Right. Now, last week I promised to give you my first Recession Busting Secret, entitled “First Put Your Efforts Into Your Existing Clients, and Solidify Your Base!” So let’s get started.

I’ve always told my clients that one of the most important things they can do in their business BEFORE trying to find ever more new and exciting NEW clients, is to FIRST put your efforts into your existing clients, and solidify your base!

Why? Because they have already proven themselves as fans and buyers of your product, by buying from you in the past! They already know you, if you did a good job in helping fulfill their needs then they are already predisposed to do business with you again, and if you took my advice in collecting their contact details then it is much easier and cheaper to communicate with them, than to find new clients.

Now you may say that your business is different. That people don’t need to buy from you that often, if ever at all, so there’s no point keeping in contact… Not so! Never forget that not only do your past clients have family and friends who may someday want your product, and that a recommendation from a known and trusted acquaintance is always going to be better than any guarantee you could ever possibly offer, but also you never know when somebody you have sold to in the past loses/breaks etc their beloved “whatsit” and suddenly wants a new one! And you want to be sure that you’re the one to come to when they do.

Take Joe Girrard, the most successful car salesman in the world – as acknowledged in the Guiness World Book of Records. Where other car salesmen (or women) may consider selling 5-6 cars in a month a good month, Joe has consistently sold 5-6 cars a DAY for 12 years straight!!

So how does he do it? He keeps in continual contact with anyone who has ever bought a car, FOREVER! Even if you move house and don’t tell him, he’ll track you down and make sure you still get his monthly cards. So just in the off-chance that you’re ready for a new car, who are you going to think of first? Joe Girrard of course!

Losing customers through neglect or sloppiness in especially painful in tough times.  The cost of replacing them is higher and the difficulty of replacing them greater. This is the time to increase the frequency and quality of communication with customers, to reward their loyalty, to incentivise their patronage. It is amazing to me just how bad most salespeople and business owners are at this in good economic times!

Pay attention to this…. just doing what you do competently or delivering your product as agreed is NOT enough to earn your customer’s subsequent business.

And, in tough times, your competitors quickly resort to price cutting, so your customers will have cheaper prices shoved in their faces even more than usual. If you are not countering this with a “quality relationship”, you WILL lose.

Your most valuable asset, regardless of the economy, is your list of clients and prospects. Even more important is your relationship with them, and what they know you for, in other words, what makes you stand out in their mind. This is particularly true in a difficult economic climate.

The point is that preservation of your customer base and its value becomes dramatically more important the tougher the economy is. In truth, most businesses that fail, large or small, do not do so because of an inability to attract customers; they fail because of an inability to keep customers coming back.

So… If you want to survive and even thrive in these dark and dreary economic times, remember to always first put your efforts into your existing clients, and solidify your base!

And watch out for next week’s rant, where I’ll be getting down and dirty with my Recession Busting Secret #2, entitled, “Grab Your Client’s and Prospect’s Attention Using Ballsy, In Your Face Advertising.”
Have a great weekend!

All the best,

Mal Emery

Committed to Elevating the Financial Wealth and Wellbeing of Society Through Entrepreneurial Excellence and Guilty of Conspiracy to Create Capitalism

http://www.FreeGiftFromMalEmery.com

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand over the last couple of months, you will have heard the hype on the media about an impending recession, if not depression affecting Australia.

With an internationally worsening economy, legitimate factors likely to put the nation’s economy into a recession, if not depression and some of the world’s foremost economists predicting one of the largest crashes of all time, it’s time to pull your head out of the sand and prepare for what could also be one of the greatest opportunities we’ve seen.

If you don’t believe me, here are just a few disturbing facts I’ve taken from newspapers recently…

·         “Housing repossession in WA rose 51.4% in a year – 837,000 under mortgage stress” ‐ The Australian, 25/07/08

·         “Inflation rose 4.5% in the June quarter – highest since December 1995” ‐ The West Australian, 24/07/08

·         “10s of 1000s of Australians forced to delay retirement after superannuation funds suffer their worst year ever” ‐ The Australian, 29/07/08

·         “Housing values plunge Australia wide – equal to The Great Depression 1929” ‐ The Sunday Times, 13/07/08

·         “Land sales tipped to dive nearly 40%” ‐ The West Australian, 12/07/08

In fact it gets worse. There were 25,981 bankruptcies in the past financial year, just 400 fewer than in1998‐99 the highest year on record...

The late billionaire shipping tycoon, Aristotle Onasis once said, “The secret to massive success, is to know something that nobody else knows”. I would add “Never truer, in difficult economic times”.  In a recession, or depression, if some of the pundits are correct, you will be able to divide the population financially into two chunks...

The ones with money, and the ones without.

Your mission is to be the last and least affected by any adverse economic conditions beyond your control. Of course, the majority of the population will be the first and most affected by any downturn in the economy.

You, of course, have a choice of which group you wish to be in. By reading this, you will have already taken a gigantic step forward. Because here, I reveal the VERY strategies and tactics necessary to not only ride out the difficult times ahead, but actually prosper beyond your wildest dreams. And this may very well be the most important information you have ever been lucky enough to read.

If you’re still sitting there thinking “this financial crisis is a load of baloney”, then time will tell. I, of course, would take the view that I’d rather be prepared regardless of the result, good or bad. After all, some of the worst predictions of the 20th Century were…

·         “I advise people not to invest in Henry Ford’s company because the horse is here to stay.” – The President of Michigan Savings Bank

·         “You will never amount to much.”  - A Munich school teacher to 10 year old Albert Einstein

·         “Groups of guitars are on their way out and we don’t like their sound.”  - a Decca Recording Company executive rejecting a British Rock group in 1962 – he was talking about the Beatles!

·         “Television won’t be able to hold on to the market; people will quickly tire of staring at a small box.” Darryl F. Zanuck, boss of 20th Century Fox in 1946

Perhaps the most telling prediction of the last century, came just before The Great Depression. Also known as The Lesson From Black Tuesday, millions of people lost billions of dollars on 29th October 1929. Here’s what President Hoover said 5 days earlier…

“The fundamental business of the country, that is, the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.”

Obviously this wasn’t actually the case. A newsflash from the 29^th October 1929 states…

 “Stock prices slumped $14 billion in nationwide stampeed unload!”

With that in mind, I am going to be very blunt and straightforward. I believe business as we know it is threatened as we enter increasingly uncertain times.

It is important that you and I do not make this worse than it need be for ourselves or for those who depend on us letting concerns of a recession permeate our everyday happenings. As an entrepreneur and business owner your attitude and behaviour is as important as what is happening in itself. The only thing we have complete control of in the world is...

How we choose to react to information or events.

Your responsibilities have not changed one iota, nor should these events be allowed to rob you of any income you have worked tirelessly to engineer. We are on a whole, easily distracted from our responsibilities, in fact many people secretly welcome every excuse to escape their daily routine in favour of the nearest drama, be it Hollywood trivia or who is going to be the next President of the United States!

It is a tragedy that those with a weak emotional constitution are legitimately incapacitated by “other people’s pain” virtually frozen and incapacitated by imagined fear.

My challenge to you as entrepreneur, business owner, corporate executive and working class folk is to ignore distraction and stay focused on only those things you do have some say in.

Anyway, these “7 Recession Busting Secrets” can be used in virtually any type of business. It won’t matter if it is online or offline, retail or wholesale, service or distribution. I’ve owned 25+ businesses myself, and coached in 100+ categories, so I should know.

In fact, I’ve proven that they work. The only thing stopping them working for you, will be you.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be revealing my “7 Recession Busting Secrets”… Secrets that you can use to recession-proof your business, survive and even thrive in any economic climate. These are practical, highly-effective recession busting secrets that have made millions of dollars for me, my clients and may soon make you a fortune too if you use them… or soon make you broke if you don’t.

Be sure to keep an eye out for my 1st Recession Busting Secret which I’ll send next week… Entitled “First Put Your Efforts Into Your Existing Clients, and Solidify Your Base!”

All the best,

Mal Emery

Committed to Elevating the Financial Wealth and Wellbeing
of Society Through Entrepreneurial Excellence
and Guilty of Conspiracy to Create Capitalism

http://www.FreeGiftFromMalEmery.com

Let’s begin with an autobiography in 5 chapters.

CHAPTER ONE

I walked down the street. There’s a huge hole in the side walk. I fall in it. It’s not my fault. It takes forever to get out.

CHAPTER TWO

I walk down the same street. There’s a huge hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in it again. I can’t believe I’m in the same hole. But it’s not my fault. It takes a long time to get out.

CHAPTER THREE

I walk down the same street. There’s a huge hole in the sidewalk. I see it. I fall in. It’s a habit. But my eyes are open. I know where I am. I admit it’s my fault. I get out immediately.

CHAPTER FOUR

I walk down the same street. There’s a huge hole in the sidewalk. I WALK AROUND IT.

CHAPTER FIVE

I walk down a DIFFERENT street.

(Courtesy of Dr Herbert True, Notre Dame University and Dan Kennedy)

I’ve often make the analogy in my seminars of how an elephant is tethered to a tiny stake at a circus. Yet we know that same elephant could easily tear it out of the ground and create havoc.

You see, at a very early age, that elephant was tethered to the ground with a super heavy chain to a big immovable iron stake. He tries, and tries again and again to move it, and he strains to break free until he ultimately stops trying and accepts his fate.

Then, as a powerful fully grown elephant, he continues to believe he cannot break free as long as he sees he’s tethered to a stake in the ground beside him.

The analogy I refer to is comparing our own negative programming and the effects it has on us. After all, we’ve all run into our share of it along the way from our peers.

Money would have to be one of the biggest of all hang-ups, comments from our family or peers such as “money doesn’t grow on trees”, “do you think I’m made of money”, “Rich people rip people off” and “You need money to make money”.

Although possibly well meaning at the time, it’s this sort of negative programming that’s seen more people have more hang-ups about money than they do about sex.

In a business sense, one of the biggest hang-ups I’m confronted with is…”My Business is DIFFERENT!”

Too many entrepreneurs are circus elephants!

Immensely powerful, but stuck within their own limitations founded only on their own beliefs, bias and opinions.

This stuff, emotional direct response marketing, certainly can work on your business, irrespective of what business you’re in – provided you’re the RIGHT person, at the RIGHT time, hearing the RIGHT information.

I’ve never seen an exception.

If you choose, you can be the biggest obstacle to your success, if you allow your own ego, bias and opinions to get in the way of the truth.

Success in business is mechanical process, the stuff holding you back is your own B.S.

Committed to Multiplying Your Profits and Guilty of Conspiracy to Commit Capitalism,

Mal Emery

http://www.FreeGiftFromMalEmery.com

In a sense there’s a degree of risk getting out of bed in the morning. From a business perspective if you choose to stand out and walk the path less traveled risk is always present. What I advocate is being a business person first and an entrepreneur second, what that means is evaluate everything you do in business based on the likely consequences of what you do, instead of just charging ahead in the name of entrepreneurialism. I suspect that being an entrepreneur is not a valid defense. There is a need to be responsible.

Therefore entrepreneurs don’t take risks so much as they manage it even though they are at risk, it comes with the territory and so does the benefits.

I’m personally taking risk in the business sense every day on many fronts. With sending out an email like this, there is risk. Maybe it’ll offend somebody. Although I manage that very well because I don’t really give a damn. The array of joint ventures I undertake bring with them a high degree of risk. When I finally succumbed to the notion that there was a practical way to have my own Mal Emery type coaches spreading the word via Streetsmart Business Builders run by John Denton there is risk. Many in fact, but also many potential rewards. It’s a managed risk that I’m willing to take.

Even I don’t get it right. A different joint venture that I went in to has not worked out how both parties had planned has caused me a great deal of anxiety and a visit or two to my lawyer recently. This was in spite of all my best efforts to the contrary.

Every time I take on a client and allow their problems to become mine, there is risk. After all, like any sportsperson you’re only as good as your next performance. And guess who they blame. In fact I’ve had a few of them this week. Just serves to remind me the worst thing about mentoring clients is the client.

‘Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men?’

Some will attempt to slime you with guilt. Not withstanding you exhibit initiative and they exhibit none. They will attempt to guilt you into feeling queasy and uncomfortable with your own success, in order to bring you down a peg or two so they feel better. Whatever you do, do not welcome them into your mind.

My buffoon filters have become well defined over the years but every so often one slips through, eager to abdicate all responsibility.

Then there’s the ever-increasing red tape bestowed upon business by bureaucratic no hopers who have never risked or spent a cent of their own money in their life in the pursuit of entrepreneurial success. And yet make and enforce the rules with immunity. You go figure.

A foe not to be forgotten is your competitor. In my experience that’s where most of your complaints stem from. Particularly if you’ve climbed high up the ladder of success, because that’s where your bum really hangs out.

Committed to Elevating the Financial Wealth and Wellbeing of Society Through Entrepreneurial Excellence and Guilty of Conspiracy to Create Capitalism,

Mal Emery

Enrich the Mind and the Bank Account by visiting My Website http://www.malemery.com/

My favourite way to avoid price resistance is to use the apples to oranges comparison formula as opposed to apples to apples. The reality is of course you can’t compare apples to oranges of course because they’re totally different.

That’s how you want to make it seem to your prospects so that they’re never comparing you apples to
apples with a competitor.

For example….when offering information products we’re continually looking at ways to add value. Sometimes it’s as simple as a transcription of a CD quickly turned into a manual and CD package. We prefer to turn it into a manual because a book is easily compared to another book…and books are worth $20 to $30 as opposed to a manual which could easily be valued at 5 times that amount. Besides, we now have a pack to offer, not just a CD.

If you try and deal with price resistance by arguing in favor of your higher quality, your better service, etc… you’ll find it difficult to make sales most of the time.

People DO want superior quality goods and services, but are still not keen to pay premium prices for the privilege.

Many marketers fight this battle unnecessarily – it is much easier and much more effective to switch the standards of comparison. For example, winning by comparing oranges to apples and then throwing in the superior quality at no extra cost.

When you’re in a head to head battle selling situation with a competitor, this technique can still be used.

Recently when consulting to a client who‘re-manufactures’ car parts to shiny new, we were faced with this apples to apples competitive bidding warfare. Simply it was too easy to be compared to a competitor. Something had to change, and it did!

Simply, I switched them to the customer loyalty model of when you buy 5 the 6th one’s free. This was regardless of how long it took them to buy 5 units – a tally was kept. What it did was get the buyers excited and eager to order more and more with a prospect of getting the 6th one free. And more importantly keeping all the profit on the 6th purchase.

Clearly we were no longer comparing apples to apples…it was now apples to oranges with outrageous financial reward to my clients. The competitors are still trying to work out what happened – in fact…they think my clients gone nuts….yeah…all the way to the bank.

Where possible, never allow your product to be compared apples to apples. The ease of the sale will depend upon it.

Committed to Elevating the Financial Wealth and Wellbeing of Society Through Entrepreneurial Excellence and Guilty of Conspiracy to Create Capitalism,

Mal Emery

Enrich the Mind and the Bank Account by visiting My Online Store http://www.malemerystore.com