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Michael: All you need is one great sales letter, and if you want to build your school you’ve got something that works, and I’ve just showed you two things that would multiple two times it’s effectiveness, endorsed mailings and by doing multiple mailings. That’s all you need. If it’s working and you can double it, you’ve got the key to build a huge business now. Build a big business, up your price, and make it really exclusive.

Music

Michael: This is a very cool recording I did with a gentleman named Scott. Scott was the owner of a karate school, and he called me searching for some marketing products and as we started talking we discovered two specific ways that he could double or triple his business. I think you’ll be really interested to know what he’s been doing up until now that has changed the way he markets and generates customers for his karate business because I’m sure you can adapt some of the same ideas he’s using for his business for your business. I think you’ll really benefit and learn from this recording, enjoy.

Michael: So, you’re a martial arts instructor?

Scott: That’s correct.

Michael: Do you own your own dojo or whatever?

Scott: Yeah, I have an interesting situation. I sublet space from the existing kick-boxing gym owner, and I’ve acquired quite a clientele and it’s been mostly through direct response and direct mail advertising. This is after months and months of the traditional methods – handing out flyers, throwing away money at the penny saver and just praying I’m going to get some type of response. I stumbled across your site and got turned on to some Gary Halbert stuff, and just sat down and really started to figure out the of effective copy, and I started to get a mailing list and sending letters to people that had taken martial arts and that would interested in these type of activity. I began to sort of, I guess they call it “drip” like a drip system to just sort of educate them because I think my product or my service does require a bit of explaining and slowly, but surely, I started to really get some qualified leads. I mean so qualified from direct mail that the appointments did not even need confirming, and that’s usually, in our industry, you have to double confirm, you have to send out a confirmation card and all sorts of stuff, all sorts of gimmicks to really ensure the appointment, and I think the direct mail was so powerful that people really, well, they were already sold when they actually came in. I simply had to teach them some moves and establish a little bit of credibility with them, and they were ready to sign-up for a program, and in fact, I now charge more then anyone in my area for lessons and it’s not even like a real martial arts school. Like, I don’t have a sign, and I’ve literally built my program by hand by using a direct mail message.

Michael: Tell me about the first time you did the mailing. What kind of list did you mail to?

Scott: The first mailing I got, I stumbled upon a list of women aged 25-55 who I didn’t about them – what’s their income, whether they had kids, I just had a list, and the first I mailed to that list. It was an offer.

Michael: How many people on the list?

Scott: The list had 2,300 names, but I could only afford to mail to about two or three hundred of them, maybe about 250.

Michael: Where did you get the list?

Scott: I got the list from a guy who was demoralized in direct mail. He had no good results, and he just kind of handed it to me. I don’t know what company he bought it from.

Michael: Okay, well, were they on labels or just in a database or what?

Scott: They were in a database. I taught myself how to do the mail merge and…

Michael: So, you printed them right on the envelope.

Scott: Yes, sir.

Michael: What did you write a four page sales letter? Tell me about the sales letter you put together.

Scott: Well, the initial thing that went out was a direct response. At this point, I knew direct mail was working for some people, but I didn’t quite know how to structure an offer or educate them so to speak. So, I just put together a postcard 4x6 yellow postcard and was offering a free lesson. I had a graphic of an action photo and response was horrible. I was almost ready to pack it in, and then I got turned on to this idea that copy is king. I really couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that all these words and on and on and on. I said, “You know what? What the hell?” I put together a four page sales letter all copy, no photo at all, mailed it to the exact same names, and out of 250 names, my first mailing I got like six or eight calls.

Michael: That’s great.

Scott: One thing I changed in the offer Michael, was instead of calling that your intro class where people knew they were going to be hammered for lack of a better word to make an appointment or to sign-up, I said, “Call 24 hour recorded message” which was an idea I got from your site, by getting recommended to Gary’s stuff, that this is a small baby step. It’s just going to take the next step.

Michael: So, what did the four page letter say basically?

Scott: I think the opening line was something like “Amazing but true unleash your child’s potential.” One of them was, “How to increase your child’s confidence, energy, and enthusiasm in 21 days, guaranteed”, and then my signature on the bottom of it.

Michael: Okay, so your market was children. You’re mailing to mothers for their kids?

Scott: Yes, I was mailing to a list of women 25-50 in hopes that they had some children that would want to take martial arts classes. That’s correct.

Michael: That’s a great – that’s a very responsive list, mothers with children. I’ve got two young kids, and I’ll tell you a quick little story from my first child who is now almost four, we wanted to put together a play group of kids in the neighborhood, and I went to a list broker and I got every mother in my zip code and another zip code close to me who had children and I mailed out a little one page letter with a photograph as a grabber of my baby, and this just one little simple letter, I forgot exactly what I said, it was a little direct mail type style letter about putting together a playgroup, and I mean it worked great. I think the response was like ten or fifteen percent, and for years we had a playgroup just based on that one simple little letter to mothers of children.

Scott: Wow! And, they would call you at your home?

Michael: Yeah, they’d call my wife and they’d say, “Yeah, I got your picture and your letter.” And, you know, these were new mothers with new babies and new mothers with new babies want to start thinking about socializing their children even at a young age and getting together with other new mothers with babies.

Scott: Wow! That’s outstanding. The envelope – did it look like something was commercial?

Michael: No, total Gary Halbert – I think I had a girl hand-address them with maybe just the street return address with the photo inside as the grabber, and a simple letter. It was just as simple as that. So, you got like six calls and so your offer was? Tell me about – oh the offer was the call, the 24 hour recorded message to do what?

Scott: To receive two things. One, a free eight page information kit called “How-To Increase Your Childs” this that and the other thing – discipline, confidence, attention span, in 21 days, and for the first 25 callers a free uniform voucher.

Michael: What’s a uniform voucher?

Scott: A gift certificate worth fifty dollars which gives them a free uniform if they decide to come in and test drive. It was so exciting because I sent the mail out and then later on maybe two or three days later I looked at my cell phone and I had six or seven messages. I was like, “Who’s trying to get a hold of me?” And, it was so exciting. I was in a Starbucks. I was like “Yes!” I stood up in front. I couldn’t believe it. I called my girlfriend. She said, “You’re kidding me.” I said, “No.” And, this is after – my fingernails were black from putting out fliers on windshield wipers with no response. I mean, thousands and thousands of fliers with one or two calls and they would juggle, and “how much is it?” “do you have to sign a contract?” Fifty thousand questions, they wouldn’t show up for the appointment, here I am – people are leaving a slow message, “My name is Jane Smith. This is my address. This is my phone number. I have two seven year old twins, and I want to get them in your program immediately.”

Michael: Did you talk about the price in your letter or your 24 hour recorded message?

Scott: No, I just – my message was like “Dear Parents, are children really are our most valuable asset, aren’t they? Thanks for calling. To receive your free eight page information kit, please speak slowly and clearly at the tone, and a representative will contact you within 24 hours. Now, here’s the beep.”

Michael: So, you contacted them back before you mailed them out the voucher and the eight page kit?

Scott: No, get this. I received – they would leave their phone number, and in some cases I already had that from the mailing list, but they would leave their address. I would then mail them that second thing – the information kit without even calling them. They would then call back again, and that’s when I would make the appointment. I would follow-up with them in two or three days and it was like talking to friend. As a matter of fact, in many cases when I would call them, it was like, “Oh, hey, Scott, oh yeah you’re the guy from the thing.” I mean as opposed to in the past where I would call people – someone I pulled out of a lead box slip, they were like “Who’s this? Call back later.”

Michael: So, you did all your selling up front?

Scott: Totally.

Michael: That’s awesome. So, when you bring a kid in, what does that mean to you? What kind of money can you make off a new client?

Scott: Well, we in the martial arts there’s sort of a stigma with the money hungry and this and that and the other thing, but I make no apologies. I look at every single potential new member that comes in as an opportunity to glean $1540, which is – our program is $130 a month times twelve months and that is the first program, the minimum commitment that we expect that parent to make when they enroll a child in our program.

Michael: How many sessions is that?

Scott: That includes ninety sessions.

Michael: That’s good. That’s a lot.

Scott: Yeah, it’s two times per week over the course of a year.

Michael: Are you a blackbelt yourself?

Scott: Yes, yes, I am a master instructor.

Michael: What is it in karate?

Scott: It’s actually Tae Kwan Doe. The system I teach is a blend because in this day and age kicking and punching is not enough, so there’s some self-defense.

Michael: So, that was your first mailing to that 200, and then tell me what happened. Tell me about other mailings.

Scott: Yeah, the first 200 that was the first four page sales letter. Then I started to send a 5x8 postcard for 37 cents, and the reason I was doing that was just – I started getting some stuff in the mail, because once you’ve got on all these lists, you get other people’s ads and get some ideas. So, I got some stuff from a company called “Y2 Marketing”.

Michael: I’m familiar with them.

Scott: And, I went to one of their seminars and I was blown away. In fact, I even brought a mini-recorder and recorded all three days of the seminar which people were actually paying pretty good money to go to and it’s one of the more impressive marketing events I’ve ever been to, and they turned me onto this idea of getting the maximum size postcard you can for first class stamp which is 6x11. So, I started to mail that out which followed their format which had a pretty catchy/borderline offensive headline, then with a sub-head, lots of body copy, and a coupon style offer. And, the response, again, the same names was four and five calls each and every time I would mail it out.

Michael: Okay, compared to your four page letter.

Scott: The response was just about the same, but I’ve got to admit the four page sales letter prospects, I don’t know if it was because I was so excited and they were my first batch of prospects maybe I handled them with more kid gloves so to speak, Michael, but it does seem the people who got the four page letter although it was the same amount of calls, they do seem to be higher quality.

Michael: Your conversion rate was better because you did more selling in the four page letter.

Scott: Without a doubt.

Michael: Okay, so the postcard was bringing in more leads, but you felt the four page letter was converting more, and that makes sense because a letter is more personal then a postcard.

Scott: Most definitely.

Michael: Did you stick with the postcard?

Scott: I stuck with the postcard only because I kind of liked the way it looks. I figured it was getting higher readership. I’m now going to shift back to the letter format only because like you were saying, I do think it is a better conversion rate. People seem to come in. they know a heck of a lot more about my program then someone who responded from a postcard.

Michael: Okay, so what do you want to do? Do you want to build your business up even more?

Scott: Yeah, I’d like to build my business to the point where it’s working a little more predictably. I had some lousy results my last mailing, and I’m thinking it’s because of the summer. I’m relatively new to direct mail. Historically speaking, I heard July and August aren’t really great months.

Michael: That’s what I’ve learned too. It is pretty true. A lot of the kids are in camp or they’re away on vacation or whatever. This probably, I don’t know about within the karate industry, martial arts industry when classes are heavier, but I would think summer’s probably pretty much a down time.

Scott: Yeah, summer is a down time. People aren’t starting anything new or at least committing. Summer’s a great excuse not to start something that’s a good idea.

Michael: Or, maybe too late right now with summer coming to an end and everything. I mean I think you should just build on that. You could keep studying this stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think what you could really do to dramatically increase the response is to take that same four page letter and find some non-competing businesses with a client list of mothers with children that can send that letter out to, your letter out with a one page letter written from them endorsing your karate school. For instance – how many past customers do you have that you have names and numbers?

Scott: Hundreds.

Michael: If you went through those hundreds and looked at those lists of those mothers or parents and mailed them a letter and saying, “I really enjoyed having your kid as a student in my class. He did great, and I wanted to ask for your help.” If you can explain how you’ve been mailing out a letter to mothers, but the mothers didn’t know who you were and yeah, you got some response, but I had this idea and I thought that if you would be so kind and if I could repay you in some way, do you have the list of maybe business associates or mothers or friends who have children in your same age group that you’d be willing to mail my letter? And, you can send them a sample of your letter endorsing my karate school, and have them mail out your letter to their center of influence or if they have a business to their customers. So, they’re endorsing you to their friends and customers and business associates. Do you see?

Scott: Wow.

Michael: And, then that’ll blow your response through the roof, and you’ve got to repay them somehow. I don’t how. You’ve got to bribe them somehow, but you tell them they’re not going to have to do any of the work. You’ll put the letter together. You’ll put the little one page letter that comes from them. All they’ve got to do is sign it and agree that it’s okay. You’ll pay for the mailing. All you need is ten, twenty, thirty names of some of your closest friends. And, for each one you give me, you’ve got to bribe them with something. You know one account could be worth a thousand bucks net in your pocket. You’ve got to pay them back and give them a reason to do it. And, if you just did that and focused on joint ventures with people or focused on an endorsed mailing – find a children’s clothing store in your area and tell them “let’s do a joint venture”. You mail your karate school letter out to their entire customer list who bought clothes from them over the last couple of years. Other schools that do instruction, it may be a soccer camp. The owner of the soccer camp sends the letter out to previous clients of their’s saying “You know two years ago or last year your child played soccer. I know he may not be interested in it anymore, but I’ve got a buddy of mine who does karate and I wanted to at least expose you to the benefits of karate for your children.” Have him mail to his past customers that he’s not doing anything with, and then you can even give him a piece of the action on any new clients that come through. You see? You’re taking advantage of all those built relationships. A guy who’s got a soccer instruction camp has spent years building his customer list just as you did pounding the streets putting up fliers. He’s got all those names, all those happy customers in a database somewhere that are just sitting there. They’re probably not going to enroll again. So, you just approach him and say, “How would you like to make money on your customers that are never going to buy from you again?”

Scott: That sounds excellent. Now, Michael, from your experience, have you found that a lot of these guys that they’ve collected this list of customers and they understand that it’s valuable, do you find that sometimes you have to do the work for them?

Michael: Yeah, if you’re going to set-up the joint venture, you’ve got to do all the work, but all you’ve got to do is approach them and say, “How’d you like to make some easy money?” You call it “free money”, and you just approach them. You say, “This is the deal. I’m a karate instructor. You’re a soccer instructor. You’ve got customers that are never going to play soccer with you again, right? They’re sitting in your computer. I would like to send a letter out – your four page letter – with you endorsing it.” So, you’re going to have your four page letter, and then on top of that letter you’re going to have a one page letter that you’re going to write for the soccer instructor, but it’s coming from the soccer instructor -do you see what I’m saying? - endorsing your program, and then you pay for the mailing. You do everything. All he’s got to do is give you the names. Does that sound better?

Scott: There’s a batting cage right down the street from me, and I just met the guy and this is perfect timing.

Michael: Just ask yourself, what businesses in my area have kids that I’d like to have as customers that’s non-competing? And, they can benefit from it. They can not only make money from their batting cage, if they endorse your product – they’re probably not endorsing anything else, believe me they’ve probably never mailed a thing to their batting cage customers.

Scott: So, now the person with the ex-soccer mom – she’s getting this letter out of no where that she’s never gotten before, and this guy whom she obviously trusts and had a great experience with and she’s like, “Wow, this guy’s sending me a letter about this karate guy. The karate guy must be good.”

Michael: Exactly!

Scott: Wow! That’s great!

Michael: You wouldn’t have to buy another tape, course or anything if you just focused on that, if that’s what you want to do is build your karate school, and then once you do that, let’s say you build an even more successful school where you’re just maxed out, then you can take all your information that you’ve done and create a course and sell that information product to other karate schools. Your system, that letter you have and your script that goes on your 24 hour recorded message and what you say when they call – if you document that and get that all in a course, that is – it’s like the combination to a safe. You know? Remember when you were looking at your cell phone? You were like “Six calls from two hundred letters?” It was like you just opened up Fort Knox. That’s like you broke the code. That combination of words and that system and that method is what will be able to keep your class full for the rest of your life as long as you keep mailing the same thing, and as long as you do what you just did. Right?

Scott: Repeat the formula and get the same results.

Michael: Yeah, and so that information is very valuable because there’s karate guys still pounding the streets putting fliers on windows.

Scott: There are some guys in my industry selling some information products on how to market, and the irony is the guys who are making the biggest money in this industry are actually selling “how-to” stuff. They’re selling lessons, but there are some guys who are ultra-successful who are selling how-to programs. So, my question, Michael, is because my program is still on a small scale, but I have stumbled upon something that is incredibly effective, is there a credibility issue like “well, you know, should I buy Scott’s how-to direct mail program?”

Michael: Not at all, not at all. There’s no – not at all. No one is going to question you. Everything you state and everything you’ve told me is true and it works. If you can confirm that every 200 letters you mail out, you get six or five or even four or three – you don’t even need to make it hugely successful. What does 200 letters cost? 200 letters – if they cost you a buck a piece which is overinflated, that’s 200 dollars, but do you think you brought in one 1600 dollar or 1500 dollar customer from 200 letters?

Scott: Definitely.

Michael: Okay, well look at your multiple on that. You’ve more than five times your money. You’ve got five to one on your mailing. That’s just based on one conversion. Let’s say if you mail 200 letters and it costs you 200 bucks, and then you brought in six. Let’s just say your net profit with your expenses is a thousand bucks a piece. That’s six grand. So, it cost you 200 and you brought in six grand. Look at the multiple on that. That’s just unbelievable.

Scott: So, then with that in mind, if I can put this together in a system or format this method of direct mail, I could market to existing struggling martial art school owners with a headline of something like “Learn How…”

Michael: “Learn How I Mailed 200 Letters and Made $6000 in New Memberships in Two Weeks” I’ll show you how. I’ll show the script. I’ll show the letter. I’ll license the rights to my letter. You could do that. You could have your own information product and really make some money helping them, but it’s whatever you want to do. I mean this is just one idea, but you can take that system and you can license that system to martial arts and they have to pay you a fee, a monthly fee, every month they use the system. You can rent the system out. And, if you want – I bought from a guy an entire marketing course. It was something he put together. This guy was a platinum member Dan Kennedy student. He was going through some hard times, and I bought a bunch of his old Jay Abraham and Gary Halbert stuff and he had also put together a course for gym memberships. It was “How To Increase Your Gym Membership”, and he modeled the course also a martial arts course, and this is Dan Kennedy style. A lot of Dan Kennedy’s consulting went into this thing, even in the sales letter. I think he paid money to have the sales letter, part of it, reviewed by Dan Kennedy, but I’ve got an entire course that I own the rights to, the retail rights and everything and it’s my course that was designed for the gym membership. It was originally modeled after martial arts. I have the entire postcard ads, all kinds of stuff that a martial arts studio could use to build his business. I bought the course because I needed a course for my pen business, for my invisible ink pen license that I sell. I took that entire course and modified it for how to make money in manufacturing and selling invisible ink pens. So, because marketing can be modeled to anything, you can take any course and modify it, just like with sales letters and stuff.

Scott: So, your pen course which I did read in your biography, you modeled this…

Michael: I modeled this course – with the course they get a marketing course with it, and I took this course that was originally for gym memberships and turned it into a course marketing course on how to build a pen manufacturing business and how to market the pens.

Scott: For something like that would work for pens would definitely probably work for what I’m doing.

Michael: It will definitely work for karate. As a matter of fact, he modeled the gym membership course off of a karate course.

Scott: It was influenced in some way by the hand of…

Michael: Definitely by Dan Kennedy, yes. The Dan Kennedy model, it teaches you about the 24 hour recording just like what you did. It already has a lot of the sales letters and everything done. I’ll go through it and email you a couple of the ads and the postcards, and direct response style promotions that you didn’t have based on karate and gym memberships.

Scott: Wow, that’d be outstanding.

Michael: That would be a timesaver if you decided you wanted to get into creating a really good quality product a lot of the work has already been done.

Scott: I’m going in that direction in wanting to create information product.

Michael: Well, it’s already done. I mean all you would have to do is put the stuff that’s worked for you in this thing and just go through a course and kind of fit it to your personality and make sure it applies to how you want and the outline is there, the sales letter’s done. I don’t know about the results of the sales letter, but you’ve got – with the sales letter you’d be selling other karate studios, but you could go through the sales letter and add your two cents with your experiences as what it’s like to struggle running a karate school. And, then also make sure on the CD I’ve got a recording with a guy named Robert who was a kung-fu instructor. Did you see that? It’s an hour recording I did with a guy who is doing five grand in yellow page advertising and he’s a kung-fu instructor. It would be a good recording to listen to you for you. You’ll like this one.

Scott: What would you suggest – like, I’m trying to learn how to be a more effective copywriter, so, my question is I know Dan Kennedy has the copywriting seminar in a box.

Michael: First of all, you’ve got Gary Halbert, his newsletters. You found those, right?

Scott: Yep.

Michael: Okay, that’s the number one source. Have you ever heard of a guy named Carl Galetti?

Scott: No.

Michael: Carl Galetti has been around with this group of marketing people for a long time. As a matter of fact, he used to do and still does kind of what I do, but he had hard to find marketing books. He’s the one that brought a lot of these old books from guys who have been dead back to life, and he’s a serious, serious student and all he does is copywriting. He actually used to do consulting, but he stopped doing it because any of his time is much more valuable writing copy for himself, selling his own products, much rather then by paid by clients. But, he put on a copywriting course, and I’ll email you the link tomorrow. I’ll email you the link to his copywriting course. I think he charges seven grand for it, and it’s a copywriting protégé course, and I have that entire course on video. It’s 25 videos, and he is a serious student of Gary Halbert. As a matter of fact, I think Gary Halbert’s a student of his too. If you really want a serious course on copywriting, this is a great guy to learn from. I think much more detailed and intense then Dan Kennedy’s copywriting course. Your mailing that went out to those first 200 people – do you realize that if you just mailed that same letter out again to those same 200 people, you can bring in another three calls, if you did nothing else?

Scott: Just the same letter?

Michael: Same exact letter, and then if you did a third letter maybe fifteen or twenty days letter, a month later, you could probably bring in another two calls. You know, you attach a final notice, “I mailed you two previous letters. You may have thrown them away, the dog ate them or whatever, but I just wanted to absolutely make sure that you’ve had a chance to look at this now. It’s that important.” And, you mail the same exact letter out. So, yeah, and that’s your same list. So, what you could do just by mailing a second and third time is what Dan Kennedy teaches is you – that six can turn into twelve or thirteen.

Scott: Right.

Michael: Isn’t that awesome?

Scott: That really is. That’s what I heard about the magnetic marketing is that I heard that there’s a series.

Michael: There is a series. He shows you some series, but sometimes he doesn’t show them in entirety in there, and they’re for different industries and stuff, but it’s good. I mean it’s good stuff to model. So, hey, I would just go – I would just go the cheap hundred dollar one from 1996 and you’ll have the letters there and you can use that as a model to make your series for your karate letter. But, imagine if you did your endorsed mailing, and you did a series of your endorse mailing. So, your endorser mails it out three times to the customers. You’d have so much business you’d have to stop mailing. I mean I’m absolutely sure of it. Unless, you have already have put all new instructors and stuff.

Scott: No, that almost happened the one mailing I did. I was telling people the intro would be two weeks from now and if you can’t make it, you’re not going to get a second chance. I’ve never been in that kind of position. It’s always been the other way around, you know, “Will you please come in and try?” So, I definitely – I don’t even doubt that that inner circle thing.

Michael: No, look, if this happens – let’s say you can get all the damn customers you want, okay? Then, what you do is, and forget what anyone thinks, then you just starting raising your prices, because the higher the demand – if you absolutely can’t take people, you’re in high demand, aren’t you? If you create all the demand you want, you could be the guy who charges $2,500 a year and $3,000 a year, okay? Now, how do you justify that? I think you could justify it. I mean I think there are people who have money and who want the best, right, but with that extra income, you could really make your place special. You could do some special things about your school that no one else has even thought of. Like after each session, you could hor d’oerves. I mean, I know that sounds crazy, okay?

Scott: But, that’s exactly what it takes.

Michael: Hor d’Oerves for the mothers and wine. You could hire with that kind of profit, you could hire maybe a celebrity karate guy to come over and sign belts or something. I don’t know.

Scott: I could put on free parties for them.

Michael: Parties.

Scott: Totally load them with extra services.

Michael: With the extra service, and you just think “What would be the most incredible…” If you were a kid, what would be the most ideal karate school that you could ever dream of if money wasn’t a problem? If you start doing stuff like that and really making your business so different, stand out from all the rest, just little things that make all the difference, and then word of mouth. You know you could have a six month waiting list, and then you start building exclusivity, and then price really isn’t an objection.

Scott: No, when it comes to the point of the waiting list, yeah, I can…

Michael: I mean, wouldn’t it be great dealing with just - you know, think about it, the more money people have the nicer they are. When you were doing those little coupons and stuff, you got people who probably didn’t have much money and they were bargain price.

Scott: They’re the worse, and they’re the ones that want all the personal attention with a thousand ridiculous questions.

Michael: Well, that’s why if you’re charging two to three thousand a year rather then fifteen hundred a year, four thousand a year or five thousand a year, then you have the time to explain why you’re charging five thousand a year, and you explain. First of all, you’ll get a higher quality student, and if you could just live up to that and do some things a little bit different. Wouldn’t you rather have just maybe an exclusive group of maybe 20 or 30 or 40 customers at five thousand a year, you know, rather than twice the amount at a lower price?

Scott: Definitely. That is definitely incredible. I think a lot of great people like yourself, and sometimes in my own industry, and I’ve always left the conversation saying, “You know what? This would’ve been great if it was recorded.”

Michael: When you get my new CD, I have one of the recordings on how to do it, but it’s called “Modem Spy”, modemspy.com. There’s a link. If you go to my webpage, go to the audio clip page, look for the one, I think it’s in the 50s, you’ll see how to do recordings and there’s a link to get the software. It’s about $29. You may need a special modem on your computer that you can plug a phone into it or a special sound card. You can just ask your computer store what you need. I had to put one in there. And, you’ve just got to read the directions and it allows you to record conversations, just like we’re doing now.

Scott: And, Michael what about live recording? Like, I bump into someone who happens to be a genius at the martial arts business or a similar business and want to tape that conversation, and get at least – I understand the quality doesn’t have to be great, but…

Michael: There’s some great stuff out there. Just go to Radio Shack. Tell them you’re looking for a digital recorder. They’re little hand held devices that – there’s stuff that will record ninety hours in mp3. So, if you’re talking to someone and you can just hold it right there. It’s a digital recorder. You can capture every word, turn it into an mp3 file and put it up on a website or do whatever with it.

Scott: Wow, okay.

Michael: You can have it transcribed. Someone gave me a great tip. If you ever want someone to do transcription for you, in the back of Writer’s World Magazine, you can go to the bookstore where all the magazines are and look for a magazine called Writer’s World, and in the back are classifieds where there’s people who do transcription for just dirt-cheap.

Scott: Okay, that’s outstanding. I had the good fortune, I ran – I didn’t run into – I walked into Bob Why’s Office…

Michael: Oh, really?

Scott: Out of nowhere. Yeah, I’d been reading this stuff online. I didn’t know. He’s actually four miles from my karate school.

Michael: That’s wild. I had no idea where he lived or anything.

Scott: You’ve got to see it. It’s typical of the old-school mentality. He had an office in a third floor like house turned into small offices, and you walk up the stairs, like the rickety stairs, you get to the top floor and there’s like a magic marker on a piece of cardboard like torn off a box that says “Bob Why”.

Michael: Really?

Scott: And, it’s hung on his door with Scotch tape.

Michael: That’s hilarious.

Scott: And, I walk in and nervous, I’m like “What’s he going to think? I’m an unannounced visitor. I’m just so excited to learn about copywriting.” And I knock on the door, but I listen outside the office. He’s talking to Vic Conant.

Michael: Oh, really?

Scott: Yeah, he’s talking to Vic Conant, and he’s presenting this project to him and stuff and it was really cool. I wish I could remember what they were talking about, and he Vic Conant at his rapt attention, and then when the phone call ended I knocked on the door and he let me in, and he spent like an hour with me. He went into his personal swipe file, and he gave me actual direct mail letters that were addressed to him.

Michael: Oh, that’s so nice of him. That’s great.

Scott: It was one of the most – it was one of the coolest things that has happened to me, I think, this year.

Michael: And, he took an hour with you. Did you tell him you were learning how to write copy and stuff?

Scott: Yeah, I was telling him about my thing about writing copy and how me doing this martial arts thing, going from health club to this is it’s like – I mean not a rags to riches story, but it’s more like a rags to a pretty good income story, and he said, “I think you should organize into a presentation, be a motivational speaker. We’ll call you ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Motivational Speaker’, and you go out and break a brick or something like that.” I walked out with a handful of stuff.

Michael: That’s great. All you need is one great sales letter. It’s like your system. If you want to build your school, you’ve got something that works, and I just showed you two things that will be two or three times it’s effectiveness through endorsed mailings and by doing multiple mailings, and that’s all you need. I mean, if it’s working and you can double it, you’ve got the key to build a huge business now. You really do. So, I’d just focus on doing that – build a big business, up your price, and just make it really exclusive.

Scott: And, continue to do what works and not try to outsmart myself.

Michael: Yeah. Sometimes we keep looking and looking and looking and looking but if this is what you want to do originally is build a big karate school, a successful one, is that what you were love doing?

Scott: Yeah.

Michael: Then do it. You’ve got the formula right there. You’ll have all the customers you can handle. A big mistake people make is once they find something that works, they get bored with it and they want to change it, and believe me the change of your headline or one word can drop your response to zero. So, yeah, you should feel fortunate that your system, the combination of words that you had on your 24 hour voice mail, the letter – I wouldn’t change a thing. I would just turn to endorse mailing and the multiple mailings and just start mailing to more qualified people like an endorsed list like the batting cage guy. Just ask yourself, “What businesses around me deal with kids who we could do a deal with?”

Scott: Michael, that’s incredible thanks so much.

Michael: You’re very welcome, and then later on if you want to rent a course after you big a real big business and you want to do a course on an information product, I’ve got those available for you. That’ll save you a bunch of time because you’ll probably be pretty busy.

Scott: Awesome. I’d like to start creating because from the health club thing I achieved great success in sales that I’ve been invited to New York Sports Clubs and Boston Sports Club to sort of motivate their P.T. department on how to get new clients and stuff. So, I always wondered what would happen if I just invested a few hours in how to get new clients and how to approach prospects and stuff like that and then sell that because I don’t have product. The martial arts business is great, but it ties me down to teaching time, and I need to come up with a product.

Michael: Well, then you can start taking all your classes and bring in a guy to videotape your classes. Videotape a year’s worth of classes, and put them on video and starting selling the videos to people who are too lazy to come out and they can learn at home.

Scott: Oh, man. That’s awesome.

Michael: Then you just duplicated yourself. Then, they don’t have to come to your classes. So, in the sales letter, you can say, maybe the third sales letter, you can say, “Look, I know it’s a pain in the butt coming all the way out here, and you’ve got commitments, family commitments, and sometimes it’s impossible to find the time to do anything, but what I’ve just done is I’ve put a year’s worth of my classes on video, and if you’re interested in really learning martial arts and you’d like me come to your home and teach your children how to do martial arts and you’ve got the discipline to do it home, I’ll be glad to send you the first lesson free.” And, you can send them a video with an offer to buy at a huge discount your videos. That’s a huge product right there, and it doesn’t have to be this professionally designed video. It could be just good enough. You can get a friend who has a digital camera come out, set it up on a tripod, and just do your course. As long as the audios good, you could wear a mike. There’s ways you can do that. You can hire somebody to come out and do that. Look in the Yellow Pages under “Wedding Videos” or “Videographers”, and have someone come out and videotape a couple of your classes.

Scott: Yeah, that sounds totally doable.

Michael: Start doing that now. I’d start videotaping everyone of your classes because – and, what you’ll need is you’ll need a release. You’ll need a release from your students if you were to start selling your videos, but you could do that. You could do that when you bring them in. Let’s say you wanted to do that down the road, as you bring someone in as they sign an agreement with you, you could have the clause “on some occasions we videotape our classes, and you waived the rights to us to use you in the video” or whatever, and there’s a release I can send you, one that I use for my audio recordings usually. If you want the Dan Kennedy thing for a hundred bucks, we can do that. Did you want to get that? It’s totally up to you. You can think about it, let me know, email me or call me.

Scott: Okay, it’s only missing a couple…

Michael: It’s missing three tapes. You just want the letters in there. If you can make your series of letters a little bit better, you may get some ideas from that. I think that’s going to be the biggest benefit for you.

Scott: Okay, I’m going to go and take a look at the sales letter again and find out what might be missing on those tapes, and then I’ll give you a call back and we’ll do that for a hundred bucks.

Michael: Okay, and you can see the whole sales letter on my site. Just go to “Products” and click on “Dan Kennedy” and you can actually hear that I’ve got the recording of him promoting the Dan Kennedy seminar at Peter Lowe conference.

Scott: Do you really?

Michael: Yeah, it’s really good. It’s about an hour. There’s two parts to it. you can listen to that online.

Scott: Magnetic marketing, okay great.

Michael: Okay.

Scott: Thanks a lot!

Michael: Okay, we’ll talk to you later.

Michael: I want to thank you for listening to www.hardtofindseminar.com . If you want to get in touch with any of the people we interview please contact Michael by e-mail. You can email, or you can call 858-274-7851. Michael: All you need is one great sales letter, and if you want to build your school you’ve got something that works, and I’ve just showed you two things that would multiple two times it’s effectiveness, endorsed mailings and by doing multiple mailings. That’s all you need. If it’s working and you can double it, you’ve got the key to build a huge business now. Build a big business, up your price, and make it really exclusive.

Music

Michael: This is a very cool recording I did with a gentleman named Scott. Scott was the owner of a karate school, and he called me searching for some marketing products and as we started talking we discovered two specific ways that he could double or triple his business. I think you’ll be really interested to know what he’s been doing up until now that has changed the way he markets and generates customers for his karate business because I’m sure you can adapt some of the same ideas he’s using for his business for your business. I think you’ll really benefit and learn from this recording, enjoy.

Michael: So, you’re a martial arts instructor?

Scott: That’s correct.

Michael: Do you own your own dojo or whatever?

Scott: Yeah, I have an interesting situation. I sublet space from the existing kick-boxing gym owner, and I’ve acquired quite a clientele and it’s been mostly through direct response and direct mail advertising. This is after months and months of the traditional methods – handing out flyers, throwing away money at the penny saver and just praying I’m going to get some type of response. I stumbled across your site and got turned on to some Gary Halbert stuff, and just sat down and really started to figure out the of effective copy, and I started to get a mailing list and sending letters to people that had taken martial arts and that would interested in these type of activity. I began to sort of, I guess they call it “drip” like a drip system to just sort of educate them because I think my product or my service does require a bit of explaining and slowly, but surely, I started to really get some qualified leads. I mean so qualified from direct mail that the appointments did not even need confirming, and that’s usually, in our industry, you have to double confirm, you have to send out a confirmation card and all sorts of stuff, all sorts of gimmicks to really ensure the appointment, and I think the direct mail was so powerful that people really, well, they were already sold when they actually came in. I simply had to teach them some moves and establish a little bit of credibility with them, and they were ready to sign-up for a program, and in fact, I now charge more then anyone in my area for lessons and it’s not even like a real martial arts school. Like, I don’t have a sign, and I’ve literally built my program by hand by using a direct mail message.

Michael: Tell me about the first time you did the mailing. What kind of list did you mail to?

Scott: The first mailing I got, I stumbled upon a list of women aged 25-55 who I didn’t about them – what’s their income, whether they had kids, I just had a list, and the first I mailed to that list. It was an offer.

Michael: How many people on the list?

Scott: The list had 2,300 names, but I could only afford to mail to about two or three hundred of them, maybe about 250.

Michael: Where did you get the list?

Scott: I got the list from a guy who was demoralized in direct mail. He had no good results, and he just kind of handed it to me. I don’t know what company he bought it from.

Michael: Okay, well, were they on labels or just in a database or what?

Scott: They were in a database. I taught myself how to do the mail merge and…

Michael: So, you printed them right on the envelope.

Scott: Yes, sir.

Michael: What did you write a four page sales letter? Tell me about the sales letter you put together.

Scott: Well, the initial thing that went out was a direct response. At this point, I knew direct mail was working for some people, but I didn’t quite know how to structure an offer or educate them so to speak. So, I just put together a postcard 4x6 yellow postcard and was offering a free lesson. I had a graphic of an action photo and response was horrible. I was almost ready to pack it in, and then I got turned on to this idea that copy is king. I really couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that all these words and on and on and on. I said, “You know what? What the hell?” I put together a four page sales letter all copy, no photo at all, mailed it to the exact same names, and out of 250 names, my first mailing I got like six or eight calls.

Michael: That’s great.

Scott: One thing I changed in the offer Michael, was instead of calling that your intro class where people knew they were going to be hammered for lack of a better word to make an appointment or to sign-up, I said, “Call 24 hour recorded message” which was an idea I got from your site, by getting recommended to Gary’s stuff, that this is a small baby step. It’s just going to take the next step.

Michael: So, what did the four page letter say basically?

Scott: I think the opening line was something like “Amazing but true unleash your child’s potential.” One of them was, “How to increase your child’s confidence, energy, and enthusiasm in 21 days, guaranteed”, and then my signature on the bottom of it.

Michael: Okay, so your market was children. You’re mailing to mothers for their kids?

Scott: Yes, I was mailing to a list of women 25-50 in hopes that they had some children that would want to take martial arts classes. That’s correct.

Michael: That’s a great – that’s a very responsive list, mothers with children. I’ve got two young kids, and I’ll tell you a quick little story from my first child who is now almost four, we wanted to put together a play group of kids in the neighborhood, and I went to a list broker and I got every mother in my zip code and another zip code close to me who had children and I mailed out a little one page letter with a photograph as a grabber of my baby, and this just one little simple letter, I forgot exactly what I said, it was a little direct mail type style letter about putting together a playgroup, and I mean it worked great. I think the response was like ten or fifteen percent, and for years we had a playgroup just based on that one simple little letter to mothers of children.

Scott: Wow! And, they would call you at your home?

Michael: Yeah, they’d call my wife and they’d say, “Yeah, I got your picture and your letter.” And, you know, these were new mothers with new babies and new mothers with new babies want to start thinking about socializing their children even at a young age and getting together with other new mothers with babies.

Scott: Wow! That’s outstanding. The envelope – did it look like something was commercial?

Michael: No, total Gary Halbert – I think I had a girl hand-address them with maybe just the street return address with the photo inside as the grabber, and a simple letter. It was just as simple as that. So, you got like six calls and so your offer was? Tell me about – oh the offer was the call, the 24 hour recorded message to do what?

Scott: To receive two things. One, a free eight page information kit called “How-To Increase Your Childs” this that and the other thing – discipline, confidence, attention span, in 21 days, and for the first 25 callers a free uniform voucher.

Michael: What’s a uniform voucher?

Scott: A gift certificate worth fifty dollars which gives them a free uniform if they decide to come in and test drive. It was so exciting because I sent the mail out and then later on maybe two or three days later I looked at my cell phone and I had six or seven messages. I was like, “Who’s trying to get a hold of me?” And, it was so exciting. I was in a Starbucks. I was like “Yes!” I stood up in front. I couldn’t believe it. I called my girlfriend. She said, “You’re kidding me.” I said, “No.” And, this is after – my fingernails were black from putting out fliers on windshield wipers with no response. I mean, thousands and thousands of fliers with one or two calls and they would juggle, and “how much is it?” “do you have to sign a contract?” Fifty thousand questions, they wouldn’t show up for the appointment, here I am – people are leaving a slow message, “My name is Jane Smith. This is my address. This is my phone number. I have two seven year old twins, and I want to get them in your program immediately.”

Michael: Did you talk about the price in your letter or your 24 hour recorded message?

Scott: No, I just – my message was like “Dear Parents, are children really are our most valuable asset, aren’t they? Thanks for calling. To receive your free eight page information kit, please speak slowly and clearly at the tone, and a representative will contact you within 24 hours. Now, here’s the beep.”

Michael: So, you contacted them back before you mailed them out the voucher and the eight page kit?

Scott: No, get this. I received – they would leave their phone number, and in some cases I already had that from the mailing list, but they would leave their address. I would then mail them that second thing – the information kit without even calling them. They would then call back again, and that’s when I would make the appointment. I would follow-up with them in two or three days and it was like talking to friend. As a matter of fact, in many cases when I would call them, it was like, “Oh, hey, Scott, oh yeah you’re the guy from the thing.” I mean as opposed to in the past where I would call people – someone I pulled out of a lead box slip, they were like “Who’s this? Call back later.”

Michael: So, you did all your selling up front?

Scott: Totally.

Michael: That’s awesome. So, when you bring a kid in, what does that mean to you? What kind of money can you make off a new client?

Scott: Well, we in the martial arts there’s sort of a stigma with the money hungry and this and that and the other thing, but I make no apologies. I look at every single potential new member that comes in as an opportunity to glean $1540, which is – our program is $130 a month times twelve months and that is the first program, the minimum commitment that we expect that parent to make when they enroll a child in our program.

Michael: How many sessions is that?

Scott: That includes ninety sessions.

Michael: That’s good. That’s a lot.

Scott: Yeah, it’s two times per week over the course of a year.

Michael: Are you a blackbelt yourself?

Scott: Yes, yes, I am a master instructor.

Michael: What is it in karate?

Scott: It’s actually Tae Kwan Doe. The system I teach is a blend because in this day and age kicking and punching is not enough, so there’s some self-defense.

Michael: So, that was your first mailing to that 200, and then tell me what happened. Tell me about other mailings.

Scott: Yeah, the first 200 that was the first four page sales letter. Then I started to send a 5x8 postcard for 37 cents, and the reason I was doing that was just – I started getting some stuff in the mail, because once you’ve got on all these lists, you get other people’s ads and get some ideas. So, I got some stuff from a company called “Y2 Marketing”.

Michael: I’m familiar with them.

Scott: And, I went to one of their seminars and I was blown away. In fact, I even brought a mini-recorder and recorded all three days of the seminar which people were actually paying pretty good money to go to and it’s one of the more impressive marketing events I’ve ever been to, and they turned me onto this idea of getting the maximum size postcard you can for first class stamp which is 6x11. So, I started to mail that out which followed their format which had a pretty catchy/borderline offensive headline, then with a sub-head, lots of body copy, and a coupon style offer. And, the response, again, the same names was four and five calls each and every time I would mail it out.

Michael: Okay, compared to your four page letter.

Scott: The response was just about the same, but I’ve got to admit the four page sales letter prospects, I don’t know if it was because I was so excited and they were my first batch of prospects maybe I handled them with more kid gloves so to speak, Michael, but it does seem the people who got the four page letter although it was the same amount of calls, they do seem to be higher quality.

Michael: Your conversion rate was better because you did more selling in the four page letter.

Scott: Without a doubt.

Michael: Okay, so the postcard was bringing in more leads, but you felt the four page letter was converting more, and that makes sense because a letter is more personal then a postcard.

Scott: Most definitely.

Michael: Did you stick with the postcard?

Scott: I stuck with the postcard only because I kind of liked the way it looks. I figured it was getting higher readership. I’m now going to shift back to the letter format only because like you were saying, I do think it is a better conversion rate. People seem to come in. they know a heck of a lot more about my program then someone who responded from a postcard.

Michael: Okay, so what do you want to do? Do you want to build your business up even more?

Scott: Yeah, I’d like to build my business to the point where it’s working a little more predictably. I had some lousy results my last mailing, and I’m thinking it’s because of the summer. I’m relatively new to direct mail. Historically speaking, I heard July and August aren’t really great months.

Michael: That’s what I’ve learned too. It is pretty true. A lot of the kids are in camp or they’re away on vacation or whatever. This probably, I don’t know about within the karate industry, martial arts industry when classes are heavier, but I would think summer’s probably pretty much a down time.

Scott: Yeah, summer is a down time. People aren’t starting anything new or at least committing. Summer’s a great excuse not to start something that’s a good idea.

Michael: Or, maybe too late right now with summer coming to an end and everything. I mean I think you should just build on that. You could keep studying this stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think what you could really do to dramatically increase the response is to take that same four page letter and find some non-competing businesses with a client list of mothers with children that can send that letter out to, your letter out with a one page letter written from them endorsing your karate school. For instance – how many past customers do you have that you have names and numbers?

Scott: Hundreds.

Michael: If you went through those hundreds and looked at those lists of those mothers or parents and mailed them a letter and saying, “I really enjoyed having your kid as a student in my class. He did great, and I wanted to ask for your help.” If you can explain how you’ve been mailing out a letter to mothers, but the mothers didn’t know who you were and yeah, you got some response, but I had this idea and I thought that if you would be so kind and if I could repay you in some way, do you have the list of maybe business associates or mothers or friends who have children in your same age group that you’d be willing to mail my letter? And, you can send them a sample of your letter endorsing my karate school, and have them mail out your letter to their center of influence or if they have a business to their customers. So, they’re endorsing you to their friends and customers and business associates. Do you see?

Scott: Wow.

Michael: And, then that’ll blow your response through the roof, and you’ve got to repay them somehow. I don’t how. You’ve got to bribe them somehow, but you tell them they’re not going to have to do any of the work. You’ll put the letter together. You’ll put the little one page letter that comes from them. All they’ve got to do is sign it and agree that it’s okay. You’ll pay for the mailing. All you need is ten, twenty, thirty names of some of your closest friends. And, for each one you give me, you’ve got to bribe them with something. You know one account could be worth a thousand bucks net in your pocket. You’ve got to pay them back and give them a reason to do it. And, if you just did that and focused on joint ventures with people or focused on an endorsed mailing – find a children’s clothing store in your area and tell them “let’s do a joint venture”. You mail your karate school letter out to their entire customer list who bought clothes from them over the last couple of years. Other schools that do instruction, it may be a soccer camp. The owner of the soccer camp sends the letter out to previous clients of their’s saying “You know two years ago or last year your child played soccer. I know he may not be interested in it anymore, but I’ve got a buddy of mine who does karate and I wanted to at least expose you to the benefits of karate for your children.” Have him mail to his past customers that he’s not doing anything with, and then you can even give him a piece of the action on any new clients that come through. You see? You’re taking advantage of all those built relationships. A guy who’s got a soccer instruction camp has spent years building his customer list just as you did pounding the streets putting up fliers. He’s got all those names, all those happy customers in a database somewhere that are just sitting there. They’re probably not going to enroll again. So, you just approach him and say, “How would you like to make money on your customers that are never going to buy from you again?”

Scott: That sounds excellent. Now, Michael, from your experience, have you found that a lot of these guys that they’ve collected this list of customers and they understand that it’s valuable, do you find that sometimes you have to do the work for them?

Michael: Yeah, if you’re going to set-up the joint venture, you’ve got to do all the work, but all you’ve got to do is approach them and say, “How’d you like to make some easy money?” You call it “free money”, and you just approach them. You say, “This is the deal. I’m a karate instructor. You’re a soccer instructor. You’ve got customers that are never going to play soccer with you again, right? They’re sitting in your computer. I would like to send a letter out – your four page letter – with you endorsing it.” So, you’re going to have your four page letter, and then on top of that letter you’re going to have a one page letter that you’re going to write for the soccer instructor, but it’s coming from the soccer instructor -do you see what I’m saying? - endorsing your program, and then you pay for the mailing. You do everything. All he’s got to do is give you the names. Does that sound better?

Scott: There’s a batting cage right down the street from me, and I just met the guy and this is perfect timing.

Michael: Just ask yourself, what businesses in my area have kids that I’d like to have as customers that’s non-competing? And, they can benefit from it. They can not only make money from their batting cage, if they endorse your product – they’re probably not endorsing anything else, believe me they’ve probably never mailed a thing to their batting cage customers.

Scott: So, now the person with the ex-soccer mom – she’s getting this letter out of no where that she’s never gotten before, and this guy whom she obviously trusts and had a great experience with and she’s like, “Wow, this guy’s sending me a letter about this karate guy. The karate guy must be good.”

Michael: Exactly!

Scott: Wow! That’s great!

Michael: You wouldn’t have to buy another tape, course or anything if you just focused on that, if that’s what you want to do is build your karate school, and then once you do that, let’s say you build an even more successful school where you’re just maxed out, then you can take all your information that you’ve done and create a course and sell that information product to other karate schools. Your system, that letter you have and your script that goes on your 24 hour recorded message and what you say when they call – if you document that and get that all in a course, that is – it’s like the combination to a safe. You know? Remember when you were looking at your cell phone? You were like “Six calls from two hundred letters?” It was like you just opened up Fort Knox. That’s like you broke the code. That combination of words and that system and that method is what will be able to keep your class full for the rest of your life as long as you keep mailing the same thing, and as long as you do what you just did. Right?

Scott: Repeat the formula and get the same results.

Michael: Yeah, and so that information is very valuable because there’s karate guys still pounding the streets putting fliers on windows.

Scott: There are some guys in my industry selling some information products on how to market, and the irony is the guys who are making the biggest money in this industry are actually selling “how-to” stuff. They’re selling lessons, but there are some guys who are ultra-successful who are selling how-to programs. So, my question, Michael, is because my program is still on a small scale, but I have stumbled upon something that is incredibly effective, is there a credibility issue like “well, you know, should I buy Scott’s how-to direct mail program?”

Michael: Not at all, not at all. There’s no – not at all. No one is going to question you. Everything you state and everything you’ve told me is true and it works. If you can confirm that every 200 letters you mail out, you get six or five or even four or three – you don’t even need to make it hugely successful. What does 200 letters cost? 200 letters – if they cost you a buck a piece which is overinflated, that’s 200 dollars, but do you think you brought in one 1600 dollar or 1500 dollar customer from 200 letters?

Scott: Definitely.

Michael: Okay, well look at your multiple on that. You’ve more than five times your money. You’ve got five to one on your mailing. That’s just based on one conversion. Let’s say if you mail 200 letters and it costs you 200 bucks, and then you brought in six. Let’s just say your net profit with your expenses is a thousand bucks a piece. That’s six grand. So, it cost you 200 and you brought in six grand. Look at the multiple on that. That’s just unbelievable.

Scott: So, then with that in mind, if I can put this together in a system or format this method of direct mail, I could market to existing struggling martial art school owners with a headline of something like “Learn How…”

Michael: “Learn How I Mailed 200 Letters and Made $6000 in New Memberships in Two Weeks” I’ll show you how. I’ll show the script. I’ll show the letter. I’ll license the rights to my letter. You could do that. You could have your own information product and really make some money helping them, but it’s whatever you want to do. I mean this is just one idea, but you can take that system and you can license that system to martial arts and they have to pay you a fee, a monthly fee, every month they use the system. You can rent the system out. And, if you want – I bought from a guy an entire marketing course. It was something he put together. This guy was a platinum member Dan Kennedy student. He was going through some hard times, and I bought a bunch of his old Jay Abraham and Gary Halbert stuff and he had also put together a course for gym memberships. It was “How To Increase Your Gym Membership”, and he modeled the course also a martial arts course, and this is Dan Kennedy style. A lot of Dan Kennedy’s consulting went into this thing, even in the sales letter. I think he paid money to have the sales letter, part of it, reviewed by Dan Kennedy, but I’ve got an entire course that I own the rights to, the retail rights and everything and it’s my course that was designed for the gym membership. It was originally modeled after martial arts. I have the entire postcard ads, all kinds of stuff that a martial arts studio could use to build his business. I bought the course because I needed a course for my pen business, for my invisible ink pen license that I sell. I took that entire course and modified it for how to make money in manufacturing and selling invisible ink pens. So, because marketing can be modeled to anything, you can take any course and modify it, just like with sales letters and stuff.

Scott: So, your pen course which I did read in your biography, you modeled this…

Michael: I modeled this course – with the course they get a marketing course with it, and I took this course that was originally for gym memberships and turned it into a course marketing course on how to build a pen manufacturing business and how to market the pens.

Scott: For something like that would work for pens would definitely probably work for what I’m doing.

Michael: It will definitely work for karate. As a matter of fact, he modeled the gym membership course off of a karate course.

Scott: It was influenced in some way by the hand of…

Michael: Definitely by Dan Kennedy, yes. The Dan Kennedy model, it teaches you about the 24 hour recording just like what you did. It already has a lot of the sales letters and everything done. I’ll go through it and email you a couple of the ads and the postcards, and direct response style promotions that you didn’t have based on karate and gym memberships.

Scott: Wow, that’d be outstanding.

Michael: That would be a timesaver if you decided you wanted to get into creating a really good quality product a lot of the work has already been done.

Scott: I’m going in that direction in wanting to create information product.

Michael: Well, it’s already done. I mean all you would have to do is put the stuff that’s worked for you in this thing and just go through a course and kind of fit it to your personality and make sure it applies to how you want and the outline is there, the sales letter’s done. I don’t know about the results of the sales letter, but you’ve got – with the sales letter you’d be selling other karate studios, but you could go through the sales letter and add your two cents with your experiences as what it’s like to struggle running a karate school. And, then also make sure on the CD I’ve got a recording with a guy named Robert who was a kung-fu instructor. Did you see that? It’s an hour recording I did with a guy who is doing five grand in yellow page advertising and he’s a kung-fu instructor. It would be a good recording to listen to you for you. You’ll like this one.

Scott: What would you suggest – like, I’m trying to learn how to be a more effective copywriter, so, my question is I know Dan Kennedy has the copywriting seminar in a box.

Michael: First of all, you’ve got Gary Halbert, his newsletters. You found those, right?

Scott: Yep.

Michael: Okay, that’s the number one source. Have you ever heard of a guy named Carl Galetti?

Scott: No.

Michael: Carl Galetti has been around with this group of marketing people for a long time. As a matter of fact, he used to do and still does kind of what I do, but he had hard to find marketing books. He’s the one that brought a lot of these old books from guys who have been dead back to life, and he’s a serious, serious student and all he does is copywriting. He actually used to do consulting, but he stopped doing it because any of his time is much more valuable writing copy for himself, selling his own products, much rather then by paid by clients. But, he put on a copywriting course, and I’ll email you the link tomorrow. I’ll email you the link to his copywriting course. I think he charges seven grand for it, and it’s a copywriting protégé course, and I have that entire course on video. It’s 25 videos, and he is a serious student of Gary Halbert. As a matter of fact, I think Gary Halbert’s a student of his too. If you really want a serious course on copywriting, this is a great guy to learn from. I think much more detailed and intense then Dan Kennedy’s copywriting course. Your mailing that went out to those first 200 people – do you realize that if you just mailed that same letter out again to those same 200 people, you can bring in another three calls, if you did nothing else?

Scott: Just the same letter?

Michael: Same exact letter, and then if you did a third letter maybe fifteen or twenty days letter, a month later, you could probably bring in another two calls. You know, you attach a final notice, “I mailed you two previous letters. You may have thrown them away, the dog ate them or whatever, but I just wanted to absolutely make sure that you’ve had a chance to look at this now. It’s that important.” And, you mail the same exact letter out. So, yeah, and that’s your same list. So, what you could do just by mailing a second and third time is what Dan Kennedy teaches is you – that six can turn into twelve or thirteen.

Scott: Right.

Michael: Isn’t that awesome?

Scott: That really is. That’s what I heard about the magnetic marketing is that I heard that there’s a series.

Michael: There is a series. He shows you some series, but sometimes he doesn’t show them in entirety in there, and they’re for different industries and stuff, but it’s good. I mean it’s good stuff to model. So, hey, I would just go – I would just go the cheap hundred dollar one from 1996 and you’ll have the letters there and you can use that as a model to make your series for your karate letter. But, imagine if you did your endorsed mailing, and you did a series of your endorse mailing. So, your endorser mails it out three times to the customers. You’d have so much business you’d have to stop mailing. I mean I’m absolutely sure of it. Unless, you have already have put all new instructors and stuff.

Scott: No, that almost happened the one mailing I did. I was telling people the intro would be two weeks from now and if you can’t make it, you’re not going to get a second chance. I’ve never been in that kind of position. It’s always been the other way around, you know, “Will you please come in and try?” So, I definitely – I don’t even doubt that that inner circle thing.

Michael: No, look, if this happens – let’s say you can get all the damn customers you want, okay? Then, what you do is, and forget what anyone thinks, then you just starting raising your prices, because the higher the demand – if you absolutely can’t take people, you’re in high demand, aren’t you? If you create all the demand you want, you could be the guy who charges $2,500 a year and $3,000 a year, okay? Now, how do you justify that? I think you could justify it. I mean I think there are people who have money and who want the best, right, but with that extra income, you could really make your place special. You could do some special things about your school that no one else has even thought of. Like after each session, you could hor d’oerves. I mean, I know that sounds crazy, okay?

Scott: But, that’s exactly what it takes.

Michael: Hor d’Oerves for the mothers and wine. You could hire with that kind of profit, you could hire maybe a celebrity karate guy to come over and sign belts or something. I don’t know.

Scott: I could put on free parties for them.

Michael: Parties.

Scott: Totally load them with extra services.

Michael: With the extra service, and you just think “What would be the most incredible…” If you were a kid, what would be the most ideal karate school that you could ever dream of if money wasn’t a problem? If you start doing stuff like that and really making your business so different, stand out from all the rest, just little things that make all the difference, and then word of mouth. You know you could have a six month waiting list, and then you start building exclusivity, and then price really isn’t an objection.

Scott: No, when it comes to the point of the waiting list, yeah, I can…

Michael: I mean, wouldn’t it be great dealing with just - you know, think about it, the more money people have the nicer they are. When you were doing those little coupons and stuff, you got people who probably didn’t have much money and they were bargain price.

Scott: They’re the worse, and they’re the ones that want all the personal attention with a thousand ridiculous questions.

Michael: Well, that’s why if you’re charging two to three thousand a year rather then fifteen hundred a year, four thousand a year or five thousand a year, then you have the time to explain why you’re charging five thousand a year, and you explain. First of all, you’ll get a higher quality student, and if you could just live up to that and do some things a little bit different. Wouldn’t you rather have just maybe an exclusive group of maybe 20 or 30 or 40 customers at five thousand a year, you know, rather than twice the amount at a lower price?

Scott: Definitely. That is definitely incredible. I think a lot of great people like yourself, and sometimes in my own industry, and I’ve always left the conversation saying, “You know what? This would’ve been great if it was recorded.”

Michael: When you get my new CD, I have one of the recordings on how to do it, but it’s called “Modem Spy”, modemspy.com. There’s a link. If you go to my webpage, go to the audio clip page, look for the one, I think it’s in the 50s, you’ll see how to do recordings and there’s a link to get the software. It’s about $29. You may need a special modem on your computer that you can plug a phone into it or a special sound card. You can just ask your computer store what you need. I had to put one in there. And, you’ve just got to read the directions and it allows you to record conversations, just like we’re doing now.

Scott: And, Michael what about live recording? Like, I bump into someone who happens to be a genius at the martial arts business or a similar business and want to tape that conversation, and get at least – I understand the quality doesn’t have to be great, but…

Michael: There’s some great stuff out there. Just go to Radio Shack. Tell them you’re looking for a digital recorder. They’re little hand held devices that – there’s stuff that will record ninety hours in mp3. So, if you’re talking to someone and you can just hold it right there. It’s a digital recorder. You can capture every word, turn it into an mp3 file and put it up on a website or do whatever with it.

Scott: Wow, okay.

Michael: You can have it transcribed. Someone gave me a great tip. If you ever want someone to do transcription for you, in the back of Writer’s World Magazine, you can go to the bookstore where all the magazines are and look for a magazine called Writer’s World, and in the back are classifieds where there’s people who do transcription for just dirt-cheap.

Scott: Okay, that’s outstanding. I had the good fortune, I ran – I didn’t run into – I walked into Bob Why’s Office…

Michael: Oh, really?

Scott: Out of nowhere. Yeah, I’d been reading this stuff online. I didn’t know. He’s actually four miles from my karate school.

Michael: That’s wild. I had no idea where he lived or anything.

Scott: You’ve got to see it. It’s typical of the old-school mentality. He had an office in a third floor like house turned into small offices, and you walk up the stairs, like the rickety stairs, you get to the top floor and there’s like a magic marker on a piece of cardboard like torn off a box that says “Bob Why”.

Michael: Really?

Scott: And, it’s hung on his door with Scotch tape.

Michael: That’s hilarious.

Scott: And, I walk in and nervous, I’m like “What’s he going to think? I’m an unannounced visitor. I’m just so excited to learn about copywriting.” And I knock on the door, but I listen outside the office. He’s talking to Vic Conant.

Michael: Oh, really?

Scott: Yeah, he’s talking to Vic Conant, and he’s presenting this project to him and stuff and it was really cool. I wish I could remember what they were talking about, and he Vic Conant at his rapt attention, and then when the phone call ended I knocked on the door and he let me in, and he spent like an hour with me. He went into his personal swipe file, and he gave me actual direct mail letters that were addressed to him.

Michael: Oh, that’s so nice of him. That’s great.

Scott: It was one of the most – it was one of the coolest things that has happened to me, I think, this year.

Michael: And, he took an hour with you. Did you tell him you were learning how to write copy and stuff?

Scott: Yeah, I was telling him about my thing about writing copy and how me doing this martial arts thing, going from health club to this is it’s like – I mean not a rags to riches story, but it’s more like a rags to a pretty good income story, and he said, “I think you should organize into a presentation, be a motivational speaker. We’ll call you ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Motivational Speaker’, and you go out and break a brick or something like that.” I walked out with a handful of stuff.

Michael: That’s great. All you need is one great sales letter. It’s like your system. If you want to build your school, you’ve got something that works, and I just showed you two things that will be two or three times it’s effectiveness through endorsed mailings and by doing multiple mailings, and that’s all you need. I mean, if it’s working and you can double it, you’ve got the key to build a huge business now. You really do. So, I’d just focus on doing that – build a big business, up your price, and just make it really exclusive.

Scott: And, continue to do what works and not try to outsmart myself.

Michael: Yeah. Sometimes we keep looking and looking and looking and looking but if this is what you want to do originally is build a big karate school, a successful one, is that what you were love doing?

Scott: Yeah.

Michael: Then do it. You’ve got the formula right there. You’ll have all the customers you can handle. A big mistake people make is once they find something that works, they get bored with it and they want to change it, and believe me the change of your headline or one word can drop your response to zero. So, yeah, you should feel fortunate that your system, the combination of words that you had on your 24 hour voice mail, the letter – I wouldn’t change a thing. I would just turn to endorse mailing and the multiple mailings and just start mailing to more qualified people like an endorsed list like the batting cage guy. Just ask yourself, “What businesses around me deal with kids who we could do a deal with?”

Scott: Michael, that’s incredible thanks so much.

Michael: You’re very welcome, and then later on if you want to rent a course after you big a real big business and you want to do a course on an information product, I’ve got those available for you. That’ll save you a bunch of time because you’ll probably be pretty busy.

Scott: Awesome. I’d like to start creating because from the health club thing I achieved great success in sales that I’ve been invited to New York Sports Clubs and Boston Sports Club to sort of motivate their P.T. department on how to get new clients and stuff. So, I always wondered what would happen if I just invested a few hours in how to get new clients and how to approach prospects and stuff like that and then sell that because I don’t have product. The martial arts business is great, but it ties me down to teaching time, and I need to come up with a product.

Michael: Well, then you can start taking all your classes and bring in a guy to videotape your classes. Videotape a year’s worth of classes, and put them on video and starting selling the videos to people who are too lazy to come out and they can learn at home.

Scott: Oh, man. That’s awesome.

Michael: Then you just duplicated yourself. Then, they don’t have to come to your classes. So, in the sales letter, you can say, maybe the third sales letter, you can say, “Look, I know it’s a pain in the butt coming all the way out here, and you’ve got commitments, family commitments, and sometimes it’s impossible to find the time to do anything, but what I’ve just done is I’ve put a year’s worth of my classes on video, and if you’re interested in really learning martial arts and you’d like me come to your home and teach your children how to do martial arts and you’ve got the discipline to do it home, I’ll be glad to send you the first lesson free.” And, you can send them a video with an offer to buy at a huge discount your videos. That’s a huge product right there, and it doesn’t have to be this professionally designed video. It could be just good enough. You can get a friend who has a digital camera come out, set it up on a tripod, and just do your course. As long as the audios good, you could wear a mike. There’s ways you can do that. You can hire somebody to come out and do that. Look in the Yellow Pages under “Wedding Videos” or “Videographers”, and have someone come out and videotape a couple of your classes.

Scott: Yeah, that sounds totally doable.

Michael: Start doing that now. I’d start videotaping everyone of your classes because – and, what you’ll need is you’ll need a release. You’ll need a release from your students if you were to start selling your videos, but you could do that. You could do that when you bring them in. Let’s say you wanted to do that down the road, as you bring someone in as they sign an agreement with you, you could have the clause “on some occasions we videotape our classes, and you waived the rights to us to use you in the video” or whatever, and there’s a release I can send you, one that I use for my audio recordings usually. If you want the Dan Kennedy thing for a hundred bucks, we can do that. Did you want to get that? It’s totally up to you. You can think about it, let me know, email me or call me.

Scott: Okay, it’s only missing a couple…

Michael: It’s missing three tapes. You just want the letters in there. If you can make your series of letters a little bit better, you may get some ideas from that. I think that’s going to be the biggest benefit for you.

Scott: Okay, I’m going to go and take a look at the sales letter again and find out what might be missing on those tapes, and then I’ll give you a call back and we’ll do that for a hundred bucks.

Michael: Okay, and you can see the whole sales letter on my site. Just go to “Products” and click on “Dan Kennedy” and you can actually hear that I’ve got the recording of him promoting the Dan Kennedy seminar at Peter Lowe conference.

Scott: Do you really?

Michael: Yeah, it’s really good. It’s about an hour. There’s two parts to it. you can listen to that online.

Scott: Magnetic marketing, okay great.

Michael: Okay.

Scott: Thanks a lot!

Michael: Okay, we’ll talk to you later.

Michael: I want to thank you for listening to www.hardtofindseminar.com . If you want to get in touch with any of the people we interview please contact Michael by e-mail. You can email, or you can call 858-274-7851.