As a rule I don’t carry business cards**. When people ask me for one they are shocked. They can’t imagine why I wouldn’t have one… until I ask them how many cards they have at home which they have no clue about who the person was that gave them the card.

So far 100% of people I ask admit this is true.

Then I ask “Why should I want to add yet another meaningless piece of paper to your home?”

The point of this is not to say you should be like me, but to point out that most people have a business card only because they heard (or read) somewhere that it’s one of the first things you do when you have a business.

In the last few years, this same wrong thinking has applied to websites… “you have a business? You NEED a website” And the result is a large population of websites that are nothing more than a giant BORING business card online.

THE PROBLEM

No one ever stops to think about the purpose of the business card (or website) and what is it’s place in your marketing funnel BEFORE you bother to have the card (or website) made.

If you have been following my teachings at the NGH conference, on the  Hypnothoughts Internet Marketing Group, and here on this site, you will have heard me talk about the importance of 2-Step Lead Generation.

I won’t go into all the reasons Hypnotists should use 2-Step Lead Generation, but I will say the ones who have listened to me and are using it are going gangbusters even in the middle of a recession. I’m talking 6-figure incomes.

PERMISSION BASED MARKETING

So here’s my point… you aren’t likely to get a sale from a business card. There’s not enough room on it for a decent pitch. But there is plenty of room to get a likely prospect to give you their contact information so you can do follow up marketing.

This is them giving you PERMISSION to market to them. It’s like they are raising their hands and saying “please tell me more”. In sales lingo, you now have a ‘qualified prospect’. A very valuable prospect. And one who is much more likely to buy if you develop the relationship correctly.

So, with this concept in mind… the question becomes “what can I put on my business card to attract the kind of client I would like to work with?” And “what can I offer them of value to get them to give me their contact information”

Think of this as a sale. It’s an exchange of value. You offer them information on how they can solve a very important problem. They give you contact info, which is ‘permission’ to send them follow up information.

As my friend Craig Garber likes to say, even if you are giving something away free, you have to sell it as something of value.

Key Point: Like any sale you need GOOD SALES COPY to increase conversions. This means eye-catching headline, listing of benefits, and an offer… at a bare minimum.

And yes… (almost) no one else does this. That’s why so many business cards are freaking BORING and you can’t remember who gave them to you.

Finally, I leave you with this thought provoking video by Joel Bauer. Joel is a magician who got tired of barely scraping by and studied Direct Response Marketing. He now works trade shows and gets at least $10,000 a day. He does this by guaranteeing tons of traffic for the booth, which is what all business want who spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars on a trade show.

I have his business card and saved it even though I’ll most likely never hire him. It’s one of the few worth showing to other people.

Cheers,

Craig

P.S. I have articles on Lead Generation and Copywriting on my website.

** I do use highly specific and niche targeted business cards when I speak at conferences. Each card has a headline, and an irresistible offer. The offer is tracked by using a keyed URL so I can measure conversions and ultimately determine ROI.

I also put my photo on the card so people know it came from me and I make it brightly colored and unique so it stands out from the pile.

I don’t give a rat’s whisker about image or “looking professional” (whatever the hell that means), I only care about effectiveness of the marketing piece.

Thank you for your explanation of 2 step lead generation. I had a eureka moment a day after watching your vid and already began implementing. I’m offering a free hypnosis relaxation download => $10 specific hypnotic downloads => a $97 hypnosis program that is FREE when they sign up with me for hypnotherapy sessions.

My question is, is a referral system in any way different than this funnel?

It’s similar in concept.  But you need to have a way to encourage people to refer.

And even referral is tricky because it can mean so many things.

• professional referral (like a massage therapist)
• medical referral (Doctor sends a patient for stop smoking)
• former hypnosis client referral
• online referral from a review (like Yelp.com)
• networking group referral (like Chamber of Commerce)

Each of these referrals starts in a very different place, and for different reasons.

But the one thing in common is, it’s essentially “word of mouth” that brings the new clients in.

So you need to think… how can I stimulate these kind of word of mouth referrals? 

And what is their next step in my marketing process?  It might be that you want to test the same sequence you already have.  Then again, you might want to have a referred client come in for a face-to-face free evaluation.

When you get all that working, you have a referral system which should mostly run on auto-pilot.

Craig,

I rented your Video from World Hypnosis Day from the NGH catalog. I couldn’t believe they only gave you 50 minutes, definitely not enough time!     I am implementing a 2 step lead generation system for my site. But you never got a chance to describe what a “System” would look like.

The best thing to do is study what other people are already doing. 2-step lead generation has been around for over 100 years.

I don’t know where you live, but I’ll bet someone is doing it and you could model what they do.

Basically you want to look for ads that are of this structure:

So the strategy is… attract the prospects you are looking for, by offering them a no-risk next step, and by providing useful information on the solution to the problem they want to solve.

By doing this you build trust because you gave them answers to help them make an informed decision, and you credential yourself as an expert because you provided info on how to solve the problem in a way that makes it easy to understand.

Now, you don’t have to do a free report.  You can do a free evaluation session, or a video on your blog, or do a free self hypnosis class, etc.

Get it?

In the free report, or consultation, or class, or evaluation, you then make them an offer to buy your services.

And it might be more than a 2-step sequence.  You may find having 3 or 4 steps before an offer to buy works best.

maybe:

ad –> free report or video –> free evaluation (in person) –>
paid program of hypnosis sessions

Google Engineer Matt Cutts discusses what affect keywords in your website URL have on your ranking in Search Results.  He also says what he thinks is MOST important for good SEO.

This easy-to-understand video shows how the Google Ad auction process works to determine what advertisers pay for Adwords Ads.

Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian, explains the AdWords Ad Auction and how your max Cost Per Click (CPC) bid and Quality Ccore determine how much you pay for a click on Google.com.