Are You Going To Commit Yellow Pages Advertising Suicide This Year?

I’ve just finished working through the huge stack of Yellow pages Critiques that came in from those savvy salon owners who invested in “Salon Yellow Pages Advertising Secrets” and got their bonus critique.

I think for most salon owners the critique they got was a mix of pleasure and pain.

The painful bit was the dose of brutal reality about how bad their ad really was and the money they’d left on the table… or they’d literally thrown away over the years depending on how you want to look at it.
It was a slap in the face for some as not many really knew how much money they’d made… or not… from their Yellow Pages ad. It was not definitively measurable. And it’s not that hard to make your yp ad measurable, I mean, more so than the haphazard way of hoping that your staff will record where your new clients come from.

All your advertising should be measurable and it should always pay its way when you factor in the lifetime value of a client principle.

Imagine if you did the math… and it’s always about the math… and you worked out that “your yp ad cost” divided by the “new yp clients” equalled $330 plus.

Would that freak you out? It would me and it did one client too. Ouch! $330 cost for each client.

They had no idea on the math for their ad and they had never figured their client acquisition cost before… Now, if you’re a high end high priced high average client spend salon that’s fine but if you’re not… you’re in trouble.
Their ad actually generated a reasonable number of new clients but the math wasn’t working so my take was this… Let’s turn that ad around and turn it into a new client generating money spinning ad. An ad that would give them the command position for their category.

Here’s some food for thought.

If you look at any page in the yp directory and divide all the calls evenly between all the ads, including yours ‘cause if your ad has the “sameness” of all the other ads, like a bullet point list of what you do and your business name at the top of the ad then it is a “sameness” ad and not a “commanding” ad so just divide it between the other ads the same size.

What % do you think your ad pulls right now? 10%… 20%… 30%… maybe. What would your business be like if you could double that? What would your life be like then?

This is where the pleasure part came in for these salon owners.

Why? They realised that they could probably pull 70% or 90% or even 100% of the calls. It can be done with a cleverly crafted ad and if you make a great offer. It was that simple (plus a heap of other secrets from the manual). And they could easily measure the results too.

The other pleasure was they actually got a real live over the phone critique session with me, which is a part of the over delivery of service that we do at Worldwide Salon Marketing.

I never told anyone that as a part of their critique I would actually phone them up. The deal was you submit your ad and I’ll critique it and get it back to you but hey, my thinking was it’s a lot easier to understand if I actually get you on the phone and walk you through it.

Here’s what Lesley Morgan-Wesson said only a week after she got her manual.

“…I am THRILLED…!” Thank you SOOO very much for your help with my Yellow Pages advertisement. I couldn’t even have started this without your “Salon & Spa Yellow Pages Salon Secrets”. I did exactly what you advised… built the whole ad by implementing your page by page instructions. Not that this was easy… but it was a whole lot better than anything I have ever come up with on my own.

Of especial help was your availability to critique the ad… I don’t know how you come up with these amazing ideas… every time I changed the ad using your suggestions it became tighter… more powerful and I could see how the whole ad jumped out to grab the reader with a power packed grab of benefits. I’m thrilled with it!

Lesley Morgan-Wesson, Lady at Bay, Neutral Bay, New South Wales.

Get the manual now so you can follow the testing tips (Yes, you can test your ad before you give the yp people all that money) which means you will have a finely tuned and well crafted ad to get a big jump start for next year. You can test to your hearts delight and you’ll still get your critique. You don’t get better than that.

3 Best Tips For Using LinkedIn!

I started using LinkedIn about a year ago. Probably like most people I set up my profile and did nothing with it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what else I should do.

You do need to build up your connections. Check your friends ‘connections’ too and ask for the introduction to like minded people.

It is a valid networking and lead generation tool and I’ve generated 1 hot lead through it already so I’m good with that. A friend even had a job offer last month too!

Here’s the share on a few tips and tricks that could help.

First up is your Public Profile URL… Edit it.

The default link looks something like this – http://www.linkedin.com/pub/XX/xxx/XXX which is pretty ugly and random.

What makes a lot more sense is to use the word or term you want to ‘rank’ for with the search engines. So change it to something like this http://www.linkedin.com/in/thepeterbutler but it could be your business name if you like.

It will help in Google World. Your name should still appear in the search results regardless but if the text link contains the actual words, like your name or business then that’s all the better for the search results.

Increase Your Public Profile!

I’d also recommend placing this as a link on your website. The more links on your site to other sites about you will increase your overall profile on the internet.

A point to consider, when people click on that link and they’re redirected to your LinkedIn page the sexier URL will appear in the address bar, much more professional rather than some generic random line.

It’s easy to edit. Just hit ‘edit my profile’ and click on the text. Your name might be taken already so be prepared to slip in something that sets it apart. You can use a digit or perhaps ‘the’ as a differentiator.

I have both my LinkedIn and my Facebook profiles as links under a category link ‘social media sites’. My take is this, people want to do business with people and this shows them that humanness side. You should have decent profiles set up on both Facebook and LinkedIn.

Your Own Personal Built In Website Feature!

This is huge. Click on ‘Applications’ in the left navigation bar and you have 10 applications at this point ready to ‘plug in’ to your profile.

The biggest for me was the Wordpress plug-in. This feature means as I make a post to my site it appears in my profile automatically. So my last 3 posts are sitting in there with no effort, getting more exposure and all the while telling my story and adding to my credibility. That is a very cool tool.

Yup, it has a Built In Slide Show Presentation too…

The Slide Share Presentations will be my next set up – this will be a real boon for a lot of people too. I show my wares via Power Point so this will work particularly well for me.

What plug-ins will suit you?

Depending on the nature of your business as to which other plug-ins will be most useful to you. This is the short list of other tools – Google Presentations, Blog Link, LinkedIn Polls (cool), Trip-It, Reading List by Amazon and some online collaboration tools.

It seems the issue for most people is time, to learn how it all works or committing to ‘building that network’. It’s the same for me so my take is to do this stuff in my ‘slow’ time or at least not my ‘peak’ productive time. I’ve even sat there with my laptop while I catch a TV show to get through it.

So, go to it and get LinkedIn!

While your there let’s get connected too. The more ‘connections’ we all have the better.

Here’s my public profile link: http://www.linkedin.com/in/thepeterbutler

See you on LinkedIn!

Will 2009 Be Your Year?

I know that at the beginning of 2008 I thought… “THIS was going to be the breakthrough year for me.” I’d done the hard yards over the previous few years and it was “my time”, 2008 was time for a breakthrough for me!

Was that your take on 2008 for you? I know it was for a lot of friends and family.

It turned out to be a tough year though- economically and emotionally it was a tough one… for a lot of people.

Here’s the thing though.

What are we going to do differently this year to actually make it different?

At a business ‘connect’ group that I’m a part of we have an equation, I’ll draw it for you.

Responsibility
—————————–
Lay Blame & Justify

This is what most people do – find a reason why things are the way they are and lay blame for that and then justify it.

If things are so tough then how come some people in business are doing fine?

You do know that don’t you? Not everyone is suffering; In fact, some people have positioned themselves well and are actually prospering as a result of these ‘bad’ times.

The short story version without being all soft and fluffy is because they took responsibility for their affairs and business and took some action and made it happen.

We really are masters of justification us humans. So many times we’ll find a reason for ‘why this happened’ or ‘why that didn’t happen’. We’re good at it, like I said, masters. By the same token there’s no use beating ourselves up about stuff. We just need to recognise it and be prepared to do something about it.

It’s like the definition of insanity – doing the same thing and yet expecting a different result. We all know this definition right? Thing is… most of us still get caught.

So what’s your take for 2009?

Are you going to operate on the definition of insanity model? Where do you stand with the

Responsibility
—————————–
Lay Blame & Justify

ABOVE the line? …or

BELOW the line?

You know what the ‘correct’ answer is right?

Obviously above the line because you know damn well it’s the only way that you will come even close to making 2009 the Year for YOU!

But what are you actually prepared to do to make it happen?

I just want to backtrack for a moment on the last few years for me.

In mid 2006 I’d sold a business that I’d built up over the previous 10 years and I did well out of that, I was a happy chap but it was time for a new quest, a new venture. I knew what I didn’t want to do in business but wasn’t 100% sure of exactly what I did want to do.

I spent 2006 and 2007 checking out a few different options, managed a few projects for people in different businesses and created a business marketing system. I started to see a few gaps in the market place.

There was a definite need for niche lead generation in certain industries.

So I started laying down the tracks as it were and I gotta be honest here, a couple of hundred thousand dollars later and a couple of years of some really long days and nights of hard slog, study and sharp lessons on direct response marketing and creating business building products and it all started to come together.

I’d found my niche. Lead generation that would work in pretty well any business. But I knew the power was in specialising to a specific industry or niche. A niche within a niche as it were.

The second revelation for me was that in my previous business I could very well have created this niche within a niche and achieved a new business which was my original goal.

The moral of the story is like the story of the diamonds in the field. Don’t go looking too far from home before you change what you do. Maybe you just need to change how you go about your business rather than change the business too much.

That’s why the business owners and mortgage brokers we help are rapt. With all the changes that have gone on in 2008 most are feeling discouraged and totally frustrated, some are seriously pissed off even.

It’s time for a breakthrough and with direct response marketing and the right lead generation techniques there is no reason why you can’t take that command position in your area.

To find out how you can apply those same principles in your business right now so you get off to the best start ever This Year click here to find out more.

Don’t go insane and make sure YOU stay ABOVE the line for 2009!

With the right amount of focus, new knowledge and the right systems in place you can most certainly make 2009 YOUR YEAR!

What action will you take?

Yellow Pages goes Gold in Ireland

The Yellow Pages in Ireland is known as the Yellow Pages. To my best knowledge this is the only country in the world to stand alone and term it the “Yellow Pages”. It’s gotta be the Irish who go against the grain and don’t you just love ‘em for it!

The question is… have they got it right?… yet again!

For those with a slightest hint of historic knowledge may well be versed in the knowledge that way back when Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era it was the Irish that saved us from ourselves.

Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization, copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost they brought their uniquely Irish world view to the task.

The story of Ireland’s role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe is missed by so many. Every year millions celebrate St. Patrick’s Day but most are not aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and learning that would create the conditions that allowed Ireland to become “the isle of saints and scholars” and thus preserve Western culture while Europe was being overrun by barbarians.

So, the Yellow Pages has landed.

In the form of “Salon & Spa Yellow Pages Ad Secrets” which is a boon for the whole of Ireland. Well, for those salon owners savvy enough to check out what all the fuss is about. John Hayes of “The Simple Marketing Company” heard about the results some other salon owners in the world were getting and basically put me in a virtual headlock until I gave in and let him bring the “Salon & Spa Yellow Pages Ad Secrets” under his banner.

You can check it out here Salon Yellow Pages Ad Secret Free Report to find out more but do it soon. John wangled only 47 FREE Yellow Pages Critiques from me and when there gone we’re done. Hit the link right now.

How Do I Make An Ad That Works?

We All Need More New Clients

An Empty Salon Is Stressful

A Busy Phone Makes For A Happy Salon Owner

“A Consistent Stream of Highly Qualified Leads All Pre Disposed To Do Business With You.”

Fast Track Your Happy Client Base That Tell The World About You and Build Your Business!

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