***SELECTIVE ADVERTISING -- A POEM FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

All this material on the Internet that suggests
you hype to thousands and hope a few souls bite
creates a cacophony
like coyotes on the mountainside
howling for blood.

And who wants to buy?
About as many as want to meet the coyotes.

If you are selling objects that are inexpensive,
scatter shot advertising is effective.
And maybe the hype is effective too.

But

I have built a very successful business
in one of the most competitive arenas
on ads that are designed to exclude,
that are designed to attract only the most suitable of clients,
only the most mutually desirable business relationships,
followed up by a telephone technique that requires the client to confess
unequivocally "I want to do that,"
that gives the client every opportunity to escape.
And my price is in the upper range: No freebies.

I qualify credit cards vigorously,
with the client on the line with me and the bank.
Yes, some people hang up in disgust.
God bless them.

Why? Why design an ad to exclude?
Why ask 'the prospect' to be so sure?
Because my product is a personal service, and I am one person;
and because once I talk to a person, I may have to live with them,
with their story, listen to their voice, for a long time.

And Because
I must be even minded for the next person I talk to after this person.

This practice of mine has delivered, over the years,
a group of people who particularly seek exactly what I do.
These people aren't going on to the next advertiser.
These people delivered, without any advertising for over a year,
a hundred thousand in gross income. Yes, I worked for it.

The elk I support got 95% of it.
That means a lot to these clients.
That is why the elk are in my ads.

I had NO charge backs in the past year; usually I have only two or three.
That is unheard of in any industry; and
Mine is in an industry rife with fraud on both sides of the transaction.

The formula is to describe exactly what the product is
FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE CONSUMER,
and to say exactly what it will cost.

The formula is to make a deal:
'What I do for you; What you do for me.'
This kind of deal perpetuates itself.

People who respond to hype respond to everybody's hype.
You lose those people as quickly as you gain them:
They are the whores in the singles bar.

Depending on the product one is selling,
there is a point between
the hype mode and my approach,
that brings stable clientele.
Where that point is depends on what you have to sell,
and on who you are.

Happy hunting!