your mail in a wedding-invitation-size envelope with no logo or advertising of any kind on the outside.
Place a real standard stamp on it. Don’t use a postage meter or bulk mail.
Handwrite the prospect’s name and address on the envelope. To make this easier, you can purchase computer software that will print your envelope and letter in your handwriting.
Do not put a return address on the envelope. (Why do we put return addresses on envelopes? To get them back if the addressee doesn’t receive it, right? Do you want your own junk mail back? No? Then don’t use a return address.)
Send the same letter or a slightly different letter in the same kind of envelope to the same address three times over a forty-five-day period; in other words, every fifteen days. Repetition has been proven to work. By the third time, the prospect will think he or she knows you or your company. The person will recognize your name. Be aware big companies invest millions of dollars every year to get customers to know them, to recognize their name, to build brand and awareness.
Target the prospects you should mail to. Ask yourself where the prospects that are more likely to be responsive to your offer live. Who is likely to buy your product? You can find their names by using a crisscross directory. By targeting your mail in this manner, you’re not wasting your time on areas of town where you can’t sell.
So now for the test, let’s see how I did in regards to the first rule. Ask yourself honestly, if you receive a letter in the mail as I’ve just described, would you open it? Attendees at my seminars all say yes. If that’s true, by utilizing the method I just laid out, you will have fulfilled the first requirement of direct mail. The prospect must open the mail.
The second rule is to get the prospects to read the mail. First of all, don’t write a long-winded letter. No one will read it. Handwrite the letter or use the software that prints the note in your handwriting. Use notepaper, the type you would fold over once to fit in the envelope. Don’t include a business card, reply card, or anything else that could automatically tell the prospect, “Oops! This is junk mail.”
The note you write should explain what you plan to do, and what you expect of the prospect. Direct-mail experts say that prospects most likely will read the first couple of lines of the first paragraph or the PS. If either grabs their attention, they’ll read on.
The third rule of direct mail is to take action. It is unlikely the prospect will take action and call you, which is one of the reasons why the industry average response to direct mail is so low. So you should take the responsibility for taking the action. You do that by calling the prospect. If it is a residential prospect, make sure you have checked the do-not-call list before calling. There are services that scrub phone lists to illuminate those customers on the do-not-call list. By using that kind of service, you can prevent making calls that could result in a fine.
You can, however, make phone calls to any commercial business without fear of violating a do-not-call list.
The reason you cannot rely on the prospect taking action and calling you is simple. They live in the same nation as you and I. It happens to be the largest nation in the world: Procrastination. We all procrastinate. We all hear advertisements on TV or the radio or read them in the newspaper and do nothing about them, even when we are interested. We plan to do it some other time, later on, when we get around to it, and nothing happens.
That takes care of the first fifteen of the 15+15+15 rule: send fifteen pieces of mail to targeted prospects every day.
Before I go on, you may be wondering why I suggested you limit the number of direct mail pieces sent to fifteen. I did so for two reasons. First, fifteen pieces of direct mail takes just a few minutes every morning to prepare and get ready to mail. Any salesperson can easily find the time to do this without disrupting the rest of her day. Second, fifteen pieces of mail is easier to follow up on. If I send too many pieces, I’m less likely to take step two, which is to call the prospects I mailed.
The mail you sent serves as a warm-up to what would otherwise be a cold call. You are now making a warm call. The letter you sent also gives you a reason for calling: to follow up on the mail you sent. You should call the prospect approximately three days after you send a piece of mail. Not just after the third piece—every time.
Next, you should expect an objection when you call. Don’t be so naïve as to believe the prospect will be happy to hear from you. Occasionally that’s true, but more often than not you’ll hear this most typical of objections, the objection we all must have been taught in our mother’s wombs to say to salespeople when they call or even approach us: “I am not interested.”
I’m not surprised when I hear this objection, and neither should you. I am prepared for it. Learn to say this in response.
Salesperson: “When you say you’re not interested, are you saying you are not interested in buying anything?”
Prospect: “Exactly. I’m not interested in buying anything.”
Salesperson: “Great, because I’m not interested in selling you anything. In fact, I can make you two promises. First, the information I will share with you and your family when we get together will prove valuable to you and your family. And second, I won’t demonstrate anything or attempt to sell you anything unless you ask me to do so. And, of course, if you’re not interested in buying, you won’t ask. That’s fair, isn’t it? So when can we get together? Would tonight at 6 be good or is 7:30 better?” (Note the choice between two yeses.)
If you do this, you’ll get appointments. Not all of the time, but enough to make it well worth the time you invested.
When making appointments by phone, be clear about your goals. If your goal is to make an appointment, then sell the appointment and don’t try to sell your product on the phone. There are some products that can be sold on the phone, and that’s a decision you have to make prior to making phone calls. If the system you sell requires demonstration, a survey, time to build value, or face-to-face contact, do not under any circumstances attempt to sell the product on the phone. Your goal is to sell an appointment on the phone, and then sell the product when you get in front of the prospect.
The third fifteen of the 15+15+15 rule is to shake fifteen hands a day. Obviously I don’t mean shaking just anyone’s hand; the fifteen hands you might shake could be the fifteen people you sent mail to and then called three or four days ago. The goal is to see fifteen prospects every single day, belly-to-belly.
Cold-Calling
Cold-calling is by far the fastest and easiest way to make sales today. “Warm-calling,” following up on mail that you have sent, puts your destiny squarely in your hands, not in the hands of the mail carrier, the phone company, or procrastinating prospects. You’re in charge. In fact, warm calls give the procrastinating prospect the opportunity to get out of the land of procrastination, to take action instead of putting off decisions. When you knock on doors, you’ll find a person who has been meaning to get around to calling you or someone else that sells what you sell, a person who has wanted to buy but hasn’t. All you have to do is develop a script (what to say) and then get off your seat and out on the street. A customer is waiting for you if you’ll just knock.
Flyers
Flyers can be an inexpensive and effective way to target exactly the prospect you believe, or statistics suggest buys your product. I have used flyers to warm up an area I planned to cold-call. That way the prospect isn’t entirely
