What's up with people taking your personal email address and adding you to some mass data base, so that you are flooded with information from unknown sources? Whatever happened to asking permission and common courtesy? I think If I get one more email from people trying to sell knick knacks, people who obviously don't know me or care about me....Arrrgh!

Here is another great story to corroborate mine.

The Travelling Sales Woman, wrote in a very compelling blog post about a friend of hers who had recently signed up to sell with a well-known direct sales company in the beauty industry. Her friend didn’t feel in necessary to deliver the news in person. “She did not tell me in person; she did not call me on the phone to share her excitement, or email me personally to ask me if I was interested in purchasing something or hosting a party,” says the traveling sales woman.

The rest of the piece is so well written, so I would like to share the post as is. So what is did her friend proceed to do? No, instead she submitted my email address to some huge corporate database without my permission and now I am bombarded on a DAILY basis with spam.

Sure, it’s fancy spam - full of clickable links, glossy photos of shiny, happy people and the latest deals. But it’s still spam - since that is defined as “unsolicited commercial e-mail” or “irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of users.” I try my hardest to ensure that only people who specifically give me permission to contact them about my products receive email from me. I don’t want my friends to feel pressured or harassed with commercial requests from me or my company - otherwise they won’t want to be my friends anymore!

It's estimated that the average consumer sees about one million marketing messages a year-about 3,000 a day. In this fast paced world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get and keep the attention of those we want to buy our product, listen to our message or interact with. It is no wonder that many feel compelled to be sneaky about their intentions, but only to their detriment!

Permission Marketing is many things.

It is a book written, by the marketing demi-god himself, Seth Godin.   

It is a method of marketing also known and the 2 Step Direct Sales Marketing Method.

The premise of permission marketing as Mr. Godin expounds is to deliver   POWERFUL ADVERTISING IS ANTICIPATED, PERSONAL AND RELEVANT.  You can only do so when you have been permitted to do say.  In effect it is the difference between rape and consensual sex!

Now before you get offended.  Let me explain.

A guy meets a girl that he is particularly interested in.  He then asks for her digits and she complies. The guy calls and asks the girl out.  She says yes.  He wines and dines her, and after a great evening...well if he is worth his weight in gold, we all know what happens next! 

Now imagine a different scenario.  Guy meets girl, guy fancies girl, guy walks up to girl and tells girls that he wants to F*** her!  Girls slaps guy on face and walks away.  Guy left to lick his wounds.  No pun intended!

The worst case scenario of this brief example is guy sees girls he fancies and helps himself, no constent obtained.  There is resultant trauma and the ill-effects cannot be quantified.  Is this really the image you want your business to be associated with? 

Likewise many direct sales marketers go about building their businesses much like the guy who bluntly states his objective or worse the guy who by-passes all social cues and goes for gold uninvited.

Think about T.V., what is the most annoying this about television?  You guessed it, unsolicitied sales pitches about products none of us are even remotely interested.  Most TV shows last all of 30 minutes, but each 7 minutes of pleasureable viewing is interrupted by 10 minutes of commercials and advertisments.

What do most people do when commerical come on? We tune out, mute the TV, text a friend, take a bathroom break.  We have learned to ignore the unwelcome guests!

So how you permission marketing into your arsenal? 

Permission marketing, is the ability to deliver at the precise momment that which people want, anticipate and desire. The best method of doing this is throught email marketing as well know!

When you get a potential customer, many will do an immediate sales pitch. It is unfortunately premature and turns people off! A better method, that any direct sales marketing guru will tell you and a business best practice is the 2 step direct marketing.

Simply put, 2 step marketing is based on giving something away for free, or at low cost, with the purpose of getting something back in return. Of course that something is a sale, but beyond that is the relationship. The idea here is to start small and build. You want to obliterate concerns before you sell them anything – this is what is termed as pre-selling.

Step 1: Give away something, time, free samples, free demos, a free report, free session of coaching or consulting.

Step 2: Get their contact information and permission to market to them. This is called dripping information. No hard sells please. In this phase you are building rapport and trust. Why? So that you can begin to exert your influence. Ever heard of the phrase Jump! How high? Good, that is the power you will command if your engage in the 2 step process!

So here is the psychology behind it You get a visitor to your site or meet a potential customer/business builder.

What you want to do is get their 1.Attention 2.Permission 3.Interact 4.Trust 5.Influence

You want to craft an irresistible offer, to raise the fever pitch if you will.. In doing so you will get their attention and in effect raise anticipation. If you place and ad in a paper, mail out a postcard or have a website, the best way to get attention is an irresistible headline. For example:

How To Have "Killer" Sex At Any Age... Even If You Don't Deserve It!

I have a feeling that got your attention and you are headed to google search to figure out if the book exists. At the time of this writing, I have not yet ascertained the validity nor the existence of the book.

Your attention getting message must be compelling create a compelling giving just enough information about the product to get the prospect to take some sort of action. Invoke curiosity....Your purpose here is to drive them to your website, home party, place of business to exchange their information for your free offer! Direct Sales Training Tip : Use the useful but incomplete rule…don’t give it all always. You now what they say, why buy the cow if you can milk it for free? 2. Call to action: There is no point in crafting an irresistible offer only to drop the ball. People like sheep, must be led every step of the way. A call to action is the desired action you would like the potential prospect, client or customer to make. For example Click Here To Order. Limitted Time Offer. While Supplies Last. Get Your Free Copy Today!

The purpose of the call to action is an exchange of information. YOU MUST HAVE A METHOD BY WHICH TO CAPTURE SAID PERSONAL INFORMATION.

i) An opt-in/lead caputure page

ii) A sign up sheet at a direct sales home party

iii) Guest books are all examples of effective methods of gaining permission from your clients!

You are capitalizing on their desire to get their hands on what you have in return for their name, phone number, email address and where possible a physical mailing address! This is called getting people to raise their hand for information.

Those who raise their hands for information become very hot direct sales leads. Why? because they have allowed you to caputure their attention! You are now able to deliver personal, anticipated messages to those who want to recieve them, at precisely the momment they want to recieve it! These are great business opportunity prospects and an excellent way to build a list.

The 2 step direct sales marketing is a time tested marketing method and will produce targeted prospects for your home based business.  The idea here is work smarter not harder!