I attended Troy White’s full day seminar yesterday, The Wild West Wealth Christmas. Troy hosted the session and brought together a power-house of speakers. The topic was, of course, marketing.

I ended up with four pages of notes. Of which I have distilled half a dozen measurable actions for my company to investigate and test as we move into 2008. I am not going to get into a long diatribe of what my notes contain here, but I will tell you that I feel I got great value from my day with Troy.

Guests included author & publisher Mary Halpen, who nearly brought the room to tears with her heartfelt business and life lessons, Brandon Roe, who spoke to increasing prices without objections, and Doug White, the reported Grandfather of direct marketing.

Troy is planning the 2008 Wild Wealth Summit for early summer. If you own a business or have a direct stake in it’s success through marketing, then keep youe eyes open and watch Wild West Wealth Summit for updates.

Troy – Thank you for a great program.

Cheers,
David A. West

As a website developer, I have learned to “raise red flags” when a prospective client says certain things. for the purposes of this article, I have named these prospects, “The Expert Prospective Client”.

The expert – Knows how long a task will take before they ask.

They often say things like, “That’s just a simple task, isn’t it? I don’t think it will take long for you to do.”

The expert – Knows the value of our service, without asking for a quote.

They often say things like, “I just need this one thing done, it should be quite inexpensive…”

The expert – Has changed service providers recently.

They often have just left a previous service provider on questionable grounds. In some cases, they did not pay their final bill. They will say things like, “My last guy/gal used to nickle & dime me to death. Every time I turned around, they send me an invoice for something…”

The expert – Hires professionals, but openly admits that they could do it themselves.

They may say something like, “I could have done this myself, but my time is too valuable.”

The expert – Often offers to send you lots of new clients, provided you give them a good deal & do a great job for them.

They say things like, “I know a lot of people, if you do a good job for me I’ll refer you lots of business in the future.” These offers sometimes come as veiled threats if a project goes a bit sideways. The expert will say, “I wish we didn’t have to deal with this, I don’t know if I can refer my friends to you if this is how it is going to be…” It has been my experience that the people who use “referrals” as leverage, are the same people who never refer new clients.

My experience has shown that it is difficult to build a client/service provider relationship with the expert prospect.

Do you run across the expert potential client in your business? Have I missed any common traits in my list above?

David A. West

Regards - David A. West

I received two extremely expensive direct marketing pieces in the mail today. You may ask, what makes these flyers so expensive? Easy, they are really nice looking mail items. One is a glossy full colour postcard from the business form people, and the second a typical 1 page newsprint “special” from a retail store (I think they are in the area). They must have cost a ton to print and then add in the delivery cost from Canada Post etc. Expensive… right?

These two items jumped out at me though. Not because they caught my eye with a fancy headline that evoked my emotions, not because of the high quality of the content and not because of the great deals they offered. They didn’t jump out because I recognized their branding as a trusted supplier. They jumped out at me because the postcard is 100% in French, and the Market flyer has no address, map or phone number on it. I haven’t even heard of them before… too bad, they have some great deals this week.

I prefer to receive my junk mail in English. I may have missed the point of an all French post card in central Calgary, maybe it’s one of those “test and measure” things that marketing people do?

Direct mail can be expensive, but expense is relative to the return on your investment. If you spend money on direct mail items to the community, please make sure that you put your address, phone number and a little map on your flyer.

What types of direct marketing or mail does your business send out? By the way, Nebbs has a great offer this week – Dites-nous ce qui vous preoccupe… Remplissez notre court sondage et courez la chance de gagner un iPod(r) de 80G. Un Tirage Chaquie mois. …until 31 Dec 2007.