New Arrival! Urchin 7 Released…Sign up for "First Look" Webinar

Urchin version 7 was officially released today, September 3, 2010. We're excited about the launch of this new version of software which has added many super useful analysis features.

But before we get to the new features, we'll explain a little bit about the software and how it's used.

Urchin Software from Google is an enterprise level web analytics solution similar in scope to Google Analytics (Urchin is actually Google Analytics' predecessor), however Urchin is a software installed, hosted, and managed by the customer. Unlike Google Analytics, Urchin is not free (there is a $9,995 license fee) and requires experienced technical staff for installation.

Urchin helps website owners to better understand their online marketing initiatives, website traffic characteristics, and visitor's browsing experience. Those who benefit from Urchin the MOST would be those who prefer to keep their data on machines they control, those who would like to process historical data, those who need their data audited by third parties, and those who would like to track an intranet. Examples of companies who have purchased Urchin in the past are government institutions, large corporations, and universities and colleges.

Now for the good stuff - a few of the new and improved features of Urchin 7 include:

• An all new reporting interface.
• For Urchin servers with the processing power, Parallel Profile Processing can give you a way to dramatically reduce the amount of time needed to process your profiles.
• The ability to segment your report data on the fly using Advanced Segments.
• Event tracking is now available in Urchin 7.
• More flexible Geolookup, allowing you to specify the level of geographic detail on a Global scale.
• The Urchin Data API version 2 has been significantly enhanced allowing for many more filters to segment your data.

We'll touch on all these features, plus the tried and true reports in Urchin along with pricing and upgrade information during our Urchin 7 "First Look" Webinar.

Be sure to save your seat for Friday, September 10th, at 2pm Eastern, for a look at the capabilities of the latest and greatest version of Urchin.

Why Selling as you know it is dying a slow death

There’s nothing more scary in sales than mashing your foot down on the gas pedal, and feeling the clutch slip.

. . . then pressing harder and smelling the odor of your transmission starting to melt.

If your prospects smell a hint of desperation, it’s all over. They disengage more and more. The harder you chase them, the more they hide from you inside their Dilbert cubes.

In the spirit of the current age, nobody *thinks* they need a sales person telling them what to do. (Even if they DO need someone to tell them what to do. And let’s face it – some of them need to do what you’re telling them!)

As the economy toughens, it’s time re-think the way you sell in every medium you use, to attract and create new customers for life.

Ari Galper has a beautiful philosophy: “Get to the truth, not the sale.” It creates startlingly different results, and it makes it almost impossible to “burn out the clutch” with prospective customers. Because it’s all about pulling, not pushing. It’s congruent with the spirit of the age.

Ari’s warning to all sales professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/salesbreakthrough/

(Be sure you optin so you can download Ari’s audio “7 Strategies For Making Selling Painless.” Read the part about his live event in November. I’m sending my staff & it’s going to be great.)

Perry

The Cleverest Email Scam

This came to me today from one of our close personal friends. I thought, “Dang, I didn’t know she was going to the UK!” Almost fell for it. I hope you don’t….

My #4 Money Making Secret – The Paid Consultation

Let’s keep Glenn’s Money Making Secret count going:

1. Research
2. Contrarian Advice
3. Let the Market Change You as a Person

What’s #4? “The Paid Consultation as Your First Business Contact”

This one’s a tough one to embrace because it goes entirely against the norm and makes a lot of potential customers mad.

But it accomplishes three things:

• First and foremost it protects your time (and/or your sales people’s time) from ambivalent or unqualified prospects.
• Second, it dramatically increases closing ratios, because you’re only speaking with people proven willing to give you money to start with.  (I’m talking about 500% to 1,000% increase in my personal experience)
• Third, it protects the customer from purchasing things they’re not really ready to purchase, and/or things they’re not qualified to purchase.
• Fourth, it protects your business from unhappy customers (particularly important for service businesses)

Take my coaching salesletter for example.   (Click here to open in a new window so you can read along with the commentary)

With some frequency I get people who request FREE time to discuss their situation and see if it’s a good fit.   They usually say they’ve read my letter, but object to paying before speaking with me (or Ryan).   The vast majority of coaches, they say, would consider it very BAD business to require payment before the first consultation.  In fact, they don’t know ANY other coach who would insist upon this.

While I respect their decision, I stick to my guns.

You see, the vast majority of coaches HAVE TO spend their time developing business with free consultations whenever they can get them because they don’t really know how to market themselves.

But when you DO have the deal flow in volume, I’ve simply found it ineffective to offer time for free to a customer in ANY circumstance (other than the research phase of a business).   If  you read the coaching salesletter,  you’ll see I’ve actually set it up to try and dissuade all but the most well fit people from the program.

Because I’ve found if people don’t really already know that this is the right system for them, and we’re the right coaches, it’s an uphill battle to get them to actually embrace the work and take our direction.

There are literally dozens of turns and events within my system where the student needs to go against typical practices and engage in what their friends, family, and colleagues would perceive as a crazy way to do business.

And there’s no guarantee of success, even then.

So everyone winds up unhappy.

I worked really hard to develop the deal-flow to allow me to take this contrarian position because I believe it’s the only one which works for everyone concerned.  Otherwise you wind up with a kind of ”revolving door” practice with a lot of ambivalent and unhappy people who just pay for a few months at a high rate and then drop out.

Long story short, I thoroughly understand when a customer wishes to find another coach or work with another system given our philosophies and business practices.

Because if they’re not confident enough in what we’ve presented to commit to a refundable first month, then the odds are they’re not quite ready to work with us anyway, and we’d get a bad result for them.

There’s nothing at all wrong with people for choosing not to proceed under these circumstances.   I respect that as a perfectly reasonable position and  wish them the best.

(NOTE: I’m also not trying to maximize profitability in the coaching program, I’m trying to surround myself with people who embrace my systems successfully. They’re much more valuable to me both business wise and personally than the extra income from not-so-well-fit additional students.  This makes the “Paid Consult as Your First Contact” even more important)

I used a similar process when building Rocket Clicks.   All sorts of people wanted to get some free time to see if it was right for them.  And were incredibly annoyed at having to pay for the (refundable) consult.

But I diligently I did the work to build an effective salesletter and follow up system to drive people to a paid consultation.  And while most PPC salespeople would report a closing ratio of 10% or so, we had our pick of the litter (about 80% of those we wanted to take on as a client after the consultation could be sold)

So…

How can YOU free your time, increase your closing ratio, and grow your business with the Paid Consultation as the First Business Contact?

Love to hear your examples below,

Dr. G

Hyperresponsive Marketing Secrets |   Coaching

How Chinese Water Torture Ended American Slavery

In June 1851, US anti-slavery magazine “National Era” began publishing a fascinating story in 40 weekly installments. Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, it depicted the life of a black woman, Eliza, who escapes with her son Tom who is sold “down the river” into slavery.

In 1852, Stowe’s 40 installments were bound together in book form and sold 300,000 copies the first year in print. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was translated into all major languages and became the most influential novel of the 19th century. It also became the best-selling book after the Bible.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin ignited a firestorm of protest from defenders of slavery and triggered the Civil War. It was reported that in 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln met her, he said, “So this is the little lady who started this great war.”

drip, drip, drip….

Whether in the form of magazine articles in 1852, or timed emails in 2010, falling water wears away even the hardest of stone. And in our version of “Chinese Water Torture,” the ‘torture’ part is merely anticipation of what’s comin’ next. :^>

Who would have thought that the eradication of slavery itself would be triggered by a series of… autoresponders?

Thanks to John Fancher for telling me about this. John is my compadre in our Autoresponder Boot Camp. Starts next Tuesday at 2pm. Heck, if you want, John will write your AR’s for you.

If Harriet Beecher Stowe can free a million slaves with 40 installments of Chinese Water Torture, surely you can free yourself with 10.

http://www.perrymarshall.com/chinese-water-torture/

Perry Marshall