Charlie Cook's MArketing for Success Insider's Club

Referrals

The Secret to Getting a Flood of Referrals

By Charlie Cook   |   February 19, 2015

Cute And MysteriousIn my current business, 60 percent of sales come from referrals. Which is fairly common – good but not great.

It’s good that our happy clients are telling other people but we could be generating twice as many referrals if we did one simple thing.

You know what it is? Read More »


How I Make $10,000 Per Networking Event

By Iman Aghay   |   October 28, 2014

Doing networking effectively is one of the challenges that entrepreneurs face. In this episode of Marketing Experts Cafe I explain how I create the potential of making $10,000 per networking event that I attend. Always remember the key in networking events is to find people who are connected to people that you would like to connect with.

Listen to the show to discover a simple 2 step introduction process that helps you to identify the best connections for you in the room and how to follow up with them.

Marketing Experts Cafe is a daily show from Noon to 1pm (PST) that you listen online or can contact the show to ask your specific questions about marketing.

Read More »


How I built a 6 figure business in 4 days with less than $2k investment

By Iman Aghay   |   May 17, 2014

Imagine a person who has a mailing list of 200,000 people in your niche market, promote your business tomorrow. What can that do for your business?

In February 2014, I did a case study where I walked into several cities that I had never been to before and within 4 days I built a 6 figure business with less than $2000 investment. Read More »


The Secret To Referral Marketing Made Easy

By Rick Frishman   |   April 6, 2011

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you have some sort of network in place. It’s your friends, family, doctor, dentist, accountant, lawyer, personal trainer,  and coworkers.

You’ve recommended them to members of your circle. But, how do you leverage your connections for a profit? Read More »


The Easy Way To Get Client Testimonials and Increase Sales

By Jeffrey Dobkin   |   December 24, 2010

How convincingly easy it is to close large accounts when you take out that a big book of recent testimonials and show them how great you are. What? You don’t have a big book of recent testimonials?
If you had one, when people asked you about your services, you’d bring out the huge testimonial tome, and tell them to call any of the many who signed off on their statements of your firm being the best thing since sliced bread or indoor plumbing. When confronted with 100 testimonials, most people won’t call any.
In your normal course of conversation with clients it’s easy to get someone to mention something flattering about you. Someone said something nice about me once. I’ll never forget it. It was in June of 88. Wednesday. We were about three or four gin and tonics in and… OK, no matter about the rest of the story. Man, I was all over them for a written testimonial like a cheap suit. Here’s how you can do it, too.
Even if it’s a simple statement, “Hey, thanks a lot. Nice speaking with you.” Or, “Thanks, I appreciate it.” You can make a testimonial out of it.
“That was a nice thing to say!” you exclaim! Inferring that it was nice of him to say it was nice talking to you, or that he appreciated something you did. Of course, people probably have said much nicer things than these simplistic statements about you, haven’t they? Oh well, me neither.
“Would you mind if I use that as a testimonial?” you continue, big smile on your face and catching them completely off guard.
“OK,” they’ll say without thinking.
Now that they’ve committed, casually ask, “Come to think of it, can you say a few more nice words about my firm (or myself) that I can use – I’ll write them down? Got my pencil ready!” Then smile – it makes a difference. “Keep it clean, though.” you joke. It’s good to sound fresh, like you’ve never asked anyone to do this before, or this is the first time for that joke. Ha!
They’ll say a few words, you smile and nod (which will look good in person, or will look less good over the phone but will sound like you’re smiling) and write down the gist of what they said.
Continue promptly, “Thanks. Thanks so much. Here’s what I’ll do so it’ll be as easy for you. I’ve written down what you’ve said and I’ll send it to you. You can just initial it and send it back – I’ll enclose two copies one for your files, and an envelope to send the other copy back to me. Hey, thanks for doing this.” Insinuating it’s a done deal.
Now that you have a nice approximation of what they’ve said, feel free to admonish it ever so slightly. Use a deft touch… like a great editor whose work is so subtle the author will go back and read his words and never know it was touched by anyone else. Now that’s the mark of a really great editor. You, on the other hand, don’t need to be quite that good. Just go ahead and make your testimonial sound great.
Since it was oral, your client most likely won’t remember what he said exactly – so you can take some liberties here. This is especially true if you’re at a bar and have been for the past 6 hours, you know, like when I got my first testimonial. Or was it 8 hours. I forget. But that’s not important – what’s important is I got this huge tattoo that night and who exactly is Janette. If anyone knows, please call.
If you’re friendly with this client, you can mention how great his new testimonial would look on his own letterhead, but “it certainly isn’t necessary.” Never hurts to drop a hint. Then send the testimonial that he “sort-of said” to him in a printed form.
You can also feel free to send it over to him by fax. It’s fast. If you send the testimonial that he “sort-of said” in a letter. it will take a few days to get to your client and here’s the benefit to this: Over the course of the day or two it takes to draft this statement and send it to the client in a letter, there’s no way they’ll remember what they said, and certainly they won’t remember their exact wording. Plus – if you received this testimonial after a few drinks, you can probably feel free to take great liberties writing what you thought you remembered and what he thought you both said. Or something like that.
Writing a testimonial for a client, unlike soliciting a client’s written testimonial, where most clients prove way beyond a shadow of a doubt they don’t use spell check, you can spell every word correctly. Send them their statement in a letter and as long as it doesn’t look to far out of range I promise you they’ll sign off on it. You’ll have a great, well written and signed testimonial.
For best results, collect a whole set, and don’t be afraid to show it off to new prospects. Tell them you’d be so proud if you had their personal testimonial in there while pushing a pen and paper their way. That’s called “The assumed close.” And that’s another article.

With a half dozen or more great testimonials, you have instant credibility and closing the sale is that much easier. What? You don’t have at least a half dozen  recent testimonials?

If you had them, when people asked you about your services, you’d point them to your testimonials, and tell them to call any of the many who signed off on their statements of your firm being the best thing since sliced bread or indoor plumbing. Read More »


Want More Referrals?

By Colleen Kilpatrick   |   August 4, 2010

No doubt you’ve gathered all kinds of tips and strategies to help you “close the sale”. The problem is, sometimes we get so focused on closing the sale we forget the sale is really just the beginning. Yes, the beginning. The beginning of a long, rewarding relationship with our customer that leads to repeat business and lots of referrals.

Want to know how to create that kind of relationship with your clients? It’s called Appreciation. Read More »


Know Any Good Web Designers?

By Charlie Cook   |   March 23, 2010

“Charlie, recently I bought your book, Creating Web Sites That Sell (link) and I’m ready to build my website. Do you have a web designer you’d recommend?” – Dave from Whitefish, MT

Every week I get requests from readers and customers looking for a web designer, someone who understands that the purpose of a web site is to generate leads and to sell, Read More »


Wake Up: Is Your Business Dying On The Vine?

By Charlie Cook   |   October 20, 2009

Is business slow? Are you frustrated and wondering what to do to make ends meet, much less become really profitable again?

I spent the first ten days of October on vacation with my wife in a small town in northern Vermont, where I followed two very different business stories in the weekly paper.

Picking up the paper on our arrival, I read an irrate letter to the editor from Larry, Read More »


Quantity vs. Quality

By Kim Sheehan   |   October 7, 2009

The blogosphere has been busy with chatter regarding a certain company that offers to sell companies followers on Twitter, Facebook fans, and Digg votes. It’s not expensive: Facebook fans go for about 10 cents each.  Many companies large and small appear to be interested in this service.

What is the psychology here? Read More »