In the talk I used two familiar quotes from pop culture icons to make a point about getting started with the right blend of offline and online marketing.

The pop culture icons? Woody Allen and The Beatles.

Woody famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

Paul McCartney of The Beatles said, “Let’s write us a swimming pool.”

I’ll cover Wood first.

Eighty percent of success is showing up. Showing up is the key phrase.

You see, there are only three ways to grow a business:

1. More customers
2. More transactions
3. More margin

By “showing up” you cover them all! Let me explain.

More customers – show up where your customers are with an offer. Go out and get them using whatever means you can, don’t just wait. Once you get a system for getting a customer up and running well, then and only then do you move on and build another means of customer acquisition.

For one Madison restaurant client, we do a new customer direct mailing every month that pulls over 22%. Like clockwork. They absolutely love the predictability of 60 to 80 new customers each and every month. Wouldn’t you?

More transactions – once you’ve got a customer, sell them more. The number one customer that is most likely to buy from you is your existing customer. That’s worth rereading. Most businesses make the mistake of focusing only on new customers.

Smart businesses find ways to up sell, down sell, and cross sell. Smart businesses have systems to get referrals from existing customers. Systems. Not just happenstance referrals.

More margin. Smart businesses command premium pricing. Every business must find a way to add high(er) ticket products and services to their mix. Product companies certainly need to find ways to increase their margin or add services with low cost of goods sold.

That’s just the basics.

As for McCartney’s swimming pool; The Beatles attitude was let’s write a hit and make money. Businesses are well served by creating offers and generating sales. This ties directly into the only three ways to grow a business.

The Number One business asset is its customer list. Get good at creating offers to your list and you to can create revenue on demand, just like The Beatles.

So that was the highlights of the talk. The pop culture references gave the talk some flair and the evaluations showed the audience was engaged.

If you’d like to talk to a group you’re involved in, just let me know! I’ve got a couple more scheduled already!

Saturday we celebrated my 40th shooting Sporting Clays at the Waunakee Gun Club. I got a shooting vest as a gift which is great. I’ve only ever shot shotguns 4 times in my life and each time I like it more and more. I’m considering getting one which is not making Anke too happy.

Networking socially away from the business day and while not in business attire. Is a key activity and I find that the stranger the mix, the more casual the attire, the better the results. I think this is because people get more of a sense for one another.

The group was a good mix. An interesting mix of close personal friends and local business contacts who are becoming close friends. I mean, the business contact that came are the type I call at the end of the to BS with and to “keep me company on the ride home.”

Not that I orchestrated the group (because you never know who can make such things), but at the Gun Club we had a Northwestern Mutual Life rep; the top Schwab rep in the country (number 1 out of 1,300); the VP of Client Relations for a company that provides online tools to manage people; a home inspector; the President of a company that aligns, calibrates and certifies laser targeting systems for hospitals and clinics; the summer school administrator for the local school district; a 14 year old; a stay at home dad; and a Health Coach.

Out of 50, I got 32, good enough for 2nd place. Rich Rodriguez got 38 and two or three others each got 31. We shared two shotguns amongst the group and interestingly the gun owners had the lowest scores. Hmmm.