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Here's How To Create A Hot Selling Information Product On Any Subject Almost Instantly... In Just 3 Hours! |
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I absolutely enjoy talking with intelligent young people with an entrepreneurial spirit! Although being an entrepreneur may be innate to their personalities, they may not have had the opportunity to study the “in’s and out’s” of various aspects of operating a successful business. When this is the case, their minds are like sponges when I give them advice or spring new ideas on them that could help them or at least to get them into the habit of thinking in different ways.
Here is an interview/consultation that I did with Kyle. Kyle is a burgeoning cartoonist and illustrator based in southern California. He and I had talked before about his business and he was just touching base with me about an absolutely new business idea that he came up with as well as the state of his cartoonist business.
Listen to his innovative idea about joint venturing with florists to sell more flowers during the usually slower times of the year. We discussed sales letters, who to mail the letters to in a test, and an inexpensive way to obtain leads for your test mailing. By measuring and analyzing the test results, Kyle’s system could be presented to local florists. You will hear my suggestion about creating an information product that could be sent to florists all around the country presenting successful joint ventures.
You will also hear about utilizing a 100% online service offered by the United States Postal Service whereby you provide them with your sales letter and your database of leads. The Post Office will then print the letters, stuff them into windowed envelopes, and send them to the people in your database.
The remaining portion of the recording deals with Kyle’s cartoonist and illustration business. He was in a quandary because, since his niche is making presentations to school assemblies, times are very slow in the summer when school is not in session.
I give him some ideas: |
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- Approaching private summer camps to make presentations or conduct classes.
- Creating joint ventures with other people doing assemblies in non-competitive industries to endorse one another to each person’s customer list.
- How Kyle could offer private or group illustration lessons by making calls to his existing customer list.
- Possible side businesses and joint venturing to fill the gap until schools are back in session.
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Right now, the sky is the limit with Kyle. He told me that he was going to follow through with some of the ideas we talked about and promised to get back to me with his stories of success. This recording is 25 minutes long.
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Michael: I want to do recordings. A couple of things I know you emailed me about your idea for the flowers.
Kyle: That probably is the biggest thing.
Michael: Tell me what this idea is and how it came about.
Kyle: I went to Jay Conrad Livingston’s site, and then I was reading the daily tips.
Michael: Did you sign up with him?
Kyle: I signed up for the weekly tips. I didn’t sign up for the association. So, he had one guy and he said that during the slow season of his flower shop, which was January for him, he would put a sign outside that said, “How made is she?” So, he said that his business just totally went up during that month because of that sign.
Michael: Because people were curious and they came in the store?
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: So, he had put the sign out and it said, “How mad is she?”
Kyle: Yes, and so I figured out that was called the Ziegernick affect.
Michael: What is that affect supposed to be?
Kyle: Basically, an unfinished thought in the brain that makes the person want to know more. I was laying in bed and this thought I came to me, and I said, “Why instead of just having a sign, don’t we send a letter to businessmen at the office?” And, then basically just use that as a headline and then going into selling them on the fact that the best time to give flowers is just random, but no one ever thinks to do it.
Michael: Yeah, selling flowers direct mail, that may be a good idea. So, you wanted to test the idea, see if it works, and then license that method for selling flowers to the florists.
Kyle: Well, I don’t know how I would do it. Would I license it?
Michael: Well, I would think that if you’ve got a letter that could produce a result, and you could show that that letter pulls in a certain amount of dollar sales and profit for every letter mailed, if it’s such a winning letter, and it “pays out” meaning if you mail a hundred letters, it makes you a hundred dollars in profit through the sales of flower whether that’s your commission from a flower store that you make an arrangement for, or whether you’re the supplier of flowers or whether you’re selling flowers through direct mail or whatever. The letter being mailed out in an automatic fashion, if it wins and produces a result that’s profitable, you’re sitting on a gold mine.
That’s one way you can take that method. You could do it yourself, document, have some case studies. Let’s say you had four or five flower shops that you let try this method in their geographical area and you said, “I’ll give you the rights to use this. In exchange, you’ll pay for the mailing or we’ll split the cost of the mailing.” You could test maybe a hundred pieces or 200 pieces to businessmen in a geographical area right around the flower shop. You can measure the results. On the letter, you’ll have some kind of coupon that will have them bring it in, so the results can be measured. They can test the results conclusively. Then, you can look at the profit.
You could have four or five case studies, and in trade for you allowing them to do this, a couple of things come to mind. You can share in the profits if you make this arrangement, but one thing to get it going is you tell the flower store owners that you’ll do this, but you have to give them permission to use their case study and you’ll have to allow them to be interviewed about the success of this method. So, you could use that to promote it to other flower stores around the country. That may be a great idea.
If you could get five people to agree and they have the success, I’d be willing to do interviews for you, a ten minute interview with four or five different flower shop owners and you’ll have yourself a nice audio product or you can transcribe it and have a written product that can be designed into a sales letter to sell the system to other people for some good upfront money or you having the letter and not letting that out to the flower owners is pretty powerful, and you could keep control and handle all the mailing and just approach flower store owners and say, “Hey, I’ve got a way that will double your flower sales with absolutely no effort on your part. I’ll product you the result. All you’ve got to do is be able to keep up with the supply and we have a way to measure it.” You just set up joint ventures where they pay you a percentage. Do you like that?
Kyle: Yeah, that’s a good way.
Michael: Keep the intellectual property of the letter, but there’s always a possibility the flower store owner may get the letter when the guy brings it in and your secret will be exposed.
Kyle: It’s like what Jay Conrad Livingston said. He said, “You can’t be scared of somebody stealing it because no one will know what to do with it once they have it.”
Michael: That is true. They have to know who to mail it out to, how to mail it out. I’ll just give you one idea. If you want to do this and test it, I would test it by using an effortless way to mail and that’s using the United States Post Office online mailing system. So, you can do a simple one page letter and you can design it in Microsoft Word, and you can have your database. You order your leads. So, you get businessmen in a certain geographical area around the flower store. That may be the prospects.
You get the data – the name, address, city, state, zip code. You upload the database into the US Post Office system. You upload your word file, click the button, pay with your credit card – Boom! The letter goes out in a double window envelope, one page tri-folded. You don’t touch a thing. It’s all mailed automatically.
I’ll send you a link on my site at
HardToFindSeminars.com. If you go to the products page, on the left hand side in light blue, there’s a section called, “Michael Recommends”. These are all my tools and resources that I recommend and it’s the United States Post Office. You’ll see a description for it, and if you click on it, it will take you right to the place to get signed up. Kyle, I’m telling you it is beautiful.
I’m now looking for more pre-owned Jay Abraham stuff, and I just sent 600 of them out yesterday all through this online system. It is awesome. So, when you’re looking at doing a mailing like this whether it’s for your flowers or for anything, you want something that you don’t have to screw around with licking envelopes, stuffing. This is just effortless, automatic.
Now, there is a couple of negatives, but I think the positives will outweigh the negatives. The negative is it doesn’t put a live stamp on it. It’s a window envelope, which isn’t that big of a negative. It allows you to do a return address with your address city state and zip code. If you want a name on there, you can put it, but sometimes having the curiosity effect will help you get the thing opened. And, they just do a stamp that says, “pre-sorted first class.” It’s not a live stamp, but it’s like a black square and it says, “pre-sorted first class.” So, it doesn’t have that look and personal feel of that Gary Halbert A-Pile mail, but still the ease and the effortlessness I think makes up for that.
Kyle: Yeah, it’s something that I don’t have to do while I’m doing my drawing.
Michael: Absolutely. All you need is your database and your Microsoft Word and a credit card. They don’t rip you off. They charge you just actual postage and the fulfillment fees are very reasonable. You could also do postcards through that system as well. So, there’s a simple way to get the letter out, and now your only thing is test it.
I’ll give you another resource. You would need to buy leads in a geographical area, right? Do you have an idea where you would get those? Do you have any software that has that or would you need a supplier for the leads?
Kyle: I think I would use Dun & Bradstreet.
Michael: I’ve got a lady, and I’ll email you her name and her number. Now, the biggest lead compiler in the world at this time is InfoUSA, and if you go to
InfoUSA.com, you can find all kinds of mailing lists, especially lists like that where you’re just getting business people. There’s all kinds of lists. You can get anything you want there, but it could be pretty expensive maybe 15-20-25 cents a lead depending on how many you’re getting.
But, I’ve got a lady who can get that for you for about half the price, and InfoUSA has a product called ReferenceUSA which is their same exact database that libraries across the country subscribe to. So, people can go into the library and pull down 50 to 100 leads for free. It’s part of the service that the library provides the public, but the library pays for the subscription and they can’t be taken advantage of because it’s limited to the number of leads you can download.
But, she’ll go into the library and do multiple downloads and sell you the leads for a lot less money, and I’ll email you her name and number.
Kyle: Okay.
Michael: I like the idea. If you do put the letter together, send it to me, and I would recommend that you keep it short and sweet.
Kyle: I wrote it.
Michael: Okay, what have you got?
Kyle: It’s only one page long, but it was pretty nice. It has looking up where you can buy a wholesale flowers. Just enough to send out a hundred letters.
Michael: We’re in the same city. You’ve got all kinds of these little Mexican flower stands all over the place. Can’t you find one of the owners of these flower stands and send it out in a geographical area right around them? Just pick one to do a test. Say, “How would you like to have more sales in flowers?” And, you just tell them what you want to do. You want to try and build their business through a letter that you want to send out to people right around your flower stand, and “I wanted to let you know I’d like to do this, but you need to be ready to supply the flowers for these customers. Are you willing to do it?” Why would they say no?
If you’re mailing out to a geographical location, you can use the name of the flower store, and you can say, “We’re the one that looks like a shack right in front of the Target store.” So, you can identify who they are. So, the people in the area will know exactly what flower place you’re talking about.
Do you know of a couple right in your area?
Kyle: Yeah, I know of some.
Michael: Yeah, they’re all over the place. So, pick one and stop by and go talk to the owner, or call information. See if you can get the owner by phone. It may take you five to get one to say yes, but all you want is a test. That may be a great idea.
Now, a direct mail letter, all you can do is try it. There may not be enough margins in it. What does a thing of flowers sell for? A hundred letters is going to cost you about $50 to send out, and you get one percent which in some cases could be pretty good for a direct mail project. One guy comes in with the coupon and buys a thing of flowers for $16, and it’s a loser. If you get two percent, it’s still a loser. If you get three percent, it’s still a loser.
You’re going to need something like five percent response to make a profit at least on the front-end. You’ve got to test it and make sure it works, that’s all.
Kyle: Well, my cartoon business, either it’s just because it’s slow since it’s summer and I’m trying to figure out how I can get more business.
Michael: Why can’t you do shows for camps?
Kyle: Because they all bring in their own people.
Michael: To do illustration.
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: Do the camps have illustrators to do this?
Kyle: Yes, not good ones.
Michael: Well, have you every approached camps? They bring in their own people, but why not have them bring in you. Do you mean the people that they bring in they don’t have to pay for them?
Kyle: I don’t think so. A lot of them are just volunteer parents who took an art class in college.
Michael: How do you know camps bring in all their own people? What are you basing it on?
Kyle: I’m basing it on just what I’ve read on their website.
Michael: You’ve been to multiple camps and you see that they have illustration as one of their things.
Kyle: Yeah, they’re just volunteers and they’re usually a parent or somebody like that.
Michael: I would check into it, especially camps. My kid’s in camp. They go on field trips every week. They go to the science center. They go to the park. They’re always looking for stuff to do with the kids. It sounds like a great thing, and I would certainly send that letter out to some of the camps. We’re about halfway finished with the camp this year, but I don’t see why camps wouldn’t do it. I would definitely explore that further.
Kyle: What type of camp are they in?
Michael: He’s in a private camp.
Kyle: Okay.
Michael: But, there’s private camp all over the place. There’s got to be hundreds of them.
Kyle: I wasn’t going to those ones. I was going to like the camp down at the park and rec.
Michael: No, I’m talking about private camps. Look, what happens when kids are out of school for the summer?
Kyle: I don’t know. I thought they were in the Y and stuff.
Michael: Well, the Y is one option, but there’s private camps. They’re expensive as hell too. They’re paid camps. You pay thousands of bucks over the summer to put your kid in camp. There’s surfing camps. There’s art camps. There’s baseball camps. There’s sport camps. There’s science camps. There’s all kinds of camps.
You could search Google and type in “camp San Diego”, find out what you come up with. And, camp isn’t like curriculum where they’re studying all this stuff in school. It’s all play stuff, all creative, all arts and crafts. You just give your letter to the camp administrator, the same thing with school. I think that would be perfect.
I may be wrong. You’re going to have to research it, but yeah, camps.
Kyle: I didn’t know there were private ones.
Michael: No, and YMCA, that’s not free. That costs money. All those YMCA programs cost money. Possibly, if you wanted to, you may be able to get involved with the YMCA and offer that as one of the camps for the school illustration. You can check with them on that.
Kyle: That’s a good idea.
Michael: But, your letter – you should be able to do the same thing for the school as it does for the camp. It doesn’t matter that it’s a school or camp. You’re offering something to teach and entertain the kids. It may be a little too late this summer, but you can do the research this summer. You still have time. You can probably get a letter out in the mail in the next few days. But, next year certainly you should plan on that.
Kyle: Okay, I’ll do that.
Michael: So, you’ve got to ask yourself, “Where are kids during the summer?” And, still a lot of kids are in summer school, too. I know there’s still kids in school. The public schools aren’t still open, but you’ve got to ask yourself, “What are the kids doing all summer? Where are they?”
Kyle: The other thing is I want to figure out other ways to get business than just a letter because I’ve been going on school websites like the PTAs and the PTOs. They’re the ones that book me, and they’re all asking questions and then they’re responding and saying, “Well, our school gets slammed with a bunch of solicitations from people wanting to do assemblies. So, it shouldn’t be hard for you to find new people to do them for you.”
But, I’m thinking if they’re getting slammed, I have to go in with some sort of unconventional way to really make the thing hit.
Michael: You’re saying you want a different way other than the letter.
Kyle: Yes, I want more I guess what Jay calls fillers. There’s a few magazines, but they’re just so expensive to advertise in.
Michael: Right, joint ventures. So, go look in the back of magazines and see who else is doing something for the school. Then, what you need is you want to try and get so warm referrals. I don’t know what magazines you’re looking in, maybe the family magazines.
Kyle: I was looking in Principal and PTO Today.
Michael: Who’s advertising in there?
Kyle: I don’t know I haven’t got an issue. I’ve just been reading their website.
Michael: You’ve got to find out whoever is already in front of the schools doing assemblies with a non-competing thing. Give me an example of another assembly that the school’s pay for other than your illustration.
Kyle: See, here’s the thing. I have a guy in Michigan. He’s in charge of booking people all over Southern California.
Michael: For?
Kyle: For an agency. He works for an agency and he books the assembly down here. So, I keep trying to tell him you either upsell your clients to me after you’ve sold them on theirs because they’re not buying the full years worth of assemblies. They’re just buying one or two from him, but I would give him $150 a sale because that’s what he makes for his regular ones, and he won’t do it.
Michael: He’s not a prospect, next. Who else do the schools book for assemblies? What other type assemblies are schools having?
Kyle: There’s tons of them.
Michael: Like what?
Kyle: There’s undersea slide shows. There’s science ones. There’s space ones. There’s magicians. There’s clowns. There’s things like that.
Michael: A lot of people would think that these are your competitors, but these people can also be partners of yours, and it could go two ways. Let’s say you met a clown and they’re being booked all over at different schools. One very simple way is you can approach them, explain that you do illustrations. You and them share a very common business. You both do assemblies at school. How would you like to trade customer lists? Or how would you like to get each other business? And, here’s how it works.
You would have to have some trust at first, but it can be very simple and really powerful. You could say that you’ll send out a letter to your customer list endorsing you. You’ll endorse the clown, and that clown has to agree to do the same thing for you. You would just match your list and make sure you’re not sending out to schools they’re already doing business with.
So, you approach them and say, “How’s business? Isn’t it hard getting new business, new accounts?” And, just say, “Look, I’ve got this crazy idea. Let me run this by you. You’re in schools that I’m not in. I’ve been in schools that you’re not in. Why don’t we trade customer lists? I’ll endorse your clown business to the administrators that I’ve done assemblies for, and then you endorse my illustration that you’ve done assemblies for, and we can work together. We can also each include a flier when we do our assemblies endorsing each other. So, in essence, we’re both promoting each other as a trade.” Does that sound powerful?
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: You do that with the clowns. You could approach the science people. Whoever is doing assemblies, they’re all small businesses just like you. They’re all having a hard time. They’re all facing the pain and agony of getting new clients. You just approach them. Tell them who you are. You’re all in a fraternity, you know. Isn’t that a lot better than going cold?
Kyle: Yeah, it is.
Michael: You said your letter was affective. You letter was a winning letter during the school year, right?
Kyle: Yeah, it is, but at the same time, I don’t have the money to roll it out to get my maximum number of assemblies.
Michael: To mail the letter?
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: How many letters would you need to mail out to max it out?
Kyle: I’m not sure.
Michael: How many schools are there that you would mail to that are potential prospects for you?
Kyle: Well, there’s prospects nationwide, and there’s 50,000 at least.
Michael: But, you’re talking about going locally, physically doing them, right?
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: Just in the San Diego area, or are you talking about selling your information products?
Kyle: I’m talking about doing assemblies, going and visiting schools.
Michael: All right, then you’re not going nationwide. You’re just interested here.
Kyle: No, I am going nationwide.
Michael: Oh, you’re ready to go nationwide?
Kyle: Yeah, I have something set up in Indiana for March.
Michael: Are you going to fly out there to do an assembly?
Kyle: I’ve been to Arizona.
Michael: Oh, I didn’t know you’re flying nationally. What’s the minimum amount of people you’d go out to do it? How much are you going to make on an assembly like in Arizona?
Kyle: Well, it depends because the schools will pay travel. When I do the ones in Arizona, I got $897. That covered all the travel, and then it’s $500 which is what I was charging out here.
Michael: Well, that’s a simple one hour flight.
Kyle: The Indiana one I have five schools paying.
Michael: Five schools in Indiana?
Kyle: Yes, and it’s a three day thing.
Michael: Okay, so you’ll go out there for three days. Well, that’s pretty good. How did you land that one?
Kyle: I just mailed my letter out, and then I just called the other ones around it.
Michael: Oh, you said you’re going to be out doing an assembly for this school, would you like to book me while I’m in town?
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: Perfect. So, you can go national. Have you milked San Diego County?
Kyle: Because the San Diego County ones don’t book assemblies.
Michael: They don’t book assemblies?
Kyle: No.
Michael: What do you mean they don’t book? You were booking them last year, weren’t you?
Kyle: Not the ones in San Diego. I was doing a lot of Anaheim and Orange County.
Michael: I see, and it’s just their policy. They don’t pay for outside assemblies.
Kyle: Well, they do, but they use the ones that they’ve been using for 20 years.
Michael: Okay. So, hit Anaheim. Do stuff that’s close by. There must be hundreds of schools just in Anaheim.
Kyle: Well, yeah, obviously I do mainly here, but the fact of the matter is it’s getting them to call. I want the letter to pull more.
Michael: Did you figure out what the letter was pulling?
Kyle: Probably getting five or six percent.
Michael: So, for every you send out, you can get five replies and how many will you book about?
Kyle: Probably two or three.
Michael: What’s wrong with that? So, fifty bucks to mail a letter, and you’re going to book three assemblies that are easily going to make you $1,500. That’s pulling ten times cost.
Kyle: I know, but I’m greedy and I want to be able to 200 assemblies.
Michael: But, your thing is cash flow. Cash flow isn’t there. So, you’ve got to wait until the assemblies are scheduled and done, and you don’t have any cash right now to spend.
Kyle: Pretty much. Just because of my insurance, messing up my knees, that all being expensive, and general living expenses.
Michael: Well, you need someone to back you. You need an investor. Or you can do t the hard way. You’ve got to put in your time and just make the phone calls yourself, but if you’ve got a letter that’s doing five percent, your parents, will they lend you money?
Kyle: They might. I don’t know.
Michael: Your parents, are they supportive of what you’re doing?
Kyle: They are now. They weren’t in the beginning, but now they are.
Michael: Have you ever borrowed money from them?
Kyle: No, I took myself out of their wallets when I was fifteen, sixteen.
Michael: But, you live at home, right?
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: You’re not working during the summer?
Kyle: No, not enough. I actually just went to the Boy Scouts. They’re trying to approve my flier, and I was actually going to call them when I’m off the phone with you to see if they’ll approve it. Basically, it’s one of Brian Voyles letters that got 36 percent. I transformed it from a birthday letter to the Cub Scouts.
Michael: How about private lessons? Have you ever thought of that?
Kyle: I have, but I don’t know where to do it.
Michael: You can meet at the library. There’s libraries everywhere. Quiet, bring your pad and paper, public place, meet at a library, wherever they are. There’s libraries everywhere.
Kyle: Okay.
Michael: Who could you approach on private lessons? And, again, I would go get that family magazine. It’s just chock full of ads. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Kyle: I have that magazine. I always wanted to advertise in it.
Michael: So, go look in the back and see who’s giving private lessons for something, whether it’s private singing lessons or private dance lessons. You call these business owners up and just explain what you’re doing and make them offer. Say, “Look, I’ve got a really great way to get business for you and new business for me. Let me introduce myself.” And, tell them what you do. Say, “I’ve been giving illustration assemblies all over the country for X amount of years, and I’m now doing private lessons during the summer.”
It may take ten calls to get one, but if you find someone who likes the idea, and they’ve already got students, and the student has a talent for something.
Kyle: How much would I charge for that?
Michael: For private drawing lessons, what do you think would be worth your time to go out and meet with a kid and do a private hour illustration lesson?
Kyle: Well, right now, I’m worth anything.
Michael: Well, I think $30 an hour is fair.
Kyle: Okay, I’ve never taken them. So, I don’t know.
Michael: Call up and see what private dance lessons cost, see what private music lessons cost.
Kyle: Okay.
Michael: Find out what tutoring cost. It should be at least $15 an hour, but selling it an hour at a time is not a good idea. You want to sell it like a six week session, just like a physical trainer. Yeah, you want to sell a package. You don’t want to just sell it an hour at a time. They sign up with you, it’s for six sessions, twenty bucks a session. That’s $120.
Now, you’re doing onesy, onesy which isn’t near as effective as doing your groups, but I’m just thinking of something that you can make some cash with and maybe that’s not a good leverage of your time.
Kyle: Well, it could be just for now because it’s in the summer, and I need money until August. Basically, when August comes, I’m fine. Right now, I’m just kind of bored with not being able to present. So, that’s that.
Michael: Do you have a list of names you can mail your letter to for assemblies?
Kyle: Yeah.
Michael: Would people respond to them during the summer?
Kyle: No, see that’s the thing. The post office holds all school mail until the school’s back in session because no one’s at the school to receive it. So, you have to mail it right at the beginning of the year.
Michael: I’ve got an idea for you. Do you know that computer cleaning letter in the back of the Ad Magic book?
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: Do you remember – if you look at the response on that letter, it was astronomical. Everyone has a computer. I’m looking at mine, and it’s disgusting. People’s computers need to be cleaned of dust every couple of months. Maybe you can do that as a side business. The letter’s already written. Test it out even if you have to go around to businesses and put fliers on the door. See if you can get some computer cleaning gigs.
Kyle: I can put an ad in the Computer Edge Magazine.
Michael: Use direct mail, that was a direct mail piece, and it’s already written. Go read through it and look at the response it produced. Figure out how he did. All you’ve got to do is get the guy’s computer, open it up. Could you figure out how to clean a computer?
Kyle: Probably.
Michael: You just take it, and you get the canned air, and you blow it. But, you’ve got to figure out what you’re doing, and you’ve got to figure out how to effectively clean a computer. I can give you my computer guy’s name, and he’ll tell you how to do it.
Kyle: Yeah, my friend built my entire computer. So, now I know how to open it up, go in there, remove the dust from the fans.
Michael: Here’s an idea. You go to anyone who builds computer, who has a customer list, and say, “How would you like me to come help you sell some of your computer services?” All you do is you tell him to give you his customer list and let me mail out this computer cleaning letter.
So, you mail it out on your behalf. It’s a proven letter. “I’ll go out and clean the client’s computer, and while I’m there I’m sure they’ll start asking me questions about other services and products and features that I’ll pitch on your behalf, and then we can split the profit if it brings you any business.” How about that?
Kyle: That’s pretty simple to do.
Michael: There’s all kinds of people building computers. Say, “I’ve got a way for you to get more business.” I’m just trying to throw some ideas at you. All of them have to do with joint ventures and accessing someone else’s database and someone else’s list, but I gave that to my computer cleaners. “You want to make some money? Here’s a proven letter.” Go look back in that book so you can try that.
Kyle: Okay.
Michael: The best investment you can do is learning that Ad Magic course and learning how to write a kick-ass sales letter. Then, you can sell anything. As long as you can write copy, and you know how to do it, you can sell anything. It doesn’t matter. You can sell it all by mail.
Kyle: Yeah, I’m going to look at the computer cleaning thing and figure out exactly what I would need to do, and I am also going to try to do the thing in the library. I know some parents have asked me before if I do private ones, but I never had an idea of where to hold them.
Michael: Do you have the list of all the kids who filled out your little form?
Kyle: Yeah, I have probably five or six hundred kids on that.
Michael: All right here in San Diego? You can get on the phone and start calling these parents and say, “This is Kyle. Your kid filled out the form for my illustration club. I’m going to be doing a private drawing lesson at this private library.” Make it geographical and, “I’d like to invite Johnny to come. It’s going to be a two hour session. It’s $30. We’ll have other kids there, and I wanted to give you an invite.”
Kyle: Okay.
Michael: There’s your customers. They’re there. Parents are looking for stuff to do with their kids during the summer.
Kyle: Okay, and actually I can get them in the morning.
Michael: You can start calling them tomorrow and just say you’re doing a private exclusive illustration class at whatever, find a place, or what you can do, you can approach the parent and if they’re willing to host the drawing class at their house, then you’ve got a place to do it, and you let that kid go free and you invite other kids.
Kyle: That’s a good idea.
Michael: You can say, “As a host, your kid gets to go free. We’ll provide snacks and maybe a lunch or something.” Maybe you can order a pizza or something. So, the host family provides maybe a pizza and lunch and their kid gets to sit in on an illustration class. That’s an idea. I don’t know.
Kyle: I think that’s a good idea.
Michael: Then, you’ve got a place. You’ve got someone to buy pizza. You give them a free illustration. You invite the kid to the class. So, it’s more like an afternoon or morning event where other kids can interact with you and stuff. That would be cool. You can start that tomorrow.
Kyle: Yes.
Michael: Your customers are right there. They’re looking for stuff to do with their kids. So, make it worth your while. Then, figure if you can set one of these up. Every day you get five kids to come or six kids, I mean $20 a kids, and then you knock it out all at once. That would be great. Get ten kids, that’s $200 for an afternoon. If you have to call 30 parents, why not? If they’re not sure about the time, say, “What would be the best time?”
Kyle: Okay, I’m going to do that.
Michael: Do it and call me back, I want to hear the results.
Kyle: All right, I will.
Michael: All right, Kyle.
Kyle: Have a good one.
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