As much as I’d love to make some comment about how much fun I had watching football this past weekend, I didn’t, so I won’t. Let’s just say I’m about to the point of getting ready for basketball season.

Anyway, I wanted to drop a quick note to let you know I’ve got the Champion’s Circle ready to go.

Now I’d normally write up some fancy email trying to convince you to give it a try, and I may do that in a few days. But I’m a pretty straightforward guy and more than anything I want you to take a look at it cuz I know it can help you grow you business. Plus, if you get in now you’ll save a fortune over the life of your membership as a ‘Thanks’ for helping me get it fine-tuned.

You can get all the details about what’s included in the Champion’s Circle and sign-up right here:

http://www.lawncarechampionscircle.com

A few quick notes.

First, I decided NOT to offer the huge discount on the Silver level membership. I just decided it’s already a small price to pay for what you’ll get out of it, so there’s no introductory price with that one. The monthly price will be $19.95.

Second, the $29.95/mo price for the Platinum Level is NOT reflected on the sales page. You won’t see that price until you go to signup. Also, this price is GOOD FOR LIFE. That means you’ll only pay $29.95 for as long as you maintain your membership.

Third, there are only 25 memberships available at the $29.95 price before it’s gone forever. After the first 25 are gone I’ll start raising the price until eventually, the fee will be $97/mo. Even at that price I’d like to think it’ll still be a steal.

Fourth, the site is still in BETA, which means it’s not a completed product. There’s already quite a bit of information available, but I’ll be adding a lot more over the next few days. One of the reasons I’m offering such a HUGE initial discount is because I need your help getting things fine tuned before I turn lose a huge advertising campaign I’m planning near the first of the year.

As an initial member I’ll be relying on you for feedback and commentary on things. I’ll be looking for you help to get things ‘right’. So I’ll need your patience, understanding, and assistance for the next few weeks and maybe months.

http://www.lawncarechampionscircle.com

Anyway, go check out the sales page and I hope to see you in the Champion’s Circle!

I’ll have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of Halloween.  I’ve just never understood the point of dressing up in a silly costume, going from door to door threatening some mischievous act if the home owner doesn’t fork over some candy. 

However, when viewed from a capitalist point of view, it really is the perfect storm.  Think about it.  Adults often times get into it even more than the kiddies do, which ultimately translates to TONS of potential revenue for those businesses that capitalize on it.

Unfortunately, I’ve been slow to heed my own advice about taking advantage of Holidays and other events to promote your business, and I didn’t do anything this year for Halloween.  Well, a big time ‘Shame On Me!’

Really, the only thing I can say is, ‘next year will be a much different story’.

Okay, now onto the big announcement I promised yesterday.  Well, unfortunately, I ended up having more bugs to work out than what I thought I did.  As a result it looks like I’m not going to be able to give you ALL the information today.

However, I didn’t want to leave you completely hanging, so I’ll give you just a little bit of information about what I’m getting ready to announce.  It’s something I’ve been working on for quite a while and am SUPER excited about what it will allow me to do.

What I’m referring to is something I’m calling the Lawn Care Champions Circle and my goal with this new program is to become your virtual marketing department.  It will be a monthly membership where you’ll have access to me almost as if I was your full-time employee working on campaigns, programs, and systems for marketing your business like a seasoned pro.

There will be 2 membership levels.  The first will be for those looking for a source of motivation, inspiration, and guidance on how to effectively marketing their business.  More so than what I’m able to provide in these frequent emails.

The second level will be for the LCO looking for some serious help growing their business.  This level will grant access to a vast collection of ready made sales letters, ad templates, marketing insight, new marketing campaigns every single month, a copy of my monthly customer newsletter, a weekly email newsletter template you can use to send to your own customers, and numerous opportunities to interact with me one-on-one to get my help on your specific marketing problems. 

As I already said, I’ll basically become your full-time marketing employee at a fraction of the actual cost.

Now, my plan is to invite a small number of serious business builders to join this Champions Circle between now and the end of the year.  You see, the site is still being built out and resources are being added daily and I need help making sure everything’s all buttoned up before I begin a huge marketing campaign around the 1^st of next year.

So, in addition to getting unlimited access to the huge library of resources that will be available, these early members will also get a significant discount on the monthly membership fee.

My plan is to charge $19.95/mo for the lower level access and $97/mo for the higher level access.  However, for those willing to be BETA testers for the site, I’m offering monthly memberships at $9.95/mo and $29.95 respectively.

Now, these prices will be available only to the first 25 members at each price level before they’ll start to go up.  In fact, I’m only allowing 75 members in at any type of reduced price before they’ll be gone forever.

On top of getting the significantly reduced monthly membership fee, you’ll also have the assurance that your fee will NEVER go up for as long as your remain an active member.  So as long as you maintain an active membership, the most you’ll ever pay is either $9.95 or $29.95.  And that’s even 5 years down the road when I’m charging $250/mo.

So, as much as I’d LOVE to give you all the details about what’s going to be included I have just a few more tweaks to make before I can do that.  So I guess I need to ask for just a little patience while I finalize thing and get them all ready to go.

I promise that once it’s ready to go it will be a HUGE asset to you as your work to grow your business.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about this Lawn Care Champions Circle, please don’t hesitate to ask.

I don’t say this enough, but thanks for the opportunity to help you grow your business and I sincerely do look forward to hearing about your successes.

Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Thanks to a few people that let me know yesterday, but the links I sent out with the supposed discounts for both the Fall Aeration letter and October’s customer newsletter weren’t showing the proper discounts.

So, to eliminate the whole ‘discount’ thing, I’ve gone back and created a special page where you can order the packages at the promised prices. So no having to deal with lame-o discount links and stuff. Here’s the new page:

October Lawn Care Marketing Special

Anyway, I can’t send you something without at least offering one small bit of marketing insight. It just wouldn’t be right, so here you go.

Anytime you communicate with your customers or prospects, present them with some type of offer. It doesn’t matter what services you’re already providing them, what offers you’ve already made to them, or what services you’ve already provided them. Present them with an opportunity to buy regardless.

If you do it in a way that positions the offer as adding value, it shouldn’t come across as to ‘salesy’ so if that’s a concern, don’t worry about it. Besides, you’re in the business of making money and to do that you have to make sales. Right?

Now, since I wouldn’t be a very good teacher if I didn’t practice what I preach, here’s my opportunity to make you an offer.

If you don’t already have a website, seriously now, what are you waiting for? I can’t say it enough, but a website will do more to help grow your business in the coming years than anything else you could invest your money in. I have absolutely no doubt about that.

So if you’ve been sitting on the fence, it’s time to get off. For the next 7 days, I’ll give anyone that wants to add a website to their marketing mix 10% off the total price. Just shoot me an email and let me know you’re interested in getting a new website and I’ll take care of the discount for you.

If you want a website, but aren’t convinced I can provide you with a great one, don’t worry, you won’t hurt my feelings. There are plenty of fantastic providers out there. Just find one!

I wanted to make a quick post today to let you know I’ve made available the Fall Aeration letter I spoke about previously, as well as the October customer newsletter template I offer. Of course we all know how much I struggle at making ‘quick’ posts. Oh well.

The Fall Aeration letter capitalizes on the idea that many times a group of neighbors will get together to rent an aerator. With this letter, you’ll send it to your existing customers offering them a larger than normal discount on your fall package IF they’re able to get some of their neighbors to join them. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to determine the # of neighbors they need to get as well as the size of the discount.

This package also includes some coupon templates you can customize and include with the letter. These coupons are meant to be used by your customers to introduce this idea to their friends and neighbors.

Now, I would normally sell something like this for $59, but because I want to get it in the hands of as many people as possible so I can get some good feedback on it, I’m going to offer a discount of $40. In other words, you can get it for just $19.

Also, I don’t have a sample you can view because it would be too easy to see if then simply go copy it on your own. Besides, $19 is a very small price to pay for something like this and as always I offer my 100% satisfaction guarantee.

To get it at the discounted price, go here:

http://tinyurl.com/27kh3x

The customer newsletter template is very similar to the Fall Aeration letter in that it’s a Word document that you simply need to make a few changes to in order to customize it for your business.

I’ve said it numerous times before, but a customer newsletter is THE BEST customer retention system anywhere and this template makes it brain dead simple. If you’d like to see a sample of last month’s newsletter go here:

http://tinyurl.com/yubak9

With this one, I normally sell a new template each month for $49, but again, because I want to get as many people to use it as possible so I can get quality feedback, I’m also going to offer this one for $19.

You can get this one at the discounted price right here:

http://tinyurl.com/2hz2uc

To get BOTH packages, click on the first one, then come back to this email and click on the second one. They should both then be added to your shopping cart. Also, you can only get the huge discounts through the links I posted above.

Each package comes in a .zip file you can download immediately and start working on. And, if you have any questions, PLEASE don’t hesitate to contact me.

Okay, that’s all for today. I’m sorry it’s mostly ‘salesy’ stuff, but I’ve had quite a few people ask me about these 2 products and I wanted to make sure you had the opportunity to get your hands on them as well. I’ll be back tomorrow with a killer message to end the week. I promise.

I’ve posted previously about the power of sending your customers a hard printed newsletter each and every month. Nothing will do more to build your business than developing lasting relationships with your existing customers and a monthly newsletter can do just that.

I’ve had quite a few people ask to see a sample of the newsletter template I create each and every month, so I’ve posted September’s here for everyone to view.

You can view the newsletter HERE.

I offer this service each month for $59, which of course does not including the cost of printing and mailing. With each month’s issue you’ll get a Word file that you can change and customize any way you like. All you need to do is go in and edit the appropriate parts. In some cases, the parts you need to edit are housed within these brackets “{ }”.

If you think it’s too much work to take care of all this, my team and I can do it all for you. For an additional $50 (NOT including postage) we’ll do all the necessary customizations to make it all yours, and then we’ll worry about getting it printed and mailed out for you. You’d simply send us all the information we’d need to customize it for you, as well as the mailing list we need to send it to.

So, if this is something you know you should be doing but just haven’t gotten around to it yet, you don’t have any excuses anymore!

I know I’ve mentioned this numerous times lately, but the more I watch trends in the world of marketing, the more they point to one simple fact:

In today’s competitive marketplace, if you DON’T have a website, you’re a sitting duck.

The truth is, over 60% of all consumers are going online to find and research service providers before they ever pick up a phone.  So, if you don’t have a website, they’ll never find you and give you an opportunity.

Another fact.  Google and Yahoo! are replacing the good ol’ yellow pages.  Now, whenever someone wants to find a service provider, instead of picking up the yellow pages, they go online to one of the many search engines.

How are you going to compete if you’re not there when they’re looking for you?

And, just because you have a listing in either Google or Yahoo with your phone number attached, if you don’t have a website they can check out, they’ll check out your competitor that DOES have a website and chances are, they’ll get the business.

In a nutshell, YOU NEED TO HAVE A WEBSITE.

Sorry to ‘shout’, but it’s true.  

If you already have a website, fantastic.  The rest of this probably won’t apply to you, so you can stop reading here.  Otherwise, keep reading.

To help push you off the fence about getting a website for your business, and not just some site that looks like it was put together as a high school home room project, but one that looks professionally done and most importantly, ranks well in the search engines, I’ve come up with a killer deal.