In my own experiences remodeling our most recent home, I've been quick to underestimate or undervalue what a particular product or service entails. The joke around here is "when they pass through those guard gates, the price automatically doubles" so that usually makes me skeptical of whether I'm being offered a fair price or not.

That's where education comes in. Maybe I'm ignorant to the increased cost of copper as was the case last week when a pipe developed a pin hole leak. Not only did the plumber educate me on how the price of copper has risen dramatically in the last decade but gave a reason for why pin hole leaks are a big problem in Orange County. Apparently, because of the changed water source and all the chemicals ("chloride" and "chloramine") being pumped into the water to get bacteria to safe levels, this is causing the copper to erode and these pin hole leaks are popping up everywhere. He even pointed me to google to find all the class action lawsuits against the water company for this new practice.

But get this...

I was being educated on why replacing just one copper pipe was not the answer. "Because of the overarching problem of these chemicals eating through the copper, you could spend several hundreds or even thousands on each leak, as they pop up," he argued. He then began explaining this other process that has been developed and is becoming increasingly popular in the area (social proof) called "epoxy pipe lining," where they clean and shoot safe, durable epoxy through your pipes. It's supposed to become a permanent barrier, protecting against future pipe leaks and corrosion.

I'll spare you the details but this was a perfect example of education-based selling.

He could have...

• Assessed my issue (a leak)
• Given me a price to repair/replace the pipe
• Done the job

Instead, he backed up and...

• Gave me insight on the problem and how I'm not the only one experiencing it in the County.
• Why I'm experiencing the problem and why it's not going anywhere, even if he solves this immediate case.
• Presented a seemingly logical, cost-effective (in the long term), safe solution to my current and future problems.

Not surprisingly, the second solution happens to be MUCH more expensive than fixing my immediate pipe leak but presents a long term solution that makes sense. After adding up the replacement of each future pipe, the patching and replacement of drywall, and any other cosmetic fixes, these things add up quickly. Heck, perhaps this epoxy lining solution is the answer.

But my bigger point is:

He taught me how to buy. He planted a seed for a bigger sale (well, kinda; see P.S.). He even put a clamp on the pipe to stop the immediate leaking so that I could think about it. The first plumber who showed up told me my only option was to reroute the pipe because of its location --- take it or leave it. I was without water for two days. Didn't even mention the clamp because that would "slow" down the sale I suppose.

Are you too quick for the immediate sale? Is being quick to sell them what "they" think they need serving them best? Could you be more educative in your approach?

Sure, this is a very manual way to do it. Every time he shows up to fix a pin hole leak for someone, he has to give that speech.

Online, we can automate this sort of thing with free reports/guides, video series, webinars/presentations, teleseminars, and more. Then, when it's time to make the offer, we're talking to better informed prospects more inclined, willing, able, and ready to buy from us.

It's what I advocate in my 4-video lead sequence approach. Educate, build rapport, then go for the sale.

(Trust me: If it doesn't make dollars it doesn't make "sense." The sale DOES come but only after we've properly educated them. Heck, when you get really advanced, you can measure consumption and automatically make offers to those who are ready, opting to wait for those who aren't yet ready).

Until next time -

JG

P.S. - Here's the pipe with the clamp on it, while I "think about it." Says the clamp will last for 3 weeks at most (scarcity) but this will give me enough time to google all the alternatives.

P.P.S. - Oh yeah, the "Trusted Advisor" philosophy...

This plumber has become a "Trusted Advisor" because he doesn't even offer the epoxy lining service. He can make a referral, for which he says he doesn't get paid, but he's told me to go google and get several quotes. What has he done? He's elevated his status in my mind because unlike the first plumber, he could have pressed me to replace that pipe, not mentioned the future pipes that are on their way to developing the same problem, and gone on about his business. Instead, he educated me on my best solution, even though it may have been a lost sale for him. The result? He came back today to replace my water pressure valve, re-seal my entire shower and bath, and replace some fixtures in the guest room.

In his book, "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion," one of the weapons of influence Robert Cialdini shares is "scarcity." Tony Robbins also shares the concept of pain vs pleasure and how we're more wired to avoid pain than gain pleasure. So when we risk "losing" out on something, we act.

Putting an offer out there for your prospect to accept at their own leisure will always lead to lackluster results. And you probably already understand this if you've studied any form of direct response marketing. Slap an expiration date in your sales page, video sales letter, or webinar and you're almost guaranteed to see an increase --- simple as that.

When it comes to automating expirations, that's where things get a little complicated. One-off mailings, live events, and broadcasts make this easy because they are executed at a single point in time. If you're drafting up the letter to mail on June 1, you can throw a deadline of June 14th or 21st in there and you're done.

But what if you've got a follow up sequence with multiple steps and you want to make an expiring offer, say, 2 weeks after they join your list? I suppose you can throw vague language like "this offer expires soon" or "this offer expires tomorrow" but as Joe Sugarman talks about in his book, "Triggers," specificity trumps generalities.

That's where my Date Calculations plugin comes in (just one of 25+ plugins Peak Potential Profits members get). Using Infusionsoft, it lets you determine any future date you want by adding number of days, weeks, months, years to the current date or an already stored date in a contact record. You can even calculate the time between various events like when they joined and made first purchase or when two separate tags were applied and use the result to determine next expiration date (uber advanced strategy). Can you say "personalized expirations based on previous behavior?"

But for this example, say I wanted step 5 of my follow-up sequence to launch a promotion that should expire in 7 days. All I'd do is go to the plugin, enter "7 days," tell it which custom field to store this date in, and in what format (2013-5-15 vs May 5, 2013), and voila, I'm done!

In the example above, I'm storing the date as YYYY-MM-DD because that's how Infusionsoft date-formatted fields accept dates. Why do you want to use a custom date field to store the date as opposed to a regular text field? Because using Campaign Builder, we can actually countdown to that date. In other words, instead of having regular timers in our campaign that wait [3] days or [7] days like a typical autoresponder, we can actually store a date (that we determine via the plugin) and then have Infusionsoft intelligently count down to THAT date.

Do you see how powerful that is?

We could run a step 7 days before the date we've stored to introduce the offer. Then we could run another step 4 days before the stored date to follow-up and let them know the expiration date is drawing near. Then, at maybe 1 day before, we can send another reminder. On the same day, we can tell them the offer expires at midnight. Heck, we can even run steps days after the stored date to downsell or let them know they've missed this offer but there's one other proposition available.

The possibilities are endless.

Mock example of campaign builder sequence counting down to real date stored in custom field in contact record.

Sample screen of how a "field timer" is constructed to count down X days before a date stored in the contact record.

So far, we've covered how to get the steps to run in an automated fashion. But what about merging the actual date into an e-mail? Won't "2013-5-15" look kinda weird?

You're right.

That's why we use the plugin to run a second version of the same date, but in a different format. Instead of having it send the Infusionsoft accepted version of the date, we have it send a user-friendly "text" version to a different custom field:

 And the great part is these happen at the same time. One ping to my script and these two dates get placed in the appropriate fields, ready to deploy sequence steps and be merged in e-mails accordingly!

As it relates to automatically expiring the landing page: The same date used to determine when they receive the various reminder e-mails will be used by another plugin of mine to redirect them either to a "success" or "expired" landing page.

Here's how it works:

As you can see, the plugin gives us a link at the very top of the screen. This is the link we put in our e-mail. The only little change we make is adding &Id=~Contact.Id~ to the end of it. In campaign builder, this will pass the user's contact id to the landing page. This tells us who they are. (If using legacy e-mail builder, just make this an automation link and check the option to pass data - "Id," in this case - to the landing page. Either way, as long as you get their Id to the landing page, this will work).

Once we know who they are, the plugin magically taps into their account, determines what date exists in the selected custom field, and if it's in the past, it sends them to our expiration url (which in this example is facebook.com). If it hasn't passed or is on the same day (prior to 11:59 pm), it will send them to the landing url (which is google.com above).

There is another advanced step where you can actually put code on the page itself, which will allow you to display a count down timer. Here's how that looks along with an example submitted by a PPP member:

Disclaimer: The built-in clock does not look as pretty as his, but he simply took the [clock] code and implemented it in his own counter graphics:

So there you have it: Personalized dates that not only drive when your prospects get various follow-up steps but can be merged into the steps in a user-friendly way. Then a way to check to see if that date has passed PRIOR to sending them to your landing page. And finally, a way to activate scarcity by showing a countdown timer... SPECIFIC to the date in their contact record.

That's what I call "Automated Expiring Offers" (AEO).

Obviously, I can't give you the plugins here as it would be unfair to my PPP members. But knowing what is possible and either finding alternative solutions, having a programmer build you a quick version, or simply joining my program will solve that problem!

Until next time -

That statement certainly rings true in this example submitted by Peak Potential Profits member "Nick Liberati." It's an e-mail he received from the club he belongs to wishing everyone born in April a "Happy Birthday."

The problem is: his birthday is NOT in April and he receives 12 of these per year even though it's only possible for ONE of them to ever apply to him.

Where do we begin?

Here are just a few problems with this approach.

1) Lack of data strategy

If this organization was using a CRM system like Infusionsoft, they'd easily be able to store birthdays in the individual contact records of each member. What's more, they could launch a Birthday Follow-up sequence, similar to ours, which automatically counts down to the individual birthdays of each member. Not only would they be able to send a personalized "Happy Birthday" to Nick and other members on the actual date of their birthday, but they wouldn't have to send this "one size fits all" e-mail to EVERY member.

Which is my next point...

2) Wasted real estate

Every communication you send, every banner you place on your website, every announcement you include in your newsletter is valuable real estate. Just because you're operating in a digital, "virtual" landscape doesn't mean you can think of these assets as unlimited resources. If this were direct mail and you had to pay $.60 to $1.00 to send this "one size fits all" mailing out, would you be as apt to do so?

Truth is - every useless e-mail you send takes away from a useful, targeted, higher performing e-mail you could be sending. Not only will your audience only tolerate so much but there are also opportunity costs to consider. That e-mail to all "April Birthdays" could very well be a targeted offer to all "non-April" birthdays, while the April birthdays are contacted directly and given their free dinner entree. Instead, Nick and others must ignore every monthly Birthday e-mail until it applies to them.

Which brings up my next point...

3) You train your list to ignore you

 You've only got so many times to make an impression. Like the "3 Strike Rule," if your audience gets in a habit of feeling like your communications don't apply to them (I'd give it 3 times), they will soon tune you out --- if they don't unsubscribe FIRST!

To be fair, there are times when you need your general list to raise their hands for something specific. That's fine as long as you don't keep bothering the general pool with communications only meant for a small subsect. Besides, there are other ways to collect this data.

4) You're forced to use broad language like "For those"...

One thing I've learned in developing my philosophy of "scaling personal attention" is you want to communicate as if you're speaking to one person. When you're doing "one size fits all" marketing, you're forced to speak to the whole group with broad language.

Sure, third person communication has its place but broad, corporate language will hardly ever outperform personal, one-to-one language. If you're always having to begin with "For those of you," you're probably not using CRM and data collection optimally.

I could go on and on but you get the point.

Are you guilty of "one size fits all" communications?

This method involves collecting lots of internal and external data to personalize marketing communications, custom-tailor offers, and deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time.

Without data, you're forced to speak to everyone the same, deliver messages at predetermined intevals (instead of when subscribers are most apt to take action), and miss out on opportunities to really speak directly to the needs and desires of your prospects and customers.

Here's a recent example of how facebook used internal data to persuade me to promote one particular fan page post:

To give you a quick backstory - I posted a photo of this remarkable building designed in the form of a piano and cello on our hearandplay.com facebook fan page. And Facebook was right... it received thousands of "likes," hundreds of shares, and tons of comments.

I've gotten pretty used to Facebook encouraging me to promote my posts. In fact, they've made a practice out of taking your last post and showing it in the right side bar with the headline "See Your Ad Here."

But this latest ad was different and immediately caught my attention. They acknowledged something specific about my post.

It made me say: "Wow, they're right."

They connected the dots for me.

Had I already realized this post was a hit? Sure I did.

Had I automatically thought, "I should promote this post because if it's done this well without promotion, imagine how far it could get. Heck, it may even go viral!"?

No. And apparently if I did, it wasn't enough for me to take action.

That day, Facebook stepped into the realm of data-driven marketing. They appealed directly to me and it worked. I promoted the post and it went on to reach over 100,000 people.

But the big moral of the story is:

Are you doing generic, "See Your Ad Here" marketing or are you reaching into the data, pulling out what you know about them (based on what they tell you or more importantly, what they do), and crafting messages meant to speak directly to the self-interests of your reader?

"See Your Ad Here" is generic, regular marketing.

"Look Jermaine, your last post was a winner --- better than 95% of your posts. This should be the post you promote!" That's data-driven, personalized marketing and the foundation of the Peak Potential Profits program.

Until next time -

Great question.

Having access to dozens of private clients' accounts, more often than not, the problem is not the finite number of Infusionsoft custom fields available. The problem is usually failure to adhere to the two requirements first introduced in my Peak Potential Profits program. The "Data Collection Rule" (D.C.R.), as I've coined it, gives you two and only two reasons to ever create custom fields inside Infusionsoft.

Let's look at each of these...

Merging data into future communications

At Hearandplay.com, I collect favorite style of music and experience level in the very beginning of the sales process. These are perfect examples of "mergeable" data because they go into the database simply as "jazz," "gospel," blues," "pop," or "beginner," "intermediate," "advanced."

In future communications, regardless of whether they pick "jazz" or "blues," or whether they're a "beginner" or "advanced" player, I can put together sentences in my e-mails like:

Now, in order for this to work, I can't let them type in their favorite style or experience level because I can't predict what they'll enter. For my own surveying purposes, that'd be fine but as it relates to D.C.R., it wouldn't quite qualify to be one of my precious 100 custom fields. (More on an unlimited method to collect as much open-ended data as you want later in this post).

Instead, I let them choose their favorite style and experience level from a drop down menu.

That doesn't mean you don't collect open-ended questions. I'll cover how to do this shortly. But as for bonafide custom fields, you'll most likely be using drop down menus, radio buttons, or checkboxes.

(Incidentally, there is an advanced technique I cover in my program and may summarize later in a blog post that advocates using the "text" field type but changing the code "after-the-fact" to be a drop-down menu, radio button set, or list of checkboxes. This is the better way to go for several reasons --- one being flexibility and freedom to have, say, 5 different forms show up to 5 different people with 5 different set of answers based on previous data or behavior; yet, the response goes into ONE "open" custom field.)

Using data as conditions or rules to determine future marketing steps.

This is the only other reason I'd use a custom field. Perhaps, it isn't data you'd exactly want to merge in an e-mail to make it seem more personal. But perhaps it IS data you can use in a decision diamond or condition (if using legacy) to determine what path to take a prospect down.

To be honest, it's rather hard to find "external" actionable data that isn't mergeable. But if you're a Peak Potential Profits member, you'll know there is a whole other class of information called "internal data." This isn't what they tell you but rather what they DO... and infinitely more important.

In our system, this might be things like:

• # of e-mail clicks
• # of membership logins
• Total $ spent
• Total number of transactions
• Last purchase date
• Days between lead date and first purchase
• Last login date
• Content rating (they choose 1-5 stars)
• # of content pieces consumed (videos, reports, etc)
• Lead score

Not only are these great metrics to measure on a mass level, but on an individual, personal level, they allow me to send users into a certain direction based on behavior, activity, and data.

So what do I do when I need to collect other pieces of data for our sales process?

I totally understand that D.C.R. applies more to automated processes than human-heavy offline sales processes. Here's an example of my consulting page, where I ask a lot of open-ended questions that would never make great personalized merges in e-mails and cannot be used in decision diamonds (thus not qualifying to be custom fields):

Let's be clear.

I'm not saying you shouldn't collect open-ended data. And this does not mean that D.C.R.-approved data is more valuable than others. As you can see, I choose to collect a LOT of open-ended questions. I don't want every client. In fact, I turn down 9 out of 10. I'm sure I deter even more that never get to me because of the number of questions (NEVER ask more than a question or two on opt-in forms but on qualifying questionnaires like the aforementioned, the rules are different).

So again, this is a very Infusionsoft-specific rule and relates to the problem of only having 100 custom fields. If Infusionsoft ever ends up giving us unlimited custom fields, then this rule isn't as important anymore (but could be argued still relevant for data organization and sanity!)

I digress.

So if you had similar needs, how do you collect this type of open-ended data so your sales rep can look over it and respond accordingly?

Answer: By using "PERSON NOTES."

"Person Notes" show up as a tab on the top of every contact record. It acts as a diary, allowing you to make entries to it over time. It also works as unlimited storage for all the custom fields and data collection that doesn't qualify under D.C.R.

When creating or editing a web form, all you do is select the "PERSON NOTES" option instead of creating a new custom field. Whether using classic/"drag n drop" or campaign builder, here's how it looks in either case:

And the cool thing about it is whatever you label the field shows up in the person notes like this:

So in this post, we've accomplished a lot.

I've given you two rules for evaluating your current and future custom fields and data collection strategy. We even covered several examples of both. Then I gave you a way to collect as much open-ended data as you want! Unlimited!

Time to take inventory. What percentage of your current fields are mergeable and actionable to alter the direction of a campaign? 10%? 30%? 90%?

If you're guilty of wasting fields on data you never see or use again, I recommend exporting the data, combining it in excel, and then importing it back in as Person Notes. Then, deleting those wasteful fields and collecting all new data via person notes... reserving all future custom fields for actionable and/or mergeable data!

While long and detailed, this post only scratches the surface. If you want the whole strategy, check out my home study program (30+ hours).

Until next time -

They wrote this follow-up article synopsizing the first third of my presentation. Check it out.

Question #1: Do I have email campaign steps users can’t influence?

Question #2: Do I use time as the primary determinant for follow-up?

Question #3: Do I have the “merge” mindset?

Question #4: Do I use monotone “one too many” language in my emails?

Question #5: Am I taking a “WIFLI” approach to my email campaigns?

Presentation: "Personal vs. Robotic: How to turn automated email into personal experiences that drive new and repeat sales"

Click here to watch the presentation at MarketingSherpa.com

Why is that?

It has something to do with Newton's First Law of Motion:

States that are historically Democratic will likely stay that way (i.e. - California, my state). States that have historically voted Republican will likely stay that way as well. But some states are up for grabs and swing so much that there isn't such historical consistency to rely on them to come through for one particular party.

In business, two of the most important factors that predict future customer behavior are recency and frequency.

Recency: How recent did the customer last purchase?
Frequency: How often do they purchase?

(You could substitute "purchase" for "vote" because this applies in politics as well).

On a scale of 1 to 5, let's say the most recent and frequented customers are 5 in each of those categories and the least recent and frequented customers are 1.

If you were running for President, who would you give most of your attention and resources to?

Probably not the "55"-rated States ("5" in recency, "5" in frequency) because they will likely "stay" in motion as Newton described and vote for you again. And even when outside forces are present, it takes a lot to stop the momentum of "commitment and consistency." Don't forsake them; simply keep them happy.

Likewise, probably not the "11"-rated States either (this mainly represents the opponent's supporters, especially if you segment out non-voters who would also technically make up this group).

That leaves people (or States) around the "33" mark, give or take. The middle. The battleground.

Now, apply this to your customer base and you'll get a matrix like this:

"Customer Focus Matrix"

In business, there are philosophies that focus on BEST customers. There are reactivation strategies that focus on the WORST customers. And don't get me wrong, there are times and places for it all. But your focus should go to "middle-ground" customers and those likely on their way if no outside forces intervene.

Think about it --- a customer who is a "5" in recency (which means they JUST bought from you) and a "5" in frequency (which means they've bought from you A LOT) will probably keep going, pending that you've continually over-delivered and satisfied their needs. Wait until they show signs of slowing down to a "4" or "3" before you spend precious, limited marketing dollars (or offer unnecessary discounts).

Likewise, those who have been away for years (a "1" in recency) and never bought that much to begin with when they were active (a "1" in frequency) shouldn't get your marketing dollars. Chances are, they will stay at rest (Newton's same law, but also known as "Law of Inertia.")

It's the ones in the middle and the once "best customers gone bad" who have the most potential. To get those folks to the "44" or "55" territory would mean a visible change in your bottom line. Then, chances are, they'll keep buying (they make great continuity customers who will stay with you forever).

Recency is simple but not easy. ONE sale takes someone from a "3" in recency to a "5" because the only qualification is a recent sale. Upselling and exposure to backend offers and continuity eventually gets them to a higher frequency score. But frequency doesn't rise unless they remain recent.

So that means, it's your job to make sure a customer never slides down too far. In my home study course, we cover all these RFM metrics and how to pull this data out of Infusionsoft and other e-commerce systems.

It's said, "Where focus goes, energy flows."

Who are you focusing on?

For a while now, I've been thinking about expanding the "Hear and Play" brand to other methods of learning. I've kept my eye on "SeeAndPlay.com" for the longest but it's never been available. Not that another name wouldn't work, but it fits nicely with my "& play" pattern.

So I revisited the idea the other day and found that the domain name, SeeAndPlay.com, had recently been registered on June 19, 2012. (Silly me for not backordering it but I was never really that serious about it in the past). Here's my e-mail to the new owner:

Here was the reply back:

Wow!

They saw our House Hunters episode and was inspired to finally start the website. They even borrowed part of the name structure "and play" (not reinventing the wheel right?). And rightfully so. If I was on the other side, I'd probably do the same thing. I respect this father and son to the utmost for "seeing" something on tv and taking action.

I have this saying:

This father and son didn't just want to "watch" someone else on tv make it happen. They got up and took action.

(All of this is not to say I don't want the domain name. I did reply and offer something mutually beneficial. But my point is - how many times have you heard an inspiring story, read a biography, heard a success story, and counted yourself out?

One of the lessons on my end is to be more prepared for opportunity. They say "luck" is when preparation meets opportunity. There are many things I could have done to be alerted of this domain name expiring. And if the owner doesn't accept my offer, I must take personal responsibility for my prior lackadaisicalness towards the situation.

Just for fun, here are some photos from the HGTV "House Hunters" episode they saw.

Until next time.