7 Hours...To More Clients An interview With HMA Marketing Consulting System Founder

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Hi, this is Michael Senoff with HardtoFindSeminars.com. You are in for a treat. The old rules to making money in the marketing consulting business just don’t apply when you hear these stories. Right now, I’ve got Richard and expert marketing consultant to spill the beans on all the inside secrets of marketing consulting.

In the next two part interviews, you’ll read real marketing consulting case studies from Richard’s clients. Other so-called marketing consultants will tell you the stories of others, but none of their own. This is different. The best way to learn how to be a successful marketing consultant is to hear exactly how the expert’s doing it now.

You will want to hear what Richard does in his practice today. Get ready as I dig out all the goods from Richard’s proprietary marketing consulting methods. Now, you’ll learn how to do it by example in this two-part recording called, “Hidden Marketing Assets Found-Client Case Studies”. Enjoy!

Richard: I thought what I might do is illustrate what’s happening with these clients because it demonstrates the Unique Selling Proposition of my marketing system, and that is that the marketing system that’s unique because it not only increases sales for a client, but also net profit, profit margin, bottom line profits go up, working capital is freed up, and it can happen as little as 60 to 90 days for a client or quicker. And, it can mean a 25-100 percent increase in all of those, and it’s a system so it’s step-by-step, easy to execute, and you’re guaranteed the system’s performance. So, that’s the Unique Selling Proposition for my marketing system. That’s what sets it apart from everything else out there. So, that’s why a consultant can go with confidence in approaching prospects because he’s got something different and unique. Does that make sense?

Michael: Yes Richard.

Richard: So, all of these stories, you need to see what’s happening is we’re not just increasing sales. These are profits going to the bottom line because as you go through the stories, we didn’t increase the money spent to create those results. We didn’t have to do more advertising. We didn’t have to hire more people. We didn’t have to go to more trade shows. So, we’re freeing up capital because we’re better allocating the scarce resource and that’s so important, and that’s what’s so neat about this system is because it leverages these hidden marketing assets in a way that you can create these results without asking your client to spend huge amounts of money except which of course they’re paying you.

Michael: That’s fair though.

Richard: So, the client still gets all of that return for years to come. That’s important because that’s the Unique Selling Proposition for my marketing system.

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Michael: You’ve got a collection of past clients, and you’re going to discuss some stories, impact stories, of how you’ve implemented the marketing system with specific examples of the marketplace.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Let’s start with number one and see what we can learn from your experience.

Richard: Well, this first story happens to also be the first client that I charged a fee for as I was starting my career and got my training with Jay, and of course Jay Abraham’s approach was the contingency based, and that was difficult in starting my consulting practice. So, I got referred to a small clothing store in Elko, Nevada in 1990. they were doing about $500,000 a year, and I went in and met with them once a week for a period of weeks, implementing the marketing system.

Michael: What was it like women’s clothing?

Richard: No, it was more western outdoor clothing.

Michael: And, they had a retail, physical brick-and-mortar?

Richard: Yes, doing about $500,000 a year in business.

Michael: So, you were referred to them by?

Richard: By an associate. So, I charged this client $500 a day. That was my first fee-based charge.

Michael: $500 a day?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: Was it mail order or what?

Richard: Mail order, and he owned the store. He bought it from his dad. It had been in the area for a long time. I’d go out once a week and charge him $500. So, that was giving me a couple of thousand dollars a month. So, I was on my way to fee-based, and one thing that is a common and is that these steps in the marketing system are in an order on purpose. They are really ordered in a way to have the most important and effective impact as quickly as possible. So, we’re not trying to manipulate the steps in any way. They’re in an order to leverage the marketing assets of the client.

So, our first step in the system is developing a Unique Selling Proposition, and a Unique Selling Proposition and the acronym is USP is the number one step and the first step in the marketing system because it is essentially the sales pitch. It’s the compelling selling reason that that company is in business. It is what sets that company apart, what makes that company unique from all of the competition, and it’s so important because with so many different kinds of businesses in the same business.

So, here you have in Elko, Nevada in this example you have a clothing retailer that’s trying to compete against Corral West which was a franchise and Wal-Mart coming in and all of these other clothing options in the small town of Elko. He has to stand out. He has to be unique. He has to find something that will differentiate himself from his competition, and the reason he has to do that is because if people don’t perceive a reason that’s different to do business with you, then they’re only going to shop price, and they’re only going to go to the lowest price seller, and they’re only going to watch for the ads that give them the lowest price.

So, that was the battle of this store owner had. He was fighting against the lowest priced retailers of western clothing in the area, and he had to win that battle.

In the system, you’re trained how to determine a Unique Selling Proposition. You’ve given four step, and the first step is we met with the owner and his staff to get their perspective of the Unique Selling Proposition, and in your training material you have a complete questionnaire that goes through what questions you should ask.

The next thing we did was to call some customers, survey customers, and in your training material you’re given all of the survey questions you need to have. And, we get the customers’ perspective of what might be unique.

Michael: Why is that important?

Richard: Well, because they’re shopping for some reason. They’re coming to the store for some reason, and we want to know what it is. They may be going to another store as well, and we want to know that.

Michael: Can you give an example like a Dominos Pizza example what a couple USP’s would be for companies that anyone would understand?

Richard: Yes, the Dominos Pizza, the dramatic impact for that company because they came out and they looked at all the competition and they surveyed customers, and they talked to prospects, and they asked what’s most important to them, and at that time speed was becoming and was a void in the industry. No one was delivering a pizza fast. So, they did. They said, “We’ll get it to you in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.” That was very compelling. That was very unique, and it took Dominos to the top of the pizza industry.

Michael: Was their pizza any better?

Richard: No, be cause what was important was speed, but now overtime, that has not become and maintained itself as a unique selling proposition because now people can get pizza in 20 minutes anywhere. So, it’s no longer unique to Dominos, and Pizza Hut started to keep delivering a better tasting pizza, and that began to matter more than speed over time. So, Dominos has lost its unique edge. Revenues are down. Domino’s is struggling. They have to create a new Unique Selling Proposition, but it sure raised the bar for everybody. Now, we can go anywhere and get pizza in less than 30 minutes and get tasty pizza. That is profitable.

Another good example is Lenscrafters. Lenscrafters looked around at the industry, and they said, “Oh, you know, people want glasses fast, and there’s no one doing that. So, we’re going to build a lab right in the store and we’re going to deliver in about an hour.” Well, that’s a very compelling Unique Selling Proposition, and it’s got Lenscrafters at the top of the industry. No one’s matched it. No one’s done better, and so it continues to be an effective Unique Selling Proposition.

Another good example is the battle today between Wal-Mart, Target and K-Mart. K-Mart is pulling out of bankruptcy, while Target can build a store right next to Wal-Mart. Why can that happen? It’s because Target has a different Unique Selling Proposition than Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is appealing to a low-priced audience. They want low-prices always. They communicate that USP over and over again while Target does not. Target goes after an income level demographic higher than Wal-Mart. They build a nicer store than Wal-Mart. They have wider aisles. They have a little nicer product line. So, Target’s doing very well building their store right next to Wal-Mart because they’re going to a unique demographic than Wal-Mart. So, there was a USP not in product but in who they were targeting. Does that make sense?

Michael: Yes.

Richard: So, there’s what we mean by Unique Selling Proposition is a very targeted reason that people should do business with you and no on else. So, with this clothing store in Elko, we determined that they carried a nicer line of product. So, we knew we couldn’t be a low-priced leader, and we also determined they carried the largest selection of product, and so, now we even counted the number of winter coats they carried and quantified this selection as a Unique Selling Proposition. So, we crafted the USP around a higher line and the largest selection in town. So that was the first thing we had to do.

The second thing we did was make sure that message gets integrated into all of their marketing. That’s step number two in my marketing system.

Michael: So, where did you integrate that higher selection, better quality?

Richard: It starts first with the sales people on the floor. So, we did some training to make sure we got scripting into their sales pitches. So, when people come into the store, the first thing that they’re telling these people is why they’re shopping there at the store. “Well, we do have the largest selection of these higher end, better quality, clothing lines. No one else in Elko has that.” I all of a sudden started to close more business. People started to buy more in the store. And, we got it integrated in their newspaper ads that they were running in the local paper. We got it integrated into the radio ads that were running in the local radio stations. We got this message integrated through scripting and through copy work. You’re trained in step number two how to do that. So, that was the second most important thing. It’s silly to have a Unique Selling Proposition, and it won’t do any good unless it’s communicated over and over and over again.

Michael: And, it’s going to be done first.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Or you could be just wasting your time.

Richard: That’s exactly right. You could be running radio ads without a USP wasting money, and newspaper ads without a USP wasting money, and that’s what these businesses do is they get out advertising that emphasizes price. So, they get mad when all they’re selling is product with no margins. A USP gives them a different message to sell. That’s why steps one and two are where they’re at because it’s silly to pursue step three through seven unless one and two are done.

Michael: What was the results for this clother?

Richard: I’ll share one more thing that we did. What happened then is Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait right in the middle of our consultation with this clothing store. The very month I was going to Elko, Saddam decided to invade. No one came into the store and the traffic dropped in half. This store owner said to me, “Richard, I’m going to go out of business if you don’t help me with something here. I don’t care if I’ve got a great USP. I don’t care if I’ve got people that are hearing it on the radio. They’re not coming in.” They’re all home watching CNN because it was the first time that the networks were publicizing a war and putting it on the screen.

So, his traffic dropped in half. So, I said, “Okay, then what we need to do is do better with who is coming in the store. What is your average sale right now?” And, he calculated that his average sale was $25. So, we did some training with the salespeople. We took some of his product line and built packages, and we raised his average sale to $50. We were able to double his sales with half that people. That saved him during that invasion. That kept him in business.

So, the message is that when you’re with a client that’s in a hard time, or they economics of the situation is such that the shopping isn’t being done, the place to turn to is the customers that are coming in any way and doing a better job of getting more money from half the business that’s coming in.

So, that was a dramatic impact on that store, and we took him from $500,000 to $850,000 in a year.

Michael: Did he stick with you through all the steps?

Richard: You bet, yeah. We got into step three which is database, and we reactivated customers. We got his customer on to a mailing list, and we sent offers and he created a frequent shopper customer club where the minute somebody spent over $500 in this club, they got $50 worth of merchandise free. That had so much impact. It kept his loyal customers coming back and coming back and coming back. So, we did some great things in step number three.

Step number four is we started to put some cross promotion with other stores in the Elko area that had the same kinds of customers that he would want. For example, there was a Red Wing shoe dealer in the area, and we would have a special that would go to the Red Wing shoe customers over to this retail store. That brought in new customers in a different way without advertising more.

We did the media, step five as we talked about getting the USP integrated into his radio and into his newspaper. He did step six, community marketing as a big part because Elko’s a small town. He was sponsoring snowmobile trips. He was sponsoring outdoor activities, and he would take some of his clothing up to these spots and serve coffee and hot chocolate, and he was sponsoring the event. So, he was out in the community making people aware of his store and of his higher end clothing lines.

So, yeah, there were all the steps involved in that first client and it had a dramatic impact.

Michael: He was probably having fun doing it.

Richard: Oh, it was a blast especially when the war ended and his traffic picked back up.

Michael: That’s great. That’s a great illustration. Is he still around today?

Richard: He’s still around doing well.

Michael: do you keep in touch with him?

Richard: You bet.

Michael: Great story. Let’s do another.

Richard: I’m going to talk about a catering business. He was doing about $300,000 a year in catering and he was located in the Salt Lake City, Utah area.

Michael: How were you introduced to him?

Richard: My direct marketing contact did.

Michael: So, this is your phone guy. He called this guy cold, set up an appointment, and you went through the opportunity analysis?

Richard: Exactly.

Michael: Then, he said, “Let’s do it.”

Richard: That’s right. Well, the most important thing that my trained marketing consultants learn is how to spot the hidden marketing assets that an owner may not. So, a typical owner and this was the case with this catering. I go in and he’s doing about $300-$350,000 a year, and he says, “I need more customers.” I said to him, “How are you getting customers now?” He says, “I have the largest yellow page ad in the yellow page book. I have a full page ad.” I said, “Well, how does that do?” He says, “Well, I’m getting calls everyday.” Well, that was a clue to me, did he really need more customers?

So, what we did in this one was fix and tweak an existing marketing process that was already in place, that was generating assets he was not leveraging. He really didn’t even need a Unique Selling Proposition although we went ahead and developed one, but the most important thing he wasn’t doing was capturing every phone call and following up on every inquiry from the yellow pages.

Michael: Who was answering the phone over there?

Richard: He was which was the mistake because he was also cooking. He was also the caterer. So, I convinced him to go ahead and hire someone that all they did was answer the phone and follow up with prospects that inquired about his catering, and that is all we did for that client, taking him from $350,000 to $700,000 in a year.

Michael: You started with step one, right?

Richard: Yes, you always look at the USP first.

Michael: So, he paid for his step one.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: And, then what step was this implemented in?

Richard: Then, step two is again, integrating the USP into the current selling and marketing processes. That’s where this was because the phone ringing was his current process. So, we got somebody to answer that phone, integrate and give the scripting of USP over the phone, and he started to close more of his yellow page calls. It illustrates that you don’t always have to fix a whole lot. All we did on this one was fix the sales process.

Michael: And, he couldn’t see it?

Richard: He couldn’t see it. So, the message to consultants and prospects out there that are looking at this marketing system is that the USP for the my program is training you how to spot these hidden marketing assets.

Michael: I would think these things are going to jump out at you when you go through that opportunity analysis worksheet.

Richard: That’s right. That’s exactly why we created that worksheet was to help you as a consultant see these assets and help the business owner see these because they’re the ones that are usually missing them.

Michael: Okay, that’s excellent, and that would be related to increasing the conversion.

Richard: Yes, that’s right because the seven step marketing system grows a business three ways. It increases the number of prospective clients, it increases the conversion rate of prospective customers to paying customers and increases the value of each customers.

So, you recall back to the clothing store. We didn’t have a chance to increase the number of people coming in the store because of the war. So, we had to go to step three and increase the value of each customer and raise the ticket from $25 to $50, and that survived the business.

The second case, the caterer, we had plenty of prospects coming in the door. He couldn’t take anymore. He was too busy as it was. Well, a traditional advertiser or a traditional marketing consultant would’ve come in and said, “Well, we’ve got to get the phone to ring more. You need a bigger yellow page ad, or you need more newspaper ads, or you need to be on the radio.” Which, is just exactly opposite of what this business needed.

The needed training in step number two which was a better handling of every inquiry coming in, and so you can see the beauty in the flexibility of the system. This allows the consultant to go where the opportunity is the greatest and provide the most value to your client.

Michael: That’s great.

Richard: All right. Here’s a great one. Here’s an attorney in the Salt Lake, Utah area-

Michael: Are all your clients in that area?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: You’re working right in your backyard?

Richard: Oh yeah, that’s what we want consultants to do is to enjoy their backyard. So, my travel is minimal and my expenses are minimal. The moving parade principle is critical here and that is just because they might not need you today, you want to stay in touch. You want to stay in contact because they might need you tomorrow. And, a business that starts business five years ago, is now a prospect for me. There’s always new businesses starting everyday. So, your own backyard is where the diamonds are.

Michael: Okay, let’s do it.

Richard: This is an attorney. He gives seminars.

Michael: How did the contact happen?

Richard: I wanted to do seminars, and I was looking through the yellow pages for a seminar company and I ran into this company that’s titled by a seminar name. In realty, it was an attorney that was going around giving seminars on asset protection, and his client base was doctors, dentists, high income professionals who needed to have their assets protected through legal channels.

Michael: Did you call him cold?

Richard: I did. I called him up and I said, “I’d like to look at doing seminars with you.” And, it ended up that that didn’t work out, but he retained me as a consultant. We went in and again, his USP was in his expertise. We knew right off the bat he had 20 years in the business. He was well respected around the country. He was a nationally renowned speaker. He used direct mail to get people into his seminar. I remember meeting with him, going through the opportunity analysis and I asked him, “So, how many people come to your seminar?” He says, “Well I do about three seminars a week. I get about 500 people total during the week.” I said, “Well, that’s good. Out of the 500 how many buy your asset protection package?” He said, “Well, I’m a pretty good closer on the seminar circuit. I close about 30 percent.” So, I said, “All right. So, that means about 150 are buying your package.” He says, “That’s right.”

Then, because of the training, I asked this question, “So, what about the other 350 that didn’t buy?” He said, “Well, I don’t know. What can I do with them? I don’t do anything with them right now.” So, here I am trained to spot that as a hidden marketing asset, and he said, “Wow. That’s interesting. I’m already spending the money for those 350.” So, he says, “What do you suggest?”

So, we implemented a back-end marketing program. This is really step number three, database marketing. We got all of those 350 prospects, and we developed and trained a call center of two or three salespeople who would call back the 350 prospects the next day or two after the seminar, and invite them to buy the package over the phone. This got this attorney a million dollars cash in a year that he never seen before.

Michael: Wow, that’s great.

Richard: That was nice because I did some of that on contingency. I could see the opportunity. I knew it was going to happen. And, what we found out was some of them just needed to go home and get their credit card. They didn’t have it at the seminar.

Michael: All right, let’s talk about that. So, in your opportunity analysis in asking questions you saw what this could mean. You had enough experience to know what kind of dollars this was going to bring on. Now, let’s say a consultant sees an opportunity like that, but the business owner has no clue. What are you going to say to try to lock in a contingency? Can you give an example with that specific case study?

Richard: What would you do is try to convince him and persuade him to a small task. You’d say, “Let’s just test it Mr. Business Owner. I don’t know if it’ll work. Let’s just test it.”

Michael: How many steps had he paid for already?

Richard: Well, we’d gone through and made sure his USP message was right. So, he paid me for that. We determined that I couldn’t help him a whole lot on the front end where he was a presenter and closing. He was doing pretty well there. So, we were big on this part which was the prospects that didn’t buy. So, he had paid me for a couple of steps, and he was paying me for the third step and then we locked in this contingency deal as part of that third step.

Michael: So, what would you say at that point? When you want to lock it in, what do you say?

Richard: You say, “Listen, why don’t we go ahead and we’ll cut what you pay me in half, and let me just take a commission on each of the sales made.”

Michael: Do you remember what he said?

Richard: He said, “Sure, absolutely.”

Michael: Did you draw up an agreement, a letter of agreement?

Richard: Yes, and it’s a commission agreement and it was based on the phone people that I had trained and that I saw it was very measurable because we knew we weren’t going to mess with the sales that he made in the seminars. So, these were all incremental sales that he had never looked at.

Michael: Can I ask you what you asked for in commission?

Richard: It was ten percent on every sale.

Michael: Okay, that’s easy for him to say yes. That’s not a big deal.

Richard: Sure.

Michael: So, you put a time limit on the agreement.

Richard: That’s right, and they’ll want to.

Michael: Or, what would happen? What do you think? Would they get resentful?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: The deal falls apart?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: So, you’d recommend if someone’s going to set up a contingency with someone, avoid that, and be fair and set a time limit on it.

Richard: Yes.

Michael: Don’t lock them in for life.

Richard: Yes, unless you want to become part of the company. If for some reason you want to become an associate with your client and stay with him long term, that’s a different story, but maybe you do that after a couple of years. I have no interest in becoming a long term partner.

Michael: That’s a great illustration.

Richard: Yes, a great story, and again, the importance of being able to identify these hidden assets because I tell the clients that I don’t know which step of the system or which combination of steps in going to generate the increases. So, I need to do all of these steps – the ones that I’m recommending. They understand that.

Let’s go to a manufacturer. This company manufactures clips that go on the siding of houses to clip cable to the house. So, your Sprint people, your Comcast people, the installers of cable are the customers of this company.

Michael: How’d you find them?

Richard: A referral through an alliance partner that I have.

Michael: Can you explain that?

Richard: Yes, about two years ago, I came in contact through a client with a manufacturing non-profit group who is set up by the federal government and have offices in every state, and their job as assigned by the government is to help small manufacturers become more profitable.

So, this manufacturing group I got contact with by way of another client, and I met with them, and I helped that group increase its business, and then they contract with me to work all of their manufacturing clients that need marketing help. So, it’s been a great alliance for two years now. I’m not an employee. They just contract with me, and it’s an 80/20 split. So, I pay them 20 percent of the fees, and I get 80 percent.

So, this company was referred to me by this manufacturing group, and they manufactured these clips for cable. I met with the owner and with the person that he had running the company, and they were doing about $15,000 a quarter in business. So, about $5,000 a month, not doing really well.

We created a Unique Selling Proposition, and then we integrated the Unique Selling Proposition again into the person handling the phone call inquiries, and then we created a mailing piece – a combination of step three and step seven – going out to his customers and his perspective customers from direct marketing, and in 90 days we had them doing $55,000 a quarter.

Michael: That’s great. How were they getting their existing customers?

Richard: People were finding them on the website, and calling to order clips, but what this owner was doing or the guy running the company was saying, “Yeah, I’ve got clips”, but he wasn’t telling them the USP.

Michael: Were they a commodity?

Richard: That’s right. They were perceived as a commodity. We had to change that perception, and one of the attributes that this clip company had in all of their clips compared to the competition was it was much easier to use the clips, much easier to install, easier to maintain, easier to replace. We started getting that phone script into those inquiries, his conversion rates then doubled raising his revenue.

So, once again, very simple, very simple, but step one has to be done. Step two has to be done, and then that gives you the ability then to get more steps from the client.

Michael: Did you take him through all the steps?

Richard: No, just four steps.

Michael: You’re not going to take a client through all the steps in all the cases.

Richard: That’s correct, and I would say there’s probably a pretty good rule that the smaller the company, the fewer steps – the larger the company, the more steps because the marketing’s more complex. The marketing’s more involved.

Michael: I bet these guys just thank you up and down.

Richard: Oh, they do.

Michael: They’re going to think you walk on water.

Richard: They do.

Michael: You’ve changed their lives, their families, and that’s a good feeling.

Richard: It is. It is. I’ll tell you one story that – and all of the consultants will get a little opportunities like this. I had a neighbor who came by, and he knocked on my door, and he said, “Richard, I understand that you’re in marketing.” I said, “Yes.” He says, “Well, I need you to know I can’t pay you anything, but could you help me?” I said, “Sure, I’d be happy to help you.” He said, “I’m starting a carpet cleaning. I got my truck. I got my equipment. I’m only doing $100-$200 a week. So, I’m really suffering here. Is there anything you can do to help me?” I said, “Well, what are you doing now to get business?” and he showed me a little four by six, five by eight flier that he would take and hand out to homes.

Well, without going through the steps of a USP because I knew he couldn’t pay me to do that, I just created one, and we changed the flier. The flier was “Three rooms $49.95.”

Michael: Sell it on price.

Richard: That’s right. So, what I recommended to him was I said, why don’t you give them the fourth room free. So, do three rooms and they get the fourth room free. Well, he handed out about 800 fliers the first time and got one call. He handed out 800 with this Unique Selling Proposition and got 15 calls. He’s making a grand a week now. This changed his life overnight.

Michael: Did you have an instinct that that would pull from some prior experience?

Richard: Yes, I knew that free always is a good compelling reason to buy. That works very well, but if it also has been combined – I’ve used it with other packaging offers, and so he had this package for $49.95, and the reason I convinced of it. I said, “Listen, you’re already in the house. So, it’s not going to take you long to add another room.” He said, “That’s right. It’s not a big deal.” So, we went with it, and his life’s changed.

So, yeah, there’s that satisfaction as a marketing consultant, the way that you can impact lives and businesses.

Michael: That’s great. Is he still doing it today?

Richard: He’s still going today.

Michael: All right, that’s excellent. That’s a good story.

Richard: Let’s illustrate one with this very large manufacturing company, a public company doing over $300 million a year.

Michael: How’d you find them?

Richard: Again, they were referred by my manufacturing alliance. This is a great story because a big, large, public company there’s some dynamic that as a consultant that you encounter that you don’t encounter with a small company. You have different levels of decision making. It’s usually a little longer sales cycle to get the deal closed. You invoice them, and then they pay you. So, it’s a little different dynamics than you might have with a small company.

Michael: So, where were you when the call came in? Who called you from the company? What position were they in?

Richard: They called me because the manufacturing group that I was associated with recommended that they call me to help them with some marketing issues. This manufacturing group, they have their own assessments. So, they’re going in and making assessments with clients, and during that assessment, the need came out for marketing.

So, here was a division manager, a manager of over commercial product applications for this large public company, called me, and said, “Richard, we’d like to meet with you because we’re introducing a new product to the medical industry, and we want to know how we should best do that.”

So, they made product already for the military who was a big customer of these, and they now wanted to take this same product and apply it to the medical field in a commercial application. So, with that, they paid me for step one. They paid me for step two. They paid me for step three. They paid me for step four. This was a little division. They had one sales person that was responsible for getting this product out to medical companies.

Michael: Let me interject. Now, you’ve got a huge company here. You know they’ve got money. You’re not dealing with Mom and Pop down the street. What’s your decision making process of what to charge this guy?

Richard: Well, I knew that that they could pay more, and so I charged more $4,000 a step. I knew that they might call me later on down the road. So, I got in the door. There’s a nice fee, and we did the Unique Selling Proposition. The one salesperson that they had before we met was doing a little bit, maybe $50,000 a year in medical sales.

So, we created a Unique Selling Proposition, and what was neat about this is they were keenly the experts in what they did, and the products they developed. So, I recommended to them that we set up a newsletter. These medical clients aren’t fast buyers. They have to test product. They have to get product approved by the government, and they’ve just got to go through a lot of hoops before they can buy product.

So, I knew the sales cycle wouldn’t be that fast. So, I knew that we had to – what I call – drip on the prospects. So, we had this company develop a newsletter that would be sent out to these prospects on a regular basis reminding them of the expertise available. The salesperson was not doing any kind of follow-ups. We had to do a lot of step two in getting the salesperson into a selling system that was leveraged and that was accountable.

So, we did all of that. He said, “Thank you Richard. We’re all done. I’m going to call you back in a year if we want to do it for another division. So, I’ll see you in a year.” Because he knew that the sales would take that long to develop.

Well, a year later he calls me up and he says, “Let’s go again I got the data. We’re over $400,000 in a year, from under $50,000 in medical equipment.” So, he said, “Let’s do it for another division.”

Michael: Who wrote the newsletter?

Richard: He did because he has the expertise. So, we’re now – right now – I’m currently retained by them working on this other.

Michael: Are you charging them more this time?

Richard: About the same.

Michael: That’s excellent.

Richard: Again, a manufacturer, and these are all different kinds of businesses. Now, and that’s what happened with this audiologist that I worked with.

Michael: How do you get the contact?

Richard: He was contacted by our phone worker. I went in to see to him and he showed me an advertising campaign that he had paid an ad agency $20,000 to create and to put into the newspaper. And, he looked at me and he said, “Richard, I didn’t get one call.” So, it had totally failed and lost him $20,000. I said, “Well, here’s what I’d like to try and do. Number one there’s nothing in this newspaper advertising that tells me why I should come to you. There’s no Unique Selling Proposition.” So, he paid me to do that, to create that.

I said, “Next, what we’ll do is I’d like to try some seminars instead of the newspaper.” So, we created a seminar promotion piece that went out in the direct mail. So, we decided to go direct mail rather than newspaper. This is so important because that decision was based on the work done to creating a Unique Selling Proposition because in the past as step one we determine that he was not a mass price seller of hearing aids, and if you go through your local newspaper, you’re going to see tons of advertising from hearing aid companies on price.

So, I said, “Your customer is not going to be reached through the newspaper. That’s for a hearing aid company that wants to mass sell hearing aids at the lowest price.”

Michael: What was the Unique Selling Proposition? How was he different?

Richard: He was different because of two or three things. One he was the only one in the area that belonged to a national buying club that could purchase from all 32 manufacturers of hearing aids. So, he had the largest selection available. Number two is he’s the only one in the area that had a scheduled hearing health care plan. In other words, the customers come to him and not just get a hearing aid, but they would actually schedule their follow-up visits for the next two years. It was already scheduled in advance.

So, he was just a higher end servicer. He was more of health care professional not a hearing aid dispenser. Well, you can’t persuade people in a page of advertising to do that. So, he was wasting his money. So, we redirected the resources – that $20,000 maybe $4,000 of it – to a direct mail seminar campaign, and we now have him doing seminars on a regular basis rather than newspapers. So, we shifted the resources to match the unique selling proposition because with the direct mail I can target to higher income people who respond more to a healthcare professional rather than a hearing aid dispenser.

Michael: Who are they mailing to?

Richard: They’re mailing to a demographic group of 55 and 65 years of age and older, at a certain income level. Then, we bring them to a seminar and give them a free dinner. That took a little convincing. I had to help the owner understand that, “Go ahead and buy 20 people their dinner, and bring them out on an evening at six o’clock and be done by seven-thirty.” So, we tripled his visits by going to the seminar route, and we’ve cut his expenses.

Now, let me tell you we entered now into step four, and that is he had a neighbor that was a financial planner to seniors, and this financial planner had a thousand clients that he had serviced over the years.

Michael: Now, step four is what?

Richard: Alliances and partnerships.

Michael: Okay.

Richard: So, we’re forming an alliance and partnership with this financial planner, and so the financial planner – we crafted a letter that he’d send out to his thousand people inviting them to a seminar and a free dinner because we’d already found out that worked, yet it only cost to mail. It didn’t cost anything because the alliance partner covered the cost of the mailing, and it was a much smaller more targeted and I endorsed mailing.

Michael: Now, was something in it for the alliance partner?

Richard: Yes, the audiologist is going to sponsor a seminar to his patients. So, it works both ways. So, we’re going to do another seminar after this one that we scheduled with the alliance partner, but the turnout was so great, the conversion rate so high, that my client is booked for the next three weeks from this endorsed seminar.

Michael: Who put together the direct mail letter?

Richard: I did.

Michael: Was that difficult?

Richard: No, not when you know how to do it. That’s what the system will teach you. And, now we’ll sponsor a seminar for the financial planner. I went up to my client and said, “Do you realize that you’re going to sell probably 20 hearing aids and it’s going to cost you $400?”

Michael: Is the financial planner going to be your client, too?

Richard: Maybe. I wanted to tell the story about the audiologists because he retains me on a monthly basis. So, residual income could happen that way. You can keep a client for along time. He just calls me, and we just stay in touch, and I do a little bit every week for him and he pays me on a monthly basis. So, I have an ongoing client income.

Michael: Okay, that’s great.

Richard: Yeah, that’s another way to work with your clients, but it also illustrates and now what we’re talking about is he said to me, “You know, Richard, there’s got to be other financial planners that are going to the seniors.” And, he’s right. We’ll just start finding other financial planners to do the same endorsed seminars with.

Michael: He can do that for the rest of his life and never have to mail cold again.

Richard: And, save four grand. So, again, the system not only increases sales, but frees up working capital, increases his net profit, increases his margin. The business is impacted in all ways where tradition advertising can’t impact it like that.

Here’s a furniture company, discount furniture store, and my phone contact contacted this group. I want to illustrate this story to also illustrate the important principle and I think I may have mentioned it in a previous interview and that was that a start-up company is hard to work with because they don’t have a lot of marketing assets.

Well, this was a start-up when I went to meet them. They had been in business for about three months. So, he was just getting going. Well, the reason I went ahead and took this client is he was willing to pay me to help him build the assets. So, what’s important is don’t say no to a start-up just because he doesn’t have assets. If he has some capital and is willing to pay you as a marketing consultant to help him build up the assets, that’s okay. So, we did.

But, he was doing about $4,000 net profit a month. So, he was grossing about $10-$12,000 in sales. He’d be in about a 40% margin. So, I said, “Well, we need a Unique Selling Proposition.” So, he paid me for that. I said, “We then need to get it into the ads that we’re doing.” And, he was doing some newspaper ads and he was doing some coupon ads with a local coupon company. I said, “Let’s get the Unique Selling Proposition into your son who’s running the store. He needs to be selling this with people coming into the store.” And, then I said, “He needs to track everyone that comes in and doesn’t buy because I want him to make a follow-up phone call in two days and see if they’re still interested and would like to buy what they were looking at.”

So, we did really three steps, and we developed some letters for the customer base that they were building up, and then we did step number four which was alliances and partnerships because what we did was we created a promotion piece that could be used by a title company. When people go in to sign and buy the house, they go to a title company. Well, this title company liked to reward their customers with something. So, we gave them a $75 gift certificate to the furniture store. So, we have a partnership going on. We have people buying new houses. What do they need?

Michael: Furniture.

Richard: Furniture, so we have a title company that wants to give their customer something to say thank you for doing their closing at their title company, and the way they’ll say thank you is giving them $75 value towards furniture at the store. So, now we have step number four in place generating customers from a title company. So, we don’t have to go spend media dollars to drive people into the store. This is so important for consultants to see this.

So, we’re generating more traffic. We did this training of salespeople in step number two to convert more, did the database which was to send out letters and started a customer club, a referral frequency club for his customers, and six months later, he’s generating net profits of twelve grand. So, he tripled his net profit, and they will know how to keep the store open, and to keep his son running it, and he’s looking to expand to get into a bigger location.

Michael: That kind of brings something up because when you’re looking at a company and choosing to take one on, and you know you can grow this business from your experience, is that something you want to ask them how much can they grow?

Richard: You bring up a great point. I refer to them as anti-USP which means can you handle this growth? Is there anything that’s going to kill it? We’ll create a Unique Selling Proposition for you, but can you kill it through your operations? And, yes, you’ve got to make sure that there’s nothing in the other parts of the business that are going to kill this growth.

Michael: What are you discussing then?

Richard: That you should try and spot that at the opportunity consultation. You should ask them, “Let’s say if we doubled your sales, do you have the capacity to handle that with the current situation that you’re in?” And, they might say, “Well, no I’ll need to hire somebody, but I can do that.” In fact, I was with a prospect yesterday. They manufacture baggage for certain industries – the duffel bags, backpacks and things like that, and she said, “Well, I’m doing about $600,000 a year.” And, I said, “Well, I can see where we can get you to $800,000 to a million dollars pretty quick. Can you handle that?” And, she said, “Yes, because just about three months I contracted with a manufacturer facility that is my competitor who can handle all of my excess business.” So, I knew then that we’d be okay. So, I knew without that manufacturing facility, we would have buried here.

Michael: Okay, great illustration. Let’s do another.

Richard: I mentioned in another interview this client. They were a very large employee leasing company. Employee leasing has been a big trend in the last ten years. They were doing about $60 million in payroll, and they were a very good progressive company. We went in and conducted the opportunity consultation, saw where I could help them. They paid me then to start implementing the marketing system. It’s a good story for a couple of reasons.

Part of the Unique Selling Proposition is to get with the owner, and get the owner’s perspective of what is unique. So, we did that. We called customers and talked to them. We looked at the competition and see what they’re selling and between all of that we arrive at creating a Unique Selling Proposition.

Okay, then we go to step two – integrating it. So, he had five salespeople. So, I went to the five salespeople, and I said, “I want to hear your sales pitch.” And, in going out with those five salespeople, I never heard what the owner thought was the USP.

So, here we have an owner on a different page than the five salespeople. That’s a problem. And, what the reason is that it’s also a problem is the five salespeople are selling a commodity just like all the other employee leasing firms. So, their closing rate isn’t very good. They’re closing maybe one out of five, and they’re closing on price, again, how much is your health insurance? How much are you going to save me on health insurance premiums? How much is your dental insurance? So, again, it was a price issue which illustrates a commodity approach has been taken by these five sales people.

What we did then was take the Unique Selling Proposition and make sure that all five salespeople were now selling that Unique Selling Proposition, and again, in those two steps we go from $60 million in payroll to $90 million in payroll in a year.

Michael: Wow.

Richard: And, that’s because we’ve doubled conversion of 20 percent to 40 percent. So, he kept me on, and we went into database, step number three. We went into alliances and partnerships, step number four. We actually did a lot of media. We created new brochures. We created new radio campaigns. We were in the industry journals. We went to the industry trade shows. We always won the number one marketing awards that were presented at the trade shows.

And, then here came a contingency opportunity. He called me up and he said, “Richard, are you ready to leave your consulting and would you come with us full time as my Chief Marketing Officer?” I said, “Well, what’s in it for me? I don’t know if I want to leave my consulting practice.” He said, “Well, as you know, the industry is going through some massive changes, and we are going to be going public, and that will happen in about a year. I’d like you as Chief Marketing Officer and I’m going to give you some stock. If they stock goes as planned and it comes out public at the prices that we’re planning, you’ll be a millionaire.”

So, I illustrate this story because of two things. One is he took me out of my consulting for two years.

Michael: When was this?

Richard: This was ’98.

Michael: And, you became a millionaire from that one deal?

Richard: No, no, no. No, I’m illustrating this.

Michael: Okay, go ahead.

Richard: To raise some flags. It is a way a consultant can position into a contingency type.

Michael: What did you say to the guy?

Richard: I said, “Sure, I’m going to come on board.” So, I come on board and what happens is the case which is so typical of many entrepreneurs, he brings in a venture capital firm to give him money to go public. They begin to find out that this CEO can not take the company public. He doesn’t have the skill set. So, he gets fired, and all of us get let go.

Michael: How long did that happen after you came on?

Richard: About a year and a half.

Michael: So, you weren’t doing any consulting for that whole time.

Richard: No, here I was investing, planning to go public, and become a millionaire. I illustrate it because it did two things. It took me out of consulting. These are things often beyond a guy’s control. That’s what I want to illustrate is that a contingency puts you at risk.

Michael: And, promises don’t pay the bill.

Richard: That’s right.

Michael: Absolutely.

Richard: Okay. So, another opportunity might come along like that, but did it cost me more than it helped me, I don’t know because they paid me well. I mean I was paid well as Chief Marketing Officer. So, I had nice benefits. I mean, I was a corporate man.

Michael: So, how’d you like that year doing that compared to your consulting practice?

Richard: Very, very, very unsatisfactory in satisfying my need to be out working with businesses.

Michael: You were trapped. You bit the carrot, and sold your freedom for a carrot.

Richard: There you go.

Michael: That’s a good lesson.

Richard: It’s a great lesson, and I don’t want to say that it would’ve necessarily have been the wrong one. It may have been great. So, my message to all of the consultants out there is keep your eye open. These opportunities are going to come along, and you just have to decide what’s best for you. So, a great story, and had a big impact in my consulting business.

Michael: What would you tell someone who’s been a corporate guy for his whole life, and this consulting system or being a marketing consultant is something that he’s always wanted to go out on his own, but he’s just had the fear. Talk about some of the benefits of being your own boss, having your own business, and some of the fulfilling things that you’ve experience over the years doing this.

Richard: Well, I say the number on fulfilling is the freedom of creativity. When you’re your own boss and the only one you’re answering to is the client, the creativity and the fun in generating that creativity is very, very fulfilling. If you don’t perform for the client, he’ll fire you. So, you’re on the line, and when you’re on the line, you just have to be creative. You have to be good. You have to raise your level of performance.

When you’re in the corporate world, you don’t have to do that as much. You’re held back by others that are making creative decisions. You’re always fighting. You’re always looking for political turf. You’re always worried about who’s getting credit. It’s the nature of the corporate world, and I learned in my experience is that the corporate world can never, ever pay you enough. They just can’t. They’re not set up to pay you for your individual creativity and performance. The only one that can afford to pay you that is the client. And, that’s the freedom of the consulting business.

I started to get bored. I started to get routine, and I started to get less creative, and so that’s why it was unsatisfying and while I was grateful that it finally came to an end not in the way that it did, but that it came to an end. And, it gave me the chance to get back out, get free again, and answer only to the client and be creative again. There’s the fulfillment of your own consulting business.

Michael: Let’s do another story.

Richard: Here’s a great little story in your own little home community. Here’s a small little niche company. They make medallions out of gold, silver and brass, and they creative incentive medallions for brokers that do premium incentives to like Coca-Cola and to Boeing, and I was, again, referred to them by my manufacturing relationship, and they were doing about $5,000 a week in sales – a little Mom and Pop shop and struggling. Here they were 60 and 63 year old couple burdened by the fact that they have to go to their business and work everyday because they’re in debt and because their sales aren’t high enough yet they would like to retire.

Well, again, they’re looking to me to say, “Richard we need more customers.” And, whenever you hear that as a consultant, the first thing you want to say is, “Well, maybe you don’t.” because let’s ask the question, “How well are you doing with the inquiries that you’re having now?”

Well, as we took a look at that, we create a Unique Selling Proposition, and then step number two is to take a look at that and say, “All right, who’s answering the phone? Who’s answering the inquiry? And, what are we doing with it? Are we following-up? Are we selling the Unique Selling Proposition?”

Well, the wife in this partnership was the one tasked with the sales. So, she didn’t even know how many calls were coming in. She didn’t even know how to do a bid. She didn’t know how to follow-up. Yet, after a couple of weeks of measuring, we found that she was getting inquiries everyday for bids, from a website that they had, and yet the bids were not getting converted. She was not closing them because she said, “Richard, I don’t know what to say to them.”

So, based on the stories today, we now know what to say and that’s the USP. So, we trained her and helped her to manage each inquiry better, and here three months later, they’re doing $12,000 a week instead of five, and it’s a burden that’s lifted. She says, “You know, now when someone calls I know what to tell them.”

Michael: Is this a new client of yours?

Richard: It’s been great. So, again, and maybe later on we’ll do more steps with them, but we’ve got them at capacity right now. They’re handling enough that they got because they’re handling each inquiry well, and doing well.

Michael: So, how many steps have they gone through?

Richard: Three steps is all.

Michael: Let’s talk about how much time have you spent really, if you added up the hours of time you spent with this couple?

Richard: About ten hours.

Michael: Ten hours total?

Richard: They’ve paid me $3,000.

Michael: That’s a great story.

Richard: All right. I want to illustrate something that’s happened this past year over the last year through this relationship that I’ve developed with the manufacturing group as an alliance. For the first time, we’ve done some group training. I hadn’t done that. I’ve always worked with clients one-on-one because I didn’t know how I could do the group training profitably.

Well, it so happens that in all of your states out there, in all of your communities, there are parts of the government that provide training funding for businesses and their employees, and in this particular instance this funding is available from the state of Utah. But, I didn’t know about it until I got associated with the manufacturing group, who’s a non-profit group whose business is to know about these sources of funding.

So, what’s worked out is the manufacturing group has done the promotion in communities around my community. These are smaller, more rural communities that you could not profitability as a consultant work with someone one-on-one because you’d be traveling too much. So, we have been able to package and this will be included in the releases that are coming out in the updates of the system, but we’ve been able to package group training now.

So, I did four of these group trainings, training about 80-100 business owners and employees as of last year.

Michael: You saw 80 at a time?

Richard: About 20 at a time. We’re training them in two hour increments. So, I’ll go to the area for two hours and come home and train them all at that location.

Michael: On how to build their business using this system?

Richard: That’s right, and each of those training sessions has been about $10,000 to me.

Michael: For two hours?

Richard: For about two times seven weeks, six weeks, about twelve hours. What is exciting is these business owners who never, ever could afford to pay someone one-on-one what I would need to be paid, they get funding from the state at $500 an employee, and they have to pay $125 of that. So, the government funded $375 of the $500 yet I got paid the $500 per employee.

Every state has some of this type of funding. It might be through the economic development centers. This one was called, “Custom Fit for Utah”. So, we want to encourage your consultants to understand that here’s a new way to deliver this system, and that is through government funded training because that way they can get paid what they need to get paid, but they’ll be able to attract businesses that couldn’t afford to pay them any other way.

Michael: That’s great.

Richard: And, do it in a different way that isn’t through group training rather than one on one.

Michael: Do you know what kind of forms they have to fill out to qualify for the training?

Richard: We know what the forms are for the Custom Fit of Utah.

Michael: Pretty simple?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: Does the state pay quickly?

Richard: Oh yeah.

Michael: Who is that pays you?

Richard: What happens is that the manufacturing group is the one that gets paid first, and then they turn around and pay me.

Michael: Do you have to wait for your money after the trainings?

Richard: Thirty days.

Michael: That’s great. That’s fantastic.

Richard: That way you just simply delivering the steps differently than if you were one-on-one.

Michael: So, someone signs on and goes through your system, this is just one way of them earning income.

Richard: That’s right, and it increased my income $40-$50,000 this year. I hadn’t done it before. I’ve never done this group training. I’ve have never found these sources of government funding that are available. So, we want the consultants to be aware of that.

Michael: How do you prepare for a training like that? You get 20 people, you’re going to head into all this, what are you going to print out? What are they going to walk home with? How do you do this?

Richard: They’re getting the seven steps, modules that have been prepared for the web and that are now available in manuals. What we’ve done is we’ve written and taken the seven steps and turned it into a self-study course by the business owner. So, as a consultant all you’ve got to do is go through those manuals.

Michael: And, when you’re doing your presentation, are you using a projector or anything?

Richard: I’m using sometimes my laptop with the PowerPoint seminar materials that’s going to be available to the consultant.

Michael: So, you’ve got this thing all on PowerPoint?

Richard: Yes.

Michael: So, I can bring my laptop – you’re using your laptop, but that’s just for your reference?

Richard: The manufacturing group has a projector, and then a screen.

Michael: That’s great. So, you’re just doing your PowerPoint presentation and walking them through it.

Richard: Yes.

Michael: And, you’ve got this PowerPoint presentation ready.

Richard: That’s right. So, as a consultant, you’re going to have the manuals. You’re going to be able to use those and make that part of your group training. And, it simply set up so that the business owner himself can take himself through the system, and doesn’t require a consultant to do it for him.

The next case study revolves around a financial planning firm. They were doing about three and a half million dollars a year in business. Their target market was a wealthy individual who was on the verge of selling their business and retiring. So, they were going to come into a lot of money and a lot of assets. This financial planning firm would sell financial plans for those types of people. So, the customer was the typical business owner who had their business for about 20 years and was selling it, and coming into a lot of money.

When I met them, and visited with them and this was a fellow I had worked with previously in my outside sales days. He called me up out of the blue and said, “I started a financial planning firm, and I want you to come and help me with some marketing.” So, that’s how I got this client.

We went in and found out that they were generating their prospects and their leads through advertising in a very high-end periodical magazine, and these ads would cost about $10,000 a piece to run. So, I took a look at the ads and realized that there really wasn’t any Unique Selling Proposition in the ad. So, again, that’s the first place we look and we fix. We create a Unique Selling Proposition for them, and then we put that into the ads. In this case, they were just advertising financial planning.

So, what we did was find out that the work they did would actually lower taxes by 50 percent or more for these clients. So, we started to be more specific in the ads, and we started to say, “Lower your taxes 50% or more.” Well, this doubled the response on the ads. So, that’s the situation of taking a USP and getting it integrated right into the ads. So, we didn’t have to spend more on ads. We just did a better job.

Then we had a group of contracted independent salespeople out in the field and these people were just kind of loose out there. They were under contract where they got a commission for developing a financial plan, and what had happened was they prospects would come into Salt Lake City and meet with the company there in Salt Lake City. Well, by getting some of the salespeople out in the field, the clients could meet with them in their region and in their area. So, we were able to service more clients by setting up these outside salespeople who were qualified. Some were attorneys. Some were CPA background. Some were in insurance background. So we could train them enough to sell the financial planning that we had.

By leveraging the salespeople out in the field, we set up a selling reporting system that required them to send in there contacts and then what they were doing with their leads and how well they were doing with their leads that we would give them from the advertising that we would generate. We tied down the sales process better.

We had a real big push in alliances and partnerships. We found out that the conversion rate would increase if we brought the CPA in with the business owner. We were finding that we would propose a financial plan and they would go to their CPA and it would get killed by the CPA. So, we just simply started bringing the CPA with the client, treating them as a valued advisor partner from the beginning. So, our conversion rate started to go up.

We started to do a little bit more community marketing in the areas of the salespeople doing seminars and workshops, and so over a year we took them from three million to seven and a half million by those steps of the system.

Michael: That’s fantastic.

Richard: Another great story and a great use of all steps of the system. Media was big. They were spending large on the media. Community was improved because we’d have salespeople in the local regional area. Direct marketing was huge because we would send out beyond the media. We would send out a newsletter and direct mail pieces to prospect. So, that’s a case where all seven steps were implemented.

I hope this report has been some of the best marketing advice you’ve read in a long time. Richard’s proven system of uncovering hidden marketing assets in a business is based on his 15 years of marketing consulting, and it works. Whether you’re a new business looking for a way to systematize your marketing, or if you want to be a marketing consultant helping small to medium sized businesses while making a very comfortable income working part-time from home, Richard’s system can shortcut the learning process for you. For more information on Richard’s marketing system call 858-274-7851 or email Contact by Email Please continue on to some of the other recordings with Richard on Marketing Consulting. Enjoy!