2007 HMA Consultant Conference Call Ideas to Get your Wheels Turning

Michael: Hi, this is Michael Senoff with Michael Senoff’s www.hardtofindseminars.com and HMA Consulting. Here’s a private conference call that we did with some of the new 2007 HMA consultants and Richard and we cover a lot of different concerns and questions from some of the new and one or two of the existing HMA consultants. Enjoy.

So, I want to welcome everybody to this conference call with HMA consultants and Richard and myself, Michael Senoff. And Richard, I want to thank you for joining us. I really appreciate it.

Richard: You bet. Thank you, Michael.

Michael: I’d like to introduce Richard and Richard, I’d like you to go over some of the exciting things that you’ve been doing with Makau. It sounds very exciting because you’ve got some very large players that possibly the HMA consultants are going to be able to leverage off this name recognition and instead of me spilling the beans, why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing the three or four months working with Makau, who they are, how the consultants and myself can benefit from this experience.

Richard: Makau is a training organization and they are also the exclusive platform, I guess management training platform provider for Dell Computer and IBM. Through a referral, approached me a month or two ago, said that they’d been looking at the HMA system and they were impressed enough and wanted to include the marketing system on their e-learning management platform. So, that was an exciting endorsement from Makau. So, I’ve been spending the last two months or so now recording an e-learning course that will soon, I’m guessing, Michael, probably the next 60 to 90 days. We’re now into editing and we’re starting kind of the hard work part of it. The recording is over and just got to get it to finished products. So, also I’m not completely clear on how much I’ll be able to, in promotion of it. I know that they’ve indicated that I can’t say anything like Dell and IBM endorsed the system, but the fact that it’ll be on their public websites and so the fact that we promote is that the HMA system has been selected to be included in the Dell and IBM learning management system.

Michael: Now, is this is only marketing system included in these systems?

Richard: That’s correct.

Michael: So, our system is the only marketing system included and this was chosen to be included by IBM and Dell.

Richard: That’s correct. What that means is IBM and Dell have realized and they’re not making money on their hardware anymore, so Dell, I think started, but a while back they decided they had to start making money on services and so what they’ve put together through Makau is a platform management learning system that they sell for $20,000 to their clients; to small businesses, to medium businesses, large businesses and these businesses then can take this managed learning system and train all their employees. So, a business might have a hundred employees and they might buy this course for $20,000 from Dell or IBM and then their employees can go in and on a menu select courses of training like Excel or Microsoft Word or IT courses or HR human relation courses; anything that the company might feel their employees need training on. Well, now they have a marketing course that they can select and train their employees on and that’s the HMA system. That’ll be on there, so we’re very excited about that.

Michael: That’s great. Now, I understand that you will be able offer that system to our consultants once everything is wrapped up in 60 to 90 days, and if so, how will the HMA consultants benefit having the access to that?

Richard: It’s great and I’m very excited to offer it to all of the HMA consultants because really what it does is, a few years ago I realized that the fees I was charging could not be paid by a lot of small businesses, especially out in rural areas that I could never get to. So, we developed the seven manuals and now there’s eighth bonus manual coming out in the next month or so on Internet marketing. So, now what we’ve done is taken those same seven manuals and now an eighth and created an electronic video training course with them. So, now they could train anyone long distance. And so, we’ll work out pricing. We don’t have that worked out right now, but basically an HMA consultant will be able to come in and buy at wholesale the course and train anyone and as many businesses as they want can go through this course that is now used by Dell and IBM. So, you now not only will have hard copy of manuals that you can resell because some of the HMA consultants will certain do group training face-to-face, but now we have an electronic version of that same course with me video taped for five hours of recording taking them through the course that they can use on their websites, as affiliate sites, and be able to sell it all around the world.

Michael: So, they’ll be able to buy it for a certain dollar amount and then resell that. It’s like a group training, but it’s all Internet.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Well, I’m looking forward to learning more about that. I’m sure the other HMA consultants are, as well.

Since you’ve talked about group presentations, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about what Richard’s been doing in relation to group presentations and I usually explain that you’re doing a lot of work with the manufacturing associations. Can you bring the consultants up to date on what you’ve been doing in the last year with all these manufacturing associations and how group trainings and group presentations can really leverage your time and what opportunities it may offer the consultants because there’s several who really want to go this route?

Richard: Sure. You bet. It’s the manufacturing extension partnership is essentially an alliance that I’ve developed over the last four years. And so, every HMA consultant out there knows about alliances and know that it’s Step #4 in our marketing system. So, what happened was is this is a consulting group that goes out and offers manufacturing consulting services to small, medium size manufacturers. They are a non-profit group and they have a center in every state. And so, I started working them because they needed somebody or a resource that could offer their manufacturing clients marketing help. Manufacturers are really good at offering process help or quality help or lean manufacturing help, but they’re not very good in offering their clients marketing help. So, the HMA system gets used to help these manufacturing associations service their clients better by offering a marketing consulting training service.

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Well, as we started working with this association, it became clear that they could get to a lot more clients than I could one-on-one, and so, we started working on a group training process where the association would sponsor a workshop and workshop is all included in your HMA materials. It’s the same workshop that’s given to any group or association on Power Point. And then those businesses would come to the workshop and instead of following up for one-on-one consulting the offer was made to have them join a group-training course.

And so, for example, we would do a workshop with the manufacturing association. We might have 15 to 20 manufacturing business owners attend the workshop. Well, they’re scattered all over the rural areas, they’re scattered far and wide for this group, and so, it’s too hard and it’s too difficult and I’m long distance sometimes and so I can’t go visit each one those 15 or 20 that came to the workshop one-on-one. So, the manufacturing association and myself set up a group training where they will sign up for $500 a person. And so, you want to have at least 10-12 people that are coming to the course because now you’re at $5,000 to $6,000 of revenue. I would go once a week for six weeks and take them through the course. You should, in your HMA materials, have an outline of what was covered every week, but usually one or two steps of the system would be covered every week using manuals that they all got a copy of and they can order wholesale from us and handout and the attendees use those manuals.

So, here’s what happens is I go and train for two hours and I do it for six weeks, so that’s about 12, maybe 15 hours and even throwing in another 5 hours for travel if you have to, you’re charging $500 and you’re getting 12, that’s $6,000 for about 20 hours of work. And so, what is that; $6,000 divided by 20 is $300 an hour. So, it’s a very good leveraged way of delivering the service, the system to clients who can’t afford to pay you $3,000-$4,000 a step, but they can send employees through at $500 a person and it leverages the HMA consultant’s time so that he doesn’t have to spend one-on-one time, but he’s taking a group of 10 or 12 businesses through the system. This group training, it’s been great. It’s terrific and I would encourage HMA consultants to set up as many alliances as they can with other small business, manufacturing--not manufacturing, but they can any small business consulting group that can get them in front of small business owners.

Michael: How do you like compared to working one-on-one with clients?

Richard: They’re both just different, but good experiences. It’s harder to control impacts and results through a group training. You’re not involved one-on-one, but also the risk is so small at $500 a person. Now, that’s not in stone. I mean HMA consultants need to charge whatever they can charge to get people out. So, if you’re offering 6 weeks of 2 hours, 12 hours, maybe 15 hours of consulting for $500, that’s $30 an hour, $35 an hour; very reasonable for training fees.

Michael: The people don’t have a lot of money and they’re only paying $500 for the group training.

Two things, is their entry fee subsidized or financed by any of the government associations, number one, and have you ended up with people who want to work with you one-on-one who didn’t have the money?

Richard: You bet. Yeah, both of those have happened. And it depends on the group or association that HMA consultant might affiliate with, but when we move from consulting to training, we do open up training dollars that are provided sometimes by state and local city organizations, economic development organizations training dollars. They would never pay you as a consultant to go consult with a client one-on-one, but they will pay you as a trainer to go in and train employees because that’s what the state wants and that’s what the local…so you need to be aware going in that there might be organization that would even subsidize some of that $500 for these businesses to go. And then, yes, out of each one of those it becomes very possible to get a client or two that would want to take you one-on-one. It just depends where you’re at physically, the location, and if it makes sense for you.

Michael: I’ve got a couple consultants who are very interested in doing the group presentations and they’ve seen the seven step workbooks, the group presentation workbooks and they’ve inquired about private labeling the workbooks. Is that an option for the HMA consultants?

Richard: We have a reseller agreement that they can apply for and get for them to resell these manuals. And when they do that, then they can send in their cover that they would like, their private label cover. We can print them right here. We can private label it for them. We’re looking at a wholesale cost for all eight modules at about $99 wholesale and then they can turn around and retail it. So, if you’re charging $500, you’re going to net $400. You’re going to have $100 in cost of materials, but then you’re going to net $400 per client.

Michael: Also, I’ve had several consultants interested in like a graduation certificate and that’s something new we’re doing. So, after any of the HMA consultants 45-day trial period and after they’ve gone through the system and they feel confident and they’ve watched all the DVDs and the group training material, they feel like they’re sufficiently trained in the system, we’ll provide them a very professional looking certificate on real certificate paper basically a graduation, kind of like a diploma, which will be customized with their name and the date; a certificate of completion, which they can use anyway that they want.

Here’s an email from Gary Carter. I’ve known Gary Carter for a couple of years. He’s a financial planner and he just sent me an email. I’d like to read it. This is a note to tell that I’ve just finished reading every page, watching every DVD, and listening to all of the audios in the HMA course. I’m now beginning to listen all of the audios on the HMA University and the other links you finish with the HMA University course. I want to thank you. This is a wonderful course. I believe this will be of great use to me. I did see areas that can be improved, however, there is more than enough information to make anyone interested in this field a wonderful living. As always, you delivered more than I expected. I do have a great interest in doing the seminars. I think this is where I can make more money to begin with and the fastest. I’m looking forward to talking with you and Richard both on Monday. That’s from Gary Carter out of North Carolina. I’m excited to see what Gary’s going to be doing in the near future.

Another new consultant, Dave Flannery, out of Ireland, this guy is really amazing. He’s 35 years old. He just graduated with an MBA at the top of his class. He is action central and I want to use Dave as an example of exactly what you need to do to really get your consulting business going. Sometimes it’s hard to get going, but if you take action and implement, which is the whole philosophy of the HMA system is execution for your client. But I want to read through…he’s broken down each of the steps in the system and how he’s taken action in preparing and beginning his consultant practice and maybe, Richard, we can comment because he wanted any kind of feedback on what he’s been doing on his ideas. So, I’m going to read to you an email that he sent me an outline of what he’s done thus far and maybe we can offer any comments on each of those.

Hi, Michael, what I’d like to do during our teleconference is go through with you, yourself, and Richard what I have done so far regarding the set up for my January 10th kickoff. Any suggestions, criticisms, and advice would be appreciated.

Step 1 -- defining my USP. In consultation with Michael, I’m using two USPs for my consulting practice. One, the abbreviated version is grow your business 20% in 20 days guaranteed. The long version is grow your business 20% in 20 days and between 25 and 100% or more in 60 to 90 days with no extra costs in advertising guaranteed. My guarantee is after following my recommendations for 90 days, your business is not grown at least 25%, I will work with you for free until it does. And my closing convincer, Dave Flannery is Ireland’s number one HMA business growth expert and he has an extra closing convincer, after our time working together, I will ask you to name your biggest competitor company and I promise I will not offer my service to that company for the six months after our agreement ends.

Any comments on these, Richard?

Richard: Well, I’m excited because what he’s done, Michael, is he’s personalized the system. The system puts out the guarantees, it puts out there grow your business 25 to 100% or more guaranteed. He guarantees somewhat also recommended is that he would at least cover the fees that he’s paid, but in this case, he’s even making it stronger and that is he’ll go ahead and guarantee 20% and then 25 to 100% or least 25%. So, my only comment is if he wants to get into the measurement problem, and that’s the only problem that sometimes arises here is you’ll get a client that you’ll guarantee a figure to like 25% and then it just gets into a measurement fiasco and they’re always saying things like well we kind of did some, you didn’t do it all, and how are we going to measure 25%. So, I would just advise him to move forward, but maybe just remember those are some of things that might come up as he’s moving forward. I’ve always guaranteed the fees that they’ve paid and that’s much easier. It seems to be a little easier for clients to understand and accept and then they don’t get worried too much about measuring a whole lot. And the reason it all becomes a moot issue is the growth starts happening and they see it and it just kind of goes away.

Michael: Tell me how you would guarantee the fees?

Richard: Well, if he charges $3,000 per step and he closes them for four steps then he’ll guarantee that they increase at least $12,000 in new sales. And it could be more, but that’s what he’ll at least guarantee. And if they don’t feel like they’ve gotten at least that, then he’ll work for free until they are satisfied. So, it’s just a lower bar, but he’s raising the bar, which is exciting and good. So, as long as he feels confident that he can measure it, that’s the question, then I say go ahead do it.

Michael: Step 2 -- integrating my USP. Both versions of my USP, my guarantee, my closing convincer, and my extra closing convincer appear in the following; my business cards, my letterhead, my answering machine, the header and byline on my weekly newspaper column, the local radio slot, all my media releases, all copy in my direct mail rollout, my 30-second elevator speech and any media profiles.

And this is perfect because this is exactly the type of thing as far as integrating a USP that needs to be done for any client you work with, would you agree?

Richard: Yes. He’s following the system and that’s the message I get to all the HMA consultants out there from this is here’s a guy, one of the consultants who is simply saying well if I’m going to turnaround and charge clients to do this system, one of the first things they’re going to look at and they might even ask and that I ought to be doing so that I can help them better is do it my own business. So, he’s doing it. He’s integrating. He’s doing Step #2. And all of the HMA consultants should do that. They should personalize the USP that they feel good about. Basically the HMA system already has one for them and so that is good, but they can take that and personalize it like Dave has. And then however they’re doing their marketing, like he’s got eight things he’s doing here. He’s integrating all of those into that, so he’s just right on track.

Michael: Can you distinguish a little bit…we have these seven step of the system and we meet with clients and a lot of the consultants believe that all seven steps have to be done for that client. But each client is different and they may have clients that have some of these steps already integrated. So, can you talk about the flexibility of this system and what happens if you find a client who already has a pretty good USP or has that USP integrated into his marketing already. What would you advise a client to propose if he sees something like that?

Richard: That’s a great question and it happens a lot. One of the dangers of systemizing something is that you begin thinking that’s the way it has to be and that’s a big mistake, that HMA consultants, we don’t want you making with the client. The system is a guide. It’s a way to help execute. It’s a way to help identify marketing assets and make certain that you’re leveraging all of the assets the company might have. But you need to go in and upon doing the Opportunity Analysis, you might find out that a client got Step #1 or they might be doing media really well already or they might be just doing a bang up job on web marketing. Well, what you don’t want to do is over sell and recommend steps that they don’t need. That’s a mistake. So, you want to take the steps and customize them and manipulate them according to the needs of the client. I have had occasions where a client’s really got a good USP already out there. So, it moved on to Step 2, Step 3 and we didn’t even do Step 1. It may be that they’re already doing a lot of media and so Step #2 integration of the USP would already get put into their ads, would already get put into their media during Step #2, so you don’t need Step #5 on media. Does that make sense? I think the question and our answer is that be sensitive to…and sometimes what happens is consultants will shortcut the analysis process and they won’t go through all of the eight areas and so they’ll conclude the clients needs all eight when they really just don’t. They might only need two or three.

Michael: So, what if an HMA consultant is meeting with a client and this type of client is someone who needs to see results fast, and because the way the system is set up, developing a USP is not going to get too much measurable results fast. And because there’s flexibility in the system, especially with the fast start program, what advice would you give a client--would you give a consultant if they’re meeting with a client who they can tell really wants to see results fast and how they should use the flexibility of the system to give them what they want?

Richard: There’s two things there. One is the first thing is to find the biggest, fattest asset that the client’s sitting on. So, if they want fast results, then you as the consultant have to identify which asset could be leveraged the fastest and quickest for most immediate impact. So, that’s the first thing is then to forget about the steps. Zero in on what assets might be glaringly deficient right now. For example, if I were to identify the assets that I’ve seen get the fastest impact for a client, it’s usually a customer base that they haven’t been mailing to. It’s usually salespeople that are under performing. It’s usually no follow up systems in place for prospects. It’s usually reactivation of past clients that they haven’t paid attention to. It’s usually maybe just tweaking the media that they’re already doing to generate leads that could generate more. So, those are some of the fattest, biggest assets I found that could give immediate results for a client. Well, those don’t need to then maybe in a step at all. But I’ll also maybe realize they need a USP and to get to this fattest asset, it’s in Step #4, so I’m going to combine a USP and #4 and charge him one price for two steps, but he won’t even know it. He’ll think it’s just one step. So, what I’ll do is I’ll say okay it’s going to be $6,000 to get things going real fast and he says okay, what are you going to do. We’re going to get you a USP and we’re going to send out a mailing to all of your customers. So, there’s no steps identified. So, that’s how flexible the system. And you can combine steps. You can combine parts of steps. You can either call them steps or not. The client doesn’t care. The client does not care how you’re going to make it happen. So, don’t burden the client with the details if he doesn’t need them. He’s just saying to you get me results fast. And now I’ve just described the way I’d go about doing that.

Michael: I’m going to move on with Dave Flannery’s outline. Database marketing, as a start up he has no database. Step #4 -- Strategic Alliances. Listen to what he’s done, Richard.

I’ve set up JVs with the following: two website designers, four accountants, two solicitors. The terms of the joint venture is that they send a letter written by me on their letterhead to their database explaining my service and for every one of their client’s that become my client, I will pay them 10% of the fee for the first project, which is between 350 Euros and 500 Euros depending on what I’m charging that client. I’m on the speaker’s list for the three Chamber of Commerces in my region. I am in talks to be added to the speaker’s list for the following organizations: the small firms associations, Irish small and medium enterprises. They’re just waiting for proof of certification before they add me. I’ve done the following in relation to media: media releases to all local business magazines and papers and radio stations. I’ve negotiated my own weekly column in the highest circulating regional newspaper. As part of the deal, I have forgone payments for the column in exchange for the following: (1) a two week front page profile on myself before the start of the column; (2) all my press releases will be printed; (3) all client press releases that I submit will be printed; (4) four adverts per year free of charge to use for myself or clients. I have been given a 20-minute radio slot every week on my local station to speak on air to local small business owners. A profile in the regional business magazine. I have a commitment from the Irish Entrepreneur magazine for a profile piece within the next four to six months.

It’s expected to bring him a little business?

Richard: Yes, he’s just working the system and he’s going to be swamped. That’s great. I applaud all of it. And he says he has no database step, well he really does because what he’s doing is he’s tapping into the database of his alliance partners. And so, he’s going to work the database of his four accountants, he’s going to work the database of his website designers. So, he’s…

Michael: What would you tell a consultant? He’s got a lot of action and a lot of things in the fire. He does talk about what he’s going to do with the overflow business. How much time would you expect it to take a new consultant maybe who is pretty verse in the system working with clients…I’ve asked you before in previous recordings…how much can a consultant handle? How much business should they book and what can they expect working with five or ten different clients at one time? Is that doable?

Richard: Consultants should be able to work with five to ten clients. The system is set up to where really maybe two to four hours per step per week per client and then you’ve got travel time and servicing time. But five to ten is not at all an unreasonable load for a client and it just depends on the size of the commitment and the size of the marketing system they’re putting into place. But generally five to ten is a good number. Each HMA consultant direction will go differently for each of them and some might want to hire people that could do some servicing of the client and the consultant stay on the selling side. We’ve had competitors from time to time who have decided to become servicing organizations for the consultant’s clients and that’s an option. You could arrange to help a client with managing their database. You could help a client with their media placement. You could help a client with PR releases. You could help a client by hosting a website. An HMA consultant could, if they wanted to, become a servicing entity. There’s also the opportunity to just be the salesman on the front end and turn over the servicing to other people. There’s an option of hiring salespeople that just go out and do Opportunity Analysis and then turn the client over to you, the consultant. All of those are different ways to deliver the system. You can get more into group training. And so, each consultant can go the way they’d like to go, but to answer the question what can one guy do on their own, five to ten clients is about where they want to be.

Michael: Community marketing and PR -- for community marketing, I am waiting until I achieve some marketing penetration and name recognition before I embark on this strategy. I have sent out PR releases to all major regional media outlets in seven direct mail. I have bought the names of a thousand small business owners, details in my region, and will be rolling out a direct marketing and telephone follow up campaign. I’m considering hiring a tele-prospecting company for a month-long lead gathering campaign. So far over Christmas and New Year session, I’ve set up 24 Opportunity Analysis meetings starting on January 10th. As I can only deal with so many clients at one time, I will be setting up a waiting list system whereby prospects who want to go ahead with a project or projects after having gone through the Opportunity Analysis go on a waiting list and pay the fee for the first project. When they are placed on the list, to stay on a waiting list, the fee will be between 3500 Euros and 5000 Euros depending on what I’m charging that client per project. If that client wants to leave the waiting list, they must pay 500 Euros as may not be able to fill that time space again. Like I said before, now that you have read the above, any suggestions, criticisms, and advice would be appreciated.

What’s your take on the waiting list here? Give me a brief analysis of what this Opportunity Analysis is for and how important it is and why you believe it’s such a critical step in the whole HMA process.

Richard: The waiting list, I’d just say test it. Find out. It might work great, particularly what he’s doing, letting the supply and demand takes its course and those that are going to demand it, his price will go up. And basically that is it. When an _____ creating demand and when you do that, your price goes up. So, when HMA consultants are wondering why they’re getting low fees, it’s because they’re not creating enough demand. They’re not working the system like Dave is. Dave is going to create so much demand that his price and fees will continue to go up. And that’s the neat thing and the waiting list could work. So, I just say test on that.

The Opportunity Analysis, Michael, I can’t emphasize enough to the HMA consultants how important this is. It’s really the differentiation between HMA and all other competing consultants. Most other consultants have product that they’re trying to push or deliver, whether that’s Internet consulting or media or trade show or copywriting or direct marketing, they all have their little area of specialty that they’re promoting. The Opportunity Analysis is a way for the client and the HMA consultant to communicate his differentiation. He’s going to go in and not offer any product solution. He’s going to go in and find ways to solve the problem from inside the company first by leveraging assets. And if you don’t go through the Opportunity Analysis, you have a big danger of missing assets. And when you miss assets, you miss possible solutions for the client. So, that’s why his 24 Opportunity Analysis are so great because he’s going to have 24 to 30 hours of consultation there that’s going to uncover how much opportunity he has with the client and that’s going to directly affect his fees. So, it’s very important.

Michael: Also, at the same time, I stress to consultants that that Opportunity Analysis is very important because it’s as much for the consultant as it is for the client. And it’s for the consultant to determine is this client someone that they want to take on. Now, many of the consultants are eager to get that first client to make their investment back on the HMA system. What advice would you give a client as they’re doing that Opportunity Analysis to identify signs that this is a good client and maybe some signs that would determine that this is not a good client and talk about challenges that you have if you take on a client that isn’t’ the right fit?

Richard: To me there’s a big relationship between the degree of a qualified client and the amount of assets they’ve got. So, the Opportunity Analysis is a big qualifier tool because I find out how much assets there is sitting in the company available to me as a consultant to optimize and leverage through the steps. And so, the more assets I can uncover the better. So, that’s one reason that it is so important.

The other is, if there’s not a lot of assets, I’ll only find that by asking all of the questions on the Opportunity Analysis, then I may not want to take on the client because I can tell HMA consultants directly, if I’ve had situations where there have been no impacts on a client, it’s because I took on the client when I probably shouldn’t have. In other words, there weren’t enough assets to really make some impact and difference in the business. The other thing that you find out as you go through the Opportunity Analysis is you get the attitude of the owner and that’s the second most important qualifier in all of this is how is he or she reacting to these questions. Are they open minded? Are they ready to charge forward and do some marketing or are they still kind of conservative and obstinate? Are you going to have an easy time working with them or is it going to be hard? Those are all things that you find out from questions that are on the Opportunity Analysis because those are the two biggest qualifiers and then the third would be asking the trial closing questions to find out if they’ve got the money to pay you. And so, you’ve got to get a company with enough assets. You’ve got to get an owner that’s ready to do business. And you’ve got someone that’s ready and able to pay you. Those three things, you’ve got to find out in the Opportunity Analysis because if you don’t, you’re going to struggle all along the way.

Michael: Great. I want to move on to a question and comment from Jonathan Banes.

“Hi, Michael, I’m still in the process of going through the material in the system and forming and growing the business. I’m considering a number of options that don’t seem to be covered in this system. They are: (1) I would like to grow a team, a network of associates, junior consultants, around me who could implement the system and continue the activity of the business while I’m away. I would like to direct some of my efforts into some of the more charitable work in various developing countries. Do you have any success story or models of consultants who have been able to successfully achieve this, for example, being a business owner rather than a self-employed consultant?”

Richard, have you had any consultants be able to really build a practice that takes them out of the picture?

Richard: There’s been a few situations where some of the consultants have zeroed in on a particular area of the system and if I were to say what’s out there it would be the Internet where they are becoming Internet consultants almost exclusively and generating residual incomes with their clients. So, in that way they’ve kind of built a business that’s generating income outside of themselves. Those would be a few that have done it that way. We’ve had a few who have maybe tried to become servicing businesses where they’ll manage database or they’ll try to place media for their clients. That’s been difficult. That’s proven less successful because it becomes consuming to become a service organization and when you do that, you usually then suffer on the selling side. So, those would be the examples that I can think of out there and I’ve toyed with from time to time and it’s certainly something that someone could test and that is do you have salespeople out there that maybe just sell the system, but don’t deliver it. Or do you have delivery people and you remain the salesman. So, those are some ideas that might, but they’re certainly worth testing. But those are the experiences I’ve known so far.

Michael: Gary, are you there?

Gary: I’m there.

Michael: Welcome to the call. I apologize for the technical difficulties. You got locked out.

Gary: There’s about four of us, but we’re all here now. We finally got our route right and somebody opened up a line so we could get in, which is great. And I really want to say, Richard, it’s a pleasure to meet you verbally.

Richard: Hi, Gary.

Gary: I really enjoyed your course. I spent…when I picked it up, I didn’t put it down until I read every page and listened to every video. But I really absorbed it. I’ve been in business for myself since I was like…my first business was when I was 14 years old. I’m kind of getting older now and I’m tired of traveling so much and so I was looking at this as kind of…basically bought it to kind of enhance my personal businesses that I have now.

Richard: Sure. You bet.

Gary: But I really think that I’m kind of leaning toward actually putting some of this into the business of consultation. So, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. I have about 14. I don’t know if I can take up that much time or not, but let me just fire them at you.

Why do you use a telemarketer? Is it just because the appointment is more efficient? Does it give you more credibility? Is it more acceptable that way? How qualified are the people that she sends you?

Richard: I’ve always used a telemarketer when I needed to because I just hate to make calls.

Gary: I understand.

Richard: It’s just something I don’t like to do. So, I’ve had to test different ones. You need to be real clear to them on what is a qualified client and make sure they deliver those to you. So, it’s just a matter, Gary, of testing and deciding if they’re going to work for you. Let’s say you invest…I think the rate out there in the market is probably $20 to $30 an hour for somebody. Let’s say they spend ten hours to get you an appointment. That’s $200. Let’s say you’ve got to spend $800 or four appointments to get a client, so that’s $800 for a client that would hopefully bring you back $12,000 to $15,000, so it’s still a viable situation. So, don’t get too…don’t hurry too fast to eliminate telemarketers if it works out that it’s even a profitable thing. But it’s just a matter of testing different ones that will work for you.

Gary: What is a closing rate I should expect from a telemarketer and do you send literature at any time between her call and your call or after your call before you make the qualifying call and go out and do a presentation?

You’re listening to an exclusive interview found on Michael Senoff’s www.hardtofindseminars.com.


Richard: I have not in past. Usually I’ve just made my call about a day before I go see them to confirm that we’re onboard and we’re ready to meet. So, as far as the ratios go, I think a pretty good track records been they’ve got an appointment an hour, and hour and a half maybe.

Gary: On the seminar marketing part, that’s where I see my real opportunity. I’ve done seminars for 30 years and have been very effective at them. I closing rate at seminars, generally I get 60% of the people in attendance to sit down one-on-one and I close about 80% of those. And it’s done real well and I see that. But to me the price is kind of low. I’m just wondering how did you set the price mark on that?

Richard: Are you talking about the price to attend a seminar?

Gary: I’m the type of guy that if I can’t make $5,000 when I go out the door, I’m not interested in going. I’m a little different than most people. I don’t give myself away. And I think $5,000 for a step in this metropolitan area is not unreasonable. But there are a lot of businesses that can afford that. So, what I was thinking about was marketing, getting 10 or 12 in a room and charging a fee and I’m wondering what will the market bear. I’m thinking $5,000 is not unreasonable or $3,000 to attend a three day course.

Richard: Well, how you structure the delivery is totally up to you, Gary. The only way that you have it described in your system is 10 or 12 employees come in once a week for two hours. Now, if you want to package that into three days and charge $3,000, no problem. So, how you want to package the delivery of the group is up to you.

Gary: Were you doing that once a week for seven weeks?

Richard: Right.

Gary: At $500 a week or $500 total?

Richard: No, $500 per person. So, we had, say, 12 people was $6,000. So, I’d go for two hours for six weeks, so I had about 12 to 15 hours into. So, it worked out to about $300 an hour.

Gary: In the course, you relate the fact that you have alliances with a government agency that has funds for small manufacturers or businesses to tap into for the training of their people. How do I go about finding that for my state?

Richard: I would go first to your economic development division of your state and they might have local city offices, as well. Within that Economic Development Agency, they’re usually part of the Small Business Administration. So, check out your SBA, your EDA (Economic Development Association), and then start asking are there training dollars and they usually have training that they can allocate to small businesses who want to take their employees through some training.

Gary: And then you’ve just got to find out who they service and who the association members are.

Richard: That’s right.

Gary: What is the best way to qualify a client other than when you’re on the phone? I mean I understand the Opportunity Analysis is the best way to qualify them, but are there other tricks of trade that you use?

Richard: Well, usually on the phone if I want to get a good, quick qualifying before I go do an Opportunity Analysis, I’ll say tell me a little bit about your business. And so, they’ll do that. And then I’ll ask something like are you ready to grow and can you handle growth right now. Yeah, yeah I am. Good. Well, generally it’s going to run anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 per step per month. Is that something that you could handle that wouldn’t hurt your business? So, you’ve got to be careful if you’re going to bring up the money on the phone or wait until your Opportunity Analysis, but if you want to qualify, I think that’s the way to do it.

Gary: You’ve got seven steps in the program and I really see nine; word of mouth and Internet.

Richard: There’s seven steps with the Internet now as a bonus step. There are only seven steps, but now in the next little while, you’ll be getting a copy of volume number eight for the end user. You have an Internet manual for you as a consultant. But we’re calling that a bonus step, not an eighth.

Gary: How do you figure the market share that a client currently has?

Richard: That’s a great question. There are some research groups I have joined in the past and I’m deciding whether to keep that membership. There’s a research group…you can go into a community and you can find out how much is being produced and sold in a certain segment of product and then you’ve got your client sales, so if you go in and you find out there’s $10 million of XYZ being sold in this community, my client is selling $1 million a year, he’s got 10% market share.

Gary: What is your connection with Jay Milton? I mean to me he does a lot of the things that I do as far as asset protection.

Richard: Oh, Jay Mitten.

Gary: Yeah, Jay Mitten and I’ve been to his seminars. Was he a client of yours?

Richard: Yes. He was a real big success story because he was doing seminars. We implemented some backend marketing to call his attendees that he didn’t close at the seminar.

Gary: So, he’s the attorney you were talking about. Last statement. Richard, I really want to thank you for taking the time because it is valuable to me to get my questions answered and what I like about Michael and you is that you actually put your mouth where your verbiage is. You actually do follow through and I certainly appreciate it. I do appreciate the 15 years you’ve been out there and have accumulated this information because it is highly valuable if someone will actually work the system.

Richard: Well, thanks. You bet. It’s been fun and it’s been hard and we’re excited to keep getting it out to you and helping you the best we can.

Michael: Thanks, Gary. I want to just see. Is Dave Flannery on?

Dave: Can you hear me?

Michael: Yes I can hear you. I want to see is Tom Ward on?

Tom: Yes.

Michael: Okay Tom and Tim are you there?

Tim: Yes.

Michael: Okay great. Tim, do you have any specific questions for Richard right now that he can cover?

Tim: Yes, I have like 15 questions. So, I don’t know how much time you want to make available.

Michael: Why don’t we take maybe two or three of your most pressing ones and then we’ll give someone else a chance and if we have time, we’ll go back. How about that?

Tim: That sounds good.

Michael: Okay, go for it.

Tim: First of all, I want to know do we have the right to use that name in our marketing system or the HMA and are we affiliates with you and how can we use that on our marketing material.

Michael: My advice is you’re really better off coming up with your own consulting name. I mean it could be Tim Armstrong Consulting, Tim Armstrong Enterprises and then as you get out there and marketing your services, it comes back to you because if you’re going to start using the HMA and someone is searching for you and they’re looking for you, you may lose business because they may connect up with myself or Richard before they get to you.

Tim: That’s true. That’s a good point. I didn’t think of that. Could you give me an example of where and why a company would need more than one USP and how you would work that on a time and price basis?

Richard: That’s a great question. It’s usually correlated with where the revenue is coming from. So, you’ve got to look at finding out if they’re doing $3 million a year where is all that money coming from. Is it coming from a single product line or two product lines and does that mean there’s different competitors? So, it’s going to depend on those factors. And so, there have been situations where you might say listen I see that we’re probably going to need three Unique Selling Propositions, but Tim I’ve usually seen them kind of be variations of the same. Sometimes they have to be completely different. Again, the decision on that is based on the competition. If he’s getting competition in two different industries, he needs two different USPs.

Tim: Based on the competition for…

Richard: For his revenue.

Tim: For his revenue.

Michael: How would you price it out, Richard?

Richard: Generally, I’ve used it as a bonus and saying listen I generally charge $3,000 per USP, but what I’ll do is I’ll do three of them for the price of two. So, I would try and structure some kind of bonus.

Tim: If I were only marketing the core four pillars, I’m thinking of just starting out that way, how much would it affect my presentation? I mean would I not present the four big pillars and would I have to alter the web presentation or what?

Richard: When I go do an Opportunity Analysis, you might uncover let’s seven projects. I have never had an Opportunity Analysis where the core four could not be used. So, you’re almost always going to have the core four available. Then what I usually say is when we get finished with these four, let’s see where we’re at and we might then make a new agreement on Steps 6, 7, and 8. Does that make sense?

Tim: Yes.

Richard: Or you might not. So, it maybe that you don’t go on to those others because they may not really need them or they don’t want move forward. You’ve got enough business coming in with the core four. So, it’s very easy to stay within that core four if you want.

Tim: Okay. And if I wanted to get involved in the big four, then I could always outsource whatever I…

Richard: There you go.

Tim: And just deduct the difference from their charges and mine.

Richard: There you go. That’s right.

Tim: Now, what about the sales training, too. You mentioned the sales training in the first part of the seminar and the relationship marketing. I didn’t get that one DVD yet, but I’m expecting it any day because I know Michael sent it out. I don’t know if you cover it in that, but I’m just wondering if I wanted to outsource that sales training, do you have any firm that you would recommend and how would I price that. Would the client pay for that extra sales training or would I absorb some of that cost?

Richard: I would do it just like you would outsource any of the big four and that’s get the cost from the trainer, mark it up what you can, and keep the difference.

Tim: Also, like Richard, you mentioned manufacturing as one of the hungriest industries for marketing consulting simply because they’re loosing so many jobs overseas. If I were to make manufacturers or their distributors my target market, how would you recommend that I best start?

Richard: I would maybe go to your local manufacturing association and maybe do a workshop. They’re always looking for workshop. Give them your three-hour workshop. They sponsor it. You come in and teach it and do your follow up. Start getting clients. But I would try to associate maybe with your local manufacturing association. You should have one there.

Michael: Let’s move on over to Tom Ward. Tom, are you with us?

Tom: Yes.

Michael: How are you?

Tom: Good. How are you doing Michael?

Michael: Questions you have for Richard or regarding the system maybe that’s not in relation to specifics where we have to online and look and analyze your business, anything at all that you can come up with?

Tom: I had that one question about when people are getting email and phone numbers off of websites by having prospects punch that in. The most reputable businesses are going to have a privacy policy and say we aren’t going to share your information with people. Well, how does that jive with the idea of going out to people and trying to share client lists and so on? I mean how do you do that without becoming a spammer and having people hate you. Is there an ethical way to get around that?

Michael: Let’s put the question in context for the other listeners. Are we talking about if you want to do an alliance with a business or a company and you want them to endorse your consulting services and they have an email list that they’re going to endorse you to their list, is that what we’re talking about.

Tom: Well, a lot of the joint venture and strategic alliance kind of tape, I hear this pop up several times that you go to some business and you say I have clients, you have clients, let’s share our client list. If you or this other person has said that I’m not going to be sharing your list with people, are you going to honor that or are you doing to be a dirt bag or is there a way to…

Michael: I think the way to do it is instead of just trading the list and then having each of the parties call on that other person’s client without any kind of notice ahead of time, the best way is to use that sharing as an endorsement where each one of the business calls their clients on behave of the person they’re sharing the list with. So, it becomes an endorsement, more powerful, and since it’s your customer and you’re calling…so, I maybe calling and saying I met this guy Tom Ward, he’s an amazing entrepreneur. I really want to stress that if there’s anything you need as far as marketing, I want you to give this guy a call. Could you do that for me? And then you have him do the same thing endorsing you. So, you switch, but you use it as an endorsement rather than cold calls.

Tom: It’s not coming from me, it’s coming from them and they’ve already said that we’re willing to accept information from you. So, there’s not a conflict that way.

Michael: That’s correct.

Tom: I just kind of thought of another way is if I went to a company and said I can do an email campaign for you as a trade situation and I’m going to be plugging your information to your clients, but you’re going to give me a slot at the bottom or at the side that’s going to say this presentation is put together by www.iwavemedia.com and we do this. So, you’re kind of piggybacking on their promotion that way.

Michael: Yes, that’s right. So, if you wanted a list…maybe you have someone in mind who you want them to send out the presentation or a particular presentation that you’ll customize to yourself, your name’s going to be all over that, but they’re going to buy that, they’re going to offer that to their clients as a service and look like a hero for doing so and basically endorsing you in that presentation which outlines the system.

Tom: Okay.

Michael: And David, are you still with us?

David: I am, yes.

Michael: How are you?

David: How are things?

Michael: Very good. Well, nice to meet you voice to voice.

David: Richard, how are you?

Richard: Good.

Michael: Any other questions or comments or concerns you have for Richard or myself?

David: Like I said, we’re rolling this out on this Thursday.

Richard: How many Opportunity Analysis do you have Thursday?

David: Well, I have 24 in total, so I probably have about 7 a day.

Michael: Tell the consultants the process that you were able to set up the 24 Opportunity Analysis. How long did it take you and what was your process that allowed you to do that?

David: It was very fortunate that I took time Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties. I got a couple of business cards printed because I knew I would be meeting people. Hadn’t seen people for a while and the first question I’d ask somebody when you haven’t seen them in a while is what are you doing. And if they answered that question, I went into my spiel.

Michael: Give me your spiel. When someone at the party said what do you do, did you use your short version USP? How did you do it?

David: It depended on how much time I had with them. If I thought they were kind of _____, I used the short version and if I thought that I had them kind of cornered and they were in a group, I used the long version. So, it was kind of a body language kind of thing that if I kind of sensed they really wanted to know about it, I used the short version and if they stayed where I was after the short version, then I went into more detail about what I was doing.

Michael: So, did it naturally elicit a reaction?

David: Just natural. I mean I think I did about…I actually can’t tell you how many people I said it to during all the season, but I mean 24 people took my cards, gave me a call the next day to set up for an Opportunity Analysis. Now, that’s not saying I’m going to close 24. Hopefully I will. Hopefully that will work, as well. Now, it’s a test. I don’t know if it will work. What I’m doing is I’m using strengths and tactics I’ve used over the last 18 years managing five or six different companies and this is one of them where you put them on a waiting list. Now, a lot of people have said to me what are you talking about, no one is going to wait on a waiting list. If you make it a prestigious thing to be on a waiting list, that’s what you do. I mean how many people…and I said it before…I don’t know how many of lads on the other call that I met that went to the different conference call…but the way I put it is how many people do you know that have said to you listen I’m on the waiting list for a _____, I’m on the waiting list for a Lexus and I had to pay to get on it. If you make it a prestigious thing to be on the waiting list, that’s what makes it a prestigious thing. Why buy a Rolex when you can buy a Timex? Well, you buy a Rolex to give you a bit of prestige. The two watches do the same thing, they both tell the time, but one is a prestigious object. The other is something you buy when you’ve lost your watch.

Michael: Are you going to be doing all your Opportunity Analysis in person or are you doing any of them by phone?

David: No, in person. I’ve asked that question on other conference calls, as well, and I find myself that…and I don’t like to use the word persuasive…but I find myself a lot more persuasive when I can see somebody’s reaction to me, as in the body language, the way they shift, the way their voice inflects; things like that. No, I’ll be doing them face-on-face.

Just two other things and I don’t mean to take up your time. The group training, as I said, I’ve got myself on the speaker’s list for the three Chambers of Commerce in my region and I’m going to do…and I just want to see how when I offer the group training, I want to offer than as a mini weekend group camp for the members of the Chambers of Commerce.

Richard: Okay.

David: And I’m think to limit that I won’t do it for less than 30 members. Now the Chambers of Commerce in my region are huge, so 30 members from one region wouldn’t even be a third.

Richard: Well, 30 businesses or 30 attendees?

David: Thirty businesses and then charge a nominal amount per company. Like in the group training that’s in the system, you’ve done it over a couple of weeks. I want to try to condense it. I don’t know if I’d like to do it that way. I’d like to condense into a weekend.

Richard: Sure, then just take your 16 hours and divide it by 8 and so you know you’ve got a couple more hours per step.

David: Exactly.

Richard: Well, you just might need to be flexible depending on the needs of the 30.

David: Of course. I mean like I said, this is all again testing for me. So, the first one would be a test and I’m sure I’m going to make a lot of mistakes, but again this is a test.

Richard: Yes, that’s right.

David: And also, I’ll probably record it and use it as backend sales.

Richard: That’s great.

David: And also, I’m thinking of that maybe the last weekend in August actually running…I’m not sure now…either a full weekend or a week boot camp, marketing boot camp.

Richard: Sure.

David: And record that to DVD and use that as backend sale, as well. But that’s in August and I don’t know. That’s a huge seminar; a huge undertaking and I want to see what kind of sales I get between here and August.

Richard: Sure.

David: Also, I’m about three-quarters of the way through a book based on my MBA thesis and I’ve arranged for the top three booksellers in the region to actually stock it. I’m self-publishing through www.lulu.com and once I actually get it all printed, they’ll actually stock it for me. Now, I don’t actually want to make any money out of that. It’s just get my face there and having a book in three bookshops.

Is there anything that I possibly need because I don’t want to take up your time because I can have Michael send it to me because I don’t want to take time from somebody else, but was there anything else major, major like you see is a huge…

Richard: No, we were just impressed with your execution. So, we basically made the point how important it is that the HMA consultants use the system in building their own practice.

David: Of course. I mean I was asked that, how I set it up and I said well the first thing I did was when I …and I want to say that the HMA system, this course worked itself. I have looked at other franchises and I don’t say…I don’t want to get people in trouble and…but there are franchises for so-called coaching systems and I had a look at a couple of them before I actually found my way to Michael. Well, I won’t say they’re useless, but they’re weak. Put it that way.

Richard: Yes.

David: I mean if you look at yourself as your first client, you can’t go wrong.

Richard: That’s right.

David: How can you go wrong if you work the system? That’s the way that I looked at it. I said I have to sit down here and just look at myself as being my first client.

Richard: That’s right.

David: And if I can do what I do for myself, then it’s a home run for being able to do it for other people.

Richard: There you go.

David: Do you know what I mean?

Richard: That’s great counsel.

David: You can’t go wrong. You really can’t. Can I just make a comment? I came in kind of late and I heard…and I can’t remember who it was…asked you a question about when you do the Opportunity Analysis. Now, I’ll just give you a bit of background. I did I think it was a six weeks training with Michael where I did training and I emailed him what I’d done. And I got an actor friend of mine from the local _____ here to do 60 Opportunity Analysis with me. I gave him the premise and he came up with the 60. It helped me a lot as regards what could up during an Opportunity Analysis, what may have happened. And I just want to…somebody that was on the line asked you about doing the core four and then the big four…actually do the four core as one Opportunity Analysis. No. My advice would be I got from going to…I don’t know, it’s only been Terry from…I haven’t done an actual live one yet, but what I would do is do all eight and then offer…do the core four and based on your success because you would be successful with the core four, there’s no way you can’t be. Its an immediate selling block for the big four and will cost a little bit more as regards money from the business side, but that would be made up…what you’ve done with them in the core four would easily make that up.

Richard: That’s right.

David: I don’t know if that’s helpful to the person who asked that question. I came in right on when he was asking that question, so it kind of hit me. I think that’s it, Richard. I’m just psyched for January 10th and getting these people…

Richard: We’ll be excited to hear how it goes.

David: I’ve been speaking to Michael about a goal I have and hopefully I’ll be speaking to him a bit more about it over the next coming year. I’m very good at setting goals, _____ towards them and just achieving them. But this system just makes it easy.

Michael: Anyone else who I haven’t talked to?

Walter: Yes, Michael, this is Walter from Thunder Bay, Canada.

Michael: Walter, thank you. I almost forgot about you. How are you?

Walter: Very good.

Michael: Walter, I certainly want to give you some time. Do you have questions for Richard? Any concerns?

Walter: I’ve been actually sitting and listening to all the audio files that you have and one of the things that actually I know that I have to ask is that I mentioned to you that in Thunder Bay, which is a city of just over 120,000 people and the city’s industry is based mostly on forestry and paper and there are paper mills and so on and so forth. Many of them are closing down because of their electricity cost and many of the surrounding related industries are serving them, so there’s like a chain reaction. And the city is very isolated, just to give you an example, to the nearest biggest city it’s Winnipeg, it’s like nine-hour car drive. The other one is Toronto, it’s 14 hour. So, this is like a little isolated island I would say. And it’s a little bit of a city where you have to prove to them that you can actually do it and that’s my challenge because I’m not sort of in their network. I live here for a short time, so I’m in the circle. And to me, it’s just the cracking of one or two, three clients to let them know that I can do something for them. How would you approach them?

Richard: I would get yourself associated with some of the groups and associations that help small businesses there. Your Chamber, like Dave’s done.

Walter: I would actually like to speak to Dave about his rollout because it seems to be that this is a good idea to create the demand for something where many of them are failing to capitalize on the changes in the market. So, if I have more indication maybe from Dave how you _____ your rollout to address different issues and how consulting can help them out, that would be something where I wouldn’t have to knock on their doors knowing that no one knows me and I have no credibility _____ calling me and asking me hey can you help me.

Richard: I think what Dave’s doing is getting himself set up to do some workshops. That’s what you have in your materials is the ability to go in and give any one of these groups a 30-minute or a 3-hour workshop. And that’s what I would do because that establishes your credibility the fastest.

Walter: Even speaking with Michael, Michael suggested that I could actually sign up with the local Chamber of Commerce and make the proposition to them.

Richard: They’re always looking for good content.

Walter: And then different applications within the town that actually would be interested in help their own members of the association.

Richard: That’s right. That’s the way to go.

Michael: I know you’re in an isolated area, but we’ve got technology; we’ve got the phone, we’ve got the fax, we’ve got the Internet and you’ll hear earlier in the first part of the call that you missed, you’re going to have some solutions to be able to do one-on-one consulting with anyone anywhere in the world as long as they can speak your language. You do not have to physically be there. It may make things easier, but it is possible to do marketing consulting. You don’t have to do all the steps. You could focus on just one or two steps of the system. You could specialize in doing USPs for businesses all over the world online and not do any other step and make a living like that. Any one of the steps of the system can become a full time marketing consulting position.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: You’re international. You’re not just in your area now.

Walter: I believe the assumption of that is that we are more used to one-on-one selling versus doing this online.

Richard: Sure we are.

Walter: Where Michael, you have great experience at that. We are probably about to get that.

Michael: I know, Richard, and correct me if I’m wrong, you’re old time sales guy, you’re one-on-one, eyeball-to-eyeball.

Richard: Sure. And that’s why we developed this e-learning course that these guys now all of you will be able to sell the system long distance anywhere in the world and service it from home.

Michael: And I’m the opposite. I’d rather use the Internet and use a recording. Everyone is on the line right now and we’ve never met personally. But you all feel like you know me and it’s all because of this wonderful technology and being able to hear an audio recording and there’s no geographical bounds to the Internet.

Walter: It does seem like you have a flare for speaking and interacting with others. I mean we have to all probably learn that a little bit more. I mean I’m an immigrant. I’ve been here for 16 years. I never spoke English before I came to Canada. I don’t think I’m doing that badly, but still there are some moments, important moments, when I may give away something that you or someone else being a native speaker will go without even thinking about it.

Michael: Oh, no. I think you’re coming across great. You’re passionate when you talk and I think if you’re there talking to that client who had a need, they’re not interested in you. They want what you can do for them. That’s the bottom line. No matter who you are and where you are and how you’re communicating to them.

Walter: That was probably the good point you mentioned to not to make myself the important of the two.

Richard: That’s right.

Walter: But it’s the program and the benefits of the program.

Richard: I want to say that to all the HMA people is when you go and you meet with a client, whether it’s on the phone or over the Internet, immediately start focusing on them and their problems and they will not be concerned with your ability. If they think you can solve their problem, they really don’t care who you are as long as you can solve their problem.

Michael: You’ve got to demonstrate it for them. That’s where you develop your credibility during that Opportunity Analysis. If the assets are there, you’re going to point it out and you’re going to show them money.

Walter: Very good. I would like to thank you for being very interactive and following through because that’s very uncommon and I’m happy that’s it’s common here.

Michael: Well, no problem and we’ll keep following through and I’d really be excited to follow all of your progresses and I love doing recordings and every recording I do I’ll add up there for the HMA University and that’s what I’ve been doing over the last year and we’ll keep it up.

I think that about wraps it up. Richard, you’ve been very generous. I know you gave me an hour, but you’ve ended up giving me two hours.

Richard: No problem. It was great. It was great to meet all of you.

Michael: It’s great to meet everyone by person and by voice and certainly it won’t be the last time. Richard and myself, I’m always available by email or the phone. Don’t ever feel like you’re bugging me or bothering me. That’s what we’re here for and I wish everybody a lot of continued success. Email me if anyone has questions and Richard, we’ll talk later.

That’s the end of this conference call. I hope this has been helpful. If you have any questions whatsoever, please don’t hesitate to email me at Michael@michaelsenoff.com or call me at (858) 274-7851 and I want to get your questions answered by Richard or myself as soon as I can.