In this episode, I sit down with Author, Speaker, and Business Coach Jim Palmer to discuss:
- How Jim introduces himself at networking events [07:10]
- His origin story [07:46]
- His key takeaways from writing newsletters [9:50]
- What to consider when creating a newsletter [12:25]
- His current projects [19:17]
Guest:
Jim Palmer (@getjimpalmer) is an author and business coach. He is the founder of the Dream Business Academy and Dream Business Coaching and Mastermind Program. Jim is the host of Dream Business Coach TV, the hit weekly Web TV show watched by thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners and he is also the host of Stick Like Glue Radio, a weekly podcast based on Jim’s unique brand of Smart Marketing and Business Building Strategies.
Quotes:
“Customers that stay engaged with your business end up buying more.” – Jim Palmer
Tuck (my dog) helping me open Jim’s books that he signed and sent! So fun to get snail mail! 🙂 Thanks, Jim!
Show Mentions:
- Episode 16 with Marcus Meurer
- DECIDE – The Ultimate Success Trigger by Jim Palmer
- Stop Waiting For it to Get Easier: Create Your Dream Business Now by Jim Palmer
Let’s Get Social:
Guest: Jim Palmer
Host: Laura Petersen
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Your wish is my command! Here are the transcripts.
(Let me know if you see any errors so I can fix them up! – transcription by Rev)
| Intro: | Welcome to Copy That Pops, the only podcast that goes deep into the psychology and strategies behind getting more traffic, more conversions and more sales from your digital copy and marketing efforts. Join Laura and her guests as they share actionable advice, step by step strategies and psychological research to help you earn more with your online business than ever before. Here’s your host, Laura Petersen. |
| Laura: | Hey everybody. Thanks so much for joining us today on Copy That Pops. I am Laura Petersen your host and if you’re a regular listener you know that I like to mention from where I’m recording. A true digital nomad in practicing at heart, I’m wrapping up a year living abroad with my husband in Europe. Today I’m recording this introduction from the airport in Boston so if you hear some back ground noise that is why. |
| I may have to pause a couple of times for the announcements and listen closely for announcing my flight, but I’m making way back today to SoCal where I’m originally from. I’m going, going back, back to Cali, Cali.
I’m going to visit my parents for a few weeks and head to the IMPACT16 conference in Las Vegas in between. That’s actually one of the things I’m really looking forward to about being back in the United States, going to conferences and doing more in-person networking. |
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| I really love that and I missed it and all my best business buddies state side, but that’s not to say I didn’t make some great business friends while I was abroad. I actually had a mastermind session yesterday with a core group of 6 of us that meet every 2 weeks to talk about our goals and how we can help each other. That formed out of the co-working, co-living digital nomad camp that I attended this past June in Greece. | |
| Check out episode 16 at copythatpops.com/016 where I interview one of the leaders of the digital nomad retreat, Marcus Meurer. He’s from Germany originally, but I see that he’s actually off with his girlfriend and co-founder over to Brazil for another retreat that’s coming up in a couple of months. I’ll link up in the show notes a link to that retreat in Brazil if you want to check it out and get involved. These things are game changers. | |
| They’re amazing, so much fun and great opportunity to really increase your network. Since this is episode 26 you can always find show notes for this show at copythatpops.com/026. Okay, so today’s guest is a wonderful guy named Jim Palmer. I recorded this interview with a couple of weeks ago while visiting my in-laws in Hampshire. Jim is a long time entrepreneur, expert marketer, business coach, speaker, author, podcaster, web TV host and is even dubbed the newsletter guru to boot. | |
| He’s helped clients around the globe and he’s the founder of Dream Business Academy and the Dream Business coaching and mastermind program and as I mentioned he’s an author. I have to say that after our interview Jim was so sweet as to mail me, not an email, but actually snail mail me a signed copy of 2 of his books. One is DECIDE – The Ultimate Success Trigger and two is Stop Waiting For it to Get Easier: Create Your Dream Business Now. I actually carried on the DECIDE book with me right now and it’s sitting next to me open. | |
| One little passage that really caught my eye about content production which is so important to all of us entrepreneurs and writing. I wanted to just quickly read to give you a little taste of a piece of the DECIDE book. This is from page 88. Good is good enough. So reading from Jim’s book. To me good is good enough means that you always do your best work. Create great content, great, great books, shoot great, great videos etcetera. | |
| Then you pull the trigger and implement and or launch your work. I used to use a team of proof readers and I still employ some today, but my mindset has shifted from the need to be perfect to someone who regularly and consistently puts out helpful and useful information, stuff that has real value. I’m known as someone who cranks out a ton of content every week and I’ve become comfortable with the fact that when I produce such a large load of content there will be a mistake or two and that’s okay. | |
| A mistake or 2 is not a deal breaker for 99.9% for your clients or prospects. To me it’s all about putting out a great information that can help entrepreneurs grow a more profitable business faster. It’s not about me being a perfect writer, author or speaker. Then he goes on to talk about 2 different events that helps him realize this. I just wanted to bring this up because we talk a lot about improving your writing, improving your copying. Even I record some grammar tips, but ultimately you don’t want perfect to be the enemy of good. | |
| You don’t want to work so hard that every little single word and detail is perfect to prevent you from putting out great content and really getting visible and sharing your message with the world. I wanted to just point that caviar out that I really agree with Jim, good is good enough. Don’t always drive for absolutely perfect if it prevents you, slows you down, let’s you procrastinate, really putting out good content that’s going to help and be valuable to your audience, to your market. All right. | |
| If you want to check out any of Jim’s books I’m going to put a link out to his website and to his books on the show notes back at copythatpops.com. Always remember if you’re not by a computer right now you can’t type a URL into the web address, |
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| Jim: | Laura, how are you doing? Thanks for having me on. |
| Laura: | I’m great. Where are we talking to from today? Where are you? |
| Jim: | I am in south eastern Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia. |
| Laura: | nice. I’m actually in New Hampshire at my in-laws visiting family. I’m finally back in the United States. I’ve been in … |
| Jim: | I went one year to school which is actually a different name now, but it used to be called New Hampshire College in Manchester think its called Southern New Hampshire University these days. |
| Laura: | Very cool. Yeah. I’m from California originally with my husband grew up in Maine and his parents are in New Hampshire now so we’re enjoying New England for a little bit. |
| Jim: | New England is awesome. |
| Laura: | Yes. I hope to see some leaves changes. |
| Jim: | You better be there a while because I think it’s probably got another month or more before that starts … |
| Laura: | I know, I know. That’s so true. How do you introduce yourself at networking events? |
| Jim: | I actually haven’t been to a networking event in years. |
| Laura: | Really? |
| Jim: | It’s odd because like you I’m sure there’s lots of different things you do, but basically what is say is am an author and a small business coach and that will suffice for all the other things. |
| Laura: | Nice. Are you from Pennsylvania originally then? |
| Jim: | Since I was 19 so 58 now. I guess you can officially say I am. I moved around as a kid, but I’ve been here for a long time. |
| Laura: | Cool. When did you start getting into business and speaking? Tell us that path like how you came to started doing what you’re doing. |
| Jim: | Sure. When I was 41 I guess in 2000 my position was eliminated with the company I was working for. Having 4 teenagers at home and I still thought you know well … Even though I really had an entrepreneurial spirit. In fact the companies I worked for have all been for the most part entrepreneurial in nature. There’s a thing direct deposit an insurance and vacation and food. |
| That seemed maybe now it’s not a good time, but a year and a half later almost I was still out of work and basically decided so October 2001 … I’ve giving you the very condensed version here, but October 2001 I started my first business and grew that multiple 6 figures in 5 years, but then realized that I’m running this business … Excuse me, I own a business that’s actually running me. I really had no … We’re starting to make again, but I was like so many small business owners I was doing it all. From answering the calls, to clients, to sales, to deliveries. | |
| I was it. Like you say from whether you are happy to start your business from a good position or whether you’re just happy to have a business after being in a bad way. It felt good, but I thought I can’t continue this for 15 or 20 years. That’s when I really started learning about internet marketing and direct response, copywriting and leverage and … I started my first internet business called No Hassle Newsletters. Just think I started probably 4 or 5 other internet business and then I get into coaching 7 years ago and speaking. | |
| I’ve written 6 books in 6 years so it’s … Actually as you and I talking we’re approaching I guess the 15 year mark as a business owner. | |
| Laura: | Wow, very prolific. It sounds like … |
| Jim: | Just occurred to me. |
| Laura: | That’s awesome. Tell us a little bit about the newsletters as I know that’s where you really started making your mark in the beginning. Are there any key take ways you could give us about what you learned writing so many newsletters and really having success with that? |
| Jim: | I wrote my first newsletter. I was a 2 page black and white on a type writer. When I was 21 years old, I was running this bike shop. I don’t know the year. I guess it would probably be about 1980 or so and it really brought in some business, I mean 21 years old people don’t know anything about nostalgia. I wish I’d saved that, it’d be so fun to show it up. |
| Laura: | I know. |
| Jim: | Although it’s a probably a big … It looks like a piece of crap I’m sure, but it really brought people into the store. I did things that felt natural. I know now after studying and being schooled in a lot of areas of marketing, that some of the things that I did that worked well, I wrote in a conversational tone, so I just wrote as I was talking to people that would come in the store. I just typed out little conversations like that. |
| Figuring that the newsletter was a conversation in print, then for the people who weren’t coming in the store as frequently. That’s how it started, and I kept a very low key. I didn’t do a lot of selling. I just did more informing and relationship building. When I sent out the first one, I think our mailing list at the time was about 800, and we just try folded it and put in the mail and doggone if people didn’t start coming. “Hey, I got your newsletter.” I’m like, “Oh man.” | |
| When you’re a marketer and you seek, and you do something that works, it’s pretty exciting, and so I did it again, and did it again. That was the starting point. In every company I worked at from then on I was involved in marketing, but I always started a newsletter and so when it was time to start my own business, I actually was going to be a consultant, marketing or business consulting side a pretty varied background, but I thought, it’s a little hard being a consultant, starting out, getting your client. | |
| I thought for … Generate a little cash I would do newsletters because I basically … I was writing in designing them. I could do the whole thing. I started approaching these companies. I also felt that if I could get a company to hire me to do their newsletter once they get to know me, they engage in conversation here a little bit bore about my past experience maybe that would lead to consulting. The consulting never took off and newsletters did it. That’s how that whole thing got started. | |
| Laura: | Oh, that’s interesting. What are some … If you could boil down a couple of key takeaways on the psychology of how to write or present things, whether that’s with the writing or even just visually, what are some key things that someone could take away if they’re working on a newsletter right now? |
| Jim: | The first thing is you want to mail monthly and you actually … One of the secrets is, if in this day and age of digital everything go as you’re talking about a e-news newsletter, I do that now. No, I’m not. I’m talking about a print in mail paper, an ink newsletter and because here’s the thing. I’ll give an example for easy math. Let’s say you have 1,000 customers and you’re only going to send them an e-newsletter or easing as it’s often called, because of the way the spam filters and Gmail or whatever other things that you have, if you even get like 5% to 8% deliverability rate, you’re doing pretty well in the email marketing. |
| That means let’s just say you get 10% like you’re a rock star, out of your 1,000 customers, 900 of them are not hearing from you. You think you’re saving money, you’re actually costing your business money because you’re not stepping up, building the relationship with people that have already said, “I know I can trust you because I’ve already given you money.” | |
| It does pay to spend anywhere from $0.75 to $1 a piece on your customers to develop those relationships because we know that customers that stay engaged with a business longer, they end up spending more, they buy more frequently, and they also refer more. Yes, it is an investment, but it’s an investment that most often pays off. | |
| Laura: | Right, and I remember when email first came out, it was exciting to get your email, and you were just excited to open one, and now people are just inundated, so it’s almost reverse. Now, people maybe are a little bit more excited to get something unique in the mail. |
| Jim: | Yeah and the last time I looked, one of the top 5 words that spam filters look for is the word newsletter. I still say, do it, because hey if 5% of your of your customers are getting a newsletter and some are reading it, that’s good because it almost doesn’t cost anything other than time, but if you really want to build your business, you need to invest a little money in those relationships. If you think of what … One of the most important numbers that entrepreneurs should know is, what is the average lifetime value my customer? |
| Now, it could be anywhere from $500 to $5,000 whatever, but let’s just say the average lifetime value of a customer somebody, who’s listening to this program, in their business, the average lifetime value is say $1,500. Now, why would you not spend $12 a year on those customers? Because if I was to mail. Let’s say I mailed 1,000 newsletters and 200 people came in and bought and 5 people refer to new customers, you very, very quickly you will pale the cost of investing. | |
| One of my longest clients for no Housel Newsletters is an attorney, and he spends $5,000 mailing every issue and I’m like, I said, “Dave, I totally believe in it, but it seems funny that I’m asking this, but that’s a lot of money. He puts a whole lot into it. He does free standing inserts. He mails everybody.” He goes, “Jim, I swear … By the way, he said if it wasn’t producing, I wouldn’t do it. What do you think I am?” But he goes, every time I mail this newsletter, we get at least one new client by way of referral, and a client to his business is worth like … I think he said like $37,000 or something over the life, and I said why would I not spend $5,000 a month and generate a client every month that’s going to produce $37,000? | |
| It is like most other things that you do in your business, it is an investment, so it often feels Laura like you’re putting the cart before the horse a little bit, but that’s what you’ve got to do. | |
| Laura: | Right, and have you guys tested with anything, also sending something in addition to the newsletter like a small little gift, or surprise or something? |
| Jim: | I suggest doing that, but I don’t say do it with the newsletter. Do you want to do it separately? What you can do with a newsletter is what’s called a freestanding insert, because I believe a newsletter should be fun, informative, and entertaining, light and almost … It almost has nothing to do with your business. It certainly has nothing to do was selling, except maybe in a very covert way, but for the most part, it’s a relationship building tool. |
| People go, “Well, I want to sell more.” People that have a strong relationship with your business will spend more. The goal, if your goal is to increase your profits and that’s everybody’s goal, the best way to do that is to strengthen the relationship and a newsletter will do that. I do believe. I send out gifts. I send out copies of books. We occasionally send out cookies and different things, but we do that separately because here’s the here’s what it would look like. | |
| Let’s say on the first of every month, you mail your newsletter and then every once in while you put a gift or cookies something else and all shows up says, “Hey this is cool,” but what if on the first of the month they get your newsletter, and 2 weeks later they get a gift and then 2 weeks later they get a newsletter and then 3 weeks later they get unexpected … You know what I mean? That’s like, holy smokes. | |
| First of all there’s a thing called reciprocity, and people feel like well they better doggone nice. I better reciprocate and go buy something or refer. | |
| Laura: | Yeah, that’s the psychology of it. |
| Jim: | It’s a little bit of the covert stuff there. |
| Laura: | Yeah, that makes sense. I like that. I’m going to have to start testing that out myself. It’s definitely email. |
| Jim: | You know what? Laura, I will tell everybody, it’s on my website, and I tell everybody that joins my program, you’ve got to give it 6 months, somewhere between 4 to 6 months because a newsletter, when you spend whatever you spend, and some people spend 400 hours a month, some people spend 1,500. It depends on the size of your list, and honestly one of the questions I often get is how many people on my list should I mail? I said just mail the ones you want to keep, right? |
| The thing is, you need to … Because you’re not mailing a postcard promoting a sale or an event, it’s a relationship tool. It’s not going to … Your first newsletter is not going to just drive people into your business and make one $100 fly out of the register drawer so to speak. It’s over 3 to 6 months, it starts to have this building effect, and that’s when the customers are either engaged or reengaged. | |
| By the way if somebody wants to refer you because you’re doing a good job, one of the things that hurts business owners most are people’s minds and their memories are not what they used to be or should be. I can’t tell you the name of the guy who did my mortgage for me 6 years ago, I can barely remember the name of my dentist sometimes. I see him twice a year, but I really have to think about it, right? You have to be in front of your clients to stay top of mind. | |
| Laura: | That’s so sure. We just … We have so much data input these days and so many … |
| Jim: | It’s crazy. |
| Laura: | Yeah, and like social media, I find it so amazing to stay in touch with a lot more people than you ever could before, but then it also makes a little harder to keep everything straight, so that makes sense to stay gently at the top of mind, providing some value without high pressure sales all the time, you’re going to really build that relationship. |
| Jim: | Yeah. |
| Laura: | Great. Tell us more than about what you’re working on right now with the Dream Business Coaching. |
| Jim: | Yeah, so about that 7 years ago, I had at the time I think I had 4 online businesses, and I’d built quite a team. It’s always scared to delegate by a team of like 13 people that run my various online businesses, for the most part on autopilot for me. Almost 100% of my time is working with my coach and clients, and doing interviews and things like that, but I started coaching 7 years ago, and I don’t know. Like with you, copy is a big thing, marketing in general, but you love copywriting. |
| When you’re able to do something that you’re good at and then that’s nice because you can turn into a business, and hopefully make an income, but when you start to see how you really have an impact on people lives that’s when the magic happens. That’s what happened for me when I started doing coaching and then about 3 years ago I started doing live events in dream business academy, and now in front of multiple people. It’s like, “Wow!” Not only should I not be nervous I’m pretty good at it and it’s really helping people, and I think when people get into that zone and you realize, Okay this is where I should be right now, that’s what’s exciting. The hours we … | |
| Laura: | That’s when you know it’s like a dream business. |
| Jim: | It is and that’s certainly a part of it. Entrepreneurs, small business owners work so many hours. We all sometimes put on a happy face, “Hey look at me I’m taking a vacation.” In reality you’re looking at your laptop half the day on the beach, but … |
| Laura: | That’s my husband that is so true. |
| Jim: | Yeah. Exactly, but I’ll tell you it’s really very cool and that’s what lights me up. I’ve structured my business today so that I do all of my coaching 3 days a week. On Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday I do all interviews and any outbound or inbound calls or prospects Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday. Monday and Fridays are technically off days now because I’m an entrepreneur. Usually all winter I’m usually working those days, but in the summer my wife and I can enjoy either 3 day weekends, sometimes they are 4 day weekend on our boat. That’s how I’ve set up my business. |
| Laura: | That’s really smart. Speaking of boats in our pre-chat you were talking about some copy that you wrote for a video and you were shooting it on your boat. Tell me about that? |
| Jim: | Yeah. I’ve always …I grew up on boats, I’ve always wanted a boat and I told my wife when we first got married, “I want to have a boat,” and then next thing I know we had 4 kids. About 34 years later when all the kids left the house we got a boat, and we just totally head over heels love boating, so much so that we are actually selling our house and the boat we have now. We are going to buy a big boat and we are going to live aboard for about a year or two. |
| Laura: | That’s nice. |
| Jim: | Full time, because as long as I’ve got internet and a good phone connection I can do my work anywhere, literally anywhere. That’s what we’re doing, but we’re doing this promotion I’m going to launch it fairly quick here. I’m not sure when this interview will air but it is talking about the coaching program and so I shot … I wrote this script, took me a couple weeks to write, but it’s about half an hour as it turns out. |
| I recorded it standing on the back of my boat, because I wanted to show part of a dream business is it does give you the freedom to make certain choices in your life, so I thought that would be a cool backdrop. It’s funny as I was looking at the edited version I said, “God it looks like I’m in front of a green screen, it looks so … It’s so real it looks fake.” | |
| Laura: | I know what you mean. |
| Jim: | There is the water and the sun glistening and it’s like, “Gosh, people are going to think I’m in a studio doing that.” |
| Laura: | That’s awesome. Tell me about the process that you go through in writing a script and then editing it. |
| Jim: | I think the best copywriting like marketing in general, but the best … Okay, first of all let me talk about editing, I’ve trained myself not to edit as I write because I’m not a great typist, I took typing in high school decades ago and never paid attention so I’m like 2 or 3 fingers at best. I have actually gotten pretty fast at it but I don’t … Bottom-line is I can’t type as fast as my brain thinks, and I’ve never really picked up on the whole write or speaking to copy, there’s some programs that, but I’ve never really mastered that. |
| Anyway, I’ve trained myself not to edit as I go because I want to make sure everything gets out, and then you go back and edit that’s why it takes a long time to write a really good copy. Basically I have a concept in mind which is, first and foremost how do I get somebody’s attention? It’s called a pattern interrupt. What can you do to …Snap my fingers to break somebody out of their trance as they’re surfing the web or doing whatever. | |
| There’s certain words you can do that but then there’s also what’s called trigger words which would cause people to actually do what you suggest. One of them is ‘imagine’, so if you say the word imagine it automatically has your brain going to, okay imagine what? The other thing is, honestly is …There’s so, like you said there’s so much noise and information and data that’s just hitting us constantly you’ve got to always be looking for ways to stand apart from the crowds. | |
| As some people would be talking about something they are … One of their products or services, one of the things that I do especially with this is I talk about the results, I want you to imagine and then I go on to what it would be like to do this certain thing, I want you to imagine by the way how busy is entrepreneurs, are they wearing many hats? I actually surveyed, so my coaching class is to why they are not growing faster and they say … This is a true story by the way, one of them said, “Well Jim it’s no wonder you get so much done and have achieved success, you’ve got this big team behind you.” | |
| That leads me to the conclusion that most people are just very, very busy running the day to day grind of their business to actually do other things which will help them grow their business. That was really the genesis for part of my coaching program, one because I have a very big [dantry 00:25:42] of components so I don’t just tell you, you need a website, you need this, you need an auto-responder series, you need … We actually do that for our clients instead of … | |
| That’s what I do and I basically put this whole thing together and I talk it out loud, I just want it to be a conversation. In reality, in my selling well I’d sure hope so because why else? I’m looking for people that might be interested in growing their own dream business, but you can’t just say, “Hey you’re ready for your own dream business? Well, I’m Jim Palmer the dream business coach. Let me tell you why you should work with me.” Boom! People are going to go away. | |
| Copy, really effective copy and the way you do it and present it that’s really what makes the difference between people that will stay engaged in a video, or read blog posts, or read a sales letter or whatever. | |
| Laura: | It sounds like you kind of in a way did some market research with your target audience, your target customers from your clients, and used them with their words and experiences to inform how you spoke to the [crosstalk 00:26:46]… |
| Jim: | I’m always doing that Laura. I even teach this, I say when you’re talking with a client or a prospective client I’m always saying, obviously you want to make eye contact and keep that. Even if you’re in a busy room don’t be looking around to see who else is looking, you stay in the zone with that person. I say always be listening with one ear so you can process, but also be listening with your other ear not for what else is going on, but what else those people are saying. |
| That’s part of why I think I do well as a coach is because my clients will be engaged in the conversation, and they’ll say something just in passing and go ”Okay, well hold on. That’s the name of your next book, what is?” I just say, you just said like that, and that’s a book title or a video coach or whatever. Those are the things you are listening for. If I was talking to somebody who let’s say they are interested in the coaching program, they are telling me different things so I’m listening engaged and staying in the zone, in the conversation. | |
| If somebody drops something like a little profit bomb and said, “I’ve been trying to do this for 2 years, I can’t get it done. I know I can do it.” They are not saying I don’t know how to do it, but they’re saying I’m so time starved right now that the growth I’m looking for is just outside of my reach. That’s what you do, you pick up on those kind of signals, and you pick up on also certain words that you hear over and over again and you repeat those, because … | |
| One of the greatest lessons I learnt from my mentor Dan Kennedy he said, “You are not your average customer.” You are not your average customer so if you’re writing based on what you think and what you know, and you’re pricing your program based on what you know, and how long it takes you, and how good you are that’s not it. You have to be thinking about it from the customer’s perspective always. | |
| Laura: | That’s a really interesting point, yeah. |
| Jim: | Covering a lot of heavy-duty ground here. |
| Laura: | Yeah. I know. My brain is just spinning with all the psychology behind that, I really love that. I feel like too you’re really heading also on, I would say emotional intelligence in terms of when you are speaking with people. You’re really trying to sort of be empathetic and kind of put yourself in their shoes, and really understand the words they are choosing, and why. Maybe even where the underlying things that they are saying or not saying just based on their words, and pull what really … What connects or what will really work through that. |
| Jim: | People buy emotionally. I do post, I’m all over social media I post a little on success tips. One I posted this morning, it’s really brief I read it to you it’s just on my screen. It says, “It’s not about price. Many small business owners immediately think that their prices are too high when they don’t close enough sales, in reality the reason more of your prospects don’t buy from you is that you haven’t done enough to build trust and establish value for your services. |
| You want proof? Have you ever wanted something so badly that no matter what it costs you find a way to justify it in your own head? We find money for the things we want badly enough, do that with your marketing.” | |
| Laura: | That’s so true. It’s so good. How would you give some people some tips then to do that with their marketing to really show the value? |
| Jim: | Number one, slow down the sale. To be extreme just to make a point. “Hi, I’m Jim. Do you want to join my $20,000 coaching program or no?” But over time, if my name’s Jim, and by the way, let me give you a copy of my book or like if we’re meeting somewhere or … and hopefully by the time we’re actually talking, they’ve already engaged and checked out a lot of my stuff, watched videos, listen to my podcast, so there’s always a certain amount of credibility that’s been established, but you still, you always want to slow down the sale. |
| It’s best if instead of cold calling, and trying to just close people, and push people into the signing on the dotted line, it’s best if they say, “Man, I really like what you’re doing. I’d love to join your program.” I said, “Well, let’s talk about that and that … So it’s not on me though.” Okay, “Well, let’s go to your credit card.” You always want to slow down the sale.” First and foremost, and there’s another reason for that. | |
| Even if people want to get to the dotted line quickly, meaning your prospect and you say, yes, if you haven’t done a good enough job building trust and establishing value and building rapport, I guarantee your refund rate will be much, much higher. By slowing down the sale, you’re not only going to probably have a more profitable client in the long run, you’re going to have fewer returns and fewer problems, because you really did show yourself as somebody who is focused on delivering results, and doing so by being trustworthy, and always having … delivering value as your main threshold. | |
| Laura: | That’s terrific advice. I definitely concur with that. Is there any a last parting bits of wisdom you would want to pass along? Anything if someone were listening? Any last thing that we didn’t cover, maybe about psychology or copywriting or newsletters or finding your dream business? |
| Jim: | I’ll give you one, and this is true for every small business owner entrepreneur. It’s a high level thing, so it’s not like a task you want to do, but ultimately you do need to do it, but this is it. You’ll earn significantly more revenue for who you are than what you do. |
| You’ll earn significantly more money for who you are than what you do, so like you’re a copywriter, and then there’s accountants and there’s lawyers, and there’s landscapers, anybody, and no matter what service you need, if you were to Google or if you’re antiquated enough, you pull out the yellow pages, as it still exists, and let’s say you were to look up accountants, and I guarantee in Philadelphia or the general area where I live, I bet there’s probably 200 or 300 accountants within an one hour of where I live, so how does that account standout? | |
| How do you as a copywriter stand out? How does someone who’s whatever fill in the blanks stand out? It has much more to do with the positioning of you as the business owner, an entrepreneur than it does on the deliverable, which is actually the service you’re going to provide. | |
| Laura: | Yeah, that makes so much sense. I love it. Thank you so much Jim for your time and where can we direct people from the audience to learn more about you or maybe grab up your book or where can we direct people? |
| Jim: | Yes, so my home base so to speak, I actually don’t know how many websites I have, but my home base is … |
| Laura: | Yeah, you have a lot? |
| Jim: | Yes, it’s getjimpalmer.com, www.getjimpalmer.com and there, they can find my blog, and my videos, my podcasts, all my books, my courses, and there’s a lot of free stuff there as well. There’s actually the latest book I did as an audio book. It’s a short 42 minute audio book, and I actually had it transcribed for people like to read. You can download it for free. It’s called serve first, and they can get that right. If there’s a banner right at the top of get getjimpalmer.com. |
| Laura: | Yeah. I noticed that actually, right when you go there. Is that with Lee pages, because you’ve got like a nice box that pops up with credible, icons of big picture of you smiling, I really liked that. |
| Jim: | I have no idea. I have a very good … |
| Laura: | Oh, your team does that? |
| Jim: | I have a very good team. I just say, I want this at the … I want this to be easily seen, top of the fold. |
| Laura: | Nice. |
| Jim: | I don’t know how they did it, that not my … You know what? There’s a lesson there. I don’t want to know how they do that. I know what I do, and all the other stuff I have people that I trust, and I empower them to make me look good, and I don’t want to know. I could even send out an email to my list today. I know that sounds silly, and people in no way, I honestly can’t because I don’t know how to do it, but I have people that … All I do is, I’ll write the copy. Here’s the picture, send this out tomorrow at 8:00 am and I get it done. |
| When you focus on what your strengths is, and have other people do the task oriented things, that’s another turning point for most business owners. | |
| Laura: | Yeah. I think that’s part of the dream for everyone listening. Unless they love sending out emails, maybe that’s their dream business, I don’t know. |
| Jim: | Then they’re probably not going to be a millionaire if they do that. |
| Laura: | Yeah, you never know. |
| Jim: | Yeah, that’s true. |
| Laura: | They serve a lot of people. |
| Jim: | Yeah. |
| Laura: | Awesome. Thank you so much again, Jim. It was great talking with you. |
| Jim: | It’s been fun talking with you. Enjoy the beautiful country here in New Hampshire right now. |
| Laura: | Thank you. Yes, the weather has been great so far. |
| Jim: | Okay. Take care, Laura. |
| Laura: | You too. Bye Jim. |
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