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Why 99.8% Of Business Owners Leave Money On The Table

by Trevor Cook

When I speak at seminars for business owners, Internet marketers, entrepreneurs or network marketers, I try to give people a valuable marketing lesson immediately. It's such a simple yet powerful way to get them to realize that they generally bore the daylights out of people when they are introduced to someone for the first time as well as proving to them their business cards are just as boring and useless.

And that will be costing them sales and I am certain it's costing you sales too.

When I ask the question, I reveal it's a trick question. I get a funny look from people, however by the time I reveal my marketing message, they are blown away with the power of simply re-wording what they tell people they do.

This is what happens 99.8% of the time. A person will stand up, state their name, where they are from or the company they work for and their job title or position. One by one I go around the room and like sheep—everyone follows with the same "so what" type of statements—because they DO NOT know any different.

Example: My name is 'John Doe' from Boringville, I am a bus driver. That is a "so what" statement and it does not create any 'WOW' factor and it certainly doesn't inspire people to want to know more about John.

Imagine if you went to a party and you were introduced to 2 people for the very first time and you proceeded to ask them this question, "What do you do for a living?"

John Doe answers, "I am a bus driver" and the person next to John, (David) says this, "I safely transported over one million people last year, over some of the harshest roads in America without a single road accident or injury to my passengers AND arrived on schedule every time."

I don't know about you, but for me, the second answer has some 'WOW' factor in it and I would want to know more about what David does. By then asking, you discover that David is a bus driver too and he actually works for the same company as John. I am assuming that you would want to get on David's Bus and not John's even though they are both bus drivers.

What David did was state a major benefit of what his driving skills do for his passengers, including the safety aspect.

One of my customers, Brian Donaldson, used to own a company called Gutter Guardian. Before he knew this little marketing trick, he would say his name and then say he was from Gutter Guardian. After he understood the power of using the right words and stating the major benefit of what people get from doing business with him, he began to say this, "STOPS Leaves Blocking YOUR Gutters Guaranteed For Five Years Or It's FREE!"

I got him to change his boring business cards too which meant...the very first thing people read, was that powerful statement or "Unique Selling Proposition". After that, he had his name, business name, address, website and contact details etc. He included his picture. He then had a business card that was a lead generation tool.

I want you to do yourself a huge favour, and you will need to be brutally honest with yourself.

Grab a notepad and write down what you would normally say to someone when they ask you what you do. When you have done this, come up with an alternative, benefit-driven statement that will compel people to say, "WOW! How do you do that?" or "WOW, I'd like to know more!"

Then I want you to take a close look at your business card and again, be honest with what it really telegraphs to your prospects. After that, trace around your business card, then write at the very top of it—your new sizzling statement about what you do, put "quotation marks" around it as though it's a headline and Capitalize The First Letter Of Each Word.

Below that you can put your name, position, address, website/s and contact details etc. Put your business name at the bottom and if you have to have a logo, put that at the bottom too because no one gives a rats about your logo except you.

Ignore what you have been told about branding. Unless you have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on brand awareness like McDonald's, you are kidding yourself.

Don't forget to put 2–3 testimonials on the back of your business cards as well as offering something for FREE as a way of getting people to your website or to get their contact details. After all, your database is where you will mine your gold from—once you know how.

You can offer a FREE e-book, a FREE newsletter subscription, a FREE CD etc. and USE your business card as lead generation tool.

Trevor Crook is a highly acclaimed and successful copywriter from Australia who will show you "How To Promote Your Business for Under $500". He guarantees to deliver so many meaty marketing ideas, that you'll need an elephant-sized loaf of bread to chew ‘em all up!

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