Ho hum. Welcome to Bored Words, where a dull, baldheaded man lectures you on how to run your business–into the ground.
It’s April 1st, the day that some fool realized that your prospects don’t get enough sleep. So I’m going to give you ten proven tactics guaranteed to induce a comatose state as soon as you try to sell anything. Yawn…
Remember to blink every now and then as you read this. Try not to let your eyes glaze over.
10 Uninspiring Practices Guaranteed to Produce Mediocre Profits and Results Every Time
1. Look at what the majority of people are doing in your industry, and try to copy them as closely as possible. Strive to be just like everybody else.
2. Issue a press release announcing your website’s “new look.” Upload it to PRweb.com and check back every 2 hours to see if any major media companies have picked it up.
3. Avoid doing anything that might build a relationship with existing clients.
4. Ensure that passive verbs are used as frequently as can be done throughout your copy. See to it that clichés are sought after and maximized in their use. These state-of-the-art fossils should be implemented in all your web copy and literature as if they’re going out of style. They provide a full-service text solution for all your marketing needs. Use big, dense paragraphs that are filled with long, wandering sentences heavily encumbered with multiple dependent clauses and prepositional phrases in every line.
5. Offer a “Free Consultation” to anyone with enough spare time to spend 90 minutes at your office or the nearest Starbucks.
6. Demand an up-front investment of precious time (not money, which can be recovered) before you offer or divulge anything of value to a qualified prospect.
7. Cold-call large companies and give your best sales pitch to the gatekeeper, or leave a message that’s all about you in the general voicemail box. Don’t waste time on silly things like researching the company to find out about their true needs.
8. Send a postcard to everyone in the Yellow Pages without providing an offer, a Unique Selling Proposition, or any reason for them to contact you.
Don’t worry about targeting a demographic that might be more inclined to do business with you. If you even bother to follow up, wait at least 6 months for them to completely forget you.
9. Send the same generic email to every address you can get your hands on, with or without permission. Use the copy from your postcard in #8, above. Don’t spend too much time worrying about the subject line. And stay away from scammers who tell you to segment your list or track and measure your results.
10. Ignore the advice of cult figures like Claude Hopkins, David Ogilvy, John Caples, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, Ali Brown, Robert Collier, Seth Godin, Chris Marlow, John Forde, Clayton Makepeace, Napoleon Hill, Bob Bly, and Michael Masterson. They’re just a bunch of rich people.
Okay, okay, put out your torches and set the pitchfork down. It’s a joke! April Fools!
Or maybe not.
You see, I’ve been a fool. In fact, I’ve been guilty of almost all the counterproductive actions and attitudes listed above.
But worse than that, I’ve seen a lot of these foolish marketing mistakes become the norm in many industries. (It puts the whole recession thing in perspective, doesn’t it?) Maybe even you have committed some of these doozies.
Before you go on with the follies of the day, think seriously abut what you’re doing (or more importantly, what you’re not doing) to promote yourself.
Study some of the “rich people” I mentioned above. It’s no accident that all of them are (or were) rich.
All right, end of the sermon. I hope you got something useful out of this, at least a good laugh, and maybe an uncomfortable moment that will prove profitable later on.
Now go on out there and play a trick on someone.
