250 million iPods Sold
50 million iPhones Sold
150,000 Individual Apps
3 billion App Downloads
200 million Annual Visitors at . . .
284 Retail Stores
10 billion iTunes Downloaded
iPads and iBooks?

In this article, learn how making one simple change boosted a company's sales 533% overnight, and then how a second change jumped sales by an astonishing 5,499%. And nearly any business can use these strategies.

We will examine a company that made two simple changes to their pricing that lead to dramatic (5,549%) sales increases, we will take a deeper look at the implications of those decisions, and finally we will discuss the pro's and con's of applying similar strategies to your business; considerations such as the long-term value of a customer, calculating the potential value of up-sells and cross-sells, when it makes sense to actually loose money on an initial sale, and more.

This article is about pricing and how if affects both how much you sell, and how much profit you make. Now one might think that this is a simple decision — just find out at what price you sell the amount of goods that leads to the most profit — but like most things that seem simple, pricing for the ultimate greatest long-term profitability is not at all simple.

Over the years, we've heard many theories on pricing, much of it contradictory. Yet, each theory has merit when applied to the proper circumstances. Some of the most obvious pricing theories, and ones which we should consider in the scope of this article, include:

• Price your product or service lower than the competition and everyone will logically choose to purchase from you.

• Price your product or service higher than the competition and customers who value quality will buy your product and you will earn higher margins while reducing customer service hassles.

• Set your standard price high and then runs lots of sales, therefore stimulating demand, scarcity, and get the fence sitters to take action so they don't miss out on the savings.

• Price your introductory product very low, even at a point where you lose money, and earn your profits from up-sells, cross-sells and repeat purchases. This is called a Loss Leader Pricing Strategy.

What this means is like any information, it can be dangerous in the if not used properly or in the hands of the ignorant or stupid.

First one that I happen to like the most is, never sell from your heals, in that you don't want to be timid when selling and the fist thing you go to is to start negotiating with customers on price rather than letting them know how your product or service benefits them. Much, much more on this in another post and video.

Second one is that the lower price will almost always win. Pretty much true at least 85% of the time for most products.

Third is that you get what you pay for so, you should always be the highest priced product or service. When you are you have to deal with less customers and have less overhead, so you make more money.

Well, as a story I saw the other day in Tech Dirt reminded me, with the Internet, there are a couple of new ones along those same lines. One of the reasons why I like the Internet so much is that it can give you instant feed back and it allows you to test everything and shorten the feed back loop so that failure happens more quickly. This allows you to figure out what works and what doesn't. Contrary to what you may have thought, failure is not only a good thing, but you need to embrace it when it comes to your sales and marketing.

But like getting a kiss from your favorite aunt when you were a kid, you just want a quick peck on the cheek and get it over with as soon as possible, but still be glad to see her. Do not get into a big old slobbery smooch. Kind of grosses you out doesn't it? Good! I want it to. You should have the same aversion to hanging out with failure in your sales and marketing as getting that big slobbery smooch from Aunt Ethel. Although after looking at some companies marketing and sales programs it does make you wonder.

So, lets start with some common sense things concerning sales that I think we can all agree on that even a 5th grader could tell you. When Walmart or any big retailer wants to attract more customers, they lower prices and then more than make up for a lower margin with higher volume. This works time and time again and only a few idiots would bother arguing this fact.

In study after study this works not only in retail, but in Airlines and virtually everything else.

Andrew Carnegie did this with Steel when by purchasing up a majority of the steel manufacturers in the United States and having a virtual monopoly, he vastly improved efficiency and was able to drop the price of steel 10 fold and usage went up over 10,000%. This made steel affordable for every day use. I dare say he helped bring in the industrial revolution.

Rockefeller did the same thing with Kerosene by putting together Standard Oil and buying up a majority of refineries and dropping the price of kerosene 10 fold thereby making it affordable for everyone. Both of these men single handedly probably did more to improve the lives of millions of people than all of the charities or government progroms combined.

Yet both were wrongly labeled as robber Barrons by a very success public relations campaign of progressives and communists of the time and still to this day, who basically could care less about how much they helped the public and more about how much money and power they could give to themselves. If you want to read a good book on Capitalism, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism" is a great place to start. But I digress.

A lower price has also been proven to work without fail concerning total revenues brought in for government taxation. Here is a fact you may not know. In every single instance where taxes have been lowered, the end result is more total revenue for that taxing agency. It does not matter if it is Federal, State, Or Local. Lower taxes always bring in more total revenue. The only reason politicians ignore fact this is either they are stupid and choose to ignore the facts and they want power over you, period.

But back to me and you and pricing. We have established that lower prices mean more sales and more gross revenues. How far can this go?

Well recently and online gaming company in Sweden dropped their prices 50% and saw sales go up 533%.

But guess what? Two weeks later when they put the prices back up to the regular price sales were 20% higher than before the sale. Sales do work!  Even temporary ones!  Which brings up another point that I will discuss in just a bit.

Then the next experiment was to reduce the price 75% and sales went up a whopping 5,499%

Now if you have any type of back end sales and you of course then put these people on your list and remarket to them, the compounding of this can put your sales to the moon and beyond.

The bottom line is that if you have a digital product, lowering your price can have a huge impact on your bottom line.

Imagine your sales going up 533% or even 5,499%.

One other point, LaunchBrain the software that I used to build this site which sits on top of WordPress allows you to do everything that you see in this post yourself. Again, and I will go into this in more detail later but, WordPress is the way to go for your Websites and Blogs.

Have a profitable day.
Cheers,
Andrew Anderson

Written by Craig Allan Teich
Co-Founder of LaunchBox Pro

You Will Do Amazing Things with LaunchBox Pro

I’m really starting to get excited about the upcoming launch of LaunchBox Pro.

My excitement is growing because as I use the tools contained in LaunchBox Pro more and more, and I see just how powerful, and at the same time easy, that it is for making awesome professional websites, blogs, sales pages, video opt-in pages, and so many other things that it does, I just can’t wait until other internet marketers, online business owners, and offline businesses that are ready to get their own websites up and running, start using it and see for themselves how much easier, faster and less expensive it has now become to be successful and profitable on the internet. (That might be the longest sentence I’ve ever written.)

The picture above is comprised of three quick screenshots that I just took so I could show just a tiny portion of what LaunchBox Pro can do.

Now You Can Layout the Design of Your Sites in Seconds with Only Your Mouse

The first shot on the left is of the LaunchBox Pro Control Panel that you will find while working easily within WordPress with the LaunchBox Pro Super Theme. You can’t read it there, but the page is showing the Appearance Layout page where you can select from all possible master layout options for the blog portion of your site, should you choose to have a blog on your site. Just some of those choices include Sidebar Right, Sidebar Left, Sidebars Left and Right, Two Sidebars Right, and No Sidebar. Additional options include Total Site Width, Sidebar Widths, Border Widths and Color, as well as Content Margins both Top and Bottom. It really is amazing how much control you have over your entire site design with point-and-click ease.

Create Eye-Catching Video Sales Pages & Video Opt-in Pages Faster than Your Can Read this Blog Post

One of the pivotal moments in my own internet marketing career that inspired me to conceptualize of what has grown into LaunchBox Pro occurred when I needed a video opt-in page created. I hadn’t found a web designer or programmer who I thought was reliable, fast, and fairly priced who could also create the type of professional look that I wanted, so I started Googling around to see if I could find any templates or services that would allow me to put up my own high quality video squeeze pages myself.

You see, I like to do stuff myself. Outsourcing can be great, but sometimes it’s faster and easier to do it yourself. Unfortunately I’m not an expert, or even much of an amateur, when it comes to web programming. I know nothing of PHP or Flash, and only tiny bit more about HTML. And I don’t feel like spending a year learning that stuff. I want to focus on marketing and business building, not a bunch of technical details.

So while searching around for some tool or service that would allow me to make great custom video sales pages quickly, easily and inexpensively all by myself without needing to be an HTML expert, and not finding anything that met my criteria after searching for three days, I decided to start asking some of my friends and partners why there wasn’t something like this. None of them had a good answer. So I decided to dig deeper. I brought together two of the smartest guys I know where it comes to this stuff. I told them what I wanted to be able to do, and we set about creating a tool that met all my needs: fast, easy, inexpensive, professional looking, ultimately customizable with only the smallest amount of instruction for even the most non-technical people.

So one of the coolest things that Profit Platform Pro will do is allow you to make awesome video sales pages, video opt-in pages, or just static video pages with any kind of design and look that you want. It’s super cool, and super easy. If I can do it, so can you. I promise.

But Why Stop There? I Got Greedy & Now You’ll Reap the Benefits

Once we were able to make great video sales pages, I said “This is awesome! Now let’s make it so that this tool allows people to launch, build and manage their entire online empire all from one platform where nearly everything you need to do for online marketing — build websites, standard sales pages, video sales pages, blogs, list building, opt-ins, entire sales sites, affiliate sites, and more — can be done quickly, easily, inexpensively, and without ever having to deal with any more of the frustrating, time consuming and expensive website design outsourcing process for as long as you live. And that’s just what we’ve done.

The third screenshot (click on the image to see it bigger) is of the control panel page where you style your navigation bar. There are literally millions of combinations that can be used to create the exact look you want, whether you’re business is yoga or technology, nutrition or garden supplies, sporting goods or video games, wedding favors or dating secrets. And you will do it all with point-and-click, drop-down menus, color pickers, or even upload your own custom images in seconds. Like everything in Profit Platform Pro, it’s so darn easy even I can do it.

LaunchBox Pro is so powerful it’s scary, but so easy it makes setting the clock on your VCR seem like rocket science.

We are launching soon, so to get the updates and some cool valuable trainings that we’ll be offering just now for free, give us your email in the box at the top of the sidebar.

Profit is about to get a lot easier.

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I’d love to hear your comments or questions.

Cheers, Craig
Catch me on Twitter . . . @CraigTeich

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P.S. How I Made this Cool Image with Cover Action Pro

The top image of this post of the three screenshots was made using Photoshop and Cover Action Pro, which is a fantastic product that I love and highly recommend. The whole process took me less than 10 minutes. You can check it out here: Cover Action Pro.

Written by Andrew Anderson
Co-Founder of Profit Platform Pro

Could it be that the real secret to profitability is to be Intelligently Lazy?

Could it really be the more Intelligently Lazy you are, the wealthier you become?  Well, like a lot of revelations, this one popped up rather unexpectedly right after I took a Green Pill this morning.

And with this revelation came a whole breadth of understanding like revelations often do. Point in fact, one of those revelations is I can tell you are Intelligently Lazy too because you are here reading this. Hopefully, if I communicate this to you correctly, you are going to want to become the laziest person you know. You may not know it yet, but I am actually giving you quite a compliment. So, let’s get started.

Two Old Adages Worth Remembering

• Most people are too busy making a living to ever become wealthy
• Most people are too busy doing urgent things, rather than important ones

This is because, as the old saying goes, it is hard to drain the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators.

You are probably saying OK, what the heck is he talking about? Well, I bring this up for a couple of reasons that I will make clear in a minute. Here are some scenarios so that you can see what I mean.

Which Pill Are Your Taking Everyday?

I am going to call this option #1 or the Red Pill which is the Intelligently Hard Work Pill. You can use your intelligence, work hard, and spend a lifetime trying to figure out how to do things on your own.

I am going to call this option #2 or the Green Pill which is the Intelligently Lazy Pill. You can read a book or a blog and learn the basics from someone else who may have spent their whole life learning about a subject or perhaps spent millions of dollars learning what works best and then emulate what they do, or even hire them. These people most likely love what they do and are therefore very, very good at it.  A Green Pill can also be using technology that other people have built and perfected to automate things so that you don’t have to do them yourself.    Profit Platform Pro is a great example of this and is actually two Green Pills in one.

It is a double dose because you are getting the combined expertise of over 40 years of Internet and Marketing experience combined with an automated process that allows you to leverage the time it takes to maintain a profitable Website.

So I ask you this, which pill would you rather take? The Red Pill or the Green Pill? Which one do you think is going to cure your malaise called lack of wealth or put more money in your pocket the quickest? Which do you think is going to work the best?

Now if you are here, you have the propensity to be Intelligently Lazy which is a great thing in that you are out trying to learn something from someone else on how to be profitable. Now what we have to do, and this goes against nearly all conventional wisdom, is get you to become even lazier by learning from others even more.

Once you recognize that the lazier you become in this particular area, the faster profits are going to start hitting your bottom line.

I am going to reveal something else that I know about you. You are involved in selling or marketing something. You have a website or work in a business that sells something to customers who then give you money.

OK, I have to admit that one was a no brainer. That is unless you work the Government, you have to be involved in producing something of value that is traded or sold.

Even if you are not directly involved sales or marketing, nothing happens with any business until there is a sale and you are involved somewhere in the process. With that in mind, and remembering how we decided that taking the Green Pill is the only smart way to go, how many books have you read on sales and marketing lately?

Hmm…do you think it might be a good idea to up your reading list a tad?

I am going to suggest that you read some of the following so that you are not inadvertently slipping yourself a Red Pill.

1. Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins – You can download this one free in PDF format by going Here

2. Ogilvy On Advertising by David Ogilvy

3. How to Advertise by Ken Roman and Jane Maas

4. How to Write a Sales Letter that sells! by Drayton Bird

5. Obvious Adams: by Robert R. Updegraff

6. Personality Language by Marilyne Woodsmall and Wyatt Woodsmall. If you click on the title, you can get $5 off of this book

7. This site www.ProfitPlatformPro.com

Are there others? Absolutely, and I will post more at a later time, but these should get you pointed in the right direction. So the question is just how Intelligently Lazy can you become and how fast can you become truly lazy? Your bank account could become larger right away.

You can get most of these books on Amazon.com and if you buy used versions, you can pick them up for only a few bucks.

Doing Things That Are Urgent Versus Doing Things That Are Important And Alligators

Here is where it can get out of focus sometimes.

You need to figure out which alligators are merely a pain in the butt and are not putting you in mortal danger. These non life-threatening alligators can take the form of having 20 things to do seemingly all of the time, having customers wanting something, an email that has to get out, or just trying to keep up with all the different things going on that absolutely demand your attention right now.

Could you put off sending that email to customers until tomorrow? If that’s the case, use the time today to read a chapter out of one of the books above and make your email even better.

The result could be you getting a better response rate and 5 more orders which in turn eliminates an alligator that was biting you. It can take the form of a vendor looking for payment or perhaps it was the alligator that says you really should upgrade your Website or spend more money automating some of your systems.

I am not suggesting you make a list per se ‘, although I do find once you write down the alligators’ names, they are usually a lot less scary.

Then you simply take a step back and look at what you can do to be more Intelligently Lazy about things. Oftentimes, getting rid of just one alligator will make several other alligators go away as well.

Now I mentioned that I got the revelation after taking my Green Pill this morning.  The pill I was taking was that I was reading some writings of Drayton Bird who was a partner of David Ogilvy’s and is a pretty smart Bird if I must say so.

I have been pushing for Planned Ignorance as well with myself and my clients, which is a whole other subject and I will explain at a later date. Because of this, when Bird mentioned Intelligently Lazy, it fit in with what I have been observing over the years with successful people and in my own success.  Let me have another one of those Green Pills please, Gulp!

The choice is really that easy and we make the choice every day, whether we realize it or not.

Here is to taking Green Pills.

Cheers and have a profitable day,

Anderson

Written by Craig Allan Teich
Co-Founder of Profit Platform Pro

Why Does Having More Fun Often Lead to Making More Money?

I hope you enjoyed Bob’s video. Is it, like most of GoDaddy’s marketing, a bit juvenile and silly?
Yes, but what’s wrong with that?

One of the qualities I admire about Bob is that he is fun.
He likes to have fun. His companies are fun. His marketing is fun.
And you know what, this may come as a shocker, but most people in the world like fun.

Infusing fun into your business, both as an attribute of the culture and as part of your brand identity, will pay-off in many ways. It will make you a happier person, which makes you a better leader. It will make your team happy, which translates into greater productivity, higher employee retention, and improved ability to attract talented new employees.

And as a marketing tool, fun attracts new customers while keeping current clients spending money with you instead of your competition. A fun company, which is a brand identity built by way of fun marketing like that of GoDaddy, is like the cool club or group in high school. Everyone wants to be a part of it. Why? Because it’s FUN! (Yeah, I know, it’s now rocket science.)

Fun Strategies for Building a Successful & Profitable Brand

As my partners and the entire Profit Platform Pro team near our launch, more and more thought is being given to our brand identity. When I first conceived of the Profit Platform Pro concept, I wrote down on a single sheet of paper all the words that I wanted to be associated with our products and services, as well as the overall brand identity. Some of those words and phrases which remain as our most important guides are:
Easy, Powerful, Inexpensive, Professional, Help people make money, All-in-one-solution, Fast, Accessible, Great customer service by real people, Great tool with phenomenal training, Game changer, Beautiful, Powerful and easy Customization, and Fun.

That original piece of paper is still taped to the wall near my computer. I refer to it often when considering our product development, and also when we are developing our initial marketing and brand building campaigns.

Why Playing It Safe Often Turns Play Into Work

During discussions with my partners about our marketing and brand identity strategy, my wilder ideas often elicit some push-back. That happened recently when I introduced my idea for two superhero characters as our potential mascots. I expected the hesitation. (However, I was pleasantly surprised when only one, not both, of my co-founding partners tried to squash the idea, the other seeing the potential right away.)

We all have a tendency to play it safe, especially when it comes to business. We’ve all grown up in an environment that stresses how business is serious. “If you want your business to be taken seriously, then your business must be conservative and professional,” is the conventional wisdom, but what a bunch of hooey that is.

Here’s the naked truth:

If you want your business to fade into the background and have zero competitive advantage, then play it safe, be conservative, and do what everyone else is doing. But if you want your business to standout, excel, be remembered, and grab market share like a hungry beast, then get wild, get fun, get creative, get different, get sexy, get bold, and then get rich.

Some of the most successful businesses with the most valuable brand identities have been created around a fun, irreverent, and often controversial culture. Companies which come to mind immediately include Virgin, Playboy, Google, Yahoo!, and GoDaddy (of course). Even boring insurance companies like Aflac and Geico have enhanced their business and brand identity by using humor, fun and some silly mascots.

And maybe most importantly, fun companies are fun to create and fun to work for, which makes work a lot less like work, and a lot more like play, and that’s good.

The Bottom Line

If you want your business to stand out from the crowd in a positive way that translates into more sales and higher customer loyalty, one of the most effective ways is to infuse your company, your marketing, and your brand identity with fun, humor and sex appeal.

And a little outrageous but harmless controversy never hurts, as Bob Parsons and GoDaddy have proven so well.

So get creative, be brave, and success will be yours. Good luck.

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I’d love to hear your comments on this subject, which is near and dear to my business heart. And if you can site some examples of companies who have used these strategies effectively, even better.

Cheers, Craig
Catch me on Twitter . . . @CraigTeich