He shared how he built a million dollar business through a proprietary process that guarantees to increase our referrals and substantially increase our close ratio. In fact, through this process, Dr. Hank went from a close rate of under 10% to his current close rate of over 90%, and he showed us how we could apply the same process in less than 30 days!

Here’s a short audio clip from Dr. Hank’s presentation:

So obviously, we had a lot of fun.

At the end of the presentation, our CEO, Kevin Lam, announced a juicy insider info on his new project with a huge celebrity. He also introduced his “Conversion Consultation” for the very first time by offering it to 3 lucky members. Each member received a $500 value in real consultation that will help them convert their traffic better.

The winners were Bill Nicholson, Bryan Scolaro and Mai Nguyen. Congratulations!

If you come to the next meetup, you just may win this.

If you’re in the DFW area, join us: http://meetup.com/dallasmillionaires

We’re looking for like-minded individuals who are interested in growing their business. We’re also looking for motivated individuals who may be interested in speaking at our monthly events.

Thank you and may success be around the corner as you continue your journey in life.

Best Wishes,
Kevin Lam and the Texas SEO Team -- Your Dallas Marketing Experts

No matter what, we must SELL our idea, concept, product or service to someone to stay in business, and in some cases, keep our job. Well, in order to sell better, don’t sell at all!

I closed 4 clients this week by NOT selling to them. In fact, it was THEIR idea to talk about the package and ask about the price. It was THEIR idea to negotiate what they want and could possibly afford. And each time I got off the phone, they were eager to hear back from me. I even get “thank you’s”  for not selling to them even though they’re signing on as a client.

Weird, right?

So the question in the back of your mind is this…

“HOW are you doing that!”

Good question… but I won’t answer that until I get enough feedback from people who would be interested in knowing how. If I can get a prospect on the phone and talking to them for at least 10 minutes, the deal is as good as closed 90% of the time. That’s how powerful this technique is.

Those of you who have become my clients or one of those clients I just closed this week know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. So please don’t give it out to everyone and release the secret!

They Don’t Feel Used

The best thing about it though is that I know these clients of mine don’t feel used. They are HAPPY I am using this technique (well, I didn’t even know it was a technique until I looked back and realized how well TexasSEO is doing). I don’t have a name for it really, so “selling without selling” is as closest I can get to putting a name on it. I’m sure other people call it something else.

But again, I’m not going to just put it out there for people if there’s no real desire to know. So I’ll keep it to myself for now. And if there aren’t enough responses or requests… well, I guess it’ll wait until I release it in my new book later on next year.

HINT: It’s NOT about the money!

Have a great weekend and a safe Halloween.

Sincerely,
Kevin Lam

P.S. Our website PR has gone up to a PR4 now. Nice. It will take some time before we see PR5 or 6, but I know we’ll get there.

Here it is on a cloudy and cool Tuesday afternoon. This is the time of day I like to go through emails and work on some of the million things I need to do online.

Every now and then people send me a flyer, postcard or some kind of ad for my opinion. With these I also collect local business ads to examine. (it’s kind of a fetish)

When I see the ads sent to me or the ads I collect I notice one common theme, generalized facts. Most small businesses do their own marketing which includes writing the ads. The problem with that is obviously we as the business owner know about what we are selling. We sometimes state things that are obvious to us but a riddle to those not involved.

When we fall in love with our business and lack any real sales skills we can get tunnel vision.

Since most ads in the postcard or flyer format look the same, the consumers stop paying attention; then the ad “fails”. Usually when the ad fails we create an ad filled with more useless generalities with a better coupon.

What are useless generalities? Let’s take this postcard in front of me- here is their focus as these are the words they used:

Experienced, Dependable, Professional and Detailed. This card is for window cleaning but it really does not matter.

Likely all of you use some variation of the words above. Now tell me what those mean to me, the consumer. I suppose you would say “well it is obvious”. I will tell you it looks like all the rest and I would barely glance at it on the way to the trash.

When ads show up and have the exact same formula we stop paying attention. We have fell to sleep 10,000 times before reading this crap.

To read the rest, go Join the Onslaught blog with Paul McQuillan.

I was astounded by what I found within the massive book:

This was printed in 2007… why is it still referencing 1999? 1999, just when the Internet started to take off. 1999, just when the Y2K was about to destroy the world and we’re all over the Internet trying to figure out what’s going on. 1999, when 83 million adults were accessing the Internet and spending an average of 12.1 hours per week.

Reference: Media Awareness

Now, compare 1999 to 2008 when there’s over 220 million people using the Internet. That’s 72.5% of the entire United States’ population.

Reference: Internet World Stats

So why on earth, is at&t still referencing studies and statistics that is practically stone age? I mean, if more and more people are using the Yellow Pages, why aren’t there any new and updated information about such statistics? “Hmmmmn”, right?

So, honestly, are yellow pages print ads still effective or are yellow pages ineffective now?

Here’s another page I found in their book:

In my opinion (Kevin Lam, here), the statistics are a bit misleading.

In 1999, “66% of consumers reference the White Pages an average of 3.2 times per week.”

In 2005, “78% of consumers reference the White Pages an average of 2.5 times per week.”

Since I cannot find out how many “consumers” they actually used in their research (irrelevant in my point anyway), you know what this means to me? People who bought something through the White Pages had to have looked at the paper weight an average 130 times per year.

Now, I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but a little common sense tells me that this just doesn’t add up. Seriously, who needs to reference the White Pages THAT many times a week and per year?

Even if there are people doing that, just how many people could possibly be doing that? These statistics are absurd.

That’s not even my point though. I love the way it’s worded. The statistics are based on consumers ONLY, not the general public, which is what really matters for any business. Do you know how many doorsteps these books get dropped on and then just go straight to the trash or left on the porch until it is recycled? Too many to count.

I’ve walked down my street asking my neighbors for the phone books and every single one of them throw them out. Even a couple who are in their 70’s. I figured they’d be one of the people that would frequent it considering their age and exposure to it, but I was totally wrong. They hadn’t even looked in one for more than 3 years!

Here’s another good reference to read:

2005 Metered Ad Study

On page 6, you’ll see that the average annual calls for local display and ad space dropped from 885 to 784 between 1999 and 2004. That’s a drop of 11%. Not much… but that’s 2004! It’s 2009, folks! 5 years later when the calls are still declining and costs are increasing!

For the sake of argument, let’s just say each call had an average cost of $10. That means, it had to have cost $8,850 to advertise in 1999. Without the consideration of inflation, the cost per call is now $11.28. Doesn’t seem like much, but to reach the same 885 phone calls, that’s an additional $1,140.11.

Keep in mind that no where have we even begun to discuss conversions and sales value.

Are Yellow Pages Print Advertising Cost Effective?

So I ask you, how effective really is the Yellow Pages? Does spending upwards of $25,000 into a book that no one really looks at actually help increase your business?

I read a recent report by Blue Corona who conducted their own performance tracking to determine how well the Yellow Pages was doing. They soon realized that business had declined drastically while costs have skyrocketed. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? What kind of “business” is that? Might as well just give money out to charity!

Needless to say, after the results the client company refused to do business with them again unless the listing was free.

Reference: Blue Corona

Of course, this isn’t based on the at&t Yellow Pages (well, kind of since at&t bought Verizon’s yellow pages service), but it is a close indication of how their print advertising is performing. If you’re still using it, it’s best that you have a tracking system setup and determine whether it’s still worth your time and money. Not only that, I recommend you step into the new millennium (although it has already been 9 freak’n years!) and use Internet marketing to increase your business.