My wife and I bought our store in Sept 2003. The store had been in existence for 15 months but had really not done a good job with advertising. Last summer, we decided to embark on the personal mentoring program with Jay. Our mentor was Dane Ing, a very knowledgeable, enthusiastic and very insightful mentor. We have had some phenomenal success so far from the program.

Dane offered many ideas and suggestions, both new and expansion of things that we were already doing. Our average sale was approximately $15. Since beginning the program, our average sale had risen to $39, an increase of 260% before we began the mentoring program.

One of the new ideas was offering coupons when a customer makes a purchase. We have been offering a free bonus (changes weekly for testing) when the customer purchases $25 or more. Our success rate has been between 45 and 60% will buy enough for the free bonus.

One of the most successful idea was an expansion of something that we were already using. We give a free 8 oz candle every time a customer buys $100 worth of products. Since about 90% of our customers will spend over $100 in a lifetime (in fact, so far this year, almost 20% have spent over $100 in the first 9 months of the year), most of our customers will get at least 1 free candle.

Dane suggested that we offer an up-grade to a 16 oz candle for the $4 difference between the two candles. When we offer this upgrade, we physically show the customer the difference between the two candles and explain that they are getting twice as much for only $4. The value of getting twice as much of a candle while only paying half the cost of the smaller 8 oz candle is usually to hard to resist. Two out of three customer's upgrade. By the way, we make a small profit on the 16 oz candles where we had been "losing" money on the "free" 8 oz candle. Of course, we weren't really losing money since we were gaining customer loyalty.

Finally, Dane helped us develop a marketing plan. This plan has allowed us to make 50% of last years sales in the first three months of the year. Since it is a living document, we have modified our marketing plan to take advantage of the methods that are working.

I would recommend the mentoring program to anyone who is serious about expanding your business.

- Mark C.

The usual format is 40-45 minutes of education on a specific marketing strategy followed by 10-15 minutes of questions and answers. If you want to explode your sales and drive new customers into your business this is a weekly appointment you won’t want to miss. Check out the success center for the schedule of calls and topics being hosted by week, and also delve into the conference call archive. We have archived marketing calls on everything from exposing the 21 insider secrets of direct mail to four simple steps to differentiate your business.

The weekly marketing calls are open to students who want to utilize offline marketing techniques to find and convert prospects into loyal buying customers. See you there!

• 3 one-on-one mentoring sessions
• 30-45 minute sessions

This is an advanced course focused specifically on Host Beneficiary Relationships. These allow you to utilize existing good will and strong, bonded relationships that all sorts of other companies and professionals already have established with prime prospects for your product or service.

The question you have to ask yourself is this: Who in your marketing area is already selling the customers you want to reach or the clients you want to serve? They would be selling something that either goes before, goes along with, or follows the product or service you would sell to these people.

In this module of 3 coaching sessions, the student will learn to implement a host beneficiary relationship within their industry.