Award winning businessman Andrew Reynolds talking live at the World Internet Summit
Often after my seminars, I get chatting to students in the bar or the restaurant. One evening, I was asked, “How did you get started? You must have been a super confident guy to just go out there and ask for joint ventures with people to promote this stuff to their lists and all that sort of stuff.”
And I said, “No. I was really, really shy when I started my business.” I don’t know. Somehow I couldn’t believe in myself because I was in my spare room with this tatty old 486 computer, this little clackety-clack printer. And I thought there’s no way I can go to somebody and say, “Would you do a joint venture and put it out to your list for me? Because you don’t know me from Adam. I’m just this little guy who’s sat there in his boxers, typing away on this old 486.”
So what I did to start my business, was use some really, really, really cheap ways of building my list to get it started. Once I got a little bit of a track record, I could then go to people and say, “I’ve got this thing…And every time I put it out, you make three times the money. Or four times the money” or whatever. And immediately you get their attention. But it’s just that little kick in the first place to get you started.
This product…I mean, when I started my business…Bear in mind, I think I told you yesterday. I went to a seminar, just like you guys are. I had no product. I had no database of customers. And I hadn’t got a clue what I was doing. Started off ….literally my first marketing was a tiny little ad in the newspaper.
Then I was introduced to something else that was free. How many people would like to get a whole load of advertising for free? To start building that list? Let me just show you how we do it. We took an example recently because despite the few quid’s that have come in we’re all just ordinary people.
I took the example of a very, very, very ordinary guy who’s the guy who happens to be my personal trainer. He’s an ordinary guy. He’s 62 years old. He’s done loads of jobs and stuff in the past. He’s just like the bloke down the pub, you know? But he knows a lot about nutrition, he knows a lot about fitness and how to get the weight off. He’s helped me lose about a stone in the last month, which is pretty good news.
But we took Mike, this is Mike, he’s my trainer. Ordinary, every day bloke. He’s got no great track record. He’s not some guru. He’s not some expert. And we were chatting, because we go out walking and jogging and all sorts of stuff, and we were talking about how I use free publicity in my business when I first got started to bring in literally thousands and thousands and thousands of orders. He said, “Ah. But it won’t work for me because I’m a personal trainer. You couldn’t get me free publicity.”
So we had a little wager. What we did was put into play all of the free publicity methods I teach on the Cash On Demand course. We got Mike, in January this year, we got a three-page spread in Celebs Magazine. Which I think is one of the Daily Mirror newspaper magazines. …. Prima magazine. Prima magazine actually sent somebody down to meet Mike with like a graphic artist. They said, “Mike, you’re 62, mate. We don’t want to do photographs if you don’t mind. What we’d like to do…could you show us the exercises while my colleague here sketches it out?” So they did all these graphics for free. They wrote a one, two, three, four page spread on all Mike’s exercises and all through there, “If you want to learn more about this, you go to Mike the Trainer at his website.”
The beauty of this not being advertised, the beauty of it being PR…I mean, the PR people in this country reckon you get six times more response if you use PR because the magazine’s endorsing this guy, saying, “If you want to get fit, this is the guy we recommend. Here’s his website.” Rather than a thing at the top that says, “Advert”, because they know that’s been paid for. This magazine sent somebody down for free to sketch Mike to put Mike out looking a bit lovelier in a four-page spread. For free.
Sainsbury’s… Anybody heard of Sainsbury’s magazine? We got a single page…I mean, what would you pay for page in Sainsbury’s magazine? We got a single page in Sainsbury’s magazine. A case history of a lady that Mike had taken from…taking all sorts of drugs on the NHS. Very poor diet. She was a very unwell lady. And he just turned her life around with through diet, nutrition, exercise, that sort of thing. They sent a photographer down to take her picture, they told her story and they explained that the expert that had sorted her life out was this guy at this website.
You Are What You Eat magazine. I mean, if you’re in the diet business or you’re in the health conscious business, what better way to be endorsed by You Are What You Eat, with Mike’s web address. Your magazine. Weight Loss Secrets for Women over 50. A lot of Mike’s clients are people over 50, because that’s where the money is. Twenty-one Weight Loss Secrets. Each one from Mike. Each one with Mike’s website address in. Stats on the site went through the roof. Zest magazine. Double page spread. They sent a journalist down, talked to Mike, double page spread. Cost us nothing.
Let’s just look at the stats of that. I don’t know whether you guys right up at the top will be able to see. Zest magazine has a readership of 255,000 people. If we paid for that ad space, if we took their rate card, if we paid for that advertising space, they would have charged us £2055 to advertise. Because we did it as a free publicity thing, we go that for nothing.
You Are What You Eat magazine. Couldn’t find the stats. One thousand three hundred and twelve pounds fifty is what they would have charged for that space in that magazine. Yours magazine. Five thousand four hundred and seventy five pounds for the spread they did. The Celebs magazine goes out to 3.8 million people. This magazine is saying this is the expert in this field; here’s his website address to 3.8 million people. Would have cost us nineteen and a half grand. So if we’re a big corporation, we would have gone to an ad agency and they would have said, “Oh. We recommend you spend a couple of hundred grand on all this.” We did it for free.
Sainsbury magazine. Two point nine million readers. Seventeen thousand six hundred and forty pounds. Prima magazine. Eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds…sorry. Eight hundred and fifty thousand subscribers. Seventy one thousand nine hundred and fifty pounds for that space that we got.
So we got Mike the equivalent of £117,000 worth of advertising for free just using what we teach on the Cash On Demand course……