Archive for the ‘All’ Category

My colleague and close friend, Jean-Guy Francoeur, just returned from a business trip to Billings, Montana where he was working on a campaign for his client, Apex Personal Training. This is not the first time JG has been involved in their marketing, and judging by the results he’s pulling for them, it won’t be his last. I asked him if we could hop on a skype video call and discuss the strategies behind the incredible results he helped them achieve. Enjoy.

This is the post card (I think JG refers to it as a mailer) that went out:

They also created a special report entitled “Life Lessons from an Ironman”:

This is the email that was sent out:

Technorati Tags: AMD, Apex Personal Training, Case Study, Jean-Guy Francoeur, Jeff McLeod, marketing

Success and generating above-average income is not rocket science and it’s not difficult, it’s about establishing the right habits!

My gift to you! This is a PRODUCTIVITY TEMPLATE I use on a daily basis to guide me through the treacherous waters of “multi-tasking”. I think multi-tasking and that concept is the worst thing for productivity.

I prefer “single-tasking!”

Download the template: click here. (don’t expect a super duper, earth shattering document that can make espresso and cook you diner – it’s simple and effective!)

Here’s how you use it:

1. Notice how there are 4 times as many "revenue generating activities" compared to "impact".

The difference is that revenue generating are activities that put cash in the bank. e.g.: meet with a client, create a new sales page, sales call, webinar, speaking engagement, meeting with a JV, send a sales email, building a new sales sequence…

Impact are things that make an impact and will generate revenue later. e.g.: creating policies and procedures, learning a new skill, developing a manual…

See the difference? Big income earners spend their time doing rev-gen vs.. minutia!

2. The most important part of this template is the daily evaluation. How did you feel after that day… don’t skip this part!

If you have any questions, just comment and I’ll reply

–
Jean-Guy (JG) Francoeur
Author, MESSY Manager

Last week, Joseph Manna noticed an update I posted on Facebook about how my recent event sold out. He asked me if I wouldn’t mind sharing my success story on the Infusionsoft Blog to help fellow Infusionsoft users learn how I did it … and here it is!

Jean-Guy Francoeur
Author, MESSY Manager

P.S. For a LIMITED TIME get a FREE copy of all my books: http://jgfmarketing.com/books-authors-or-published-by-jgf/

Technorati Tags: black card marketing, blog marketing, infusionsoft, Jean-Guy Francoeur, jgf books, JGFMarketing, Messy Manager

Here are some great tidbits from the Harvard Business Review.

More and more companies are introducing social networking tools to help employees connect. However, these should not be considered “work versions” of Facebook or Twitter. These platforms are intended to support your work, not give you a place to post pictures of your poodle. Here are three ways to make good use of these tools to advance your work:

1. Narrate your work. Talk about your current projects: where you are, what you’re struggling with, and what you’re producing. This will help others who may be doing similar work find you.
2. Ask questions. There is often collective wisdom out there. If you’re stuck, ask the crowd to help you out.
3. Talk about social stuff. If your company softball team won last night’s game, put it out there. Socializing is an important part of work and these tools are perfect for supporting it. You may want to dedicate a specific part of the platform to socializing, however, so people can avoid it if they want to.

Technorati Tags: black card marketing, drive traffic, Gerry Robert, harvard business, how to marketing, internet marketing, lead generation, marketing, marketing consultant, marketing solutions, small business marketing

Craig Engler is the general manager and senior vice president of Syfy Digital. He’d love to talk you about TV or Syfy, answer your questions and hear about what you had for lunch. You can look him up on Twitter at @syfy.

I tried using Twitter three separate times before I figured out how truly useful it can be. The first time was early on, when no one I knew was using it, and I had no idea what I was doing. I tried searching for friends and followed a few random feeds and thought, “Meh, what’s this possibly good for?”

My second jump into Twitter was after the initial big wave of hype hit. I decided I should rejoin to figure out what I missed the first time. This time around, I found that Twitter was flooded with people randomly talking about their day (and their meals — people really do love to talk about food on Twitter) and again I thought, this is definitely not for me.

The last time, and the one that clinched the deal for me, was almost by accident. I wanted to see what people were saying about the finale of our hit series, Battlestar Galactica. I was looking at Facebook and on our own Syfy message boards, and the feedback wasn’t keeping up with the pace of the show. I wanted to see instant, real-time reactions. So I wandered over to Twitter.

I have a special offer at the end of this post!

There have to be at least a gazillion rules & quotes for writing effective direct mail copy. And, unlike other forms of advertising, these rules are proven to be effective through measured response. There’s nothing new here. These rules have been around since Mr. Sears first gave a postal carrier a hernia by sending nine pound catalogs through the mail.

Here are my five favorites.

1. Sell benefits, not features.

Your reader doesn’t care how many teeth are on your machine’s gears. He only cares that your machine will grind his rocks into cement cost effectively. Show him how your machine can do that.

2. Be conversational.

One of my early mentors said it this way. “Write it like you’d say it, then go back and take out all of the cuss words”. Damned good advice, if you ask me.

3. Always include a postscript.

Research shows that the letter is the first thing the reader looks at in the package, after the outside envelope. And, a majority of people will read the PS before they read anything else. So, always include a PS. In addition, it’s best to state your proposition in the PS, just as you do at the beginning of the letter.

4. Long copy sells better than short copy.

Ah… The sweet smell of success! I Googled (one of the most popular verbs in the English language these days) “black card” and you’d think that since this is our company name, we’d rank but I tell you we’ve had a heck of time ranking on Google. Why? Because when we selected our company name, we like the prestigious conotations with Black Card and our services are not meant for everyone nor can just anyone purchase them so this was fitting for us. What we did NOT consider was the competition on Google for this key word.

152,000,000 (that’s million) is a lot of competition and with every credit card company out there having their very own “black card” you can bet we were up against some of the big boys like American Express, Visa, MasterCard and many other companies that are REALLY GOOD at branding and have DEEP POCKETS.

I forgot to mention another little competitor… you might know them as WIKIPEDIA!

But never fear, a David Vs. Goliath type of battle is always fun to watch and even better when David wins. In this case, we’re winning! I checked today and we’re now on the first page of Google for the keyword “black card” and soon enough we’ll be ranking at the top (not sure we’ll out rank WIKIPEDIA)!

Black Card Marketing Group takes on Visa, Mastercard and AMEX

How did we do it? Good question!

Technorati Tags: article marketing, black card marketing, Gerry Robert, how to marketing, lead generation, marketing, small business marketing, social media, Toronto Marketing Consultant