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G E T P R O F I T A B L E U P D A T E!

May 1, 2001

The "Get Profitable Update" is an internationally published

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information, success tips, and business strategies that you can

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IN THIS ISSUE:

1) CONTEST WINNER: Brenda Halvorson of Minnesota, USA

2) BRANDING: Welcome To The Power of e-Branding, Part 1 of 2

3) MARKETING: One Sure Fire Promotional Technique.

4) QUESTION FROM HOMEPAGE: "How do I figure out who my target

market is when I think that it's everybody?"

5) WEBSITE PICKS: I thought you might like to see a neat bus-

iness card printing service: www.vistaprint.com

(Do you have a great web site to recommend to our readers?

If so, please email mailto:kevin@getprofitable.com )

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1) CONTEST WINNER: Brenda Halvorson Wins FREE Book!

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Brenda Halvorson of Minnesota is the winner of our "Branding

Quiz" Contest at: http://www.getprofitable.com/Quiz.html

Because of the popularity of the contest (which by the way is

not won by how many right answers you get but by total random

drawing. But it will help you sharpen your skills on fundamental

brand building questions. So give it a try and if you like it

recommend it to a friend or two. The next drawing for winners

will be July 31, 2001.

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2) BRANDING: A Totally Different View of Branding Part 1 of 2

(Excerpt From Chapter One of my new book, How To e-Brand Your

Dot.Com Business)

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From Branding to e-Branding: The Reshaping of Marketing 101

http://www.getprofitable.com/E_Brand.html

I can remember it as clear as day. I was sitting in the Ewing

Marion Kauffman building in Kansas City, Missouri on a warm June

day. I was serving as a national category judge for the highly

prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year awards.

This program carries itself with the highest of integrity of any

in which I have ever been involved. Winning the award will earn

someone a front-page article on a USA Today special section and

a ton of publicity and credibility.

Enormous work and effort goes into the judging process to ensure

it is fair, ethical and honorable. The sponsors - Ernst & Young

LLP, USA Today, Merrill Lynch and the Ewing Marion Kaufman

Foundation - have put aside all their personal interests to

build a distinguished program that honors the entrepreneurial

spirit and success story.

As a regional Entrepreneur of the Year Award category winner in

1993, I was subsequently asked to serve on a panel of three

judges for the June 1999 contest.

As a prior winner and past judge, I knew the extreme importance

of weighing all the information carefully to ensure the right

person was selected as the national winner.

In our judging room that day, I was accompanied by a Kauffman

Center facilitator and two other highly qualified judges. Our

task was to filter through the regional EOY winners in the spec-

ific category we were judging to determine who would be the

national award winner and the two runners-up.

This was not an easy task when the leading contenders were a

group of 18 "cream of the crop" successful entrepreneurs from

all around the United States. As a judge, you are required to

carefully examine each candidate, evaluating key factors like

vision, team management, financial achievements, and contrib-

utions to community among others.

After each judge had accomplished this, we were to submit our

top several choices based on the scores we had ascribed to each

candidate during our review process.

At this point, the facilitator would list them on the board and

then the process of discussion would begin. Each judge would go

over every choice they had submitted and tell why they were

ranked the way they were on their personal list.

As had occurred occasionally in prior years in which I had

judged, it soon became apparent who would be the top five or six.

After further discussion and debate, we arrived at the top three

or four contestants that would get a final level of scrutiny

from each judge prior to voting.

It was at this point that the problem arose.

It occurred when we were selecting who would be the national

winner. This winning candidate had indeed built a very success-

ful business but there was something different. It was a "pure-

play" online Internet business.

Up until this point, there were a few online companies that had

been regional EOY winners, including Amazon.com. But e-commerce

companies were really just emerging on the scene.

Judging these candidates posed new challenges because the Wall

Street investment community was placing great importance on e-

businesses gaining market share at the expense of profitability.

The expectation was that they would eventually turn this large

and branded market audience into paying customers or attract

advertising revenue. Profit would surely follow. Consequently,

it was a widely held belief that it was acceptable and even

preferable to sacrifice profit now for market share penetration.

As I said, this was where the problem came up. The company that

was being suggested as the National Winner in this particular

category was a success story in every sense of the word, but ...

it had not been in business quite long enough to prove out its

e-business revenue model and had not yet turned a profit.

As an entrepreneur of 19 years, I had a very difficult time

choosing a winner that wasn't profitable and I stated it quite

clearly.

Another very distinguished judge - a successful entrepreneur

and adjunct professor with the Entrepreneurship Program at Col-

umbia University, Graduate School of Business - disagreed, say-

ing, "Web businesses were all about building market share and

that profitability was less important."

I disagreed, remarking that profitability is essential and cen-

tral to being a successful entrepreneur even in pioneering a new

industry or technology. Our debate heated up.

Other judges who had finished with their own judging responsi-

bilities were drawn to our room to see what all the controversy

was about. We stood our ground, defending our positions. In

fact, we called in the executive staff of the judging program

to help us define the criteria better for making this decision.

Even they found it difficult adding in the "Internet" factor

with its undefined profitability territory and basically left

the decision to our three-person team, encouraging us to work

through it.

Time ran out and I was the lone hold out. In the end, the com-

pany that was the subject of this debate won. In fact, they

were a deserving winner.

So you could say that I lost the battle but in the end I won the

war.

I won the war because I came to an EPIPHANY on that warm June

day in 1999: The time had come in the Internet industry for com-

panies to be making money. I have since been proven right. The

market corrected for Internet businesses in the first quarter of

2000 and the la-la land of spend-and-burn money to gain market

share at the expense of profitability was over.

It is now Phase 2 for Internet businesses.

Investors will only look at businesses whose business plan is

built on a solid profitability model. Reality "clicked" in and

web businesses, like any business, must be profitable if they

are to survive.

Perspective is now in order. We are at an important turning

point in the evolution and maturity of the Internet and e-

commerce, one that will bring more reality into the dot.com

world and make the players stronger and more focused on

profitability.

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3) MARKETING: One Sure Fire Promotional Technique.

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One of the best sure fire marketing techniques is the "ethical

bride" special promotion. As you'll see this is a bribe that

really equates to an incredible inducement for your prospective

customer that makes it very difficult to say no to what your

selling.

This technique revolves around creating an irresistible deal on

a desirable service or product that a lot of people are inter-

ested in, such as collections of books, newsletters, educational

materials, artwork, services, or other "soft-dollar,"

high-perceived-value bonuses.

The key to be very successful here is to articulate your ethical

bribe clearly so your prospects can clearly see how it benefits

them. For example:

1) Offer your swillywiggers at a huge discount - or as cheaply

as you can while still realizing a profit - pointing out all

the specific savings in dollars and in percentages.

2) Highlight the quantity, value and performance of your swilly-

wigger, and trumpet what it sells for at full list price.

3) Sweeten the pot with a bonus or collection of bonuses such as

a set of books, reports, a newsletter, a painting, membership

in a club, theater tickets - anything with a high perceived

value, yet a very low real acquisition cost for you.

4) Total the value of all the bonuses, plus the retail value of

the main product (or service), and compare the total with the

cost of this special offer for the entire package.

5) Carefully analyze the specific dollar and percentage savings

again. This time it's even more impressive because the pros-

pect now understands the high value of the premium(s).

6) Now double or triple the warranty/guarantee or free trial,

and beef up the warranty benefits.

7) Finally, tell the customer that even if he/she asks for a

full refund, he/she can keep all the valuable bonuses just

for responding in the first place. This gives the customer

a "better-than-risk-free" guarantee, because at the very

worst he/she comes out many dollars ahead, even with a refund

request.

This ethical bribe technique has worked spectacularly for my

clients over and over creating new sales dollars. Crafted cor-

rectly, it has never failed to work. I urge you to play around

with some variations of this promotional concept to adapt your

product or service for your letters, display ads, sales pitches,

or commercials.

If you missed the powerful advertising articles I just wrote,

titled: Writing Powerful Ads, Letters, etc. That Sell!, go to:

http://www.getprofitable.com/SpecialReports.html and go to the

March and April issues of the Get Profitable Update to get the

full articles.

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4) QUESTION FROM HOMEPAGE:

================================================================

Question

"How do I figure out who my target market is when I think that

it's everybody?"

Answer:

This is a common problem with many business owners where your

natural tendency is to think that the world is your prospective

customer. You want to think that everybody would have an

interest in some way in your product or service. However, the

truth is that not everybody is interested. Or at least inter-

ested with the same degree of desire.

There really is a very specific profile of the ideal customer

who is most likely the candidate to be interested in what you

have to sell.

Your job is to develop this ideal customer profile by sitting

down and drafting out the characteristics of who that person is,

why they want or need it more than anyone else, what their

motivation to get it is, what benefit or result they will get

from it that can be used to entice them to purchase it, and what

is unique and special about your business that would make them

want to purchase it from you versus one of your competitors.

This is how you build your product or service as the "brand of

choice" in your competitive marketplace.

Once you know your ideal customer profile then you only spend

your marketing dollars on that segment of the marketplace and

no one else. This way there is no waste in your marketing

budget and you have a higher chance of converting prospects

into customers.

Hope this helps.

If I can assist you in dramatically increasing your sales and

profits, feel free to give me a call toll free, 1-877-854-5963

inside the United States and 1-801-459-9589 outside the U.S.

Click this link if you've got a marketing, branding or profit-

ability question. http://www.getprofitable.com/index.html

================================================================

5) WEBSITE PICKS:

================================================================

I thought you might like to see a neat business card printing

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* VistaPrint.com guarantees that you will be satisfied

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There is some fine print here (see quote from site below) as

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service:

"Offer excludes shipping and handling costs. Selected doc-

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details. Each card has 'Business Cards are FREE at

www.vistaprint.com' discreetly printed on the back."

================================================================

Do you want increase sales and profits?

Do you want to be the "Brand of Choice" in your marketplace?

Call me with your Marketing or Branding questions at:

1-800-877-5963 toll free in the United States or 1-801-459-9589

outside the U.S. or email mailto:kevin@getprofitable.com or go

to our website GetProfitable.com for more free information.

================================================================

Pick up a Copy of Kevin's HOT New Book

++ E-BOOK delivered INSTANTLY for only $14.95 ++

++ Hard Copy for only $24.95 ++

================================================================

"How To E-Brand Your Dot.Com Business"

Revolutionary Breakthrough Branding Formula

Shows Every Internet Entrepreneur

How To Differentiate Your e-Business,

Gain a Competitive Advantage,

and Turn Your Web Site Into an Internet Moneymaker!

REVIEW BY ARTHUR KRAFT, Ph.D.,

DEAN, COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND THE CHARLES H. KELLSTADT

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS,

DEPAUL UNIVERSITY:

"The perfect how-to book for dot.com entrepreneurs.

It provides a no-nonsense guide to effective

strategy for Web-based firms. You are given

secrets for successful e-branding."

Which would you rather have...a one-time customer or a

lifetime customer?

Discover the Five Simple Steps to Successfully e-Brand Your

Business Online!

Check it out at either:

http://www.getprofitable.com/BooksandTapes.html

http://www.booklocker.com/bookpages/kevinclark01.htm

Also sold at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970008805/qid%3D984696756/107-2699815-0871755

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FREE ARTICLES FOR YOUR PUBLICATIONS

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I have many articles available for reprint that you can use in

your print or on-line publication, or company newsletter. You

may use articles written by me that you see in my Get Profitable

Update. All you have to do is print the article in its entirety

along with the byline at the top and the following identifier

paragraph at the end:

Feel free to forward this issue of the Get Profitable Update

e-newsletter to others as long as you forward it in its

Kevin M. Clark, www.GetProfitable.com

================================================================

Kevin M. Clark is an Entrepreneur Of The Year Award Recipient

and small business marketing consultant, branding specialist,

and speaker to many nationally acclaimed groups. Sign up for

his free valuable newsletter

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You can contact Kevin at: mailto:kevin@getprofitable.com

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Written by Kevin M. Clark,

"Entrepreneur of The Year Award Recipient," (Regional

Winner) and President of Clark Marketing Group, Inc.

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