the road from you uses 9x12 postcard marketing and their seats are always full?" or "did you know one of the largest reasons people don't get business in advertising is because they always advertise next to their competitors?" Like instead of saying "my system rocks because I don't advertise your competitors". You should be able to see the difference there. If you can see it, realize that difference almost means everything in sales.

Don't let them know you were the one who sold the successful marketing. Casually position it as "someone else used x marketing and had x success with it". Use specifics and keep the focus OFF YOU and YOUR TIES TO THE SERVICE. Its all about that positioning to create the right effect with sales. And the more I learn about sales the more I learn its usually easier than most people understand. People just don't see it the right way. By that I mean anytime you are trying to convey value to someone, you must first detach yourself from that value. The value will still be associated to you, you just kill that obvious link to yourself. Don't be the salesman trying to sell the valuable product or service. Focus on the SERVICE. Get the focus off you. Its so much harder for me to put into words than it would be to show you in real life. But I think you get the picture.

I've had decent success just focusing on how to word things the right way, really thats all sales is ever about. Write down all the things you KNOW are going to TRIGGER RESISTANCE, and find out a different way to say them.

You can start at "and thats exactly how you spark business". I NEVER try to teach my client how to be good at marketing. All it does is reinforce the fact I'm trying to benefit off them. That will just cause another objection that I'll have to find a work around for. So its essentially the same as speaking in circles. Rather then tie benefits to yourself, tie them to the product. Then learn how to seperate yourself from the product. Thats all I can really say right now as I'm far too tired to make proper sense.

Originally Posted by BUFFALOBT

We filled our first edition in 3 1/2 weeks doing it part-time whenever we got around to it.

This is a viable business that can be done anywhere by anyone. But- if you don't think it can be done, it's not for you. Move on to something else you can believe in.

We have a Territory Rep who sold 7 ads in his first week...would have been more but his internet was down and he couldn't email anyone.

We have another Rep who made his first cold-call to a company who advertises in another program, and signed them up on the spot over the phone.

There is a TON of opportunity for this out there-

Originally Posted by Jmoola

I am curious to know how/what do you pay your reps?

Originally Posted by BUFFALOBT

$1,400 per filled edition of 14 ads($100/ad).

How? Commission only after the edition is mailed out.

Originally Posted by J smith

How did you go about finding this comission person? And are they happy with the comission? Granted, I guess $1,400 for 2 week's worth of part time isn't bad at all.

Originally Posted by J smith

Buffalobt, were you at all worried that the salesperson you've hired would just take the idea and run with it? I guess to me the selling is the hard part. So if he's doing it, why not get a bigger share of the profit by doing the whole thing himself.

Originally Posted by J smith

A question for those who've got their postcards made/designed, as well as those who posted theirs in this thread. Has anyone actually been able to fit 8 full, equal sized ads + branding on their card?

The card TWalker posted above for instance has 8 ads + branding, but the 2 ads on the bottom right are clearly half sized. Also the ads vary in size to a decent degree, so much so that the business of the top right might feel they got screwed compared to bottom center.

The "Titan Value" postcard that was posted by someone earlier in this thread also has a similar design, as does the design I got from my graphic designer.

So, has anyone been able to fit all 8 ads + branding? And if so, could you post your card (or pm it to me)
And also, do you guys put your branding on both sides of the card, or just one side?

Originally Posted by michaelplies

I was looking into this business. What businesses you suggest to approach that will like this kind of service? I am thinking pizza/delivery restaurants, oil/tire change shops, any other suggestions?

Originally Posted by DJVan

Designing mine with branding & postage on 1 side. That side has 7 decent sized spaces and 1 small space I will use for my ad or?. Back side has 8 decent sized as spaces.

Originally Posted by J smith

Interesting, any tips you can share? I got my "sample postcard" designed and printed, got Bob's premium wso, going throuhg it's content. Going to USPS's What the heck is EDDM and how do you use it" class/presentation tomorrow.

So I am really curious as to what else is involved that you find more time consuming/challenging than selling the ads.
Granted if you implement Bob's "triple threat" approach I can see how it could be time consuming.

Originally Posted by greggorio28

Uggghhhh my stuff is getting ripped off and leaked onto new websites....so I'm pulling all links of my mockup to protect my advertisers' info.

I mean I dont mind a couple graphics being stolen but NOBODY has the permission to post up images of my advertisers' names and info across the world.

Guess imitation is a form of flattery but I dont like it! Hope everyone else is well and kicking butt on the postcard business!

Originally Posted by RedShifted

It shows you right in the wso how to do it.

As far as different size ads like umm just charge different prices. Then noone will be mad. Also says this is the wso I believe.

Originally Posted by agonce

Hey RedShifted, thanks a lot for all the information that you've shared with us.

I had a question though, and anyone who used e-mailing the owners as a strategy to warm the leads, hopefully can give me an idea what to do.

So my question is, how do I find the email of the person that I need to contact, once I know they are advertising on ValPak?
I've tried to go through Manta.com but usually they show only the phone number there. Tried their website, about 80% of those companies that are advertising on ValPak are big companies which usually have a contact form on their website, but I am not sure whether the owner will EVER read my message?

I really appreciate your help guys! Because I'm stuck at this point ...
Thanks.

Originally Posted by ewenmack

Eddie,

Let your prospect know that what you are offering is to get new customers in the door.

That's your business.

Let him know that's it's his business to give them a great experience so they naturally want to come back...that's his job.

Best,
Ewen