Richard: The minute we got the owner’s unique selling proposition integrated into the sales pitch of the five salespeople, we increased our closing rate from 20-40 percent, and increased their revenues from $60-$90 million dollars.

Michael: Wow. Music

Richard: It was phenomenal. You have no hard costs. The consulting business and marketing consulting including is the highest profit margin business out there. I mean, I meet these business owners everyday, and there you can buy on ten percent, 15 percent, 20 percent gross profit. Marketing consulting gives you 90-95 gross profit.

Michael: So, let me ask you this – You went through Jay’s marketing system in 1990. It’s 16 years later, and you’re still actually out there having someone telemarket for you, set up appointments. You’re calling to confirm. You’ve actually been doing this for this long.

Richard: Oh yeah, and I’ll tell you why because the number one killer of the consulting business and marketing consulting included is you stop marketing. The minute you stop marketing, you’re dead because you’re start to get lethargic. You start to get lazy. You get clients and you think you’re busy enough. So, you don’t keep marketing. I throw out this rule right now and that is anyone serious about getting in the consulting business better always be willing to market 25 percent of their time.

Michael: So, this isn’t a land a huge client, get a good contingency deal, make several hundred thousand dollars, and retire for the next year.

Richard: You’ll only find those if you keep doing what I’ve described to you to do. You won’t find those by a science. You’ll run into them, and I’ve run into a couple of them. So, I’ve had a couple of client relationships that have given me the big bucks for the short period of time, but there far and few between.

Michael: Now, let’s talk about it. You said for a short period of time. Was this contingency relationship?

Richard: Both fee and contingency.

Michael: Do they want contingency relationships?

Richard: Contingencies are hard to make last.

Michael: Why?

Richard: There are several things. One is you’re in a partnership with the business owner. You’re now relying on his honesty and his trust and his capability of doing business, but it’s not always in your control. It may not always keep working the way you want it to work.

Michael: Does it change the relationship between the two people?

Richard: It absolutely does. That’s why I don’t recommend a contingency basis to begin with. I will always charge a fee first, and then as I work with the client and they work with me, and we find out that we’re working well together, it can evolve into a contingency opportunity.

Michael: If you were dropped off in the middle of an unknown town or city with no money, no credentials and no more knowledge about business than your neighbors pet dog, and you were given just five days to make $10,000 as a marketing consultant, what would you do? What steps would you take? What mindset would you adopt? And how successful do you think you will be and why?

Richard: I would immediately find information that would act as a model or I would find a mentor. I would find someone in that community or on written material or a book. I’d go to the library. I’d go on the web, and I’d find the best marketing consultant out there, and I would read and I’d study and I would find out what he did or what she did, and I would then distill that into an approach and go immediately and begin to approach small businesses and find ways that I could leverage what the small business had already been doing and quickly generate cash for the business. If I was penniless at the time, and I didn’t have to have pennies right away, I would probably do it on a contingency basis where I would get a percentage of the increase that my marketing efforts would produce. So, that’s what I would do. I would find knowledge. I would find information. I would find a way to help start me, a way to jump- start me.

Michael: Now, is that what you did with your marketing consulting business?

Richard: I have done it, yes, and I have done it several times. I’ve done it both on a fee based level as well as a contingency based level.

Michael: Who was that expert that you modeled to start your business?

Richard: This is Jay Abraham.

Michael: Can you tell me about that?

Richard: Jay, back in 1990, was looking for a thousand protégés to train. So, he sent out some advertising and I read his ad in Entrepreneur Magazine. He took about a 27 page ad in the middle of Entrepreneur Magazine, and I was on an airline flight at the time and read it, and decided that then I would take what was my background which again in outside sales, combine it with his marketing expertise and I was intrigued then to start my own marketing consulting practice. So, I invested $15,000 in Jay, and went and spent a week with him as well as about a hundred others. I came a way with all of the information that I needed to combine with my own skills where I had been to that point in my life, and started marketing consulting.

Michael: Do you think your sales skills as an outside salesperson gave you an advantage over someone who didn’t have the sales expertise in being a marketing consultant?

Richard: I think it did with regards to my training from Jay, as Jay didn’t supply any of that in his training. Jay was strictly marketing. So, fortunately for me, I was able to supply what Jay didn’t give me. now, since then, I have been able to document the whole process from what you say to a perspective business client all the way to closing and servicing that client in a way that someone wouldn’t have to have that strong a sales background, but for me it was important that I had.

Michael: What were you selling in outside sales?

Richard: I had worked for a couple of different companies - one selling educational books to the public, another company selling software to trucking firms. I was with an auto racing firms selling auto racing brokerage services. So, it was pretty varied that I had had up to that point.

Michael: Some of the stuff was pretty high tech – the trucking software?

Richard: Yeah the software was $30,000 software, and then spent some time also selling timeshares as well. So, it was a fun background.

Michael: Here’s a question from Marty. Can a person who has no money, no credit, and no job, go out and do this thing? Or is this some kind of pipe dream being a marketing consultant?

Richard: Well, they have to have a few innate characteristics. They have to enjoy working with people. They’ve got to have some passion. They’ve got to have an ability to communicate well with the business owner and enjoy working with the business owner. Those are the required. You can have no money. You can have all of the other stuff that you mentioned, but you do have to have at least what I just described.

Michael: Here’s a question from Ken. Let’s start with my favorite question, the numbers question. You can afford $500 per month to start marketing your practice. What medium would you spend it on and what would your message be?

Richard: I would use the phone and I would save the $500 and I would get on the phone and I would be contacting small business owners and my scripting would be, “Hello, Mr. Business Owner, my name is Tom, and I have a way that I can increase your sales for your business without spending any more money on advertising. Could I take 15-20 minutes and tell you a little bit more about it?”

Michael: Is this what you use even today.

Richard: You bet. Versions of that we still use even today.

Michael: Have you tried other versions and found this to be the one that produces results?

Richard: This one is one what sets me apart from everybody else.

Michael: How’s that?

Richard: Well, these small business owners are getting contacted constantly by traditional media, traditional advertising mediums like the newspaper, the radio, direct mail, coupons, the Internet, and when the approach is on the phone saying, “I’m going to be able to increase sales for your business without spending more money on these traditional advertising approaches” it catches their ear.

Michael: It is totally opposite to what other calls are.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Have you quantified this? How many calls does it take to get an appointment?

Richard: We have found that talking to ten business owners, in other words making contact with ten decision makers will get you an appointment.

Michael: How do we identify? How do we get that decision maker on that first scripted call?

Richard: Two ways. One is the market that I recommend a marketing consultant to begin in especially are the smaller businesses with sales between a half a million and three million, and the reason for that is the business owner is the contact person. They’re still the one trying to do everything. They usually still don’t have a marketing director or a VP of Marketing, or they still don’t have anyone on staff qualified to handle marketing. So, it’s the business owner trying to runt he whole thing, and we’re coming in to help him. Now, once we get to about a five million dollar sales level, you begin to have different decision- making layers, and so someone else will probably answer the phone and you’ll have more difficulty getting to the business owner.

Michael: Where do you get your leads from to make the calls?

Richard: Well, there have been a couple of sources. You can get the Yellow Pages out or you can begin looking at companies that invest a lot in their yellow pages. There’s one source of lead.

Michael: What does that tell you when you see a huge ad in the yellow pages?

Richard: It tells you that you’ve got a business that’s spending a lot of money on traditional marketing. It may not be working very well. So, I might have a built in need already and he might be frustrated with his yellow page ad. He may be getting a lot of calls but not converting them. So, he’s still not making enough profit from his ads. You can also pick up magazines in your local area, and look through those and find companies that are spending money on advertising. Go through your local newspaper. Begin to build a little database of your own leads so you don’t have to spend money on a list. That’s another source. You can call a list company and you can get lists of companies in your area that have sales between $500,000 and three million, who give you the business owners name, their phone number, their address, how many employees they have. You can decide if you want to eliminate certain kinds of businesses, and you have a list that you can buy from a list broker.

Michael: If I’m going to go through your training and become a marketing consultant, is this something that you’d recommend I do at the beginning myself or can I hire this out to a telemarketer or someone working part time?

Richard: That’s a great question. If you feel that you don’t have the skills, then outsource because I have. I’ve always rather gone to someone or some company that does it already and pay them to make those calls. However, early in my career, I was making those calls. I recommend that in starting that you make the calls because you’ll have that experience. It’s even hard for you to train a caller to do it.

Michael: I was talking to a friend of mine, and I didn’t realize that he was from Israel. He wanted to get into some sort of marketing consulting, and he would always want to meet me face-to- face, and I never really thought about it, but he was insecure and didn’t have the confidence to be on the phone because he thought his Israeli accent would hinder him from doing whatever he needed on the phone. But, he had the confidence meeting someone face-to-face because he could express more, more than just his voice to communicate. But, there are a lot of people here in the United States and really all over the world where they feel their accent gets in the way of them doing that telephone work. So, by farming it out, that’s not going to keep them from getting appointments.

Richard: Right.

Michael: Here’s a question from Rose. Rose wants to know how do you succeed in promoting products and services when you have no money at all?

Richard: The best way to do that is to find individuals or businesses that could promote them for you. So, what you do is you take a look at your products and services that you have, and you’ll ask the question, “What other businesses might have customers that want my product?” So, you’re tapping into or you’re forming alliances with or you’re becoming a partner with another business who’s already paid the money, who’s already invested the marketing dollars, and they’ve generated a customer base, but you haven’t. You don’t have the money to do that, and so you’re bringing your product and service in a way they can add value to their customers, and give you a piece of that. So, that’s the best and fastest way to get something launched if you don’t have the money.

Michael: Here’s a question from Scott. Richard, what would you do in the next 30 days to get started and ran your first client?

Richard: Get on the phone. The phone is the most underutilized marketing asset that’s out there. It cost nothing, and yet you can take the time to contact enough people to find someone interested and go see face-to-face. So, if I had 30 days I would combine phone with in-person visits. “Let me show you how I can increase your sales 25-100 percent without spending more money on advertising.” And, I’d take my phone pitch that I just said a few minutes ago. I would also examine what relationships I might have developed in my community. For example, if I worked at all with the local printer or my accountant, these are two businesses or entities that have businesses as clients, and I would immediately go them and say, “Could I offer a free consultation to your client?” So, it’s a service that my accountant could offer to his small business owners without spending any money, but it’s good for the accountant because if his businesses increase sales, he’s going to be doing more accounting. So, those are the two things I would do rapidly for 30 days. I’d be on the phone. I’d be out in person meeting businesses, and then I would be leveraging any relationships that I could find and that I could partner with. Just like we described in your previous question, if I had not money and I’m just getting started, how do I take my marketing service and start to make money with it, and I recommend that you form alliances and partners. So, I would do that as a marketing consultant, which I did. Early in my career, I got leads from my accountant. I got leads from a local printer. I went to the local Chamber of Commerce and starting joining a couple of the lead clubs that cost zero to join.

Michael: Were they happy to share the leads with you?

Richard: Absolutely.

Michael: Do you have to pay them money for them?

Richard: No, they just exchanged leads. They let you get up and give a little presentation, two minutes or so, about what you do. So, all of those are workable ways to generate leads quickly.

Michael: Your favorite is the phone and face-to-face presentations.

Richard: That’s my favorite if I don’t have those relationships. If I have those relationships, those are my favorite. The consulting business, and marketing consulting included, is the highest profit margin business out there. I mean, I meet these business owners everyday, and there you can buy on 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent gross profit. Marketing consulting gives you 90-95 percent gross profit. You have no hard costs. It’s all intellectual services. So, you’re packaging your expertise. So, you should see profit immediately. You should see profit from your first fees if you can generate a fee.

Michael: Here’s a question from Carl from Phoenix. Hi Richard, the question I have is the marketing consulting market saturated here in the United States.

Richard: It is very crowded, no question, and it’s getting more crowded in the sense that you now have Internet marketing consultants who are out there, so the ecommerce and dot-comes of the world, and the website designers who now have come along, and that is why it’s even more critical that you distinguish yourself from all of those. That’s why you take the approach to marketing that I have in a way that says, “Mr. Business Owner, I know you’ve been hit with all these others, but I’m different, and here’s how I’m different. I’m going to take what you’ve already got, and create more cash flow for you. I’m going to increase your sales and your net profits, and I’m going to help you find more working capital because we may stop spending on some of these other marketing or advertising approaches, and we’re going to help you see a way to do it without any of that. Now, we might still do some, Mr. Business Owner. I’m not saying that these other approaches don’t work.” But, this is how you get in the door. This is how you separate yourself from the others. So, it doesn’t matter how many others there are, as long as you are perceived and have something different, you’re going to be okay.

Michael: Here’s a question from Rick. Richard, let’s say I’m a marketing consultant cold-calling for potential clients with no previous mailings or anything like that. They don’t know me from Adam. I’m just cold-calling the yellow pages by phone looking for potential clients. What do I say to get interest and to get an appointment?

Richard: “Hi, my name is Rick. I’m with XYZ Marketing Firm. I’m in your area helping small businesses increase sales as well as net profits anywhere from 25 to 100 percent in as little as 60-90 days without spending more money with advertising. Can I take 20 minutes of your time and tell you a little bit more about what I do?”

Michael: All right, and what if he says yes, what are you going to say?

Richard: “Great. I’m available Tuesday or Thursday at two o’clock. Will that work for you?”

Michael: Sure, where do you meet him, at his place?

Richard: Yes, I’ll go to his place of business.

Michael: Do you ever find that there could be distractions there when you’re trying to have that 20 minutes or 30 minutes with him?

Richard: Sure there are sometimes the distractions, and that’s the nature of the small business owner that you simply deal with those, and there have been times when I’ve rescheduled and come back. There’s been times where I just sat patiently and waited until the distractions passed.

Michael: Have you ever tried getting them outside of their business? Maybe meeting at a coffee shop or somewhere close?

Richard: Yes, we’ve done that as well. So, that can work. I don’t recommend that on a first visit in that I think it’s critical that the consultant kind of see the place of business, see what the business owner’s going up against, but it’s worked the other way as well.

Michael: That’s a good idea. So, you can get in there and get an idea if this is someone you even want to work with.

Richard: Right.

Michael: You’re not going to want to work with everyone you get to meet with, right?

Richard: No, and that’s a great point because you could spend a lot of energy and waste a lot of time which is money to the consultant by working with some clients that you really shouldn’t be working with.

Michael: We qualify them somewhat in the mailing list or through the yellow pages, but are there other qualifying questions that your telemarketer would do or that you would do before you meet them to alleviate that wasted time?

Richard: Absolutely. In my marketing consulting training system, we take the philosophy that it is better to qualify heavily upfront to find the right clients because just to save time, and so there are some other qualifiers. The critical qualifier is, and I will say this sometimes after a telemarketer sets an appointment or I’m calling to confirm the appointment. I’ll say, “Now, Mr. Business Owner, let me just confirm. Do you really want to grow? Is that right? Are you ready to grow your business?” Because you’ve got some business owners who don’t really care about growing, and so you don’t want to waste time telling them they ought to be growing because there are some that are happy where they’re at. They’re happy right where they’re at. So, I need to make sure that Mr. Business Owner, are you ready to grow? Do you really want to grow this business some more? Are you ready to do that? Second, I might qualify them as to how long they’ve been in the business because my marketing system is not really built and systemized for a new start-up because when you make a pitch to the business owner that you’re going to find ways to help them grow without spending more money on advertising, you’re going to be doing it through his customer base or his staff or his sales people or his relationships with other businesses. Well, if he’s a brand new start-up, he doesn’t have very much of that.

Michael: And, that’s not someone you even want to go near.

Richard: That’s right, and they usually don’t have the money to pay you. So, leave them alone, and let them build their business for a few years. Our target client is the one that’s been in business three to five years or more, wants to grow his business, and then probably the last qualify question that I might ask is, “Now, Mr. Business Owner, this investment could be anywhere from $4-$10,000 over a period of three to six months. I don’t want to hurt your business. Is that something that you could handle if this is something you wanted to do?” Now, I should qualify that qualifier because I’ll say that now after several years in the business, but you may not say that as a beginning consultant, but boy, I’d rather even get that out on the table because if he doesn’t have any money, if he doesn’t believe in investing in marketing, if he doesn’t really want to grow, if he hasn’t been around for a better so that I know that there’s other ways to find growth for him, then let him stay in the market for a while and let him change his attitude through the market. I don’t have time to change it. Does that make sense?

Michael: Yes it does. Let me ask you this. You’ve got your telemarketer setting up appointments. They set the appointment say a week ahead. In your experience, let’s say when you first started compared to what you do now, were you the person calling back to confirm the appointment? When would you call back? If the appointment was on a Friday, what day would you call back to confirm and to ask these qualifying questions?

Richard: I’d usually call back on Thursday, back a day before the appointment. I’d say, “I’m just calling to confirm our appointment for tomorrow at nine o’clock. Is that right?” They said, “Yes. I’ve got you on the calendar.” Great, and then depending on how I felt, I might ask some of those other qualifying questions.

Michael: Then based on their answers you would decide either keep the appointment or not keep it. Let’s say that you find that this probably isn’t a prospect, what are you going to say to them?

Richard: That is a great question because I just had it happen. I just had the caller set up an appointment for me with a small business owner, and I called him back to confirm, and he said, “You know, I’m so glad you called because I have a service appointment I need to make in the morning at eight-thirty.”, which was when our appointment was set. That gave me time to talk to him a little bit more, and I said, “Well, tell me a little bit about your business.” And, he told me a little bit about his business and I could tell from his attitude that he probably wasn’t ready to meet right now. So, I said, “Listen, maybe next week I’ll give you a call sometime.” So, that freed up my whole morning. I didn’t go waste it with someone I just didn’t feel was quite ready for me.

Michael: So, let me ask you this – You went through Jay’s marketing system in 1990. It’s 14 years later, and you’re still actually out there having someone telemarket for you, set up appointments. You’re calling to confirm. You’ve actually been doing this for this long.

Richard: Oh yeah, and I’ll tell you why because the number one killer of the consulting business and marketing consulting included is you stop marketing. The minute you stop marketing, you’re dead because you’re start to get lethargic. You start to get lazy. You get clients and you think you’re busy enough. So, you don’t keep marketing. I throw out this rule right now and that is anyone serious about getting in the consulting business better always be willing to market 25 percent of their time.

Michael: So, this isn’t a land a huge client, get a good contingency deal, make several hundred thousand dollars, and retire for the next year.

Richard: You’ll only find those if you keep doing what I’ve described to you to do. You won’t find those by a science. You’ll run into them, and I’ve run into a couple of them. So, I’ve had a couple of client relationships that have given me the big bucks for the short period of time, but there far and few between.

Michael: Now, let’s talk about it. You said for a short period of time. Was this contingency relationship?

Richard: Both fee and contingency.

Michael: Do they last contingency relationships?

Richard: Contingencies are hard to make last.

Michael: Why?

Richard: There are several things. One is you’re in a partnership with the business owner. You’re now relying on his honesty and his trust and his capability of doing business, but it’s not always in your control. It may not always keep working the way you want it to work.

Michael: Does it change the relationship between the two people?

Richard: It absolutely does. That’s why I don’t recommend a contingency basis to begin with. I will always charge a fee first, and then as I work with the client and they work with me, and we find out that we’re working well together, it can evolve into a contingency opportunity.

Michael: That working relationship is really a qualifier whether he’s honest, whether he’s interested in growing his business, and whether there’s potential. If that’s going good, is there any reason why he wouldn’t want to do a contingency?

Richard: There really isn’t, and if it’s going good, he’s paid me my fees on time like I’ve asked, he’s been happy to pay them, and we’ve built up a good relationship, he knows what I’m going to do for him in this contingency relationship, I know what he’s going to do for me in this contingency relationship, and then it’s much easier.

Michael: What about Jay Abraham’s thing? You went to the training in ’90. I remember it’s “If I Could Bring Your Business A Dollar, Would You Be Willing to Pay Me 25 Cents for the Increase of The Business?” What’s wrong with that model? What did you find was wrong with that model? Did you believe in the model at first?

Richard: Oh, I did because that’s what Jay trained us. So, I came home, and I ran an ad of that very nature, and I got phone calls and I put it out there into a small business magazine that was being distributed to businesses, and it said that very thing. It said, “If I could make you a dollar, you pay me 25 cents.” And, I got several phone calls. Then, I found out the problem with starting it that way. Jay was able to do it because he had already made hundreds of thousands of dollars and had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, and so he could afford to do a contingency, but many of these contingency clients take a lot of time to make work and before you see the sales, and it takes money to make the marketing work, and they don’t have the money. That’s why they called you to do it on your commission. Those are the obstacles I found. I found, “Oh man, this is going to take too long and I’ve got a mortgage to pay.”

Michael: Do you remember the first client that called you?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: Who was it?

Richard: They were producing a family unity tape set. They were kind of a non-profit type of entity. So, they didn’t have a budget for marketing. I guess part of the answer to the question is where are you at when you take the training. If you already have money in the bank, if you already have a career that you’ve built up a retirement and you can afford six to twelve months to make a contingency work, good for you.

Michael: Yeah, and you would invest your own money in doing it.

Richard: And your time.

Michael: Okay.

Richard: If you are like most of us, and you have a mortgage to pay, and you have bills that have to be paid every third day, then you probably don’t have the time to give that to a contingency. So, that’s why in 1990 when it wasn’t working well for me, I created my marketing consulting system which is based on a fee-based system because immediately I saw that I needed to change the way I was approaching these small business owners. I couldn’t do it right then the way Jay Abraham taught me, and so I had to change it to a fee-based structure, and that’s the way it is.

Michael: You didn’t have the assets to do what he did.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: He was just teaching the best way he knew how from his experience and from where he was.

Richard: That’s right, and so I don’t blame him.

Michael: You’re teaching it from where you were.

Richard: That’s right, and where I think most are.

Michael: Right.

Richard: And, that’s why I think it’s the most successful system out there. I’ve had competitors who have been out there. They were trained by Jay, but they still have not figured out how to go to a perspective business owner, present him value, and charge a fee, and then present him the next value and charge a fee, and present him the next value and charge fee. That’s what’s unique about the system. It’s so systemized from beginning to end.

Michael: How long did it take you to put this system together?

Richard: At least four or five years.

Michael: Here’s a question from Peter. As you may be aware Michael, I spoke to Richard a few weeks ago about his marketing system. I’m intrigued by his concepts and program, but I’m not in a position to consider the training until I finish my move from Boston to Florida. In the meantime, here are a few questions. What advice would you give someone with previous business experience who is interested in getting into marketing consulting? And, what is the quickest way to start attracting clients?

Richard: Well, the first thing then that I would do is I would look at my business background and my business training and I would find relationships in that business world that I’ve been in, and these relationships I would cultivate with those who sell something or offer something to other businesses, in other words, the same kinds of clients that I want. So, I would leverage my business relationships the best I could. My marketing consulting system recommends you charge fees that range anywhere from $1,500 on a low end to $4 or $5,000 on a high end, and really varies with the size of the business that you’re visiting with and the amount of work that you’re going to have to do, and we teach you all of that in the training.

Michael: Now, is that per month?

Richard: That’s right, and you might have a client for anywhere from four to seven months that you’re retaining and working with, and you can work with anywhere from ten to twelve, fifteen clients at a time. So, you’ve got to kind of determine how much time it’s going to take, how large the business is, and their ability to pay and then your ability to create the value. So, there are no set fees. We teach you more how to determine those fees based on the circumstance you’re in.

Michael: Let me ask you this. It’s Tuesday, November 9th, how many clients are you currently working with right now?

Richard: Ten.

Michael: You have ten clients you’re working with, and how much time are you spending on each client per month?

Richard: My marketing consulting system is built and documented in such a way that you’re probably sending between two and four hours per week per client. Now, I’ll have to tell you, I’m spending less time than that right now because you’re only getting faster, you’re only getting better, you’re only getting more experience each year that you’re in this business, and so my per hour compensation has gone up dramatically from when I started because two things have happened. One is I’ve been able to increase my fees as I get better. It’s just like Jay Abraham. I remember early on he was charging one or two thousand dollars per hour on the phone. Now, he’s getting four or five thousand dollars.

Michael: Yes, when demand goes up, price goes up.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: And, when your confidence goes up, price goes up.

Richard: Yes, and so starting out, the way I remember when I was sweating out trying to charge any fee at all. So, we want to help you avoid that start-up learning curve, and give you the training and the confidence so that right off the bat you begin asking for the fees because you can as a trained marketing consultant, tap into the system that’s been around for 14-15 years. So, it’s produced phenomenal results for clients. So, you’re not a start-up. You’re actually participating in part of a system that’s been around for a long time, and that should help you in setting those higher fees from the beginning as well as the training and the confidence it gives you to set a higher fee.

Michael: Here’s another question from Peter, how do you get passed the gatekeeper to talk to your prospects or to get that meeting with your prospect? And, what is the best way to track your results with a client that is not very open with his books?

Richard: I haven’t confronted the gatekeeper issue a lot because of the target market I’m recommending you go to. When we make phone calls to the target market we’re in, we’re usually getting the business owner on the phone. So, that’s one way to avoid that problem is by sticking to the target market that you’re equipped to take care of. What you have to kind of do sometimes on the other is maybe you send him a postcard or you send him a newsletter or you send him part of a book you’ve written, and that helps to get past the gatekeeper because you’re mailing it right to the business owner, and then you follow-up with a phone call. I’ve never really had to also get into the books with a company because what we teach in the system is the marketing that you do you’ll be able to track by the results of the mail piece or the results of the ad or the results of the letter. How much money that makes, and how much profit that means has been less of an issue than how much in sales it’s got. Does that make sense?

Michael: Yes.

Richard: So, you’re more concerned with tracking the sales, and when you create the pieces as you will be trained how to do in my marketing consulting system, you can track that pretty well.

Michael: Here’s a question from Dino. Richard, I’m in the UK, and I’ve got a question for you. Why is it that over 80 percent of the people who set out to become a marketing consultant fail to make more than $10,000 per year?

Richard: Because they are not persistent in their own marketing. It’s because they get into a trap that is so easy for consultants to get into, and that is they’ll get a client and so they think now that they’re busy and so they stop marketing. They stop promoting themselves, and when you do that you’ll dry up and die. So, that’s why most will not make it. That’s why a big part of the training is how to grow your practice and how to get clients and we teach them multi pillared marketing approach where they’re teaching you several ways to get clients, not just one or two ways to get clients. You have to do for your marketing consulting practice exactly what you advise clients to do for their business, and if you’re not, the same thing that’s going to happen to your client, that is dry up and die and get beat by their competition, is going to happen to you and your practice. So, I’ve published a book. I have a seminar material, and included in your training you’ll get all of that – how to put on a seminar and teach the marketing system to businesses, and you’ll always get clients that way. We teach you how to use the phone to get clients. We teach you how to use the mail to get clients. We teach you about setting up alliances and partnerships to get clients. So, we teach you a multi-pillar way to get clients because we don’t want that to happen to you, but if you are not persistent in the marketing then your risk is that you’ll be done. Most consulting opportunities don’t cover that. Jay didn’t. I spent $15,000 for Jay Abraham. He didn’t teach me how to go get a client. I had to go figure that out myself, and I’ve seen competitors out there, other marketing consulting groups, that might have great content, but what they didn’t do is what I did, and that’s spend time on the street for years learning how to identify, present and close a client so that 14 years later, now, it’s still happening.

Michael: Can you make the business work without having to meet a client face-to-face? Have you ever done any consulting that way using the Internet to send the forms and the phone to do the interviews and stuff like that?

Richard: Well, it’s good you asked that because part of getting trained in my system is that you’ll have access to an Internet based coaching system. So, yes, we’re aware that that’s going on, and so we’ve put the entire marketing system on the Internet, and you can take a business through the system that way now. Have I done it a lot? No, and I’ll tell you why. Most of the clients, the small business owners, get up in the morning and they’re at their shop and they’re working all day. If you’re going to reach them, they don’t have a minute during that day that they’re pausing to get on the Internet. They’re meeting payroll. They’re buying inventory. They’re figuring out ways to sell more. So, they need to be met face-to-face. So, you’re going to have a few, but I don’t want to give you all the impression that that’s going to be a way to generate all of their income.

Michael: That’s fair enough. Here’s some questions relating to credibility, and it seems like several people are concerned with that. One from Dave – how can a rookie consultant cover up for his lack of credibility if he still has no paying clients to give him testimonials?

Richard: Then he uses the testimonials of my marketing system that are already out there. I have more then you’ll need. When you go through the training, you’re going to be able to tap into that credibility. So, they’re not only getting the system, they’re getting the 14 years of performance. That’s one way he can cover that up. The other way is when I got started, I had been in the outside sales arena and I had performed. The prospect is less concerned about what you’ve done in the past, and more concerned about how he thinks you’re going to solve his problem, and so as a consultant, you need to be concerned more with how you’re going to be able to listen to, understand and present a solution to that business owner’s problem. If you spend your time doing that, he’s not going to worry about your credibility. If he has the confidence that you can solve his problem, and so I used stories from my sales background. They weren’t at all connected with the marketing system that I was using. So, I would also caution someone in trying to cover up, and I would rather say explore what you do have that you might be able to throw out there as some credibility.

Michael: Now, can you think back in all your face-to-face presentations when you’re meeting with the clients, how many can you think of that said, “Tell me about why I should?”

Richard: It’s really not a big issue and that’s because when you go in with my marketing system, it’s overwhelming. The business owner goes, “Oh wow, this make sense.” When you deliver a proven system that he can’t debate with, why is he going to say, “Prove it to me?” You already have.

Michael: Without giving away too much, can you talk about the Opportunity Analysis Worksheet – what it does, how it’s used, and what the purpose of it is in your system?

Richard: You bet. Where my trained consultants separate themselves from everybody else is the ability to go into a small business and identify what the system refers to as “hidden marketing assets”. The opportunity worksheet is simply a systematic way we train the consultants how to identify those assets, and so there’s a series of questions that the opportunity worksheet guides the consultant through so that he doesn’t miss any of the assets because the proposal then that you’re trained in solving the business owner’s problem is leveraging those assets into a marketing system. That’s why it’s so different from anybody else. Any traditional advertiser or traditional marketing consultant doesn’t care about the business’s hidden marketing assets. They just want to sell more advertising, and they want to sell more direct mail or they want to sell more coupons or they want to sell more billboard space or more radio or more newspaper ads. You’re going in and saying, “Hey, you don’t need any of that, but I do need to take you through a series of questions to see if you have what I call marketing assets. Then, I’ll take those assets and I will systematically leverage them into a marketing system to create increases for you.” So, that in a nutshell is what separates our consultants from everybody else.

Michael: From your experience, how long have you found it takes you for that initial meeting when you take that business owner through the opportunity analysis worksheet?

Richard: It’s about an hour.

Michael: Do you need a laptop to take them through that system or can you do this all on paper?

Richard: It’s all on paper. They’ll need a laptop. What you do then is take the information gathered from the opportunity session and create an outline of marketing steps that you’re recommending for the client.

Michael: You’ve got a sales background. This opportunity analysis worksheet is a well thought out sales system. Would you agree?

Richard: Yeah, that’s why it was created is I knew that if someone else who wanted to be a marketing consultant might not have the sales background that we’d have to create an almost word for word presentation, and that’s in the opportunity analysis. So, it’s there almost word for word if they want to, and in fact early on, I did. Early on, I had to take it, what I had been writing down and actually say, “Well, Mr. Owner, excuse me for a minute, I’m just going to go through a sheet here that I have to make sure that I cover everything.” They go, “Oh sure.” But, really what it was for me was a cheat sheet.

Michael: And, you have this script of exactly what to say from the time you get in there?

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: And, you just read it off of the paper?

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Here’s a question from George. What do you find is the numbers on objection people have to hiring a marketing consultant?

Richard: I’d say there’s a close tie between two. One is the feeling that “Oh, I’m doing fine. I can do this myself.” And, then second, “I don’t want to invest the money.” So, those two are probably your top.

Michael: Now, if you’ve got a guy that says, “I don’t want to invest the money.” You’ve got a sales background. Do you have an answer for that or do you pretty much know that if this guy doesn’t want to invest the money it isn’t going to happen?

Richard: It’s one of the purposes of the opportunity and the questionnaire that we train you is to show him the money. Before you ask him to invest, you’ve got to show him where the money’s going to come, and part of that hour presentation you’re illustrating for him ways he can make more money. So, that at the end, if he doesn’t see the small investment he’s going to pay you isn’t going to bring him the returns that you’ve described, then two things. One is you haven’t made the sale or you really didn’t show him the money or he doesn’t have the money and doesn’t want to spend it regardless of how much you could show him.

Michael: And, you’re using his numbers to come up with the figures, right?

Richard: Absolutely.

Michael: Is that a challenge when you’re asking him for gross sales?

Richard: No, they’re usually very open with that.

Michael: Those have those numbers pretty much down.

Richard: Maybe, Mike, this would help illustrate. Let’s say I’m talking to a business owner, and I ask him a question. I say, “Well, you have two sales people.” And, he says, “Yes.” “What is their conversion rate or how many people are they closing right now?” And he says, “Well, I think they’re closing about two out of ten.” And, I say, “Well, that’s great. If my marketing system that I’ll help implement into your business could raise that from two to three out of ten, can you see how much more money that would make you?” And, he says, “Yeah, that would be great.” “Well, that’s what that marketing system will help you do. It will help you raise that conversion rate from two to three and you can see how that might make you another $100,000 a year. Does that make sense?” And, he says, “Yeah, I can see that.” So, see I’m showing him how he’s going to be making a lot of money.

Michael: So, it really shouldn’t be an objection if you’ve done your presentation right.

Richard: You’ve got it. That’s right.

Michael: How many can you close? Give me some numbers. You set up 100 appointments, how many appointments are you going to end up seeing? How many are you going to close? And, how many are going to stick with it?

Richard: Out of ten appointments, my closing rate right now is about five out of ten. So, I have about a 50 percent conversion rate. However, early on, in the beginning, I would expect that a beginning consultant should hold about a 20-30 percent conversion rate. So, if you’re seeing ten appointments a week, then you should pick two to three clients a week. Those two to three clients you should be servicing for four to six or seven months if you’re doing your job. So, you’ll keep a client that long. Well, that means then, that at the end of four or five months, you’re going to be finished with a client, and you better have a replacement. That’s why, again, the emphasis on marketing 25 percent of your week all the time. Then people say, “Well, Richard, then you’re going to get full and you don’t have enough.” I can tell you from experience, you’re never full enough. And, if I am by chance, then I simply tell a client, I can’t start with them right now, but I could at X-date. Or, if he gives me the luxury of saying, “I can start with you now, but the fee will have to be X.” And, I raise my fee. You see? So, consultants somewhat have to create the demand that then would generate and justify a fee.

Michael: Well, one of the attractive benefits that other business and marketing consultant opportunities are offering is a residual income, and from what you’re saying is contingency isn’t the focus on your program, but you did say there is an opportunity for that. So, a question from Larry from Florida is how do you develop the residual income from your marketing consulting practice?

Richard: That is a great question, and there are a lot of different ways to develop. In fact, one of our consultants in the Chicago area, Steve is his name, he took my training and he immediately began to work with small businesses and he charged a fee to begin with, and then he began to take part ownership of the company.

Michael: How did he do that? Give me an example of what he did.

Richard: What he did is he went in and said, “Okay, if I’m going to go ahead and lower my fees to get my marketing system in your business, I would like to work out a percentage of ownership in the company.” So, here’s a consultant then that’s taken some ownership in companies and he’s told us that it’s created his retirement.

Michael: And, it’s a lot safer than some contingency deal?

Richard: Exactly. He’s got ownership, and he said just the other day that he’s actually created his retirement. So, residual opportunities are there. It’s just I think each consultant mindset. How do they want to use the system? Do they want to use it with a few clients and get heavily involved and maybe even become part owner, or maybe find some contingency opportunities? So, the system is such that I think that the personality of the consultant can be a driving use of the system.

Michael: Here’s a question from Lee. How could you make more in consulting fees with less paperwork and report writing? Is there a lot of report writing in this?

Richard: There really isn’t. My system teaches you how to generate of course an outline or I don’t like to use the word proposal. One thing that we teach you is you’ve got to be able to go in to the client and then respond back in your proposal to the client directly. You can’t come back with a generic proposal. You’ve got to come back with a system outline that hits the points that you uncovered in your opportunity analysis. So, that’s why every outline is going to be different for each prospect. So, there is that. After that, you’re getting paid to service the client, and any other writing or any other report generating is going to be paid for as part of the system.

Michael: And, you have these outlines in the system?

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Here’s a question from Dave. By giving the prospect good value through educating at your first meeting with the agenda you’ve created through the answers the prospect gave in response to the questions that you had gone over in the opportunity analysis worksheet, how do you not give them enough information so that they would tend to want to do it on their own?

Richard: One of the marketing principles that Jay taught me that I’ve seen come true is you can tell a prospect a lot of things to do, but it all comes down to execution and he is not trained to execute. In fact, if I were to say the number one reason clients will retain a marketing consultant. It’s less for what he told them he’s going to do, and more for that he’s going to do it. In other words, the execution, the marketing content in the system is really not new. It’s been around and used successfully for years, and so they know a lot of this stuff. The business owner already knows he should be doing this. He hasn’t been doing this. So, by coming to him with a system, and your ability to execute, that’s what he’s going to buy.

Michael: Yeah, you’re going to do it for him.

Richard: Yes, because he’s probably bought books before. He’s probably maybe hired someone before that he thought would do it and it’s still not done.

Michael: Here’s a question from Bonnie. Richard, do you deal with clients who won’t take your advice? In other words, they hire you because you’re an expert and they need your help, then when you advise them on what to do, they disagree and think that their way is better. Should you just fire them or compromise or do what they want because the customer is always right?

Richard: Part of the upfront psychological contract is what I’ve heard it referred to. “I’m going to recommend certain marketing steps, Mr. Business owner, and I’m going to make sure that we get them executed. I do need your total support behind that, otherwise my guarantee is void. I’m guaranteeing to you that the system will perform, but unless everything is done the way I say it should be done and in the manner that I recommend it should be done, I can’t guarantee my performance. So, if you want to change it, if you want to do something else, or if you say, ‘I don’t want to do this.’, then it just voids our guarantee. Is that okay?” Cover all of that ahead of time. Now, certainly there’s going to be cases, and I’ve had them. I’ve had clients who have paid me and some of the marketing hasn’t worked, and yet the reason they know it hasn’t worked is they haven’t done their part. So, I still fulfilled my guarantee, but the results didn’t necessarily happen yet, the recognized it’s because they didn’t do their part.

Michael: Do you have a specific script or format that you use when asking for referrals and if so what is it? Do you have different approaches when seeking referrals from non-clients as opposed to clients? At what point in the relationship do you start asking? Now, this would be for building your marketing consulting practice.

Richard: The point that you might ask for referrals is going to be different with every client. Sometimes my clients are so excited after step one that I can ask for referrals. Sometimes it takes three or four months before things start working and start generating that I can ask for referrals. Really the right answer that it’s kind of whenever the client gives you a buying signal. And, that might be at any point in the steps.

Michael: How would you do it? What would you say?

Richard: I would say, “Listen, I’m excited that this is working for us. You feel like it’s working for your business.” And, they say, “Yes.” And, I will especially ask for referrals from a client who has other small businesses as clients, and I’ll say something like, “Well, would it be okay if maybe we sponsored or if you’d like to sponsor a little workshop for some of your clients that I can share these marketing ideas with some of them?” So, I’ve done sponsored workshops as a way to generate referrals.

Michael: So, they’ll send out something to their list a letter or a mailing?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: And, you’ve got that in the system.

Richard: Right. So, you can generate referrals through a seminar or they might give you, “Do you have one or two business associates that you think this might work for and that I can use your name in approaching?” And, that might give me one or two referrals.

Michael: How much are you using referrals in your consulting practice?

Richard: I probably right now, I would say that 80 percent of my income has come from referrals because I’ve built up enough relationships where I get referrals. These are with groups and associations that we have trained to do on how to set up some of these same relationships.

Michael: Give me an example of one of the workshops you did.

Richard: Elko, Nevada is one good example. We did a workshop there and it ended up selling both one on one consulting services as well as selling some of the web coaching services. So, that was fairly successful. I’ve also done a lot of the workshops for Chambers of Commerce who has these luncheons, and they sponsored me as a speaker. Almost always I’ll get clients from those workshops. So, the seminar and you get all of this in your training is very powerful because it’s a good balance of teaching and not giving them too much. It always intrigues them enough that they want to follow-up with a consultation.

Michael: Here’s a question from Mike – where do you see small business growth in the future, and where will a small business marketing consultant be seeing the biggest area of growth to tap into – specific areas, niches, markets or services? Any ideas on that?

Richard: Well, the Internet definitely is a big area. I see that growing. I see more and more of my own clients over time are getting involved in the Internet. So, I’m having more opportunity with them, as they build their business models or change their business models to accommodate the Internet. What’s great is that my system works whether it’s with a brick and mortar company or on the Internet, it still applies. So, all steps of the marketing consulting you can do, you can do either with a web-based company or a brick and mortar company. So, I see that as a big one. Retail is struggling, and so retail is an opportunity. The small Mom and Pop retail stores are getting beat up by Wal-Mart. They’re getting beat up by the big Home Depots and all of those big box companies are threatening them. So, they’re looking for answers. They’re looking for help. I think another big opportunity is going to be more and more small business owners are starting their own businesses. They’re buying franchises and sometimes the franchise has all the marketing laid out for them, but sometimes they don’t. I’m working right now with a franchise client that just doesn’t feel that he’s getting any help from headquarters. So, there’s going to be a lot of people getting into business by themselves being that that whole sector is growing. So, those are the opportunities that I see.

Michael: Here’s a question from Margo. Although no two businesses are exactly alike, generally speaking what are the three surest methods of immediately increasing profits in a small business?

Richard: I would say the three are number one, creating a really good unique selling proposition and then integrating that into all of their current marketing processes.

Michael: Give me an example.

Richard: I worked with a client that was in the employee leasing business. He was the owner, the sole owner, and he five salespeople. Well, the sales were not doing as well as he would’ve liked, and so he hired me as a consultant to create a Unique Selling Proposition. So, we did that, and part of that process is asking the owner what he really thinks his Unique Selling Proposition is. So, I got that from the owner. Well, in step two, you go about integrating that Unique Selling Proposition into all of the sales process.

Michael: What did he come up with as his Unique Selling Proposition?

Richard: He said, “Richard, I don’t sell life insurance. I don’t sell health insurance. I save a small business owner time and energy in complying with all of the legal rules of business.” So, really you’re not selling product. You’re not selling payroll services. You’re selling time, and energy and liability for the business owner. You’re taking away all of these things so he doesn’t have to deal with, and he said, “Yeah, that’s why my USP is.” Well, I went and asked his five salespeople what they sold, and they were not selling that. Instead, they were selling health insurance or 401(k) s or payroll service. Well, the minute we got the owner’s Unique Selling Proposition integrated into the sales pitch of the five salespeople, we increased their closing rate from 20 to 40 percent and increased their revenues from $60 to $90 million dollars.

Michael: Wow.

Richard: It was phenomenal.

Michael: And, that’s just one thing.

Richard: That’s just one thing. So, to answer her question there’s number one and that is getting a good, unique selling proposition from the very beginning and getting it integrated. A second way to see money real quickly is improving the sales performance of sales people, and that’s done by giving them a good unique selling proposition, and then maybe doing some basic sales training. A third quick way-

Michael: Do you cover sales training in your system?

Richard: Yes, in fact we have a module in there that is a sales training module that they can use as part of their consulting.

Michael: And, I don’t have to be an expert at it? All I’ve got to do is follow along?

Richard: Just follow the outline. The third way that would be fast is the customer base. I’ve seen a lot of money raised quickly be reactivating inactive customers.

Michael: Give me an example.

Richard: I had a doctor who was in the weight control business. In other words, he would advise patients on how to lose weight, and he had his own product, his own protein drink and cookies and things that were used in helping his patients lose weight. Well, he had about 500 patients that he had taken care of over the years, probably 50-100 that were active at any one time. I said, “Well, what’s happened to the other 400?” He says, “Well, I don’t know.” So, we put together a little simple letter to reactive those patients, and his revenues went up 25 percent in 30 days. So, that’s a big and fast and can be a very quick way to make money. So, those are your three.

Michael: Would you be willing to share with my listeners the series of 15 or 20 case studies that you’ve experienced in your consulting business?

Richard: Oh, you bet.

Michael: We’ll save that for another recording. I really appreciate you taking the time and handling all these questions from all my subscribers. I really appreciate it.

Richard: Thank you, it was a pleasure.

Richard: I thought what I might do is illustrate what’s happening with these clients because it demonstrates the Unique Selling Proposition of my marketing system, and that is that the marketing system that’s unique because it not only increases sales for a client, but also net profit, profit margin, bottom line profits go up, working capital is freed up, and it can happen as little as 60 to 90 days for a client or quicker. And, it can mean a 25-100 percent increase in all of those, and it’s a system so it’s step-by-step, easy to execute, and you’re guaranteed the system’s performance. So, that’s the Unique Selling Proposition for my marketing system. That’s what sets it apart from everything else out there. So, that’s why a consultant can go with confidence in approaching prospects because he’s got something different and unique. Does that make sense?

Michael: Yes Richard.

Richard: So, all of these stories, you need to see what’s happening is we’re not just increasing sales. These are profits going to the bottom line because as you go through the stories, we didn’t increase the money spent to create those results. We didn’t have to do more advertising. We didn’t have to hire more people. We didn’t have to go to more trade shows. So, we’re freeing up capital because we’re better allocating the scarce resource and that’s so important, and that’s what’s so neat about this system is because it leverages these hidden marketing assets in a way that you can create these results without asking your client to spend huge amounts of money except which of course they’re paying you.

Michael: That’s fair though.

Richard: So, the client still gets all of that return for years to come. That’s important because that’s the Unique Selling Proposition for my marketing system. MUSIC

Michael: You’ve got a collection of past clients, and you’re going to discuss some stories, impact stories, of how you’ve implemented the marketing system with specific examples of the marketplace.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Let’s start with number one and see what we can learn from your experience.

Richard: Well, this first story happens to also be the first client that I charged a fee for as I was starting my career and got my training with Jay, and of course Jay Abraham’s approach was the contingency based, and that was difficult in starting my consulting practice. So, I got referred to a small clothing store in Elko, Nevada in 1990. They were doing about $500,000 a year, and I went in and met with them once a week for a period of weeks, implementing the marketing system.

Michael: What was it like women’s clothing?

Richard: No, it was more western outdoor clothing.

Michael: And, they had a retail, physical brick-and-mortar?

Richard: Yes, doing about $500,000 a year in business.

Michael: So, you were referred to them by?

Richard: By an associate. So, I charged this client $500 a day. That was my first fee- based charge.

Michael: $500 a day?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: Was it mail order or what?

Richard: Mail order, and he owned the store. He bought it from his dad. It had been in the area for a long time. I’d go out once a week and charge him $500. So, that was giving me a couple of thousand dollars a month. So, I was on my way to fee-based, and one thing that is a common and is that these steps in the marketing system are in an order on purpose. They are really ordered in a way to have the most important and effective impact as quickly as possible. So, we’re not trying to manipulate the steps in any way. They’re in an order to leverage the marketing assets of the client. So, our first step in the system is developing a Unique Selling Proposition, and a Unique Selling Proposition and the acronym is USP is the number one step and the first step in the marketing system because it is essentially the sales pitch. It’s the compelling selling reason that that company is in business. It is what sets that company apart, what makes that company unique from all of the competition, and it’s so important because with so many different kinds of businesses in the same business. So, here you have in Elko, Nevada in this example you have a clothing retailer that’s trying to compete against Corral West which was a franchise and Wal- Mart coming in and all of these other clothing options in the small town of Elko. He has to stand out. He has to be unique. He has to find something that will differentiate himself from his competition, and the reason he has to do that is because if people don’t perceive a reason that’s different to do business with you, then they’re only going to shop price, and they’re only going to go to the lowest price seller, and they’re only going to watch for the ads that give them the lowest price. So, that was the battle of this store owner had. He was fighting against the lowest priced retailers of western clothing in the area, and he had to win that battle. In the system, you’re trained how to determine a Unique Selling Proposition. You’ve given four step, and the first step is we met with the owner and his staff to get their perspective of the Unique Selling Proposition, and in your training material you have a complete questionnaire that goes through what questions you should ask. The next thing we did was to call some customers, survey customers, and in your training material you’re given all of the survey questions you need to have. And, we get the customers’ perspective of what might be unique.

Michael: Why is that important?

Richard: Well, because they’re shopping for some reason. They’re coming to the store for some reason, and we want to know what it is. They may be going to another store as well, and we want to know that.

Michael: Can you give an example like a Dominos Pizza example what a couple USP’s would be for companies that anyone would understand?

Richard: Yes, the Dominos Pizza, the dramatic impact for that company because they came out and they looked at all the competition and they surveyed customers, and they talked to prospects, and they asked what’s most important to them, and at that time speed was becoming and was a void in the industry. No one was delivering a pizza fast. So, they did. They said, “We’ll get it to you in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.” That was very compelling. That was very unique, and it took Dominos to the top of the pizza industry.

Michael: Was their pizza any better?

Richard: No, be cause what was important was speed, but now overtime, that has not become and maintained itself as a unique selling proposition because now people can get pizza in 20 minutes anywhere. So, it’s no longer unique to Dominos, and Pizza Hut started to keep delivering a better tasting pizza, and that began to matter more than speed over time. So, Dominos has lost its unique edge. Revenues are down. Domino’s is struggling. They have to create a new Unique Selling Proposition, but it sure raised the bar for everybody. Now, we can go anywhere and get pizza in less than 30 minutes and get tasty pizza. That is profitable. Another good example is Lenscrafters. Lenscrafters looked around at the industry, and they said, “Oh, you know, people want glasses fast, and there’s no one doing that. So, we’re going to build a lab right in the store and we’re going to deliver in about an hour.” Well, that’s a very compelling Unique Selling Proposition, and it’s got Lenscrafters at the top of the industry. No one’s matched it. No one’s done better, and so it continues to be an effective Unique Selling Proposition. Another good example is the battle today between Wal-Mart, Target and K- Mart. K-Mart is pulling out of bankruptcy, while Target can build a store right next to Wal-Mart. Why can that happen? It’s because Target has a different Unique Selling Proposition than Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is appealing to a low- priced audience. They want low-prices always. They communicate that USP over and over again while Target does not. Target goes after an income level demographic higher than Wal-Mart. They build a nicer store than Wal-Mart. They have wider aisles. They have a little nicer product line. So, Target’s doing very well building their store right next to Wal-Mart because they’re going to a unique demographic than Wal-Mart. So, there was a USP not in product but in who they were targeting. Does that make sense?

Michael: Yes.

Richard: So, there’s what we mean by Unique Selling Proposition is a very targeted reason that people should do business with you and no on else. So, with this clothing store in Elko, we determined that they carried a nicer line of product. So, we knew we couldn’t be a low-priced leader, and we also determined they carried the largest selection of product, and so, now we even counted the number of winter coats they carried and quantified this selection as a Unique Selling Proposition. So, we crafted the USP around a higher line and the largest selection in town. So that was the first thing we had to do. The second thing we did was make sure that message gets integrated into all of their marketing. That’s step number two in my marketing system.

Michael: So, where did you integrate that higher selection, better quality?

Richard: It starts first with the sales people on the floor. So, we did some training to make sure we got scripting into their sales pitches. So, when people come into the store, the first thing that they’re telling these people is why they’re shopping there at the store. “Well, we do have the largest selection of these higher end, better quality, clothing lines. No one else in Elko has that.” I all of a sudden started to close more business. People started to buy more in the store. And, we got it integrated in their newspaper ads that they were running in the local paper. We got it integrated into the radio ads that were running in the local radio stations. We got this message integrated through scripting and through copy work. You’re trained in step number two how to do that. So, that was the second most important thing. It’s silly to have a Unique Selling Proposition, and it won’t do any good unless it’s communicated over and over and over again.

Michael: And, it’s going to be done first.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Or you could be just wasting your time.

Richard: That’s exactly right. You could be running radio ads without a USP wasting money, and newspaper ads without a USP wasting money, and that’s what these businesses do is they get out advertising that emphasizes price. So, they get mad when all they’re selling is product with no margins. A USP gives them a different message to sell. That’s why steps one and two are where they’re at because it’s silly to pursue step three through seven unless one and two are done.

Michael: What was the results for this clother?

Richard: I’ll share one more thing that we did. What happened then is Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait right in the middle of our consultation with this clothing store. The very month I was going to Elko, Saddam decided to invade. No one came into the store and the traffic dropped in half. This store owner said to me, “Richard, I’m going to go out of business if you don’t help me with something here. I don’t care if I’ve got a great USP. I don’t care if I’ve got people that are hearing it on the radio. They’re not coming in.” They’re all home watching CNN because it was the first time that the networks were publicizing a war and putting it on the screen. So, his traffic dropped in half. So, I said, “Okay, then what we need to do is do better with who is coming in the store. What is your average sale right now?” And, he calculated that his average sale was $25. So, we did some training with the salespeople. We took some of his product line and built packages, and we raised his average sale to $50. We were able to double his sales with half that people. That saved him during that invasion. That kept him in business. So, the message is that when you’re with a client that’s in a hard time, or they economics of the situation is such that the shopping isn’t being done, the place to turn to is the customers that are coming in any way and doing a better job of getting more money from half the business that’s coming in. So, that was a dramatic impact on that store, and we took him from $500,000 to $850,000 in a year.

Michael: Did he stick with you through all the steps?

Richard: You bet, yeah. We got into step three which is database, and we reactivated customers. We got his customer on to a mailing list, and we sent offers and he created a frequent shopper customer club where the minute somebody spent over $500 in this club, they got $50 worth of merchandise free. That had so much impact. It kept his loyal customers coming back and coming back and coming back. So, we did some great things in step number three. Step number four is we started to put some cross promotion with other stores in the Elko area that had the same kinds of customers that he would want. For example, there was a Red Wing shoe dealer in the area, and we would have a special that would go to the Red Wing shoe customers over to this retail store. That brought in new customers in a different way without advertising more. We did the media, step five as we talked about getting the USP integrated into his radio and into his newspaper. He did step six, community marketing as a big part because Elko’s a small town. He was sponsoring snowmobile trips. He was sponsoring outdoor activities, and he would take some of his clothing up to these spots and serve coffee and hot chocolate, and he was sponsoring the event. So, he was out in the community making people aware of his store and of his higher end clothing lines. So, yeah, there were all the steps involved in that first client and it had a dramatic impact.

Michael: He was probably having fun doing it.

Richard: Oh, it was a blast especially when the war ended and his traffic picked back up.

Michael: That’s great. That’s a great illustration. Is he still around today?

Richard: He’s still around doing well.

Michael: do you keep in touch with him?

Richard: You bet.

Michael: Great story. Let’s do another.

Richard: I’m going to talk about a catering business. He was doing about $300,000 a year in catering and he was located in the Salt Lake City, Utah area.

Michael: How were you introduced to him?

Richard: My direct marketing contact did.

Michael: So, this is your phone guy. He called this guy cold, set up an appointment, and you went through the opportunity analysis?

Richard: Exactly.

Michael: Then, he said, “Let’s do it.”

Richard: That’s right. Well, the most important thing that my trained marketing consultants learn is how to spot the hidden marketing assets that an owner may not. So, a typical owner and this was the case with this catering. I go in and he’s doing about $300-$350,000 a year, and he says, “I need more customers.” I said to him, “How are you getting customers now?” He says, “I have the largest yellow page ad in the yellow page book. I have a full page ad.” I said, “Well, how does that do?” He says, “Well, I’m getting calls everyday.” Well, that was a clue to me, did he really need more customers? So, what we did in this one was fix and tweak an existing marketing process that was already in place, that was generating assets he was not leveraging. He really didn’t even need a Unique Selling Proposition although we went ahead and developed one, but the most important thing he wasn’t doing was capturing every phone call and following up on every inquiry from the yellow pages.

Michael: Who was answering the phone over there?

Richard: He was which was the mistake because he was also cooking. He was also the caterer. So, I convinced him to go ahead and hire someone that all they did was answer the phone and follow up with prospects that inquired about his catering, and that is all we did for that client, taking him from $350,000 to $700,000 in a year.

Michael: You started with step one, right?

Richard: Yes, you always look at the USP first.

Michael: So, he paid for his step one.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: And, then what step was this implemented in?

Richard: Then, step two is again, integrating the USP into the current selling and marketing processes. That’s where this was because the phone ringing was his current process. So, we got somebody to answer that phone, integrate and give the scripting of USP over the phone, and he started to close more of his yellow page calls. It illustrates that you don’t always have to fix a whole lot. All we did on this one was fix the sales process.

Michael: And, he couldn’t see it?

Richard: He couldn’t see it. So, the message to consultants and prospects out there that are looking at this marketing system is that the USP for the my program is training you how to spot these hidden marketing assets.

Michael: I would think these things are going to jump out at you when you go through that opportunity analysis worksheet.

Richard: That’s right. That’s exactly why we created that worksheet was to help you as a consultant see these assets and help the business owner see these because they’re the ones that are usually missing them.

Michael: Okay, that’s excellent, and that would be related to increasing the conversion.

Richard: Yes, that’s right because the seven step marketing system grows a business three ways. It increases the number of prospective clients, it increases the conversion rate of prospective customers to paying customers and increases the value of each customers. So, you recall back to the clothing store. We didn’t have a chance to increase the number of people coming in the store because of the war. So, we had to go to step three and increase the value of each customer and raise the ticket from $25 to $50, and that survived the business. The second case, the caterer, we had plenty of prospects coming in the door. He couldn’t take anymore. He was too busy as it was. Well, a traditional advertiser or a traditional marketing consultant would’ve come in and said, “Well, we’ve got to get the phone to ring more. You need a bigger yellow page ad, or you need more newspaper ads, or you need to be on the radio.” Which, is just exactly opposite of what this business needed. The needed training in step number two which was a better handling of every inquiry coming in, and so you can see the beauty in the flexibility of the system. This allows the consultant to go where the opportunity is the greatest and provide the most value to your client.

Michael: That’s great.

Richard: All right. Here’s a great one. Here’s an attorney in the Salt Lake, Utah area-

Michael: Are all your clients in that area?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: You’re working right in your backyard?

Richard: Oh yeah, that’s what we want consultants to do is to enjoy their backyard. So, my travel is minimal and my expenses are minimal. The moving parade principle is critical here and that is just because they might not need you today, you want to stay in touch. You want to stay in contact because they might need you tomorrow. And, a business that starts business five years ago, is now a prospect for me. There’s always new businesses starting everyday. So, your own backyard is where the diamonds are.

Michael: Okay, let’s do it.

Richard: This is an attorney. He gives seminars.

Michael: How did the contact happen?

Richard: I wanted to do seminars, and I was looking through the yellow pages for a seminar company and I ran into this company that’s titled by a seminar name. In realty, it was an attorney that was going around giving seminars on asset protection, and his client base was doctors, dentists, high income professionals who needed to have their assets protected through legal channels.

Michael: Did you call him cold?

Richard: I did. I called him up and I said, “I’d like to look at doing seminars with you.” And, it ended up that that didn’t work out, but he retained me as a consultant. We went in and again, his USP was in his expertise. We knew right off the bat he had 20 years in the business. He was well respected around the country. He was a nationally renowned speaker. He used direct mail to get people into his seminar. I remember meeting with him, going through the opportunity analysis and I asked him, “So, how many people come to your seminar?” He says, “Well I do about three seminars a week. I get about 500 people total during the week.” I said, “Well, that’s good. Out of the 500 how many buy your asset protection package?” He said, “Well, I’m a pretty good closer on the seminar circuit. I close about 30 percent.” So, I said, “All right. So, that means about 150 are buying your package.” He says, “That’s right.” Then, because of the training, I asked this question, “So, what about the other 350 that didn’t buy?” He said, “Well, I don’t know. What can I do with them? I don’t do anything with them right now.” So, here I am trained to spot that as a hidden marketing asset, and he said, “Wow. That’s interesting. I’m already spending the money for those 350.” So, he says, “What do you suggest?” So, we implemented a back-end marketing program. This is really step number three, database marketing. We got all of those 350 prospects, and we developed and trained a call center of two or three salespeople who would call back the 350 prospects the next day or two after the seminar, and invite them to buy the package over the phone. This got this attorney a million dollars cash in a year that he never seen before.

Michael: Wow, that’s great.

Richard: That was nice because I did some of that on contingency. I could see the opportunity. I knew it was going to happen. And, what we found out was some of them just needed to go home and get their credit card. They didn’t have it at the seminar.

Michael: All right, let’s talk about that. So, in your opportunity analysis in asking questions you saw what this could mean. You had enough experience to know what kind of dollars this was going to bring on. Now, let’s say a consultant sees an opportunity like that, but the business owner has no clue. What are you going to say to try to lock in a contingency? Can you give an example with that specific case study?

Richard: What would you do is try to convince him and persuade him to a small task. You’d say, “Let’s just test it Mr. Business Owner. I don’t know if it’ll work. Let’s just test it.”

Michael: How many steps had he paid for already?

Richard: Well, we’d gone through and made sure his USP message was right. So, he paid me for that. We determined that I couldn’t help him a whole lot on the front end where he was a presenter and closing. He was doing pretty well there. So, we were big on this part which was the prospects that didn’t buy. So, he had paid me for a couple of steps, and he was paying me for the third step and then we locked in this contingency deal as part of that third step.

Michael: So, what would you say at that point? When you want to lock it in, what do you say?

Richard: You say, “Listen, why don’t we go ahead and we’ll cut what you pay me in half, and let me just take a commission on each of the sales made.”

Michael: Do you remember what he said?

Richard: He said, “Sure, absolutely.”

Michael: Did you draw up an agreement, a letter of agreement?

Richard: Yes, and it’s a commission agreement and it was based on the phone people that I had trained and that I saw it was very measurable because we knew we weren’t going to mess with the sales that he made in the seminars. So, these were all incremental sales that he had never looked at.

Michael: Can I ask you what you asked for in commission?

Richard: It was ten percent on every sale.

Michael: Okay, that’s easy for him to say yes. That’s not a big deal.

Richard: Sure.

Michael: So, you put a time limit on the agreement.

Richard: That’s right, and they’ll want to.

Michael: Or, what would happen? What do you think? Would they get resentful?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: The deal falls apart?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: So, you’d recommend if someone’s going to set up a contingency with someone, avoid that, and be fair and set a time limit on it.

Richard: Yes.

Michael: Don’t lock them in for life.

Richard: Yes, unless you want to become part of the company. If for some reason you want to become an associate with your client and stay with him long term, that’s a different story, but maybe you do that after a couple of years. I have no interest in becoming a long term partner.

Michael: That’s a great illustration.

Richard: Yes, a great story, and again, the importance of being able to identify these hidden assets because I tell the clients that I don’t know which step of the system or which combination of steps in going to generate the increases. So, I need to do all of these steps – the ones that I’m recommending. They understand that. Let’s go to a manufacturer. This company manufactures clips that go on the siding of houses to clip cable to the house. So, your Sprint people, your Comcast people, the installers of cable are the customers of this company.

Michael: How’d you find them?

Richard: A referral through an alliance partner that I have.

Michael: Can you explain that?

Richard: Yes, about two years ago, I came in contact through a client with a manufacturing non-profit group who is set up by the federal government and have offices in every state, and their job as assigned by the government is to help small manufacturers become more profitable. So, this manufacturing group I got contact with by way of another client, and I met with them, and I helped that group increase its business, and then they contract with me to work all of their manufacturing clients that need marketing help. So, it’s been a great alliance for two years now. I’m not an employee. They just contract with me, and it’s an 80/20 split. So, I pay them 20 percent of the fees, and I get 80 percent. So, this company was referred to me by this manufacturing group, and they manufactured these clips for cable. I met with the owner and with the person that he had running the company and they were doing about $15,000 a quarter in business. So, about $5,000 a month, not doing really well. We created a Unique Selling Proposition, and then we integrated the Unique Selling Proposition again into the person handling the phone call inquiries, and then we created a mailing piece – a combination of step three and step seven – going out to his customers and his perspective customers from direct marketing, and in 90 days we had them doing $55,000 a quarter.

Michael: That’s great. How were they getting their existing customers?

Richard: People were finding them on the website, and calling to order clips, but what this owner was doing or the guy running the company was saying, “Yeah, I’ve got clips”, but he wasn’t telling them the USP.

Michael: Were they a commodity?

Richard: That’s right. They were perceived as a commodity. We had to change that perception, and one of the attributes that this clip company had in all of their clips compared to the competition was it was much easier to use the clips, much easier to install, easier to maintain, easier to replace. We started getting that phone script into those inquiries, his conversion rates then doubled raising his revenue. So, once again, very simple, very simple, but step one has to be done. Step two has to be done, and then that gives you the ability then to get more steps from the client.

Michael: Did you take him through all the steps?

Richard: No, just four steps.

Michael: You’re not going to take a client through all the steps in all the cases.

Richard: That’s correct, and I would say there’s probably a pretty good rule that the smaller the company, the fewer steps – the larger the company, the more steps because the marketing’s more complex. The marketing’s more involved.

Michael: I bet these guys just thank you up and down.

Richard: Oh, they do.

Michael: They’re going to think you walk on water.

Richard: They do.

Michael: You’ve changed their lives, their families, and that’s a good feeling.

Richard: It is. It is. I’ll tell you one story that – and all of the consultants will get a little opportunities like this. I had a neighbor who came by, and he knocked on my door, and he said, “Richard, I understand that you’re in marketing.” I said, “Yes.” He says, “Well, I need you to know I can’t pay you anything, but could you help me?” I said, “Sure, I’d be happy to help you.” He said, “I’m starting a carpet cleaning. I got my truck. I got my equipment. I’m only doing $100- $200 a week. So, I’m really suffering here. Is there anything you can do to help me?” I said, “Well, what are you doing now to get business?” and he showed me a little four by six, five by eight flier that he would take and hand out to homes. Well, without going through the steps of a USP because I knew he couldn’t pay me to do that, I just created one, and we changed the flier. The flier was “Three rooms $49.95.”

Michael: Sell it on price.

Richard: That’s right. So, what I recommended to him was I said, why don’t you give them the fourth room free. So, do three rooms and they get the fourth room free. Well, he handed out about 800 fliers the first time and got one call. He handed out 800 with this Unique Selling Proposition and got 15 calls. He’s making a grand a week now. This changed his life overnight.

Michael: Did you have an instinct that that would pull from some prior experience?

Richard: Yes, I knew that free always is a good compelling reason to buy. That works very well, but if it also has been combined – I’ve used it with other packaging offers, and so he had this package for $49.95, and the reason I convinced of it. I said, “Listen, you’re already in the house. So, it’s not going to take you long to add another room.” He said, “That’s right. It’s not a big deal.” So, we went with it, and his life’s changed. So, yeah, there’s that satisfaction as a marketing consultant, the way that you can impact lives and businesses.

Michael: That’s great. Is he still doing it today?

Richard: He’s still going today.

Michael: All right, that’s excellent. That’s a good story.

Richard: Let’s illustrate one with this very large manufacturing company, a public company doing over $300 million a year.

Michael: How’d you find them?

Richard: Again, they were referred by my manufacturing alliance. This is a great story because a big, large, public company there’s some dynamic that as a consultant that you encounter that you don’t encounter with a small company. You have different levels of decision making. It’s usually a little longer sales cycle to get the deal closed. You invoice them, and then they pay you. So, it’s a little different dynamics than you might have with a small company.

Michael: So, where were you when the call came in? Who called you from the company? What position were they in?

Richard: They called me because the manufacturing group that I was associated with recommended that they call me to help them with some marketing issues. This manufacturing group, they have their own assessments. So, they’re going in and making assessments with clients, and during that assessment, the need came out for marketing. So, here was a division manager, a manager of over commercial product applications for this large public company, called me, and said, “Richard, we’d like to meet with you because we’re introducing a new product to the medical industry, and we want to know how we should best do that.” So, they made product already for the military who was a big customer of these, and they now wanted to take this same product and apply it to the medical field in a commercial application. So, with that, they paid me for step one. They paid me for step two. They paid me for step three. They paid me for step four. This was a little division. They had one sales person that was responsible for getting this product out to medical companies.

Michael: Let me interject. Now, you’ve got a huge company here. You know they’ve got money. You’re not dealing with Mom and Pop down the street. What’s your decision making process of what to charge this guy?

Richard: Well, I knew that that they could pay more, and so I charged more $4,000 a step. I knew that they might call me later on down the road. So, I got in the door. There’s a nice fee, and we did the Unique Selling Proposition. The one salesperson that they had before we met was doing a little bit, maybe $50,000 a year in medical sales. So, we created a Unique Selling Proposition, and what was neat about this is they were keenly the experts in what they did, and the products they developed. So, I recommended to them that we set up a newsletter. These medical clients aren’t fast buyers. They have to test product. They have to get product approved by the government, and they’ve just got to go through a lot of hoops before they can buy product. So, I knew the sales cycle wouldn’t be that fast. So, I knew that we had to – what I call – drip on the prospects. So, we had this company develop a newsletter that would be sent out to these prospects on a regular basis reminding them of the expertise available. The salesperson was not doing any kind of follow-ups. We had to do a lot of step two in getting the salesperson into a selling system that was leveraged and that was accountable. So, we did all of that. He said, “Thank you Richard. We’re all done. I’m going to call you back in a year if we want to do it for another division. So, I’ll see you in a year.” Because he knew that the sales would take that long to develop. Well, a year later he calls me up and he says, “Let’s go again I got the data. We’re over $400,000 in a year, from under $50,000 in medical equipment.” So, he said, “Let’s do it for another division.”

Michael: Who wrote the newsletter?

Richard: He did because he has the expertise. So, we’re now – right now – I’m currently retained by them working on this other.

Michael: Are you charging them more this time?

Richard: About the same.

Michael: That’s excellent.

Richard: Again, a manufacturer, and these are all different kinds of businesses. Now, and that’s what happened with this audiologist that I worked with.

Michael: How do you get the contact?

Richard: He was contacted by our phone worker. I went in to see to him and he showed me an advertising campaign that he had paid an ad agency $20,000 to create and to put into the newspaper. And, he looked at me and he said, “Richard, I didn’t get one call.” So, it had totally failed and lost him $20,000. I said, “Well, here’s what I’d like to try and do. Number one there’s nothing in this newspaper advertising that tells me why I should come to you. There’s no Unique Selling Proposition.” So, he paid me to do that, to create that. I said, “Next, what we’ll do is I’d like to try some seminars instead of the newspaper.” So, we created a seminar promotion piece that went out in the direct mail. So, we decided to go direct mail rather than newspaper. This is so important because that decision was based on the work done to creating a Unique Selling Proposition because in the past as step one we determine that he was not a mass price seller of hearing aids, and if you go through your local newspaper, you’re going to see tons of advertising from hearing aid companies on price. So, I said, “Your customer is not going to be reached through the newspaper. That’s for a hearing aid company that wants to mass sell hearing aids at the lowest price.”

Michael: What was the Unique Selling Proposition? How was he different?

Richard: He was different because of two or three things. One he was the only one in the area that belonged to a national buying club that could purchase from all 32 manufacturers of hearing aids. So, he had the largest selection available. Number two is he’s the only one in the area that had a scheduled hearing health care plan. In other words, the customers come to him and not just get a hearing aid, but they would actually schedule their follow-up visits for the next two years. It was already scheduled in advance. So, he was just a higher end servicer. He was more of health care professional not a hearing aid dispenser. Well, you can’t persuade people in a page of advertising to do that. So, he was wasting his money. So, we redirected the resources – that $20,000 maybe $4,000 of it – to a direct mail seminar campaign, and we now have him doing seminars on a regular basis rather than newspapers. So, we shifted the resources to match the unique selling proposition because with the direct mail I can target to higher income people who respond more to a healthcare professional rather than a hearing aid dispenser.

Michael: Who are they mailing to?

Richard: They’re mailing to a demographic group of 55 and 65 years of age and older, at a certain income level. Then, we bring them to a seminar and give them a free dinner. That took a little convincing. I had to help the owner understand that, “Go ahead and buy 20 people their dinner, and bring them out on an evening at six o’clock and be done by seven-thirty.” So, we tripled his visits by going to the seminar route, and we’ve cut his expenses. Now, let me tell you we entered now into step four, and that is he had a neighbor that was a financial planner to seniors, and this financial planner had a thousand clients that he had serviced over the years.

Michael: Now, step four is what?

Richard: Alliances and partnerships.

Michael: Okay.

Richard: So, we’re forming an alliance and partnership with this financial planner, and so the financial planner – we crafted a letter that he’d send out to his thousand people inviting them to a seminar and a free dinner because we’d already found out that worked, yet it only cost to mail. It didn’t cost anything because the alliance partner covered the cost of the mailing, and it was a much smaller more targeted and I endorsed mailing.

Michael: Now, was something in it for the alliance partner?

Richard: Yes, the audiologist is going to sponsor a seminar to his patients. So, it works both ways. So, we’re going to do another seminar after this one that we scheduled with the alliance partner, but the turnout was so great, the conversion rate so high, that my client is booked for the next three weeks from this endorsed seminar.

Michael: Who put together the direct mail letter?

Richard: I did.

Michael: Was that difficult?

Richard: No, not when you know how to do it. That’s what the system will teach you. And, now we’ll sponsor a seminar for the financial planner. I went up to my client and said, “Do you realize that you’re going to sell probably 20 hearing aids and it’s going to cost you $400?”

Michael: Is the financial planner going to be your client, too?

Richard: Maybe. I wanted to tell the story about the audiologists because he retains me on a monthly basis. So, residual income could happen that way. You can keep a client for along time. He just calls me, and we just stay in touch, and I do a little bit every week for him and he pays me on a monthly basis. So, I have an ongoing client income.

Michael: Okay, that’s great.

Richard: Yeah, that’s another way to work with your clients, but it also illustrates and now what we’re talking about is he said to me, “You know, Richard, there’s got to be other financial planners that are going to the seniors.” And, he’s right. We’ll just start finding other financial planners to do the same endorsed seminars with.

Michael: He can do that for the rest of his life and never have to mail cold again.

Richard: And, save four grand. So, again, the system not only increases sales, but frees up working capital, increases his net profit, increases his margin. The business is impacted in all ways where tradition advertising can’t impact it like that. Here’s a furniture company, discount furniture store, and my phone contact contacted this group. I want to illustrate this story to also illustrate the important principle and I think I may have mentioned it in a previous interview and that was that a start-up company is hard to work with because they don’t have a lot of marketing assets. Well, this was a start-up when I went to meet them. They had been in business for about three months. So, he was just getting going. Well, the reason I went ahead and took this client is he was willing to pay me to help him build the assets. So, what’s important is don’t say no to a start-up just because he doesn’t have assets. If he has some capital and is willing to pay you as a marketing consultant to help him build up the assets, that’s okay. So, we did. But, he was doing about $4,000 net profit a month. So, he was grossing about $10-$12,000 in sales. He’d be in about a 40% margin. So, I said, “Well, we need a Unique Selling Proposition.” So, he paid me for that. I said, “We then need to get it into the ads that we’re doing.” And, he was doing some newspaper ads and he was doing some coupon ads with a local coupon company. I said, “Let’s get the Unique Selling Proposition into your son who’s running the store. He needs to be selling this with people coming into the store.” And, then I said, “He needs to track everyone that comes in and doesn’t buy because I want him to make a follow-up phone call in two days and see if they’re still interested and would like to buy what they were looking at.” So, we did really three steps, and we developed some letters for the customer base that they were building up, and then we did step number four which was alliances and partnerships because what we did was we created a promotion piece that could be used by a title company. When people go in to sign and buy the house, they go to a title company. Well, this title company liked to reward their customers with something. So, we gave them a $75 gift certificate to the furniture store. So, we have a partnership going on. We have people buying new houses. What do they need?

Michael: Furniture.

Richard: Furniture, so we have a title company that wants to give their customer something to say thank you for doing their closing at their title company, and the way they’ll say thank you is giving them $75 value towards furniture at the store. So, now we have step number four in place generating customers from a title company. So, we don’t have to go spend media dollars to drive people into the store. This is so important for consultants to see this. So, we’re generating more traffic. We did this training of salespeople in step number two to convert more, did the database which was to send out letters and started a customer club, a referral frequency club for his customers, and six months later, he’s generating net profits of twelve grand. So, he tripled his net profit, and they will know how to keep the store open, and to keep his son running it, and he’s looking to expand to get into a bigger location.

Michael: That kind of brings something up because when you’re looking at a company and choosing to take one on, and you know you can grow this business from your experience, is that something you want to ask them how much can they grow?

Richard: You bring up a great point. I refer to them as anti-USP which means can you handle this growth? Is there anything that’s going to kill it? We’ll create a Unique Selling Proposition for you, but can you kill it through your operations? And, yes, you’ve got to make sure that there’s nothing in the other parts of the business that are going to kill this growth.

Michael: What are you discussing then?

Richard: That you should try and spot that at the opportunity consultation. You should ask them, “Let’s say if we doubled your sales, do you have the capacity to handle that with the current situation that you’re in?” And, they might say, “Well, no I’ll need to hire somebody, but I can do that.” In fact, I was with a prospect yesterday. They manufacture baggage for certain industries – the duffel bags, backpacks and things like that, and she said, “Well, I’m doing about $600,000 a year.” And, I said, “Well, I can see where we can get you to $800,000 to a million dollars pretty quick. Can you handle that?” And, she said, “Yes, because just about three months I contracted with a manufacturer facility that is my competitor who can handle all of my excess business.” So, I knew then that we’d be okay. So, I knew without that manufacturing facility, we would have buried here.

Michael: Okay, great illustration. Let’s do another.

Richard: I mentioned in another interview this client. They were a very large employee leasing company. Employee leasing has been a big trend in the last ten years. They were doing about $60 million in payroll, and they were a very good progressive company. We went in and conducted the opportunity consultation, saw where I could help them. They paid me then to start implementing the marketing system. It’s a good story for a couple of reasons. Part of the Unique Selling Proposition is to get with the owner, and get the owner’s perspective of what is unique. So, we did that. We called customers and talked to them. We looked at the competition and see what they’re selling and between all of that we arrive at creating a Unique Selling Proposition. Okay, then we go to step two – integrating it. So, he had five salespeople. So, I went to the five salespeople, and I said, “I want to hear your sales pitch.” And, in going out with those five salespeople, I never heard what the owner thought was the USP. So, here we have an owner on a different page than the five salespeople. That’s a problem. And, what the reason is that it’s also a problem is the five salespeople are selling a commodity just like all the other employee leasing firms. So, their closing rate isn’t very good. They’re closing maybe one out of five, and they’re closing on price, again, how much is your health insurance? How much are you going to save me on health insurance premiums? How much is your dental insurance? So, again, it was a price issue which illustrates a commodity approach has been taken by these five sales people. What we did then was take the Unique Selling Proposition and make sure that all five salespeople were now selling that Unique Selling Proposition, and again, in those two steps we go from $60 million in payroll to $90 million in payroll in a year.

Michael: Wow.

Richard: And, that’s because we’ve doubled conversion of 20 percent to 40 percent. So, he kept me on, and we went into database, step number three. We went into alliances and partnerships, step number four. We actually did a lot of media. We created new brochures. We created new radio campaigns. We were in the industry journals. We went to the industry trade shows. We always won the number one marketing awards that were presented at the trade shows. And, then here came a contingency opportunity. He called me up and he said, “Richard, are you ready to leave your consulting and would you come with us full time as my Chief Marketing Officer?” I said, “Well, what’s in it for me? I don’t know if I want to leave my consulting practice.” He said, “Well, as you know, the industry is going through some massive changes, and we are going to be going public, and that will happen in about a year. I’d like you as Chief Marketing Officer and I’m going to give you some stock. If they stock goes as planned and it comes out public at the prices that we’re planning, you’ll be a millionaire.” So, I illustrate this story because of two things. One is he took me out of my consulting for two years.

Michael: When was this?

Richard: This was ’98.

Michael: And, you became a millionaire from that one deal?

Richard: No, no, no. No, I’m illustrating this.

Michael: Okay, go ahead.

Richard: To raise some flags. It is a way a consultant can position into a contingency type.

Michael: What did you say to the guy?

Richard: I said, “Sure, I’m going to come on board.” So, I come on board and what happens is the case which is so typical of many entrepreneurs, he brings in a venture capital firm to give him money to go public. They begin to find out that this CEO can not take the company public. He doesn’t have the skill set. So, he gets fired, and all of us get let go.

Michael: How long did that happen after you came on?

Richard: About a year and a half.

Michael: So, you weren’t doing any consulting for that whole time.

Richard: No, here I was investing, planning to go public, and become a millionaire. I illustrate it because it did two things. It took me out of consulting. These are things often beyond a guy’s control. That’s what I want to illustrate is that a contingency puts you at risk.

Michael: And, promises don’t pay the bill.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Absolutely.

Richard: Okay. So, another opportunity might come along like that, but did it cost me more than it helped me, I don’t know because they paid me well. I mean I was paid well as Chief Marketing Officer. So, I had nice benefits. I mean, I was a corporate man.

Michael: So, how’d you like that year doing that compared to your consulting practice?

Richard: Very, very, very unsatisfactory in satisfying my need to be out working with businesses.

Michael: You were trapped. You bit the carrot, and sold your freedom for a carrot.

Richard: There you go.

Michael: That’s a good lesson.

Richard: It’s a great lesson, and I don’t want to say that it would’ve necessarily have been the wrong one. It may have been great. So, my message to all of the consultants out there is keep your eye open. These opportunities are going to come along, and you just have to decide what’s best for you. So, a great story, and had a big impact in my consulting business.

Michael: What would you tell someone who’s been a corporate guy for his whole life, and this consulting system or being a marketing consultant is something that he’s always wanted to go out on his own, but he’s just had the fear. Talk about some of the benefits of being your own boss, having your own business, and some of the fulfilling things that you’ve experience over the years doing this.

Richard: Well, I say the number on fulfilling is the freedom of creativity. When you’re your own boss and the only one you’re answering to is the client, the creativity and the fun in generating that creativity is very, very fulfilling. If you don’t perform for the client, he’ll fire you. So, you’re on the line, and when you’re on the line, you just have to be creative. You have to be good. You have to raise your level of performance. When you’re in the corporate world, you don’t have to do that as much. You’re held back by others that are making creative decisions. You’re always fighting. You’re always looking for political turf. You’re always worried about who’s getting credit. It’s the nature of the corporate world, and I learned in my experience is that the corporate world can never, ever pay you enough. They just can’t. They’re not set up to pay you for your individual creativity and performance. The only one that can afford to pay you that is the client. And, that’s the freedom of the consulting business. I started to get bored. I started to get routine, and I started to get less creative, and so that’s why it was unsatisfying and while I was grateful that it finally came to an end not in the way that it did, but that it came to an end. And, it gave me the chance to get back out, get free again, and answer only to the client and be creative again. There’s the fulfillment of your own consulting business.

Michael: Let’s do another story.

Richard: Here’s a great little story in your own little home community. Here’s a small little niche company. They make medallions out of gold, silver and brass, and they creative incentive medallions for brokers that do premium incentives to like Coca-Cola and to Boeing, and I was, again, referred to them by my manufacturing relationship, and they were doing about $5,000 a week in sales – a little Mom and Pop shop and struggling. Here they were 60 and 63 year old couple burdened by the fact that they have to go to their business and work everyday because they’re in debt and because their sales aren’t high enough yet they would like to retire. Well, again, they’re looking to me to say, “Richard we need more customers.” And, whenever you hear that as a consultant, the first thing you want to say is, “Well, maybe you don’t.” because let’s ask the question, “How well are you doing with the inquiries that you’re having now?” Well, as we took a look at that, we create a Unique Selling Proposition, and then step number two is to take a look at that and say, “All right, who’s answering the phone? Who’s answering the inquiry? And, what are we doing with it? Are we following-up? Are we selling the Unique Selling Proposition?” Well, the wife in this partnership was the one tasked with the sales. So, she didn’t even know how many calls were coming in. She didn’t even know how to do a bid. She didn’t know how to follow-up. Yet, after a couple of weeks of measuring, we found that she was getting inquiries everyday for bids, from a website that they had, and yet the bids were not getting converted. She was not closing them because she said, “Richard, I don’t know what to say to them.” So, based on the stories today, we now know what to say and that’s the USP. So, we trained her and helped her to manage each inquiry better, and here three months later, they’re doing $12,000 a week instead of five, and it’s a burden that’s lifted. She says, “You know, now when someone calls I know what to tell them.”

Michael: Is this a new client of yours?

Richard: It’s been great. So, again, and maybe later on we’ll do more steps with them, but we’ve got them at capacity right now. They’re handling enough that they got because they’re handling each inquiry well, and doing well.

Michael: So, how many steps have they gone through?

Richard: Three steps is all.

Michael: Let’s talk about how much time have you spent really, if you added up the hours of time you spent with this couple?

Richard: About ten hours.

Michael: Ten hours total?

Richard: They’ve paid me $3,000.

Michael: That’s a great story.

Richard: All right. I want to illustrate something that’s happened this past year over the last year through this relationship that I’ve developed with the manufacturing group as an alliance. For the first time, we’ve done some group training. I hadn’t done that. I’ve always worked with clients one-on-one because I didn’t know how I could do the group training profitably. Well, it so happens that in all of your states out there, in all of your communities, there are parts of the government that provide training funding for businesses and their employees, and in this particular instance this funding is available from the state of Utah. But, I didn’t know about it until I got associated with the manufacturing group, who’s a non-profit group whose business is to know about these sources of funding. So, what’s worked out is the manufacturing group has done the promotion in communities around my community. These are smaller, more rural communities that you could not profitability as a consultant work with someone one-on-one because you’d be traveling too much. So, we have been able to package and this will be included in the releases that are coming out in the updates of the system, but we’ve been able to package group training now. So, I did four of these group trainings, training about 80-100 business owners and employees as of last year.

Michael: You saw 80 at a time?

Richard: About 20 at a time. We’re training them in two hour increments. So, I’ll go to the area for two hours and come home and train them all at that location.

Michael: On how to build their business using this system?

Richard: That’s right, and each of those training sessions has been about $10,000 to me.

Michael: For two hours?

Richard: For about two times seven weeks, six weeks, about twelve hours. What is exciting is these business owners who never, ever could afford to pay someone one-on-one what I would need to be paid, they get funding from the state at $500 an employee, and they have to pay $125 of that. So, the government funded $375 of the $500 yet I got paid the $500 per employee. Every state has some of this type of funding. It might be through the economic development centers. This one was called, “Custom Fit for Utah”. So, we want to encourage your consultants to understand that here’s a new way to deliver this system, and that is through government funded training because that way they can get paid what they need to get paid, but they’ll be able to attract businesses that couldn’t afford to pay them any other way.

Michael: That’s great.

Richard: And, do it in a different way that isn’t through group training rather than one on one.

Michael: Do you know what kind of forms they have to fill out to qualify for the training?

Richard: We know what the forms are for the Custom Fit of Utah.

Michael: Pretty simple?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: Does the state pay quickly?

Richard: Oh yeah.

Michael: Who is that pays you?

Richard: What happens is that the manufacturing group is the one that gets paid first, and then they turn around and pay me.

Michael: Do you have to wait for your money after the trainings?

Richard: Thirty days.

Michael: That’s great. That’s fantastic.

Richard: That way you just simply delivering the steps differently than if you were one- on-one.

Michael: So, someone signs on and goes through your system, this is just one way of them earning income.

Richard: That’s right, and it increased my income $40-$50,000 this year. I hadn’t done it before. I’ve never done this group training. I’ve have never found these sources of government funding that are available. So, we want the consultants to be aware of that.

Michael: How do you prepare for a training like that? You get 20 people, you’re going to head into all this, what are you going to print out? What are they going to walk home with? How do you do this?

Richard: They’re getting the seven steps, modules that have been prepared for the web and that are now available in manuals. What we’ve done is we’ve written and taken the seven steps and turned it into a self-study course by the business owner. So, as a consultant all you’ve got to do is go through those manuals.

Michael: And, when you’re doing your presentation, are you using a projector or anything?

Richard: I’m using sometimes my laptop with the PowerPoint seminar materials that’s going to be available to the consultant.

Michael: So, you’ve got this thing all on PowerPoint?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: So, I can bring my laptop – you’re using your laptop, but that’s just for your reference?

Richard: The manufacturing group has a projector, and then a screen.

Michael: That’s great. So, you’re just doing your PowerPoint presentation and walking them through it.

Richard: Yes.

Michael: And, you’ve got this PowerPoint presentation ready.

Richard: That’s right. So, as a consultant, you’re going to have the manuals. You’re going to be able to use those and make that part of your group training. And, it simply set up so that the business owner himself can take himself through the system, and doesn’t require a consultant to do it for him. The next case study revolves around a financial planning firm. They were doing about three and a half million dollars a year in business. Their target market was a wealthy individual who was on the verge of selling their business and retiring. So, they were going to come into a lot of money and a lot of assets. This financial planning firm would sell financial plans for those types of people. So, the customer was the typical business owner who had their business for about 20 years and was selling it, and coming into a lot of money. When I met them, and visited with them and this was a fellow I had worked with previously in my outside sales days. He called me up out of the blue and said, “I started a financial planning firm, and I want you to come and help me with some marketing.” So, that’s how I got this client. We went in and found out that they were generating their prospects and their leads through advertising in a very high-end periodical magazine, and these ads would cost about $10,000 a piece to run. So, I took a look at the ads and realized that there really wasn’t any Unique Selling Proposition in the ad. So, again, that’s the first place we look and we fix. We create a Unique Selling Proposition for them, and then we put that into the ads. In this case, they were just advertising financial planning. So, what we did was find out that the work they did would actually lower taxes by 50 percent or more for these clients. So, we started to be more specific in the ads, and we started to say, “Lower your taxes 50% or more.” Well, this doubled the response on the ads. So, that’s the situation of taking a USP and getting it integrated right into the ads. So, we didn’t have to spend more on ads. We just did a better job. Then we had a group of contracted independent salespeople out in the field and these people were just kind of loose out there. They were under contract where they got a commission for developing a financial plan, and what had happened was they prospects would come into Salt Lake City and meet with the company there in Salt Lake City. Well, by getting some of the salespeople out in the field, the clients could meet with them in their region and in their area. So, we were able to service more clients by setting up these outside salespeople who were qualified. Some were attorneys. Some were CPA background. Some were in insurance background. So we could train them enough to sell the financial planning that we had. By leveraging the salespeople out in the field, we set up a selling reporting system that required them to send in there contacts and then what they were doing with their leads and how well they were doing with their leads that we would give them from the advertising that we would generate. We tied down the sales process better. We had a real big push in alliances and partnerships. We found out that the conversion rate would increase if we brought the CPA in with the business owner. We were finding that we would propose a financial plan and they would go to their CPA and it would get killed by the CPA. So, we just simply started bringing the CPA with the client, treating them as a valued advisor partner from the beginning. So, our conversion rate started to go up. We started to do a little bit more community marketing in the areas of the salespeople doing seminars and workshops, and so over a year we took them from three million to seven and a half million by those steps of the system.

Michael: That’s fantastic.

Richard: Another great story and a great use of all steps of the system. Media was big. They were spending large on the media. Community was improved because we’d have salespeople in the local regional area. Direct marketing was huge because we would send out beyond the media. We would send out a newsletter and direct mail pieces to prospect. So, that’s a case where all seven steps were implemented.