(Did you get multiple copies of last week’s newsletter? If so, please accept my apologies and see the PS comments at the end of this newsletter.)

Who else thinks selling can be tiring?

After selling for 10 years I started to get really tired. I had made lots of money, lots of friends and had lots of fun. I could almost predict what every client would do before they did it. But I was still getting very, very tired. And I wasn’t making all that much money, really, for the toll the selling was taking on me, my family and my life.

There had to be a better way.

Kissing Frogs – Lots of them

Making real money always seemed to mean that I had to kiss lots of frogs to find the prince or princess with the money who wanted to buy now.

There had to be a better way.

You call this help?

I had worked for some wonderful companies. Sometimes the services and products were good, sometimes they stunk. Whatever the service or product was that year, the company, at best, would rent a hotel room, tell us all about it in one breath, and “assign” our quota in the next breath and then put us on the street to sell.

God helps him who helps himself, so they say

At worst, they had a conference call and mailed a brochure. And then they said, “Get busy.” I soon realized that these lame meetings and sponsorships of events is what my company thought of as “marketing.” That wasn’t the marketing I needed. The only marketing that was going on was being done by me (if I wanted to make any sales.

There had to be a better way.

At first, it was a dead end

I went into sales management. But I quickly figured out that my being in sales management just gave me the average of what my sales team could do. That was not the answer I was looking for. Sales management did not give me the leverage I was seeking.

There had to be a better way.

Higher math

One day I read in a book by David Ogilvy (Ogilvy on Advertising) that advertising (also known as marketing) is nothing more than salesmanship, multiplied. My first thought was, “I can do this.” Since I already knew how to sell, I just had to figure out a way to add the multiplication.

Paper multiplication

While nothing is perfect, this little insight allowed me to put on paper what I was doing in my most successful sales efforts. At first it was not pretty. but it worked. The time I put into cold-calling started to drop, and my sales volume started to climb. Yipee.

Just hit copy on the old Xerox machine

All I was doing was writing a personal letter to the prospect about something that I thought they cared about. This was more than 20 years ago, and my writing stunk. I wrote one letter and copied it on the Xerox machine. I used a pen to write in the target’s first name.

Perfection not required

While I was doing many things wrong, I was also doing a couple of things right. I was hitting on a pain, problem or aspiration that many of the targets had. I was letting them know about others like them who were using the service and product I had, and I was building their confidence that I could get the same results for them that I had gotten for the others.

This was a better way…kinda.

Write once, send many times

The better way is that I simply sent 100+ of these letters each week. Nothing fancy. After I dropped the letters in the mailbox, I went on about my business of doing my job the regular way.

Making the phone ring

Pretty soon the phone started to ring. At first it rang a little. Then it rang a little more. In a few weeks, it seemed to ring all the time. Everyone essentially said, “Tell me more.”

Qualified and interested is a beautiful thing

Many of the people who called were a relative snap to close. I made lots of money and thought I was brilliant.

Nothing worse than a quiet phone

Pretty soon, however, the phone almost quit ringing. I was still sending the 100+ letters every week. Despite that, my sales slowed to a trickle. What went wrong in my effort to multiply my sales effort? I’ll tell you next week, December 10^th, why this letter quit working and what I could have done about it then, had I known)

There is a much better way…really.

What I didn’t know was hurting me

Back then, I didn’t know. Now I do. Once I figured it out, I started helping companies of all sizes multiply salesmanship so that their actual sales people would only invest time with people who were ready, willing and able to buy what was being sold.

You are about to get something very few know about

What I was trying to do was called marketing. In this case, a very special kind of marketing that 99.99 percent of all professional marketers don’t seem to understand. If you doubt me, just read the ads in most newspapers and magazines.

Prospects into Clients

Marketing is just doing what a good salesperson does by adding multiplication via some form of media such as print. The outcome of good direct marketing is a lead that, depending on the skill of the salesperson, can often be closed successfully.

Are you game?

Are you a good salesperson or business owner who wants to put some multiplication into your sales results in 2008? Are you getting good results now? And would you like to benefit from some multiplication? Then read on.

Your ticket is in this newsletter

The recipe I am about to share with you is very, very powerful. You could study this recipe for years and get something new out of it every month of every year. You can use right now, and get great benefits by doing nothing more active than taking what’s here, and putting it into action now.

The prize inside the Cracker Jack box…er newsletter

The recipe is called marketing syntax and it was formalized by a fellow named Robert Middleton. Print this the following and keep it handy; it is your road map to connecting with prospects, clients, and anyone in your world that you want to bring around to your way of thinking.

Marketing syntax

1. Target: - Who is your ideal client?

2. Problem: What is your prospect’s issue or challenge?

3. Outcome: What result or outcome would they prefer?

4. Story (Proof): Stories or case studies that tell about moving from problem to outcome.

5. Benefits: What’s everything clients get when they work with you?

6. Credibility: What qualifies you to do what you do?

7. Process:  What do you actually offer and how does it work?

8. Call-to-Action: What do you want them to do next?

Seems simple until you look closely

When I introduce this to new corporate clients, I warn them not to be put off by its simplicity. What you see above is the tip of the iceberg; an iceberg well beyond the size of the one that sank the Titanic.

Application is the key

In some of my corporate workshops we will spend two full days going over the various aspects of marketing syntax, and then applying it to their situation. Once they have applied this recipe, sales almost always climb. No application equals no results.

Looking back will make you ill

As they begin to grasp the power of this outline, my clients almost always tell me how will they are about the dopey messages they have created in the past (usually a bunch of nonsense full of Me! Me! Me!), and how excited they are about a new future using marketing syntax.

Are you ready to put marketing syntax into action?

Sit down with the recipe above. Map out an ideal client (size, industry, etc.). Jot down the most pressing problem this ideal client group typically has, and then write down the outcome that you, your service or product provide.

A brief story

Follow that with a very concise story about how another client with the same problem has achieved a similar outcome.

A few benefits

Next, jot down three to 10 incremental benefits that the ideal client might get in addition to the main one.

Now, jot down a sentence or two about what makes you or your company qualified to deliver this solution. Follow that with a couple of points about how the process of getting the outcome works, from the clients perspective.

Finally, write down what you want the client to do next. That may be to buy, go to lunch with you, or join you on a phone call. You  decide.

This won’t be pretty at first.

Read it out loud. Adjust it. Read it aloud again. Make your adjustments in writing.

When it is in reasonable shape, take it to a couple of friendly current customers and get their feedback. Again, make the adjustments your clients have suggested.

If you build it (with marketing syntax) they will likely come

If you have done all this, you are now on your way to multiplying your ability to sell, and your ability to generate a better income in 2008. 

The guided tour starts January 7th

If you want to take the guesswork out of this process, you can enroll in my next Marketing Fast Track program that starts January 7^th. Each Monday for 8 weeks, we will offer the class twice (once at 7:00 A.M. and once at 4:00 P.M. Pacific Time. This dual presentation will allow people in Europe, Australia and New Zealand to participate at times of the day that are reasonable for them. The class will cover the full process of gaining salesmanship multiplication (also known as marketing). You can sit in on either occurrence of the class (or both, if you want to).

If you do the work, you may find that you have a dramatic new capability to connect with your market; to convert it to revenue and commissions that exceeds anything you have ever seen before.

An MP3 for later listening

All sessions are recorded for later listening. If you have to miss a class, you can still listen to the MP3 at your convenience.

Just remember…

On your own, or in the class, marketing syntax is your key to salesmanship multiplied.

All the best,

Eric

eric@succeedinginbusiness.com

503-635-2319

PS: Please accept my apologies for the multiple newsletters last week. The vendor that sends them out had a technical glitch that caused their server to send the newsletter over and over again.

Thanks to each of you who wrote to let us know that things had gone haywire, and to all of you who did not unsubscribe. Our vendor has promised on a stack of books, not to let it happen again.

PPS: What does ART have in common with RAT and TAR? You got it right. They all have the very same letters. Marketing syntax puts your message in the right order to be heard. If you don’t use the order above, you might get stuck in the TAR with a RAT, instead of producing some fine ART. Check out the Marketing Fast Track program, starting January 7^th if you aren’t fond of TAR and RAT in your business.