As promised, I’m back today with a quick preview of tonight’s Champion’s Circle tele-seminar. 

The focus of tonight’s call will be on the process of creating a powerful, magical marketing system that allows you to build your business without the usual stress, headaches, and hassles most businesses experience.

The 1^st step to creating this system is to understand everything it needs to accomplish.  At a high level, your marketing system should cover every aspect of the 7 Step Sales & Marketing Cycle.

If you’re not familiar with this 7 step cycle, here are the 7 steps:

1. Create a marketing plan – a detailed action plan of what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by
2. Attract attention – the most expensive and difficult step in the process
3. Educate your prospects – don’t sell them, help them sell themselves
4. Convert your prospects to customers – gain enough trust that they are willing to give you their business
5. Provide exceptional customer service – now that you have their trust, KEEP IT
6. Convert satisfied customers into your unpaid salesforce – no one sells your business better than satisfied customers
7. Build a 50ft wall around your customers – your goal should be to take them off the market FOREVER

Your marketing system should cover every single one of these steps.  In fact, one of your goals should be to design a marketing system that does your selling for you so that when you meet with someone face to face, it’s to either get a signature on a contract and/or a deposit for the project.

Now, I’d love to say creating this system is easy, but truth be told, it’s not.  However, understand WHAT this system needs to accomplish is a very important first step to making it happen.

Also, as you begin the process of creating this system, don’t expect it to materialize overnight.  It will definitely take some time.

However, once you’ve managed to get all the pieces in place, your business will experience more growth in a shorter period of time than you ever thought possible.  Plus, you’ll have more time to focus on providing better customer service, training employees, spending more time building relationships with other business owners, providing charitable service, or just spending more time doing things you’d much rather be doing.

If you’d like to get more insights about how to create this powerful marketing system, I invite you to join me on tonight’s Champion’s Circle tele-seminar.  We’ll begin promptly at 8:30pm EDT and it will last approximately 60 minutes.  I’ll even leave some time at the end for you to ask questions if you’d like.

Anyway, you can get all the details about the Champion’s Circle and join right here:

www.LawnCareChampionsCircle.com

You’ll need to sign up to get the call-in details, but in addition to tonight’s call you’ll also get access to lots of valuable business building resources.

So, if you’re on the fence now’s the time to get off.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday last week and that you were able to take a few days off to enjoy time with family and friends.  I’m happy to report that I had a fantastic holiday in spite spending 2 full days with my in-laws.

I must say, I consider myself to be quite lucky to have such fantastic in-laws.  Now, they may not be able to cook as good as my Mom, but heh, how often is someone able to cook better than our own Mom.  Right?

Anyway, with Thanksgiving now behind us it’s time to start preparing for Christmas, quickly followed by 2008.  If you haven’t started your Christmas marketing yet, it’s not too late, but it’s definitely time to get on top of it.

In fact, I’ll be posting the December marketing campaigns to the Champion’s Circle website by Thursday, which will be just in time to put something together to promote your business for the Christmas holiday.

Also, I just uploaded December’s customer newsletter template to the website so it’s available for us by the Champion’s Circle members.  If you’re not a member, but would like to use the newsletter template, you can get it here for $29.95:

http://tinyurl.com/2xwnok                      

One other note, the first Champion’s Circle tele-seminar will be held tomorrow evening at 8:30pm EDT.  It will last approximately 1 hr and I’ll be sharing several key ingredients to creating a powerful, magical marketing system.

Now, if you’re NOT already a member of the Champion’s Circle, I have just a handful of BETA memberships left at the $29.95 price.  After they’re all gone, the price jumps up to $59/month.

You can get all the nitty-gritty details about it right here:

http://www.LawnCareChampionsCircle.com

Aside from getting access to all the great marketing tools I’m constantly adding to the website, you also get:

• A new marketing campaign each month
• A new referral marketing campaign each month
• A new customer newsletter template each month
• An invitation to the member’s only tele-seminar
• A hard copy of my monthly newsletter, the Magical Marketing Minute, mailed to your door each month
• A CD copy of the previous month’s tele-seminar

So, if growing your business in 2008 is one of your priorities, I strongly encourage you to take a look at my Lawn Care Champion’s Circle.  Heck, even if you try it out for one month for $29.95 and decide it’s not for you, you’ll be able to keep all the tools, audios, sales letter templates, newsletter templates, and other resources I’ve included.

Again, the $29.95 rate won’t be around for much longer so if you haven’t already, be sure to hop on over to www.LawnCareChampionsCircle.com to snag one of the remaining BETA membership slots.

Sorry this is one of those ‘salesy’ posts.  I really didn’t intend for it to be, but I had a lot of stuff I wanted to update you on.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some good content for you.  Most likely a sneak peek of tomorrow night’s Champion’s Circle tele-seminar.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays for many reasons. Aside from all the great food (well, unless my mother-in-law is cooking), the great thing about it is the opportunity to spend quality time with family and friends. Nothing beats sitting around a table together enjoying some good food and good conversation.

So, before the days gets away from me I wanted to share with you 10 things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving Day:

1. Great in-laws that live relatively close (1.5hrs away) and are extremely generous and kind. In spite of the fact they’re not very good cooks!
2. Fantastic parents that in addition to everything else they taught me, taught me to enjoy cooking, so fortunately I don’t have to rely on my mother-in-laws cooking because I do most of it for the family.
3. One beautiful wife and two amazing kids. The older I get, the more I love my family.
4. This great country and especially all the men and women willing to sacrifice their lives to protect the freedoms we enjoy. Freedom is most definitely NOT free and these service men and women understand this better than anyone. They truly are my heroes.
5. The changing colors of the leaves during the fall. Mother Nature does some pretty incredible work.
6. A business that allows me to help so many honest, hard-working people to grow their business through effective marketing. I wouldn’t have a business if you didn’t give me the opportunity to help you with yours and for that I’m EXTREMELY grateful.
7. The comedian Frank Caliendo. The guy’s HILARIOUS. If you don’t know who he is, check out his website at www.FrankCaliendo.com. I could watch his show 100 times and I’ll laugh hysterically each time.
8. My flag football league. Even though I’m not as fast as I use to be, it’s still a blast to get out and run around like a little kid every single week.
9. The fact that my Carolina Panthers aren’t playing today. With the way this season’s gone so far, I’m glad I won’t have to ruin my Thanksgiving Day by watching them on TV. I love ‘em, but man they’re frustrating to watch this year.
10. Pumpkin pie. I know it’s a pretty boring pie compared to all the other choices, but it’s so dog gone good!

Anyway, those are a few of the things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving Day. Hopefully it will inspire you to take just a minute to think about the things you’re thankful for on this special day.

Again, a big THANK YOU to you for the opportunity you’ve given me to help your business. I’m look forward to finishing out 2007 strong and starting off 2008 with a bang!

Thanks again and have a fantastic day today!

With Thanksgiving just days away, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of letting your customers know just how much they mean to your business.  In fact, it could be the MOST important element of any successful marketing plan.

I know I’ve talked a lot recently about the importance of developing a solid relationship with your customers, but it really can’t be stressed enough.  That being said, I’ve decided to list several different ways you can let your customers know just how important they are to your business.

• Send them a ‘stick’ letter after their first purchase – A stick letter is simply a letter, postcard, or other small ‘something’ letting them know you appreciate their business, you hope they were satisfied with the service, and the fact you look forward to continuing to serve them.

• Communicate with them EVERY month.  And an invoice DOESN’T count!  You’ve got to do something above and beyond what they would receive from any other LCO.  It could really be anything, but I highly recommend a monthly, hard copy newsletter you send via snail mail.

If you’re not sure where to start, I do offer a newsletter template each month you can easily customize for your business.  You can get more details here: 

• Call them periodically to check on them and their service.  You’ll solidify many relationships by simply taking the time to reach out to your customers to find out what they think.  And if you’re expecting them to reach out to you to let you know what they’re thinking, you’re crazy.

• Send them an unexpected greeting card.  Again, it’s the small, unexpected surprises that really build relationships and by sending a ‘Grandparents Day’ card (just an example) with a reason why the ‘holiday’ made you think of them would be a HUGE hit.

• Stop by a day or 2 after a service visit to review the work and get their feedback.  Like the phone call, it’ll really go a long ways towards demonstrating your commitment to providing exceptional service.

So, as Thanksgiving comes and goes this week, take a few minutes to think about some ways you could express your appreciation to your customers.

If you’re at a total loss, I’ll be adding some GREAT customer appreciation campaigns and tools this weekend.  And even though Thanksgiving won’t be coming around for another year, these are resources you could and SHOULD be using year round.

Anyway, have a great next few days and if you’ll be traveling ‘over the rive and through the woods,’ I hope you do it in safety.

Another Friday is upon us, which means I have another weekend of nightmarish Carolina football to look forward to. Ouch. Is it possible to call in sick from watching football?

Actually, knowing me I’ll probably torture myself and watch it both Saturday and Sunday just so I can have something to talk about on Monday. And who knows, maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I wanted to leave you with a few thoughts before the weekend hits.

Earlier, I sent an email to the Champion’s Circle with an article I found that talks about the various reasons customers leave. I won’t go into too much detail here, mostly because I don’t really feel like writing a lengthy novel on a Friday afternoon, but I did want to summarize some suggestions the article gave about how to keep your customers from leaving.

First, know who your customers are. I’ve said it numerous times before, but it really is important to get to know your customers.

Second, communicate with them. Even though I really enjoy sharing my knowledge of marketing with you, I write emails, blog posts, and articles frequently because I’m trying to develop a good relationship with you. I’m hoping that at some point you’ll purchase one of my products or services, if you haven’t already.

Third, give your best customers your very best customer service. Set up systems to identify and reward your best customers and your bottom line will thank you.

Fourth, build rewards into your service for loyalty and make it expensive for your customer to leave. Not necessarily in dollar terms, but make the thought of finding another service provider so daunting that they have no desire to even entertain the thought.

Fifth, don’t stress price. In other words, don’t worry so much about what you’re getting paid to do something. Provide excellent service at a fair and reasonable price, and occasionally throw in something ‘extra.’ If you do this, the price will take care of itself.

One last thing I did want to mention. Tomorrow is the first Champion’s Circle call-in day for the Platinum members. This is an opportunity for them to call me directly and ask me anything about growing their business through good marketing. The hours are from 11am-3pm and there’s nothing off limits. I’m really looking forward to digging in and helping create some solid marketing solutions.

If you’re interested, it’s not too late for you to participate. The number is posted on the member’s only website, so be sure to sign up before 3pm EST tomorrow. All details about joining the Champion’s Circle are right here:

www.LawnCareChampionsCircle.com