Thoughts About Infomercials

A out-of-state BNI Director trains his members to think about infomercials like this:

When designing your 60 second commercial, do so in a fashion used well by radio and television professionals.

The first key is repetition.
The second key is focus.
The third key is continuity.
The fourth is preparedness.

If you were doing a radio ad for your business what would you do? Many business owners would hire a PR firm to write copy. The copywriter would focus on one aspect of the business with each advertisement.The ad would play over and over again until a degree of brand recognition is obtained. Last, the PR firm/copywriter would design the advertising campaign to be run over a set period of time (I.E. a week, month, quarter, seasonally or longer).

In BNI we have 52 opportunities to deliver a 60 second commercial and one or two opportunities to deliver a 10 minute per year. The 10 minute should be designed to recap the previous six 60 second commericials that were given. As we all should know by now, a 60 second commercial is broken into several parts:

1. The open (Name, company name)
2. What is it you do (I'm this chapter's financial planner)
3. Deliver one LCD (Least Common Denominator. That is, break your business into its smallest logical parts)
4. The Ask
5. The close, which includes your name, company name and memory hook.

To mix it up, a commercial could start with a quote, a fact or a memory hook. One of mine goes like this: (I have them written out and saved in Word on my hard drive). I recycle the commercials about every 8 weeks or so.

"In a recent study put together by the American Center on Retirement it was found that 43% of Adult Americans spend more than they earn. Another 43%, for a total of 86% of Adult Americans are one paycheck away from becoming bankrupt. I'm Steve West of Missouri Wealth Management. I'm this chapter's Financial Planner. We are a fee-based comprehensive financial planning firm. We put dreams and wishes to paper. They then become goals."

"This week I am looking for your neighbor. You know the one. He is talking about retiring in about five years and he's scared. He's scared because he's bought lots of toys but has put away little into his retirement plan. Worse, he's afraid because it looks like after he retires, he's gonna spend 24/7 hanging out with his wife. He'd rather be bass fishing."

"I'd like to spend some time with your neighbor to help him avoid spending 24/7 with his wife and to help him live a retirement more to his liking. Steve West, Missouri Wealth Management. You make it FIRST. We make it last....a long time."

The only items that change are the quote or fact (and where I put it) and the Ask. The rest is the same, unless we do a meeting stimulant which forces a change. Notice that I didn't talk about all of the things we do (life insurance, fee-based accounts, asset management, financial coaching, debt management, mortgages, long term care, disability insurance, mutual funds, stocks, etf's, uit's, bonds, etc.). We don't need to tell our chapter everything that we do every week. Keep your commercial specific and focused.

A ten minute is that same as a commercial exept that we string two or three LCD's and two or three asks together in the same infomercial. Do it like this or do it like 60% of BNI members do it and wing it each week. But if you do it the way you've always done it, you'll get the same results you have always gotten.