The Old Man, The Welsh Beach and The Big Red Worm.

A Lesson In Marketing!

Dear Friend,

In fact it was the day my brother Ste, myself and my dad had planned to go night fishing along the Welsh beach.

We decided to carry on and go regardless of the death of the King.

So me and Ste, my bigger brother by 14 months, went outside and packed our fishing expedition tackle.

4 long beach casting rods, two multipliers and two Shakespeare fixed spool reels.

We were ready to land a whale. Well actually, we were on our way to famous Bass fishing beach named Dinas Dingle, in Wales.

It was just a walk of around half a mile from the mobile home along a shingle man made path full of holes and treachery for cars.

Finally we arrived at the beach. Can you imagine the excitement of two young lads, their dad and the prospect of sitting up ALL NIGHT next to a campfire fishing? HOW COOL!

When we arrived, after reading my anglers world I felt I had enough knowledge to go out there and pull in some whoppers.

All set up I pulled back my fishing rod and with a massive swipe forward I cast out my bait.

After the lines were out into the evening surf myself and Ste my brother, collected wood for a beach fire.

Fire now on. Camp set up. Toast over the fire. Meat on the spit. We sat there with the excitement of a children on Christmas eve waiting for the line to pull, the rod to bend, the first big catch.

We sat there. Nothing happened.

We changed bait. Nothing happened.

We moved positions, still nothing happened.

This lasted through the cool dark August night until around 6am.

Then the next morning an old man walked onto the beach. This guy was probably quite small in height, looked a little what you'd imagine Santa to look like.

Fat with a long white beard.

In his left hand he carried two rods ready to fish with.

In his right hand he carried two buckets. One red, one blue.

So as you can imagine we were freezing, he was looking over at us like we were fools. He smiled and raised his hand to us, we did like wise.

To get to the point, the Santa look-a-like cast his rod into the early morning surf.

After his cast had been made, he stood back and lit his pipe.

Now remember this; we had been fishing with top class equipment all night long. We had also caught NOT A TADPOLE.

Within minutes, the old Welsh guy pulled in a what look like a monster fish to me. It was in fact what we had been fishing for all night long ... BASS!

Imagine what we felt when we saw that in action? We totally freaked!

He pulled out another, and another, and another and another.

"Dad" I said, "please go and ask him what we are doing wrong?"

"18 Inch Red Worms!"

Now my dad is actually pretty shy. However under pressure from us he walked over to this old guy with the long white beard and asked him his secret.

Dad said ... "what equipment are you using?" The old guy told him about his rod, reel and other bits of fishing tackle he had.

To dad it didn't make sense he was catching and we weren't. Our equipment was obviously better than the old guys.

Then the old guy said to my dad in a deep welsh accent..."see that red bucket there? grab some worms from it and try again"

Dad put his hand into the bucket. When he pulled it out on the end of his hand were worms around 18 inches in length, bright red and around an inch thick, BLIMEY!

The old guy then said ... "stick that on your hook and watch what happens"

We did exactly as he said.

Within minutes of casting into the cold surf, we had caught our first large Bass.

So now, the marketing lesson from ...

The Old  Man, The Welsh Beach and The Big Worm.

You might have the greatest, latest, fastest, coolest, state-of-the-art equipment on this planet but if you don't have the right bait ... you'll never catch any customers.

I've seen this time and time again. Literally hundreds of thousands being spent on the flashest offices ever.

State-of-the-art computers, telecom systems, office decor, staff trained to the hilt yet ...

...Yet when it comes to bringing in the right bait MOST BUSINESSES FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

Where do you get the bait from?

The Welsh guy had to dry to a lonely distant place to get his worms. These were specialist worms. EFFORT AND SKILL was needed to find them.

Your Bait Is Here ...

A GOOD copywriter/marketing genius/advertising specialist with a good. well informed, creative mind has YOUR BAIT.

They should be competent enough to find out EXACTLY what it takes to feed your prospects so that THEY BITE and you increase your sales.

Want me to give you some rules?

1. NEVER allow an office person to create your bait.

2. Never try and do it yourself unless you are a sales expert.

3. Never hire a sales expert unless you do your homework believe me ... most self proclaimed experts ARE NOT experts.

4. MAKE SURE all of your campaign can be measured for results and fine tuning.

5. LOCATE an outside thinker that can be objective about what is really going on with your marketing.

Remember, marketing is never as easy as the manuals tell you. However you are probably very hungry for success.

If you'd love to work with a eccentric, creative, non conforming marketing genius with a long track record my contact details are here.

Hope this helps you.

Alan Forrest Smith

---------------------------------
It's here at ...
http://www.orangebeetle.com/retreat
March 24th, 25th, 26th.
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LAST CALL FOR the Retreat!

Mentor Client: Steve Winder Is The Magician, The Hairdresser and The Piano Man.

He is also one of my private mentor clients. He really does amazing magic. Once he made his finger glow like E.T. at a MasterClass of mine.

He also made things vanish and then come back and do all kinds of mental tricks.

And ... he plays a mean Piano. At one of my Master classes Steve entertained us playing Elton John tracks all night. How cool!, like Elton John!

Can I tell you why he loves me? Or should I let him tell you? Okay, enough of me, here is Steve...

NOTE: This is copy and paste direct from Steve's email to me. I have added some small headlines for readability.

From: Steve Winder [mailto:stevewinder1@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: 13 March 2007 12:44
To: Alan Forrest Smith
Subject: testimonial for Alan

Dear Alan,


I thought I would drop you a line to keep you up-to-date on my progress. Not sure if you remember but you probably do that I started from scratch on the Internet in May 2005.

I remember looking at the Internet and being completely baffled by how on earth do you get a website online up and running and making money


Now I have been doing this off-line for some time as you are aware I have two hair and beauty salons that are doing very well, however you that showed me how to make them more successful using marketing and copywriting skills.

Like yourself I have been a hairdresser for the past 27 years, 17 years of that I was managing salons and a business owner for the last 10 years.

I spent eight of those years training other hairdressers, lecturing and teaching communication skills. So I thought that I was pretty good at communication well I am, but you have shown me how to be conversational with my copy!

So anyway my point to create a website about how to manage a hairdressing salon. I had to learn loads of new skills how to build websites, how to upload it, how to make it so the search engines found it but the great thing for me Alan, was you were there as my coach, trainer and business advisor.

From Novice To Number One

I have gone from complete novice two years ago to now being at number one or number two of the top major search engines, getting some fantastic results.

In one week just before Christmas 2006 my site brought me in £1000 and now consistently earns me £300 to £400 a week. wow!


Not bad in two years... my traffic stats or how many people visit my site as an average 1500 visits a month and if you think about it this is a niche website and it's growing the all the time.

The other thing that's been great for me, is to be able to create my own marketing materials and use them in the Salon's and then to test and measure there success.

Fantastic Success

For example using some of the things that you have shown me Alan we did one simple text message to our clients on a very quiet week last month and sent off 200 text messages we had 46 people respond to an offer! which in my book was a fantastic success.

That meant that we were fully booked and pulled in an extra £1150.00! cost for the whole thing was £24.00 pretty good return ah

We used the recommend a friend vouchers and other vouchers and flyers and got a brand new stylist fully booked in 12 weeks where as it usually takes 2 years as you know!

Easy Access Support

The thing I've enjoyed Alan working with you is it you have been there had a real business and therefore understand what it's like sometimes how lonely it can be and of course help stressful it sometimes is.

So it's been absolutely fantastic to be able to get onto the phone or by e-mail or Skype and run ideas past you and get your advice. And the thing I love with you is that you are a realist.
 

An Extra £2,000 A Week

I would comfortably say that due to your coaching advice and all the other things he helped me with that across the two businesses you have helped me grow it by at least £2000 a week consistently.

So credit to where credit is due thanks mate. Just thought it was important to give you some feedback and some praise as I wonder sometimes how often people drop you a line to say thanks, I know you get paid for what you do but you always go the extra mile and actually really truly want people to succeed in what they do.


Cheers Alan

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Alan