Finding Clients
How to identify, attract, and convert your ideal prospects.
46 posts
Nobody Opens Email
The danger of blanket declarations is believing them to be true. Nobody opens email anymore. Direct mail is dead. But here's what I would stake my success on...
Please Open This One
Did I ever tell you about my journey on the path that led me to the 9-word email? I was sitting in my evil scheme hatchery, working on an email campaign, and...
Cute Bikinis for Cute Prices
Here's a little something you might never guess about me. The most watched creators I follow on TikTok are the three twenty-something sisters of the Strawber...
The Van Allen Belt
The riskiest part of sending a manned rocket into space isn't once it's up there. It's getting through the Van Allen Belt. That's where the radiation is high...
Time Travel Instructions Inside
It's easy to imagine the benefits of time travel. I think about it a lot. The main advantage I can see is acting with certainty of future outcomes…knowing wh...
High Status Chimps
I once read about a fascinating study involving chimpanzees. Researchers gave chimps a choice. They could keep a small reward of grapes or juice…or they coul...
ScoreCards
When Dan Sullivan introduced me to the concept of a scorecard, it changed the way I approach conversations with potential clients. A scorecard enables you to...
Yellow Page Roulette
Long before I started the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, there was the I Love Marketing podcast with Joe Polish. One of the most popular episodes we ever...
Consistency and Longetivity
It has been a couple of years since I started my Breakthrough Blueprint Event. It all came from a conversation with my friend Dan Sullivan, the founder of St...
Webinars Vs Books
There are many ways to find your potential customers. But taking a moment to consider the most effective way to do it can multiply your results dramatically....
Secret Weapon
Today, everyone's looking for an edge. However, most businesses are looking for it in the wrong places. Lowering their prices might give them that edge. Addi...
The Greatest Leverage
You've heard me raving about syndication many times before. And for good reason. You see, syndication is one of those things where you do the work once and t...
Words Matter
In a business where everyone is offering the same service, how you frame what you do will be your winning card. Because, as in life, so in marketing, it's no...
Delivering Happiness
I'm sure you've heard of Zappos, their CEO Tony Hsieh and his book Delivering Happiness, The great thing about the whole idea of Zappos is the experience of ...
Core Unit
Have you noticed how every time you think about starting something new... a new venture or pivot for your current business… You always start with the full vi...
Promised Land
The three most important things about a lead-generating book (or report) are: It has to have a title that conveys something your prospects want. You must hav...
Lifetime Customers
Remember how I told you about a company I started in college called Name Droppers? My friend Neil and I would hire college girls to go out into neighborhoods...
More Inside
Sometimes, when you’re struggling with low opt-in rates on your website, it’s not because your stuff isn’t compelling. It’s because you’re giving people too ...
The IM Formula
Have I ever told you about my Internet Marketing formula before? It’s a simple formula that I came up with way back at the beginning of the Internet... and i...
Competition Free Market
Let me ask you something: How would you like it if you had virtually no competition in your niche? If you had the monopoly? Imagine it: You’re the only plumb...
Impacting People at Scale
Everybody knows it: Trading your time for money isn’t scalable. And yet, it’s the main system most service-type businesses operate on. Professions like perso...
Compelling Lead-Getters
I have two front-ends driving most of what I do: My free offer for the Email Mastery book and the free book offer for the 90-Minute Book. And the reason for ...
A-Pile Advertising
If you’ve been around the direct response water cooler for a while, you must've heard of Gary Halbert. And if you’ve heard of him, I’m sure you’ve also heard...
The ''Easy Button" Solution
One thing that we all have in common is; We all want results. I know I do. And I’m sure you do as well. I’m willing to bet all your prospects want results, t...
In Search of Excellence
Have you ever read a book called "In Search of Excellence”? It’s written by Tom Peters, a wonderful management thought leader. He wrote several books on...
Integrity Pricing
What’s really interesting to me is that people are so afraid to give away their prices. They'd rather go through many hoops before they tell you how much the...
Commodity vs Advantage
In certain markets, what you sell is seen as a commodity. For example, workplace safety. People look at workplace safety as a requirement. They will do what ...
Customer Avatars
There are two things at play when you're coming up with your single target market: Firstly, you need to have a clear idea of all the different stages in your...
Consumer Awareness Guides
Here’s the thing about consumer awareness guides… If you’re using them in your Before Unit, there are a couple of things you need to be aware of (pun intende...
Largest Check
Selecting a single target market is always tricky. And it’s especially hard early on in your business when you don’t want to limit yourself and deliberately ...
Thinking Bigger
Your business is ready to scale when it provides results and value beyond your need to be involved in delivering that value. But the trouble is… when you’re ...
Commitment and Consistency
Have you ever watched American Idol or The Voice? From the outside, both shows look a lot like one and the same: A singing competition for undiscovered artis...
Convincing Demonstration
A demonstration is one of the best tools you can use to convince somebody of something. It's not about "selling the benefits." It's SHOWING somebod...
Send Them Cheese
Here's a way to quickly turn your whiskery B2B emails into cheese for your prospects A company in Florida does all the postcards, printing and mailing for me...
Minimum Viable Commitment
You've heard about the term "minimum viable product" before, right? It's part of the Lean Startup methodology, where you only build the minimum fea...
What Do I Do Now?
I get a lot of questions about 9-word emails. And they usually ask, "What do I do after I send that initial 9-word email and get all these replies back?...
How vs What
Sometimes your business is tied to a specific location. Like a fitness studio, an after-school tutoring program, a tennis or golf course… and so on. And the ...
Future Pacing
When you have a product or service that helps different people at different stages, it might seem difficult to pick just ONE target market and go with it, ri...
Reassuringly Expensive
Let’s talk about pricing… Remember Stella Artois’ campaign? Their whole thing was, “we use only the most expensive ingredients, and we pass the cost onto you...
10 Million Dollar Orange Grove
Businesses have different models of making money. Some are straightforward, one-time transactional types. When selling widgets, that’s the type of business y...
Can you Prove it?
"What would you do if you only got paid if your client gets the result?" That’s the one question I always ask when hatching evil schemes with someb...
How To ''Catch'' Invisible Prospects
There are two types of prospects populating your market: VISIBLE and INVISIBLE ones. The easiest ones to sell to are, of course, visible prospects. You know ...
Amplifying Print Ads
Newspapers aren't going away anytime soon. That’s a fact. I honestly believe there’s still much juice to be squeezed from that orange ;) And since everyone i...
Pre-suasive Conversation Starters
Have you noticed how a book can become an instant authority booster? When you are presented as Homer McDonald, author of Stop Your Divorce, people start perc...
Do You Know Your Return On Relationships?
One of the most exciting ways to bring in new business is to go after new leads. Everyone loves and focuses on the Before Unit. But when time and resources a...
Overcoming Bystander Apathy
One of the main reasons why 9-word emails work so well is because they’re designed to overcome something called bystander apathy. Here’s what I mean... Take ...