Lesson 6:

"Al The Plumber"

This story is a real important story. Here’s everything it does.

First of all, it takes everything we talked about and a few things we didn’t, and stitches them together in chronological application order, so you see how they work. Secondly, it does it in a real-life business. This is a true-life example. Third, it does it in a business most of you would never expect to find good marketing, thereby demonstrating if this guy can do it, you can do it too. Fourth, it gives you a complete, as I promised you at the beginning of our time together, a marketing strategy, a system, step-by-step, that you can walk out of here and use exactly as it is described to you in this story, and see results in your bank account in 21 days or less.

And there’s a bonus. It gives you a new market, a farm, a group of prospects perfect for you, which you already have access to but are not currently harvesting. For it to do all of those things, every little nuance is important. Please read it carefully.

In the mail one day, I get an envelope. The envelope is addressed to me, Dan Kennedy. It has a real live stamp on it. And in the return address corner is the name of someone I know. In this case, not a buddy, not a relative, not a friend, not a family member, not a golfing partner. In this case, it happens to be a peer, another colleague in our business who also lives in Phoenix. It doesn’t matter, really, that that’s the case. There are 300 of us, by the way, professional speakers who live in Phoenix. I don’t know why that is. I wish 299 of them would get out of town. But none of that’s the point.

A Deadly Direct Mail Mistake

The point is the envelope is from someone whose name I recognized. It’s addressed to me. And it’s got a stamp on it. So I open it. See, look. Here’s a direct mail mistake. People send out mail with the assumption it will be opened because they sent it. Doesn’t work that way. America sorts its mail over a wastebasket. If you don’t make the cut, nothing else counts. You can have, inside the envelope, one of those beautiful full-color brochures the home office loves for you to use. It’s gold-embossed and the chairman of the board’s head, it’s got the logo die-cut in the upper corner. When you open it up and fold it out, things pop up and music plays. Doesn’t make any difference if they don’t open the envelope.

What I’ve just described to you is one almost certain way to get an envelope opened. It’s not the only way. Sometimes it’s not the best way in a given situation, but it is a very good way.

So I got the envelope. It’s addressed to me. It’s from someone I know. I open it.
The letter I take out, the headline across the top of the letter says, "I suppose you’re wondering why I’m writing to you about a plumber." I say to myself, "Yup." We don’t even get a Christmas card from this guy. I see him in airports. Now he’s writing to me about a plumber. "What’s is this all about?" So I read the letter.

The second important phrase. If you want to make direct mail work, write down, "Got to get them to read it…" "Got to get them to open it, got to get them to read it." And you’ve got about 10 seconds from flap to trash to compel readership. This curiosity is one way to do it. Not necessarily the best, but it’s the way that was used now.

So I go ahead and read the rest of the letter. The letter goes on to tell a story about how he was having a social function at his home on a Friday evening to which I had not been invited, and about 9:00 at night a pipe in the den under the bar began to spew water everywhere. A horrible mess. He had to find a plumber who would come out on a Friday night at 9:00. Made calls out of the phone book, finally found this guy, Al the plumber, who rushed out, gooped this, tightened that, didn’t have to sell him any parts. He had the whole mess cleaned up in under 20 minutes, only charged him a small amount of money. And in order to say thank you to this plumber for this extraordinary service, he, my speaking colleague who lives in Phoenix, decided to send this letter to all of us, his speaking colleagues who live in Phoenix, and let us all know I we ever need a plumber, Al’s the guy we’ve got to call.

Now, think about this for a second, because two moneymaking things just happened. There’s more to the Al story. There’s more you have to know about the Al story. But two moneymaking things just happened. Let’s see if you caught them.

The first is called a champion circle of influence. Everybody has a circle of influence in which you could do business if you were properly introduced, but you haven’t been. The plumber goes back to the customer and says, "You know, when I was here the other night, you were very appreciative and I appreciate that. What you probably don’t know is we get very little of our new business the way we got you, from advertising. We get most of our new customers through people like you, because you probably belong to something. You belong to Rotary?" "No." "Kiwanis?" "No." "Neighborhood watch?" "No." "Well, everybody belongs to something."

The guy confesses. He says, "Well, there is this speakers association I belong to." "Great! How many of those are there in Phoenix?" "300." The plumber says, "Terrific. Here’s what I’d like to do." Here’s the second thing.

The plumber says, "Here’s what I’d like to do. I wrote up what you said to me as I left, now as a letter from you to those 300 people. We can change anything you want to change. But then I want to take it and I want to put it on your stationery. Not mine, yours. I want to put it in your envelopes. Not mine, yours. And I want to send it to those 300 people who know you by name but do not yet know me. May I do that?" That’s called an endorsed mailing to a champion circle of influence. It’s the only piece of mail on the planet 100 percent get opened and 100 percent get read.

So I got the envelope, I opened the envelope, I read the whole letter. And when I got all done with it, I didn’t call Al the plumber. Why didn’t I call Al the plumber? I didn’t need a plumber, sure. So all that’s wasted, isn’t it? No, not by a long shot.

If he stops there, it’s a giant epic waste. Think of what has to happen now for it to turn into business for the plumber. I got the letter, I read it. Al sounds like a pretty good guy. I don’t need a plumber. I’ve got to go down to the copy shop, Kinko’s, wherever, I’ve got to get 18 copies made of this letter. I’ve got to get 18 zip-lock sandwich bags and 18 pieces of duct tape, because I’ve got 18 pipes. I’ve got to put a letter in each bag, I’ve got to go around and stick one to every pipe, so someday when I need a plumber I can find this guy. This is no way to get a flood of business.

That’s why about 10 days later, I get what I would call letter number one from Al the plumber. "Hi, I’m Al the plumber. You remember me? I’m the guy your friend wrote to you about, who had the party you weren’t invited to, who had the leak I rushed out and took care of. Now the reason I’m writing you now is we have this very important free thing we do only for people referred to us for our VIP customers. That free thing is a free home plumbing problem-prevention audit. And the reason why it’s so important for you to have a free home plumbing prevention audit is every home 10 years old or older has at least 100 horrible plumbing problems that could occur at a moment’s notice. And we come out and make sure none of those things are about to happen to, for free."

I still don’t call Al the plumber. I’m hearing drips in the night I wasn’t hearing before, but I don’t call Al.

That’s why 10 days later, I get, from Al the plumber, a second notice. "Hi, I’m Al the plumber. You remember me? I’m the guy your friend wrote to you about, had the party you weren’t invited to, had the leak. I wrote to you about our free home plumbing problem-prevention audit. I haven’t heard from you and I’m very concerned. If you’ll take a look at the enclosed article reprint, you’ll see why."

And you take this article reprint out of the envelope. It’s from a small community newspaper. Everybody knows everybody. They only publish once a week. Here’s a front-page story about this couple, elderly couple. They went away just for the weekend to visit the grandkids, a little drip under the sink when they left. They put a little Tupperware bowl under there to catch it. They come back on Monday, there’s a photograph in the article of the house and five parts floating in a pond. There’s another photograph of the family dog clinging to a piece of wood, waiting to be rescued.

You go back to the letter and it says, "As you can see, even small plumbing problems can become big plumbing problems at a moment’s notice." I still don’t call Al the plumber. I’m now looking at pipes. "They look okay to me.

"Ten days later, I get letter # 3 from Al the plumber, "Final notice: we’ve twice offered you our free home plumbing problem-prevention audit. We haven’t heard from you, but we sure have heard from a whole lot of other smart folks. That’s why if you want the free home plumbing problem-prevention audit, it’s very important you call within the next 72 hours. Otherwise, we may have to put you on a waiting list of up to 100 days. And enclosed is a list of some of the horrible plumbing problems that may occur during…" I call Al the plumber.

Now, I’m going to tell you the rest of the Al story, mostly for fun. It makes one important point. But let’s do 30 seconds of analysis. Al the plumber did everything we talked about this afternoon brilliantly. Let’s analyze his marketing campaign.

Anatomy Of A Killer
Marketing Campaign

Al the plumber, our marketing genius, goes and he gets himself a farm. A small, carefully-selected, manageable target market. His is his champions circle of influence, one of the most productive farms you’ll ever own.

The first seed he plants in his farm is the endorsed mailing, the only piece of mail 100 percent get delivered, 100 percent get opened, 100 percent get read.

He then nurtures his farm with a sequence of mailings. He creates a Unique Selling Proposition. He creates an offer that transcends timing. He did everything we talked about brilliantly. And if a plumber can do it, you can do it.

The Rest Of The Story

Now, for fun, Al arrives at my house, virtually no resemblance between he and a plumber.

He’s not wearing work clothes, he’s not carrying a tool box. Al the plumber is in a three-piece, beige suit, white shirt, brown and white polka-dot tie, gold collar bar, gold cufflinks, little wrenches. He’s carrying a brown eel-skin attaché case. The only resemblance between he and a plumber is on the breast pocket of his suit coat, there’s a cloth patch sewn on that says, "Al."

He comes into my house, he opens up his eel-skinned attaché case, takes out a matching clipboard. Says, "Mr. Kennedy, as you can see, this is the form I’m going to use to check the 100 possible plumbing problems. It takes me about 20 minutes to do that. While I do that, do you have a VCR?" "Got a VCR." "You need to watch this videotape." I watch the videotape. Videotape educates me about one of the greatest healthcare crises in America today. I had no idea. Seems an alarming number of us are falling and slipping in our bathtubs. Serious injuries, breaking hips. It turns out they’ve got this invisible glop that replaces bathmats forever, one-time application. Nothing to clean, and you’ll never slip and fall. A lifetime warranty. The video clicks off in 19 minutes. And as it does, Al is standing there.

I say to myself, "He’s done this before." Al says, "Mr. Kennedy, I have very good news for you. You do not have 96 of the most common household plumbing problems. I thought, "96, 100." "The ones you do have are very trivial. I have everything with me to take care of them today. I just need to go out and get some work clothes, get some tools. While I do that, did you watch the videotape?" "Yeah, I watched the videotape." "I noticed you have five baths. You have one in the master suite, then you have these other four. While I’m here today, shall we just protect the one in the master suite or shall we protect all of them?"

$389 later, Al the plumber gets in his beige Mercedes and putt-putts down the hill from my house.

I call him a few days later. I say, "Look, I didn’t want to bother you when you were out at the house working. I know that’s rude. But I teach Magnetic Marketing systems and you used one of them brilliantly. I wonder if you’d mind sharing the numbers?" "Not at all, Mr. Kennedy. I’ll just have to put you on hold and get the project file."

I’m now on hold, listening to a recorded commercial for his brother’s pool cleaning service. When that’s over, he’s back. "What would you like to know?" "How many homes did you mail to?" "About 300." "How many of those home problem-prevention audit things have you done so far?" "72."

Do the math, if you wish. Assume no one but me gave him money immediately. A poor assumption on your part, but make it if you wish. For the price of 300 letters times three, he’s been in 72 homes where he’s put on a show and a half. When they need a plumber, who are they going to call? To make sure, ever place there’s a pipe, there’s a sticker. It took us a while to get that off the cat.

There are problems with everything we do here in this course, even if we had three times as many lessons. And we don’t. I want to talk about the problems and how to solve them in our final lesson.

Click here to go to lesson 7