Encourage Subscriptions or Retainers

It can be tough not knowing whether that star client from last month is going to propose another project this month. This uncertainty can put a strain on budgetary planning. Reduce this uncertainty by encouraging your clients to subscribe to your services or put them on a retainer. That way, you will have a clearer idea of how much money you will earn.

Incentivize subscriptions or retainers by offering discounts to clients who opt for this method or giving bonuses like eBooks, free webinars, and discounts for services provided by partners. Many consumers are more interested in a subscription if it carries a discount or offers something of value.

Separate Business and Personal Expenses

One way to avoid a budgetary mess is to separate business and personal expenses. This will make tax time much easier and will eliminate the need to search for papers or documents at the last minute. Have an account strictly for business purposes and use a business credit card for professional expenses only to keep things neat and orderly all year round and especially at tax time.

Keep an Extra Fund for Large Expenses

Many opportunities only come along once. It is important to have the funds available to take advantage of these opportunities, especially if they are potentially game-changing for your business. It could be a conference where you can drum up more clients and raise brand awareness or software that will improve communication with your clients. Putting a little money aside regularly for this fund will ensure you can make the investment when it comes along.

Automate Your Budgeting Tasks

If you are still figuring out your budget and expenses with a pencil and paper, it’s time to get automated. Entering income and expenses into a software accounting program on a daily basis will make budgeting easier and will provide metrics that will help you monitor your business’ growth daily. Getting rid of those notebooks and slips of paper will also make your bookkeeping more efficient.

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I was recently asked at an event why I am called “The Original Back End Specialist”. If you’re in business or in sales, it’s an important story. It shows the immediate power of differentiating yourself from everybody else.

Listen to my story!

Transcription:

Many of you know that I earned the title of “The Original Back End Specialist”. Let me tell you the story of how that came about!

It’s a cool story. First, because it teaches you how to create opportunity for yourself. It also teaches you how to differentiate yourself from everybody else. Finally, and most importantly, it illustrates what business owners desire most from you.

This is a picture that’s actually hanging on my wall right next to me as I’m speaking to you. An artist sketched this a few years ago while I had lunch with Jeff Lipton, the owner of Bobalu Cigar Company.

That’s Jeff on the left. That’s me in the center, and that’s my wife Sherri on the right. This is early on in my relationship with Jeff and Bobalu.

It was a steaming hot day and I was downtown Austin, Texas looking for new clients. I was just getting started as a marketing consultant. This was right after I got fired from my job and I decided to go into business for myself.

My back was up against the wall. We were having trouble paying the bills, having trouble making the mortgage.

Believe me, I’ve been there more than once and we were going through one of those times. I was out drumming up business, going door to door. I was cold calling.

I’m a trained salesmen with 30 plus years experience and I have to tell you I hate cold calling.

Cold calling is a complete waste of time.

But, back then I resorted to it because I was a still unclear about how to differentiate myself.

Even with all my knowledge, I was still feeling a little desperate. I needed to make things happen and start bringing in some revenue.

It was the end of a full day and I was getting ready to come home. I knew that if I jumped on the highway now, it was going to take me over an hour to get home because of rush hour traffic.

So I decided to stay downtown and kill an hour before heading home.

I found my way to this cigar shop called Bobalu Cigar Company. It’s this funky little place and they actually rolled their own cigars.

That was kind of cool.

I sat down to boot up my laptop and light up a cigar I just bought. The owner came to my table and introduced himself as, Jeff.

“Hey, is this your first time to Bobalu’s?” He asked. “What brings you in?”

“I was just downtown looking for business, ” I replied.

“Really, what do you do?”

So, I answered him, “I’m a marketing consultant.”

Jeff turned around in anger and literally walked away from me. I could tell I pissed him off, but had no idea why!

“Whoa, Whoa, whoa buddy,” I called out. “What did I say? How did I upset you so much?”

He turned back around, pointed his finger and charged back at me.

His voice rising in anger. “I bet you came in here just to try to sell me something or get me to hire you.”

That was just the beginning! He continued blasting me.

“I get people like you coming in my business several times a week. You guys call yourselves marketing consultants. You guys promise me you’re going to get me number one on Google and more Facebook likes and all this other stuff”

He’s shaking in anger, but he continues, “Last month I spent $2,000 and these guys promised me all kinds of shit.”

(Yes, he actually called it “Shit”).

“I don’t even know what I got out of that, All I know is that I don’t have the $2,000 I flushed down the toilet with them. He’s showing me all sorts of crap that doesn’t mean anything to me. He thinks he did a good job, and all I know is that I haven’t sold any more cigars.”

I quickly got my footing and responded.

“I see the problem. All those other guys, they’re talking about the front end. They’re talking about getting you more traffic. They’re talking about getting you more likes on Facebook…”

I continued.

“None of that is going to help if you don’t have a back end. The back end is what keeps your customers coming back to buy more cigars. Because if they buy one cigar and smoke it, you want them to come back and buy 100 cigars, right?

He cocked his head. I could tell he liked what I was saying, so I continued.

“I focus on the back end of the marketing funnel. I make sure those customers come back. You could call me a Back End Specialist!”

His face lit up in excitement, “THAT’s what I need! I need a Back End Specialist!”

It’s funny, I had never used that term before. It just came up as I was defending my territory.

I was trying to break down those barriers and explain how I was different from all the other people..

Before that, I had always called myself a marketing consultant like everybody else.

But it all changed right then and there!

I was now the “Original Back End Specialist”!

Nobody else could ever claim that. I was first. And I have a great story to go with it that people always want to hear.

And with that he said, “OK, what can you do for me?”

Then he pulls up a chair and sits down. We spent the next hour while I’m smoked my cigar, talking about what I could do for him.

Then, he hires me!

And he’s been my client ever since.

Jeff’s been a darn good client! We’ve done some amazing things for him, more than doubled his business. He’s been able to expand and even opened up new locations because of the marketing that we’ve done.

Being “The Original Back End Specialist” is part of my Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. It’s what makes me different from every other business in the world.

What makes you different than every other business in the world?

Learn more about “Flawless Follow Up” and becoming a “Back End Specialist” at OfflineFunnelMastery.com

The post Story Time: “The Day I Became “The Original Back End Specialist” appeared first on Steve Rosenbaum.

I just finished my post. Read it here!

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Objective: Learn the steps to implement a sales boosting, list building viral quiz in your business.

Time to Read: 6 Minutes

Time to Implement: 45 Minutes

Done For You Implementation: Click Here[/thrive_text_block][/content_container]If you like small business marketing success tips, you’ll love this is incredible case study detailing how a boutique retail shops instantly increased his sales over 900% using an extremely engaging social media marketing strategy: Personality Quizzes.

Even I was stunned to see such immediate results, and my client still pays me each and every month to do this for him 🙂

I’ve always heard that quizzes were a fantastic way to build a list and make more immediate sales…

2 things that every local business owner in the world will hire you to do (get more traffic and make more sales).

But even I was stunned to see how immediate the 9x Sales increase happened:

Also notice how the sales stopped as soon as we stopped sharing the quiz on social media (we did that for a test, now we share the quiz all the time)!

The app we used costs $99 per month if we want to get the reports and the leads.  But even though that app is so expensive, the marketing benefits stop there.

Until Now!

Announcing “Thrive Quiz Builder”…

The New Ultimate Quiz Tool (because it’s built by and for marketers!)

If you’re a marketer and not using Thrive for you and your customers, you’re missing out on some of the best marketing tools on the planet that are also drop dead easy to sell to businesses.

The reason why is because they work great and get fast and measurable results that every business owner wants.

Thrive Quiz Builder is so much better than this stupid quiz builder we currently use because it:

• Creates Complex (& beautiful) Quizzes With Zero Coding
• Gets viral social traffic with powerful sharing tools
• Builds Lists on all popular marketing systems (including FunnelKits!)
• Segments Visitors Based On Their Interests (This is HUGE!)
• A/B Tests at Critical Stages to Increase Quiz Conversions

But that’s not all… You can see all the incredible features here.

Save 50% Right now

Thrive Quiz Builder just launched a few days ago. You can save 50% right now during the introductory launch.

Click Here to save 50% right now

How to get Thrive Quiz Builder for FREE!

My Recommendation: Get the All In One Thrive Toolbox (gets you Quiz Builder for Free!)
This is an investment that pays for itself many times over.  All you have to do is show the tools to businesses and they will want to hire you to build them out.

Pro Tip: Use the Thrive Tools as a foot in the door to offer more Back End Services like I teach in OfflineFunnelMastery.com

Cash Flow Savings Tip: (Thrive is getting so popular that they are making it harder to find the quarterly payments option, but I found it for you buried on this hidden page.

This makes it even easier for you to make this investment in your business right now.

But you need to grab the Agency version and lock in your low-rate now, because they are talking about a price increase and maybe even doing away with the quarterly payment option.

Buckle up… This is going to be a Helluva Ride!

Steve “Quiz Builder” Rosenbaum

P.S. One more thing. Thrive Quiz Builder is part of the Thrive Themes Toolbox. I dumped all other wordpress themes and landing page builders and have been using Thrive exclusively for
almost a year for me and my clients.

Without a doubt, it is the fastest, easiest, and best performing lead generation theme…
period… end of story.

I strongly suggest you get their developer license and start using it to land clients. This alone will
separate you from others because of the shear power you will be able to bring your clients.

The post Simple Viral Quiz Scores Boutique Retailer Instant 900% Sales Increase appeared first on Steve Rosenbaum.

[responsive_video type=’youtube’ hide_related=’1′ hide_logo=’1′ hide_controls=’0′ hide_title=’1′ hide_fullscreen=’0′ autoplay=’0′]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi3mYf6yglU[/responsive_video]

This is an audio reading of my chapter from NY Times Best Selling Author Joel Comm’s book “So What Do You Do, vol. 2”

Listen to my story!

I’ve Helped Thousands Of Businesses Explode Their Sales & Profits.
Chances Are I Can Help You, Too

[thrive_megabutton mt=”Click Here To Learn How”  st=”” color=”blue” link=”http://zaplink.us/init-rwa” target=”_self” align=”aligncenter”]
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Transcription:

July 19, 1989, I will never forget the date.

That day is permanently etched into my mind as the beginning of my quest to help businesses and people close more sales and make more money.  To learn what I learned, and to experience what I experienced.  It was the beginning of my metamorphosis into “The Original Back End Specialist”.

I was a newly hired, eager to succeed, ball of fire.  This was the first time I was given a territory of my own and I was out to prove myself come hell or high water.  So, I attacked the account list with great vigor and made a six hour trek to call on an 18 location department store in Quincy, IL.

Peggy, the buyer was very nice when I called to set the appointment.

“You know, it would be nice to meet you, but Quincy is a long way for you”, she told me on the phone.  “I hate for you to make the trip because your chances of succeeding are almost nil.  We’re exclusive with the number one brand and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

“Now what kind of a Territory Manager would I be if let a 700 mile round trip journey keep me away from checking an account off of my list,” I thought to myself.  Of course I would make the trip.

When I arrived, Peggy greeted me and escorted me to her office.  She was nice as could be.

After the normal greetings and formalities, I began doing my pitch, and demonstrating the luggage.  I showed her all the bells and whistles, opened and closed the zippers, spun the wheels, extended and collapsed the handles…

In my mind, I did all this with flawless expertise and perfection.  Obviously I possessed skills and talent that surpassed anything she had ever seen before.  In reality, of course, I simply did the exact same things that every other luggage “schlepper” in the history of the universe did.

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In teaching my clients and students a better way to market and sell, I’ve developed a technical term to describe what happens when a salesman engages in this kind of one-sided exhibition:

It’s called a “Show Up and Throw Up”.

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And then, the phone rang.

This is before the days of call screening.  It was one of those old-fashioned phones.  A real bell.  No Caller ID.

Ring- Ring, Ring-Ring… 

“Excuse me.  Let me see who it is”, Peggy apologized.

“Of course”, I replied sweetly, masking my deep irritation and annoyance.

She picked up the phone and I heard her side of the conversation:

“Oh, I see. Well, that’s not good…”

“Ouch, that’s really, really going to be a problem for me…”

“There’s nothing you can do?

“Oh, my goodness…”

“I’m really in big trouble…”

“OK, well I really have to go”, she said as she returned the handset to the cradle.

With that she turned to me and said, “Well, that was your number one competitor, the one that I said you would never unseat.  They called to inform me that my shipping container of luggage for an ad in two weeks is held up in customs and is not going to get here in time.  I’m not going to have the luggage I need for the ad.  So, I need to know right now what you have at this price point that we could run in its place”.

I excused myself and used a phone in the next office to call my boss, the Vice President of Sales.  He was ecstatic to say the least.  This had been a target account that they had been trying to crack for years.

We had suitable inventory and I closed the deal!  She wrote me a tremendous order, probably somewhere near $50,000.  That was a very big order for us.

My company thought I was a rock star.  Like me, they were convinced that I was absolutely the most brilliant salesman in the history of selling luggage.

That sale started my trajectory into sales management.  Two months later the company moved my family to California and made me the Western Regional Sales Manager.  A year and a half later, another company recruited me away and gave me a VP of Sales position in Savannah, GA.  I was like 28 years old and all it started because of that one sale.

Sales success came easy, at first.  Later, I discovered that sales didn’t always come that easy.

Reality set in and I learned that just showing up didn’t always make it happen. I found out that even if I made a perfectly, flawless pitch, I didn’t always get the sale.

I returned in my mind to Quincy and dissected the situation over and over again.

What really happened?

The phone call is what happened.

Peggy was in need.  She turned to the easiest and best solution she could find, that happened to be sitting 18 inches away from her, and asked, “Can you cure my pain?”

And she gave me the opportunity.

A lot of things came to together all at the same time and created the “Perfect Storm” for me. I was at the right place, at the right time.  I had the right message, (i.e. I had luggage that she needed) and I was in the right market (she was the luggage buyer).

1. Right place
2. Right time
3. Right message
4. Right market

All four of those things have to be present to create a buyer who is “Ready, Willing and Able” to buy from you right now.

That was the lesson that I learned.

You might say, “Look you did a great job because you showed up.”

That is true.  I still made the trip.  I was there.  I made the presentation.  I was able to take care of her needs.  So, yes I did execute the mechanics.

The point is, even if you can do all the right things, but if you’re not at the right place, at the right time, in the right market, with the right message, you aren’t going to get the sale.

How many times have you tried to make a sale and someone said, “Call me back in six months.  I’ll be ready then”?

You diligently put it on your calendar and you call back in six months and that same person says, “Darn, I wish you called last week because the other guy called me and I gave the business to him.”

As a salesman and a business owner, I’ve been there.  I’m sure you’ve been there too.

The Quincy experience was not lost on me.  I set out to perfect a system where I could put the odds of bringing all 4 elements together in my favour.

It was the impetus for what I’ve honed and developed over the course of nearly 25 years.  It’s the “Back End” of the marketing funnel.  The “follow up” process that happens after a person meets the business for the first time.  It’s also the part that most businesses fail to properly execute and results in a great deal of missed opportunity.

I’ve detailed my system in my book “Back End Blueprint”.  I’ve broken it down into scores of products, systems and trainings that I have performed for thousands of businesses and marketing agencies around the world.

With today’s technology, business have more power, more speed, more information and more clout than ever before.

Sadly, most don’t realize it.  I am changing that.

My primary goal is to help businesses recover $100 million dollars in lost sales.  My secondary goal is to train people in need of work, such as corporate-castoffs (like me), military veterans, Moms returning to the workplace,  the skills to help the businesses in their community snatch the low hanging fruit that so many of them miss every day.

I’m pleased to say that we are off to an exceptional start!

We convert more prospects into paying customers; more customers into repeat customers; and repeat customers into champions of businesses that refer their family and friends back to those businesses.

It’s a great system leads to higher sales, higher profits, and much happier sales staff and business owners.

My name is Steve Rosenbaum.  I put businesses in front of prospects at the right time, at the right place with the right message and in the right market so that they make more sales.

And, by the way, I have a ton of fun doing it!

I’ve Helped Thousands Of Businesses Explode Their Sales & Profits.
Chances Are I Can Help You, Too

[thrive_megabutton mt=”Click Here To Learn How”  st=”” color=”blue” link=”http://zaplink.us/init-rwa” target=”_self” align=”aligncenter”]

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Congratulations! You’ve Made A Pledge To Yourself To Automate A “Rich Habit”

Tom Corley is a very interesting guy. I was asked to speak at an event at the University of North Carolina Alumni private club this past week, and Tom was the Keynote Speaker.

“Great, they asked a CPA to talk, ” I heard someone say. “Are they trying to kill us with boredom?”

8 minutes later, Tom had that guy eating his words and regretting he ever opened his mouth.

Well, Tom took the stage and began telling us  that he had been intimately studying people’s habits… Yes, I said habits.

Tom has gotten people to open up and let him into some of their deepest, darkest secrets and he has compiled a list of over 300 “Predictors” to tell you whether or not you will be successful.

You see, as it turns out, Tom has found that Rich People have a lot of similar habits.

And guess what?

Well, it also turns out that poor people have a lot of similar habits, too.

So, Tom now helps people recognize their “Poor Habits” and transform them into “Rich Habits”.

“It’s not always easy,” Tom admits. “After all, they don’t call them habits for nothing.”

Well, that really got me thinking…

You know, the truth is, I have more than my fair share of “Poor Habits”.  And I out and out put off and procrastinate things that I don’t want to do more than I wish I did.

But I do have a secret weapon… Something that saves me from myself sometimes.

It’s called automation.

Marketing automation.

You’ve always heard me say that if you set up your marketing the way that I teach you to, that it works 24/7/365.

Consistency and reliability are two of the biggest reasons that you need to automate.  Because we are all human, and we all have our “Poor Habits” that our “funnels” can save us from.

Fast forward 48 hours, and I’m writing this message to you at 35,000 feet somewhere above the state of TN.

So this excellent thought popped into my head. And since my tablet is dead, I had to grab a piece of paper to write down exactly how I was going to teach you to set up a super fast and easy funnel to make you $1000.

During my layover, I shot a quick video outlining for you the simple steps you can take today to automate a $1K funnel.

My video is short and to the point. It’s rough. No edits, I look like I’ve been travelling all day (because I have). It’s just the simple action steps that you need to put in place so that you can make money on autopilot just like I do.

So, do yourself a favor… Copy what I did. Take imperfect action.  Don’t worry about what it looks like. Get it out there, gather intelligence and make some money.  Can you get it done before the end of the day?

I bet you can!

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a.k.a. Consumption Campaign a.k.a. Customer Experience Booster

2:20 The process for mapping out a campaign
2:50 LEAC Proof Funnel™ Template

Download Xmind for free here

4:15 Goals we want to achieve

• Thank them
• Are they getting value
• Repeat sale
• Review/testimonial
• Need some help with that? (Upsell)
• Pulse check

• Satisfied?
• Not satisfied?
• No response
• How to improve (feedback/survey)
• Referral
• Tips, Educate, Engage, & Entertain (Nurture)

9:37 Start with what success looks like and work backwards
11:00 The thank you message

• Reinforce their decision
• Pulse check

Mark’s example

16:25 Accounting for no response and intelligent follow up
19:00 Nurture campaign (Evergreen)

• How to maintain
• More uses, more enjoyment
• Didja know?
• Share with us (Make a video, take pics)
• Our company in the news
• Didja know?
• Famous people who use our product
• Didja know?

24:40 Satisfied/Not satisfied?
29:00 Referrals, reviews, testimonials
30:30 Broadcast announcements/Blog posts

• Didja know?
• New products
• sales & events
• Special announcements

• trade shows
• in the news
• etc.

37:07 Seasonal reminders and events

Date or broadcast, not step

38:58 Accounting for days (Ex: 30 day warranty)
47:33 Maximizing Revenue Per Customer (RPC)
50:10 What kind of business would this work for?
53:50 This is the first step. This is the value you bring.

Can you do this?
Lay out the goals and work your way back from there by asking “What if?”
What if yes?
What if no?
What if no response?
By accounting for each of those possibilities, nobody falls through the cracks.

56:00 Getting in front of the right people
58:30 Steve’s confession

You don’t have to do prep, or examine their business, or even know their business to do this. You walk them through the process and let them give you the answers. You’re not trying to prove what they’re doing is wrong (traditional path of consultants). You’re finding their goals and outlining (defining and delivering) a process to achieve them.

File Download

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June 2013 Sunny Living (PLR)

Newsletter Envelope Template (PLR)

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