Here’s the scenario: You’re booked 1 and a half months out, new patients are calling (about 1 a day) you just can’t seem to catch up with all the treatment you have diagnosed…What do you do?

Well, the answer I get most often is to STOP MARKETING. Why have patients call when they have to wait 2 months just to get in for their first appointment. It seems better to stop marketing, and start up again when you need patients.

There is one very important thing to consider when you decide to stop marketing. Some call it the snowball effect, we call it MARKETING MOMENTUM.

Newton’s First Law of Motion States: Every object in a state of motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. This simply means if something is moving or standing still, it will continue moving or standing still unless a force is applied. A force like friction, gravity, or a physical push.

When a doctor starts up a marketing program like our Simple Green Postcard Program, we talk about average results, the momentum, and what they will see happen in the next few months. They’ll see schedules start to fill up, and patients will seem to “drop out of the sky.”

These same patients can’t wait to start treatment, and pretty soon you’re booked solid, whether it is directly traced to the Simple Green Program or not.

When you put a marketing program in place that is hands free, simple, and consistent, it creates a buzz, an excitement both inside and outside the office, and things start gaining momentum. You’ve put an object in motion, and as long as you continue that object will stay in motion.

Think of your marketing as a playground swing. You push at timed intervals and the swing goes higher and higher. Finally, you’ve reached the highest the swing will go, so you stop pushing. The momentum of the swing dies down until eventually it comes to a stop.

It takes a lot more energy to get that swing back up to the top again rather than the small amount of effort it took once you had things going.

Back to dentistry, you still have a problem with booking people 2 months out. This is a problem many many practices would love to have, and frankly, it’s not a problem at all, but another marketing tool. One of the biggest selling points of a practice is its exclusivity.

You now have a schedule that is booked solid for two months, it doesn’t get more exclusive than that.

When patients look at it, they’ll ask themselves what dental practice they would rather go to the one that has no patients, or the one that is so good, it has patients lined up at the door.

I personally would choose #2 because that practice must be good and must be doing something right. And trust me, people don’t mind waiting to go to the dentist. In fact, people love to wait for anything, just look at the line for Starbucks every morning.

So you want to stop the marketing to catch up with your schedule. Here’s what happens:

The patients that would have called your practice, scheduled, and waited to be seen are now going to the dentist across the street (your direct competition). This does accomplish your goal and your schedule empties out.

Congratulations, the patient flow has now ceased to exist, and now, not only are you not booked out 2 months, but you now have the openings to schedule same-day appointments (if a patient calls) because you stopped marketing for new patients a few months ago.

Now you struggle to fill a days schedule, pay a front office worker and hygienist full time pay to sit around through the empty appointments, and, to top it all off, the dentist across the street is booked 2 months out, and every time you look out the window they have new patients coming in.

The worst part is, your marketing momentum has now stopped. In order to increase the new patient flow to the same level it was, you’ll have to make a big push.

Just think how great it is to show up at the practice and know you had a full schedule every day for the next couple months. Sounds like a perfect practice to me. Why would you want to stop it?

So, instead of stopping the new patient flow, what is the answer to the problem? Well, you could hire some help, or add a day to the schedule. If it got really bad and you really didn’t want patients, you could even refer them to another practice.

Network marketing is a very popular way to do business on the Internet today. It’s also called MLM or multilevel marketing. If this is something you’re considering, there are a few things you should know before you start this type of business so that you can guarantee your chances of success more strongly instead of simply going nowhere. However, if you understand what you’re doing, you can become successful as a network marketer. There are some who say that this is the best business anyone can be in.

One of the first things to remember is that you should start your business with as little cost as possible. Don’t pay high frontloading fees, or spend thousands of dollars to start. You should also not follow any company guidelines that tell you to purchase enough to get to a “top level pay plan.” You should not need to sell innumerable products in order to get a paycheck. You should not have to stock inventory, either. If a particular company requires that you do these things, find another.

If you want to make money with your network marketing, you’ll need to do some selling, so any company that tells you you don’t have to is a scam. With what is called “spillover,” there are distributors above you who are working, so that your pay plan is a power leg binary or a forced matrix. If you join this type of group, you’ll be unhappy. Before you sign up with any particular company, you should do some Internet research on that particular company with the word “complaint” or “scam” included with the company’s name. This will bring up any difficulties they’ve had, and you’ll know to avoid them.

When you do find company want to get involved with, you’ll need to do some type of sales and distribution. Before we get into that, let’s talk a little bit about the different kinds of sales you can do. There are direct sales, which most of us know about. In this case, you sell the product and get a commission. The commission is a percentage of cash generated by the sale itself. This is the most commonly known sales approach. They’re also salespeople who can be paid a salary, or even per lead. For this, the usually have to meet a sales quota, but in any case, any business coming from sales is always driven by sales.

Network marketing can benefit both the companies themselves and the people who work for them as compared to direct sales. With this kind of selling, you sell a product or service for the company, but you also look for others who want to be in business with you, so that you also have people under you. At the same time, you sell the company’s product and make a profit from it yourself. With these types of “online” sales, you are assuming control of your own team of distributors, which in turn will help you generate profits that are residual. Once you sponsor other people, you can help the company get new distributors, and those distributors earn you a percentage of sales from what they sell as well. This means that not only do you make a commission on what you sell, but you make a commission on what anyone under you sells, too.

This is where the term “multilevel marketing” comes in. If you as a first level manager get a new distributor for your particular company, you’ll get paid from the work of the new distributor, and for someone above them who is your subordinate. As more and more distributors under you sell more product and bring in more distributors, you’ll generate both second and third level income, which means that this is product revenue earned by others for you. They are doing sales for you, which is making cash for you. This type of selling doesn’t take any effort on your part, because you’re not actually doing it. Instead, you’re using the company’s product or service and recommending it to others. You’ll need to be enthusiastic about it in order to be really successful. The company may also give you materials such as sales letters, brochures, recorded messages, recruiting calls, websites, magazines, DVDs and movie presentations. These types of journals should encourage others to buy and should tell potential buyers want the benefits of the product are. There should also be plenty of customer testimonials included in these materials.

The service or product offered should be valuable and coveted. It should be something people really want. It should be one of a kind, and the company should manufacture it. If what you’re selling is a service, it should be a continuing monthly type of service; if the product is sold, it should be a consumable, for best results. This means that you get existing customers to receive product every month, which means more residual income for you.

MLM differs from direct marketing, because you don’t just do one-time sales. MLM gives you residual income that keeps on coming, whether you work or not. This is also a great way to build a retirement portfolio up for yourself; the company you go to work for should be an expert in the field and have a good reputation. Check the company you want to work for out carefully, and include in your search information on time in business, management, and its marketing systems.

Once you’ve decided to sign on after checking out all of these things, you need to present the product to as many people as possible. Start with what’s called your “warm market.” This means people who know you, such as family, friends and coworkers. You can also advertise or buy leads, which are people who are interested in starting their own businesses. Alternatively, leads are also interested in your type of service or product.

Finally, you can get targeted lists for multilevel marketing called “multilevel marketing genealogy lists.” These people have already joined a multilevel marketing company before and may be open to joining yours. Do an Internet search with the term “MLM genealogy lists,” and you should find many sources that have these types of people on them. These lists aren’t expensive and those on them have already done some work building a business. And of course, you want experienced distributors on your team.

When marketing efforts are not successful, many companies wonder why… They sent out direct mail, or refreshed their website, initiated Google AdWords, or attended a trade show, but are left disappointed and frustrated with languishing sales and underused resources. Why isn’t the phone ringing? What went wrong?

The high level answer to this question is that marketing efforts must be more than a disconnected series of tasks. Effective marketing is not a single activity, but a well choreographed effort that takes planning, consistency, and fortitude to accomplish. The deeper answer comes from analyzing the top five biggest marketing mistakes we’ve seen companies make. Are you making one or more of these? If so, consider our tips on how to recover:

#1: MARKETING WITHOUT A STRATEGY IN PLACE

Common Mistake: Believing your product does everything, your target market is anyone who has money to spend, and /or you don’t have competition.

Because companies are frustrated by a lack of revenue, they often equate limiting their target market with limiting opportunity. The fact is, for marketing efforts to succeed, you must define a target market segment where your product has the most relevance and the best competitive advantage! Most of us can simply not afford to market everything to anyone with the delusion we are the only option for our customers to consider.

Recovery Plan: You need a strategy-and fast. Stop all marketing activities immediately and take the next three to six weeks to plan your new approach. Build a brief overview description of each product and service you offer, including features and benefits-concentrating on the differentiating features only. Research your competition and document their offer, pricing structure, strengths and weaknesses, along with your competitive advantage. Once you identify your key advantage over the competition, play it up consistently in every marketing vehicle you produce. Recognize you can’t afford to market to everyone and define your target markets by grouping and categorizing the characteristics of your current customer base. Then choose marketing vehicles that only cater to that defined group of potential buyers. Finally, create a calendar of events and associated budget that will act as your roadmap to success!

Watch your sales begin to climb! But don’t congratulate yourself yet; effective marketing takes patience and persistence. Your journey is just beginning!

#2: BEING INCONSISTENT WITH YOUR BRAND.

Common Mistake: Changing your company’s positioning depending on the audience, marketing vehicle used, or person delivering it.

Although some companies have actually gone through the steps of clearly outlining their company’s positioning language, we find that many individuals within that company still have their own version. And this “customized” statement can change depending on who is receiving the information. The result? A confused audience-unsure of who you are and what your company does-that is unable to convey your offering to anyone else. Brand awareness is only built by CONSISTENTLY communicating your company’s position and identity each and every time, so that eventually your “listeners” will repeat your positioning exactly as you intend them to repeat it.

Recovery Plan: You need positioning language that clearly defines who you are and what you offer, strongly differentiates you from competition, and can be delivered consistently by every employee. Host a brainstorming session with key team-members and craft a statement that everyone agrees upon, understands, and supports. The positioning statement must include who you are, what you offer, for whom, for what result, and why someone should choose you over anyone else. Launch it internally, and define its use and how employees will support it. Then do a full audit of your materials and fix any inconsistencies. Gaining buy-off at the executive level will ensure success from the top down.

Remember all employees must work together as ambassadors of the brand. Understanding this concept before you spend money on marketing activities is imperative to your success!

#3: NOT INTEGRATING MARKETING WITH SALES EFFORTS.

Common Mistake: Developing marketing programs or materials that fizzle out in the sales process and never get used by the sales team.

Often marketing teams spend a considerable amount of time, effort, and perhaps most importantly money to create a collateral kit and sales presentation for a new program or product offering. The sales team rejects the materials because they don’t address the most compelling selling points and produces their own one-off presentations and brochures that send mixed messages to prospects and customers. To further illustrate the point, many times a marketing team will launch a new direct mail program to “generate sales leads” for the sales team, only to find that sales doesn’t follow up on them because they don’t feel the leads are “qualified.”

Not having a clear integration between sales and marketing can only result in failed marketing programs, costing you lost revenue opportunities and wasted expenses.

Recovery Plan: Ask your sales team to participate in marketing planning. Implement a sales advisory committee that is run by marketing and includes both sales management and representatives to participate and provide feedback on proposed marketing programs and deliverables. Also, schedule quarterly customer visits for marketing and sales to call on a variety of current clients together. These visits provide more insight into the customer’s perspective and the sales person’s challenges than any other technique. Bring the lessons learned back to the advisory committee to shape more relevant marketing tools.

Without uniting sales and marketing efforts, your strategies are only realizing one-half of the equation. Integrate now to gain the buy-in and support necessary to generate sales!

#4: MARKETING SOMETHING YOU DON’T ACTUALLY DELIVER.

Common Mistake: Aggressively marketing a skill set, technology, product, or service that has not been tested or validated, or is simply not available yet…the “we could offer that syndrome.”

Your marketing team has created eye-catching materials, compelling positioning, and an aggressive campaign for the launch of a new company product or service. The campaign is very successful, however operations cannot handle the demands. They are either under-staffed, or worse-they do not have the skill sets or ability to deliver on the new program. Or maybe, the product itself is not available in time, or has production problems. This not only upsets your customers, it demoralizes your sales and marketing team. They stop selling and the pipeline dries up.

Recovery Plan: Ask company leadership to immediately realign the efforts of marketing and operations. Perform a gap analysis and assess what needs to happen to fulfill the new business demands, from both marketing and operational perspectives. Then create a plan and detail the specific steps required for each team to support existing sales as well as successfully roll out the offering to new customers. Identify milestones for each group to report on and demonstrate progress. This not only builds confidence within each team, but also fosters a sense of pride across the organization.

You must raise your game to meet the new demand. It is a good problem to have, but take care of it quickly as you won’t be given another opportunity to prove yourself.

#5: NOT USING THE MARKETING MIX EFFECTIVELY.

Common Mistake: Fixating on only one marketing vehicle to promote a company and/or its products.

Many marketing plans we see only focus on one activity like direct mail, advertising, public relations, or cold calling, and do not use several or all of these vehicles together in concert. Putting your eggs in only one basket may generate some leads for your company, but this strategy will ultimately limit your ability to maximize sales opportunities within a target market. Your customers need to see and learn about your company through a few different vehicles before they will be finally prompted to respond to your offer.

Recovery Plan: Your goal should be to touch your prospects from the many angles they conduct business. Choose the activities that cater specifically to your target market, and then create a program schedule that ensures the right level of coverage across the multiple channels, increasing activities around key product launches or to address seasonality issues. Then be patient and let them work. It takes time, but rest assured, the variety of vehicles, working in concert, will build awareness and generate leads at an exponentially higher rate than any one vehicle alone can accomplish.

Go-To-Market Strategies is a resource center for sales and marketing professionals and business leaders. Our tools, templates, and services help companies achieve big aspirations with limited budgets.

Tips for Sales – Infomercials Sell Products

Infomercials are powerful sales tools that can be incorporated into any sales business and are especially effective in the direct sales or home party plan business. Every infomercial has six sales techniques:

1. Product Knowledge
2. Repetition
3. Testimonials
4. Sidekick
5. Urgency
6. The Wow Factor
When you incorporate the infomercial system into your home show, now matter what you are selling, will sell better! When you take all of those sales tools and put them into your show, your guests will develop desire for your product, opportunity or services, even if they came to the sales presentation with little or no interest.

Product Knowledge

When you educate your audience in the benefits of your product or services they will learn why they need it. Your mission is to teach them how owning or becoming a part of your organization will enhance their lives.

Repetition

The amount of time you spend on a product should be in direct relationship to the value and repetition is essential.

Testimonials

When you field testimonials from the audience, and tell stories of testimonials of people you know people will listen. Quote outside experts.

Sidekick

Find a sidekick at your show. It should be easy. Anyone who likes to talk. Bring them into the banter with questions and attention.

Urgency

You can establish a sense of urgency with monthly specials, expiring products, or even with a statement. How about: “It is only six weeks until summer, ladies, and this pedicure set will give you gorgeous feet and toes by the time you dig those sandals out.”

The WOW Factor

“Look at that… I can’t even believe it myself!” People buy emotionally. When people get excited, have fun and are impressed, they get emotionally involved.

When was the last time you watched an infomercial? Sales is the art, science and skill of creating more and more desire in the market place for your product, service or opportunity. Check out a couple of infomercials and study the techniques used to create desire.

Deb Bixler retired from the corporate world in 1999 to enjoy life as an entrepreneur. In the first 9 months as a direct seller she replaced her corporate business salary of $80,000 per year. Deb achieved the top honors offered in her company in personal sales every year for 7 years in a row and earned the President’s Club 5 of those 7 years.