A few years ago I took group golf lessons – one of the best things I’ve ever done – for both my personal sanity and the personal safety of anyone I golf with.
Two things I took from those lessons and try to apply even outside of golf.
#1 Relax.
A common mistake you’ll see in begnning golfers is they try to “kill the ball.” They think that it’s like baseball and use all of their muscle strength to hit the ball as hard as they can.
But in golf, it’s actually the opposite. The more relaxed you are (in both your mind and body), the less muscle strength you’ll need, and the FURTHER your ball will go.
#2 Get your receipt.
No, this isn’t referring to your tab at the 19th hole. What my instructor was referring to was the position of your body AFTER hitting the ball.
Many novices focus only on the movements of their hands and arms up to the point that they hit the ball. But your follow-through AFTER you hit the ball counts just as much.
He compared it to going to a restaurant. After you eat and pay, you also want to “get your receipt”. So when I follow through on each drive, I make sure that both my hips and chest are turned fully out towards the direction I hit my ball.
It’s rare that business owners will “get their receipts” and follow-through completely.
So many focus on just “hitting the ball” and getting the sale, and forget to follow through by asking for a review or testimonial from the client. Whether it’s done at the point of sale, or 2 weeks later, only then will the transaction be complete.
And of course, by having those reviews and testimonials, you now have more social proof to help with future sales.
If you’d like to have a simple way of getting reviews and testimonials, I’ve created a FREE template for you. Just click the link below to get it.
Testimonial Card Template
Cheers to your success!
Philipp
If you were to ask most people, other marketing folks
included, what they think the most powerful word in
marketing is, almost all of them would say the same thing:
F-R-E-E
While it’s true that word has been very powerful in the
past, and can continue to be in the right context, it’s
becoming less and less so.
Why? For two reasons…
#1 Desensitization – I can’t go more than 6 minutes in my
day without getting pummeled with marketing messages from
more angles than a protractor can measure. And much of that
messaging uses that word. Free Quotes; free toasters;
free tickets to the fair…
I remember when Starbucks first started getting popular -
back when they were still using real coffee mugs and the
word “Frappuccino” wasn’t part of the popular vernacular. At
the time the nearest Starbucks was 5 miles away. Now I’ve
got 5 stores within 2 minutes of my front door. On the rare
occasion that my travels take me to a town that DOESN’T have
a Starbucks, I feel like something’s missing.
The same is true with that four-letter word. The more you
see it, the more you expect it, the less it stands out.
There’s a saying in the internet marketing world that the
“free line” has moved, meaning that more people expect you
to give them more stuff for a lower, if not zero,
investment.
People have built up mental callouses to “FREE” so that it
no longer has the impact it once had.
#2 No Link to Value – Am I saying that you should no longer
use it? Absolutely not. What I AM saying is that you can’t
expect your customers to jump out of their seats to buy just
because you said the “magic word.”
Today’s connotations with “FREE” range from “Something I
may want, but what’s the catch?” to “Keep that crap away
from me!”.
A prime example of the latter is found with your email
Inbox’s “best friend”… the SPAM filter.
If I sent this out as and email and didn’t modify the
spelling “free” to something like “F*REE” or “FR*EE”, the
filters might interpret it as SPAM, in which case it would have
never been delivered.
If you’re going to offer something for free, you need to
link a message to it that conveys something of HIGH VALUE to
your customer. And you can’t assume that they know what
that value is – you’ve got to spell it out for them.
Saying “Get Two Months of My Newsletter for FREE” is quite
different from “Please Accept My Very Best Marketing
Training Worth $633.91 As My Gift To You!”
NOTE: Because I didn’t want to make this post too long, if
you want to know what I WOULD say in answer to the question,
keep an eye out for my next post.
Just for fun… take a guess of what I’d say in the comments
section below. One of the services I offer is a 30 minute phone
consultation with me to discuss in-depth online marketing
improvements for your business. I’d normally charge $197
for this. If you’re the FIRST one that replies with the
correct word, you’ll get it for, you guessed it, F-R-E-E 
