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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
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or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
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liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
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or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should
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be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
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W FOURCY Radio.
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Welcome to Powerful Business Strategies, where you will find out
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that everything you have ever learned about growing your business
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is wrong. Finally, a show where you'll learn the right
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way to grow your business by learning business and financial
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strategies that your competition isn't doing. And now here's your host.
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Resident of Next Step CFO Michael Barbarita and joining Michael
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for today's show as an executive moderator is chooky.
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Obia, Yes, yes, yes, this is chokey, and I believe
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that gratitude is undefeated and growth is about the next step.
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It is an honor for me to moderate today's discussion
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with my good friend Michael Michael, how are you.
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Great, chokey, how's it going.
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It's coding well, it's going well.
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Good, And as Cherkey said, my name is Michael Babarita,
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President of Next Step CFO, and Next Step CFO is
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a fractional CFO and strategic implementation firm. Our vision is
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to ensure overwhelmed business owners achieve the time, freedom, and
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consistent profits to build a legacy and the light they desire.
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Our mission is dedicated to guiding small business owners to
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leveraging their time, exploding their profits, and building that meaningful legacy.
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And the show Powerful Business Strategies in our book of
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the same name is a step toward accomplishing that vision
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and mission. So with that, I'd like to hand it
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back to my co author and moderator for the show,
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chuky Obill.
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Michael.
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It's truly an honor to collaborate with you. So today's
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episode fourteen. How energized are you about our episode fourteen?
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Sort of a milestone?
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Absolutely? Yeah, No, it's over over a quarter.
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There you go a quarter of a year.
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I love that you've spoken like a true strategic CFO.
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I love that.
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So look, the title of this episode is how to
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send a large direct mail campaign for free and direct
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mail campaigning. I mean this is really born out of
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a lot of interest from the small and medium sized
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business owners that we work with Coast to Coast and Michael,
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before we jump into the heart of today's episode with
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your insights, your leadership perspectives, I've just got to drop
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a really quick kind of disclaimer. So, look, Michael and
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I are affiliated with a number of different organizations, and
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I currently serve as the managing director of business development
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for Vetter Price, a global business focused law firm. But
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it's truly a personal point of privilege to get to
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collaborate with Michael. Really Coast to Coast we moderate a
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number of business roundtables, and we document the best practices
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from those roundtables, and we feature these best practices in
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our book, Powerful Business Strategies. But please note that the
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views expressed in the show are our personal views based
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on successful experiences that we've had, and as the fearless moderator,
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my job is really just asking Michael the right questions,
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to take notes, share those notes, and to help you
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and me really learn and start to implement the best
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business strategies that the competition isn't doing.
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So with that, Michael, I'll toss it back over to you.
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Thank you, Chocky. You know, Checky, We've been interviewing a
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lot of small business owners lately and they've been telling us.
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A lot of them, I've been telling us they have
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absolutely no marketing budget at all. Well, today we're going
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to help solve that problem for those business owners who
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are willing to do the work associated with the topic
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that we have chosen today. And today we're going to
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help you learn some interesting information about direct mail marketing
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and give you the ability to send direct mail to
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as many qualified prospects as you would like for free
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if you're willing to do the work. And one key
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to successful marketing is repetition. Why is repetition important because
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you never know where your prospect is on the buyer's journey,
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and it's mandatory that you position a compelling message with
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an irresistible offer in front of your prospects multiple times.
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Because of the proliferation of marketing. Yeah, and your prospect
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might be at the point you never know your prospect is,
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and they might be at that point in their journey
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with them ready to make some type of vendor selection
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and by the way, I don't want to just think
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I don't know people to think that I'm just throwing
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words around with respect a buyer's journey, a compelling message,
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and irresistible offer. You know, a compelling message, a position
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of market dominance, irresistible offers, or a buyer's journey. These
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are all concepts and strategies that we have spoken about
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many times in previous shows, and we have entire shows
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dedicated to those topics at Powerful Business Strategies dot com. Absolutely,
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but today experts now say it takes multiple contacts or
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touch points to establish sufficient trust, respect and rapport to
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get a prospect to buy what you sell. So how
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can financially strap small business owners accomplience seemingly impossible task? Well,
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most of them attempt email solicitations, and I think a
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lot of us know how difficult that is. And you
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know you better have a list that has opted in
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email addresses, otherwise you might be doing something illegal. And then, furthermore,
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when you think about it, most of us delete email
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without even opening it. And the only exception to this
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rule is to the use of joint venture partnership email
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lists and collaborations. And only then if your JV partner
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has a excellent relationship with their database because most of
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them don't. So believe it or not, many of the
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so called Internet gurus are at least to some degree,
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reverting back to good old direct mail. And yes, it
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can be expensive if it's not laser targeted to your
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specific ideal client. Now it's preferable to send out ten
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mailings to two thousand prospects versus sending out one mailing
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to twenty thousand.
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Interesting.
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Yeah, but even two thousand can seem daunting logistically and
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financially to a small business owner. However, if you're willing
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to devote a little time and effort to this direct
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mail's marketing strategy, the cause for you to read multiple
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prospects multiple times will be just your time sweat equity
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if you will. And before I go through how to
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make your direct mail campaign free, there are a few
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things that you need to know about direct mail. First,
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you need to understand who your ideal client is. Now,
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if you ever had the opportunity to work with us,
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one thing that we make sure we guide you to
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do is preparing a customer avatar. Now, a customer avatar
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is a representation of your ideal client, and this is
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the client that actually wants what you sell versus needs
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what you sell. Let me give you an example I
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need to have if I need to have a dentist
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fill a cavity, I certainly don't want that. On the
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other hand, no one really needs whiter teeth, but most
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people want wider teeth. So if you can see the
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difference in those two situations, wants are based on emotion
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and needs are based on logic, and discovering your ideal
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client depends on your ability to discover the demographic which
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are the physical traits, as well as the psychographics which
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are the emotional traits that make up your ideal client.
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And the client avatar helps you focus on those demographic
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or physical traits and psychographic and emotional traits.
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Great.
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So look, Michael, Yeah, we've been going at this for
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some time here, and we'll get in a number of
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comments and some good questions. So let's break this up
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a little bit and just inject some of these questions
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from the business owners that are listening and really interested
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in this topic. So first things first, this doesn't take
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away from a digital online strategy.
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Correct, We're getting some of those kind.
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Of you know, like you know, we've talked about a
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lot with the buyer's journey, you know, drift campaigns and
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those types of things. It doesn't eliminate it, not at all.
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But what it does for those people who are doing
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nothing or don't feel like they could do anything, or
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don't have a list that is opted in and feel
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a little edgy about doing you know, some spammy emailing.
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This is the strategy. It's really designed around those people
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with no budgets.
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Brilliant.
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So regardless of business owner, this could be additive, right,
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This could be a value.
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Add Yes, this could be definitely added for some and
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some some of a lot of the business owners that
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we've been talking to have absolutely no, zero, zero money
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to do any marketing. Yeah, and so this is this fits.
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This is playing this.
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Song absolutely and that Michael, the other comments that we're
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in is actually a compliment to you. Right, Folks are
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saying the timing of this is really on point because
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they're getting into Q four, you know a lot of
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pressures around how their annual performance is looking like. And
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you know, folks are saying, this might be the way
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to maybe hit some of those numbers. But maybe can
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you just reflect on the timing of this, particularly with
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the holiday season and waste to maybe take advantage of that.
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Well, I think, you know, depending upon how long it
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takes for you to coordinate it. Uh, you know, now
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is certainly the time, you know, if it takes like
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we're at October seventh, So if it takes a month
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to coordinate it month, month and a half, you'd be
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right on for the holidays.
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Brilliant good stuff, Michael, thank you.
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Second, the other thing that getting back to what you
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need to know about direct mail. Before I impart the strategy,
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you must map out the decision making process. You know,
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all human beings want the best deal. The best deal
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doesn't mean the lowest price, but it does mean the
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most value for the price they pay. What we've seen
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in our research for the book called Powerful Business Strategies
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is that prospects will pay twice the price of your
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competitors if they see five times the value for the
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price you're charging them. Wow. And you know, and we
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had a special show dedicated to adding more value. But
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prospects decide to buy based on value. So map out
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your ideal clients consider valuable to them in their specific situation.
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You know, just to give you a quick example, a
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daycare mother with a six month old infant will value
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a daycare that offers sufficient trained staff to show additional love,
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care and support for the kids that they keep. On
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the other hand, you know, there's a daycare mom with
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a four year old child that will value a daycare
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that specializes in offering educational programs for preschooler's like for example,
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you know what mom wouldn't want their child to be
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reading at a first grade level prior to kindergarten. And
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by the way, it may be necessary for the business
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owners to create new innovations to their current business model
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in order to provide their prospects with value. Sometimes it
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takes a change in the operating basis and so that
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I know that creates certain challenges. But you know, if
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you're going to do something special, if you're going to
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do something special to add value to a to a
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customer or a client, that could require some changes to
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the way you operate the way you uh, you know,
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you're the logistical way you operate.
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Yeah, that's a really good point.
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So it looks like we're getting some appreciative comments just
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based on that. Michael, really quick question here this might
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go back to something you said earlier. So just this
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idea of really adding more value right and getting after
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that that contact or customer list you set psychographics and demographics,
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can we just find you and maybe define that a
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little bit for folks.
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Yeah, so demographics things like age, yeah, age, geography, you
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know where they geographically located? Are they male, female? That
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type of thing. Psychographics are more a triggers. Interesting, Yeah,
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like for example, what makes them happy, what makes them sad?
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What are their challenges? Who are the people that they
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listen to, who are the people they trust? Those are
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the those are more emotional and psycho psychographic triggers. So yeah,
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so the uh, the customer Avatar identifies both of those
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things all in one, all in one document.
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Nice.
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Uh, And that's something we help business owners with great.
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But for the business owner who accepts the challenge of
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implementing those innovations and changing their operating basis, they're going
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to dominate. They will dominate their market. And once the
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innovations are in place, they need to create that compelling message,
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which is a third thing. Now that this would this
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should be easy to do since innovations typically separate the
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business from all its competitors, and writing a compelling message.
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Message becomes as simple as stating the facts and listing
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the differences between you and your competition. And furthermore, you
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can go to one of our past shows that we
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dedicate only to compelling office and if time allows, I