Clean Your Office . . . Success Forces At Work!

Hi Marketing Friend,

I’m curious. Do you have a success system that you follow in your everyday business life? How about your personal life?

I’ve been very lucky . . . During most of my lifetime, the moon and stars have aligned themselves to help guide me in the successful ways of business, marketing and life.

Years ago I got into a routine of taking my lunch break at a local used book store. That short hour actually became an addiction . . .it was like a treasure hunt in many ways.

I’d anxiously scarf my food down and dart over to the book store for the remaining moments of my break time just knowing some special book would be calling my name. And it did . . .

I remember one particularly hot summer day when I’d learned about an especially hard to find marketing tomb called the Robert Collier Letter Book. A must read raved by some of the world’s greatest copywriters and marketers of the day. In fact it’s still considered one of the greatest books on writing direct response ad copy.

I too recommend you get your hands on this book if you are serious about writing (or judging) advertising that brings in the bacon!  

At the time this book was nearly impossible to find. And if you did get lucky to find it on eBay or by way of an antiquarian book dealer, you’d pay big, big money . . . upwards of a thousand dollars to get it. I kid you not!

So being a life long student of good marketing, I set my sights on getting this book and was prepared to pay anything within reason to lay my eager little hands on this manual.

Then BAM within a few weeks, the universe opened up. . . I’m in the book store perusing all the non fiction title when it leaps out at me like rattlesnake ready to strike. I can hardly believe my eyes. .  A 1954 hardback edition of the Robert Collier Letter Book complete with dust jacket in good condition.

Price? A whopping $5.97 . . . Sold! I quickly grab it and sprint to the cash register. I am leaping for joy with my newest treasure.

Lady Luck has been with me over the years finding marketing treasure after marketing treasure. I’ve found dozens and dozens of “hard to find” books, guides and manuals that’s help shape my marketing success.

Another such treasure is Success Forces written by the legendary Joseph Sugarman; considered to be one of America’s top mail order copywriters and entrepreneurs, Joe was the driving force behind the wildly successful Blue blocker sunglasses fame.

It’s funny how success sometimes shows up at the strangest times and places. This just happens to be a prime example with Success Forces.

Success Forces is part autobiography and part Sugarman’s personal success philosophy in six parts.

It’s an interesting read but one of the success forces in particular stuck with me.

While on summer vacation break from college Sugarman worked for his father’s printing equipment business. One of his assignments was to interview some of the business executives who owned his father’s printing equipment.

Sugarman noted a few traits that seemed to be true about each company president.

One was that each president had been told his idea would not work. This of course prompted a burning desire to find a way to make the idea work. And in nearly every case a solution was found and the idea proved successful.

The lesson here is if you are told that something won’t work, then it’s a good sign there’s a great opportunity hiding in the midst.

Second. Sugarman observed that each of the presidents kept a clean desk. The companies themselves were clean and well organized.

During the mid 1970s, Sugarman carried this success force forward when his company was rapidly growing.

He had just moved into a 6,000 square foot office building. This new home for the company was a sight to behold. As you entered  the building you were greeted with a spacious and smart design.

So to carry forward this image a clean looking operation was needed. So it was that the ‘clean desk’ policy was implemented.

All of Sugarman’s employees were required to clean off their desks before leaving for the evening. All papers were to be put away, desk top cleaned including inbox and outbox papers.

This caused quite a fuss among the employees. And rightly so. His 15 employees had no place to store their paperwork. So fast forward to the point of getting new storage cabinets and figuring out a system for his employees to clean, organize and put away their desk top stuff each evening. Soon things were running like a well oiled machine.

Everyone was happy and the company thrived and actually embraced this new clean desk policy.

I started thinking that if this ‘clean desk’ policy worked for so many companies then it might improve my business too. So I started implementing my own clean desk policy. And I’m happy to report that as I expected it’s working great.

I learned a lot from this living marketing legend . . . everything from success forces like keeping my desk clean to writing powerful, cash producing advertising copy and savvy marketing techniques that has produced buckets full of profits for my business.

This adaptation of Sugarman’s clean desk success force is something any business or individual could easily put into practice now. Why don’t you give it a try and see what kind of results you could get.

Until next time, I bid you peace and success!

Warmly,

Emette E. Massey

P.S. Want all of Sugarman’s Success Forces? Get this special report outlining all of Joe Sugarman’s Success Forces. It’s yours free by just emailing me at eemassey@yahoo.com . . . I’ll zip it right over to you.

Gimme Three Steps . . . To Profitable Advertising

Howdy  . . .

Lynyrd Skynyrd inspired me to write this article . . .

There I was just cruising along minding my own business with what I thought was a great ad . . . Just submitted it to my client a mere two day prior thinking he’ll love it. . . when all of the sudden in comes my  client with fire in his eyes!

“I can’t run this . . . it’s too damn outrageous. The board of directors will never go for it. We’re tearing it up. Start over. You’ll need to tone it waaay down, says big cheese client.”

“No way I won’t do it! You hired me to get results, right? Do you want advertising that puts cash in your bank account or something limp and ‘toned down’? I asked.

No you shouldn’t go in looking for a fight. But on the other hand if you know how to create profitable advertising based on solid salesmanship fundamental, you’ll have a serious leg to stand on when defending your copy. Plus, you’ll make your client a hero and you’ll come out smelling like a rose.

Here are three simple steps to profitable advertising

1. Learn how to sell. Go out and get yourself a good education in sales. Read and study good books and courses on salesmanship. Even better get into sales! It’s an education that will serve you well the rest of your life. Good copy writing has more to do with salesmanship than good writing. Years before I ever thought about writing copy I logged years of belly to belly selling. I’ve sold vacuum cleaners, cars, major appliances, real estate and more. It boils down to learning your product . . . all of the features and benefits it has to offer and explaining these benefits to your prospect. Learn what your prospect wants. Your prospect always comes first. Period!
2. Learn your customer. This applies to your prospects also. After all you gotta attract good prospects first, then turn them into clients. You must analyze, understand and connect with your customers. Find out as much as you can about them. Where do they live? What problems are they dealing with? What daily frustrations are they encountering? What worries keeps them up at night? And so on. The more you know about your customers, the better chance you have building rapport and connecting with me. Try walking ‘a mile in their shoes’ to really understand them as the old adage says.
3. Learn your product or service. This sounds logical doesn’t it? Well, it is. It’s very difficult to sell something you don’t know anything about, right? Take the time to everything you can about what you are offering. One very easy way to ground yourself into the product details is to buy the product and use it as a consumer would. If the product is a service then use the service just like a consumer would use it. Then after you’ve ‘kicked the tires’ make some notes. List all of the features about the product or service. Next make a list of all the advantages and benefits. Then translate all of the features into benefits. Not sure how to do that? Here are two words that will help: “You Get.” For example, let’s say you’re selling a simple No. 2 pencil. Feature: A wooden cylinder surrounding a graphite core . . . Benefit: Can be resharpened as long as you life, ensuring crisp writing. Feature: 71/2 inches long. Benefit: You get a long lasting writing life. Feature: One end has a rubber eraser. Benefit: You get a built in tool that lets you correct errors. And so on . . .

The next time you find yourself in a situation that requires you to persuade someone to do something, then follow this simple outline . . . you’ll be happy with the results!

Warmly,

Emette E. Massey

P.S. Want to see this outline in action? Here’s a great sales letter swipe you can use to model your letters after? Just email me at eemassey@yahoo.com . . . I’ll zip it right over to you.