List Building
One of the activities you should be engaged in regularly is list building. Some say, “The money is in the list,” and I certainly agree. There is a direct advantage to having a large list when it comes to wealth. The more people you have in your list, the more people you can market to. Always build your list at every opportunity so that you can market to it later. You can purchase lists, but I don’t advise it; the quality never seems to be there—so use old-fashioned list building processes instead. For example, if you attend a trade show, make sure you have a capture system in place for getting the emails and names of attendees. People will resist simply giving you the information without a bribe, so get creative. I like to dangle an iPad. I have a drawing at every trade show I go to and for the simple exchange of email and name I enter the person into the drawing for a chance to win the iPad. I announce the winner at my booth as well as through email. Remember, you can never stop list building, and the bigger the list of prospects the more people you can sell to. If you have a list of 100 fair managers and I have a list of 1000, my message instantly reaches far more than yours because I have taken the time to build the list; my results will reflect this. When I advertise in any way, I usually give something away in exchange for an email address; it could be an ebook or PDF; but I understand that I want to cultivate a big list of prospects. Segment the prospects so that you can speak directly to them. When I market to my college list, for example, I have all 50 states broken down so I can speak to students and Campus Activity Directors in a certain state. This is much more effective in the long run. Never stop list building. Get prospects to text a shortcode to opt in to your list; for example, “Text the word Hypnotist to 33444.” Cellphones are an awesome way of growing a list and text or SMS is one of my powerful marketing weapons. For more on text message marketing make sure you visit http://incrediblebusinessmasterclass.com .
Custom Audiences and Geographical Targeting
Now, this is such a marketers dream—let me explain. I can target specific people in specific zip codes and deliver a laser target message focused on them. Facebook pioneered this approach but now most social media sites have followed suit, including YouTube. I can now target all students between the ages of 18 and 24 who reside in Orlando and have a special interest in the University of Central Florida. I can laser target an ad just for those people; I can even target only men or only women. Why is this important? Because now I can use the hypnotic language I feel talks to their subconscious mind directly. I can follow trending subjects on campus and find out what the latest thoughts and feelings are and then target them if I have a related product. I have been using custom audiences and demographic and geographic targeting for several years with amazing results. As an action item, you must look into this further. There is a reason that Facebook and LinkedIn ask you so many questions when you set up a profile; it is so you can use the information later in your marketing efforts. Social media sites are not charities and they all want to make money, just like you and me; the way they do it is by encouraging their end users to post ads.
Video
I love using video in my marketing efforts because, statistically, more people watch video online that anything else. More people share video than pictures, so if a picture does paint a thousand words a video paints double that. Make sure you are always creating hypnotic video. Video can be designed to support your products and services. Create hundreds of videos surrounding every topic you can think of. 87% of all videos online are now watched on cellphones; it is an incredible statistic. Videos can explain your products and services in an enticing, professional way; best of all, you can make them yourself. I recommend you explore the following techniques:
Talking Head Video: This is you with a white background or even an interesting green screen overlay talking about your products and services.
Demo Reel: This could be footage showing a product in action, or you demonstrating your product or service.
Whiteboard Video: These are the cartoon-looking videos that people love to watch; they convert like crazy since they are always moving quickly with a voiceover and clever graphics.
Explainer Video: These are videos that look similar to PowerPoints but have voiceovers and words bouncing along the screen with graphics and pictures.
When creating a video make sure you invest in the correct tools.
For editing, consider:
Screenflow
Camtasia
For Whiteboard and Explainer, consider:
Videomaker FX
Easy Sketch Pro
Explandio
As a rule, if you upload video and want to get it out to the masses without any restrictions, use YouTube. If you want to lock and carefully control your video use Vimeo Pro, and if you seek overlays and extras consider Wistia. Video definitely converts clients; people prefer to watch something quickly than to read it, so make sure you are a master at making video quickly and easily.
Shopping Carts
You can have all the best hypnotic selling tactics in the world, but without a really good way to sell products you can still fall flat in the sales arena. Personally I think a shopping cart is an essential piece of equipment in my business, but I see so many others go for a cheap option. If you have a website, you may also have downloads for sale. The shopping cart process is vital to the success of your business. Shopping cart abandonment can be high if a customer gets nervous about your site and the process. If they do not trust the flow or security of your website they may just abandon the purchase altogether. I do not recommend going for a cheap or free option such as Woo Commerce or Paypal. Purchase a professional shopping cart that has a built-in SSL and can fully, smoothly support the transactions. The shopping cart service should allow you to embed “Add to cart” buttons easily as well as create a standalone store. The most important function of a shopping cart, though, is to upsell and add value. Most don’t do this very well; for an excellent example look to sites such as Amazon.
Here is how it works: the most difficult part of the process of making the sale is to get the small “yes” commitments that eventually lead to the final “yes” and the actual sale. Once you have the “yes” you know you have the trust and confidence of the client and you have them in the correct frame of mind to sell them more. A perfect opportunity on a well-rounded shopping cart is the OTO, or the “one-time offer.” You purchase an item and just before leaving you get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase another one of my products at a great price. It literally is a one-time offer presented at the shopping cart. A pre-sale bump is similar but this method captures the customer at checkout and says, “You also might be interested in….” or “Other people that purchased this also looked at ….” This is a great way to increase your income and generate extra sales. Make sure the sales process is smooth. If someone is already a customer they should be invited to a one-click purchase experience so that they don’t have to add all their information again. Correctly designed shopping carts add to the hypnotic experience since you are dangling other attractive items in front of the buyer at just the right time, when the mind is already in buying mode.
Creating Sales Funnels
A sales funnel is a systematic approach to navigating a prospect through the process of persuasion. I have built an entire passive income from many sales funnels that sit there on the internet making money. Once you develop a sales funnel and you have all the wheels in place it can effectively become “evergreen,” never expiring or having a sell-by date. You can create a sales funnel about anything; information is king and someone, somewhere will purchase it with the right encouragement. Turn your hobby into a cash machine by monetizing it; sell reports and videos on “How to ______.“ Here are the components of an online sales funnel:
Develop a product or service based on a current problem or perceived interest.
Identify the prospects that need or want the information on “how to” solve the issue you have identified.
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br /> Create a small website or landing page promoting the product or service.
Offer something for free: a trimmed-down version of an ebook or one out of five potential videos in exchange for an opt-in of an email address. This is known as a lead magnet.
Capture the opt-in information and deliver the magnet as promised.
Add the prospect to a marketing list that now promotes the full product with laser accuracy.
Your product should identify one problem, then another one, and then arrive at a solution, like this example:
“Are you tired of losing weight only to gain it again? Fed up of Weight Watchers and gym memberships that don’t work and are impossible to get to in your busy schedule? Introducing the brand new, effective weight loss program by Hypnotist X. You can do it while you sleep. Get amazing miracle results with no effort and be the envy of all your friends.”
You are creating the problem and getting the small “yes” and you are presenting the prospect with the solution to the problem you have just identified. Add value by introducing the new dazzling system that gets amazing results. Don’t forget to then introduce your OTO (one-time offer) and pre-sale bump for maximum results. The whole process can be rinsed and repeated and feels almost hypnotic in nature.
Identifying the audience for your product can easily be achieved through Facebook and other social media services or by using a list from a trade show or membership to an organization you might have. Create multiple funnels in a similar niche and test them out; get very specific with your language so you can measure results and see which funnel performs the best.
Once the prospect has received the lead magnet it is important that you add value by creating an email chain that they will receive in the coming weeks. Lots of research has been done regarding the frequency and content of the emails. But as a rule, trust your judgment and always add value in your emails. Don’t just sell in them; have prospects gain value from them and actually begin to look forward to them. Foster loyalty and repeat business. Market future coupons and special offers to the list. Drip-feed the list relevant and timely information so that you are always at the front of their minds.
Chapter 11
Success Mindset
You are about to get my top secrets, which I have used to become a successful business professional. You will receive them as affirmations and I encourage you to say them out loud to yourself. The more you say them the more they will sink in. You can train the brain to be a success in anything you do. Train the mind to be an unstoppable sales machine, one that is ready to take action immediately.
What is the secret of successful people and how does it apply to you? Here are some common threads. Say these statements to yourself:
- I know luck happens when opportunity meets planning!
- My downtime is for preparing and learning in readiness for opportunity.
- My luck in life is greatly determined by my preparations.
- I decide to be what I am studying; I become what I have learned.
- I control my life instead of letting my life control me.
- I am in the present.
- I can clearly see where my current path is leading me.
- You don’t have to be nice to me because I’m nice to myself.
- My knowledge creates possibility.
- I take complete responsibility for how I feel right and I can change it if I don’t like it.
- Persuasion is a game and I am getting better at it all the time.
- What I believe is true, is true.
- In order for things to change, I must change.
- Believe in Personal Programming and your Planning
- Have Discipline and Passion in order to succeed
- Power is for use.
- When I’m doing something wrong, right feels wrong.
- Quality of my life is the quality of communication, internally and with the outside world.
- I will create a greater resistance.
- I know that people like people like them and people don’t like people not like them.
- I build a rapport with everybody.
- My number one tool for being successful is my relationships with others.
- I learn the power of relationships so that I don’t have to keep learning it.
- Success is wanting, but not needing, a relationship with others.
- “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.” - Albert Einstein
- It is not enough to conquer; one must know how to seduce.
- My communication equals my wealth.
- The quality of my life is the quality of my communication.
- Thoughts are things: money and success are made first in my mind
- I create relationships.
- I take who I am impressed with to lunch.
- I make decisions quickly.
- I do what I love and the money follows.
- I am persistent and take immediate action.
- I understand the power of being unique and being one of the best.
- I get paid for what I produce, not by the hour.
- I create a cash cow, something I am unique and best at.
- I find it easy to change my habits.
- I have plans instead of goals.
- I am always promoting and putting out in the universe what I want.
- I am ALWAYS selling.
- I always deliver more than what is paid for or expected.
- I always sell a person more than what they want and never less.
People often ask me how I have become a successful hypnotist and business owner in the last 20 years while many of the people I know have not. The answer is simple: The things I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. I found it easy to set the goals that could change my life. They found it easy not to. I found it easy to read the books that could affect my thinking and my ideas. They found it easy not to. I found it easy to attend the classes and the seminars, and to be around other successful people. They said it probably really wouldn't matter. If I had to sum it up, I would say what I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. Twenty years later, I'm a millionaire and they are all still blaming the economy, the government, and company policies—yet they neglected to do the basic, easy things.
In fact, the primary reason most people are not doing as well as they could and should, can be summed up in a single word: neglect.
It is not the lack of money—banks are full of money. It is not the lack of opportunity—America and much of the free world continue to offer the most unprecedented and abundant opportunities in the last six thousand years of recorded history. It is not the lack of books—libraries are full of books—and they are free! It is not the schools—the classrooms are full of good teachers. We have plenty of ministers, leaders, counselors and advisors.
Everything we could ever need to become rich and powerful and successful is within our reach. The major reason that so few take advantage of all that we have is simply neglect. Not doing the things we know we should do causes us to feel guilty, and guilt leads to an erosion of self-confidence. As our self-confidence diminishes, so does our level of activity. And as our activity diminishes, our results inevitably decline. And as our results suffer, our attitude begins to weaken. And as our attitude begins the slow shift from positive to negative, our self-confidence diminishes even more... and on and on it goes.
So my suggestion is that when given the choice of "easy to" and "easy not to," that you do not neglect to do the simple, basic, "easy," but potentially life-changing activities and disciplines.
I truly know you found this book useful and that you will implement some of the ideas contained within. I look forward to hearing about your immediate success—go get them, tiger!!! after all, it would be an injustice if you didn’t,
Richard Barker
Incredible Hypnotist
rt of Suggestion
Selling Hypnotically- the Art of Suggestion Page 7