I have looked for a way to be incredibly successful as an internet marketer for years. But when I discovered talk fusion everything changed...kinds of like the way everything did when Kennedy way shot or when they tried to make the new formula of Coca Cola. What were they thinking on that one???
You have to understand...I was at the peak of the advertising game.
"Here's your meeting appointment with James Patterson...(the now famous author who hired me at J Walter Thompson)" then you're scheduled to meet with these ten creatives who make $2M each because they liked your idea...
That was my life and I loved it.
But, as they say, live moves on.
And as each and every single one of clients would regularly tell me that we had YET TO harness the power of the internet and I would be forced to listen to their reasons why, invariably they would be RIGHT.
Why do you think I left behind a HUGE salary and a love of great restaurants in the LA area??
Because I care now more about small businesses making more money every day. I care that when they pull out their check books to write checks for online marketing efforts that they are not tossing away money that I would rather see them spend on their kids???
The process of internet marketing is a simple one boys and girls. And there is NO REASON in the world for you to think that you can walk in here and be smarter that the people that are smarter than you.
If you would like to se extraordinary results, and I mean results that keep you head-scratching for years, let us know...
Because we just happen to be in the head-scratching business....
Tuesday 22 April 2008
This New Talk Fusion Way Of Communicating Has A Lot Of Lethargic Business Owners PETRIFIED!
Today I'm not going to talk English. I'm going to talk fusion and I am going to make more money than you are!
Arrogant people are a disaster, aren't they? (I'm not one, but I some times pretend to be.)
Here are the facts of the matter... and as an online person you NEED them...because you are about to achieve an 800% INCREASE in returns on your emails if you put this info into play.
You will then build upon that number if you continually send those video emails to the people who tell you that they want more if you LOAD THEM, and I mean do a great job loading them with great content about your company.
You will then increase those results after you prove to those people what makes your business so special and do much better than ANY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR COMPETITORS.
Guys, fellow countrymen, ladies, this is NOT DIFFICULT.
It's just not.
It's actually far more of a science than advertising and marketing have ever been! We're constantly moving towards a smarter way to sell everything...and what you are about to encounter is, BY FAR, the smartest thing that sever seasoned Madison Avenue vets have ever encountered.
If you are a bike shop owner or a music teacher or a funeral home, and you want more business, you need to put yourself into YOUR affordable video emails.
If you are a caterer and you specialize in Chinese entrees, then you need to be in your video emails talking to the people who are choosing who to hire.
No one is more passionate about your business than you!
End of story.
So why go through and continue to rely on traditional advertising that is going to fail you in that very department???
(And this is a question being asked by a Madison Ave guy...can you imagine???)
You are your own best salesperson and you will always be your own best salesperson.
And until you harness the power of affordable video emails and get your message out there PERFECTLY, then you are leaving great amounts of moolah on the table every day
Arrogant people are a disaster, aren't they? (I'm not one, but I some times pretend to be.)
Here are the facts of the matter... and as an online person you NEED them...because you are about to achieve an 800% INCREASE in returns on your emails if you put this info into play.
You will then build upon that number if you continually send those video emails to the people who tell you that they want more if you LOAD THEM, and I mean do a great job loading them with great content about your company.
You will then increase those results after you prove to those people what makes your business so special and do much better than ANY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR COMPETITORS.
Guys, fellow countrymen, ladies, this is NOT DIFFICULT.
It's just not.
It's actually far more of a science than advertising and marketing have ever been! We're constantly moving towards a smarter way to sell everything...and what you are about to encounter is, BY FAR, the smartest thing that sever seasoned Madison Avenue vets have ever encountered.
If you are a bike shop owner or a music teacher or a funeral home, and you want more business, you need to put yourself into YOUR affordable video emails.
If you are a caterer and you specialize in Chinese entrees, then you need to be in your video emails talking to the people who are choosing who to hire.
No one is more passionate about your business than you!
End of story.
So why go through and continue to rely on traditional advertising that is going to fail you in that very department???
(And this is a question being asked by a Madison Ave guy...can you imagine???)
You are your own best salesperson and you will always be your own best salesperson.
And until you harness the power of affordable video emails and get your message out there PERFECTLY, then you are leaving great amounts of moolah on the table every day
Making Money With Social Networks: Get Ready To Light One Major Neofuse!
Making Money With Social Networks. You put that sign up at the local Holiday Inn and claim to have free drinks afterwards and there is suddenly a loss for chairs and the fire marshall keeps watching to make sure that the room doesn't exceed its limits!
In 2007, the Social Networking community at large started to micro niche themselves. That's juts a fancy way to say that they started to become very focused on smaller and smaller brand attributes.
2007 was the year that Social Networking for the online entrepreneur cropped up. Which, as it turns out, happens to be a very big deal in the online community.
Why?
Because not everyone want to use Social Networks to keep in touch with college buddies.
Some people want to prosper from them (egads...profit?). Yes and in a very big way.
The emergence of a new line of communication among and between small business owners (especially those online) means a continuous passage of great information from one to another. Real learning is changing hands.
Real smarter and stronger ways of marketing, advertising, communicating and dealing with prospects is happening, and it's a glorious thing.
Now, on top of that, some of these new entrants are ALSO offering ways to profit from their hub as affiliates. Meaning even if you don't have a small online business, now you can! Now you can tap into the power of Social Networking and make some cash.
One company in particular has put a plan together that will pay you on THREE LEVELS DEEP worth of your time and effort...and that is almost unheard of.
Lift up your window and look outside...because making money with social networks is a very real thing now. And you are either ahead of the curve, or you know...not.
In 2007, the Social Networking community at large started to micro niche themselves. That's juts a fancy way to say that they started to become very focused on smaller and smaller brand attributes.
2007 was the year that Social Networking for the online entrepreneur cropped up. Which, as it turns out, happens to be a very big deal in the online community.
Why?
Because not everyone want to use Social Networks to keep in touch with college buddies.
Some people want to prosper from them (egads...profit?). Yes and in a very big way.
The emergence of a new line of communication among and between small business owners (especially those online) means a continuous passage of great information from one to another. Real learning is changing hands.
Real smarter and stronger ways of marketing, advertising, communicating and dealing with prospects is happening, and it's a glorious thing.
Now, on top of that, some of these new entrants are ALSO offering ways to profit from their hub as affiliates. Meaning even if you don't have a small online business, now you can! Now you can tap into the power of Social Networking and make some cash.
One company in particular has put a plan together that will pay you on THREE LEVELS DEEP worth of your time and effort...and that is almost unheard of.
Lift up your window and look outside...because making money with social networks is a very real thing now. And you are either ahead of the curve, or you know...not.
Internet Marketing And The Relative Unimportance Of Demographic
Are target demographics important in online business?
In brick and mortar stores there is often an incredible push to remain relevant to a specific age group and market the business to that demographic. This has a bearing on the products offered, the décor of the store, the type of bags they place your purchase in and certainly in advertising and event sponsorships.
By association does that mean the same is true regarding online business? Should online business cater to a specific generation? If not, why not?
Online business may indeed have a target demographic. They may know who the primary consumers of their product will be. However, that may not mean that they actively seek advertising opportunities that may appeal only to that demographic.
In online advertising, particular Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, the goal is to connect with keywords and not demographics. In essence if an individual of any age is looking for Italian gloves and your site is dedicated to the sale of these gloves then you may find individuals of all ages finding an advertising path to your cyber store portal if this is the product they are looking for.
Many sites are intentionally keeping a distance from a generation specific look in an effort to make all consumers feel more at home with their site. The website may use language that may appeal to a specific age range, but they will even deal with this issue in moderation so the customer does not feel as if the product is only for someone of a different age group.
One of the primary differences in online business verses a brick and mortar counterpart is that the online store can afford to be much more niche oriented. If they wish to specialize only in model railroad merchandise they will likely find individuals of all ages dropping by the website to see what items may be available. This could include a grandpa who needs replacement parts for a train set he’s had for decades or a beginner looking for a first engine.
You see the very specific nature of many websites moves it away from the need to target a specific demographic.
Let me be clear, I think most online businesses should know who their primary target will be, but they don’t need to push that age group more than any other in their online environment.
The differences between online and traditional marketing are many, but there are some similarities as well. The growth of online business is a testament to the ability of scores of entrepreneurs to mesh the best in traditional marketing with the new skills in online marketing.
The combination of skills can be helpful as long as you approach online marketing as requiring something unique. It can very easy to assume that ‘the ways it’s always been done’ is going to work online. The problem is the environment is different and the dynamics are global in scope and niche in presentation.
Learning the skills of online marketing will be more helpful to you than seeking to target a specific demographic online. Learning the distinctives in online marketing will improve the possibility of business success.
In brick and mortar stores there is often an incredible push to remain relevant to a specific age group and market the business to that demographic. This has a bearing on the products offered, the décor of the store, the type of bags they place your purchase in and certainly in advertising and event sponsorships.
By association does that mean the same is true regarding online business? Should online business cater to a specific generation? If not, why not?
Online business may indeed have a target demographic. They may know who the primary consumers of their product will be. However, that may not mean that they actively seek advertising opportunities that may appeal only to that demographic.
In online advertising, particular Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, the goal is to connect with keywords and not demographics. In essence if an individual of any age is looking for Italian gloves and your site is dedicated to the sale of these gloves then you may find individuals of all ages finding an advertising path to your cyber store portal if this is the product they are looking for.
Many sites are intentionally keeping a distance from a generation specific look in an effort to make all consumers feel more at home with their site. The website may use language that may appeal to a specific age range, but they will even deal with this issue in moderation so the customer does not feel as if the product is only for someone of a different age group.
One of the primary differences in online business verses a brick and mortar counterpart is that the online store can afford to be much more niche oriented. If they wish to specialize only in model railroad merchandise they will likely find individuals of all ages dropping by the website to see what items may be available. This could include a grandpa who needs replacement parts for a train set he’s had for decades or a beginner looking for a first engine.
You see the very specific nature of many websites moves it away from the need to target a specific demographic.
Let me be clear, I think most online businesses should know who their primary target will be, but they don’t need to push that age group more than any other in their online environment.
The differences between online and traditional marketing are many, but there are some similarities as well. The growth of online business is a testament to the ability of scores of entrepreneurs to mesh the best in traditional marketing with the new skills in online marketing.
The combination of skills can be helpful as long as you approach online marketing as requiring something unique. It can very easy to assume that ‘the ways it’s always been done’ is going to work online. The problem is the environment is different and the dynamics are global in scope and niche in presentation.
Learning the skills of online marketing will be more helpful to you than seeking to target a specific demographic online. Learning the distinctives in online marketing will improve the possibility of business success.
Email Marketing And A Focused Conversation
You have an interview scheduled. This means so much to you because you have been without a job for too long. You have a family and whatever money you had saved for emergencies like this is almost at an end.
On the morning of the interview you ready yourself and dress in your best clothes. You sit in the waiting room and pretend to read a magazine while you hope you don’t sweat too much. You pretend to be mildly interrupted when your name is called. You lay the magazine down and will forget what magazine it was.
The person interviewing you has your resume sitting front of them. They invite you to have a seat while they continue to pour over the contents of your file. You feel like screaming, but you manage to hold the stress in as you hear the steady tick of the clock.
“So,” the interviewer begins, “what can you bring to this position that would qualify you more than any other candidate?”
“Well, I like football and playing video games with my kids,” you begin. The interviewer looks confused, but you hurry on, “On Saturdays I like to wash my car, except of course when it rains, which of course it always does in April.”
“But we’re here to talk about the possibility of you working for our firm. Why should we hire you?” the interviewer redirects the question.
“I hate vegetables and my favorite color is blue,” you say with a smile. “Is there anything else you need to know?”
I hope you found this illustration disturbingly strange. It makes no sense for a person who really needs a job to go into the interview and talk about anything other than what the interviewer wants to know. That potential hire will do their best to address every question and answer every concern. Why? They want a job and their words mean something.
Since this is true why do so many email-marketing campaigns follow the same course as our hypothetical interviewee?
Many email marketing campaigns are disjointed and off target. I think sometimes the originator of the message is hoping to develop friendships with potential customers by telling jokes or expressing personal opinions about issues that have little to no relevance to the product they are pitching.
We should take a cue from quality interview preperation techniques.
1) Value other people. No one has to read your email marketing pitch so keep it simple.
2) Stay on target. You are using the email to market a product or business. Don’t stray from that objective.
3) Know who’s in control. The email recipient can easily hit the delete key so work to impress them with the clarity of message and quality of product.
4) Invite feedback. Allow the potential customer to let you know what they think. This may not always be positive, but it does convey that you are interested in a two-sided conversation.
Email marketing can be an effective tool that has the potential of making your product appealing to potential customers – as long as you stay on target.
On the morning of the interview you ready yourself and dress in your best clothes. You sit in the waiting room and pretend to read a magazine while you hope you don’t sweat too much. You pretend to be mildly interrupted when your name is called. You lay the magazine down and will forget what magazine it was.
The person interviewing you has your resume sitting front of them. They invite you to have a seat while they continue to pour over the contents of your file. You feel like screaming, but you manage to hold the stress in as you hear the steady tick of the clock.
“So,” the interviewer begins, “what can you bring to this position that would qualify you more than any other candidate?”
“Well, I like football and playing video games with my kids,” you begin. The interviewer looks confused, but you hurry on, “On Saturdays I like to wash my car, except of course when it rains, which of course it always does in April.”
“But we’re here to talk about the possibility of you working for our firm. Why should we hire you?” the interviewer redirects the question.
“I hate vegetables and my favorite color is blue,” you say with a smile. “Is there anything else you need to know?”
I hope you found this illustration disturbingly strange. It makes no sense for a person who really needs a job to go into the interview and talk about anything other than what the interviewer wants to know. That potential hire will do their best to address every question and answer every concern. Why? They want a job and their words mean something.
Since this is true why do so many email-marketing campaigns follow the same course as our hypothetical interviewee?
Many email marketing campaigns are disjointed and off target. I think sometimes the originator of the message is hoping to develop friendships with potential customers by telling jokes or expressing personal opinions about issues that have little to no relevance to the product they are pitching.
We should take a cue from quality interview preperation techniques.
1) Value other people. No one has to read your email marketing pitch so keep it simple.
2) Stay on target. You are using the email to market a product or business. Don’t stray from that objective.
3) Know who’s in control. The email recipient can easily hit the delete key so work to impress them with the clarity of message and quality of product.
4) Invite feedback. Allow the potential customer to let you know what they think. This may not always be positive, but it does convey that you are interested in a two-sided conversation.
Email marketing can be an effective tool that has the potential of making your product appealing to potential customers – as long as you stay on target.
Will The Web 2.0 Bubble Burst In The Year 2008?
So much pressure has been put onto the shoulders of the Internet lately. One has to keep in mind that this is a fairly new “industry”. It was never created for the sole purpose of making money – let alone, masses of money. It is far from being the “get rich quick” vehicle that some would make it out to be.
Nobody ever put this type of pressure on commercial television in the last 50 years. The format has barely changed since its inception. The shows are basically the same in content and that includes everything from children, cooking, news, and the ever popular sit-com format. Television hasn’t really been interactive either when you look at its long history. There are some interactive attempts made in the last 15 years with Phillips, WebTV and features on Dish Network.
Web 2.0 is the greatest thing ever invented on the web. It propelled people to view the Internet in a whole new way. It enabled people to partake in the experience. It also opened the doors to a lot of great innovation for entrepreneurs. Now you can rope in your very own herd of like minded individuals and market to them directly. This is a very powerful communication tool. It is no wonder that the ticket price for Facebook continues to skyrocket. Everybody wants that list that’s been building for the past two years. There is a lot of monetary value in it.
Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, is only 23 years old.
How many spinoffs have there been in the recent months? There have been tons of knockoffs, spinoffs and literally ripoffs of this type of technology. They exist for just about every category you can think of. One critical review can state that there may be too many of them to keep track of. And really there are only so many that the public can truly remember. There is a Web 2.0 service right now that is strictly for doctors, dentists and other areas of medical practice. Currently they only have 2% of the New York medical community listed.
But thinking that the Web 2.0 Bubble is going to burst this year is just too premature. If anything the web is going to evolve into something more than what it already is.
MARKETING AND THE BRAIN
Part of Web 2.0’s overall marketing appeal is that it is user driven content that leads the way. There is a lot of garbage on a lot of these sites. I do not fault the contributors as much as I fault the people who control the Web 2.0 sites themselves. There are a lot of categories on the video search engines that proudly promote flatulence, belching, gross out competitions etc. There are some sites that promote rudimentary film making and others that do not accept any types of commercials whatsoever. I feel this is a huge mistake.
Consider for a moment that 1/3 of the brain is dedicated to audio and video stimuli. That means that this portion of the brain is dedicated to receiving memorable amounts of visual learning material. This can be both audio, (on the web we call this podcasting) and video, (web video). You would have to be nuts to turn your back on this scientific fact and hit them with nothing but print but sadly, so many of us do just that. You are missing out on huge amounts of rapport building through using web video and web audio tools.
THE ADVERTISING PERSPECTIVE
It is no big secret that advertisers seek to get in front of the customer no less than 13 times. It doesn’t matter that the first few times are ineffective because eventually the brand will stick. This can be said for any number of the big brands that are out there. Once the brand is successful more money must be dumped into it to keep that profit funnel going. This is a very important factor that a lot of small marketers seem to miss.
Detroit Michigan has two baseball stadiums. One is for the new Tigers Stadium, (Comerica Park) and the former Tiger Stadium still stands today near Corktown. The interesting thing about the old stadium is the billboards that surround the front entrance. They are still being used by Budweiser, the King of Beers, and there are only two bars on this street that proudly serve it. This is no longer a high traffic area as it was in its heyday. Still Anhauser Busch thinks it is still important to occupy that real estate for passing traffic and they are right because it still sends a very strong message.
On one hand its overkill but on the other hand it firmly establishes a presence over the entire city of Detroit. For anyone who has seen it this cements the two experiences together in a historical perspective. Great beer – great sports – great town – hence, an long held tradition.
To think that you can do this type of branding without paying $4000 a month on billboards is quite exhilarating. You can also get in front of more people doing it this way than ever before. The effect you can put on your niche market is pretty much limitless. But this type of communication only works if you know how to talk to the web. You can pump out thousands of pages but if they are not formatted properly you are wasting your time on all accounts.
THE REASON FOR WEB 2.0 SUCCESS
You must start to think of yourself as a marketing person first and foremost. What you do for a profession should always come second. You’re main goal is to get in front of the right people and sell your services. You’re job as a professional should be to put this type of thinking into systems online that funnel in the right type of prospects.
Web 2.0 lets users submit content to their sites. These can come in the form of articles, web video commercials and audio messages. This is done for a fraction of the cost of advertising and broadcasting. And the best thing of all is that you control the material. You no longer have to get involved with any lengthy contracts or legal stipulations. This is content that you can control from the beginning to the end. In short, you control the end users experience.
If this bubble does burst it is going to give way to something more brilliant. This includes more marketing on hand held devices, (Iphones, Blackjacks, Cell Phones etc.) and this will give you more chance to get in front of more people than ever before.
Web 2.0 sites are free to get involved with. All you need is a camcorder, a tripod and shotgun mic and a firewire cable and some editing software. These sites are also free to upload your content to and there are no monthly fees.
Come on, what are you waiting for?
Nobody ever put this type of pressure on commercial television in the last 50 years. The format has barely changed since its inception. The shows are basically the same in content and that includes everything from children, cooking, news, and the ever popular sit-com format. Television hasn’t really been interactive either when you look at its long history. There are some interactive attempts made in the last 15 years with Phillips, WebTV and features on Dish Network.
Web 2.0 is the greatest thing ever invented on the web. It propelled people to view the Internet in a whole new way. It enabled people to partake in the experience. It also opened the doors to a lot of great innovation for entrepreneurs. Now you can rope in your very own herd of like minded individuals and market to them directly. This is a very powerful communication tool. It is no wonder that the ticket price for Facebook continues to skyrocket. Everybody wants that list that’s been building for the past two years. There is a lot of monetary value in it.
Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, is only 23 years old.
How many spinoffs have there been in the recent months? There have been tons of knockoffs, spinoffs and literally ripoffs of this type of technology. They exist for just about every category you can think of. One critical review can state that there may be too many of them to keep track of. And really there are only so many that the public can truly remember. There is a Web 2.0 service right now that is strictly for doctors, dentists and other areas of medical practice. Currently they only have 2% of the New York medical community listed.
But thinking that the Web 2.0 Bubble is going to burst this year is just too premature. If anything the web is going to evolve into something more than what it already is.
MARKETING AND THE BRAIN
Part of Web 2.0’s overall marketing appeal is that it is user driven content that leads the way. There is a lot of garbage on a lot of these sites. I do not fault the contributors as much as I fault the people who control the Web 2.0 sites themselves. There are a lot of categories on the video search engines that proudly promote flatulence, belching, gross out competitions etc. There are some sites that promote rudimentary film making and others that do not accept any types of commercials whatsoever. I feel this is a huge mistake.
Consider for a moment that 1/3 of the brain is dedicated to audio and video stimuli. That means that this portion of the brain is dedicated to receiving memorable amounts of visual learning material. This can be both audio, (on the web we call this podcasting) and video, (web video). You would have to be nuts to turn your back on this scientific fact and hit them with nothing but print but sadly, so many of us do just that. You are missing out on huge amounts of rapport building through using web video and web audio tools.
THE ADVERTISING PERSPECTIVE
It is no big secret that advertisers seek to get in front of the customer no less than 13 times. It doesn’t matter that the first few times are ineffective because eventually the brand will stick. This can be said for any number of the big brands that are out there. Once the brand is successful more money must be dumped into it to keep that profit funnel going. This is a very important factor that a lot of small marketers seem to miss.
Detroit Michigan has two baseball stadiums. One is for the new Tigers Stadium, (Comerica Park) and the former Tiger Stadium still stands today near Corktown. The interesting thing about the old stadium is the billboards that surround the front entrance. They are still being used by Budweiser, the King of Beers, and there are only two bars on this street that proudly serve it. This is no longer a high traffic area as it was in its heyday. Still Anhauser Busch thinks it is still important to occupy that real estate for passing traffic and they are right because it still sends a very strong message.
On one hand its overkill but on the other hand it firmly establishes a presence over the entire city of Detroit. For anyone who has seen it this cements the two experiences together in a historical perspective. Great beer – great sports – great town – hence, an long held tradition.
To think that you can do this type of branding without paying $4000 a month on billboards is quite exhilarating. You can also get in front of more people doing it this way than ever before. The effect you can put on your niche market is pretty much limitless. But this type of communication only works if you know how to talk to the web. You can pump out thousands of pages but if they are not formatted properly you are wasting your time on all accounts.
THE REASON FOR WEB 2.0 SUCCESS
You must start to think of yourself as a marketing person first and foremost. What you do for a profession should always come second. You’re main goal is to get in front of the right people and sell your services. You’re job as a professional should be to put this type of thinking into systems online that funnel in the right type of prospects.
Web 2.0 lets users submit content to their sites. These can come in the form of articles, web video commercials and audio messages. This is done for a fraction of the cost of advertising and broadcasting. And the best thing of all is that you control the material. You no longer have to get involved with any lengthy contracts or legal stipulations. This is content that you can control from the beginning to the end. In short, you control the end users experience.
If this bubble does burst it is going to give way to something more brilliant. This includes more marketing on hand held devices, (Iphones, Blackjacks, Cell Phones etc.) and this will give you more chance to get in front of more people than ever before.
Web 2.0 sites are free to get involved with. All you need is a camcorder, a tripod and shotgun mic and a firewire cable and some editing software. These sites are also free to upload your content to and there are no monthly fees.
Come on, what are you waiting for?
Marketing To Your Online Customers – Las Vegas Style
I like to go to Vegas for the weekend and blow off steam. I run an online marketing group out of Chicago and Detroit so catching a quick flight out there is no big deal. Every time I go out there I am always amazed at the details of the overall customer experience. There are systems put in place, however slight, that are designed to get the customer dollar at just about every turn.
It is no big secret that the entire city is made out of money. It is the sole reason for its own existence. You feel like a pinball when you get caught up in the Las Vegas experience. I always come back a little smarter and apply new techniques to my online and offline business ventures. I am going to illustrate a few examples of how this can work for your business.
The Overpasses
When you walk down the strip you are going to notice a few things that are different. You can cross the street going from one Casino to the other. You will notice that the streets are wide and the cars do not slow down. When this is congested during the week you can get yourself killed if you are not careful. Of course you can take the easy way out and take the escalator which will carry you right over the busy intersections. A quick jaunt across the bridge and you are in the casino safe and sound and ready to blow even more of your hard earned loot.
Now if you look to your right you will notice that the escalators are turned off. This means that if you leave the casino you will most likely have to walk down the equivalent of three stories of stairs back down to the street. This is interesting to me too for another reason. The escalators that are turned on are all facing one direction. They all move the people towards the bigger and richer casinos like the Wynn, Monte Carlo, Caesars Palace, and the Venetian. You will see more of this around the MGM, The New York New York near the new Las Vegas. In just about every cross walk I encountered I noticed that the escalators pointing towards the older Vegas, (Circus Circus etc) were turned off. This way they keep the money moving.
There is a lot of construction going on near the Circus Circus and there are a lot of small shops. The energy really picks up near the Fashion Mall and the Wynn. Even Trumps Casino is up for sale and it is visible from the strip.
I think of ways I can make the public go through my online maze and get to the meat of the sale. This is something that a lot of businesses fail to pick up on. You need to direct the flow of the current and it is damned difficult to do that with nothing but a picture and price.
In Your Face Sales Copy
Walking into the Circus Circus at 4 in the morning is a real eye opener. These are seasoned pros and they have been around since the 1960’s. I was checking into my suite from a late flight from Phoenix and I noticed that deals sort of fell out of the sky. Everyone was selling you something. Price was never mentioned except in a few cases. You would see signs like, “Get 2 For The Price of 1” and, “Blow Out Deals – Get In Free” and these were instant eye grabbers. Never once did I ever question how much something was or what the ticket price was on an item.
You are dealing with an environment that deals with instant satisfaction. And with this mindset you hardly care about how much anything really costs. I had to cut through the casino to get the hotel lobby. Keep in mind that I was extremely exhausted and yet this place was kicked on full blast with entertainment, music and people. When I looked up I could see a live trapeze show and everyone around me looked wide awake. It was a truly unnerving experience. I was hungry too and wanted to eat something. These signs all around me got to me. Never once did I worry about price. These simple sales pitches called out to me and I responded.
Need and desire go hand in hand.
Hit Them With Excess – But Have Limits
Always give your customers MORE than what they actually need. Vegas really over delivers in just about everything they do. You get that treatment with the food they offer, the shows they put on and in their gratitude but there are limits.
They run a very tight ship. If you don’t tell the front desk that you are staying an extra night you get locked out of your room. I made the mistake of ordering multiple nights from different travel sources including Orbit, Travelocity and on the main Circus Circus web site. The front desk couldn’t reach an agreement for some reason they wanted to shift me around from room to room every night of my stay. I had to come down to the desk and tell them who I was and ask for another night and get a new key. This sounds ridiculous I know and believe it when I say I agree.
I went to use the hot tub and found myself locked out of my room. I had to go to the front desk in my swimsuit and stand there like an idiot in my towel to get a new key. They apologized and I got back in my room somewhat flustered with the whole ordeal.
I recommend that you also run a tight ship when it comes to your policies. Never let the customer steam roll your company with their own agenda. When I created my company I used to get a lot of emails from clients that were off subject. In the beginning I let it go but this later became a serious problem. I had clients who would forget what they sent me and dropped the ball on the project completely. I would get nasty emails in the tone of – “What Have You Done With My Project?” They were getting upset with me while they were so lost in sending me garbage emails, when in fact, I was waiting for them to get back to me with pictures or sales copy.
What did they send me?
I would get a lot of gibberish – everything from Gospel messages, Amber alerts, chain letters, get rich quick chain letters, poems, prayers, feel good messages and jokes. The whole time I would be waiting for them to wake up and get serious so I could attend to my other clients.
It’s important to cater to the customer but you have to have limits on what you are willing to put up with. Vegas doesn’t fool around when it comes to customer incompetence. As you can see I didn’t follow their rules to a “T” and didn’t check in the morning and get a new key. So they locked me out of my room. Some of you may not think that is very nice but that is how it works in Vegas. They do not fool around.
Get A System
The beauty of Vegas is studying all of the systems that are put in place. One good example is that you will never see any clocks in the casinos. Time is not an issue. They want you to get lost in the experience of the bar scenes, the casino and whatever else is happening. You never see windows in the casinos because they want you to lose track of time.
Everything has a system. There is beauty in chaos. You will notice that it is literally impossible to walk straight through a casino. You will have to twist and turn and walk between aisles and crooked aisles that are deliberately set up all over to distract your attention. It is somewhat of a rarity that I will see a patron walk straight through a casino to reach the street. Usually they will stop and drop a few more dollars into a slot machine on the way out the door. The only people who walk straight through this maze are casino workers and cops and well…. Me of course, (I’m not much of a gambler).
When Van Halen stopped playing for the night at the MGM it was a total mob scene. We were all let loose into the strip to go totally nuts. The traffic was tight so I decided to walk back to my suite. All the way home there were bars set up on the strip to get you good and drunk. I have no idea where these bars came from but they were all in row. They looked like the kind of waggons you see at the State Fair. Normally these guys sell you food but not these guys. If you wanted food you had to go into the restaurants and sit down. These guys were on the street selling buckets of beer for $4 bucks. I’m not talking about quaint mini mugs I am talking about the kind of buckets you sell chicken in.
At every step there were ways for the street vendors to get your money. I saw a lot of bootleg t-shirts, and gimmicky tourist stuff along the way back to my room. I was glad to see my suite again and get that door shut. At least nobody would try to sell me something in my room right? OR would they?
Inner Branding
When I turned on the TV set I was hypnotized. There was an internal television station in my hotel room at the Circus Circus. It was clowns doing the sports, news and weather. The jokes were bad but the quality was good and I was seriously enthralled with this. The hotel was broadcasting to the guest like so many hotels do but this was different because these were clowns. I decided to leave it on and study it.
They had a, “Starskey and Hutch” type of clown cop promo to showcase all of their restaurants in the casino. The jokes were terrible but oddly enough I found this somewhat pleasing. They were trying to find this clown who was hiding out in a steak house and bring him to justice. In this episode they looked high and low for this offending clown. By doing so they gave reviews of all the restaurants they searched for him in. I found this pretty amusing. I also liked how they repeated this every 15 minutes. I ended up ordering room service from one of these restaurants too after seeing it so many times. The food was actually better than what you get in a lot of local places. With all that competition you have to be good.
Those clowns could have sold me anything. Seriously. I was that hooked on the idea.
I don’t know who stole the bible out of my room but I didn’t have one. This made me feel a bit uneasy because I was camped out in Sin City for four days and five nights. Either someone lost their mind and stole it with hopes to reform. Or the Gideons didn’t bother coming out to Las Vegas and leaving one behind. In either case I realized that this trip catered to the ego and what I thought was real. An interesting adventure all around.
I took these lessons home with me and thought about how this could relate to my customer experience. I was very intrigued with how I could apply these lessons over my own online business by giving people what they wanted in controlled systems.
It is no big secret that the entire city is made out of money. It is the sole reason for its own existence. You feel like a pinball when you get caught up in the Las Vegas experience. I always come back a little smarter and apply new techniques to my online and offline business ventures. I am going to illustrate a few examples of how this can work for your business.
The Overpasses
When you walk down the strip you are going to notice a few things that are different. You can cross the street going from one Casino to the other. You will notice that the streets are wide and the cars do not slow down. When this is congested during the week you can get yourself killed if you are not careful. Of course you can take the easy way out and take the escalator which will carry you right over the busy intersections. A quick jaunt across the bridge and you are in the casino safe and sound and ready to blow even more of your hard earned loot.
Now if you look to your right you will notice that the escalators are turned off. This means that if you leave the casino you will most likely have to walk down the equivalent of three stories of stairs back down to the street. This is interesting to me too for another reason. The escalators that are turned on are all facing one direction. They all move the people towards the bigger and richer casinos like the Wynn, Monte Carlo, Caesars Palace, and the Venetian. You will see more of this around the MGM, The New York New York near the new Las Vegas. In just about every cross walk I encountered I noticed that the escalators pointing towards the older Vegas, (Circus Circus etc) were turned off. This way they keep the money moving.
There is a lot of construction going on near the Circus Circus and there are a lot of small shops. The energy really picks up near the Fashion Mall and the Wynn. Even Trumps Casino is up for sale and it is visible from the strip.
I think of ways I can make the public go through my online maze and get to the meat of the sale. This is something that a lot of businesses fail to pick up on. You need to direct the flow of the current and it is damned difficult to do that with nothing but a picture and price.
In Your Face Sales Copy
Walking into the Circus Circus at 4 in the morning is a real eye opener. These are seasoned pros and they have been around since the 1960’s. I was checking into my suite from a late flight from Phoenix and I noticed that deals sort of fell out of the sky. Everyone was selling you something. Price was never mentioned except in a few cases. You would see signs like, “Get 2 For The Price of 1” and, “Blow Out Deals – Get In Free” and these were instant eye grabbers. Never once did I ever question how much something was or what the ticket price was on an item.
You are dealing with an environment that deals with instant satisfaction. And with this mindset you hardly care about how much anything really costs. I had to cut through the casino to get the hotel lobby. Keep in mind that I was extremely exhausted and yet this place was kicked on full blast with entertainment, music and people. When I looked up I could see a live trapeze show and everyone around me looked wide awake. It was a truly unnerving experience. I was hungry too and wanted to eat something. These signs all around me got to me. Never once did I worry about price. These simple sales pitches called out to me and I responded.
Need and desire go hand in hand.
Hit Them With Excess – But Have Limits
Always give your customers MORE than what they actually need. Vegas really over delivers in just about everything they do. You get that treatment with the food they offer, the shows they put on and in their gratitude but there are limits.
They run a very tight ship. If you don’t tell the front desk that you are staying an extra night you get locked out of your room. I made the mistake of ordering multiple nights from different travel sources including Orbit, Travelocity and on the main Circus Circus web site. The front desk couldn’t reach an agreement for some reason they wanted to shift me around from room to room every night of my stay. I had to come down to the desk and tell them who I was and ask for another night and get a new key. This sounds ridiculous I know and believe it when I say I agree.
I went to use the hot tub and found myself locked out of my room. I had to go to the front desk in my swimsuit and stand there like an idiot in my towel to get a new key. They apologized and I got back in my room somewhat flustered with the whole ordeal.
I recommend that you also run a tight ship when it comes to your policies. Never let the customer steam roll your company with their own agenda. When I created my company I used to get a lot of emails from clients that were off subject. In the beginning I let it go but this later became a serious problem. I had clients who would forget what they sent me and dropped the ball on the project completely. I would get nasty emails in the tone of – “What Have You Done With My Project?” They were getting upset with me while they were so lost in sending me garbage emails, when in fact, I was waiting for them to get back to me with pictures or sales copy.
What did they send me?
I would get a lot of gibberish – everything from Gospel messages, Amber alerts, chain letters, get rich quick chain letters, poems, prayers, feel good messages and jokes. The whole time I would be waiting for them to wake up and get serious so I could attend to my other clients.
It’s important to cater to the customer but you have to have limits on what you are willing to put up with. Vegas doesn’t fool around when it comes to customer incompetence. As you can see I didn’t follow their rules to a “T” and didn’t check in the morning and get a new key. So they locked me out of my room. Some of you may not think that is very nice but that is how it works in Vegas. They do not fool around.
Get A System
The beauty of Vegas is studying all of the systems that are put in place. One good example is that you will never see any clocks in the casinos. Time is not an issue. They want you to get lost in the experience of the bar scenes, the casino and whatever else is happening. You never see windows in the casinos because they want you to lose track of time.
Everything has a system. There is beauty in chaos. You will notice that it is literally impossible to walk straight through a casino. You will have to twist and turn and walk between aisles and crooked aisles that are deliberately set up all over to distract your attention. It is somewhat of a rarity that I will see a patron walk straight through a casino to reach the street. Usually they will stop and drop a few more dollars into a slot machine on the way out the door. The only people who walk straight through this maze are casino workers and cops and well…. Me of course, (I’m not much of a gambler).
When Van Halen stopped playing for the night at the MGM it was a total mob scene. We were all let loose into the strip to go totally nuts. The traffic was tight so I decided to walk back to my suite. All the way home there were bars set up on the strip to get you good and drunk. I have no idea where these bars came from but they were all in row. They looked like the kind of waggons you see at the State Fair. Normally these guys sell you food but not these guys. If you wanted food you had to go into the restaurants and sit down. These guys were on the street selling buckets of beer for $4 bucks. I’m not talking about quaint mini mugs I am talking about the kind of buckets you sell chicken in.
At every step there were ways for the street vendors to get your money. I saw a lot of bootleg t-shirts, and gimmicky tourist stuff along the way back to my room. I was glad to see my suite again and get that door shut. At least nobody would try to sell me something in my room right? OR would they?
Inner Branding
When I turned on the TV set I was hypnotized. There was an internal television station in my hotel room at the Circus Circus. It was clowns doing the sports, news and weather. The jokes were bad but the quality was good and I was seriously enthralled with this. The hotel was broadcasting to the guest like so many hotels do but this was different because these were clowns. I decided to leave it on and study it.
They had a, “Starskey and Hutch” type of clown cop promo to showcase all of their restaurants in the casino. The jokes were terrible but oddly enough I found this somewhat pleasing. They were trying to find this clown who was hiding out in a steak house and bring him to justice. In this episode they looked high and low for this offending clown. By doing so they gave reviews of all the restaurants they searched for him in. I found this pretty amusing. I also liked how they repeated this every 15 minutes. I ended up ordering room service from one of these restaurants too after seeing it so many times. The food was actually better than what you get in a lot of local places. With all that competition you have to be good.
Those clowns could have sold me anything. Seriously. I was that hooked on the idea.
I don’t know who stole the bible out of my room but I didn’t have one. This made me feel a bit uneasy because I was camped out in Sin City for four days and five nights. Either someone lost their mind and stole it with hopes to reform. Or the Gideons didn’t bother coming out to Las Vegas and leaving one behind. In either case I realized that this trip catered to the ego and what I thought was real. An interesting adventure all around.
I took these lessons home with me and thought about how this could relate to my customer experience. I was very intrigued with how I could apply these lessons over my own online business by giving people what they wanted in controlled systems.
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