The most persuasive tool in advertising

You too can increase profits without necessarily increasing sales!

How?

The “Profits Leak Detective Newsletter” offers regular tips and strategies to help you identify and plug those leaking profits.

You may never have known you have them.

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Possible leaks could be anywhere.

This report provides 7 clues that should put you on alert for a profit leak.

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"Adam, over the past six years, I've had the pleasure of 'bumping into you' on at least three business and marketing related forums. Your contributionsto discussions have always been courteous, astute, incisive and practical,delivered with good humour, and based upon 'real-world' business experience. You are clearly an experienced business professional who actually knows what he is talking about. I wonder if your clients know what a gem they have in you? As one business professional to another, I salute you.

Good Wishes,
John Williamson - The Wealth Coach
www.thewealthcoach.com
www.retaildisplaysecrets.com

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I just LOVED "7 Clues to a Profits Leak".

Steven Walker - Profit Improvement Advisors
Calgary, Canada

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Thanks for the catch-up the other day. It's great to be working with a legend in the small business community.

AJ Kulatunga, BLKMGK ICT

Darwin, Australia

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The 7 Clues is a great.

What I like the most in the Seven Clues report is that it clearly explains that accounting is merely a subset of proper financial management and

that only the business owner can practise financial management. The accountant does the accounting, and in doing so supports the business owner's financial management. And the business owner uses the accountant's information, but relying on the accountant to do full-blown financial management is short-sighted.

The report nicely "grounds" an otherwise complex topic which many business owners are afraid of touching, so they often move ahead in blissful ignorance. The water hose and the soggy soil under the leak makes an excellent and easy-to-comprehend example, upon which the financial management concept is nicely built.

Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational ProvocateurDynamic Innovations Squad
Professional Services Practice Development - Dynamic Innovations Squad
Personal and Firm-Wide Performance Improvement for Management Consulting Firms
Practice Development Services for Management Consulting Firms

Vancouver, BC Canada

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You have played a very important role in my development in business.

You were there with the right information at the right time, I thank you for that.
By adding the next level of systems, and marketing knowledge that you brought to the table we able to identify our objectives, acknowledge the gaps in our business and put in place the planning so as to achieve those objectives. Within 5 years we achieved 9 of our ten stated objectives. In that same year we won the NT Telstra Small business of the year"

Greg Haigh
Director - Trade Group
Regional And Northern maintenance services
RANms

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Recent newsletters include:

How big is your profit gap?
How discounting destroyed value
Benchmarking for best practice
From all customers to some customers
How to take the guesswork out of growth
Should your USP be based on logic or emotion?
How to triple your quotation success rate
How to dramatically improve your quotations
How to make more effective decisions?
How to develop your USP
Do you want to make better planning choices?
Are youmaking these mistakes in planning?
How to use SWOT properly
Does your sales conversation balance the scales of justice?
The perils of profitless cash flow!
So what is more important, cash flow or profit?
Are you getting value from your pricing?
Do you report to yourself monthly?
Follow the money trail!
Performance also counts!
Get more bang for your buck!
Without measurement there can be no improvement!
Where would your business be without customers?
Using your monthly report to improve your profits
Just who is your customer?
And what do you know about your customer?
How branding can increase your profits!
Can branding make you more money?
How to balance the value equation
Tilting the balance in your favour
How to pin the tail on the donkey
Are you groping in the dark with your real cost of labour
Mastering core marketing principles
Building a 5P marketing plan
Profit leaking processes
Should you be trying to increase or decrease cash flow
At times it is folly to hasten
5 steps to create your future
What will be the X-Factor in 2009
Lies, damn lies & statistics
How to use a squad profit leak detectives
Confidence leads to action
Increase sales - so easy to say
So you want to know how to increase sales
Is selling a necessary evil?

The most persuasive tool in advertising

And it's not FREE!

Just for a change I thought I'd take a different tack with this blog. Most of you running your own business will have particular skills on which you built your business. And you no doubt spent years acquiring those skills, years of dedication which didn't give you the opportunity to learn one of the other skills you need in running and managing your business.

That skill is marketing, and particularly the advertising and promotional side of marketing. Just like every other aspect of running a business it is a skill, demanding its own knowledge and expertise.

No matter how good your product or service is, it won't get the sales it may deserve if it is not properly promoted.

As copywriting great John Carlton said at a seminar I attended this time last year "The marketing graveyard is crammed with great products that failed because the advertising didn't elicit that all-important desire to buy RIGHT NOW."

People do not want products; they want the benefits they provide --- whether they are tangible benefits like transport or intangible benefits like freedom or fun. Or as Bob Hacker said "The customer or prospect doesn't give a damn about you, your company or your product. All that matters is, 'What's in it for me?'"

It's advertising and promotion that conveys that message to the customer. The art of writing those advertisements, sales letters, emails and other promotions is called copywriting.

One of the legendary copywriters, now semi-retired is a bloke called Gary Bencivenga. He has spent the last 38 years painstakingly collecting and applying every secret he could find to help America's leading direct marketers achieve breakthrough response.

Some time ago I came across this bit of verse that Bencivenga put together that captures one of the key elements you must include in your advertising and promotion.

Take it away Gary!

The Most Persuasive Tool in Advertising

"How can I sell more product?" is the marketer's eternal question.
If you sincerely seek the answer, just follow my suggestion.
When it comes to creating advertising, most advice is for the birds.
But the greatest secret of success can be found in two little words.
No, they're not, as some have written, those standbys NEW and FREE.
Neither are they NOW and SALE, or even YOU or WE.
No, to open minds and wallets and have prospects eagerly buy,
The most persuasive words in advertising are simply, REASON WHY.

Whether you spread your message on TV, the Internet or by letter,
You must explain the REASON WHY your product is much better.
And while you're at it, don't forget that your audience won't believe you
Unless you give the REASON WHY what you claim is true.
To close the sale, these two little words once again point the way.
Just give me another REASON WHY I should act today.

There you have it, clear as day. If you want to sell, here's how:
Give good reasons for these three questions - why you, why true, why now?
This little secret works like magic, for all products, in all seasons.
If you want to sell like a superstar, just boldly state your reasons:
First, the reason yours is best. Second, a reason to believe,
And third, a reason to act right now - give these and you'll receive
More sales than you can imagine, gold and riches heaped on high.
The world showers you with treasure when you give the REASON WHY.

Thanks Gary.

Have a look at your recent promotions, your Yellow Pages advertisement and whatever else you do. How effective are they? Have you given your prospect a "reason why" to buy, to believe, and to act right now?

Try it, just a small step improvement.

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