[JayBallentine]

I am posting in the promotions section because it seemed like the "best fit" - however, I have nothing to sell here. In fact, maybe some of you lead generators who post here might be able to benefit from this.

ISO's - you guys should love this, because this is especially written for you all.

I got an e-mail from someone I have a ton of respect for today. He wanted feedback on his direct mail campaign he had going out. He wanted me to evaluate his sales letter. It was effectively at telling:

1. Who he was.
2. What he had to offer.
3. Courteous tone.
4. Contact information.

In other words, it was a turd. Terrible. No one cares who you are, what you have to offer, and that you are nice in your tone. Save your contact information because they don't care about that either. They want to know what is in it for them, and why they should do business with you.

My first criticism was that his mailer was untargeted. He picked some SIC codes, drew up this "we are XYZ capital and have funded 2,000 businesses since 2007" junk and decided to have a go at it. Luckily I stopped him.

I helped him decide to go after UCC's... Here's a sample of a piece I whipped up for him.


Bill,

My name is John Doe and I was going to call you up like the other hundreds of guys who are calling you everyday to try and shove more high interest money down your throat, but I decided against it.

Bill, I know you recently took high interest business financing because those clowns at the bank can't seem to realize that without business owners like you - there is no America. In the future - you may need more money and that's OK. I'll gladly help.

One thing I won't do is lie to you. In no way shape or form will I ever be able to get you anything less than 35% interest. I've been in this business a while and guys' lies are getting bigger and bigger; "direct lender this," "lowest rates that." They'll say anything to get a commission check. In fact their lies likely got you 35% interest in the first place.


I CUT OUT MOST OF THE CLOSE - THE MONEY PARAGRAPHS

But, you still get the point.

Now compare the above copy to the one below, or anything that YOU can come up with and tell me - which letter are you likely to respond to? Assuming the audience is UCC's.


Bill,

We are SUPER AWESOME FUNDING COMPANY and we are here to offer your business the funding you may need for:

1. Marketing
2. Expansion
3. Payroll

As a direct lender we can offer the best rates in the business and turnaround the absolute fastest approvals. Most merchants are approved and funded within 72 hours of application.

Unlike the bank, our loans are unsecured and we can work with you regardless of credit type. So, if you are interested in seeing how much your business qualifies for, call us now at 12345678.

[CashAdvanced]

Yeah yours is clearly better but the original one was absolutely terrible. That is clearly why he was asking you for some help in the first place.

While some owners may appreciate your "honesty" I do not think that is the correct approach when dealing with "these merchants". They need the money and therefore, usually do not have much of a choice but to take the 35% or whatever offer they can get. I do not believe honesty is what they are looking for though. They are looking for speed (which the original mailing actually mentions turnaround time), reputation, and want to hear that they don't give a sh*t about credit. In no way do you want to start throwing out interest rates at them! Whether people want to believe it or not, more than half of these merchants are in denial or don't even realize how high the interest rates are, hell, technically there is no "interest rate", its a factor rate unless your dealing with Cali or a loan product. I think saying 35% will drive them veryyyyyyyyy far away. While I like to believe that some honesty exists in this business, every day I never fail to hear some crazy lie that a rep told a merchant which I then have to tell them is completely untrue.

[Sean Cash]

I'm no expert when it comes to mailers. I've never designed a mailer or ran a mailer campaign. However, a year or two ago this ISO was telling me about this awesome mailer campaign they were initiating and they gave me a copy of the flyer they were sending out to keep. I thought it was awesome because it was so professional and expensive looking. I brought it home to show my wife what people in the industry were doing and before I could say a word, she grabbed it out of my hand and threw it in the trash.

Apparently she thought I had brought it in from our mailbox and she instinctively believed it to be junk mail that I was handing her to throw away. I had to take it out of the garbage bin just to show her how good it was, but it didn't matter, the proof of how effective the campaign was going to be had already revealed itself.

I shred 99% of my mail without opening it. I guess there's no moral of my story other than the content of your message is irrelevant if it's not even looked at to begin with. Engaging the merchant to actually pay attention has got to be more than half the battle.

[JayBallentine]

Yeah yours is clearly better but the original one was absolutely terrible. That is clearly why he was asking you for some help in the first place.

While some owners may appreciate your "honesty" I do not think that is the correct approach when dealing with "these merchants". They need the money and therefore, usually do not have much of a choice but to take the 35% or whatever offer they can get. I do not believe honesty is what they are looking for though. They are looking for speed (which the original mailing actually mentions turnaround time), reputation, and want to hear that they don't give a sh*t about credit. In no way do you want to start throwing out interest rates at them! Whether people want to believe it or not, more than half of these merchants are in denial or don't even realize how high the interest rates are, hell, technically there is no "interest rate", its a factor rate unless your dealing with Cali or a loan product. I think saying 35% will drive them veryyyyyyyyy far away. While I like to believe that some honesty exists in this business, every day I never fail to hear some crazy lie that a rep told a merchant which I then have to tell them is completely untrue.

I think you completely misunderstood that this is FOR UCC PROSPECTS. Folks that HAVE TAKEN 35% in the recent past.

Targeting super ice cold prospects via direct mail requires a TON of prep work.

[JayBallentine]

I'm no expert when it comes to mailers. I've never designed a mailer or ran a mailer campaign. However, a year or two ago this ISO was telling me about this awesome mailer campaign they were initiating and they gave me a copy of the flyer they were sending out to keep. I thought it was awesome because it was so professional and expensive looking. I brought it home to show my wife what people in the industry were doing and before I could say a word, she grabbed it out of my hand and threw it in the trash.

I bolded one sentence because that's what causes folks to STOP reading. We will use licked stamps, invitation sized envelopes, legal sized paper, and hand written addresses.

We all open mail over the trash can. But when we receive something that looks and feels like a gift or invitation (on the envelope) we're opening that so fast heads roll. Then you have about 10 words before they decide if they want to give you the next 20 words, and 20 to buy the next 40 words of attention, and so on.