Aaron Hoos

Business owners frequently rely on the standard marketing and sales tools that are out there: Perhaps articles, press releases, and websites to get attention and start building a relationship; blogs, social media, downloadable reports to grow the relationship and to position the business; and presentation content to close the deal. Pretty standard stuff, really. All of these content channels can get lost in the sea of competition, though.

One way to make sure your sales material gets into the hands of the people it’s supposed to get to, and to make sure it gets read, is to use a magalog.

I’d never heard of a magalog before, until Mike “The Magalog Guy” Klassen stopped by my website one day and commented on one of my blog posts. I looked up his site, did some research, and have been thinking about them ever since. I am convinced that they are a truly untapped sales tool in today’s highly competitive world.

A magalog is basically a magazine that you publish to position and/or sell your products and services. People already do this all the time with ebooks and print books but I magalogs fill a gap in the content used in sales funnels, and I think they’ll be particularly useful in face-to-face and/or direct mail marketing.

WHAT IS A MAGALOG?
Think of a nice, glossy magazine… but one where you have complete control over the content and design of the magazine. The magalog looks like a regular magazine but is filled with articles that ultimately position you as the best and only solution to your prospect’s problems.

HERE’S WHY I LIKE MAGALOGS

• A magalog is unique
• A magalog is more likely to be read by your target audience. It’s easier to read than an ebook and the article format is less daunting to read than chapters in a book.
• A mailed magalog will be more likely to get past the gatekeeper than your sales people or your sales letters.
• A magalog may be viewed with less skepticism than an ebook or report (depending on how it is written) because it doesn’t seem to be exclusively from you.

A FEW MAGALOG TIPS

• Fill the magazine with timeless articles that subtly position you and your solution. Don’t make the articles overtly about you. Make the articles useful and insightful.
• Don’t hand over the magalog to your prospect and say: “I wrote this. You might find it helpful.” Instead, leave it behind or mail it with a handwritten note.
• Create one magalog issue to send to brand new leads (with a handwritten note about the magalog being a complimentary issue); create a second magalog issue to leave behind during a sales called; and create a third magalog issue to send to a prospect when you hear that they are going on a trip (with a handwritten note that says, “I heard you were flying to a conference. Here’s some reading for the airplane”).

So, go visit Mike Klassen’s site, MagalogGuy.com, check out his sample magalogs, read his blog, and think about how a magalog might be useful in your business. (Disclosure: This is not an affiliate link. I have no business relationship with Mike Klassen… I just think his magalogs are useful sales tools).

Way back in the day, I used to report the news in a daily newspaper. I learned a lot but moved into other forms of writing when I felt more like an ambulance chaser than a journalist. That was before the web. Today, it’s interesting to watch the newspaper industry on life support trying to figure out how to stay alive.

THE PROBLEM
The problem is fundamentally a sales funnel problem: How does a newspaper exchange its information for money? In Lauren Indvik’s May 26th Mashable article, entitled “5 Ways to Monetize the Future of News Media“, she offers us the methods that we are seeing news media experiment with online today: Fully paid, partially paid, metered, free, and advertisement. I gave a similar list of pricing ideas in January, some of which can apply to the news media industry.

There is usually a dichotomy between how newspapers distribute content online and how they distribute content offline: Paid offline newspapers shouldn’t give the same content for free online. And, free offline newspapers shouldn’t require payment online for the same content. But that’s what was happening for a while. And it’s more challenging when the same information is available in other sources for free.

NEWSPAPERS ARE BEING REPLACED
Newspapers were once the only way to get the news and it was convenient to pay for them to show up on your doorstep in the morning. But between Google News and Twitter, people can stay pretty well informed up-to-the-minute while newspapers lag behind the story by a full day.

Once lucrative parts of newspapers (like premium advertising space and classified ads) are being replaced: There isn’t much limit to online adspace and classified ads have been cornered by craigslist and kijiji, which provide cheaper ads and a better reach.

A SOLUTION
Newspapers report on the news. For years, when something happened, the newspaper informed you. That made sense when the newspaper was the only means of carrying the news. And even when televised news expanded to 24-hour news stations, newspapers still had a place. But today, people can get whatever news they want – international, local, niched to their interests – faster and for free. Newspapers cannot compete with that.

Instead, I believe that newspapers need to adopt a different approach between online and offline. Online, they can continue to report the daily news, especially with a local focus (and especially if no one else is reporting locally). Local news is valuable. They can make it free (with advertising).

But offline, they need a different approach and this is not going to be widely accepted by newspapers because it will change how their staff have to work: Offline, newspapers need to adopt the model used by The Economist. That is, they need to go after the deeper story, the story behind the story, and provide insight, not just information.

Offline newspapers have traditionally just told us what’s going on, reporting the news as it happens. This isn’t a surprise because underpaid, overworked journalists have to run from car accidents to quilting bees to report on everything. They don’t have time to find the real story and they don’t have time to dig. They’ve focused on What, Where, When, Who, and How, and they’ve completely neglected Why.

Here’s how to make it work: Newspapers need a group of journalists to gather and report on local news in the way they’ve always done it and post it for free online. And, they need a group of investigative journalists doing the digging to find the real story to provide in a paid, printed format.

This offline, printed newspaper story needs to dig; it needs to push beyond merely informing readers and actually provide real insight; it needs to even go so far as to advise, forecast, and recommend. Print newspapers can’t just be a mirror anymore. They have to be a guide to living.

This change will not be welcome. It will come at a great cost. It won’t return newspapers to their heyday. But I believe it’s the only way that local (print) newspapers are going to survive.

[Photo credit: Tom T]

Multi level marketing businesses are sold to participants on the idea of growing a turnkey business, building a downline income and succeeding to the point where you get a boatload of passive income and can sit by your pool all day sipping martinis. Sounds nice. Which is why MLM’s sell so well.

But most network marketers are failing. They’re stuck in their jobs and not seeing any success with their MLM opportunities, they’re going to meetings and conventions, they’re taking their friends out for coffee to build a downline, they’re building websites that get no traffic, and they’re wondering why their business doesn’t grow. They’re not living the dream they had been sold.

I’ll tell you why. If you participate in an MLM, or if you are thinking about participating in an MLM, or if you are thinking about creating your own MLM, pay attention. to this. Solve this problem and you will grow a successful MLM business.

MLM SALES FUNNEL STARTS OUT LIKE ANY OTHER SALES FUNNEL
So here is a fairly standard sales funnel (drawn hastily with Word’s low-end but serviceable drawing tool) and we can assume that most MLM businesses should fit into it: You’ve got the marketing stage, which sends people to the lead stage (identified here as a single event like a name or phone number capture), which sends people to the prospect stage (identified here as 3 small events but it could theoretically be as many as you need), followed by the stage where they hand over their cash to become customers.

For MLM companies, this is the sales funnel for the product or service you’re selling. It doesn’t matter if you sell consumer products like cleaners, detergents, etc., or if you sell web space and hosting, or if you sell calling cards, or if you sell any number of products that MLM companies sell. This is the sales funnel.

The plan is to make money by selling these products…

… which isn’t really that different from other businesses.

THE REAL BENEFIT OF THE MLM SALES FUNNEL
But what makes MLM a really attractive opportunity for many people is the downline. MLM’s are sold over and over based on this downline concept. The downline is where you get other people selling the goods and services (as depicted by the multiple sales funnels, below) and you get a commission based on their sales (as noted by the dotted green lines).

With me so far? This is the plan. And a network marketer who can follow this plan will make a lot of money. A LOT of money.

BUT HERE’S THE PROBLEM WITH MLMS
Network marketers ignore their sales funnels. They skip over the all important steps of marketing, generating leads, and prospecting and they try to build a downline.

So they start with this sales funnel…

And they HOPE for this… where they don’t have to put in as much work but their downline makes money and they get the income.

This might be the goal, but it shouldn’t be the first step. When network marketers take this first step, they end up building a downline of people who have the same idea. So everyone ends up with a downline that looks like this…

Nothing is going on! The person at the top of the downline was hoping to build a downline so he or she didn’t have to sell the products. They built a downline and the promise of great downline-generated income compelled the downline people to do the same thing. NO ONE is selling any products or services and everyone is creating downlines that aren’t doing anything…

… And that is why MLM’s make no money, why network marketers run out of people to invite to join their downlines and why MLM companies get a bad reputation.

HOW TO FIX YOUR MLM SO YOU MAKE MONEY
Fixing your MLM is so easy. And it works. And it will transform how well it does. And you will never have to bug your family and friends to join your company. And if more MLM people do this, the industry wouldn’t have the bad reputation it has.

Here’s what to do:

1. Forget building a downline for the short-term. Market the products or services. Make sales Increase your direct (“active”) income by selling products to people who can use them. Create a list of happy customers who love you. Do this over and over and over until you can’t believe how much money you’re making from just selling products and services with NO downline.
2. When you become very successful selling the products or services (and not the downline opportunity), you will have people come to you to ask you what your secret is. (Believe me, successful people get asked about their secret to success all the time.)
3. When someone asks you about your secret to your success, make them part of your downline.
4. Train them to sell their products and to completely ignore their downline for a while. Get them marketing, selling, and building a happy customer base. Then people will be magnetized to their success and they’ll create an active downline the same way you did.

A good sales funnel will slowly coax a contact from audience to lead to prospect… and finally convert them into a customer. It will nurture the relationship and add value all the way through from one end to another.

But some businesses’ sales funnels are pissing me off. Twice this year I’ve struggled with key purchases from vendors whose sales funnels work like this:

Step 1: Gently wow Aaron with amazing service through the steps from audience to lead to prospect until he converts to a customer.

Step 2: Once we’ve taken Aaron’s money, we’ll ignore is repeated phone calls and emails when something goes wrong.

I call this sales funnel model “The spanking”.

[Photo credit: HA! Designs - Artbyheather]

I had the privilege of joining business genius Heather Villa in one of her recent podcasts. We talked about the challenge that business owners face when they have phone conversations with prospects; we attempted to answer the questions of how much information should be given ahead of time and how to separate the tire kickers (those who have no intention of buying) from those who are serious about hiring you.

MONEY TALK
As you try to woo your prospects toward becoming customers, it can be tempting to avoid price talk. After all, you don’t want to scare the prospect off by forcing them to think about the cash they have to hand over without also considering the value you provide (but too early in the process and they don’t yet know the value). However, by avoiding the talk of money until the very end, you are setting yourself up for a situation where you spend too long with tirekickers and you give away too much.

The answer I hinted at in the podcast, but which I’d like to talk about further here, is the idea of toll booths in your sales funnel. Think of payment acceptance like a toll booth. The prospect gets to the toll booth and they pay in order to get through. No pay, no cross. But once they cross, they become customers and they can continue on their way.

THE TOLL BOOTH IN YOUR BUSINESS
So, where should you put this toll booth? Most people put their toll booths after that initial phone call: They generate a lead, they have a phone call, and they send the first invoice. However, this risks spending too much time with people who don’t want to pay. Moving the toll booth in front of the call — and charging for that initial consultation — may work for some business owners. You can offer a discount for a first-time consultation or you can refund the initial consultation amount if the customer orders from you. (I’ve seen both of these situations). This can work in situations where you have a lot of unqualified leads and you want to weed them out a little. You can probably charge for initial consultations most effectively once you’ve ascended to a level of fame where prospects automatically believe the value you provide.

But it won’t work for everyone, especially the millions of less-than-famous business owners, coaches, and consultants who make up the majority of service providers. For this group, a better way to separate the tire kickers from the buyers is still drawn from the toll booth concept: Toll booths don’t just spring up out of nowhere. There are signs on the road leading up to the toll to give drivers time to search frantically under their seats or in the ashtray for change.

PUTTING UP SIGNS
That can make a big difference in your sales funnel. While speaking about specific prices might scare off contacts, it will be helpful to periodically place “signs” around your business leading up to that phone call that can help alert the prospect that there will be a toll booth coming up; that it’s not a free ride.

In my own business, I use an initial proposal with a preliminary price, which leads to a call and a subsequent (more detailed) proposal. In that initial proposal and on the phone, I will reference the contract… I might not always give specific and detailed prices but I will talk about money. In other words, I put up a couple of signs so prospects know there’s a toll booth ahead.

In your business, where do you put the toll booth? And, what signs can you place ahead of time so you don’t scare prospects away but so that you alert them to the eventual requirement to pay?

[Photo credit: Dan4th]