Much like a welcome mat greets visitors to your home, all business owners should have in place something I call “welcome mat marketing” for new customers, clients and patients (for the sake of this article, I am going to lump them all together as “customers”).

I cannot think of a single business owner that could not (or should not) have a welcome mat campaign in place.

• Dentists should have one.
• Info-marketers should have one.
• Retail store owners should have one.
• Sales professionals should have one.

Every business owner and marketer should have at least one welcome mat marketing campaign in place to greet new people into your business.

A welcome mat marketing campaign is a focused MULTI-STEP, NEW CUSTOMER campaign (it could be a series of emails or it could be direct mail or it could be a combination of both) that is designed to accomplish two major goals (one focused on the customer and one internally focused).

The first (and most critical) goal is to make your new customers feel welcomed and appreciated and to show your business is different than all the other competitive choices simply because you care 100% about helping them be successful with your product or service.

Believe it or not, simply doing this will set you apart from a majority of your competition, since most business owners don’t even think this way.

The second goal is to reduce refunds and returns and create customers for life. While it’s impossible to make everybody happy 100% of the time, you can go a long way by creating a well-thought out welcome mat campaign.

Rather than get too complicated with a welcome mat campaign, I’m going to suggest everybody reading this article consider how they could implement something as simple as a welcome mat email campaign for all new customers.

Keep it simple and get it done if you don’t have one.

Step 1: Create a 7 day, 15 day, 30 day or some specific time-frame where new customers will hear from you over that period of time.  New CopyDoodles members currently get a 7 day welcome mat campaign from us and we’ve had 30 day ones in the past.

Step 2: Figure out an email frequency you want to use.  For shorter campaigns, I would suggest a daily email and for longer ones you might send out 1 – 3 emails per week. Depends on your specific business and what the customer expectations are for your product/service.

Step 3: Map out the campaign and figure out your goal at each contact point. Here are a few things you can include in your welcome mat campaign:

• Thank them for becoming a customer.
• Reaffirm their wise decision to become a customer.
• Spell out ways they can contact you with questions.
• Give them specific ways to start consuming your product or service (and reward such behavior).
• Offer product/service learning opportunities (e.g. demo videos, how to videos, tutorials).
  Share customer success stories (and invite them to be your next one).
• Discuss your referral program.
• Give them an unexpected free bonus or gift from you.
• Get them to self-identify as a person wanting more from you (e.g. other products, monthly newsletter, etc).

Step 4: Get your campaign in place with some type of automated email system.  The only way this works well is if your welcome mat marketing is systematized and automated.  This way it just happens after a new customer comes into your business.   Systems like Infusionsoft, Aweber and Constant Contact are a few that come to mind.

Step 5: Set it and forget it (for the time being).  I’m never a fan of simply forgetting about a campaign after it has been loaded into your email system.  All responsible business owners should revisit ALL their marketing from time to time to see if tweaks are necessary.

These are just a few things you can include in your welcome mat campaign, but the BIG TAKEAWAY is to implement one if you don’t have one in place.

Got to meet a Renegade Country Music star John Rich:

Todd and John Rich

Even though we stayed pretty focused on all the great speakers and marketing ideas, I did find time to take the GKIC Greater Louisville gang out for some authentic Tex Mex at the Iron Cactus. The only person missing was John Durham. We don’t know what happened to him!

Kevin Carter, Amy Letke, Me, Elizabeth Hagedorn, Dave Thomas

If you’ve never been to a seminar like this, you definitely need to go.  You get to meet a lot of like-minded people and discover a LOT of cool stuff.

OK, enough about what fun we had. Let’s get down to brass tacks.

Here are the top 3 things I learned at the Superconference.  This info cost all of us quite a bit of cash so you are getting this from me today for FREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

1) Get People Offline As Soon As Possible

Yes, email is cheap. But when’s the last time you got ticked off about all the emails landing in your Inbox?  And how many of you have a separate email address just for the “marketing” emails? I do.

The overriding theme throughout the SuperConference is to take people offline as soon as possible. That means collecting their name, addresses, and phone numbers (if possible) and sending them direct mail instead of relying on email.

Dan Kennedy gave several case studies on how some of his clients were able to get up to a 100:1 return on investment with direct mail.

This is mostly due to the tangible aspect of direct mail–as it’s a physical “thing” that comes in the mailbox. People love the act of opening something meant for them. Versus an email that easily gets buried as the day goes on.

Question: How many of your email Inboxes look like this?

That’s right; this is one of my Gmail accounts.   I get a lot of marketing emails and, as you can tell, I don’t read all of them.

Whereas I’ll only get 1-2 marketing pieces a day in the mail. And most of these are “one-off” mailings from local companies that are terrible examples of marketing.

As you all know, I’ve been an active direct mail fan in both my roofing business as well as with the Chapter. This was probably my biggest takeaway from the entire conference. I was good to reinforce what I already knew to be true.

Oh, and as an aside, Dan Kennedy consults with some of the largest Internet marketers on the planet.  And you know what? They all secretly rely on direct mail to build their businesses.

Of course, you won’t hear any of these guys advertise this–since they’ll lose the moniker “internet marketer” if word got out.

Do you think this guy calls himself a “sign marketer?”

2) Outspend Your Competitors On Leads

Dan Kennedy mentioned that one of the biggest fights he has with clients is they want to naturally find ways to get leads for their business as cheaply as possible.

They want to find out how they can get leads through the search engines because it’s “free”. And they’ll fight over whether or not to put the glossy cover on their 25-page lead generator report–or if a plain black and white cover will suffice.

He said that the more you spend on leads, the more profit you’ll extract from them. Generally speaking, of course.

For example, you can get prospects to enter their name and email address to download a free report they’ll save to their hard drive–and never read again.

Or you can get prospects to enter their name, email address, and phone number to receive a free physical report, CD, DVD or Shock and Awe package in the mail.  Sure you had to pay more money to print out and ship the report.  But now you’ll have the prospect’s mailing address–and a physical “thing” in their possession that serves as a constant reminder of you.

I know one marketer who spent a lot of time and money to get ranked high for a keyword in his niche.  He was able to crack the first page of Google before long and was able to get tons of traffic like crazy.

However, he found that most of these people finding him under that specific keyword were just  searching for free information.

Sure, he built a HUGE email list, but they were mostly freebie seekers who weren’t responding to his offers.

3) Follow Up Both Online AND Offline

You’ve probably heard the marketing axiom that your prospect has to be exposed to your marketing message 7 times before they’ll buy.  And all you have to do is load up 7 emails in your autoresponder and call it a day.

I already covered how email can be easily ignored earlier in this blog post.  Sure it’s easy and cheap, but you’re probably getting bombarded by emails as we speak.    And I’m sure you’ve sent an email to a friend or client–only to find out it got thrown into their SPAM folder.

That’s why hitting your prospects and clients online AND offline is critical. This could be through a simple monthly newsletter, postcard, or 2-page mailing.  Any Glazer-Kennedy customer can testify to the fact that they do an awesome job of following up through email AND direct mail.

You all should know my personal system by now…

• Print newsletter
• Weekly emails
• Periodic “Interruption” Information via print or email.

I hope this was helpful to you. As always I came away with pages and pages of notes, my mind swimming with all the opportunities. The To Do list just got longer.

Next week…Why what happens in the hallway is almost more important that the conference itself.

Exasperated? Goleman had no idea he was coming across that way. A quick phone call cleared everything up, and it taught him a valuable lesson: Sometimes we need the full range of information that can come only from looking someone in the eyes and hearing the sound of his or her voice.

Of course, in order for any type of freebie to achieve its aim, it has to be valuable to the recipient, and one thing that most people have in common is that they value knowledge, which is why offering free e-books on a subject related to the product or service that your business sells can be so effective in terms of marketing.

Like well-written company blogs, e-books are a great way for a company to build its brand and to raise confidence and trust in its expertise, not to mention being superb tools for driving high volumes of traffic to its website and generating sales leads. As those who visit your site to download the free e-book are already specifically interested in what you have to offer, the leads that you generate are mostly of high quality.

If you are not a budding author or simply don’t have the time to write your own e-book, then the services of a freelance writer can be procured for very little money. All your business then needs to do is promote the e-book through e-book libraries and freeware sites and follow up on all those valuable leads.

Implementation is one of the biggest problems I see with most businesses, both large and small. Particularly in getting things done in a timely manner. You need to do everything possible to decrease the time laps between having a good idea and acting upon it. For most there is a huge lag between idea and implementation. Often during that lag time, somebody else beats them to the punch or they get sidetracked or the idea gets picked apart and destroyed. The shorter the time between idea and implementation, the better. I Iacocca/Chrysler convertible story is an example of compressing the time in a typical new product R & D process – from years to days.

If you haven’t heard the story, here are the highlights. Lee Iacocca was touring the factory floor asking his factory line workers their thoughts on the company’s future. One man asked why they didn’t have a convertible as one of their vehicle offerings. This man thought that a convertible would be a huge hit. Iacocca asked the man how he knew that to be true. The worker replied he didn’t but he could easily drive around the city and see if the convertible turned any heads. Iacocca immediately ordered the top cut off of Chrysler Le Baron coupe that was just coming off the end of the assembly line. The maintenance crew shows up with a metal saw and “chopped the top.” Iacocca then got in the car with the worker and drove around the city to gage the interest. Sure enough, the car turned a few heads and Iacocca approved its production based on that immediate market research.

Think about how long that would have taken during a traditional approach? Months and months to do the research, get engineering involved, market test groups, etc, etc. Nope. Not this time. Cut the dang top off and drive around town to see if any women look at you. Make the car. It worked.

I sit here amazed at how fast time goes by. One minute I’m writing a December newsletter about the end of my football season and in the blink of an eye, I’m setting some aggressive goals for the Division One conferences I’m trying out for this spring. (in case you are wondering: SEC, Conference USA, Sun Belt and Ohio Valley)

I don’t know about you but I have some pretty aggressive goals that I want to accomplish this year, both professionally and personally, and with three months gone, I must stay focused. Doing only activities that align with my goals, I must say, is easier said than done given all the interruptions we typically have in our days.

As I close out this month’s column, I want to challenge you to do a quick evaluation of your progress you’ve made towards goals set, resolutions made, promises promised. Make course corrections needed (that’s a Navy term) that get you aligned again if you happened to drift off course. Review those goals weekly, post them up for the world to see (my goals are on my dresser mirror at home so I see them every morning getting dressed). Good luck on your journey.

Follow these tips to negotiate agreements productively and without stress:

• Keep an open mind. Brainstorm ideas. Listen to outlandish proposals. Entertain unusual possibilities. Thiswill expand opportunities for agreement.

• Treat people fairly. When people feel you’re being fair with them, they’re more likely to make real commitments. If they think you’re trying to cheat them, they’ll walk away in a huff. You won’t get commitment unless the other party feels you’re sincerely trying to do what’s right.

• Listen actively. Don’t plan what you’re going to say while the other side is talking.  Pay attention to what they’re saying so you know where they’re coming from and what they really want. When your response makes it clear that you’ve really been listening, they’ll be more willing to listen to your proposals.

• Grab them with your subject. The subject line should read like a compelling newspaper headline. One technique is to use the subject line to tell people what you want up front:  “Please come to the 3 p.m. meeting,” for example, or “Do you have the Jones file?”

• Limit yourself to one subject per message. Don’t overload readers with questions and data. Single-topic e-mails are easier to answer than lengthy essays or questionnaires.

• Ask for action. Tell the reader what you need him or her to do—present a report at the 3 o’clock meeting, or bring the Jones file to your office. Specify whether you want a response to your e-mail. If it’s not necessary, tell them.

• Be consistent. Tracking e-mails is easier when you keep the same subject line.

Here are some basic sales tips that will help you advance and prosper:

• Reject rejection. Even veteran salespeople dread the possibility of rejection. To counter this fear, keep reminding yourself that when prospects turn you down, they’re rejecting your ideas, or the product you sell, or even your company—not you. Never take rejection personally.

• Build rapport without wasting time. A common mistake many salespeople make is spending too much time “making friends” with the prospect. Though building rapport is useful and important, making friends doesn’t automatically translate to making sales. Save time by finding one thing you have in common with the prospect, and talk about that one thing for two minutes. Then, move on to your prospect’s needs. Prospects don’t want to waste time on chitchat any more than you do; most will be gratified to deal with someone who wants to get down to business.

• Don’t mail more pieces than you can follow up on. If your strategy is to mail promotional letters to prospects and then follow up with a phone call, watch how many pieces you mail. You’re better off mailing in small batches and following up each piece with a prompt phone call while the piece is fresh in prospects’ minds. Otherwise, you run the risk of your prospects forgetting what you mailed them by the time you reach them.

• Rate each of your prospects. Whenever you meet with prospects, assign them a rating based on three questions: 1) Do they have a motivation to buy? 2) Is there an urgency to buy now? and 3) Do they have the resources to buy? Put each prospect on a scale of 1 to 10, and spend a lot of time only with your highest-rated prospects. You’ll find that by rating prospects right off the bat, you can quickly disqualify people and move on before you waste a lot of their time and yours.

One of the featured guest speakers at a past SuperConference was Michael Vance. Michael worked side-by-side with Walt Disney for a number of years.  As I was listening to Mike, I made a mental note to start talking about a Walt Disney quote about marketing that I used to use a lot.

What Walt Disney said about Marketing is:

“Do what you do so well – and so uniquely – that people can’t resist telling others about you.”

In every field, there are “masters”. People just so darned good at what they do that people are compelled to tell others about them.

Mike Vance is that kind of speaker, and there are darned few in that category.  Actors like Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro.  The salesman I used to buy my cars from, Charlie Smith, at Oxmoor Ford in Louisville – he puts every other car guy I’ve ever seen to shame.  There are a couple chiropractors I know who put on such a great “report of findings” (their equivalent of the Printing Audit) that they enjoy 100% conversions and can easily sell large dollar “pre-pays.”  There’s a shoe-shine guy at the Atlanta Airport who still rubs wax in by hand, snaps the towel with authority, slaps the leather, makes the brush sing.  And this is important: these people are “master performers.”  They are not just masters at whatever technical thing they do, they are masters at presentation.

So, here’s a very simple, very practical question: after customer buys from you for the first time, do they – without any prodding from you – rush to the phone, call an associate, and tell them about the amazing buying experience they just had?  Are the first words out of their mouth to the next person they see about you?

If it is, here’s the economic impact: your need to invest money in acquiring new customers will diminish over time as your business converts to being 100% referral driven.  This means you can take all the money you now spend on advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, etc. and put it into your pocket instead.        This means you will have more people calling and waiting in line for you than you have time, because each client will multiply.

“Mastery” can quite easily be worth an extra $50,000.00 to $200,000.00 or even more to you each year you remain in this business.  (Bank it all at even modest interest and in just five years you can retire a cash millionaire.)

To get that good, you must dedicate yourself to doing so: I’ve always been impressed with the late Yul Brenner, who performed the “King and I” a record number of times on Broadway – and still rehearsed his lines, gestures and facial expressions everyday, before every performance, right up until his last one.  How many times have you written out your own, complete sales script word for word?  Recorded it and listened to it on tape?  Role-played it with family or mastermind group members?  Practiced in front of a mirror?  Ever?  This month?

Get this:  I can predict your future bank balances if I know what you read, what you listen to, what educational functions you attend, who you hang out with and what you work on (practice) regularly.  Oh, and years ago, Joe Karbo wrote this wonderful ad headline:  are you too busy making a living to make a fortune? Are you?