1 - Interviewer: Dan, what is 'Magnetic Marketing' and how can it help our listeners?

Dan: Magnetic Marketing is all about positioning instead of prospecting, about attraction instead of pursuit. For different businesses or sales careers, a different combination of marketing message, target markets, and direct marketing strategies comes together in a SYSTEM, to magnetically attract the right quantity of quality customers or clients, affordably and effectively. I change the way businesses and salespeople acquire their customers.

2 - Interviewer: What's wrong with the way businesses seek new customers now?

Dan: Frankly, an enormous amount of advertising dollars are completely wasted -- and businesses can't or do not know how to hold their advertising accountable, to get tough-minded about it. P. T. Barnum once said, "I know half the advertising for my circuses is wasted -- if I only knew which half." And, for salespeople, much of what they're taught to do, to prospect, is as old-fashioned as a wringer washing machine -- very inefficient, and very frustrating.

3 - Interviewer: Can I ask you for some specific examples of how your Systems are different?

Dan: Sure. Let's take businesses first, salespeople second. One of my clients is an industrial equipment manufacturer. His marketing consisted of running big, image-building ads in a lot of trade and business magazines and exhibiting at trade shows. Then he had a room full of telephone representatives who would call possible prospects, fight their way through screening, play phone tag, and finally get to talk to a decision maker. Then they'd send out literature. Then they'd chase that prospect again on the phone. Then they might make a sale on the phone or set up an appointment with a field rep. 80% of their business came that way, requiring an average of 7 outbound calls per prospect. I changed the entire system. For starters, I changed their ads to feature what I call 'Lead Generation Magnets' and 'Qualifiers', so smaller ads got better response and got response from the right decision makers. This switched the inside sales reps from outbound call activity to 80% of their time taking in-bound calls from pre-qualified, interested prospects. This, in turn, cut the time lag from first contact to a closed sale almost in half.

4 - Interviewer: So you reduced the cost of making the sale, sped up the process of making the sale, and made the salespeople more productive?

Dan: Well, that's right. You see, for just about any sales professional, I can cut out all the old-fashioned cold call prospecting grunt work, get more of his time allocated to actually selling to qualified leads, and actually change his whole work experience for the better. For companies, I can lead them from traditional, non-accountable, costly advertising to target marketing.

5 - Interviewer: What are the limitations of all this? Are there types or sizes of businesses that can't use your methods?

Dan: If there are, I haven't found them yet. I've been applying, refining and teaching my methods since 1978. In 1992 and 1993, I worked directly with clients in 63 different businesses and industries, and taught my methods to well over 100,000 people. Just to give you a feel for the diversity of all this, let me tell you that I've recently worked with a computer software and services company marketing to large corporations, a leisure travel company marketing direct to consumers and families, a large law firm, salespeople in insurance, securities and financial services, real estate, automobiles, office products, retirement communities, and snowmobiles.

6 - Interviewer: You mentioned direct mail. Tell me more about your strategies for using direct mail?

Dan: Just as one example, I have an unusual sequence or series approach that just about any business can use to become the dominant, known presence in a target market for about $1.50 per prospect. Every time I show this at Seminars, people get very excited about it. People are getting response rates of 12%, 18%, even 23% from these mailings -- compared to direct-mail averages of 1% or 2%. More importantly, it beats any other type of advertising or cold prospecting.

7 - Interviewer: How about a few quick marketing tips?

Dan: First, develop a compelling marketing message targeted or matched to a very specific prospect. The quality of this match determines whether marketing or prospecting is easy or hard. Second, do not spend even a nickel on any advertising that cannot be held responsible and accurately measured. Three, stop chasing new customers; chasing drives them away; you need to find ways to attract them, and bring them to you pre-disposed to choosing you over any and all competition. As you can see, this involves a big change in thinking about how we sell.