I’ve received a lot of very insightful responses to
questions I asked you the other day.
(If you’re one of the few who haven’t answered yet, go now
to http://www.MarkWidawer.com/helpsurvey and spend 3 minutes
with me. I’ll repay you handsomely with an invitation to a
teleseminar, where I’ll answer a bunch of your questions.)
I was going to start in a few days, by sharing some of the
results with you — and answering some of the questions for
you.
But today, there was one that stood out — and for good
reason.
Among his other questions, John from Australia, a
self-identified “Beginner”, asks “Which tasks do I start
first?” He referred to writing autoresponders, blogging,
writing an ebook…
Care to guess at the answer?
Let me mention first….
Do you know the old Gary Halbert story? He’s a legendary
marketing figure who just passed away a little over a year
ago. He wrote in his Marketing Letter the following…
“One of the questions I like to ask my students is: “If
you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a
contest to see who could sell the most hamburgers, what
advantages would you most like to have on your side to help
you win?”
Care to hazard a guess at this answer?
It’s not “great advertising” or a “great price” or “a
great location.”
Nope…Gary’s answer was “A starving crowd.”
Makes sense, yes?
So I’ll ask you…what’s YOUR crowd starving for?
You won’t know until you ask.
Let me encourage you to find out — regardless of where you
are in your business right now.
The answer is to get to know your customers, just like I’m
doing.
In fact, it’s the right thing to do at any time — at
least, it is if you care about truly SERVING YOUR CUSTOMERS.
Really, there is nothing more important than understanding
who your customer is, and what problems they have, and how
you can help to solve them.
Regardless of your niche, knowing your customer is critical
to being able to serve them, and run your business.
In fact, it’s WHY YOU ARE IN BUSINESS AT ALL.
Service.
To others.
I hope you keep that in mind, because there is no business
that can survive without it.
In the coming weeks, I’ll do my best to answer your
questions and point you to resources — mine and others —
that might help you achieve your goals, and overcome your
current obstacles, and exceed your current limits.
I’ll try to include as many free or inexpensive resources
as I can, too.
And I’ll start with a small one for now.
It will help you know your prospects and customer better.
Like an Xray.
You’ll be able to see right inside them, and understand who
they are and what they need and why they buy.
It’s a book I wrote — probably the most important one —
on knowing your customer. This book will help you decide who
to serve, the niche you want to be in, what product to
develop, and how to write your sales letter. It will help
you with your pre and post-sale autoresponders, and the
Adwords ads you might want to run to get traffic to your
site. It will help you with your SEO and your blogging,
too.
You’ll find it here.
http://www.ProspectXray.com
No, it’s not a hundred bucks or anything…though I’ve
been told it’s worth far more. In fact, if you don’t get
extreme value out of the book, I’ll buy it back from you.
The bottom line, though, is that you need to understand your
customer — however you do that.
Use my method or someone else’s. Either way is fine with
me.
I just hope that somehow you take the time.
To Your Success,
–Mark Widawer
P.S. Some people asked how I did the survey (the one at
http://www.MarkWidawer.com/helpsurvey that I hope you’ve
already answered, or will soon.) The answer is that I used a
service called “Freedback”. You can get a free trial of
this survey tool at http://www.FreedbackFreeTrial.com — and
I’d encourage you to do that. (See! Free resource. Nice,
eh?)
But you should know that if you get Prospect Xray, you’ll
also get a free copy of my Survey Power ebook — that will
show you exactly how to use Freedback, or most other survey
tools, to find out what your customers really want.
Believe me…you WILL be surprised at what you learn. You
WILL relieve much of the doubt you have about your current
marketing. And you WILL go forward with much more
confidence.
And then you’ll know EXACTLY what to do next.
PRIVATE TO JOHN in Australia — On Monday I’m sending you a
free copy of Prospect Xray. I hope you enjoy it, and profit
from it, and that it helps you as much as it has helped so
many other people. Thanks for letting me share your
question.
-M