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A Plunkett Research Study shows that consulting and coaching is a $460 Billion a year industry in 2016.

Yes, you read that right. That’s a mind-blowing 460 with 9 Zeros next to it.

Yet a common theme I keep hearing from coaches and consultants is the need to get more clients and make more money.

All that while maintaining a healthy work-life balance and without having to work long hours every week.

And you might want that too…

The truth is, most coaches and consultants do what they do because they have a genuine desire and passion for helping others using their skills and expertise.

Right ?

But more often than not, you’ll find that “I just want to help people” isn’t enough to keep your business going and growing in an increasingly crowded market.

Nor “Working more hours” is a valid option.

Because we’re all bound by the finite number of hours we have each day (That’s 24 hours a day btw. No lifehacks around it yet.)

And more importantly, working crazy hours to reach our goals beats the purpose of the entrepreneurial freedom that we all seek by being coaches and consultants in the first place.

So … What can you do ? After all, there’s only one of you !

While sharpening your skills and getting equipped with coaching techniques is important; marketing for coaches and consultants is an area that is often neglected or left up to the last minute.

And I totally understand that.

You’re a coach, not a marketer.

So In this article, I will show you 3 proven ways that I use to help coaches and consultants generate more money in their business while keeping their working hours constant – or even less (shhh)

I want you to take them and apply them in your business too. They will get you great results.

Here we go …

1.Build a Qualified Email List

First things first, you have to exist online in a way that allows a large number of people to find you and learn about your coaching services and programs.

But … just by existing online, having a nice website, a beautifully written About page and some great blog posts is NOT enough.

The fact is that 98% of visitors to your website leave WITHOUT converting into customers.

Without opting in for your email list.

Or worse, without even returning to your site.

Yep, that’s 98% of prospects who showed some kind of interest in you and your services are gone …

Forever…

What you need to do is capture their contact information in a savvy way so you can get their permission to reach out to them in the future.

This gives you the ability to

• Get them back to your site to read more of your content
• Connect with them more often and stay on top of their minds
• Make them aware of your coaching services
• Let them discover more about your products, programs and offers

You need to connect with them time and time again before they even consider asking for your help or handing you their money.

Building a qualified email list allows you to communicate with your audience and build a relationship with them.

And that’s gold. The relationship you build with your list is THE most valuable asset in your business and that’s where most of your sales and clients are going to come from.

In fact, Email is the strongest and most profitable marketing channel – by far – for getting clients and selling products.

You might be already building your email list but it’s worth mentioning again that it’s one of the most fundamental assets in your business.

So you have to keep your focus on growing it and nurturing it.

Now, we said before that you have to capture the contact information of your visitors and get their permission to reach out to them.

One of the best ways to motivate people to willingly give you their email address is to offer them a Lead Magnet. (AKA Ethical Bribe or Freebie)

This Lead magnet truly is an ethical bribe in exchange for the email of your visitor.

It could be in a form of a free ebook, a checklist, a report, or a small guide that helps your prospects get one step closer to their desired goal in return for their email address.

Here’s a Great example of a lead magnet from Business Coach & Mentor Michael Hyatt:

Here’s another good example by my friends at Social media Examiners

It’s a simple exchange of value in return for their contact information.

But it’s very important not to misinterpret the importance of this exchange.

This is the very first exchange that occurs between you and your prospect, even if it doesn’t involve any money.

The ethical bribe you offer should have a high perceived value that you could easily put a price on if you wanted to.

It should be nothing less than something you would genuinely sell at a high monetary value.

You want your prospects to think: “Wow. In exchange for my contact information, I got so much value from this coach, I wonder how much help I could get if I give them my money”

Many coaches and consultants mistake this first transaction to “just a simple transaction to collect emails”.

What they’re really missing out on is a unique opportunity to make a great first impression in the mind of their prospects and position themselves as authority.

Another common mistake I spot right out of the gate when I start working with a coach or consultant is that their Lead magnet is not REALLY related to the service or products they offer.

For Instance, if I’m a life coach and I decide to offer a lead magnet that gives people tips on how to be happier and live fully then I’m probably broadening my targeting too much.

This kind of Lead magnet will most likely attract MANY people that aren’t necessarily my ideal client or people I want to work with.

It will clutter my Email list with unqualified prospects that will not become my clients nor purchase my info products in the future.

This is one of the most common mistakes I see coaches and consultants doing when it comes to their lead magnet.

So make sure you don’t fall into the trap of creating a lead magnet that appeals to the general public.

Make it very specific.

Let it appeal directly to your ideal client. Let it talk directly to them and only them.

That way, you will one, have a more qualified list that is packed with potential clients and two, they will be more excited to hear from you when you email them.

So, so sum up, focus your efforts on building an email list of quality prospects and develop a relationship with them because your ideal clients will definitely be on that list and that’s where more clients will come from.

2. Treat your Coaching Services like a product

This is one of the most overlooked marketing approaches for coaching and consulting services.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Most of the coaches I’ve seen or worked with do this mistake: they think that their services are different from a coaching program or an info product.

Well, let me give it straight to you:

Your service IS a product.

So market it like one.

Focus your efforts on building content that educates people and encourages them to become your clients.

Demystify all the myths and misconceptions about your coaching services and remove all objections they have for becoming a client.

Analyse where they’re at in achieving their goal and how their life will improve if they could move forward.

Provide them with great content that delivers real solutions and results on simple problems that are holding them back to demonstrate your value as a coach or a consultant.

You can use content, email and sales pages the same way you would promote an info product or an online program.

Your coaching service is a valuable program after all and getting a client involves the same process of selling like anything else.

For instance, many coaches and consultants do not use urgency to promote their services the same way they would use urgency to limit spots on their program.

While creating urgency for your services isn’t about telling your prospects that they have a limited amount of time to buy, you should still deliver natural urgency by telling them why NOW is the right time they need your services. Why they shouldn’t postpone that to the future.

Creating urgency for your services is about articulating their needs and desires better than they can explain it to themselves.

Then, you offer them a solution they can get right now by becoming your client.

Ultimately, people will take you up on your services when they get to a point of no return. And trust me, at that point, they will.

They will when they have a strong desire or a frustration in their lives and they’re willing to get your services to help them get where they want.

So show them you understand them, tell them the stories that you know are playing out in their lives right now. (and in their minds)

Make it feel like you’ve torn out a page of their diary books.

Explain the vision you have for them and how your coaching will take them from their current state to their desirable new goal.

3. Put your business on autopilot (Build Automated Campaigns)

One of the most effective ways to grow your coaching and consulting business while working the same number of hours and keeping your sanity checked is to automate your marketing efforts.

Creating effective systems for your business is what allows you to get new clients and coaching sessions and scale your business properly.

You need to develop an effective sales funnel that takes your customers on a journey with you, from opting in for your ethical bribe, to purchasing your programs and services.

The main principle of building an automated system here is to work hard once.

Putting the hard work once in order to build a solid system that runs forever gives you a massive return on your monetary and time investments.

A powerful automated marketing system will work for you day and night without you touching it.

Its job is to automatically turn new subscribers into warm prospects excited about you and your brand. And then turning those warm prospects into clients for your services or products.

Below are my top three favourite automation campaigns.

These are some of the campaigns I personally use to help coaches and consultants create a strong relationship with their prospects and get more sales and clients on autopilot.

1. Miniclass Campaign (Launch Campaign)

This campaign is a very powerful – money generating – asset that can educate your prospects and increase your sales by many folds.

I’ve launched over a dozen of these campaigns and the results were amazing every single time.

Best of all ? It’s Evergreen.

The goal of this campaign is to generate a massive amount of goodwill with your audience over 3 part video series. After that, you introduce them your info product or service and give them an irresistible offer that runs for a limited time period.

Your offer will be irresistible because it will have some kind of discount or some extra bonuses that aren’t usually included with your original offer.

Note: It’s important that your irresistible offer is for a limited time only (5 to 7 days). Scarcity plays a huge role here.

A chunk of the people who went through your training will find a huge benefit in what they’ve been through and will want to actually get on board for the full experience and benefit fully from your product or service.

2. Webinar Campaign

The webinar campaign is another very powerful campaign especially to get high ticket sales for coaching and programs.

Similar to the Mini class Campaign, the Webinar campaign aims at educating your prospects and offering tremendous value in the first 45 – 60 minutes of the live webinar.

After 60 minutes, you transition into your offer which can be your coaching services or your info product.

When structured properly, the webinar can generate sales right on the spot at the end of the webinar.

Following up with webinar attendees over the next few days will generate a big chunk of the profits from the webinar.

If you’re not creating webinars for your business then I strongly suggest you start doing so.

I’ve had coaches that had so many new clients from a single webinar that they had to turn down or postpone many of the clients.

This campaign can also be evergreen by using some automation tools like everwebinar that allows you to record the webinar once and continuously run it to your new leads.

3. Goodwill Campaign

The name of this campaign says it all. The goal of this automated campaign is to generate a great amount of good will by sharing content that will help you build a relationship with your prospect, create trust, and establish authority.

Creating effective goodwill campaigns will turn your prospects and leads into followers that listen to you and your teachings. This relationship is key to every coaching and consulting business.

This type of campaign is what keeps you ahead of your competition and get people to come to you first when they need a solution to their problem.

Implementing several goodwill campaigns in your business along your customer journey will make your selling process much smoother and remove major sales resistance.

Automated campaigns should be at the core of your business. Set them up once, and let them work for you and generate you new clients and sales on autopilot.

So sum up, these 4 marketing strategies and business models are proven ways you can boost the revenue of your coaching and consulting business and take it to the 7 figure level.

You don’t have to apply them all at once, start by building them one after the other

Building each one of these will prove to be a valuable asset for you and your business over time. I’ve seen them work over and over again and used them to help several businesses increase their revenue and help more people simultaneously.

Over to you. What do you need to grow your coaching and consulting business?

Let me know in the comments below …

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to gain the trust of prospects and get them to hand over their hard earned cash for your product or service. If you’ve been in business for a day, you’d probably know that by now.

But, as business owners and entrepreneurs, our first goal is to increase the number of customers for our business.

The biggest game changer for online businesses in the past year or so that was responsible for converting more prospects and leads into customers, is …. the TripWire.

But first …

What is a Tripwire?

The Tripwire is an irresistible, super low-ticket offer that its ONLY aim is to convert prospects into buyers.

See how I highlighted ONLY ? Nop, not by mistake.

I did that because the aim of the tripwire is NOT (I did it again) to generate profit.

The aim of the tripwire is to change the relationship between you and your leads by turning them into customers.

Now here’s the trick:

The most strategic way to make the Tripwire really irresistible is by selling it at a super low cost and, in some cases, at a loss to you.

What ?

Yes, you heard me.

Your goal here is not to make a living from selling Tripwire Offers. You are trying to turn leads into buyers. You’re trying to acquire buyers because there is nothing more valuable than a list of buyers.

How to make Tripwire offers?

A very common and effective way to pitch your tripwire is right after someone opts in to become a lead.
It could be right after they give you their email, give you their phone number or any other way you capture leads.

Tripwires usually work really well when they’re priced between $1 and $20.

Why ?

Because the key is to make your prospects unable to resist your Tripwire Offer and you do that by making it a low barrier entry offer.

The whole point is to offer them really high value at a low price.

The value should always outweigh the price – By far. It should be a no brainer for a qualified lead.

Here’s a classic example of a Tripwire Offer from Columbia Records (remember these guys) ?

Columbia House took over the music industry by making an irresistible offer to their prospects (13 records or tapes for $1).

Of course, they were running this tripwire offer at a loss. I mean seriously, if you buy these 13 records and melt them down into a plastic block, it’ll be worth more than a dollar.

Okay seriously now…

Columbia house understood that acquiring a list of buyers is the more valuable than the loss they’re taking on the front end.
At their peak, they raked in as much as $1.4 billion in sales during the mid-90s.

Tripwire examples are all around us. Think of

• The ridiculous flat screen TV deal at Best Buy
• The rock-bottom price of a Kindle Fire
• The “Get $50 worth gift card for $10” Groupon offer
• And so on…

The Secret behind tripwires

Okay, now that we’re friends , I’m going to let you in on the secret psychological reasons behind why tripwires work like magic.

Lets cut to the chase…

It all comes down to two fundamentally important factors that change the buyer’s psychology.

1. Commitment

One of the great benefits of a Tripwire offer is that it allows your customers to show commitment to you and your brand. It allows them to show commitment in two ways.

These two ways are the same ways that we all show commitment to anything in our daily lives.

So, the first way we show commitment is with our:

A- Wallets:

We all show commitment with our wallets in almost everything we do. We show commitment when we invest in something that we are interested in. We show commitment when we give money in exchange for something else.

When columbia records said we’re going to give you 13 records for just 1$, they were getting commitment from their prospects.

Yes, it’s only a 1$.

Yes, they were losing money.

But they were after something more scarce and valuable: Commitment.

And this approach to get commitment made them own 16% of all sales in the music industry at one point.

Pretty neat huh ?

Now the second way we show commitment is with our:

B- Time.

We show commitment when we give our time.

Time is the most valuable resource we have as human beings. Its non-tradable, non-negotiable and we can’t get more of it.
(Only Peter Theil is trying to mess with this in case you haven’t heard)

But the fact is when someone buys your tripwire, they’re committing with their time.

It could be as simple as spending time to read the book you just sold them, or watch the course that they purchased or maybe attend the webinar/session that they get with your tripwire.

It all require their time.

It requires them to deviate from their schedule and spend time with your product or service.
And when you get somebody to deviate from their ordinary schedule and invest time with you and your product, guess what ?

Your gaining commitment.

2-Change relationships

Okay, now the second reason why tripwires work is because they change relationships.

Let me explain …

Tripwires are a lot like first dates.

Hello ? Still there ? 

Hang on a sec.

When a guy asks a girl out for “coffee” what he’s really asking for is a small step forward in their relationship.

If the date was good, then it makes sense to go on a second date, be in a relationship, move in together and eventually get married.

Same thing with your prospects.

A tripwire is a small step forward in the relationship between you and your prospect.
At its essence, all human relationships progress similarly through different stages. It’s a gradual process, not an instantaneous one.

(This is why you never ask for marriage when you first meet someone you like)

The same way you should never ask for a $2000 sale as soon as someone becomes a prospect.

I see many online businesses do that… Someone new lands on their website, or opts in to become a lead and BOOM. they ask for the sale.

Really ? Really !

You’d get slapped if you do that on a date. (I’ve tried it)

You have to move the relationship slowly through the natural stages of human intimacy.

Yes, It’s human intimacy.

Because at the end of the day, you’re not into B2C business nor in the B2B business.

You’re in the H2H business.

Human to human.

And you should treat it that way.

Once your leads become customers, once they go from stranger to a customer, the relationship is changed.

This change in the relationship comes with a decreased resistance to your future sales messages.

Even if your tripwire is as low as 1$, the magic of becoming a customer will still work in your favor.

The value of the tripwire doesn’t really matter as long as your prospect takes out their wallet to pay you for a product or service, their psychology change and that’s what makes the tripwire so powerful.

The only goal of the tripwire is to turn their relationship status to “customer” (Not on facebook, that would be weird)

Now that you know how the tripwire strategy works, and why it does wonders to your business, you’ll be able to identify a tripwire offer the next time you see one in the wild. You’ll also be able to identify how it works and why it does for different businesses.

And most importantly, you’ll be able to create YOUR tripwire…

so this brings us to…

How to Create YOUR Tripwire.

Good. Now we’ve established the importance of creating a tripwire and how this will help you create the maximum number of customer that will be more inclined to purchase your core products in the future – especially when you amaze them with your tripwire.

So the next step is to create your tripwire. (That’s for the action taker in you)

Truth is, the most effective way to create your tripwire is through what we call Product Splintering.

What is Product Splintering ?

Product splintering is the process of breaking off bits and pieces of your Core Offer and selling them as a stand-alone offers.

Let me show you what I mean…

One of my businesses is in the fitness market. Our core product is a $197 training that helps you get shredded, lose weight and gain muscle in 12 weeks.

From this one Core Offer, we were able to splinter out several smaller, stand-alone products.

These “splinter offers” were put on at the start of our sales funnel as a Tripwire Offer.

A very popular Tripwire offer is the “Fat Burning Challenge” which is a $7 program that originally is a small module taken out of the core product.

Makes sense ?

In another business of mine, our core offer is a program that helps lifetime smokers quit smoking and never relapse.

We were able to splinter out a $19 minicourse called “Knockout Your Cravings” that gives our prospects great techniques to get over their cravings and start taking control over their addiction.

If you’re in the services business, let’s say a design agency, a good example of a tripwire would be a logo design. This is essentially a splintered offer from a brand redesign or a website redesign.

A low dollar consultation would be another splintered offer for a consultancy agency.

An low-cost Adwords campaign launch would is another great splintered offer for an advertising agency.

A 1$ trial offer is a great example for a SaaS company.

A chapter of your book for 1$ would be a suitable tripwire for an author.

You get the point. *Drops the mic.*

Product splintering is one of the most effective ways to create your tripwire products because

• One, it gives your prospect a taste of what your product or service is like and the quality they should expect.
• And two, it qualifies them as highly valuable customers because they are interested in the exact same thing that your core product and premium products are all about. (Therefore, they would definitely be interested in your future higher prices offers)

Once the relationship is turned from prospect to a customer after the tripwire sale, it’s easier than ever to move your customers to purchase your core offer (your full course, your consulting service, your website redesign, your monthly SaaS fee, etc…)

Go it ?

Great ! That was fun.

Ok, let’s wrap up in one sentence. *clap clap*

So … the strategy behind the Tripwire is simple:

Convert the maximum number of leads and prospects into paying customers, even at the expense of your profit margin, while keeping in mind that acquiring a paying customer will deliver much more profit as they go through your funnel towards your core offer.

Let me know what your tripwire is going to be in the comments below.

If you’ve never heard of Retargeting OR you’ve been hearing about this but ignoring it then fresh up with a drink or something cool and lets dig in on this is a big one.

But if you’re already doing retargeting … Then buckle up to learn something new because 95% of business owners I meet that claim that they’re doing retargeting ARE DOING IT WRONG.

But first things first …

What is Retargeting ?

A bright and talented sales person finally gets the opportunity to pitch his product and service to his ideal client.

He prepares his pitch for days straight, he makes sure he has the answers to any kind of question that might come up.

He knows his product are great because he’s been working on them for years. He knows his skills are of value to his potential client because he’s been building them up for years.

The day comes and he sets his foot inside the door to finally present his pitch.

The pitch goes well. It goes great !

His potential clients were impressed. They asked questions, showed some interest and benefited from the whole pitch by learning new things.

After he’s done, the sales person hands out his business card and leaves his clients to think about his products and services.

Then …he leaves the office, and never return.

Never call.

Never follow up.

And never check up again on his prospect.
He never hears from his client again and … lost the sale.

Looking at it as an outsider, it sounds like a totally crazy move not to follow up, doesn’t it ?

If you were the employer of this sales person, you’d probably fire him straight out of the door.

But … not so fast. You’re probably doing the same thing with your online business.

Your website is your sales person. Its your store, your representative, and your pitch. Its the face of your business that your prospects interact with.
When someone comes in: they’re interested.

After they leave, they never hear back from you and … you lost them forever.

We’d all like to think that every single person that comes in contact with our website follows a straight path to fulfill the goal of the page.

The goal of the page could be anything from purchase of product to submitting an optin form with their contact information in return for a free ebook, report or any type of content.

Well, let me be the one who breaks it to you …
The truth is that 98% of visitors to your web site leave WITHOUT converting or even returning to your site.

Yep, thats 98% of prospects who showed some kind of interest in you and your brand are gone …forever.

But … its not your fault. Its no ones fault. But, between you and I, if we need to find someone to blame and take this off our chests, well … we can all blame the internet.

The internet is a fast paced medium for content consumption. With all the different types of information and funny cat pictures thrown at us constantly, our attention span drops to a minimum.

Research has shown that the internet alone is responsible for the massive decrease in the attention span of most adults.

Our behaviour while browsing the web is very different from reading a book or watching tv.

In those mediums, our attention is fixed on one source of information for a long period.

On the web, we are easily distracted by shiny attractive things that are trying to grab our attention.

Attention has become a very scarce commodity on the web. This scarcity makes it a valuable asset to brands and businesses who are increasingly trying to grab more of it.

Everyone online is trying to grab our attention away from others – towards them.

Everyone including me, you and all the visitors and prospects coming to our website.

But … what do we do ? How do we grab and retain attention ? (Spoiler alert: No, you won’t have to wet yourself with gasoline and light yourself up for attention)

Retargeting is what we do to grab the attention of our visitors back to us and put them back on track to complete our desired goal.

Unlike your typical Facebook ads or banner ads, retargeting ads are served to people who have already visited your website or are a contact in your database.

You see, the reality is that the buyer’s journey is not so linear.

People visit your website then leave. Two days later, they discover your latest blog article, and then decide to download that free ebook.

A few days after that, they decide to check out another blog post.

Maybe a week passes by then they decide to check out your product page or get in touch with you, and it might take several more weeks to come to a decision to buy.

Same end result, but the process is not so linear and it requires several points of contact with your brand at different stages of the journey.

Retargeting ads are the medium we use in order to bring them back again and again to our site so we can create more touch points with our prospects.

How does it work ? I’m glad you asked…

How Retargeting Works

It’s actually very simple. When someone comes to your website for the first time, a cookie or “pixel” is dropped on their browser.

When they leave your site and surf the web, that cookie (pixel) notifies retargeting platforms to serve specific ads based on the specific pages they visited on your website.

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Have you ever been on a website checking out some random product and then after you left ads of that product started following you everywhere you went on the internet ?

Yep, you’re being retargeted.

You probably have hundreds, if not thousands of cookies on your browser right now with the sole purpose of retargeting your with ads about pages you visited previously.
Before the internet, we used to call it stalking, now we just call it retargeting.

Funny thing ? Just by landing on my site, you were pixeled and you’ll probably see some sponsored blog post from me on your facebook feed or on other relevant sites on the internet. Now you know why ?

Installing a pixel is super easy. It’s actually a small piece of code provided by facebook ads platform or by Google Adwords that you just drop in the header of your website’s backend (give it to your dev it takes him 16 seconds to copy/paste it into your site) and you’re ready to go.

Why should you do retargeting Ads ? And why they’re going to change your business.

There are literally dozens of reasons why retargeting is powerful and essential to increasing your sales conversions and grow your business.
I don’t have enough space to write them all here in this post (as if space is limited), maybe I’ll write one in the future.

Here are my 3 top favourites that really matter to you:

1.Retargeting Gives you a Second (or third or fourth) Chance To Convert A Visitor.

Since Retargeting only targets users that have visited one of your websites or landing pages
then everyone seeing your ad has already been exposed to your brand and very likely your product or service. As a result, these visitors are more qualified and likely to be persuaded by continued marketing.
Retargeting allows you to continue marketing to those visitors to get them back into the conversion funnel.
Retargeting allows you to grab their attention back to you, making more touch points with your and your brand and ultimately creating a more intimate relationship.

2.Retargeting Build An Asset By Capturing Your Audience Data

Retargeting is the perfect complement to your SEO efforts. If you already have a steady supply of organic visitors coming to your site, you should leverage that traffic by creating your own retargeting list.
Since 98%of traffic are single visits and we all know that single visits RARELY accomplish a sale (and by rarely I mean never).
Then the ugly truth is that you’re missing out of 98% of people that were interested in your brand or product just because you failed to get in touch with them again and following up on their interests.

This is why a Retargeting list is an Asset. It’s made up of lists of potential buyers. They are the people that are most likely to buy from you because we know they are interested in your brand, product or service. This list contains some prospects that are so close to making the purchase but just need a little push that can be addressed by a retargeting ad that takes them to testimonial page or a retargeting ad offering them 10% discount or that answers the most common objections that they might have.

3.Create Illusions Of Grandeur

Now look at that title. Who wouldn’t love that ey ?
But seriously, Retargeting someone and following them around the web gives the illusion that you’re EVERYWHERE.
You have no idea how many times I’ve heard the sentence “I gotta tell you, I see your ads everywhere!”
Little do they know that my ads are only following them around the web and not showing up for everyone else.
Here’s where retargeting plays a huge role in building brand awareness for your target audience.

Retargeting Based on Interest.

Retargeting To Segments at every step of the funnel.

This is something that most people doing retargeting are missing out on. But not you.
Now that you get the idea of retargeting, what it does and the importance of it, it’s important to get to know how to use it properly to accomplish the incredible.

Simply retargeting a random web visitor with an ad taking them to your sales page will help you recoup some of your lost sales, sure, but its not the most effective way to do retargeting.
Why ?

Because it’s too broad, too generic and you might end up targeting someone with an ad that doesn’t really talk to them based on what stage of your funnel they are part of.
Creating segments for every stage of your funnel solves that by talking to each prospect differently depending on what stage they are in your relationship.

Here’s what I mean:

• Not all visitors are created Equal.
• Some visitors visited a piece of content of yours and left.
• Other visitors visited your sales page and left.
• Other visitors visited your comparison chart page then left.
  while others might have added your product to their basket or reached your check out page then left.

Do you retarget all these people with the same damn ad ? Will everyone respond to the same kind of conversation you’re going to initiate with them next ?

Definitely not. Each one of these prospects is at a different level, and you should change your retargeting ads based on what they want to hear next.

This is why segment your retargeting list into different segements is crucial to making the most out of them.

Segmenting allows you to speak directly to your audience based on where they are in the funnel so that you can and help them make the right decision.

For instance, considering the prospects that only visited a blog post, you might want to retarget them with a page that raises their awareness about of your offers and show them what products or services you offer.

The ones that visited your sales page then left: you might want to retarget them with a page with testimonials to build social proof and help them make a more informed decision.

The ones that visited your comparison chart page, you might want to retarget them with your sales page or with a FAQ page that could handle their most common questions or objections they have.

The ones that have reached your checkout page: you might retarget them with an ad that brings them back to the check out page in case they missed it, or even offer them a coupon code to complete their purchase.

The possibilities are endless…

My point is, Segment your retargeting list based on their behaviour. Understand at what stage of the funnel they are and then retarget them with relevant ads to help them move forward to making the sale.

What now ?

Don’t be like that sales person that does all the hard work but fails to follow up with their prospect. You’re doing your prospects a disservice by not helping them make a decision (whether good or bad) about you and your brand.

Retargeting gives us such an amazing power to really track our prospect and understand where they really are in their relationship with our brand, by not using this power, we’re just creating a lose-lose situation for us and the prospects.

“Do you want fries with that ?”
Thats the famous upsell taught by Mcdonalds to every Mcdonalds Employee.

Would it shock you to find out that McDonald’s makes almost no money on their hamburger?

The hamburger is like their core offer (which sometimes they advertise as flash sales with their 1$ hamburger ads), but the fries and Coke are their Upsell offer that brings in all the profits.

As the legendary Jay Abraham’s business growth model says: The best way to grow your business is to increase the average transaction value per customer.

And thats what Upsells are all about.

But first …

What Is Upselling ?

Upselling is the art and science of encouraging the customers to spend more than they have originally intended to, on a better or complementary product to what they are currently interested in.

These Offers and products that are used for upselling are called Profit Maximizers.

Did you already guess why ?

Correct. Because they aim is to maximize the profit of the sale.

Most businesses don’t have Tripwire Offers and they don’t have Profit Maximizers. They live and die selling cold prospects their core products.

This is why they struggle and you won’t.

The tripwire (as we saw in Power number 1) is made to facilitate the transition from prospect to Customer in order to fullfill the sale of the core product you offer.

The Profit maximizer is made to Increase the value of the customer by upselling them on a complementary product after they purchase your core offer.

See how it works now ?

Most businesses stop right after making the sale on their core offer.

They think their job is done.

But the fact is that once you have a buyer, it makes sense to ask them to buy something else… Afterall, no one is more qualified than your existing customers to purchase your premium products and services.

And thats why your businesses NEEDS profit maximizers.

Remember this: the highest cost that most businesses will incur is the cost of acquisition. The cost of acquiring the customer.

So once you put the effort, do you ads, do your retargeting and you finally acquire a customer, you’d be really missing out if you just stop there.

You’d be missing out on one of the greatest opportunities to grow your business which is through making more money out of the customers that you already have. Because the cost of acquisiton has already been incurred.

By just selling them something else, the margin and the profit goes through the roof. And thats exactly why you need profit maximizers.

Types of Upsells and Profit maximizers

1 – The Immediate Upsell

The first time of profit maximizers i want to go through is the “Immediate Upsell”

This is what most people think of when they think about upsells, and its kinda the most typical upsell you can do immediately after the purchase.

A very popular immediate upsell is the Mcdonalds example I talked about before.

As soon as you go to mcdonalds and order a burger, you’re presented with an upsell for fries and coke.

This kind of upsell really sums up what an upsell is. Because at the end of the day upsells offer someone more of what they already bought (think upsize), or something that compliments the previous purchase(think fries and coke).

This is why when upsells are done properly, people dont get upset.

I mean, you dont go to mcdonalds and get upset or surprised by being upsold on fries or coke.

People don’t visit mcdonalds to get something healthy. They visit mcdonalds to get something quick, predictable and tastes good (arguably).

This is why fries and coke upsell make perfect sense to what the buyer of a hamburger wants.

Another great example of an upsell is when you buy a an online course, a online movie or a mobile and you’re offered an upsell that directly compliments it. Like Extra modules for the online course, or deleted scenes for a movie or an protective cover for your phone.

Undoubtably, its easier to sell these offers to existing customers right after the sale.

2- The Cross Sell Offer

Cross sells are a different type of profit maximizers. Cross-selling simple means offering additional products or services to the customer to get them to spend more on their purchase.

How are cross sells different than Upsells ?

Well, in Cross selling, the offer is a totally different product or service. Not a compliment to the previous product. It must be relevant to the customer but not necessarily relevant to the previous product.

The key to do a successfull cross sell is to stay relevant to the desire of the customer and be relevant to the market as a whole.

If the customer just bought your service, you’d be crazy to cross sell them on a sofa. Even if it was a super comfy red leather kinky one.

A good cross sell in that case would be another service that similar customers usually also request.

Amazon does a pretty awesome job on cross sells. (Thats why they’re Amazon.)

The section that says “Customer who bought this item also bought” is their cross sell offer.

They’re simply recommending a different product that you might be also interested in based on what you just bought.

Here’s how Amazon does both upsells and cross sells:

For a digital product or an online course, a cross sell would be another course that is also of interest to the customers who usually buy the course they just did.

You get the point.

3- Continuity Profit Maximizers

Continuity offers are pretty simple. They’re subscription offers, Recurring Billing and another other type of offer that keeps billing the customer on weekly,monthly or even yearly basis.

The hardest think you ever do is that first sale, but with continuity offers you make the sale once and you keep billing them over and over and over again.

Most of utilities are subscription based. Like phone subscriptions, cable suubscription, internet subscription etc.

But over the last few years, this subscription model has been adopted by a lot of businesses because it gives your business a stead stream of income coming every month.

Membership sites or Paid mastermind groups are great examples of online subscription models.
Most SaaS companies operate under this model too.

Now there are also industries like Ecommerce industries that are trying a subscription based model like Birchbox where every month you get a box of beauty supply.

Root Bizzle is another ecommerce business using a subscription based model where they send you a new shiny tie every month.

Many brick and mortar businesses are also jumping in and trying a subscription based model. Like tanning salons where you get a certain amount of sessions during a month and they automatically bill you on monthy basis.

Even car wash businesses are running subscriptions where you get unlimited number of car washes based on a certain fee per month.

Even the Uber, is currently experimenting with subscription based bundles where you pay a fixed fee of $200 a month for unlimited uber rides. Check it out here

There are a lot of interesting ways to integrate continuity offers in your business and these types of upsells are effective not only for the short term but for the long term growth of your business.

So start thinking of how this can apply to your business and do not fall in the trap of “this doesn’t work for my business”

There are over 20 major public holidays and national celebrations every year.

Each one of them creates a unique opportunity for you to run a flash sale to promote your products.

The Flash Sale strategy has the power to generate an instant surge of cash flow to your business without increasing your cost in any way.

Got your attention ?

Great.

Now let me explain…

The Flash Sale funnel is a perfect strategy for businesses that want to turn their existing prospects into paying customers. It works best if you have a large list of unconverted prospects.

Okay Nicolaos, cool, but…

What is a flash sale ?

At first, it sounds kind of obvious.

A flash sale is when you offer a limited heavy discount on a front-end offer for the purposes of acquiring new customers.

Just offer a discount on a product and put a deadline on it? Sure.

However, let’s be very specific about the purpose of doing this.

The purpose of a flash sale is customer activation.

The primary purpose of the flash sale is to take people who are not currently customers and turn them into customers or to take inactive customers and re-activate them into one of your funnels that lead into your core offers.

Flash sale offers is usually a low or mid-level price offer. Its goal is to gain a new customer at a low barrier entry offer.

Since a flash sale is a heavy discount, you’re not usually making big profit out of it.

But that’s not the point.

The point is the convert prospects into customers. And when you have a funnel in place, this low offer will lead your customers to an upsell or continued marketing through email or ads and try to sell them your core product.

So, what we’re doing really doing in a flash sale is giving a big discount on a product in order to put people directly into one of our upsell funnels and ultimately sell them a higher priced core offer.

Why should you make flash sales ?

The simple answer to this would be: because flash sales work!

Not satisfied with this short answer ? Alright alright, I’ll keep going…

Flash sales are a proven time-tested way to turn more prospects into customers of your business by purchasing one of your products.
If you think about it, “Black Friday” is one of the most popular flash sales events in the world.

But… why do they work like crazy ?

Okay, I’ll tell you … because they effectively do three things REALLY well:

1- They offer a big discount.

Having a discount encourage your prospects to make purchase on products that they are interested in but never got the courage to make a purchase.

It’s a way to nudge people who are on the edge of buying and create a desire in those who are interested in your product.

2 – They offer scarcity.

Flash sales exist for a very short period of time.

This scarcity factor plays a major role in pushing people to take action on the spot so that they wouldn’t miss out on the big discount.

When a product is being sold at a discount, prospects that are interested will jump onto this offer.

But when this same discount is offered for a limited time only, people that MIGHT be interested in this product in the future will also likely jump in to benefit from this opportunity. Fear of loss is a VERY powerful motivator.

3 – They turn inactive prospects on your email list into active customers.

Many prospects on your list have been there for a while. They might be engaging with your content and your emails but never really took action or made a decision to become a customer.

Flash sales give you the opportunity to change that and give them a good reason to make a decision now.

The power of turning an inactive prospect into an active one has massive positive consequences on your marketing strategy down the road and increases customer lifetime value.

These three factors work together to make flash sales such a powerful strategy to promote your products and create a bigger customer base.

How to promote a flash sale ?

Cool so far ?

Great. Now let’s get you up and running with your own flash sale in 3 simple steps.

1- Choose your Offer.

First, you’ve got to pick the product you want to promote.

You can choose any front end product or service to be your Flash Sale, but the best ones are usually your new offers or the ones that really stand out.

This product is usually not your core product but a small product that can function as a stand-alone product.

(Learn how to do product splintering here: How To Turn More Leads Into Customers With One Simple Strategy)

2- Choose a specific start date and an end date.

It’s essential that you have a start date and a deadline for your flash sale because scarcity is at the heart of why flash sales work.

The best way to  create the urgency for your flash sale is by using countdown timers to make it very clear that it’s limited to a short period of time.

Remember: Deadlines inspire action !

There are dozens of counter plugins and software to add to your sales pages.
I personally use deadline Funnel, Scarcity Samurai, and Countdown Monkey for my businesses and my clients.

3 – Let your audience know.

This step is where the rubber meets the road…

Of all the ways you can drive traffic to your website, there are only few that are dependable and quantifiable.

The best ways to drive qualified traffic to your flash sale offer that ensure the best results is to Email your list.
Your email list is made up of people who have expressed interest in you or your brand/products/services in the past.

So they are they most qualified people to hear about your flash sales and they’re the most likely to jump on the offer, so it makes perfect sense to let them know about it.

Just be careful not to send these promotional emails to people who have already bought this product. It’ll just be pointless and might piss some people off if they had purchased your offer previously at the full price.

Now during the promotion period, which probably goes for 3 days (but you could bump it up to 5 days), you’re going to be pretty heavy on the promotion.

You’ll be emailing your list once every day, and twice on the last day. And as the days goes by, your emails should be more directed towards the sale.

Looking for Flash Sales Email Templates to send to your list ?
Thought so too.
Check out my flash sale email templates to get a solid email copy for your flash sales and promotions.

What About Facebook Ads ?

I’m glad you asked.

Facebook ad are a great way to retarget people who are on your email list. Think about it like a support mechanism to maximise your offer awareness to your email list.
That’s basically using retargeting to make sure that people on your list hear about your flash sale.

Using Facebook ads is a great way to grab the attention of those who haven’t seen your emails about your offer or maybe have seen it but didn’t check it out or purchase it.

These ads play a major role in creating offer awareness around your flash sale AND to remind your prospects that your offer has a great discount for a limited time.

Either way it’s powerful and it inspires action.

(In case you’re not sure what Retargeting is, or how to do it correctly, I explain exactly how to do it in details here: How to Generate more customers using Retargeting Ads)

So what you have to do is set up a Facebook ad campaign targeting people who are on your email list with an ad pointing to your flash sale page.

4 – The Final Push.

In my last 5 years in online marketing, I learned (the hard way) that people leave their purchases until the last minute.
Like literally, the last MINUTE.

On many occasions, I’ve had over 60% of my sales on the last day and most of it in the last few hours.
Sounds shocking, right ? But if you think about it makes sense.

You probably do the same thing when you’re about to purchase something that has a deadline in the future. Right ?
Its okay, I’m not a psychic reading your purchase behaviour through your screen. I just know that because we all do it ! we all procrastinate when we know we still have time to act on something.

Same thing applies to your prospects when it comes to your flash sales.

Many interested people will have a look at your offer, think it’s great and want to jump in and take it. But they see that they still have 2 days left and …

BAM.

Hunger strikes. Door bell rings. They remember an important email they have to send. The dog died. Whatever.
So they run to the kitchen to fix a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich and… the purchase is gone.

It might stay in the back of their minds but it’s still okay for them to push it back for later since they still got 2 more days to act on your offer. They won’t lose anything by procrastinating a day or two – and it’s true.

So as business owners, we have to be aware of this purchase behaviour of our prospects when it comes to limited time offers. So to counter this behaviour, we need to create a strong promotional push on the last day of your offer.

This will nudge people to take action NOW because they’re running out of time and they don’t want to miss out. FOMO kicks in. (Fear Of Missing Out)

So on the last day, you must send 2 emails to remind people that the deadline is getting closer. And 3 to 5 hours before the promotion is set to end, email your list (third time) with one last final reminder to jump in.

You’ll be surprised by the increase is sales you’ll do with these last few emails on the last day. It’s like everyone was sleeping on the idea of your offer until you screamed “WAKE UP” with a megaphone to their ear.

By the way, I made sure to also include these “urgency infused” emails in my Flash Sale Email Templates. These last few emails play on the factor of scarcity to drive people to immediately jump in on the offer.

Sounds cool ? Great.

So … What Next ?

After running your flash sale, you should follow up with your new customers who purchased the flash sale but didn’t take any upsells.
You should have a follow up campaign already in place to automatically follow up with these customers and help move them down the funnel and get them to upgrade to your core offer.

The awesome thing about a flash sale is that you can put it in your marketing calendar anytime you wish.

But be careful ! Don’t do it too often.

I would recommend once every 2 months. The last thing you want to do is to train your list to expect flash sales and discounts from you all the time.

A business that depends on discounts to sell is a business racing down to zero and killing their long-term growth.

Bottom line: you’re not Groupon.

So to sum up real quick: The flash sale is a short period, heavy discount on a front end offer with the sole purpose of the of taking people who are not currently customers and turning them into customers.

A flash sale is a pretty easy campaign to run. The emails and ads you set up for a flash sale can be re-worded slightly and reused for future flash sales.

Its real power comes from creating a new list of buyers that you can upsell and market to them your more expensive products.
Check out my flash sale email templates to get a solid email copy for your flash sales and promotions.