The Newsletter Pro - May 2020

208.297.5700 MAY

www.thenewsletterpro.com 2020

4 STEPS TO REBOOT AND GROW AFTER THE PANDEMIC IS OVER!

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

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What Partnerships Can Do for Your Business Work This Marketing Checklist A Review of ‘HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing a Downturn’ You’ll Need This Software to Survive the Chaos

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Meet Marce Avalos Learn Something New With MasterClass

APPLY FOR THE PAYCHECK PROTECTION PROGRAM (PPP). If you haven’t already done so, then you need to make sure you apply immediately for the PPP if you qualify. Over 95% of entrepreneurs will qualify on some level. This money is to be used for payroll, loan payments, office rent, etc. Without these expenses, you can invest the money you’d have normally spent on those items into implementing the marketing you need to restart and even spark growth again. The rules of this plan are adjusting

grow, during and after this crisis? I’m going to outline my game plan here. I’ve done a ton of research, and I’ve laid out my plan below based on everything I can find and my own experience of how to recover from other disasters. I strongly recommend you mimic what I’m doing. You may be in a different industry, but it doesn’t matter. What I’m doing is foundational; I’m not falling into any “get rich quick” traps or developing shiny object syndrome.

It’s crazy how fast the world can change. Only weeks ago, we were all going about our busy lives. In a flash, everything was, and still is, different. At The Newsletter Pro, my team and I saw what we thought was a major existential threat, and that gave us a small jump-start in getting ready to work from home. Like many, we had to spin up something in a few days that companies usually have months to prep for. In about two and a half days, we had a plan to figure out the tech and had about 55 people working from home. Most of the credit on the tech side goes to my vice president, Jared, but each team member played a part in making everything work and making the transition very smooth. Every business now has some kind of COVID-19 story. A few have more business than they can handle, but most of us lost revenue at a minimum. Many Americans lost their jobs, and some of us entrepreneurs lost companies. It’s scary for everyone, and it will fundamentally change this country and the world.

“HOW DO WE RECOVER, AND EVEN GROW , DURING AND AFTER THIS CRISIS?”

For every business left standing, the question needs to be this: How do we recover, and even

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... CONTINUED FROM COVER

business owner; you’re someone they want to know, like, and trust. During every presidential cycle, they run a survey asking who you’d rather have a beer with, and people answer! That’s the crazy thing: People make major life decisions based on who they’d like to have a beer with, including if they do business with you or a competitor. You’ll need to also focus on having multiple lead generation sources and a proven and monitored process for lead conversion. You must also ensure that you are always getting full contact info from both customers and prospects. Having a good customer relationship management system to organize and automate marketing is a must. We use Infusionsoft by Keap.com. You can no longer let leads slip through your fingers. You need to make sure you have a follow-up system, are nurturing campaigns, and of course, are making great offers to help with conversions. If you don’t already have a relationship-building newsletter, then you need one. Almost everyone is beating the drum of communicating and building relationships with prospects and customers right now. A newsletter is the single best way to do that. In the newsletter, you need to get personal with people. Business will be more personal than ever before after this pandemic. If you want help with any of the above strategies, then we’d be happy to help. Just visit us at NewsletterPro.com/schedule or call 208.297.5700 to schedule an appointment. GO BACK TO THE BASICS. From now on, you will have to focus on building your business with bricks, not straw. I’ve spent years watching entrepreneurs spend money like drunken sailors. They take customers and employees for granted, and they run up massive debt with nearly zero cash reserves. Most of the marketing and communication items I spoke about above are subpar at best. Business is won by being really good at the boring stuff, not by the next shiny object, and when we come out of this pandemic, making sure your foundation is solid will be the key to rebuilding bigger and better than before. Right now more than ever, you need to take what I’m showing you and implement it. Not following the advice above would be a grave mistake. Many businesses that survive the lockdown won’t be able to restart and rebuild because they’re going to act like it’s business as usual. Don’t make that mistake. –Shaun

daily (as I write this), but the bill has passed and is law. Make sure you pay close attention to how you can spend the money and the requirements to get the loan forgiven. Your CPA or lawyer will be able to advise you on all the most current updates and adjustments. COMMUNICATE. Your best bet is to be communicating with customers and prospects now, and I don’t mean the lame, impersonal emails every company is sending out about how they want to protect employees and customers from COVID-19. Normally, I’d tell you to also be sending direct mail, but right now, for the sake of speed, I understand sending emails as a temporary primary form of communication. But keep in mind that email fatigue is in overdrive right now because everyone is sending (and receiving) massive volumes of emails. This media is going to take further beatings as people restart their businesses or try to grow and think blasting out emails over and over again will help them do that. In many cases, those emails will fall on deaf ears, possibly more so than they already did prior to the pandemic. Instead of emails, send customers and prospects print newsletters, postcards, or text messages or make phone calls. Even better, do all those things.

Right now is the best time to connect with your customers and prospects, and the second best time will be when everything is restarting. You need to make sure everyone knows you’re still standing, and if you think email is going to solve all your problems, then you may not still be standing in a few months. Don’t make this mistake. Take the extra time you have now in your day to work on your business instead of in it or worse, watching Netflix and surfing the internet. Those who start now, like me, will be positioned to recover the fastest because we’ll grab up market share that competitors have lost due to poor communication or because they’re now out of business. KEEP UP MARKETING CAMPAIGNS. Many people haven’t had to do much of this or at least haven’t been sophisticated at it. I’ve had customers tell me they don’t need relationships with their customers: “We’re so busy, so our customers love us.” I promise they’ll be regretting that decision shortly. You need to be actively investing in relationship marketing. Relationship marketing isn’t the act of sending coupons or industry highlights. Relationship marketing is the act of opening up and being personal. Let them know you’re not just another

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ONE OF THE CHEAPEST BUT MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS TO GET NEW CUSTOMERS FOR ANY BUSINESS BUSINESS HOW-TO

By working on creating a win-win relationship with partners, you can grow your business and end up with a lower overall customer acquisition cost when the partnerships are structured correctly.

doesn’t have a critical mass of customers that would be a good fit for the first partner.

In this new economy, one of the areas you should focus on is what we at The Newsletter Pro call partnerships. A partner is another business that isn’t a competitor but shares customers with your business, and you both can potentially benefit from the relationship. For example, dentists sometimes have patients who would be better served by orthodontists. Plumbers serve homeowners who would also make a good fit for HVAC companies. Some of the gurus who teach entrepreneurs how to build their businesses make good partners for The Newsletter Pro.

In these situations, you can still set up a partnership — typically a paid partnership where the second partner pays a “per lead” or “per sale” fee to the first partner for each referral or sale. The benefit to the first partner is two-fold. First, they get paid for leads they would otherwise be paying for, which lowers their overall customer acquisition cost. Second, they get to add value to their customers and leads by offering the services or products the second partner offers without spending any of their own expenses. One-sided partnerships are very valuable, as long as one person doesn’t get greedy or lazy. If one does, these partnerships typically break down. 2. TWO-SIDED PARTNERSHIPS This is where the partners can literally trade leads back and forth because both companies have an offering that benefits the customer. For example, if you sell digital marketing services to companies and I sell print newsletters, we’re not competitors, but we service the same types of customers. So we could swap leads back and forth. In theory, if we got the same number of leads, we’d effectively be doubling the number of leads we each get. Of course, if we don’t get the same number of leads, there needs to be a mechanism to equal out the lead flow, but that can be worked out in the same manner as a one-sided partnership. With partnerships, you can clearly track where leads are coming from and what your overall customer acquisition cost is. As an added benefit, leads referred via a partner program are typically some of the least expensive customers a business can get, making this program all the more beneficial. –Shaun

There are two primary types of partnerships.

1. ONE-SIDED PARTNERSHIP This is a partnership where the first partner has a group of customers that would be good for the second partner, but the second partner

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CLIENT SUCCESS

MARKETING HOW-TO

“I met Shaun Buck at Ben Glass' Great Legal Marketing Summit in October 2016 and was so impressed I signed up for newsletter services. What a great group of people! My onboarding project manager got me started with ideas for the newsletter design and then connected me with a fine young writer who interviews me each month and drafts tremendous cover articles for my review and edits. My project manager oversees the development of each month's newsletter from start to final publication. They have been quick to respond to questions, brainstorm ideas with me, and produce a quality product that is colorful, interesting, and informative. I have a law practice and thank heaven the newsletter is informative, entertaining, and not all about legal stuff — how dry and dull would that be? The Newsletter Pro helps me enhance the relationship I have with my clients by sharing with them part of who we at Monast Law are as people, not just as their legal counsel. These folks are simply great at what they do!” -Jim Monast Monast Law

WORK TH RECOVER

I

I ’ve been

hearing many entrepreneurs and others say things

like, “I can’t wait for things to get back to normal.” Normal as we knew it will NEVER exist again. This country, and even the world, will be forever changed. I wish I knew exactly how the world would change, but no one knows. What I do know is that so much of the bull that has been

OUR BOOKSHELF

GROW STRO RECESSION W A Review of ‘HBR’s 10 Must R

“We've been using The Newsletter Pro, and we are really happy with their work. Their communication is excellent, our questions are always answered, and our newsletter is always sent on time. We've had plenty of clients telling us that they love the newsletter and new clients who book our services because they've received the newsletter. They're doing an awesome job!” -Beyond Times Square

When COVID-19 initially swept through the United States, the stock market took one of the sharpest dives in our country’s history in a matter of weeks. We plunged headfirst into a recession that no one saw coming. For many businesses and business owners, all of that might seem like a death knell, but it doesn’t have to be. Last year, the publishers at Harvard Business Review (HBR) combed through hundreds of articles featured in their publication and handpicked 10 with the best advice — and from some of the brightest minds — on how businesses can weather recessions and emerge stronger than ever. The compilation, “HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Managing in a

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www.thenewsletterpro.com

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS TO HELP SMALL BUSINESSES SUCCEED.

208.297.5700

HIS MARKETING CHECKLIST TO R AND GROW AFTER COVID-19!

5. What type of customer relationship

a good list of questions that will help you identify items nearly all businesses should have.

floating around in the marketplace will be gone. Many of your competitors that had no clue what they were doing before COVID-19 won’t make it. Entrepreneurs who are lazy or just want to do one part of the business will not survive. You need to be prepared to be involved in all areas of business more than ever before. Unfortunately, even some good businesses, for one reason or another, won’t make it. The picture is bleak for some, but it doesn’t have to be for you. The No. 1 thing you need to do is a top-down review of your marketing and sales systems and processes.

management system are you using? Can it do marketing automation, trigger campaigns, fulfillment lists, tags based on activities, etc.?

1. Where do you get leads from now? (If you also know how many leads you get per media source, grab that info as well.)

6. What type of >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8

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