Beyond pumping iron there is another kind of preparation for bodybuilding competition, a preparation just as important, and one that involves subtle factors concerning your attitude and mental approach to training and competition. You can achieve great things with your body if you learn how to use your mind. Learning to harness the power of your mind can advance your physical training a giant step further. It can also make the difference between winning and losing in competition.

Mind power and success through mind conditioning only comes with a sustained and sincere effort. You can't make a wish and hope that it comes true and forget about working on it. The mind reacts much the same way the body does. If you train and condition it regularly, it responds with great efficiency and effectiveness. On the other hand, if you assume, as so many bodybuilders do, that it's good enough the way it is, your chances of achieving your maximum potential are greatly diminished. If you had foolishly assumed that attitude about your body, you would never have entered the gym to train in the first place.

Some of the key ingredients to an effective mind conditioning program are 1) motivation, 2) incentive, 3) visualization, and, most important of all, 4) belief. You've gotta believe. You've gotta believe in yourself, in your talents and capabilities, in your goals and all you hope to achieve, and in your methods for achieving them.

The key to understanding what your mind holds in store for you is a simple realization. Realize that within you is all the power you need to succeed both in training and in competition. Within you is all the potential for success. Within you is the brain power of an infinitely superior person, physically, spiritually and mentally.

Once you achieve this realization -- that your mind holds a vast wealth of knowledge, information, control, power, ability and potential -- you can start to tap it. You can delve into your own secret depths and find out what you're really made of.

Motivation and Discipline for Mind Conditioning

Motivation is the state of mind that generates positive feelings about achieving a purpose. Some people are motivated by financial rewards, others by primitive urges for physical pleasure. For you, the most highly motivating element in your life MUST become your dream of acquiring unsurpassed, mind-blowing power and mass.

But to be motivated isn't enough. It also takes discipline. Discipline is what keeps you consistently scientific in your actions as you strive to achieve your goal.
Here is a simple step-by-step method to getting what you want:

Step 1:
Define your ultimate goals clearly and write them down. This means being specific about what you want. What kind of improvements are you looking for? Do you want simply to increase your overall strength, your lean body mass, or reduce your percent bodyfat? Or, is it the NPC Championships? The Olympia? Maybe you're "of Iron" and chose POWERLIFTING to excel in! That, friend, is GOOD! Then concentrate specifically on the actual aspects you wish to improve, and write them down.

You'll be surprised at how much clearer you can make it by simply putting it in words. When you have to select the exact words to define what you want, you tend to develop a super-clear image of your goal.

Step 2:
Devise a series of short-term goals which will ultimately lead to realizing your main goals. It's easier to attain a short-term goal that's within reach than to try and make great leaps in progress all at once. When you try too much at once and fail, you tend to get discouraged.

Instead, set a number of short-term goals that you can accomplish and then knock them off one at a time. Focus exclusively on the short-term goal you wish to achieve most of all, not even thinking about the next short-term goal or the long run. Each one of your short-term goals should lead you to completion of your major goal. Each short-term goal is a stepping stone, not an end in itself. That's why they have to be accomplished one at a time. And as you complete each short-term goal, you will find that you are all the more motivated to continue your trek to greatness.

Step 3:
Create your strategy for success. This is your game plan, your INTEGRATED training program. On the same sheet that you wrote your long-term goal and listed the short-term goals that will get you there, you should break down your daily activities into the best means to get you where you're going. This means the routines, exercises, sets, reps, intensity, practice, rest periods, diet, naps, posing practice and so on.

Follow your own plan to success. Prepare a daily schedule that takes you in the direction you want to go, and recognize right from the start that you are a unique individual, and require a program that's necessarily different from anyone else's. Keep your goal sheet current and review it day by day.

Step 4:
Visualize yourself succeeding. No one would attempt to build a house without a set of blueprints. Likewise, you must plan your success strategy, and actually "see" yourself, in your mind's eye, accomplishing your goals.

Your inner feelings, your thoughts, your daydreams must all be filled with images of your ultimate success. Twice a day -- once after training and once before bedtime -- read your goal sheet out loud. Then close your eyes and with crystal clarity see yourself becoming exactly as you want to. But see yourself actually accomplishing your goals of acquiring great muscular size and proportioning, not just wistfully thinking about how nice it would be to look that way.

Step 5:
Align your mind, body and spirit with achievement. By affirming your commitment to your stated goals, and actually visualizing and verbalizing your commitment, you will find that your mind, body, spirit and emotional self all become one. The power of this union will send an emotional supercharge to your body by actually stimulating secretion of your body's "emotion-producing" biochemicals. The alignment is accomplished by actually verbalizing your commitment while visualizing it. For example, say, "I am committed to becoming the most massive and cut bodybuilder in history." Repeat your commitment statement before, during and after your success visualization every day.

Step 6:
Give yourself a reward for your accomplishments. After you've achieved a sub-goal or your ultimate goal(s), reward yourself in a significant fashion. I don't mean just having an ice cream cone after a contest peaking cycle! That's not significant enough to "anchor" the significance of your achievement firmly in your mind and soul. Personally dwell upon your achievement and your success. Congratulate yourself and savor the feelings of pride and confidence in having taken direct action to make yourself bigger and stronger.

The key to mental conditioning is to make your new thoughts and new approach a habit. The more regular your new habit becomes, the more quickly old and destructive habits fade away. The only way to continue making progress is to regularly reinforce your new, goal-directed integrated training.

It usually takes about three weeks to implement this revised way of thinking. During that time, you're likely to feel tempted to return to old patterns and habits, feeling that the old way was easier and "good enough."

Don't do it!

The more you resist old habits, the stronger you'll become, until you develop an iron will to succeed and you no longer even think about returning to old habits. Going back to your old mental habits would be akin to leaving the gym forever. Remember to create a goal, visualize it as real, and work regularly to successfully attain firm footing on each of the stepping stones that will take you to it. When you get there, you'll know.

*******************************
Frederick C. Hatfield , Ph.D. is the ISSA Co-founder and President. Dr. Hatfield, (aka "Dr. Squat") won the World Championships three times in the sport of powerlifting, and performed a competitive squat with 1014 pounds at a body weight of 255 pounds (more weight than anyone in history had ever lifted in competition). Former positions include an assistant professorship at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and Senior Vice President and Director of Research & Development for Weider Health & Fitness, Inc. Dr. Hatfield was honored by Southern Connecticut State University when they presented him with the 1991 Alumni Citation Award. He has written over 50 books and hundreds of articles in the general areas of sports training, nutrition, fitness, and bodybuilding. He has been coach and training consultant for several world-ranked and professional athletes, sports governing bodies and professional teams worldwide. Dr. Hatfield qualified for the 1998 World Championships in Olympic Lifting and competed in the Masters Division. Dr.Hatfield may be contacted at: www.fitnesseducation.com

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The Marketing Gold Series
Dan Kennedy Interviews Marketing Guru Kenneth J Varga

Dan: I’m on the phone with Ken Varga. Ken, mostly through direct marketing and direct response, makes so much money they have a person in Washington designated to try and figure out how to get more taxes out of him. He’s the author of a wonderful book, which we’ll tell you a little bit more about later, How to Get Customers To Call, Buy And Beg For More. Ken, I believe, you can correct me later, but I believe has the largest insurance company serving nurses all across the country, and again, largely by direct marketing, and is really a brilliant marketer and a brilliant businessman. I’ve gotten to know him quite well over the years. Every time I talk to him, including preliminary conversations for this call, I get a couple of real gems. In fact, I’ve got several things written down, Ken, from our off-the-recording call the other day that I want to ask you about. Anyway, welcome to the tape, Ken.

Ken: Thank you.

Dan: I appreciate your time. I’d like to actually start out with something you said the other day when we were talking, that was really the culmination of a story. But I think it’s such a powerful point, I’d like you to comment on it and maybe tell where it came from.

You said that one of the great marketing lessons you’ve learned and things that you try and adhere to is(and I wrote it down exactly the way you said it in case you don’t have it anyplace, because it’s profound, and when one of us says something profound we want to capture it(letting the customer tell you what they want and how they want to receive it.

Ken: Oh, yeah. That’s one of the chapters in the book. And one of the things I did, I’m probably the only author that has their fax number in their book. I’ve received thousands and thousands of faxes. But the first 1,000 of them, I initially picked up the phone and I called them, and I was talking to them. They had all kinds of accolades about the book and everything and how great it was, and so forth and so on. I just sensed that there was a "but" involved. I brought it out in the open. I said, "What do you need that would make these systems in this book more valuable to you?" And whether it was the medical profession or the lawyers or the accountants that bought the book, or even MLMer’s, everyone to a T just about said, and this is what’s tragic was their comment, they’re so busy being their business or practice that they don’t have enough time to work on it, to take my concepts and massage it.

So this gave me another idea. I asked them. I said, "How would you like to receive the information so that it’s easy for you?" They giggled a little bit and they said, "Just make it turnkey, where we don’t have to do anything but implement it."

So as a result of that, what I did was I developed a system strictly for the medical profession, one for the lawyers and one for accountants and one for MLMer’s. And it’s just total turnkey. But if I didn’t pick up the phone and do the initial research, I wouldn’t have gotten that input just by assuming it.

Dan: And so few people are willing to do that. And the other real important thing about what you did, as opposed to big business’ focus groups or ad agencies’ focus groups, is you actually talked to buyers. I always tell people they’re the only ones who cast votes that count.

Ken: Definitely.

Dan: It doesn’t matter what anybody else’s opinion is. But somebody who gave you money and potentially could give you more, their opinion counts a lot. So you learn some very valuable things from those calls.

Ken: I had somebody ask me a question one time. "When do you find time to do this, to write, to run 3, 4 businesses, to pick up the phone and call 1,000 people and what have you?" My answer was just simply, "I never think about it. I just go ahead and I do it. And there’s always time to do the other things." I feel personally, Dan, that we inhibit ourselves enormously by questioning, "Will I have time," or "is it going to occupy 10 minutes of my time?" It just short-circuits the real value of doing that research.

Dan: You know, I agree with you. When you said it was tragic(that great opportunity for(but that it was tragic that they said that they just didn’t have time to apply this to their businesses. It is a tragedy that people let themselves get so busy doing, or as you said "being their business," that they never carve out time on some kind of a consistent basis to improve that business. I’m just preparing now, today as a matter of fact, this week, for a boot camp that we’re doing for speakers. Again, it’s supposed to be a marketing and business boot camp. But as you go through the questionnaires of the 140 people that are coming, one of the most consistent frustrations and questions expressed is, "I know we need to do all this stuff, but I don’t have time to do it." It’s a universal issue.

You do. You run 3 different companies. Tell me a little bit about your core business. Tell our group a little bit about your core business.

Ken: Well, the core business is I insure over 450,000 nurses for malpractice insurance throughout the United States. And every Friday at around 4:30, 5:00, I get a report from my aide. All I do is I look at it and I say, "Okay, how many more new customers this week did I get?" We average about a little over 250 new customers every week. I never advertise and so forth. But over the last 33 years, I’ve started and sold over 32 businesses. But I started, initially, each business or bought the business with a 5-year exit plan, that if in 5 years time it requires my time to be there, that it’s not self-running by itself, I sell it. And I’ve sold 29 of them.

Dan: It’s a great point. Very few people have an exit plan at all. But creating that kind of discipline, that it has to be independent of you or it has to go. Now, the 450,000 customers in the core business, how long a timeframe did it take you to get there? And just in general, how did you build that business? Direct mail? Word of mouth? Seminars? What?

Ken: Well, how about initially, the school of hard knocks, just trying different things and what have you. Initially, I started just in New Jersey. I got a list of all of the schools of nursing and I made a presentation for an hour on legal aspects of all the students when they graduated, because we were selling life insurance at the time. And that’s another story, when I had 37,000 life insurance agents. And then I used them as leads to generate life insurance, and so forth and so on. But a lot of the turnaround started coming around when the first seminar that I really got to learn about marketing was Howard Ralph’s seminar. I believe he called it The Jefferson Institute Boot Camp, or whatever it was. And that’s where the first time I met Jay Abraham and Gary Halbert was. They were 2 young kids who were hot shot marketing people, and that’s another story in itself. But primarily, I would say I gained a whole bunch of knowledge from people like yourself, from a Gary Halbert, from a Jay Abraham, that I just massaged that concept into direct mail. And it’s all been direct mail.

And this could be for any product that individuals want to sell. I always maintain a philosophy of thinking out of the tunnel. How are people doing it currently and how they’re not doing it that I could do it, that would be a pre-emptive strike on them, all the competition and what have you. But primarily to answer your question, Dan, it’s all direct mail.

Dan: So you do not run ads in the trade journals and this company does not have an in-field sales force?

Ken: Nope.

Dan: Out-bound phone marketing?

Ken: Nope. Nope. All direct mail. They come to you.

Dan: You’re now doing some things with the internet?

Ken: Oh, that’s a remarkable story. About 6 months ago, I was reading an article. You always want to read, if you’re in a niche business, the trade journals and everything of that community, if you want to use that term. And I was reading a journal of nursing.

Dan: If you won’t lose your train of thought, I’m astounded at how many people don’t do that.

Ken: Isn’t it remarkable?

Dan: You know, we talk about it all the time. Read what your customer reads. And if it’s in a niche, it’s the trade journals and the business journals. If it’s a female consumer, you have to read the magazines that they read and the sections of the newspaper that they read. And I’m astounded at people who are in a business and don’t even subscribe to the literature within their own business.

Ken: Isn’t it remarkable? One of the most astounding things I find from an information-gathering, research viewpoint, is the letters to the editors. That tells me what their problems are. It’s just phenomenal. But in this one journal of nursing, I read where 82% of nurses have e-mail addresses. And I said to myself, just arbitrarily I just sat down here, I put the magazine down, and I took a number and I said, "If only 50% of my nurses will deal with me online, through e-commerce, I did the multiplication. I don’t know if you’re sitting down or what. I would save over $3.2 million in postage and printing expenses just in that.

But the remarkable thing about this is normally I’m in front of them 4 times a year with my newsletter, and then when I get their renewal. The key thing here is, and one of the things all your listeners probably know because you go over it constantly, is the lifetime value of a customer. What happens now is on a weekly basis, I can develop a relationship with them with different articles that will help them.

So what I did on my nurses protection group website, I also have a nurses forum on there where they can share their problems with each other. And also a student one. But the remarkable thing is at a click of a button, I can develop a relationship. But the data I’m also collecting, because I changed all the applications, all the renewal forms to gather the e-mail address, plus their birthday, on the click of a button every morning, my girl just has to click a button and all these people born on that day get a birthday greeting from me. It’s remarkable, the technology, what is happening and occurring.

So needless to say, I just invested in server hardware and everything, to the tune of $140,000 and so forth and so on. But when you do the numbers of what the potential savings are, it’s a pittance.

Dan: Now, one of the ways that you’re getting them to come to your site and to send others to your site that you mentioned to me that I thought was brilliant, is your malpractice case of the week program. Can you describe that?

Ken: Yeah. The malpractice case of the week is where I take a typical case and I write about it. But the remarkable thing is at the end, I list 3 or 4 questions like, "What would you do in this situation," or whatever. It really creates the thinking process on their part. But then, as an adjunct I said, "Who could really use this?" And it was students of nursing. Why? Because there’s an instructor in every school that teaches a course in their senior year called Legal Aspects of Nursing. So what I did was I did a direct mail piece to all the schools’ deans, asking them to pass this information to that specific instructor. And as a result of that, I’ve gotten about 90% of the schools, who now are using this malpractice case of the week to be e-mailed to their students each week, and they’re assigning it as homework.

Dan: While they’re creating all your future customers for you.

Ken: Exactly.

Dan: Of course. Do you mind if people go take a look at your website?

Ken: Oh yeah, that’s no problem. In fact, I’ll list a couple of them. One is HYPERLINK "http://www.npg.com" www.npg.com , and the other one is KenVarga.com. One of the things that I just recently did last week, I read an article, and this is where your listeners should constantly be reading. I just read. I never think, "Where will I get time," or anything. I just read constantly. And I read an article about the internet, where if you have initials like I do for npg.com, you’re not going to get as many hits. So I set up a duplicate website for what the initials stand for, NursesProtectionGroup.com. It’s a mirrored.

Dan: It’s what I call a shadow site.

Ken: It just links right to mine. And bingo. Every time somebody types in nurses, bingo, my site comes up in the top 10.

Dan: One of the things that several of my clients have been doing lately, who are really into e-commerce, is multiple shadow sites that just flip them back to the main site with all kinds of front names. Like you might have MalpracticeForNurses.com. So if somebody typed in malpractice first, instead of typing in nurses, it becomes the all roads lead to Rome approach. I think it’s one of the most effective methods for maximizing the value of a site.

Ken: You can do that when you’re your own ISP. You can have as many, because it doesn’t cost you X number of dollars every month.

Dan: No. And even if it does, the cost for most businesses is minor compared to the payoff. How much direct mail do you do in a year?

Ken: I would say 2 or 3 million pieces.

Dan: Okay. You’re a major mailer and you’ve been at it for a lot of years. So what can you tell us that you’ve discovered about direct mail that is like life or death important in making it work?

Ken: Well, I oftentimes listen to a lot of copywriters that I meet at seminars. And they’re always saying… they’re always asking me for my opinion of this or that. My statement to them, Dan is I test everything. I will never presume that this mailer will work or it won’t work. I do the testing first. I always have a control piece that I test against. But the most critical thing that I’ve learned within a direct mail piece is that headline and that subhead. I mean, I’ve changed the headline every once in a while, and I’ve had a 2% or 3% greater response rate.

Dan: With no other changes?

Ken: With no other changes.

Dan: You test against an existing control. Is it fair to ask how many tests you run in a year?

Ken: I would say I run a minimum of 10 tests. A minimum. It’s like real estate. It’s location, location, location. In direct mail, the whole thing should be test, test, test. Never fall in love with your piece.

Dan: Now, you’re such a fan of direct mail. And I’ve got to tell you, even amongst this group, the Gold Members, certainly among the regular membership, but Gold Members even, there are people who are resistant to using direct mail. So how come you’re such a fan?

Ken: Because it works. It just brings me in over 250 new customers every year. What I’m going to be doing with the other publishing business that I’ve created and everything, is to now… I use endorsements and joint ventures on a limited basis with the nurses, but I’m going to be using it quite extensively with all the other products that I’m creating and developing. You know, Dan, I’m 58. I turned 58 in April. And I’ve never had so much fun in all my life, because I still don’t know what I want to be. How many people in life have that feeling at that age?

Dan: Well, I suspect many do, but are trapped. You, fortunately, have the opportunity to keep trying to find out.

Ken: And the flexibility, you were right.

Dan: How about like an average Ken Varga week? What does your schedule look like?

Ken: I always maintain a philosophy. You and I had this conversation when we spoke prior, you’ve got to smell the roses. You have got to have something that you totally enjoy doing, whether it’s fly fishing. With me, it’s going on a beach at my place in Aruba and spending the winter there. Or like Sunday, Barb and I are leaving for 2 weeks to open up the place. During the summertime, it’s getting my hands in the dirt in my garden. And then on weekends, my wife and I canning, and all kinds of good things.

I never think of… I see individuals that live by these day planners. I never think along those lines. All I do is just have an idea, and I do it and then I go to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

Dan: I confess, I even designed a system like that at one time, but I’ve never been able to use one of those things.

Ken: But you know, it’s like I’ve set up the mailers are run on automatic pilot. I come up with a direct mail piece, I rush it off to Kyle when I send the list to him, and I say, "Okay, code this application this and mail out 250,000, 25,000 of these." So I mean, it’s like on automatic pilot. It’s not like you have to do it yourself. You should always have these resources to do it, because it gives you now the time to go ahead and do something else.

Dan: How much time do you… We talk about this reading and being on alert for opportunity, how much of your time do you think you devote to continuing education, to hunting for information, that kind of thing?

Ken: I would venture to say that a good 25 to 30 hours a week. And on weekends, it depends on the season. Like when I go to Aruba, I go down with a suitcase of books, with a lot of material, with my laptop and everything. My typical day in Aruba is getting up at 4:30 in the morning, getting on a treadmill for an hour, and then meeting a 72-year-old Aruban that I’ve know for 25 years, and walking 10 or 12 miles up and down the beach just to freshen yourself, if I can use that term. Then I have breakfast with Barb, and I sit down at the laptop and just write.

My system here, in the office, is very similar. I get off the treadmill about 5:30 in the morning, and by 6:30 I’m in the office. And I make it a point for the first 3 hours, just to sit at my computer and write.

And then I go through trade journals and what have you before the phones start ringing and other things are happening. And then during the day, I just do. There’s no map or anything of this is the way it’s done, because a lot of individuals would also want to do different other things.

Dan: Well, you’re pretty focused, actually. Like right now, you have what, 3 businesses?

Ken: Yeah.

Dan: Two of them have to do with the niche market of nursing, right?

Ken: Right.

Dan: Yeah. And of course, the other revolves around the book and the tapes and the courses. What do you read like religiously? Newspapers or magazines or whatever? What do you read every day/week/month?

Ken: I would say about 50 to 55 trade journals that relate to different fields that I like. I read, constantly, books on business. Because you never know when somebody’s got a different slant on an idea. But I do read, at least once a week, a regular novel just for stimulation. But when I read that, when I read newspapers, when I read trade journals, it’s not like reading for entertainment. When I read a novel, I just totally am absorbed by the way they develop the characters and how they do that. When I read newspapers, magazines and everything, it’s about a business. And I think I guess I’ve trained my mind automatically to say, "If they did a joint venture this way, this is how it could benefit them," and so forth. So it’s not so such… Because you know newspapers and everything really are just bad news anyway.

Dan: Yeah. Do you read the Journal?

Ken: Oh yeah, the Wall Street Journal I read every day.

Dan: IBD?

Ken: No. Investor’s Daily?

Dan: Yeah.

Ken: Yeah. In fact, it’s funny. I didn’t even know I was going to be in print. But about 2 months ago, I got a nice letter with the front page of the Investor’s Daily newspaper from Linwood Austin, saying, "Boy, are you well-known" and what have you, and it was an interview that I had with a reporter. So I didn’t even know that there was going to be anything in there. I even missed it.

Dan: Well, it’s great exposure. Great exposure. Let’s talk about the book, How To Get Customers To Call, Buy And Beg For More. What’s there that’s really special?

Ken: Well, most of the letters that I’ve gotten back from individuals are that it is so readable and user friendly, where an individual could understand the concepts. Oftentimes, I’ve gone to some seminars where I needed to bring a dictionary to listen to the speaker. You know what I’m saying? I mean, it was like they were trying to impress me with their vocabulary. And what they were doing, really, was tuning off the major participants that were there. The book itself is just so user friendly. There’s 37 different concepts in there that can be applied, some of it to your Gold Members, whom I assume are really astute, otherwise they wouldn’t be Gold Members. Because they’ve used, over the years, all of your concepts and everything, which are invaluable. So a lot of it could be the same. But if they read it, what will happen is they’ll get a different slant on things, because it’s really designed for the mom and pop.

Dan: Yeah. Obviously, there’s a big difference between knowing something and doing something about it. That’s why we have so many fat doctors that smoke. So there are marketing concepts that everybody’s familiar with, but have not yet been nudged into using.

Ken: Let me give you an example of that, too, Dan. I’m sorry for interrupting you, but I had this thought. Things and opportunities come about constantly in everybody’s daily life. It’s like the airline that I was instrumental in starting from Las Vegas, National Airlines with Mike Conway, and it just happened at a meeting and what have you. But another good example is I was out on a fishing trip with this one bank, every August takes 50 of their best customers out. They were being bought out, so all of the officers were on board. Nobody was fishing, except for this accountant and I. All the executives from the bank didn’t know if they were going to have a job the next day.

I said to Danny, I said, "Danny," I said… His name was Danny also. I said, "Danny, now’s a good time to start a niche bank." So we started Shore Community Bank in Toms River, New Jersey. The newspaper did a big article write-up on us, and the next thing I know, 2 of my neighbors called up, businesspeople, and they said, "Ken, we could use a bank here." So we started 2 community banks.

The next thing I know is I’m sitting down, because I’m a major stockholder in both of them, and I’m saying to myself, like one bank, we have 5 different banks, big banks, on the same corner. I said to myself, "How can I differentiate myself from everyone else? What should I do that will make a difference?" And as a result of that, I developed from my book, the teacher’s manual and also the student manuals. Because on the back of my loan officer’s business card it reads, "In the business of friendly and superior banking services and quarterly seminars to help you grow your business and get more customers."

All I did was take my book and put it into a teacher’s manual and what have you. Any of you listeners that are dealing with businesspeople, that they want business-to-business, that would be invaluable for them because they don’t have to reinvent the seminar.

And the second thing I did was to put together a direct mail letter to the business community within a 5-mile radius of the bank. And all it was, was a letter from the loan officers, stating that they would like to come by and introduce themselves and just take 15 minutes of their time. And as a token of their appreciation, they’re going to bring an autographed copy of this book.

Dan: Simple things.

Ken: It is.

Dan: But the 2 things that I would point out based on what you just said, one, I’m constantly telling people that it doesn’t matter what business you’re in. Whether you’re the butcher, the baker, the candle stick maker, you should be in the information business. You should be providing useful information to your prospects and your customers, because it’s a great way to differentiate yourself from every other merchant. And secondly, the gift with appointment strategy is such a simple strategy, it’s often miss-used because it’s done with a gift that has no relevance. But overall, it’s a very effective strategy.

Ken: You know, Danny, the third thing that I did was to have a direct mail piece go out to all new move-ins. You know how you do the Val-Pak thing?

Dan: Right.

Ken: This is a personal letter, because you can get the lists, this is a personal letter to all the new move-ins and also guess what? To new births. Parents that just gave birth to a child. On the new move-ins, it was an introduction to welcome into the community letter and have a gift for them to come in. The new birth one, maybe it’s my insurance background or what have you, because my next thing is for those newlyweds and engaged people. I’m thinking of how I’m going to work on that. But for the new birth, it was congratulations on the birth of your child, Brian. Knowing the value of systematic savings, because college education, at the blink of an eye, goes by so quickly. And now, all of a sudden they’re of college age. We’ve taken the initiative and started a savings account for Brian for $25. All you have to do is come in and give us the necessary information to open up the account. Now, not only have we opened up the account for Brian, but now the family.

Dan: Of course. It’s brilliant.

Ken: It’s just all different things, Dan, that are just so super. I just enjoy thinking out of the tunnel. To me, I think it’s going to allow me to live to 130 years old.

Dan: Well, I don’t know about that, but maybe. God knows you’re physically fit enough. But banking is an industry… I’m just thinking as you’re talking about this, I often joke about it from the front of the room that it’s an industry where there hasn’t been a creative thought in decades. You’re finding ways to compete with giants. That, in and of itself, is an issue that concerns a lot of people. It’s what I call the Wal-Mart problem. How do we fend off the huge giants suddenly moving into our market, or how do we take on the giant that’s already there? And I wonder if you have some other thoughts about that?

Ken: Yeah. I’ll use an example. My girl that takes all the orders over the 800 number, came into my office. She says, "I think you should talk to this guy, because I don’t know what to say to him. He wants to buy the teacher’s manuals, which comes along with the student manuals." So I get on the phone with him and it was a difficult thing for me to think, but I like to be creative on the spot, if I can use those terms. Remember how we used to have hot seats at different seminars and what have you?

Dan: Yeah, it’s the best part. It’s the best part of the seminar, sure.

Ken: Yeah. I used to sit there and give 100 ideas to these people as a participant of the seminar. But the whole thing is, he was a manufacturer’s rep. And what did he represent? Cabinetry for kitchens. So I’m thinking, and the only thing I could think about was after gathering information and asking him questions, he goes to all the retail outlets, the mom and pop stores. What I told him was that through the same concept, where he did a quarterly seminar and what have you, 2 things happened. Number one, he got more people to handle that line. But also, what he did was the customers that he had already pushed his line ahead of everybody else’s, because they weren’t doing anything for the business but he was. And all he did was take 2 counties and do a Saturday morning seminar for a couple hours, and that was it. He was doing something different than anybody else in that industry.

Dan: What’s the most innovative, interesting, maybe even oddball thing that you’ve seen done to promote or market a business? Maybe in all the people you’ve been talking to as you’ve done the radio interviews and been out on the book tour?

Ken: Well, you had asked me a question one time about you found that radio interviews weren’t working for you and what have you. I found they were working immensely. Not in the beginning, because I was doing what everybody else did. They promoted their book. Well, besides promoting the book, I offered free marketing tip of the week on the KenVarga.com. And once I capture them, then I can develop a relationship with them. I think most of the time, and this is what businesses miss the most, is they go, they get the sale, and then they’re gone.

It reminds me of that joke about this guy’s up in heaven and he’s getting bored. And all of a sudden, he says to St. Peter, he says, "Can I go back to Earth?" And St. Peter says, "No, you can’t. But we do have a proviso in this agreement to Heaven that we can send you to Hell for a week and that’s it." So he goes down to Hell, and my God, they’re treating him like royalty. They’re whining and dining him. He’s having such a blast, but then he’s got to come back to Heaven. And then he gets bored again and he says to St. Peter, he says, "Can I go back down to Hell?" He says, "If you go down again, you’ve got to stay there."

So he says, "Okay, I want to do that." So he goes down and they open up the door, and now fire, brimstone, everything. Now he’s being pierced and he’s living an eternity of Hell. He said to the devil, he says, "How come the first time I came down here, I was wined and dined and everything?" The devil says, "Well, that was because you were a potential customer, but now you are a customer." You know what I’m saying? In other words, we forget to develop that relationship with our existing customers, Dan.

Dan: So other than your own business, who’s doing the best job? Who do you know who’s doing the best job with if you want to call it that relationship marketing?

Ken: I feel a person like yourself is, and quite a number. I feel that Marty Chenard is doing a real great job. I don’t know if you know Marty.

Dan: Yeah, I know Marty.

Ken: I mean, Marty has taken marketing into a scientific level. I mean, where it’s measurable. It’s really unbelievable, his systems. I thought I knew about marketing. When I started taking Marty’s software and doing it, my mailings, my cost of mailings went down because I wasn’t doing that many mailings, because it is based on zip codes and demographics, psychographics, and the most important thing. You’re getting your mailing piece in front of somebody to be read by somebody who can afford to buy your product.

Dan: You’ve got, in your core business, 450,000 customers, and you have a renewal situation with all of them. Right?

Ken: Right.

Dan: They have to renew how often?

Ken: Every year.

Dan: Every year. So what do you do in this relationship area to set the stage for the renewal?

Ken: Well, what I do is prior to the internet concept, I’m in front of them 4 times a year in a newsletter. A lot of my growth has also been with the referral contest that I have. And I believe your wife is one of my insureds, so I don’t even know what your thoughts are, if you even read the newsletter that goes to her and what have you? Have you ever seen it, Dan?

Dan: I confess that I have not. I confess that I have not. Tell me about the referral contest.

Ken: It goes once a year. What I do is all they have to do is… Let me go, in retrospect, something that I learned. My referral contest was they would just send me a business reply card back telling me that they want 25 application forms to pass out to nurses. The policy number would be printed on the bottom. Well, then I tested something completely different, where I took the owness of selling off of them. And what I did was they just give me now the name and address of co-workers, and I have a direct mail piece that goes off to them, and it starts off with a free gift. "Don’t thank us, thank your friend, Mary Smith," it’s all personalized, who asked us to send this gift to you." It’s a book on how to protect against malpractice.

Dan: You’ve just described something. As you know, for a number of years, very intensely I’ve worked with chiropractors and dentists. And I still do a fair amount of work in those practices. Their modus operandi for referrals is, of course, to put a plaque up in the office and to give everybody brochures to hand out. And for years, we have taught them collect the names and addresses of the people who the patient is willing to refer, take the owness of selling off of the patient, and do direct mail with a gift offer direct to the referred person. It is so hard to get them to do it. But when they do it, the results are just unbelievable.

Ken: That’s a business that could be started, because they just don’t have time to do it then.

Dan: I’ve got a funny story for you. I’m a Diner’s Club member. And about a month or 2 months ago, Diner’s did a pitch in their newsletter for referrals. I don’t remember what the deal is now, but if you refer somebody who opens a Diner’s Club account, you’d get X number of bonus miles, like frequent flyer miles. So I’ve got 15 members in my platinum group. So I call the 800 number and say, "Send me 15 of the coded apps and I’ll give them to my platinum members." "You can’t have 15. You can only have 4." "Why can I only have 4?" "Because that’s the program. You can only have 4. If we give you 15, you will waste them. We will only give you 4." Is this classic?

Ken: It is. On my referral sheet, it has room for 10 names and addresses. But on the bottom I say, "Please photocopy this form before you start filling in. I sometimes get 20 to 30 pages.

Dan: Would you rank that as one of the most effective things you do?

Ken: Oh yeah. There’s never just one thing, Dan, that a business should do to generate new customers and profits. There’s a combination of different things that your listeners should always try to create in order to generate more and more customers.

Dan: We’re almost out of time. Any last words of brilliant wisdom here for everybody?

Ken: I always think about, Dan, always trying different things. When we say testing, testing, testing and direct mail, I’m talking about testing and testing other different types of marketing concepts. Just taking them, massaging them, trying them, and learning from them. But the most important thing is doing the research, getting your customers to tell you what they want and how to get it. And that’s a full chapter in the book and everything. It’s so critical to the success of a business.

Dan: Alright Ken, this has been great. Appreciate the time out of your busy day, and envy you your 2-week excursion to Aruba. In contrast, for example, I just got back from Des Moines. So have a nice time and thanks again.

Ken: Thank you, Dan, and thanks to all your listeners. I hope I’ve helped them.

Read the feature article in Mentors Magazine about Ken
In this Feature Interview, it's Kenneth Varga, a dynamic entrepreneur who has started or bought, built, and sold over 32 companies in 33 years. He is the author of over 300 information products including the best selling book, How to Get Customers to Call, Buy and Beg for More! All of his works are based on his experiences of developing hundreds of thousands of customers through expert marketing. At this high point of his career, Ken is focusing on being a mentor and motivating force for entrepreneurs, executives and sales professionals. In this wide-ranging interview, Ken reveals specific strategies for profitably using a great variety of marketing success strategies.
Click Here to read the article.

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