The BizzBoosters
www.Marketing-In-The-Know-Zone.com
ARTICLES
This is the first of many pages where we will keep adding numerous articles related to Marketing In The Know-Zone™. To view the other articles currently posted, click here.
Article #1 (in 3 parts):
10 Problems Faced by Marketers Everywhere, 10 Causes for Those Problems (That The Know-Zone™ Can Solve), and 10 Benefits You Get When You’re Marketing in The Know-Zone™
This is a long article that’ll take the average person about 30 minutes to read. Before you commit that amount of your precious time to reading this, you might want to know WHO we wrote this article for.
This article is intended for businesspeople everywhere—ANY business really, but in particular MLM, network marketing, or home based business builders, Internet marketers, affiliate marketers, webmasters, and publishers of ezines and newsletters. It was also written for professionals—ANY profession really, but in particular authors, speakers, consultants, personal or business coaches, mortgage specialists, financial planners, realtors and sales reps.
Basically, if you spend any amount of time, money and other resources marketing your business—products, services, opportunity—regardless of how you market it—Web site, emails, ads, business cards, flyers, brochures, billboards, bulletins, postings or in person at networking events—you will find value in the content of this article.
Now that you know WHO this is for, your next logical question should be: WHAT Is In It For Me? Good question. What will you gain by investing 30 minutes on this page? Answer: MORE MONEY.
That’s right, the purpose of this article is to enlighten you, to make you discover what we call the Know-Zone™. Many great things happen to people who are marketing in the Know-Zone™. You’ll discover what those BENEFITS are in the third part of the article (hey, no peeking!). But at the end of the day, all of the words, idea, suggestions and recommendations on this page lead to a single objective: putting MORE MONEY in your pocket. Period.
So, if putting-MORE-MONEY-in-your-pocket is of interest to you, read on. If not, leave us now. Good bye and good luck.
Part One: 10 Problems Faced by Marketers Everywhere
It’s a jungle out there in the business world! And surely there are more than only 10 problems businesspeople in general have to deal with. For example, financing, staffing, exchange rates, politics, zoning, inventory control, shoplifting, lawsuits, transportation, equipment, etc, etc, etc.
However, for the purpose of this article—and keeping in mind the people for whom this article was written—we’ve identified 10 problems that might be plaguing you and keeping you from putting as much money in your pocket as you’d like to—or need to. FYI, we experienced each and every one of those problems ourselves before we started to market in the Know-Zone™, so we know first-hand how frustrating those can be.
~Not getting enough traffic
“If you build it, they will come.” Modern translation: if you build a website, hordes of visitors will come… What a croc that is! Let’s face it; “not enough traffic” is the number one problem facing businesspeople who rely, partly or fully, on Web traffic to generate sales. It’s a killer. It’s the cancer of eCommerce. The good news is that like many types of cancer, if caught on time it can be cured.
~Your traffic is not targeted
“100,000 visitors to your website for only $19.95.” Another croc*! We don’t know about you, but for us those visitors would mean nothing but a waste of bandwidth on our server. It’d be like taking 100,000 people on welfare through the doors of a BMW dealer. How many of those people are possibly looking at buying an expensive car?
If your traffic is not targeted, all those hits won’t mean a thing. BTW, did you know that HITS is an acronym that stands for How Idiots Track Success? The good news is that there are ways to drive to your Web site (or storefront) people who are actually looking for the solution to their problem that you have to offer.
[* If you are interested, there’s a great article here on how some of those ‘visitors’ are harvested. You will be shocked!]
~Not generating enough leads
Obviously, if you have little traffic and it’s not the targeted kind, you will have just a few leads. You can’t sell lots of books or eBooks without leads. You can’t find clients for your coaching or consultant services without leads. You can’t build a profitable MLM or home based business without leads. Leads are like sun for the plants, like water for an hydro-dam. No leads means you’re SOL.
~Your leads are poor quality
Quite possibly, the few leads you do have will be of poor quality, especially if you extracted them from untargeted traffic to your Web site. And the worst kind of leads are the ones you buy from lead vendors. To use the exact words of our sponsor for one of our home based businesses (who shall remain nameless because he used foul language), “All purchased leads are shit!”
And our experience so far confirmed that he’s 98% right. You could be lucky and get a good one here and there, but there are so many better ways to generate high-quality, responsive leads that we don’t waste our resources on purchased leads anymore.
~It’s hard to sponsor in a MLM or Home Based Business
Yes it is! Very hard. People are skeptical. People can’t be bothered. Though most people should, they don’t want to invest $50 a month on top-quality health supplements that would give them more energy… but they’ll drop 2 grand on a big-screen TV without batting an eye-lid. People are strange…
And the competition is fierce! The good competition from the legitimate MLM and home based businesses—and it seems like a new one surfaces every week—and the crappy competition from all the bottom-feeders who disguise their gifting programs and borderline illegal schemes as legitimate income opportunities—and it seems like a new one creeps up every day.
But we are the living proof that sponsoring hardworking networkers IS possible, if you know where to “fish”, and how to “bait the hook” (we’ll talk about that in Part Two).
~Getting a poor ROI on most marketing efforts
Poor return on investment is due to too much money spent on ineffective marketing material and campaigns that bring in scarce traffic (of poor quality) and few leads (of poor quality).
There were two parts in that statement: one about “money”, one about “ineffective”.
Money: solo ads, banner ads and pay-per-click have become prohibitive for many online marketers. It used to be you could set-up keywords in your Google campaign for 10 or 20 cents a click. Now, there are keywords you can’t even include in your list unless you’re willing to pay dollars (with an ‘s’) for each click. It’s insane.
Ineffective: there are various ways to generate leads for free, but if your marketing material doesn’t contain the essential ingredient (we’ll explain essential later), all your efforts will be a waste of your resources—time, energy, brain cells.
~Not having enough members / subscribers
Of course, the immediate result of the first six problems is that you don’t get nearly enough members on your mailing list—particularly disastrous if you are an affiliate marketer—and not enough subscribers to your ezine or newsletter—a major problem if you are a publisher who relies on advertising revenues.
“The money is in the list.*” is the current wisdom you hear daily if you spend enough time in the various Internet marketing circles. Translation: no list, no dough!
[*That’s a half-truth BTW. The whole truth is “The money is in the relationship you develop with the people on your list.”]
~Not making enough sales
Amen to that one!
I don’t know what the numbers are for the different types of professions and businesses listed in the second paragraph way at the top, but 97% of all people involved in MLM, Network Marketing or home based businesses don’t make enough sales, sign up enough distributors or earn enough residual income to cover their business expenses. Put in simpler words, 97% of them are losing money!
Of all the BENEFITS one gets from marketing in the Know-Zone™ that are listed in Part Three, the one we like best is MAKE TONS OF SALES. (Hey, no peeking…)
~Not having enough time…
Here’s the first negative repercussion of not making enough sales: lack of time. Time to research, study and implement FREE or low-cost marketing tools, methods, techniques, strategies. Time to learn how to market in a more effective and efficient manner. It’s a vicious circle. You need to make more sales to have more time…but you need to have more time to learn how best to make more sales.
The good news here is learning to market in the Know-Zone™ takes very little time, and produces huge results in terms of quantity and quality of traffic, leads, members, subscribers, and SALES!
~Not having enough money…
Here’s the second negative repercussion of not making enough sales: lack of marketing money. Money to buy marketing tools, take courses, hire a coach, all of which could help you to market in a more effective and efficient manner. Again, it’s a vicious circle. You need to make more sales to have more marketing money…but you need to have more money to get the help you need make more sales.
The good news here is this learning tool—the Know-Zone™ Special eReport—costs very little money (under $10!), produces huge results in terms of quantity and quality of traffic, leads, members, subscribers, and SALES, and, best of all, offers you a simple and easy way to generate some “fast & easy” money that you can then invest in marketing your main business!
Part Two: 10 Causes for Those Problems (That Marketing in The Know-Zone™ Can Solve)
Let me rephrase and expand on that heading: here are 10 possible—even probable—reasons why you’re experiencing the aforementioned problems. The good news is that Marketing in the Know-Zone™ will definitely help you eliminate those 10 causes.
[Please note: there is some good information below, but it is only a fraction of what is covered in the Special eReport. Think of Part Two as a one-minute trailer for a two-hour movie. It gives you a taste… but it’s not the whole enchilada!]
~Not being aware of the 7 laws that govern human nature
This has been adapted from Brian Tracy’s The Universal Laws of Success and Achievement
To be successful—in your personal and professional life—you must conform your life and behaviors to the way the world REALLY is, and to the way that people REALLY behave, NOT the way they SHOULD behave.
With that in mind, here are 7 Laws that govern human nature. (Note: when we say “you”, we mean you and everybody else.)
The Law of Ambition: Human beings are goal-driven organisms, always driven to achieve more of ‘something’, to improve their conditions in some way. From infancy to old age, you are ambitious.
The Law of Minimum Effort: You cannot consciously choose a harder way to accomplish something if an easier way is available to you to obtain the same results. All human beings are inherently lazy in that they follow the path of least resistance.
The Law of Maximization: The desire for more is automatic and instinctive and applies to all human desires and fulfillment. In this sense, you are inherently greedy.
The Law of Time Preference: Because your time is your life, you always prefer now to later in the satisfaction of any desire. You are inherently impatient in the achievement of any goals.
The Law of Vanity (as applied to economics): You are egotistical and you place a high value on your appearance, opinions, choices, relationships, and the way you are treated by others. In that way, each person is ego-centered and vain.
The Law of Ignorance: Everything you do is characterized by a degree of uncertainty about the outcome, because you are ignorant to a certain degree, since you can never know everything there is to know about anything.
The Law of Expediency (the most important Law in understanding economics): People always strive to get the things they want the fastest and easiest way possible without regard to the secondary consequences of their actions.
The first part of The Law of Expediency says that people are naturally and normally ambitious, lazy, greedy, impatient, vain, and ignorant. This is the way people ARE. And it’s neither good nor bad. It’s simply a fact. You are all these things, and so is EVERYBODY else.
The second part of The Law of Expediency states that people strive to achieve security, comfort, leisure, love, respect and fulfillment in the fastest and easiest ways possible. Each person has many needs and desires, urges and instincts, hopes and dreams. And each person is motivated to achieve satisfaction in these areas by seeking out the fastest and easiest possible way to do so, tempered by the fact that they’re also vain, ignorant and impatient in everything they do.
The Law of Expediency explains the way the world works. It’s often called the path of least resistance. It explains why things go wrong and why people behave the way they do.
There’s a lot more on this in Mr. Tracy’s The Universal Laws of Success and Achievement. But for the purpose of this TIPPPS™, we’ll stop here. You can accept those 7 Laws as reality and act accordingly, or you can continue to live in La-La land and deal in should’s and ought-to’s. The choice is yours.
~Not being aware of the 3 most listened-to radio stations
This is the most listened-to radio station in the world:
WIII-FM. What Is In It For Me?
Here are the other two lesser known ones—though they are just as popular:
SSRB-FM: Show Some Real Benefits For Me.
HCIB-FM: How Can I Benefit For Myself?
Translation: stop asking people to do what YOU would like them to do because it pleases you or helps you. Stop it!. Because a fact of life is that nobody cares what YOU want. Have you ever heard of a radio station anywhere called ICAW-YW? (I Care About What You Want…) It doesn’t exist.
~Not understanding “self-interest”
That’s the twin sister of the previous cause. Before I continue with this TIPPPS™, I want to elucidate the difference between “self-interest” and “selfishness”. To explain this properly, let’s listen to a flight attendant preparing her passengers before take-off:
“If there is a loss of cabin pressure, a panel will open and oxygen masks will appear. Remain seated with your seatbelt fastened and pull a mask toward you to start oxygen flow. Cover your nose and mouth with the mask. Place elastic band around your head and tighten by pulling on ends. Secure your own mask BEFORE assisting others.”
“Selfishness” says there are NO others so I will just take care of me, for me. “Self-interest” says I will take care of me FIRST so I can help others who might need me later.
Back to our TIPPPS™. Here is a brilliant observation from Napoleon: “A man will fight harder for his interests than his rights.” Now, two great recommendations we urge you to put into practice when writing copy for your sales pages, sales letters, emails, flyers, etc.
The first is from Lazarus Long, and the second from Benjamin Franklin:
“Never make your appeal to a man's better nature; he may not have one.
Always make your appeal to his self-interest.”
“If you persuade, speak of interest, not reason.”
If you want to persuade people to click, sign, join, subscribe, buy, address their interest (talk to their heart) not their reason (meaning their head).
~Not understand that people buy on emotion
That is a FACT of (business) life: “People buy on emotion (with their heart), and then justify with facts (with their head).
You may resist this TIPPPS™. You may want to shout, “No! No! No! I’m a rational, cognitive human being! I make calm, considered, well-thought-out decisions! I do not buy on emotion!” But you do. Everybody does.
If you think about it, and if you’re honest with yourself, you have to admit that most of your decisions are often made on the basis of “This is what I WANT to do.” Then you think up all the reasons why what you WANT to do is really the logical thing to do. We ALL buy on emotion and justify with facts.
Look, communicating, on the Internet or elsewhere, is a “contact” sport. The truth is, if you want to reach, persuade or motivate people, you have to make emotional contact with them. And the sooner you’ve accepted this basic truism of communication, the sooner you can use it to become more effective and persuasive in your own communication—especially on the Internet.
~Not using the “First, Benefits” approach
Features tell, benefits sell. With that in mind, your battle cry when designing any marketing material should be “Benefits galore, and features ignore!
The problem is that most marketers don’t know the difference between the two. Let me shed some light on this. A feature is what something IS or HAS (a 28 inch blade on a lawnmower) while a benefit is what something DOES (saves time mowing the lawn). And even better if you can express the benefit(s) in terms of what that thing does FOR me, the buyer (What Is In It For ME!!!).
Which one of the following two approaches do you think has a better chance of enticing Bob (who’s eying a big Toro in the store) to pull out his credit card?:
“Good day sir. That baby’s got a 28 inch blade, you know?” (Bob thinking: “Who cares?”)
“Good day sir. That baby will cut your mowing time in half. Now what could you do with that extra time?” (Bob dreaming: “I would go fishing, play golf, or detail my sports car…”)
The first statement talks to the head. The second goes straight to the heart. “Ka-ching!”
Yes, people DO buy on emotion and justify with facts, and, once again, the sooner you’ve accepted this basic fact of communication, the sooner you can use it to become more effective and persuasive in ALL your messages.
~Not understanding the pain & pleasure motivators
Here’s one of the TIPPPS™ we address extensively in the Special eReport: “Everything people do, they do either out of their need to avoid/reduce pain, and/or their desire to gain/increase pleasure.”
It is crucial for the success of your marketing endeavors that you understand the pain and pleasure motivators, and how to use that knowledge when designing marketing material, of any kind.
Most people in marketing and psychology agree that the first motivator—pain—is more powerful than the second. For example: Joe will be quite willing to work 50 or even 60 hours a week in his business so he can buy the BMW he’s been dreaming about (aka pleasure).
Now, imagine that Joe needs to make a lot of money to keep the IRS from seizing his store and his house and throwing him and his family out on the street (pain). Joe will be willing to work a LOT harder (80 hours a week?) to avoid that pain than he would to gain the pleasure of owning a fancy car.
People will do things to avoid pain they would not even consider if it were merely to gain some pleasure. What that means to you is that to get the maximum results from your marketing materials, you should use what is known as the AIDA formula: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action—where the word Interest focuses on pain and problems.
Bottom line, walk in your customers’ shoes for a while, find out what his “pain” is, what his problems are, use that to get his attention, and then present your product or service as THE solution that will rid him of that pain, and you will do exceedingly well. For Internet marketers, remember that the vast majority of people go online to find a solution to a problem. Focus on solving that problem and you’ll smile all the way to the (virtual) bank.
~Not baiting the hook properly
In other words (and this is another TIPPPS™ covered in the Special eReport): “To have success, it is necessary that you bait the hook to suit the fish.”
I don’t mean any disrespect to shoppers, leads, prospects and customers by using the word “fish” This is actually a recommendation from Dale Carnegie in his famous book How To Win Friends And Influence People.
Here’s what he said: “I often went fishing up in
Why not use the same common sense approach when fishing for people? When someone asked Lloyd George, then Great Britain’s Prime Minister how he managed to stay in power, he replied that if his staying on top might be attributed to any one thing, it would be to his having learned that it was necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish. The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.”
And as was pointed out earlier, what people want more than pleasure are ways, methods, strategies, tools, products and services that will help them avoid pain or at least reduce it. Bait your marketing “hook” with a solution, and the “fish” will bite.
~Confusing ‘wants’ and ‘needs’
Here’s another TIPPPS™ from the eReport, compliment of Zig Ziglar: “You can get everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want.”
Lets follow that with another brilliant observation by Robert J. Ringer, and then by going to Wikipedia for their definition of marketing: "If you want to do well, sell people what they need; if you want to get rich, sell people what they want."
“Marketing is a societal process which discerns consumers' wants, focusing on a product or service to fulfill those wants, attempting to move the consumers toward the products or services offered. Unless it pays due attention to its products and services and consumers' demographics and desires, a business will not usually prosper over time.”
Have you spotted what those three statements have in common? Wants. Wants and desires (which are synonymous), but not “needs”. Unfortunately, way too many businesspeople out there still believe the anachronistic suggestion to “Find a need and fill it.”
That statement made sense 100 years ago, but not today. Everything that people really need to live long and prosperous is pretty much available—at least in the developed countries. Everything else is stuff people want. Cater to those “wants” in marketing your business and you’ll do very well.
~Trying to sell people what YOU think they need
This next TIPPPS ™ sounds very much like a twin to the previous one, but with an important add-on (courtesy of Robert J. Ringer): “The simplest, safest approach to financial success is to make it a habit to sell people what they WANT, NOT what they need, NOT what they THINK they need, and especially NOT what YOU think they need.”
There’s a subtle difference between the 2 TIPPPS™, but a difference worth paying attention to nonetheless. The first deplorable mistake marketers make is trying to sell what people “need”. The second ruinous mistake is to try and sell people what YOU think they need. Here is Robert J. Ringer once again:
“People want to smell better, look better, feel better, be more sensual, work less, make more money, play more. The fact is that people don't need beer, cigarettes or thousand calories triple burgers. And they don't need pick-up trucks that go from zero to 100 miles per hour in five seconds. Try to sell people what they need (vitamins, education, insurance), and you're liable to end up in bankruptcy court.
As well, if you try to sell people what YOU think they need you might go broke in the process. The problem with selling people what YOU think they need—even if they really need it—is that it takes too long and costs too much to educate them, i.e., to convince them that they need your product or service. The simplest, safest approach to financial success is to be an accommodating free-enterpriser and make it a habit to sell people what they want.”
Let’s demonstrate. A few years back, I was very involved in a MLM that marketed fantastic health supplements. Great stuff! But I almost lost my marbles and all of my savings trying to “educate and convince” people that they needed those supplements to stay healthy and live long. The only person who got an education in the end was me.
I got that education partly from my failure to make headway with my supplement business, partly from watching a good friend of mine making a fortune selling video-games (aka something people "want").
As a result of that change of approach, my business took off like a Ferrari on steroids!
~Your A.S.S. is in the way of your marketing success
“Say what?”
Hold your horses… and read that heading again, carefully. The word is A.S.S. It’s an acronym that stands for Assumptions, Suppositions, and Speculations.
“Not attracting enough clients? Here’s why. You’re not attracting enough clients to your business for a very simple reason. You’re not doing the right things. Not only are you not doing the right things, you actually think you know the right things you ought to be doing. Erroneous assumptions can kill your business!”
Here’s an important point. Everything you do in your daily business life fits in one of two categories: It’s either a BizzBuilder™—something that helps you build, grow, expand your business and your bottom line—or it’s a BizzBlocker™.
We address both throughout our series of Special eReports so that we can help you to really boost your business. We will advise you on the good things—aka BizzBuilders™—to start doing, or do better, or do more of, or more often. We’ll also alert you to the bad things—aka BizzBlockers™—you ought to stop doing. Like letting your A.S.S. get in your way for example. That happens when:
> you make the Assumption that you KNOW what motivates people to buy
> you make the Supposition that you KNOW what people need or want, and you understand the crucial difference between the two and how to address each
> you’re Speculating that it’s not that important to know all the above as long as you’re good at what you do, or you offer great service, or you have the best prices in town
Bad assumptions can kill your business. Bad assumptions, suppositions and speculations are all BizzBlockers™. Stop doing that. Right now. Because simply put…
“The Assumptions, Suppositions and Speculations that you make daily
in regards to you, your abilities, your business, your clients, and the marketplace
are keeping you from boosting your business to the max.”
Actually, the worst Assumption of all is the one you make when you write copy for your home page, capture page, sales letter, solo ads or any ads and you think you’ve included the essential ingredient needed to get people to do what you want them to do.
As we stated a while back, if your marketing material doesn’t contain the essential ingredient, all your efforts will be a waste of your resources—time, energy, brain cells. Most copy we read out there—except copy from very experienced Internet marketers—is like a car whose gas tank is filled with water. Yes, it says “full”, but without gas (the essential ingredient for an engine to run), you ain’t gonna go far!
Similarly, without the essential ingredient in your copy, your messages won’t get you the actions you want—and in some case “need”—to make money and stay in business. Marketing in the Know-Zone™ means knowing what the essential ingredient is and using it every step of the way to boost your business.
And boosting your business means pleasure. We started by pointing out the 10 Problems Faced by Marketers Everywhere. That was “pain”. Then we looked at the mistakes marketers make that cause most of those problems. More “pain”. Enough of that! It’s time to talk about “pleasure”.
Part Three: 10 Benefits You Get When You’re Marketing in The Know-Zone™
You may not see the connection between marketing in the Know Zone™ and the many benefits listed below. That’s because like the connection between the cost of a barrel of oil and the recent riots in
Here they are:
~More traffic to your Web site
When you stop making the deplorable mistakes listed above and you start marketing in the Know-Zone™, you will see a marked increase of traffic to your Web site from your various ads.
~Better, more targeted traffic
And that traffic will be much more targeted since you will have addressed their problem(s) in your copy and presented your products and services as the solution.
~An abundance of leads & prospects
Traffic that is more targeted means higher conversion rates, which translates into an abundance of leads and prospects.
~High-quality, responsive leads
Not just more leads, but better leads, pre-sold leads, eager-to-do-business-with-you leads.
~A huge, highly-responsive mailing list
Those leads, prospects and subscribers will form a huge mailing list that will be highly responsive to your various offers. Great news if you do a lot of affiliate marketing.
~Easy to sponsor for your MLM or Home Based Business
We have dozens of testimonials from many of our Know-Zone™ students on how much easier it was to sponsor distributors since they had started with higher quality, “pre-sold” leads who saw their opportunity as THE solution to THEIR problem (pain). That has also been OUR experience.
~Retain more customers, clients, distributors, subscribers
We also have dozens of testimonials from our students on how much easier it was to RETAIN those distributors, subscribers, customers and clients.
~Tons of sales
If you play the rest of your cards right, the leads, prospects and subscribers on your list will turn into distributors, customers and clients—as was just pointed out—meaning you will be making tons of sales of your products, or other people’s products as an affiliate.
~More money!
The first five benefits on this list can be summed up in four words: Better Return On Investments. One direct result of a better ROI is that you’ll be saving a lot of money that until now was wasted on ineffective marketing. Translation: more money in your pocket! Of course, unless you are “giving” the stuff away, tons of sales should mean you’ll be making more money, which hopefully will translate in bigger profits.
~More time
When that happens, you will not need to work “around the clock”. Not only that, but because you will be working “smarter”, you will save a lot of time, and you won’t need to work as hard or as much to get the results you want.
Though we were doing OK “before”, making tons of sales, tons of money and having lots of free time really started when we began to market in the Know-Zone™. You ought to check it out!
BONUS BENEFIT: Living a Richer Life
That’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it? It is for us. We now work a lot less than we used to, we make a lot more money than we used to. All that combined means we now have more time and more choices in terms of how we spend our time of leisure, what car we drive, where we travel, and for how long, how we “spoil” our families and friends. Living a Richer life is W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L !
And that’s what we wish for you.
Daniel G. St-Jean & Laurel R. Simmons, BB, IMA, AMA, FRM
(BizzBoosters, Internet Marketing Advisors, Article Marketing Alchemists™, Firm-Base Marketers™)