#111: Tiny Hinges That Swing Big Doors [Podcast]

Recently I was working with a client on an advertising campaign. We had been running a particular ad in a variety of online media  (mainly solo mailings to email newsletters), and the ad was barely breaking even. We decided to test different subject lines.  Basically, we changed seven words.

Immediately upon our next mailing, our “Return on Ad Spend” or ROAS  Went from around 80% to a startling 150%. Seven words. There's a saying in the direct response marketing business: “tiny hinges swing big doors”. In this episode, I will introduce you to five such “tiny hinges” that can “swing big doors” in your business. Small changes you can make that might mean the difference between meteoric success or humiliating bankruptcy. Plus, here are some additional reasons to keep listening…

• A nearly miraculous way to get rid of all the physical junk mail that clogs your mailbox.
• Why you should give up on working hard enough to earn God's favor.
• And a new feature, how to turn this episode into action and profits…

Announcements:

• If you enjoy the podcast, I would consider it a great favor if you subscribe (and leave a review) in iTunes. This helps new people discover the show. A big thanks to todmon26 and bdentzy for giving us a review on iTunes this week. You can also find the podcast on Stitcher.
• I know many of you are waiting for details about the affordable mastermind, and we are still ironing out how and if we're going to do that. Thanks for your patience.
• Finally, and this is definitely not for everyone, but if you're tired of not making any money with your online business and you'd like to finally just get things jumpstarted… I'm getting together with a small group of serious entrepreneurs here in Spokane in July. Were going to spend three days and just build your business from the ground up. Or rebuilt it if what you're doing is not working. It's not cheap, and the only way to get in is to pass through and ” interview”  with me personally. We have 12 seats, two of them are already spoken for, and I promise you every single one will be filled. I do not promise to ever do this again. If you think you would like to be part of this group, to finally stop “talking” a big game and asked a start PLAYING the big game, click here and fill out this application in full. If your application seems to merit further consideration, my assistant will set up a call between you and me.

Tip Of The Week 

Every day I go to my mailbox-my real world, physical mailbox, looking forward to getting something fun. A good sales piece, for me, is a treasure. Issues of my favorite newsletters, also a treasure. Books, cards from readers and listeners, the occasional gift. All great stuff in good fun. Then there is the “junk”. Now what many people consider junk I actually look forward to-a good sales letter, a magalog or bookalog,  or the weekly direct-mail piece from James Malinchack.  

Everyone's got their own definition of junk, but those things to me are treasures. Junk, to me is all the poorly executed direct mail that I get. The stuff that so bad that it's a total waste of ink and paper. Stuff that's completely irrelevant to me, my business, my family. How do you get those folks to stop sending you mail? Why, there is an app for that of course. It's called Paperkarma. It's free. Using this app, you simply take a picture of the offending junk mail, click a button, and the folks at Paperkarma make your junk mail go away.

I'll be darned if I know how they make any money doing this, but I'll keep using them as long as they manage to stay in business.  They are not 100% successful, by the way, and getting everybody to stop sending your junk mail. And if the mail happens to be addressed to “occupant” or to someone who used to live in your address, or if it's just a ZIP-Code-carpet-bomb mailing, this app is not going to help. But it's a great little tool, and can dramatically reduce the amount of stuff you have to recycle every week.

Spiritual Foundations

Do you find yourself working hard to get God to fulfill your prayers?

I know people who have an illness and who run from healing evangelist superstar to healing evangelist superstar, practice the Daniel fast, anoint themselves with oil, repeat special prayers, and do their best to be 100% sinless and perfect and holy in their behavior. In other words, they are always looking for the right “magic ritual”  or “good behavior” that will get God to heal them.

But God has already supplied all our needs, and promised us that we don't need to worry or work so hard. There's a beautiful story in the gospel of John that shows us why this does not work, and why in fact we should stop working so hard to get God to give us what he is already promised.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath.”

John 5:6-9

This man encountered the one who was greater than the Angels, and who did not need a special supernatural event to deliver his promise This man encountered Jesus. Notice a couple of things: Jesus didn't ask the man to do anything until after he was healed… And the healing took place on the Sabbath. The day of rest.

Rest easy in God's promises, and believe that he always keeps them. Our job is to simply rest on his assurances, and trust that he knows when, where, and how to give us his very best.

Whether the answer you're seeking has to do with your family finances, a relationship, and illness, or some mental torment that you currently are enduring, just rest. Jesus will take care of you. God's delays are not God's denials.

Feature Segment:  Tiny Hinges That Swing Big Doors

Here are five “tiny hinges that swing big doors”. Five small leverage points that can turn your business around, multiply your productivity, and skyrocket your profitability. As my friend Michael Hyatt likes to say, get all your numbers going “up and to the right.”

1. Headlines. This includes the headline for your sales letter, for your space ad, the subject line for your emails, the title of your blog post, or the first sentence of your radio spot.  The job of the headline is to get the reader interested so that they will pay attention to the rest of the ad, post, or spot. Many times you can change the headline and no other copy, yet see a dramatic increase in sales.
2. Media. Last year, a client I work with experienced a dramatic downturn in the response they were getting from their online media buys. We took the same messaging and started buying radio commercials. Radical increase in profits, and a whole lot less work. If you've been making a lot of money and newspaper in that goes south on you, just try moving your media budget or redistributing it to include different media. Simple.
3. Audience. Dan Kennedy famously said, “it's easier to get a new audience than to write a new speech.” If your response rates are flagging, maybe it's because this audience has heard you give the speech 100 times already. Just go find a new audience. In other words, by your ads in different magazines, or on different websites, or send email ads to different lists.
4. Preframing. what people see or know about you before they see your ad can make an astounding difference in the response you get to that at. So think carefully through this: what do people see immediately before they see your copy? Is it an email? A banner ad? Do they hear a mention on a tele-seminar? Carefully craft and control the frame in which you are presented, and you can dramatically affect the outcome.
5. Format. I'm continually amazed that this escapes so many. Not everyone likes to read sales letters. Some people will never sit down and watch a video. Others will only listen to your message if they can literally do so-as in sticking earbuds in their ears while they're on the treadmill. And other people are not interested in any of those things, they want to look you in the eye and see how you conduct yourself with other people, So the best way to reach them is either in person sales presentation or at a seminar or workshop. I just described the basic modalities in which people experience life: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. If you are not presenting your message in all the available formats, you could be missing out on the one format that could dramatically increase your results.

What To Do Now

As always, I want you to leave the podcast by taking some action. So here's how to turn this episode into real-world value:

• Get a copy of the free Paperkarma app, and banish the junk mail from your life.
• Give yourself a break, and stop thinking you can work hard enough to earn God's favor. Just receive it.
• And take the list of those five “tiny hinges”, and put them to work in your business today. Make a small change in your headlines, try different media, look for a new audience, reengineer the way you are framed before people see your ad copy, and present your case in as many different formats as possible… Audio, video, text on paper, in live seminars and workshops.
• Finally, if you experience any success as a result of something you've learned or heard on this show, I want to feature your success story and congratulate you. Leave me a voicemail at the link below, or post your story in the comments.

Question:   Have you ever had an experience where a tiny hinge swung a big door for you? Click here to leave your comments.