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NB: This newsletter is published every Monday. Point your browser to www.tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets to read at least ONE new post added to my SD Nuggets blog on a different category from Tuesday till Saturday (sometimes even Sundays) in line with this publishing schedule 
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IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS newsletter is published online on the “reincarnated” version of my Self-Development (SD) Nuggets blog. I continue to put finishing touches to the content. If you encounter ANY bad/dead links, and you can spare the time, email them to me via tayo at tksola dot com. Thanks in advance
No. 181: To Achieve Selling Success, Always Have Products You Can “Gift” Away
Do you want buyers of your products or services to always depart feeling it’s good to buy from you? If YES, I ALWAYS make them feel they got more than they paid for. If you wonder how to do this without losing money, I explain HOW I DO IT successfully, below!
A Warning: Two Mistakes You Should Seriously Avoid…
There will be exceptions, of course, but generally, if you want to use the ideas I share here, you MUST avoid doing a. and b. outlined below, otherwise you’ll end up short-changing yourself.
a. Do NOT use your services to give people more than they pay for.
They often require your being present and involved. Or if it’s an automated service, they typically require use of some resource you have to pay for or maintain. Either way, you still incur avoidable costs. Anything that makes that happen is NOT healthy for use in the system I propose you adopt.
b. Do NOT use products that you have to SPEND (or have spent) money from your pockets to acquire to make buyers feel they are getting more than they pay for.
I know. I know. People do it all the time. I just happen to be a bit puritanical in my views about being cost-effective. I simply refuse to accept that I should spend EXTRA money to make someone feel good about buying from me.
That option eats over time into my profits, in the long run. “Me wanna” keep as much of my income earned as PROFIT RETAINED in my pockets of bank account that I can spend without worry
Now, Here’s How to Do It, Based On My Hard Won Experience Doing It Successfully
It took me years of trial and error to get it right. So what I share with you now has been refined to ensure you spend much less time wondering what you’re doing wrong.
Note however, that you will still have to refine it to find what works for you. If you need help let me know…click.
Now, you don’t have to agree with either of the above “don’ts” that I listed…
But if you really want to get the kinds of results I get (which enable me reap over 90% of income I earn as tangible profits), I recommend you try hard to abide by them as often as possible.
Right, on to the meat of the subject…HOW YOU CAN DO IT!
Let me ask this…
How would you feel if you bought books from a certain website or online store, up to a certain value (say N5,000) and they included a bonus product (ebook, audio/video) on a similar theme?
What if you then learned (say via auto responder or weekly newsletter) that buying more products from that same company or individual, would earn you access to other free bonus products if you purchased up to a certain value (say N10, 000)?
Would that not make you frequently look for ways to do any shopping you want to do at such a place, anytime your needs match the products or services on offer there?
This happens regularly offline with physical products/brick and mortar companies – especially large companies.
For instance you find a pretty looking pen in the packet of toothpaste you buy…or a toy your child falls in love with.
The mistake I see most of us making however is that we assume (VERY WRONGLY too!) that it’s only big companies that can afford to give stuff away, to buyers.
We forget there are NO RULES about what you can give (or more appropriately “GIFT”) away to buyers and WHO can do it!
This is true for individuals and businesses of all sizes.
Like Michel Fortin so wisely noted in his 10 Commandments of Power Positioning (Did you Google and download that wonderful ebook yet???) – Marketing is about PERCEPTION.
That’s what you’re really dealing with when you engage in the marketing act…
You are trying to INFLUENCE the perception of your target audience, so they “feel” that buying from YOU would be better for them than buying from anyone else who offers what you do!
So, to sell successfully, what you need to do is identify what your target audience PERCEIVES to be VALUABLE or WORTHY of their attention, interest and ultimately their MONEY!
Once you succeed in creating a product that communicates that benefit to them, you are halfway there.
Why halfway you say?
You probably expected I would say you would be (to borrow from the Americans) “home free”!
Well, I say “halfway” because potential buyers may indeed perceive that your product/service is right for them, but human beings can be so fickle minded at the same time.
Dazzling advertising or promotional campaigns from your competitors, who probably offer LESS value than you do, CAN still make people change their minds.
Remember the saying: “Not all that glitters is Gold”? It’s relevant because people tend to”follow” (and “fall for”) for Bright Shiny Objects or “glittering” stuff…which can sometimes be used by con artists!
Only AFTER they’ve gone the wrong way do they then develop “buyer remorse”.
In your case (and I say this assuming you are LIKE me, one who NEVER cheats others) those who stay focussed are unlikely to ever experience that dreadful emotion…
You certainly do NOT want anyone who does business with you to feel that way by the time you separate –otherwise you may find yourself running out of places you can “market” whatever it is you sell without getting told to “buzz off”!
So, what’s the “other half” you need to complete your compelling offer to buyers then…?
It is for you to find a way to add LOTS of GIFT “icings” on your “products/services” cake.
As earlier stated, these will have to be items that will ideally cost you ZERO monetarily, and which will take you minimal effort to deliver to the buyer, along with the item purchased.
Note also that it is best that you find a sustainable way to constantly create additional versions of such products, always with potential to be perceived useful by prospective buyers. That way, you will always have MORE news stuff you can GIFT away, to entice them to buy.
In well over a decade of using this strategy, I have found that digital “gifts” are best used to achieve the above described goal.
All you need to do is develop creative ways to package and present those “GIFT” products – but they must have INHERENT useful value to the intended recipient, otherwise this would backfire.
In my case I use my continually growing library of digital information products (which include e-book versions of paper back publications I sell), and customizable Excel-VB driven software products.
One could say I’m lucky that most of what I sell, and the items I “GIFT” away are digital.
I would however point out that nothing stops YOU from providing digital “gifts” to complement products/services you deliver to buyers as well. Indeed, that IS what I recommend, in this article, that you DO!
Doing it makes my costs really looooow…and that boosts my ability to retain most of what I earn as profits. As a result, I can afford to be quite generous in GIVING such gifts …plus, the high return rate boosts my enthusiasm to do more :-))
Little wonder that I continue to churn out MORE write-ups (which I compile into information products).
I also continue to create new custom Excel-VB driven software – like my Poultry Farm Manager , Ration Formulator, and Payslip Generator (carefully gauging what to do based on enquiries I get from my target audience) to add to what exists.
The above makes it is practically impossible for buyers, prospects or subscribers to ever find my range of offerings OBSOLETE. By the time they come back tomorrow, or a week after, there’s new stuff to be had!
To put it simply, the very nature of all that I do goes against every possible meaning of the word, OBSOLETE!
In actual fact, this adopted strategy makes it literally impossible for anyone to claim to have seen ALL that I have to offer.
Why?
I continue to create new stuff, every day, and I do it almost without trying (believe me!).
In other words, what I have to offer is perpetually yet-to-be-created aka MY NEXT PRODUCT!
Example: Just yesterday, I churned out a new write-up based on a true story, that PERFECTLY demonstrates how I apply the ideas I have shared above…
You see, the screenshot shown below, of my Ten Storyfied Proverbs audio book DVD(click to watch 4 min playback), that I sold to the banker mentioned in the article, depicts custom menu buttons linking PDF versions of 3 other products I gave her as FREE bonuses.
If you check my online store 2 of the products I gave away are actually on sale in my online store…
Here’s why….
Because I CAN…and it costs me NOTHING extra to do so, YET at the same time, doing so enables me to create the impression of increase in the mind of the buyer.
Interestingly, since this is a habit I’ve always had (i.e Going The Extra Mile aka GTEM), I’d always displayed it unknowingly, everwhere I went.
Unknown to me, some people were taking note. This lady banker turned out to be one such person who’d seen me act that way waaaay back in 2002
No wonder she sent back the email below…!
Click here to read the full story – with verbatim email transcripts/screenshots. It’s titled “To succeed As a Role Model Be True to Yourself (True Story)“
…and I already I have a member of my Inner Circle who has ordered it. He gets 11 audio presentations AND, as promised in THIS PDF preview, he also gets my Ration Formulator and Poultry Farm Manager, as well as my 1,700 Poultry Layer Farm Business Plan on the same DVD.
These 3 bonuses total approx. N150,000 – One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira by normal prices – see details on this sales page)!
Now, I’m NOT crazy …there is strategy to this “madness” of mine…:-))
You see, I’m doing this to put out the new product and get buyers saying just how loaded it is with priceless insights about SAVING MONEY in starting up and running a poultry farm.
Since the products are digital and I already have a comfortable base or users, doing this again costs me NOTHING in monetary terms. And effort wise, it takes only 10 to 15 minutes to personalize the products.
Having said that, any moment from now, I might double the price, and the value to be had via the FREE bonuses would still make it worthwhile!
See how this works???
Final Words: Invest your creative brain energy, time and effort to create mainly digital products that can “complement” whatever product or service you sell
Ahem…it goes without saying that you NEED to have such products of your own, to be able to do anything like what I propose here.
So, if you’re interested in using the ideas I’ve shared here, you need to get started “creating” some…
BUT make sure those you choose do NOT cost you any extra money to deliver, along with whatever is purchased from you.
Do this right, and you will find those who buy from you rarely ever want to leave, while others who discover you arrive frequently eager to buy!
If you need help putting the ideas shared above to use, let me know HERE.
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Learn about Burt Dubin’s speaker mentoring products (books, audios etc) below…
If you need help purchasing ANY of Burt’s products (like “Presentation Magic”), call me on +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic, my base) or +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or email tayo@tksola.com
Have a great week :-))
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