GARY C. HALBERT'S KILLER ADVERTISIN 5 sett A DO-IT-YOURSELF ADVERTISING KIT How To Sett More Goops AND SERVICES TO More PEOPLE More QUICKLY AND More Cost-EFFECTIVELY Part Of The How To Promote Your Business For Less THAN $1,000! Series By Gary C. Halbert- Page 1 - This section of YOUR MARKETING GENIUS AT WORK is going to be a little different from the rest of this issue. Here is why: This is going to be a 100% “How-To-Do-It" section, What I am going to do here is to give each and every one of you step-by-step instructions that can immediately increase your income by at least 50% and, quite probably, by as much as 300% or more! Please pay very careful attention, what I am about to impart to you applies to virtually everybody in every walk of life. I say that because, all of us, no matter what business or occupation we "think" we are in, we are all, in fact, truly in the business of selling. And, when you get right down to it, isn't that really what you are hoping to learn from me? How to sell more goods and services? To more people? More quickly? And, more cost-effectively? Listen: For the purpose of this article I am going to assume you own a restaurant, And, what I am about to do here is teach you how to immediately double or triple the number of customers who repeatedly patronize your restaurant.~ Page 2 - what's that? You say. you don't own a restaurant? No problem. You see, what I am about to teach you can be used, profitably (with variations, of course) by every kind of business and every kind of profession, So please hear with me and, for the next 30-minutes, just "pretend" you own a restaurant. Then, after that, I will teach you certain variations of the techniques ana strategies I am about to reveal, which can be used to punch up the gross of whatever kind of business in which you are actually engaged. Fair enough? 0.%., first some ground rules: Right from the start, I want to tel! you that these techniques will not work {at least not for long) unless you have something of value to sell. In other words, if your restaurant has poor food, lousy : service and outrageous prices, then don't expect my "baq-of- tricks" to bail you out. No, Good salesmanship is not a substitute for valve. Likewise, it is not a substitute for integrity. Therefore, we mist begin from the position that your and reasonable restaurant docs offer good food, qood servic prices. Now then, with that out of the way, let's get going: Let's assume you have a nice little restaurant; it offers good food, goad service and reasonable prices but, unfortunately, in spite of all this, you're still not making enough money.- Page 3 - what's wrong? What are you not doing that you should be doing? That's easy. The first thing you should begin doing (and doing immediately!) is to capture the name and address of all your customers. I can’t stress this point strongly enough, 1t needs to be literally etched on your mind, It needs to be totally and firmly imprinted upon your psyche and your consciousness, Doing this needs to become so automatic a part of your business methodology that it becomes second nature to you just Like brushing your teeth in the morning or telling your wife you love her after she cooks a great meal. Tet is rule #1. Let us write it here in capital letters lest you would ever forget. Rule #1 IMMEDIATELY BEGIN ‘TO CAPTURE THE NAMES AND ADDRESSES OF ALL YOUR CUSTOMERS! Why is this so important? The answer is simple. you see, it is only by implementing rule #1 that you are then able to implement rule #2, What is rule #2? Good question. 1 thought you'd never ask. Here it is:= Page 4 = Rute #2, IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TO YSTEMATTCALLY COMMUNICATE WITIL 2 ALL OF YOUR CUSTOMERS AND ASK THEM FOR MORE BUSIW! St Why are these two rules so important? Don't worry. IU will all become clear before the end of this article, However, right now, let's talk ways and means. hat 1 am about to explain to you is just one way of implementing the two rules t have just described, There are, of course, many others and I will describe some of these a hittin late Y but, for new, Lam qoing to illumi- nate just one, rather inqeniona method of getting this show on the road, T want you to decide to hold a drawing to qive away a free gift, This giff should be something that ties into, that is related to, your restaursnt so lot's make it a gourmet dinner for me, et's make LU really special. Let's make it complete vith salad, entree, dessert, wine and maybe @ven a delightful Little “extra touch" like @ serving of caviar, sounds neat, docsntt it? What you do next is have 1,000 small cards printed up that have a apace For cach of your customers to print hin name and address and gemewhere on the card you will have printed the- Page 5 - words "GRAND PRIZE ELIGIBILITY CARD". Now, what you do with these cards is give a stack of them to each of your waiters and waitresses and you instruct them to pass them out to each of his or her customers, Tell them to pass out the cards after the customers have eaten their entree and while they are in a nice, satisfied mood as they linger over their coffee or dessert. You should also give your employees a little "script" that tells them, in a general way, what to say as they pass out the cards. The “seript" should be very simple and it should be something like this: Did you enjoy your meal? Is everything satisfactory? It is? Good. Listen, we're having a free drawing for a really nice little a prize. The prize is really neat. Tt! gourmet dinner for two complete with champagne and caviar! And, by the way, you don’t have to buy anything to win. Al1 you nave to do is Fill out this Little card and T'11 pick it up when T bring your check and make re you get in the drawing. All right, now let us assume you have followed these simple instructions for a few weeks and that you have manaqed to collect the names and addresses of 1,000 or so of your customers who want to be included in the drawing, what you do next, of= Page 6 - course, is that you have your drawing and notify the lucky winner that he can come in and collect his gourmet dinner for two. So far so gond, but now, we come to the really important part. What you do now is you type up a letter that goes something Like this Dear Friend, My name is John Jones and I am the owner of John's Restaurant on Oak Street here in Anytown, The reason T'm writing is to thank you for enter~ ing our drawing for a superb gourmet dinner for two. I'm sorry you didn't win the grand prize, That was won by Mr. & Mrs. Donald Beeler and they really had a good time when they came in to collect. However, I do have some qood news because J am cond happy to inform you that you did win a valuable prize! What you have won is a bottle of our finest champagne and, I wil] be happy to give it to you the very next time you come in for dinner! Thanks again for entering our little contest and T hope to see you saon, Sincerely, gohn Jones owner- Page 7 - P.S. Please bring this letter with you when you come in to collect your free bottle of champagne and, it is essary that you claim your prize sometime between now and the end of the month, Thanks again, 1 really appreciate having you as a customer. What you do after you have this letter typed is you take it to a printer and you have him run off 1,000 copies. Then, of course, you mail one of these letters to each of the names you have collected. Guess what will happen? You won't believe it! What will happen is that all of your 1,000 customers will be very happy to get this letter. Not only that, many of these people will come in to get their free hottle of champagne and they will bring their wives, their family, their girlfriends and so on, And, since they have to bring the letter in, that means that you (and your waiter) will be able to greet each of them by name, Do you know how much people Love it when they qo to a restaurant with family or friends and they are greeted by name? Tt really makes them feel important. It is great nourishment for their egos especially because it makes them look "important" in front of other people.- Page 8 - Is this whole thing too expensive? Too time-consuming? Listen my friend, if only 10% of the people who get your letter come in, you may well have established a “bond” that makes 100 people now become your customers for life. Some of these people will eat in your restaurant every month ~ some every week. And a few of them, probably, will eat at your establishment several times a week! But wait. There's more. You see, now what you have is a mailing List of your customers. And what do you do with a mailing list? What you do, of course, is you mail te it. You mail simple little postcards and tel} them you miss their patronage. You mail letters that tell of certain “specials* they may be interested in. You mail "Thank You" cards telling them you appreciate having them as a customer. you mail announcements telling them abovt your half-price Thursday specials. And so on. And how often do you do this? Believe it or not, my friend, you should do it at least once a month every single month of the year! The payoff will be incredible. I can almost assure you that you will be the only restaurant in your area that is working such a neat little program on such a systematic basis. once again the rules are simple- Page 9 - #1. CAPTURE THE NAME AND ADDRESS OF ALL YOUR CUSTOMERS. #2. PERIODICALLY (AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH) WRITE THESE CUSTOMERS AND REMIND THEM OF YOUR EXISTENCE AND ASK FOR THEIR BUSINESS. That's all there is to it. I know it sounds simple but, believe me, these simple steps will profoundly enhance the bottom-line profitability of your establishment. of course, there are many other ways to capture the names and addresses of your customers other than holding a drawing. Here are a Fow? 1. If you get a lot of business people ask them if you ve one of their business cards. might ha: 2. If you accept cheeks, photocopy them and use those photocopies as a data source to help build your mailing list 1. Tf yon accept payment by credit card, train you waiters, waitresses and cashiers to tell your custo~ mers that, because of a new policy, you need to £ill in their address on the charge slips. 4. Wold other types of "contest drawings" to give your- self an excuse to ask your customers to fill out a name and address card.- Page 10 > And so on, You are only limited by your imagination, O.K., now that we've got you on a systematic customer solicitation program, let's talk about another way to expand your business which also involves two steps. STEP 1 CAPTURE THE NAME AND ADDRESS OF ALI. YOUR PROSPECTS STEP 2: WRITE TO YOUR PROSPECTS ON A SYSTEMATIC AASIS AND OFFER THEM A "REWARD" FOR GIVING YOU THETR BUSINESS Sounds familiar doesn't it? However, what we are going to describe now is not only a way to expand your business but a way to expand it in geometric proportions! You see, most likely, if you own a restaurant, your "customer pool" probably numbers in only the hundre@s or perhaps a few thousand. On the other hand, what { choose to call your “unworked prospect pool" numbers in the tens of thousands and, perhaps, in the hundreds of thousands and maybe on into the millions! Let's face it, as far as a restaurant is concerned, virtually everybody who lives in your geographic area is a " their prospect. But how do you reach them? How do you “captur: names and addresses and, since there are so many, how do we weed- Page 11 - them out in some sort of selective manner that lets us solicit them in an organized cohesive way that is attention-getting and compelling? 0.K., here in Southern California, there is a company called MATLING WISTS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA which is located at 3216 Santa Monica Boulevard in Santa Monica, This company makes available exactly what their name implies, In other words, they can furnish you with the name and address of every single resident in Southern California. And, not only that, they can furnish you the names of these residents by category. In other words, you can, if you so prefer, choose only the names of people who own their homes versus those who rent, Or, perhaps you don't want homeowners and, because you cater to a younger crowd, you desire only those people wha are apartment. dwellers, No problem. fn fact, you can select out the names of people in all sorts of categories. For example: 1. Yon can setect only those people who live in the same zip code as where your restaurant is located. Or nearby zip codes. 2. You can select ont homeowners only. 3. You can select out apartment owners only. 4. You can select out business owners,- Page 12 - 5. You can select people by what type of business they own such as hardware stores, paint stores, auto deal- ers, drug stores, auto repair shops and many, many others 6. You can Select executives. 7. You can select people by the value of their home. 8. You can select out licensed life and disability nsurance agents, 9. You can select doctors. 10. You can select lawyers. 11. You can select reqistered nurses. 12, You can select dentists, 13, You can select accountants, 14, Yau can select engineers. 15. You can select pilots, real estate broke teachers, cosmototogists, contra tors, pharmacists and so an and se on, here are many other caleqories you can also setect, tf you like, you can, for example, select out the names of all 200,00¢ people who own swimming pools in the Los Anqetes area. :Page 13 - Are you starting to get the idea? Now, what about if you don't live here in California? Not to worry. The first thing you should do is check the yellow pages of your local phone book under “mailing lists" and see if there is a company similar to MAILING LISTS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA that serves your area and then call them and see what they have to offer. If you “s ike out" in the yellow pages you still have other options. Below are the names, addresses and telephone numbers of three other companies that can furnish you with carefully categorized mailing lists similar to the t s I have been describing no matter where you live! ADVANCED MANAG! EMENT 9255 Sunset Boulevard lifornia 90069 Los Angeles, Ca (213) 858-1520 - ask for Carole Zepp R. L. POLK & COMPANY 6065 Atlantic Boulevard, Suite E Norcross, Georgia 30071 (404) 447-1280- Pane 14 = DONNELLEY LIST MARKETING 1290 Avenue of Americas, Suite 2714 New York, New York 10104 (212) 265-5403 By the way, the cost of getting names and addresses of your “unworked prospect pool” from these companies is remarkably inexpensive. It runs, in fact, only about 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 cents per name and that cost includes mailing labets in whatever form you want them, All right, so now you know how to get the names of prospects for your restaurant, what do you do with all those names once you haves them? That's easy. You write to them, of course, and simply ask them to come and patronize your restaurant. Now listen: The subject of this article is not to teach you how to write a sales letter. No. That's an art all py itself and perhaps ULL get into it ima later edition of this newsletter. However, right now, [a Like to emphasize that there is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for yon to be an expert" in order to write a letter that is effective enouch to very dramatically increase your business, The letter doesntt have to be asperially clever, especially tong and involved, or even qramatical ly correct an order for it to work. No, Lt just needs to be a siaple, truth ful, tasteful message that comes from the hoart and offers some- Page 15 = sort of “reward” if the recipient will give you his business. In fact, your first sales letter might be as simple as thi “Dear Friend, My name is gohn Jones and 1 am the owner of John's Restaurant here in Anytown. Tam writing to you because I would like to have you for a customer. Yn fact, I would like to have you for a customer so much that if you will come inany time between the L5th and 30th of this month (and bring this letter with you) it will be my pleasure to buy you a free bottle of champagne to enjoy with your meal. T really hope to see you soon. Sincerely, John Jones Owner" Not very sophisticated, is it? Just a simple little letter that courtesusly asks for a person's patronage, flowever, can you imagine the impact on your restaurant if 5,000 of these letters and that only a mere 2% of those people decided to come to your restaurant? Now, what this means, of course, 15 that you will have 100 brand new first time customers, In other words, your 5,000 letters will have made 100 “sales".- page 16 ~ fuk yait, Don't forget the concept of marginal net worth, Asoaming that you give these people good food, good service and fair prices, many of them (perhaps most of them) will come back to your restaurant again and again, In fact, it's not unlikely that, if you are taking care of business properly that, 50% of these people will come back at least once a month. And what does that mean? very simple: It means that in addition to your 100 initial sales, you will also make 600 (50 }2) other "sales" before the year is over! Not bad, is it? Tf the average cost of a meal is $30.00 and if the average number of people who come in together is two that means that this one Little unsophisticated letter will have arossed you something Like $42,000 in additional revenue! And, of conrso, yon dontt have to (nor should you) stop with one mailing of 5,000 pieces. Why not mail everybody who lives in your immediate area? Not all atonee, of course, but on a systematic basis of, perhaps, §,000 Letters every wi Ts it worth it? Figure it out for yourself, The cost of mailing 5,000 simple letrers like this should only cast $2,000 including postage. Ts it worth $2,000 to get over $40,000 in extra business? Of course it ist But what if you have w limited budget? what if you cantt afford ro lay out $2,000 every week? Mot toPage 17 worry. Direct mail is perfect for yon, What you do js you bein with a smaller weekly mailing of say 500 Letters per week and, a the mailing begins to pay off for you, you begin to “snewbalin by plowing some of your profits back inte you promoticnal mai lina: so you gan maila larger and Jarger number of Lotters every work. who knows? Tf you play your cards right, yeu might be able ta start with a mailing senedule of 400 or 500 Letters a week and end up mailing 40 or 50 thousand a week before the is over. And would that do for your bottom Line Now, lattes qet just a litele bit more sephisticated. Remember how £ illustrated how you can qet all kinds “selectivity” when you order a mailing 11st? How you can at doctors, lawyers, dentists and so forth? Why not do something Like this? Why aot qet rhe nantes of all the dentists who Live ty your area (ia hos Ange dis there are 6,486 of them) and mil rach dentist a better fire ths Dear Priond, Lam writing this letter ty yau mocunte you are a dentist. Here is why, My name 48 don. domes amt t osn John's Restaurant here ia AnyLown and To nave decided thas- Page 18 - every daynext month I am going to serve free wine with every meal to every dentist who comes in for dinner! What to know why?: It's a very unusual reason and, if you ask me about it, T'll tell you whenever you drop in. Anyway, I hope to see you soon and please bring this letter with you when you come in. Sincerely, John Jones owner" And why are you having a "Nentist's Special"? who knows? Maybe because your own dentist gave you a qreat deal on your kid's dental work last month? Maybe because your daughter just married a dentist and he turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Maybe because, at your last checkup your teeth got a clean bill of health, It really doesn't matter. What does matter is that you wrote to all these dentists and told them of your existence and you offered a “reward” for their business. And whi = wetre at it, why don't we have an "Accountant's Special"? Or a special for insurance gents? Or an "Architect's Special"? And 0 on and sp on and so on,- Page 19 By the way, I forget to tell you; you can also, from either R. L. Polk or Reuben Donnelly, get the names and addresses of people selected out by the make and year of car they own. So, why don't we have... A “Cadillac Owner's Special"? A “Ferrari Owner's Special"? A “Buick Owner's Special"? Are you starting to see the possibilities? Truly, they are limitless! Put your mind to work. Open up your imagination. Even a mode: tL atkempt at using the steps I have outlined in this article will put you head and shoulders above all the rest of your competition, You want to know why? [t's simple: Yoo see, while you are doing these simple mailings, your competition will be doing exactly what yon were doing hefore you read this article, In a word - nothing. Now, as 1 said in the beginning of this article, you don't have to own a restaurant to benefit by following this advice. No. AS I said, tais advice will work no matter what your business or occupation, wll have to change the letter a little of course, if you ace a florist instead of a restaurant owner. Maybe the “reward” you wil) offer is a free bouquet of- Page 20 - flowers instead of a free bottle of champagne. If you own a stationery store maybe you'll offer a free calendar to everybody who drops in. Tf you own a bakery maybe you'll offer a free sample of one of your famous apple pies. If you are acar dealer maybe you'll offer a free booklet on how to get better mileage from your car. Whatever. The important thing is that you do something. Get started even if you don't do it perfectly in the beginning. Remember, whatever you do, you will be doing more than most of your competition which will be doing nothing. Think about it. How many times have you gotten a letter froma restaurant in your home town? Or from the florist where you bought valentine day flowers for your sweetie? Or from the hardware store where you dropped in to get a washer for your faucet? Not often, right? In fact, probably not eve: So go to it my friend. Get out there and. CAPTURP THE NAMES AND ADDRESSES OF ALL YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PROSPECTS AND WRITE THEM EVERY MONTH AND OFFER THEM A "REWARD" FOR DOING BUSTNESS WITH YoU, It's so simple, so seldom done and so profitable! i ' | '