Sorry this is long. But it's hard to make it any shorter as it would leave out important details.
Friend of mine owns a printing company. Right now his main products are vinyl banners, magnetic car signs, and yard signs. He's had a few successful businesses in his life. Made a few million. Smartest guy I know. Him and I have studied all of the same guys...Kennedy, Abraham, Chet Holmes, to name a few.
We both "get it". We're both very knowledgeable when it comes to marketing and how to grow a business. But, allow me to step down from the soapbox. We got together not too long ago to try and figure out how to scale his business. I wouldn't say we're completely stuck, but we are struggling a little to come up with a definite game plan on what to do next.
We are looking at it from the framework that Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, and Frank Kern use (have you seen their recent videos, they're great!)...
5 steps to any business...
Lead Magnet
Tripwire Sale (a small sale to get a prospect to become a customer)
Core Offer (main thing you're selling)
Profit Maximizers (up sells and cross sells)
Return Path (back end follow)
My friend started the biz recently and has only been focusing on step 3, the core offer. He hasn't done a damn thing with the other 4. And yet, he is still profitable. So he's looking to take this business to the next level and scale it. Once we get the formula down, it will grow. And grow fast. We have access to money if we need it (he has a few very successful friends (making a few million a year) who already offered him money) to scale.
Anywho, we were thinking of what to use as the lead magnet and tripwire. Example, VistaPrint uses the 250 business cards for $10. That's their lead magnet and tripwire. He doesn't really do business cards, but it was to give an example. VistaPrint is a $40+ million a year business now. All built on the 250 for $10 offer.
We have a few ideas, but nothing that made us think "THAT'S IT!"
The main idea is to take a step back. To get the customer before they think they need a vinyl banner (or yard sign or magnetic sign). Because at that point, most of them are just looking for the cheapest price. He gets lot of his sales now from ebay. Problem is they are bad customers. They are just after the cheapest price. And the problem is the competition just keeps lowering their prices. At some point there is no profit to be made.
So we were thinking why they want the signs in the first place. It's because they want more customers. They want more customers because they want more money.
So the end goal is more money. It's not a vinyl banner.
The idea we were throwing around is to offer some type of free information to retail business owners as the lead magnet. So something like a report on how to get more customers with monthly promotions (or promotions in general). Tripwire could be a cheap $7 report that goes a little deeper on the subject. The $7 is just to build a list and allow it to be built for free...the $7 goes toward the advertising costs. This is what allows you to scale.
The $7 report educates them on the topic a little more in depth. Then the goal is to have them use him to print the stuff they would use for the promotions.
From there we could sell them other things on the backend. But that part is easy once we get the first 3 steps running along.
The point of all of this is that right now he is making money but the customers are coming to him and seeing him as a printing company. As they should. He hasn't positioned himself yet as an advisor that just happens to own a printing company. Whereas if we set it up as described above, they are coming into the funnel with zero idea of any printing business and they are seeing him as an advisor instead.
I like the above idea. However, to me, that model sounds more like a consulting business. Why bother with printing signs if we can make money selling them marketing strategies?? Only reason I can think of is we could get it up and running to a point where there would be little involvement on our end while it makes low 6 figures a year. Then in a few years it is an asset that could be sold for a nice payday.
Another idea we have is to have a "done for you" monthly membership club. We help them set up monthly promotions for the year and then every month they get a promotion that's already printed and ready to go for them to use.
Final idea - There is something called trade printing. Basically, printers offer printing materials to print brokers, graphic designers, ad agencies, and other printing businesses at a wholesale rate. We thought about letting business owners know about this "dirty little secret of the printing business". Then offer them trade printing (with a small markup). This will build a list.
Him and I both suffer the same problem, we over think things and like to have things all figured out in our heads before we do something. Problem is, you don't know what works until you actually do something. So we ended the day with "let's come up with a few ideas and test them all and go from there."
Do you have any ideas that you think we could use for a lead magnet and tripwire sale? ANY input at all is greatly appreciated.
Friend of mine owns a printing company. Right now his main products are vinyl banners, magnetic car signs, and yard signs. He's had a few successful businesses in his life. Made a few million. Smartest guy I know. Him and I have studied all of the same guys...Kennedy, Abraham, Chet Holmes, to name a few.
We both "get it". We're both very knowledgeable when it comes to marketing and how to grow a business. But, allow me to step down from the soapbox. We got together not too long ago to try and figure out how to scale his business. I wouldn't say we're completely stuck, but we are struggling a little to come up with a definite game plan on what to do next.
We are looking at it from the framework that Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, and Frank Kern use (have you seen their recent videos, they're great!)...
5 steps to any business...
Lead Magnet
Tripwire Sale (a small sale to get a prospect to become a customer)
Core Offer (main thing you're selling)
Profit Maximizers (up sells and cross sells)
Return Path (back end follow)
My friend started the biz recently and has only been focusing on step 3, the core offer. He hasn't done a damn thing with the other 4. And yet, he is still profitable. So he's looking to take this business to the next level and scale it. Once we get the formula down, it will grow. And grow fast. We have access to money if we need it (he has a few very successful friends (making a few million a year) who already offered him money) to scale.
Anywho, we were thinking of what to use as the lead magnet and tripwire. Example, VistaPrint uses the 250 business cards for $10. That's their lead magnet and tripwire. He doesn't really do business cards, but it was to give an example. VistaPrint is a $40+ million a year business now. All built on the 250 for $10 offer.
We have a few ideas, but nothing that made us think "THAT'S IT!"
The main idea is to take a step back. To get the customer before they think they need a vinyl banner (or yard sign or magnetic sign). Because at that point, most of them are just looking for the cheapest price. He gets lot of his sales now from ebay. Problem is they are bad customers. They are just after the cheapest price. And the problem is the competition just keeps lowering their prices. At some point there is no profit to be made.
So we were thinking why they want the signs in the first place. It's because they want more customers. They want more customers because they want more money.
So the end goal is more money. It's not a vinyl banner.
The idea we were throwing around is to offer some type of free information to retail business owners as the lead magnet. So something like a report on how to get more customers with monthly promotions (or promotions in general). Tripwire could be a cheap $7 report that goes a little deeper on the subject. The $7 is just to build a list and allow it to be built for free...the $7 goes toward the advertising costs. This is what allows you to scale.
The $7 report educates them on the topic a little more in depth. Then the goal is to have them use him to print the stuff they would use for the promotions.
From there we could sell them other things on the backend. But that part is easy once we get the first 3 steps running along.
The point of all of this is that right now he is making money but the customers are coming to him and seeing him as a printing company. As they should. He hasn't positioned himself yet as an advisor that just happens to own a printing company. Whereas if we set it up as described above, they are coming into the funnel with zero idea of any printing business and they are seeing him as an advisor instead.
I like the above idea. However, to me, that model sounds more like a consulting business. Why bother with printing signs if we can make money selling them marketing strategies?? Only reason I can think of is we could get it up and running to a point where there would be little involvement on our end while it makes low 6 figures a year. Then in a few years it is an asset that could be sold for a nice payday.
Another idea we have is to have a "done for you" monthly membership club. We help them set up monthly promotions for the year and then every month they get a promotion that's already printed and ready to go for them to use.
Final idea - There is something called trade printing. Basically, printers offer printing materials to print brokers, graphic designers, ad agencies, and other printing businesses at a wholesale rate. We thought about letting business owners know about this "dirty little secret of the printing business". Then offer them trade printing (with a small markup). This will build a list.
Him and I both suffer the same problem, we over think things and like to have things all figured out in our heads before we do something. Problem is, you don't know what works until you actually do something. So we ended the day with "let's come up with a few ideas and test them all and go from there."
Do you have any ideas that you think we could use for a lead magnet and tripwire sale? ANY input at all is greatly appreciated.
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