Do You Confirm All Appointments?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.

Confirming all your appointments is very important. Let me explain.

Does this sound familiar?

You look at your schedule for the day and you and your staff are fairly booked up, with a few gaps here and there. You’re hoping you get some other service calls. 4 out of the 13 service calls you have booked for the day- the people were not even home.

We’re sure you realize how much money this costs you. Between wasted hours and wasted money we figured out that when days like the above occur you lose more money than you make.

No More No-Shows
We developed a strategy to eliminate no-shows. Since we’ve implemented this system, we’ve never had a no-show.

This strategy may be obvious but less than 17% of all businesses actually do it. It’s easy:

You call your client one to three days before their scheduled appointment. You just tell them you’re calling to make sure that they remembered that a computer technician was coming over at whatever time.

You will hear over and over again “Gee I completely forgot, thanks for calling.” If you implement this strategy, you will virtually eliminate no shows.

We also suggest having the caller check the directions (if they don’t have a GPS) with the client to make sure they are clear. Getting lost and not being able to find the homeowner is another big money waster.

What to do if you can’t reach the clients:

First, call in the afternoon. If he/she can’t be reached then call in the evening between 5:30 and 7:30. If you still can’t reach him/her, leave a message on the machine and send an email.

Confirming appointments also helps build trust and confidence in your clients. Since very few businesses bother to confirm appointments, when one does people perceive that the business as very efficient. Clients want to do business with successful businesses that have got it together.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

No Offer/Lousy Offer

No Offer/Lousy Offer

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group

This marketing strategy will be about another BIG mistake business owners make when advertising which is:

It is costly to get a new client. What will make someone respond? Well, we’ll tell you one thing – there is no way that someone will respond to a lousy offer or worse yet, no offer. Remember, the real money in getting a new client is in making them a “client for life”.

Here we are going to talk about presenting a GREAT offer because if you don’t all the good work you did to get your prospect to look at your offer will be useless.

Let us explain.

If what you offer a potential client is not compelling, motivating, different from every other competitive of yours, and a “good deal” THEY WILL NOT TAKE YOU UP ON IT because it is a lousy offer.

Worst yet, if you fail to make NO offer at all, how can they really respond because there is nothing to respond to. Most advertising we see by businesses have NO offer at all and because of this fact they are just wasting money.

Make sense?

What makes a GREAT offer?

Whenever the “perceived value” of what you are offering is greater than the amount of money your potential client has to part with. The greater the perceived value the better. That is why FREE offers always work best because it represents the HIGHEST perceived value because your potential client doesn’t part with any money. Therefore they have NO RISK.

You may be thinking – isn’t it expensive to offer something for free?

Let me back up for just a minute. As a business owner you cannot possibly answer this question UNTIL you know what a new client is actually worth to you in dollars and cents.

The term for this again in marketing is “Life Time Value” (LTV) of a client. You figure this out by taking the amount of profit a client brings you per visit to your store or a service call and them multiply that by how may times that happens each year and then multiply that by the number of years your average clients stays with you.

This number does not have to be exact just a guideline for you to use.

OK, once you have your “number” then you can make an intelligent decision on how much you can spend to get new client.

We know the “Life Time Value” of a client for this industry is about $2,100. Yours will be pretty close to this, maybe a few hundred dollars lower or higher depending on your pricing and costs. So just use the $2,100 number for now.

So would you give away a “low end” FREE computer tune-up which actually costs you say $25 if I knew that client has a really good chance of becoming a client for a long time?

YES because I am getting $2,100 over time and the cost is only $25. That is an unbelievable return on your advertising investment.

GOOD NEWS

You don’t have to come up with your own GREAT offers because just about every marketing program we give you already has them built in. You may have to just “tweak” the offer so it applies to you specifically.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Consistency- The Key To Success

Consistency- The Key To Success

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group

On again off again. It’s a bad habit. And a very costly one for businesses. If you truly want to succeed and make big profits every year, you will have to be consistent.

We know one business owner who has OK marketing strategies, OK letters and OK ads. He does not have exceptional marketing strategies or ads. In fact you are way ahead of him in that category with this manual. But he consistently makes over $150,000 a year. He is consistent with his marketing strategies and his follow up. Yes it could be better, a lot better, but consistency is extremely important.

We also know another business owner who has some sensational ads, and some sensational letters. He barely makes $50,000 a year.

Why?

Simply because he is inconsistent. He doesn’t track his results. He doesn’t really know what is working and what isn’t.

A lot of people will tell you “This is working for me” and then when you analyze the numbers, you find out it’s not. The same is true for things people don’t think are working. Unless you know your numbers, you don’t know what’s working and what’s not.

Every time we talk to this business owner, he tells us how he is too busy to send thank you letters. And every time we say to ourselves “well, he won’t be too busy in a few months.” Then the next time we talk to him, it’s the same old story- ‘It’s dead, I don’t have any business.

He can’t figure out why this happens. It’s quite simple, but he won’t take the time and effort to be consistent.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Are You Tracking Your Results?

Are You Tracking Your Results?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group

Why you must track your results:

If you don’t know what’s working and what’s not, you’ll have no way to increase your business.

Things aren’t always as they seem. You can’t guess whether something is working or not. You must keep track of the numbers and let them tell you.

Ad A: This is a Val-Pak type ad. You advertised a “computer tune-up”. It costs $350.00 to run it. It goes to 10,000 prospects. You get 30 clients from it.

Ad B: This is a direct mail piece. It costs $400.00 to send it to 500 prospects. You get 11 new clients.

Which is better? At first it may seem that A is better, but look at the rest of the numbers.

Ad A: The 30 clients generated, had an average ticket of $59.00. Twenty four out of 30 complained that your prices were too high. Three of them rescheduled another service appointment in 6 months.

Ad B: The 11 clients generated had an average ticket of $137.00. Zero of them complained about the price. Nine of them rescheduled in 6 months. And 7 of them bought other products and services you offer. Eight of them referred at least one client to you within 1 month of their visit.

As you can see, you made $750.00 ($25.00 x 30) off the front end of A. Ad A cost you $350.00. That’s $400.00 left. The backend isn’t very big, two clients in 6 weeks. – another $50.00 if they keep appointments.

Ad B on the other hand generated $1,507.00 on the front end ($137.00 x 11). The back end is even bigger with all those referrals, pre-booked appointments, etc. The coast of ad B was $400.00, so that’s $1,107 left- that’s more than ad a generated after the costs of the ad!

We hope now you can see why you must keep close track of your numbers. Some methods may be misleading where you think you are doing great but really you aren’t.

Don’t have an ‘idea’ whether something is working well. Know your numbers and know for sure!

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

How To Get Your Yellow Page Ad To Your Target Market Without Paying The Yellow Page Company

How To Get Your Yellow Page Ad To Your Target Market Without Paying The Yellow Page Company

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group

There is a separate booklet that came with your program that covers all the things you should be doing to MAXIMIZE your response to your yellow page advertising.

BUT there is another, very effective way to get your yellow page to your target market WITHOUT giving the yellow page company a ton of money every month.

This strategy to this will SHOCK you.

Are you ready?

DON’T ADVERTISE IN THE YELLOW PAGES

Waite a minute Bob, how are local customers supposed to find me? All my competitors are in the yellow pages. Now I think you have totally lost your mind – it must be the heat! Right?

Wrong!

We are going to show you right now how to get in the book without paying. And multiply your response results up to 20 times all for a fraction of the cost of a yellow page ad.

By the way the last time we looked into yellow page advertising in our town it was $50,000 for a full page ad, FIFTY GRAND, that’s a lot of green backs.

Before we tell you this one little strategy that can transform your bank account I want to clear up some realities about yellow page advertising, OK?

Most yellow page advertising does NOT work because it is missing all the elements of a successful ad. An ad in the yellow pages is NO different than any type of print ad. The paper it is printed on is yellow, that’s it.
Yellow page ad reps don’t know squat about advertising. All they want you to do is buy the biggest ad because then their commissions are bigger.
Most “big” companies have their advertising agency’s design their yellow page ad. Advertising reps don’t know squat about effective track-able advertising. The first question and adverting company will ask you is “what is your advertising budget?” You tell them and they proceed to spent it all with little tangible results.

Here is the strategy.

Design your ad like we show you how in your “Reinventing Your Yellow Page Ad System” (a full page ad). Get it printed on yellow newspaper just like a full page ad in a yellow page book and MAIL it to your surrounding area with a letter like the one we give you.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Never Rely On Walk-Ins Again

Never Rely On Walk-Ins Again

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group

The same old stuff that everyone is doing, which is luring walk-ins into the store by advertising price, just doesn’t work.

And Relying Strictly On Walk-ins Doesn’t Cut it

If you properly use Direct Response Marketing you will a full service schedule and walk-ins will be “icing on the cake” for you. . Just think, your days will be all booked up with qualified clients who are willing to pay the prices you deserve.

Don’t get us wrong, walk-ins can be nice filler. But, you CAN”T build a highly profitable business relying on walk-ins as your sole marketing tool. This required Direct Response.

The people that walk-in have read nothing about your extraordinary service and therefore have had no value-built in your business and will be more price resistant.

It costs you in the long run; it’s harder to build up your business. It will take longer to be a success. If you rely solely on it, you’ll most likely be at the same place in 5 years as you are now. Stop relying on walk-ins, and start Direct Response Marketing and join the top 1% businesses.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Do you ever feel tongue tied?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group

Here are the most important words you can use when dealing with people to BREAK down any resistance they might have in dealing with you:

• No Problem
• I Understand
• I’d Be Happy To
• Please Allow Me
• I’m Confident…
• Easiest Part Of My Job
• Would You Do Me A Small Favor?
• Please, Tell Me No

So how can you use these words in your business?

Here are some examples:
• Someone calls to reschedule a service appointment; you say “No Problem, I understand I’d be happy to,”
• You want to ask for a referral or testimonials – you say “Would you do me a small favor?” “Please tell me no if your not comfortable doing this for me”
• You want to try a new service or product with a client – You say “please allow me to (whatever) I’m confident it will be terrific”

Make sure you train your staff to use these words as well.

The you communicate with your clients = More money in your bank account.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Are Your Employees Answering The Telephone Properly?

Are Your Employees Answering The Telephone Properly?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.


I am almost 100% sure that your employees are not answering the phone properly, and it’s hurting your business.

Let me explain.

The most common ‘short cut’ an employee will make is to answer the phone the following way, “NAME of business, this is Cindy.” And more often than not, and maybe every time, they sound like they either don’t want to be there, are super busy, or they are short with customers.

There are many philosophies on how one should answer the phone, but a proven technique is to smile and say, “Name of business, how can I help you?”

You may be thinking there is little difference. But the beauty is in the details. Saying, “How can I help you” makes your potential client feel more important. Saying, “…this is Cindy” makes you customer feel like the person answering the phone is more important. 

You want the customer to feel empowered, not the other way around.

We are constantly training and re training our staff on this point because they do have a tendency to fall into the “This is Cindy” routine. But not often because we call all the time and make sure they are doing it right.

Here’s why: 



The First Contact Is The Most Important!

The first contact a customer makes with your business is the most important because it will create a lasting impression of your business and they will decide right then and there if they want to be a part of it.



Make time for this strategy right away…

Call your business and pretend you are a customer several times in a one or two week period, and do it once a month. Use a towel or something to disguise your voice. Consider recording the conversation for training purposes (check your states laws on
recording conversations if you are not comfortable with it, or you are not sure it’s legal to do so.)

Note how the phone is answered and how friendly your staff sounds. See if they handle your questions well. Do they ask you to come into the store? Do they set up a service appointment? 

If they do not answer the phone in a friendly manner, or handle it properly, fix it right away, especially if they are not sounding friendly and helpful. 

If they use the “This is Cindy” routine, or they sound like they are annoyed or don’t want to be there, you have a major problem to fix.

Train your staff regularly in this crucial area and you will experience surprising results from your efforts.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton

ARE YOU a Professional?

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.

ARE YOU A Professional?

What we mean by this is:

Have a clean store.

Have everyone dress professionally- (uniforms are an option that can raise the professionalism of a business).

Put protective floor mats in the clients’ vehicle when you get in?

The public can be skeptical about anybody these days. The reason is because there are a lot of inexperienced automotive techs out there who can’t fix their own car let alone someone else’s which leaves clients angry. You must overcompensate for the ones that give auto techs a bad reputation. Granted this is unfair, but it’s the way it is.

We’ve seen many automotive shops where the carpets are filthy, the store looks “junky” and the employees look like Cindy Lauper on a bad hair day. We’ve even seen employees who dressed like they were getting ready for a hippie Halloween party. Granted, there is nothing wrong with a sense of style and fashion, but if you want high quality clients you should be providing them with an atmosphere of professionalism.

You must look clean, neat and be organized. This earns people’s trust and respect. It probably is no surprise to you that the stores with employees like the one above can only charge on the low end of the price scale for their services.

Clean stores & neat employees are important. Do you think people will pay top dollar to go into a dirty, cluttered store with broken down computer parts scattered everywhere. Absolutely not.

We’re not saying you have to be a brand new store but we are saying that your store and your employees need to look good.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-75633.

To your success,

Bob Britton

Are you sending out a newsletter each month? If not, you’re losing big sales.

Are you sending out a newsletter each month? If not, you’re losing big sales.

Hi Business Owner,

My name is Bob Britton, a fellow small business owner and President of Marketing Automation Group.

Mailing a newsletter to your client base each month will always more than pay for itself in increased sales. We see a spike in business the week the newsletter hits our client’s mailbox. Emailing your newsletter is not as effective as mailing it in the regular mail but it is better than doing nothing.

It takes a lot of work to put together a decent newsletter and we are NOT suggesting that you research topics and write your own newsletter each month to your clients. It is not the best use of your time. We have a “Business Newsletter” service where we do everything for you for a small monthly fee.

The way this works is every month you will get from us an email with a 4-page newsletter on it. All you have to do is fill in your specific information in a certain sections we have set aside for you. Then you print and have the newsletter mailed to your client list. You can also have copies in your store to give your clients.

This is a great way to keep your name and business in front of your clients. It is also a great way to announce information you want them to know. They will think that you personally sat down and wrote the newsletter. They will think you spent a lot of time putting it together. They will thank you for all the neat information.

Please send an email to our office if you are interested in finding out the details of our newsletter program.

If you have any questions, need some immediate advice, or would like to get involved with my program please give me a call at 585-633-7563.

To your success,

Bob Britton