If you have ever wanted to hear a man who was recently requested by ‘Sir Richard Branson’ and ‘Donald Trump’ as their opening speaker, another who has made his millions in the anti-ageing industry, a salon marketing guru and a staff coach extraordinaire all in the same room on the same day, then this is one seminar that you won’t want to miss!  PLUS one lucky salon owner is going to get the opportunity to be in the HOT SEAT and have their salon pulled apart and put back together by a panel of salon experts. 

BUY TICKETS NOW http://www.salonprofitsecrets.com/buy-tickets-now/auckland-salon-marketing-seminar/  or call 0800 029 668

This event is SELLING FAST, last week over 4200 invites were posted out, so Act Now to secure your place.  Tickets are just $179 per person and the first 50 people to purchase a ticket get an additional FREE ticket for a business partner or employee. 

A couple of weeks ago we announced that for the first time in over 3 years Worldwide Salon Marketing Co-founder Greg Milner would be presenting a phenomenally powerful NEW marketing presentation never before seen in New Zealand and Worldwide Salon Marketing New Zealand Director Rachael D’Aguiar would also be presenting a brand new staff coaching presentation. 

So, it is with HUGE excitement that I am also able to announce that ‘Mr Motivator’ Pat Mesiti and self made anti-ageing millionaire Jeff Ghaemaghamy will also be presenting at our seminar. 

Here’s some more information about all our speakers…

Pat Mesiti Recently Opened For Sir Richard Branson

Pat Mesiti

Pat Mesiti is a prosperity activist.  He is a highly effective communicator and most notably an income acceleration coach.  His passion is to EQUIP and EMPOWER individuals and businesses to experience growth and prosperity to its fullest potential.  His expertise is to SHIFT MINDSETS AND TO BUILD BIGGER PEOPLE to produce results.  Pat has spoken globally to some of the largest conferences, and his books and materials have sold over 2 million copies.  Having built some of Australia’s largest people organisations, Pat understands the power of harnessing people potential. 

Pat has spoken for and shared the platform globally with some of the world’s most influential speakers including Denis Waitely, Robert Kiyosaki, Mark Victor-Hansen, Jim Rohn, Bob Proctor and most recently for ‘Sir Richard Branson’.  He has also been invited to open for none other Donald Trump later this year! 

Pat is committed to taking people from being sales agents to millionaires.  He will shift your mindset, touch your heart and increase your wealth. 

Jeff Ghaemaghamy Pictured With Partner Donna

Jeff Ghaemaghamy

Jeff Ghaemaghamy began his career washing dishes, and ended up making millions in the anti-ageing industry purely by accident.  Jeff had problem skin all his life with adult acne.  Whilst travelling through the USA he was recommended a product which a friend thought might help his skin and to his surprise it cleared his skin up within a matter of days and within weeks it was as if he never had acne at all!  As sceptical as he was, Jeff saw an opportunity and turned it into a business that has distributed over $100 million of products across the Asia-Pacific region. 

Today, Jeff lives his life according to three words, INSPIRATION, EMPOWERMENT and making a DIFFERENCE.

Jeff believes his success was not about being the most clever person but rather through offering outstanding service and simply being in-front of the growing needs of an ageing baby boomer population.

Jeff will share key success principles of how he built his business and how YOU as salon owners are all positioned in-front of the trends of an ageing population, and how to capitalise on it!  

Greg Milner

Greg Milner, Worldwide Salon Marketing CEO and Co-founder will show you 5 Money-Making Marketing Strategies that will help double your sales in the next 12 months, stop you wasting money on marketing that doesn’t work and get a FLOOD of new clients whenever you want them, so you can turn your business into a profit-powerhouse!

Greg Milner Presents to a Sell Out Crowd at a Recent Seminar

Greg has helped thousands of salon owners across the world by giving them REAL reasons why their salon marketing is useless.  Even if you’ve never done a successful marketing campaign in your whole life, Greg GUARANTEES that these top secret tactics will put money in your bank account in 21 days or less after seeing his presentation…or your money back!

Rachael D'Aguiar will present a brand new Staff Coaching segment.

Rachael D’Aguiar

Rachael D’Aguiar, Director of Worldwide Salon Marketing NZ will also be presenting a brand new segment at the Salon Profit Seminar on ‘How to get the most out of your staff.’

Rachael is the staff coach extraordinaire!  If you have ever wished that you could turn your staff into clones of yourself, selling product to clients, re-booking them every single time they come to your salon and so much more, Rachael’s Staff Coaching Program is as close as you will get.  Rachael freely admits that 3 years ago she was a pretty ‘awful’ boss and let her staff run her and her salon.  But instead of blaming her staff, she changed the way she approached them and the training she gave them.

Today, Rachael has mastered the art of getting staff to do what she wants them to do – and enjoying it!   She will share her secrets on becoming the leader you need to be in order to create the salon team you always dreamt of, and give you the opportunity to access never before available tools to help you achieve this success.

With such a world class line up of speakers this event will SELL OUT FAST so book NOW.

BUY TICKETS NOW http://www.salonprofitsecrets.com/buy-tickets-now/auckland-salon-marketing-seminar/  or call 0800 029 668

And if that wasn’t enough then we’ll also have a panel of experts including real salon owners, ready to share their success secrets with YOU! One lucky salon owner will even get the chance to have their salon analysed by the experts, right there on stage.

The seminar is on Monday September 6^th, from 9.30am – 4.00pm (registration from 9am) at Auckland’s prestigious Hilton Hotel on Princess Wharf.  Tickets cost $179 NZ for the full day and the first 50 people to purchase a ticket also receive a second ticket FREE for a partner, business colleague or staff member.

A special closed door session with Greg Milner will be held for Inner Circle Members ONLY from 4pm to 5pm. 

BUY TICKETS NOW http://www.salonprofitsecrets.com/buy-tickets-now/auckland-salon-marketing-seminar/  or call 0800 029 668

Join us for a day of inspiration and motivation as we talk about the things that REALLY matter to salon owners.  (Monday September 6^th 2010, 9am – 4.30pm at the Hilton Auckland).

BUY TICKETS NOW http://www.salonprofitsecrets.com/buy-tickets-now/auckland-salon-marketing-seminar/

If you are you sick and tired of putting so much hard work and precious time into your salon, without making the money you deserve, then you MUST attend this seminar.  Greg will show you 5 Money-Making Marketing Strategies that will help double your sales in the next 12 months, stop you wasting money on marketing that doesn’t work and get a FLOOD of new clients whenever you want them, so you can turn your business into a profit-powerhouse!

We’ll also have a panel of experts including real salon owners, ready to share their success secrets with YOU! One lucky salon owner will even get the chance to have their salon analysed by the experts, right there on stage.

Rachael D'Aguiar will present a brand new Staff Coaching segment.

Rachael D’Aguiar, Director of Worldwide Salon Marketing NZ will also be presenting a brand new segment at the Salon Profit Seminar on ‘How to get the most out of your staff.’

Rachael is the staff coach extraordinaire!  If you have ever wished that you could turn your staff into clones of yourself, selling product to clients, re-booking them every single time they come to your salon and so much more, Rachael’s Staff Coaching Program is as close as you will get.  Rachael freely admits that 3 years ago she was a pretty ‘awful’ boss and let her staff run her and her salon.  But instead of blaming her staff, she changed the way she approached them and the training she gave them.

Today, Rachael has mastered the art of getting staff to do what she wants them to do – and enjoying it!   She will share her secrets on becoming the leader you need to be in order to create the salon team you always dreamt of, and give you the opportunity to access never before available tools to help you achieve this success.

We will also be announcing our key note motivational speaker within the next 2 weeks, so keep an eye out to find out who this inspiring speaker will be.

If YOU want to be the best salon owner you can possibly be, then you NEED to book your ticket to the New Zealand “Salon Profit Secrets” seminar right now!

WARNING:  This is advanced notice regarding the Auckland Salon Profit seminar and invites will be sent out by post to over 4000 New Zealand salons on our database in less than 2 weeks.  So be quick as there are only 130 spaces available and this event will sell out FAST!!!

The seminar is on Monday September 6^th, from 9am – 4.30pm at Auckland’s prestigious Hilton Hotel on Princess Wharf.  Tickets cost $179 NZ for the full day and the first 50 people to purchase a ticket also receive a second ticket FREE for a partner, business colleague or staff member.

P.s. This may be your last chance to see Greg Milner present in New Zealand for another 3 years!

Click the link below to purchase tickets and the find out more information, or call us NOW on 0800 029 668 to secure your spot.

http://www.salonprofitsecrets.com/buy-tickets-now/auckland-salon-marketing-seminar/

Prior to being an Inner Circle member Lynda was your typical salon owner, chasing a dream to have a salon bustling with customers and money flooding out of the till, whereas in reality her dream was dragging her down and the only thing flooding in, were bills, bills and more bills.

And as I say to new inner circle members, joining the program doesn’t instantly qualify you for a salon full of customers and bags and bags of cash.  No, you still actually have to put the work in to make that happen, which is exactly what Lynda has been doing day after day, week after week, month after month.  And it is this MASSIVE ACTION that has seen her salon grow consistently each month, employ her first staff members and become the leading retailer in South Auckland for her product range.

Lynda Moodley Owner of Lynnel's Hair Studio, Manukau

Since joining the Inner Circle program in 2009 she has seen her rate of new clients increase each month.  In October she had 35 new clients, in November she had 46 new clients and in December she had 47 new clients.  And I think it is fair to say that with her advertorial in January she will be breaking some more records this month….

Editorials and adverts (advertorials) are a fantastic way to promote your salon and more often than not will result in a much higher response rate than just an advert alone. It is a way to tell people a bit more about your salon and make them feel like they already know and trust you before they walk through your doors or call you.

If you are thinking about advertising in your local paper it pays to ask them (especially if you are a new advertiser) if you can have some editorial with your advert.  Sometimes they will give you this for free in the hope of you advertising more with them in the future.  Alternatively some papers will want you to lock in to a contract for x amount of adverts before they give you editorial space.

Lynda ran a 10 week advertising campaign with the paper.  The first 9 adverts did not include editorial and the response rate was 2 – 3 bookings per ad.  The advertorial in week 10 generated 27 phone enquiries, 15 bookings (12 of which were new clients) and an immediate income of $896.

Each new client would be worth on average $1000 per annum to Lynda, so the advertorial has potentially increased her annual turnover by $12,000.

Needless to say Lynda has found out what works best for her salon and will continue to run an advertorial column each month.

Members, click here to see Lynda’s editorial

And here’s what Lynda has to say about being an Inner Circle member…

“On many occasions I would sit in my quiet salon and think what on earth am I doing chasing a dream but there’s so much stress. I needed to be able to talk to others that are in my industry and understand exactly where I’m coming from and yes the inner circle program provides just that and definitely much much more.

Being a member of the inner circle program has decreased the stress level in my life in terms of marketing, gone are those days of sitting hours and hours in front of the computer screen and trying to figure out where to start with an advert.  By being a member of the program we as a salon on average are doing 20-25 new clients in a month. October this year we did a record of 35 new clients and we have just broken that record again with 46 new clients in November.

My coaching calls are definitely my favourite. I am always excited to talk to Chris because I know even if I have had a low month he’s always there to encourage me and get me motivated. The other aspect of the program that I enjoy is the fact that everything is done for me all I have to do is just change my details and off goes the marketing.

Our most successful campaign that seems to work for us is the Hollywood Woman’s Hair Package. Every month we put out at least 2000 flyers and on average we get a return of 15-20 new clients taking up this offer and definitely topping that with retail sales.

According to my supplier Lynnels retails more products that any other salon that they supply in South Auckland

I spend at least 5-7 hours if not more on marketing each week. Just about every chance I get I’m in front of my computer going through the kit and getting an advert sorted.”

And all of Lynda’s hard work hasn’t gone un-noticed by her husband too….

“Well, my precious husband sees all hard work I have been putting into my business as well as still being a mummy and a wife so he decided to honour me and buy me my dream car. I drive it very proudly with my salon magnets on both sides of my car which includes a $99 offer and frequently I notice people at the lights or round abouts reading my magnet.

Check out Lynda's new BMW!!!

My goal is to be DEBT FREE, to be full time off the floor and definitely expansion in terms of employing staff. We have just employed another hairdresser because I cannot carry the work load on my own.

And my advice to people who are thinking about joining the Inner Circle program is ‘DON’T HESITATE. You have nothing to lose. If you are looking at closing the doors to your business don’t do it the inner circle program has the answers you are looking for and the mentors are amazing.  If you shut the doors to your business you probably will lose the very thing that can catapult you right into your financial freedom. Give the program a try, you have everything to gain.”

Well done Lynda, you really deserve these fantastic results from all the hard work you are putting in….keep it up!!!

If you want the results that Lynda is achieving then you need to join the Inner Circle program TODAY and get your own copy of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®. Go here to see if you qualify for a 30 Day Money Back Guaranteed Test Drive of the entire system – completely risk free.)

Are you shouting your marketing message at deaf ears, using the wrong media?

Many times every week, we interview prospective Inner Circle members about why they should be accepted into the program, get their very own Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®

And almost invariably, to the question ‘what kind of marketing are you doing right now, or have done in the past?’ we get an answer like this:

“Oh, I’ve tried mailbox flyers/direct mail/newspaper ads/Yellow Pages/radio…(take your pick)…and IT doesn’t work/it’s a waste of money/it never got any results….” Blah blah blah.

And it always amuses me. What they’re actually saying is

“I couldn’t make it work…for me.”

If mailbox flyers ‘don’t work’, then why do ya reckon that every night when you go home, your mailbox is overflowing with ‘junk’ mail from every kind of real estate business under the sun? Would they keep doing it, week after week, month after month, year after year, if IT wasn’t working? No company has a bottomless pit of money.

If the Yellow Pages was a complete waste of money, it would seem to me that almost every company on the planet is staffed with

The Dumbest People in Dumb Town

Because you’ve gotta ask yourself, surely they wouldn’t keep shelling out year after year if the thing didn’t produce a result?

If newspaper advertising was nothing more than a black hole that sucks down money like a vortex and never spits anything back out again, newspapers would a) never have got off the ground in the first place, or b) would long ago have gone out of business, their only source of oxygen cut off en masse.

But it’s pretty typical. Salon owners – most owners of small businesses, in fact – blame the media when their marketing doesn’t work. It ain’t the fault of the media. It’s yours, for lack of clear thinking.

Most business owners get the process all backwards. They book space in the newspaper/Yellow Pages etc, then they think about what to put in the ad. And because they’ve done the last thing first, with no ‘sales thinking’ the ad usually ends up looking like nothing more appetizing than a business card.

Here’s the process:

1)    Marketing message. What are you going to say to your target market that is compelling, that cannot be ignored, that is unique, that must be responded to?

2)    But the best marketing message on the planet is no better than the worst marketing message on the planet if it falls on deaf ears. Who are you going to say it to – and by deliberate strategy, who are you NOT going to say it to? Are you specific with your preferred target market, or are you just going to throw mud at all of ‘em and hope some of it sticks?

3)    Finally, when you’ve figured out what compelling message you’re going to deliver, and who you’re going to deliver it to, the media pretty much chooses itself. (Hint: you’re hardly going to create a great offer appealing to debutantes/young brides-to-be, then book a full page in ‘Seniors Week’, are you??)

Be intelligent with your marketing. Do the ‘sales thinking’ process in the right order. Identify your target market. Create a compelling message/offer just for them. Only then do you choose the media you’re going to use to deliver that message to that market.

Once you get the process right, you’ll find that in fact, with better Direct Response methods applied to the copy, whichever media you choose is going to work a whole lot better for you.

Announcing the ‘POWER-UP’ Seminar

Your Last Chance to Hear Salon Marketing Guru Rachael D'Aguiar-Sanders in 2009

Worldwide Salon Marketing Director Rachael D’Aguiar-Sanders has been invited to guest speak exclusively at the ‘Power-Up’ Seminar in Christchurch.  The event is being hosted by Nicky Quinn and her team at Pro Beauty.

When: Sunday November 8, 2009

Where: Hotel So, 165 Cashel St, Christchurch

Time: 1.00pm – 5.00pm

Right Click here and ‘save as…’ to see seminar flyer including ticket prices

To Purchase tickets please contact Pro Beauty directly on 0508 776 232

Book NOW as this event will SELL OUT in a matter of days!

The format will be slightly different to the ‘Road to Riches Seminars’ and will be split in two sessions….

Session 1 is for staff (1pm – 3pm)

Maybe you’re not the best at inspiring your team towards success, perhaps you’re on a plateau and want to push past it or maybe you feel that your staff just haven’t got a clue….Rachael D’Aguiar will work with your staff to excel them into 5 star beauty therapists.  From rebooking and retailing to customer service and adding that Wow factor, have your team turn from average to outrageously focussed in this 2 hour session.

Session 2 is for YOU, the salon owner (3pm – 5pm)

Rachael will show you simple techniques to keep your team rocketing.  How to get your stats up and keep them there!

Then listen in amazement as salon marketing guru Rachael D’Aguiar-Sanders reveals why 99% of everything you’ve been told about marketing your Salon or Spa is utter nonsense.

“It’s time to STOP wasting money on marketing that doesn’t get a response.  I show salon owners exactly how to use tested & proven marketing systems that will bring in a flood of new clients and get your existing clients spending more, more often”

Normally this Seminar is exclusive to stockists of Pro Beauty Products.  However Worldwide Salon Marketing New Zealand has managed to negotiate 30 extra tickets regardless of whether you stock Pro Beauty products or not.

To Purchase tickets please contact Pro Beauty NOW on 0508 776 232

P.s.  Every attendee will receive a FREE Salon Business Building Pack  Valued at $320

P.p.s For those of you who like the races, it is Cup Week in Christchurch that week after the Seminar…So you may want to stay in town…We Are!!!

Tegan Messineo and partner Brad with their freshly-minted twin boys.

It’s no surprise to me when Inner Circle members like Tegan Messineo of Body Firming & Beauty in Bunbury, Western Australia (who only got her Toolkit in December 2008) tell me they’ve literally doubled their businesses.

Tegan is a prime example of entrepreneurial thought AND action, one who doesn’t merely join the Inner Circle program, get the Toolkit and expect it to, of its own accord, leap off the shelf and gang tackle prospects as they wander past her front door, dragging them in by the hair.

Instead, she treated Inner Circle membership as the beginning of her education in direct response marketing, not merely as the ‘magic pill’ end to all her business worries.  As Tegan writes this week,

“I have been doing LOTS of reading on Emotional Direct Response Marketing and listening to heaps of cds…”

That’s pretty obvious by the intelligence and thoughtfulness of Tegan’s question re direct mail vs email:

“I have got my website up and running (http://www.bodyfirmingandbeauty.com) and we are offering a FREE $25 voucher. Now I have 2 choices:

Option 1-
Post voucher with letter, special offer and current price list out to client.
Post another letter 2 weeks after if they haven’t used up their voucher
Post a 3^rd letter
Post a 4^th letter out to the client (the voucher has a 8 week expiry on it)
Option 2 -
Set up auto-responder to email the voucher out once the form has been completed.
Set up the rest of the letters to be emailed out.

The email one is really cost effective and it saves a lot of time once it is set up and ready to go, however it is very easy for people to press X and get rid of it when it comes in. Where as in hard copy the client will have to open it and look at it before deciding what she wants to do with it. What way do you think will have the best response? (and I am almost certain that you will say………test them both hahaha)

Yup, you’re right. That’s exactly what to do – test.

And I would say this whether it be about beauty salon marketing or marketing for an accountancy firm. Email, sure – it might be efficient, but it’s nowhere near as effective as real mail.

I would run BOTH alongside each other, ie they get an email auto-responder plus follow-ups AS WELL as the hard copy equivalents, delivered at approx the same time. That way you can easily and quickly measure response right alongside each other, piece for piece.

And once you’ve set up the autoresponders they don’t cost you anything in time or money anyway, so you may as well put some effort into the direct mail while the email stuff runs by itself. You’ll soon know which is getting the response, but I’d bet my own mother it’ll be the hard copy stuff.
I would run BOTH alongside each other, ie they get an email auto-responder plus follow-ups AS WELL as the hard copy equivalents, delivered at approx the same time. That way you can easily and quickly measure response right alongside each other, piece for piece.

And once you’ve set up the autoresponders they don’t cost you anything in time or money anyway, so you may as well put some effort into the direct mail while the email stuff runs by itself. You’ll soon know which is getting the response, but I’d bet my own mother it’ll be the hard copy stuff.

But here’s what’s really instructive in Tegan’s question: the fact that she’s asking it in the first place says much about her new approach to her salon since joining the Inner Circle program. That new approach is itself recognition that she’s not IN the salon or beauty business, she’s in the marketing business. Marketing IS the business.

If more salon owners could take the blinkers off and recognize this fundamental truth, they’d begin to become business people – even entrepreneurs (there’s a difference!) instead of merely technicians who find themselves owning a business, however reluctantly.

If YOU want the kind of success that Tegan’s enjoying, but better yet, the real and tangible THRILL of discovering effective direct response marketing for salons & spas, and how it really can make your phone melt down with appointments, you need to join the Inner Circle program and get your own copy of the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit® - the original and still (by far) the most comprehensive system of advertising and sales templates and strategies ever developed for the small salon or spa.

Click here to see if you qualify for a 30-day Test Drive of the entire system.

All the way up north from gorgeous and sunny Brisbane, QLD (yes, we’re jealous!), Rachel is a young sole operator who has had some amazing results since joining us a mere 6 weeks ago. Implementing just a handful of powerful strategies contained in the Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit®, her sales has jumped from around $8,000 –$ 9,000 per month to $12,400 – a massive 25% increase! Product sales have been even more impressive, almost doubling from $2,500 to $4,600.

But Rachel proves that not only is it possible to grow your business substantially using the Toolkit®, she also tells us how easy it was, and spills the secret on her phenomenal retail sales:

However, the most amazing part is that she managed to do all of this simply by mailing 200 existing clients on her database a seasonal offer, directly from the Toolkit®, booking in 19 clients. These sales added up to over $2,000, proving that you don’t always need to go trawling the streets for new business when you’ve got a gold mine filed away in your salon computer hard drive. And even better than that – there’s no need to re-invent the wheel. If a template directly from the Toolkit™ can help Rachel achieve these results, they can do the same for you and your salon.

Being a sole operator, the road to success can seem especially daunting – no moral support from a co-owner, no staff in the salon to help out when things get hectic. Being a member of the Worldwide Salon Marketing Inner Circle not only offers you support through coaching and meeting up with other salon owners, but also takes the stress of marketing your business off your shoulders. Everything is literally done for you – just add your salon details, and watch the money roll in!

If you want to join the Inner Circle Marketing & Mentoring program, and experience the same level of success as Rachel, fill out an online survey today. We’re so confident that it will work for you too that you might even qualify to trial the entire system for 30 days, completely free of risk. So click on the link below now, and say yes to success!

Click HERE to see if you qualify for a 30-day Test Drive of the entire Toolkit & Inner Circle system.

Forbes Magazine - for America's richest, most 'sophisticated' readers. So you'd think they'd only respond to so-called 'sophisticated' advertising. Wrong.

So America has a new president -  a classic case of the right message, delivered to the right market, at the right time.

Clearly, something I failed to do at a seminar I gave for medspa doctors in San Diego last week.

So at Los Angeles airport on the way home last Friday, I picked up the latest copy of Forbes magazine, for some light reading on the 12 hour flight to Auckland. (Not to mention another 12 hours flying to get home from New Zealand!)

This issue is devoted to the 400 richest people in America; minimum entry level, a net worth of $1.3 billion. The top 25, notes the magazine, could buy the remaining 375 put together. The 80/20 rule applies in all things.

Apart from the interesting reading the articles are in themselves, I mention this because I had just given my marketing seminar to that bunch of doctors, owners of medical spas.

Most are struggling (see below) but almost all of them gave me the ‘my business is different’ excuse for why they couldn’t possibly embrace ‘my’ kind of direct response marketing. One, I was told, ‘would retire if he had to run one of my ads’

*Sigh* And yet these guys were actually at the seminar because their businesses were going backwards. It was like drowning men preferring to drown because they didn’t like the color of the lifeboat.

So it was amusing to browse through Forbes.

Who, might you imagine, would be Fortune’s target readership?

Yep, the kind of people who’ll buy a yacht for themselves and spend a ton of guilt money on their wives, mistresses, or both.

Pretty sophisticated readers, you would think. Far too up-market, too intelligent to respond to crass, ‘trashy’, in-your-face direct response.

Classic direct response advertising. It could be a lot better, but it demonstrates one thing clearly... so-called sophisticated consumers respond to exactly the same marketing stimuli as everybody else.

Strange then, that Forbes magazine was full of ‘my’ kind of direct response advertising – like the one you see here. (I also picked up a copy of Entrepreneur magazine. Same ad was in that too.) Sure, it ain’t a great direct response ad. There’s a whole bunch of improvements I could suggest that would increase the response to this ad 1000%. But the principle is there. Bold, outrageous headline.
Great ‘proof’ photo. Couple of ways of responding. And at the website, www.cenegenics-biz.com. a name-capture device, and presumably, an automatic responder of some kind.

Of course, no self-respecting doctor would lower themselves to run an ad with a headline like “Who do Plain Girls See When They Want to Look Like a Hollywood Star?” No sir, too ‘unprofessional’. And the fellows at the golf club would laugh at me.

All of which I find incredibly amusing, given that the medspa industry is tanking across the US.

Here’s an excerpt from the Orange Country Register:
“This year, as the economy slowed, so too did the medspa industry. A number of medspas and medspa chains have shut down.
Medspa chains that have closed in the past year or struggled through tough times include Solana MedSpas of Irvine.; Dermacare, based in Scottsdale, Ariz.; Sona MedSpas International, formerly of Franklin, Tenn.; and Medaesthetica of Woodland Hills.
“Everyone is in a financial crunch,” said John Buckingham of Mission Viejo, the former owner of Solana.
(You can find the full article at http://inyourface.freedomblogging.com/2008/07/30/slumping-economy-hits-medspas/487/#comments)
One of the doctors attending the San Diego seminar had spent three million dollars setting up and equipping his spa he didn’t sign up for the new Medspa Platinum Success Program (which is full of ‘my’ kind of direct response advertising) so presumably he’s gone back to business, frantically spending yet more money on advertising that never worked well in the first place, and even less now as the souring economy bites.

But then, I guess that just proves my definition of insanity: continuing to do it the way you’ve always done it, while expecting different results.

If only these doctors could get their heads out of the place where the sun don’t shine, accept that they are not their customers, swallow their pride and do the kind of marketing that actually gets customers in the door, they’d be able to go hit a golf ball with their scornful buddies and smile all the way to the bank.

Here’s the lesson: assuming ‘your’ customers won’t respond to well-crafted direct response (as against standard, ad-agency ‘pretty’ branding ‘imagey’ style advertising is a fatal mistake. You are not your customer. What YOU think about your marketing doesn’t matter. The ONLY opinions you should take any notice of are those of your customers.

And they vote with their wallets. Amen.

View from my room in Wellington. Not bad, huh?

I’m writing this in Wellington, New Zealand, a brief stop-over to see my son Michael and his wife Gemma on my way to California for the Your Beauty Network weekend business retreat in Carlsbad.

To be honest, it’s just an excuse to break up the trip. It was an 8-hour flight to get this far, and there’s another 12 hours across the Pacific tomorrow. Even flying business, I loathe travelling – I’d rather have root canal therapy – but made more tolerable to wake up on a pristine, sunny, windless morning (Wellington doesn’t have many of those, it’s one of the windiest cities on earth) and look out over a spectacular harbour.

(And I’ll be back here in NZ in three weeks, for two marketing classes for salons and spas I’ll be giving in Auckland on October 20 and Wellington on October 21. If you’re in NZ and have NOT yet booked in for one of these classes, do so now – call Ticketek on 0800 842538)

Mike and Gem have gone off to work. Idly, I’ve flicked on the TV in my room. It’s the Guthy-Renker infomercial show. Okay, maybe I should get a life, but I’m in the business of studying, researching, testing and writing about effective marketing strategies for salons & spas… and trying ceaselessly to educate our Inner Circle members on what actually works, as against the dangerously ill-informed nonsense that most beauty industry professionals are fed by their peers, friends, staff – and worse, product suppliers, ’business coaches’ and ‘trainers’ who’ve never written a successful ad in their lives.

Case in point: conventional ‘wisdom’ says ‘be brief…people won’t read lots of text…don’t clutter your ad or flyer with copy…just your name, a few pretty pictures, and your contact details…if they want it, they’ll call – and other such drivel.

No, they won’t call!

I’m a great believer in simply studying what works, and applying it to whatever I want to do. ‘Steal and deploy’. So that’s why, on cable TV in my room, I’m watching Guthy-Renker infomercials. Specifically, extemely well-preserved 56-year-old Victoria Principal, selling her range of face creams, skin treatments and other glop.

Now, this infomercial goes on and on…and on…and on. Breathlessly, Victoria introduces a parade of middle-aged women who all look like Christie Brinkley and rave about the stunning effects Victoria’s glop has had on their faces. I go make myself a coffee, walk outside, take in the view for a few minutes.

Back in my room, the infomercial is still running. Twenty minutes or more. It’s relentless. I make a couple of phone calls. Back in Victoria-land, lab technicians are describing how the ‘secret European formula’ smoothes wrinkles like never before.

For thirty minutes, Victoria uses testimonials (proof!), scientific ‘evidence’ (more proof), case studies, celebrity interviews, tops it off with a great value-add offer, a Call to Action (‘call NOW…1800 etc), more testimonials…another Call to Action…on, and on, and on.

Why on earth would this relate to you, the owner of a small salon or spa?

Surely, if you believe the ‘experts’ who tell you to ‘keep it brief’ – surely just a 15-second ‘Hi, this is really good glop, buy it’ commercial would be more than enough?

Think about it. The Guthy-Renker company is a 100-million dollar corporation. Do you really believe that such a smart company would spend gazillions of dollars on hugely-elaborate long-form advertising if it didn’t work???

Of course not. Through years of endless testing, measuring, tweaking, testing again, Guthy-Renker have proven beyond reasonable doubt that

The More You Tell, the More You Sell.

I mean, if you told a staff member to sit down with a prospective client and sell her on your services, you wouldn’t tell that staff member to ‘stop talking when you reach 250 words’ would you? Of course not. And yet…even from Inner Circle members…I get ads faxed to me, emailed to me that are almost all white space, just bullet points. No compelling detail, no ‘reason why’, no effort put into them. And where’s the testimonials???

There is magic in the detail.

(Take a look around our websites. Why do you think they’re full of copy, full of testimonials? ‘Cos it works!)

As example, here’s an written for one of our Members. Take a good hard look at it. Tightly-packed copy. Strategically laid out so the reader’s eye is forced to follow a chosen path – towards a buying decision. Not just thrown together any old how.

Footnote: Victoria’s infomercial has finally ended. I’ve called the 1800 number, ordered a year’s supply of glop. I flick over to the Tyra Banks show. It’s about women who run ‘sex clubs’. I keep watching – in the interests of research, you understand – and sure enough, Tyra ends the show with a brief story about a

lawn-mowing business!

I’m serious. But this ain’t no ordinary lawn-mowing business. For an extra fee, you can get your grass cut by babes pushing mowers in bikinis! (The babes, not the lawnmowers, silly.) Not surprisingly, business is booming, because this ordinary, garden-variety (excuse the pun) business has worked out a way to be different. Nope, they don’t cut lawns better than the next guy. But they make more money than the next guy, because they’ve figured out that it’s better to be different than it is to be better.

Now, go apply that thinking to your salon or spa.

Speaking of testimonials…

Good direct response marketing works, wherever you are in the world. From Snellville, Georgia (it’s just outside Atlanta, Babe Savage (www.babesavage.com) joined the Inner Circle program and received her Essential Salon Owner’s Marketing Toolkit only a few weeks ago.

Motion beats meditation, every time. Babe took immediate action, and is already reaping the rewards. Here’s what she wrote to me a few days ago (and the punctuation is all her own work:-):
“Hello Greg
I’ve been going through the toolkit this week and we have implemented the “queen of referrals” IT HAS WORKED LIKE A CHARM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had 7 new clients last week!!!!!!!!!! And we haven’t even gone through the whole kit. And remember we aren’t in a high traffic area!!!!!!

I have never seen any marketing kit put together like this IT IS AWESOME…I’m looking forward to a long business relationship with you all!!

Babe Savage
“Experience the Exceptional”
WWW.BabeSavage.com
770-294-4879

Now that’s really ‘getting it’. We get emails and faxes like this all the time, have done for years, and yet it never ceases to make me immensely proud whenever I see such positive feedback, and realise that all over the world, salon & spa owners are using our material, our advice, our coaching, to make more money, bigger sales, fatter profits, despite all obstacles thrown up by the ‘recession’, idiots on Wall Street, government restrictions, even their own nervousness at doing things different.

If you have not yet applied to join the Inner Circle program, click here to do so now. You will NOT achieve different results by keeping on doing things the same way you’ve always done them. Expecting better results while changing nothing is by definition, insanity.

People seem to get all excited about email marketing, as though it’s some kind of magic wand. It ain’t. Email (and the wider web, for that matter) is nothing more and nothing less than just another media to deliver your marketing message. Thus, same ‘direct response marketing 101′ rules apply to email as with any other media – newspapers, mailbox flyers, direct mail etc –

• Compelling Headline
• Great OFFER
• Guarantee
• Testimonials (social proof)
• Call to Action

But each media has its own peculiar quirks, and email is no different. It is illegal to mass-email a list of people you don’t know in the hope that a few of them might be fooled into taking action. (That’s the penis enlargement strategy). But email can be very efficient at marketing to your existing (known) customers. They already have a relationship with you.

(Having said that, while email might be efficient (cheap), it is known to be far less effective than say, direct mail, in terms of response.)

But when you do it right, it can achieve massive results. Inner Circle member Michael Curtis of Blush Urban Spa uses email extensively to market to his list of 7,000 opt-in email addresses. According to Michael,

“We sent two emails to our list, one at the beginning of last week and a follow up email a week later. In less than 24 hrs we sold – Special offer #1 ..33 x $117 = $3,861 and Special offer #2,  27 x $157=$4239…thats $8100. Not bad in 24hrs without rebooks and extra retail sales to be added. Then we sent out a reminder ‘extended offer’ email a week later. Total result, 118 sales, for a grand total of: $15,606!”

WHERE TO GET THE EMAIL TEMPLATE: Inner Circle members log into the members only ‘sealed section’ – you’ll find it in the ‘email marketing’ category. Plus, instructions on how to send out email in template form just like Michael does.