Anyone purchase any marketing guru materials?

Dave,
I signed up for the Joe Polish boot camp in 2004, but was unable to attend. Consequently, I received their Boot Camp in a Box version, which is merely the recorded boot camp.

I was a lot newer to small business and self employment at the time I signed up. I hadn’t learned how many companies are out there trying to take their piece of my pie, so to speak. Joe Polish is no different. This is not to say his boot camp wasn’t helpful and of decent quality, but most of his speakers actually gave more of a teaser presentation and then had their own more detailed materials (costing hundreds of more dollars) available for a “one time great price” at Joe’s boot camp. Of course Joe gets a percentage of everything they sell at his boot camp.

By the time you receive Joe’s emails for a while and get a feel for his programs, you quickly learn that his limited free info is mostly teaser stuff to get you to his boot camp. Then you learn that even the boot camp is a lot of teaser stuff to get you to sign up for his “Platinum Club” at $1,000 per month – yes that’s right – $1,000 per month. He also can give you a web site for an unbelieveably high price. He has many other services of course.

Again, there is plenty of quality information in his programs to be sure, but realize he is just trying to suck his piece of you pie like everyone else (Credit card processors, yellow pages, business insurance, etc., etc., etc.)

So what am I saying here? I am saying that their is a lot of hype in most of the professional marketers you find and they are out there to make BIG money. Their stuff can be expensive. Yes, I do believe they have helpful information. However, I would not want to see one of our new operators (who is perhaps strapped for cash) scrape up the money to purchase expensive marketing materials ( or put it on their credit card) and then not realize an immediate return (leaving them further strapped for cash).

There are several marketers who offer free newsletters (via email) and have web sites with quite a bit of free information. Of course that is all set up to get you to one of their (not free) seminars or to get you to purchase their more detailed and expensive materials. Again, they have some good information, but some of their promised results is surely hype. Search on Dan Kennedy, David Frey, John Jantsch and see what pops up.

Joe Polish hardly has anything for under a thousand bucks. One exception is Joe Polish’s newletter that he has available for you to send to your customers. I have seen many issues of it and the Devlins (HB operators in Denver) buy it from Joe Polish monthly. I think they said it costs them about $80/month, but it is a really nice/quality newsletter. I have been writing my own newsletter and I feel mine is very good, however, it requires a lot of time. So that $80/month may be a bargain. The Devlins have stated that they consistently receive positive feedback about that newsletter from their customers.

I know I sound cynical. I don’t mean to sound so negative. I just know that some new operators will see this and I don’t want them to throw away thousands of dollars. You’ve been around and know what you are doing.

As stated above, I paid for the 2004 boot camp. It cost me $999. All things considered, I feel I got a decent amount of information for the grand.

I also bought one of the other marketer’s “Referral Systems” for about $150 or so (I forget now exactly how much) and feel it was worth.

Within all the info and hype these guys offer, there is a lot of good info. You just have to pick and choose what you feel will work for you and test it.

By the way, you can sign up for Joe Polish’s emails and then you will be occasionally invited to call in to free 90 minute teleconference sessions. They all lead up to trying to sell you on their next Boot Camp or to join their Platinum Club (for $1000/month as I said before), however, they actually share some decent ideas and techniques that you might like.

You might like to check out some of these sites:

http://www.MarketingBestPractices.com

http://www.InstantReferralSystems.com

http://www.DanKennedy.com

http://www.ducttapemarketing.com

I have no affiliation with any of those sites and again, be careful of their expensive offers. I think they all allow you to sign up for their free email newsletter.

If someone was well funded, not in any danger of running out of cash, and full of energy, I expect they could probably purchase some of these expensive marketing packages and benefit from them.

Overall though (if cash is limited), I would recommend someone surf the sites I listed as well as any others they can find, read all they can find about marketing, and get their feet wet for a while in our business before they fork out really big bucks for Joe Polish’s and others’ expensive marketing services.

I understand, Dave, your desire to do something better to grow your business. Good luck with your new efforts!

Mike

Mike is right, we use Joe Polish’s monthly newsletter, but that is it. Our customers love it and so do we. I know this has been discussed in other threads, so I won’t rehash it. As for the rest of Joe’s stuff (Bootcamp, Call in, etc), I will save my money and use it elsewhere. Joe has some good marketing ideas and there are cleaners out there supposedly making great money using his methods. I am guessing many of his methods are the same ideas that have been discussed on this board numerous times. Same goes for the other “guru’s”. Ultimately I think it comes down to knocking on doors and kissing babies (figures of speach). Roll up your sleeves and get to work. I think too many people buy into these marketing packages and expect them to have the “answer”. Well, they have about 20 different potential answers (that cost money), just like this board does(which are free). Which will work, and which won’t? Who knows as every area is different and you will need to spend money experimenting to see which ones do and which don’t.

FYI, as for Joe himself, I believe he was a carpet cleaner that apparently wasn’t making it cleaning, but found his niche with marketing ideas. Not trying to bad mouth him as that’s just what I have been told.

Dave, All,
As I mentioned, I have seen multiple copies of Joe Polish’s newsletter that you use to send to your customers. I think it is well done. Ultimately, it is a tool to keep you name in front of your customers on a regular basis.

Dave, I understand the $80 or so to buy the newletter each month as the time to prepare one on your own is extensive. I am in the middle of printing mine for my December mail-out. I’m curious – do you print your own or have it done? I checked once and it is a bit expensive to have them printed, so I have been doing it so far. If you print them yourself, what kind of printer are you using?

Thanks,

Mike

Ron,
Thanks for chiming in concerning the marketing gurus. Good to hear the opinion of someone with a marketing background. Not to beat up on Joe Polish, but I was a bit surprised (when I watched the Boot Camp DVDs that I bought) that Joe is actually a fairly poor speaker. His guest speakers were fairly good of course, but I expected better from Joe.

I think Dave is obviously right though that Joe Polish found a niche that he likely does very well in.

Ron – $.40 per copy including postage is great! Is that color?

Thanks,

Mike

Ron,
I guess I need to try out those refill kits. That explains your good price. Those inkjet ink cartridges are rather high.

Thanks,

Mike

Oops, newsletter is 11″ by 17″ folded in half.

Unfortunately we eat it. 🙁