Recently, I attended the all-day Get Motivated! seminar when it came to Tucson. I didn’t actually go to get motivated—an entrepreneur for many years now, I’m plenty motivated as it is. I also didn’t go to buy any of the stuff they were selling—they didn’t have anything I need right now. I went to hear the celebrity presenters, and to study one of most successful marketing processes in the world. First, for $2.95 (essentially free) Get Motivated! attracts nearly 10,000 attendees with the promise of seeing celebrity presenters like Colin Powell, Terry Bradshaw, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani, Kurt Warner, and many more. (Pictured: Terry Bradshaw getting ready to motivate.)
In between celebrity speeches were presentations from companies with something to sell. One such company was Ameritrade, a major discount brokerage firm, whose representative gave an exceptional sales presentation demonstrating the impressive array of online tools Ameritrade now offers to help clients make money selling covered calls. At the end of his presentation he offered the audience attendance at full-day seminars specifically about making money selling covered calls. All of these full-day seminars were held at luxury hotels in Tucson over the next couple of weeks. Audience members were given the opportunity to sign up for the seminars on the spot for $99, and I’m guessing that at least a thousand did.
I didn’t attend the seminars myself, but I’m sure they sold other training and brokerage services there. I suspect that their ultimate goal was to get some of the discount brokerage account owners who were with Schwab, Scottrade, etc., to move their accounts to them. I also suspect that they were successful in getting hundreds to do just that. The entire marketing process demonstrated so many powerful sales and marketing principles, which I won’t even try to cover in this short space. Suffice it to say that to be successful selling your books, and your related content and services, you too need a well-thought-through multistep marketing system. At Wheatmark we constantly study marketing systems like Ameritrade’s and Get Motivated’s. We distill what we learn and teach about it in the Authors Academy. In fact, we’ll be giving an entire presentation focused on the Get Motivated! marketing and sales processes later this month in the Authors Academy. If you’re not already a member, you’re missing out on a chance to learn how to apply these powerful marketing techniques to your book projects and skyrocket your sales. You can correct the oversight by visiting the Authors Academy today.
We’ll see you at the next presentation in the Author’s Academy!
