12 Competencies That Change Everything

In today's issue, we will give you an "excuse" for you to contact 60 of your best customers and introduce something new and profitable to them. Best of all, you do almost no work for it. If you can make it to a mailbox then you can make this system work for you. Use it for more than just embossing products. 

Last issue I promised we would start to talk about creating a program to implement the above-mentioned techniques. The advice we offer is tested by us for our industry and will work for at least 90 + percent of all businesses. We know this because as mentioned we looked at what worked for other industries and simply copied the successful ones but tweaked and tuned them for our business. We hope that our growth and know-how helps you grow so that you can use these tools to reach your goals. Just below is our entire plan and how we implement it systematically to target markets. I am sure that you can experience our system, try it for yourself or even duplicate it for another product you love. 

At the end of the system I will begin part one of the Marketing Domination Report. This will talk about one or more core competencies you need to practice for about an hour per week. This hour per week is going to be a totally proactive. The design of this 1-hour per week will work to improve various aspects of your business and ultimately develop terrific skills for building more business. If you can't read this now then print if off, I apologize in advance for it not being a short read but I can guarantee you it will be a worthwhile one if you love your business and what you do. If you don't love what you do, then that is even more of a reason to read it. 

Important note: Permaboss.com has recently moved to a larger location. Our phone numbers remain the same, but please update your records with our new address:

Permaboss.com Inc. 
220 Industrial Parkway South, Unit 15
Aurora, Ontario, L4G 3V6
Canada 
Tel: 905-713-6514 Fax: 905-713-6506

If you want embossing live in action on our web cams, or see the new office, go to http://permaboss.tzo.com/bosscam.htm

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In the news: 
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Permaboss.com launches new website dedicated to high tech die making equipment. 

See your dies being made live and get an in depth view into what takes place when we turn your art into moulds for embossing. www.cadcamfx.com 

The software used for your dies is the same one used to make the moulds for the Olympic medals or the plastic bottle your Gatorade comes in. 


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Knock on 60 customers' doors in less than 1 hour without ever leaving your office.
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How often do you have the opportunity to contact 60 of your best customers in less than one hour and show them something new and exciting that they haven't seen before? If you're like most, then probably not as often as you would like. Not only do you have to find something they will love, you will need a lot of free time to make the rounds. 

Did you know that the average "in person" sales call costs you over $300? Just add up all the calls you have made, and compare it to the sales you have made. Don't forget to add in your overhead, it is shocking to discover how truly inefficient we are, even when we are at our peak performance.

Permaboss.com ran a promotion before Christmas to some select clients, based on its success we have decided to offer this opportunity and idea to our entire mailing list, simply because it brought in so much business for us and them. 
Let me tell you about what you get in your package...

1. 60 proven sales letters introducing embossing to your customers printed on your letter head with your contact information and signature at the bottom. This letter has previously shown a 3-4%% conversion rate, meaning 3-4%% of people who get the letter and read it, buy something. Using your existing customer base who already know and trust you, you can easily yield similar results, sometimes more! 3-4%% of 60 is 2-3 sales. 

Our average sale (from the ASI rep) was 36 - 144 pieces. One of our orders was for 3600 pieces! 

Imagine an investment of $65 for samples and $35 for stamps and a return of $15,000. That's a 1500%% return on your investment of $100.

The biggest problem we have is that it seems too simple for our clients; people are skeptical because it does not involve backbreaking work to get results. Read on and you will find out why most mailings actually fail.

2. Permaboss.com will send you 60-65 embossed samples of your own logo in sweatshirt fleece or t-shirt material. These embossed samples will be stuffed in a blank white envelope for you along with your intro to embossing letter and your signature. You will have to have someone hand address the envelope to your customer and place a stamp on it. 

THIS IS ONE OF THE SECRETS. A stuffed envelope that is hand addressed is a personal message, it does not look like a bill or a piece of junk mail and is therefore not treated like one. A letter alone is often overlooked and easily discarded as we are inundated with it every day. The sample is something of value, it is also novel and new, therefore people tend to hold on to it. It may sit on their desktop for months and it will create attention when others see it. 

SECRET NUMBER TWO 

On the back is a label, again with your logo and contact information so they know immediately where to get it.

3. We will send you the 60 plus stuffed envelopes that have your letter printed with your logo, address and signature etc, and deliver it to you with your favorite courier.

4. In addition we will also send you a sample kit of the latest hottest embossing ideas. Literally a resume of various samples on cotton, fleece, polar fleece, leather, and vaquero leather featuring embossing and debossing and multimedia embossing, along with vast product literature to educate yourself. You now have something to show your clients when they call and want to know more.

This kit alone costs $35 to put together in materials and time. Now you have a portable showcase and an answer to that famous question all customers ask, "So what do you have new for me this time?"

SECRET NUMBER THREE. 

FOLLOW-UP If you don't send a follow up fax with an order form you are asking your mailing to fail. If you don't call each person with a special free gift offer or do this by fax or a second mailing then you may only get a 3-4%% response. The follow-up will increase your success chances and result in a mailing of 10,15 or even 18%% response. By the way, we have the follow-up ideas for you FREE and we will follow-up with you so that you don't forget.

As mentioned we are extending this offer at the price of $65. If you had to go to a mailing house and have this work done, or pay your staff this would cost you about $2.70 per kit, plus supplies plus about $3 for each embossing plus textile $0.50, a total cost of over $400. We are offering this entire package for only $65. But remember, only until 5PM March 29th. After that, it goes back up to normal price. To order the 60 customers promotion, simply call our office at 905-713-6514 or email us at: 60offer@permaboss.com

What's the catch? Well, there is a small one. I said it would involve almost no work on your part. You just have to address the envelopes and add postage and drop them in the mail. We highly recommend having somebody hand write the envelopes. It takes a little more time but printed addresses are more likely to be ignored. It adds a nice personal touch as well.

Don't ask yourself, how can I not get an order that will cover the cost of the promotion? Ask yourself do I want a 1500%% return on my money and orders without leaving my office. Not only are your customers reminded of you, it gives you a reason to actually call them and say "hey, did you get that sample I sent you?" Even if it's not an embossing sale, chances are excellent that you can close them on something else. Previous users of the program have been delighted and even wanted to order again. 

Here is what D. Laurila of Gemini Promotions in Toronto had to say:

"I had only one thought as I opened this box.

WOW!!!

THANK YOU so much for your efforts.
I will not waste your hard work - I expect to bring some business to your
door."

If you want to receive our version of what was mentioned above then send your full name, company name and mailing address to: mailmeasample@permaboss.com

When you are ready to order the 60 customers promotion, simply call our office at 905-713-6514 or email us at: 60offer@permaboss.com.


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Marketing Tips
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The 12 competencies that change everything:

There are 12 areas, which take twelve weeks or three months to cover. I will cover the first 4 here today. These tools will help you bulletproof your business. Take your palm pilot, day timer or calendar and set a time and date for 1 hour for each of the next 4 weeks. 

Here are the dates and times you need to set aside:

THIS WEEKEND or BEFORE THE END OF MONDAY MARCH 18th
Friday March 22nd
Friday March 29th
Friday April 5th (this part requires a little more than 1 hour)

Here is Week 1:

Goals TODAY, If you don't do this today or before Monday it may never get done!

Take a blank sheet of paper and at the top, on the right, I want you to write down the word "GOALS." Under your goals I want you to write down the gross revenue you would like to be at three years from now. Under that, write the personal income you would like to be drawing from the business.

Now write down how many hours per week you would like to work while making that money.

Now write down how many weeks vacation you would like to take. 

Now at the top of the page, on the left, write down "Current."

Under that write down the current numbers for each of those things:

  1. Gross revenues.

  2. Personal Revenues.

  3. Hours worked.

  4. Vacations taken.... 

    Now write: ACTION PLAN.

    There are only eight things that drive any business. Set goals for each of these areas every 12 weeks and watch how you SYSTEMATICALLY improve your business. Here they are:

    Marketing:

  • Strategy (thoroughly explained shortly)

  • Capital (Human, Intellectual, and Financial)

  • Business Model (shape what you want it to be)

  • Relationships (Are you capitalizing on every relationship, from your clients to your vendors, to your friends, associates and business contacts)

  • Distribution Channels (this is an enormous asset, more on this later)

  • Products and Services (create constant improvement in this area)

  • Procedures and Processes, Policies (THIS is what makes a business that runs without you)

Once every 12 weeks, you and your staff are going to have a goal-writing workshop. In each of these sessions you are going to break down the steps to achieving your three-year goal into three-month action plans. So set goals for gaining clients, set goals for specific marketing efforts, what you'll do and when you'll do it, etc. 
Set goals for improvement in each of these eight drivers above. But I'm going to break it down even more for you. Keep reading.

The Biggest Secret in Doing a Company Turn-around:
Whereas most companies in trouble focus all their energy on problems, rather than solutions. An entrepreneur in trouble will dwell so much on the problems (worrying), that their subconscious directs them more to problems than to solutions. 

So if you're in trouble: Put a heavier focus on solutions than on problems. Goals are a powerful device in any company.

Ok, Week 2: Time Management - On or before March 22nd

You will never achieve what you want to achieve if you do not manage your time effectively. People get swept away, reacting to the life they created, and they stop creating a better and better life, or business. So once every 12 weeks, you are going to focus your meeting on maximizing and saving time. 

Do you have a list of things that each person is supposed to get done each day? Do you have special projects that you are taking on in small incremental chunks, and are there lists of how and when this time is going to be spent. You know what they are. The big things that will really make the difference but aren't in process right now. Studies show that only 20%% of your time is spent on the things that actually produce results. Hence, if you can focus 80%% of your time on high-results-producing activities, you can virtually quadruple productivity. 

So the first competency, Goal Setting, is where you set up a three-month plan, and the second competency, Time Management, is where you break down the big plans into daily plans. 

Do you agree with everything I've said so far? If you read all this and do nothing, than you're fooling yourself, because this is all based upon what the best businesses do. If you want to continue to work hard for your business, instead of getting that business to work hard for you, then, by all means, ignore the things that have worked for every single company who has applied them. 

To build a great organization, you have to start taking all the goals and plans and create structure in your organization. One of the key traits of very successful people is that they use what we call The three P's. That's the third competency.

Week 3: Planning, Policies and Procedures. On or before March 29th

McDonald's in Harlem runs just as smoothly as McDonald's in Beverly Hills, because there is no area that does not have the procedures down to the letter. What's more, the employee turnover rate at MacDonald's is 200%% per year, but it doesn't matter because everything is so well spelled out that new people can be put into the system and function at an optimum level very quickly. 

If you ever want to have a business that can function without you, or replace staff with people who enter the business at peak performance, right from the start, you must have excellent policies, procedures and plans. So once every 12 weeks, you will take a look at another area of the business and see how well you can apply the three P's. 

Here is a standard procedure right now: It is now company policy that each person in the business must write a "to do" list at the beginning of the month, which will be broken into weekly action plans, which will end up as daily to do lists. 

With a bit of focus and thought I am sure that you and your staff can come up with some more ideas.

This next competency will do more for you becoming the pre-eminent leader in your market, than any of the other competencies:

Week 4; Strategy Vs. Tactics THIS IS FOR THE WEEKEND OF APRIL 6 & 7

So finally I am going to talk about marketing. But before I begin, we need to break down marketing into several categories. The first is to really understand the difference between strategy and tactics. 

Strategy means that you have determined, in advance, an ultimate goal you would like to achieve for each tactic. 

Tactics are the things you do to achieve your goal. A tactic is a marketing effort like; a yellow page ad, a newsletter, a speaking engagement, a sales call, a trade show, a newspaper ad, a meeting with a new client, etc. 

But before you deploy one of these tactics, you have to determine the ultimate objective you would like to achieve. For example, if you have an interaction with a customer (like a sales call) and we ask you what do you want to achieve, most would simply say: "make a sale." 

I challenge you that you can achieve a lot more. Maybe you want to build in a pre-emptive strategy for "dis-empowering" the competition. Maybe you want to build in an automatic referral program or plant the seed to generate more referrals. 

Maybe you want to arm all your clients with better information; Every client you have is a potential salesperson for your organization. What do you want them to say and have you planted all the right strategic positioning into your tactical interface.

The point is that if you're not THINKING this one through, your tactics do not MAXIMIZE on the opportunity at hand. 

Of course, once you "strategize" on what you expect from each tactic, now you need to create an actual policy or procedure to implement that idea with piercing effectiveness at the tactical level. 

Also, your tactics should be working together to achieve the ultimate goal or outcome that you want. Most companies do not look at their tactics as an integrated program. 

For example, let's say that I could put all of your best potential buyers all in a room all at once and then I could give you the opportunity to stand in front of them and make your best presentation to these people. This one single opportunity, if properly executed, could forever change your life. Or ruin it, if you are not effective.

Imagine, that you had all the time you needed and this incredible opportunity to tell all your best potential buyers exactly what you want them to know about you and your business. What would you say? Here are some things you should think about before you get in front of this group:

  1. What is the long-term reputation you want and are you operating today in a way that is going to achieve that reputation? 

  2. Exactly how do you want to be perceived?

  3. What's different or better about how you do things over everyone else? Every company has something unique to offer, something that sets them apart... If you don't then you should have. You'd better think about it and make sure you are communicating it. So what's different about you?

In other words, what is the ultimate position and perception you want the market to have about you and your products or services? And our question to you now is: Does your marketing today reflect the ultimate reputation or position you want in your market? Have you really thought about this? 

If you have great strategies, great strategic positioning and your tactics are always deploying a little strategy, than all your tactics begin to add up to something. Your tactics work harder and smarter for the same money if they deploy strategy every time you use a tactic. Same money, bigger results if you're THINKING and PLANNING before you execute. 

In order to really make marketing effective, you need to really sit down and think about what you want to say. So, as a subset of this competency, we want you to write down: "BUILD MY STORY." I want you to take a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and sit down and think through all the questions I just asked you so that you can tell your story to that big room of people and get the majority of them to want to do business with you. 

The better your story is, the better all of your marketing is going to be. 

Once every 12 weeks, you are going to look at all the ways you make contact with clients and potential clients. Look to see if you are deploying strategy with those tactics. Is part of your story, or all of your story, always being told in each of your tactics? Are you accomplishing the most you could accomplish from each of your tactics? 

In conclusion I hope this was not too profound or overwhelming. This newsletter forces me to review my company, skills and thoughts, just as it forces me to practice what I preach. Let me know if you enjoyed it, I would love to see how many of you read this far. Drop me a note at rob@permaboss.com



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