Lowrywrites.com

Would you buy Sushi from a door to door flyer? Or would it taste like Pu Pu? Arrived home from work last night to find another flyer stuck to my door about a small strip mall Chinese food place. Looked at it, thought about it, and then put it on top of the fridge with 10 other EXACT SAME MENUS from 10 other China Food places. No Differentiation. No specialization. Not even customization, because it is the SAME MENU with the SAME pictures and almost IDENTICAL prices from different places with almost the SAME names. CHINA WOK. CHINA BOWL. HONG KONG CHINA. CHINA GOLD. This flyer would have been 10, 100 even 1000 times more successful with a few different elements. #1 LOSE THE MENU! There are 137 choices on the menu in front of me. I get it! But after a long day at hard work, the last thing anyone really wants to do is make that many decisions about dinner. #2 KILL THE DESIGNER! I’m all for simplicity, so crowded, jumbled, homogenized advertising is BORING and Boring is useless. T

It's a chicken egg debate- both chock full of protein And nuts! Chock full of protein and nuts. Which is better, a lead or referral. The obvious answer is a referral. But it depends on how you get the referral. I worked at a company that required one on one interviews with clients to determine need. At the end of the interview, we were required to ask them for the names and phone numbers of two people, "just like them" who wanted to change their lives. This was called a warm lead. We were then instructed to call the person and say "Hi, this is Lowrychris, and so and so is starting school here and they told me you might want to change your life." or some such nonsense. Why were they called a warm lead? Because they were referred to us by someone who was using our service. But the method is just as effective when you call out of the phone book. Think about it. Do you know anyone named John? It's the most common name in the English language, so chances are, you

Ma Bell called- she said the phone's for you! I attend roughly one teleseminar per week on a variety of subjects, and I can tell you, there's no better business building tool out there right now. If you want to take your message to the world, use a teleseminar. The way I like them to operate is a live session, with q & a available, but not forced, and then with a recoding of the conversation made available for review after. A competant teleseminar company will be able to track all of this information for you, and allow you access to who is attending when, and what time. You can use this valuable information to customize your follow up. I go to real estate teleseminars every week, but my favorite most recent one was on publicity and book tours through a book marketing company. He set up a one hour conferences, where he not only provided testimonials to how effective his work is, he also gave step by step instructions on how to do exactly what he does. His reasoning? He charg

It's a situation any business owner would kill for. Two intrepid Georgia hikers were featured on every major news network, like ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX. They were mentioned on radio stations across the country and quickly become the topic of water cooler conversations nationwide. So what did the gentlemen do to gain such notoriety? They announced the discovery of a BIGFOOT CARCASS and offered it up for examination. There story of a BIGFOOT discovery changed several times- a felon shot it, they stumbled across it while hiking, or someone brought it to them. No matter, they approached a known Sasquatch enthusiast who offered them money and agreed to promote their find. Suddenly the duo was everywhere and stirring up controversy with their claims. Skeptics raced to decry the discovery and it turns out, the naysayers were right in their nay saying. The body of the Skunk Ape, the Bigfoot frozen in a block of ice was nothing more than a Halloween costume stuffed with blood, guts and e

How to get a lot of exposure for your book how to make your name the one people talk about What would happen if you were ten times more famous than you are right now? Ten times more money, ten times more people hearing your message, more distribution, ten times more speaking engagements creating an exponential snowball. Ten times more visitors to your website, ten times more money coming in. So how do you play the publicity game? How do you approach the people who can put you on their shows? What is your publicity hook? You need a hook to attract attention. Imagine this: you're flipping around the television, and you hear something that catches your attention: Learn how to be an automatic millionaire. Is spanking child abuse? That's a hook. It hooks you. Think about a news report. They say Coming UP: and you tune in to hear what they have to say. So you have to create a hook about your book. Write your book with the idea of publicity in mind. What's the hook. Example: The d

Then BE the BANK. What? I can’t be the Bank, I got into REI to make money fast! The number one way you can make money as an REI is to do exactly what the Big Boys do. You need CASH, right? (unless you know the techniques described in my book) So how do you get your hands on a steady flow of cash and eliminate being a landlord? You could hire a good PROPERTY MANAGEMENT COMPANY to outsource all of the work of managing your rental properties for you, and turn over 10-15% of your cash flow to them. Or, you could open up your own property management company and use it as a wealth retaining tool. (recommended). Or you could set yourself apart from all of the competition and serve an underserved section of the community. Use this to get tons of FREE PUBLICITY on local news and radio stations, which in turn will pour thousands of applicants back into your system, give you name recognition, and establish you as the EXPERT in your neighborhood. But first: How can you be the Bank? We’re no

They are Free. That’s the number one advantage. But built on a traditional newsletter model, I think the e-mail letter is out. I remember a few years ago (a lifetime on the internet and in this economy) learning how to format and tips on what to say in the headline so that someone opens the e0mail. I remember even learning how many characters to include in one line! What I don’t remember is reading too many that I received, and I get about 500-700 e-mails per day in my spam box. I get another 5-7 that I actively engage in trying to follow, and another 5-6 that are on my whitelist, but I just don’t have time to follow. What I appreciate about the ones I read says more about me than the sender- I like my marketing tips or information in bite sized nuggets. More than 500 words and you’re wasting my time. So when I suggest you start an e-mail newsletter subscription list- what I really want you to do is to post your newsletter on your website, html graphics and all. Then, take your

It’s the end of another football season and The Steel Curtain of Pittsburgh barely prevailed after a hard won victory. I noticed several times both quarterbacks launched Hail Mary passes, a long high spiral thrown in the direction of the end zone with the hopes and prayers that someone will catch it. Nothing connected- they were almost intercepted. Hail Mary’s do not work. They’re a last ditch effort launched out of desperation. The most successful game plan involves a simple set of steps. A running game that advances five yards or a ten and out series of passes that marches the ball down the field is a key to winning. At one of my marketing contract jobs , the boss wanted to do a mass mailing postcard campaign to 5000 people. His plan was to saturate the market and inundate it with the name of the business. I argued for a series of 5 mailings to a smaller list of 1000 people. Same mailing cost, but it would return a higher percentage as the repeated exposure could bu

Seth Godin makes a great point about being too polished. Since Americans are exposed to 3000 – 4000 advertising messages every day, we become numb quickly. Any message prepared by an ad agency isn’t designed for a consumer, it’s designed to win an ad award, which can then be touted as a success to potential clients. Ads aren’t very effective anymore: unless they are designed by marketing people. Marketers want to provide a service (and sell a product) but that’s secondary to the primary goal of any serious marketing person. Marketers want to insert their product into your decision making matrix. Advertisers want to impress you. And since their Ad is one of 1000 that you will drive past, it will not make an impression on the consumer. Advertisers make it a point to be polished, unless they are purposely trying to be rough. (Anyone remember the mange infested gerbils singing for Quizno’s? Rough? Yes. Ugly? Yes. Did it get people talking? Yes. Did it sell sandwiches? Do hai