Dear subscriber,
Once upon a time, there was a middle-aged man who owned a video game store in a small town in Texas.
He was miserable.
And rightly so.
You see, this man was drowning in debt, he couldn’t pay his bills, and his business was bleeding cash faster than a woke beer commercial. To add insult to injury, his wife was disappointed in him. In fact, she was beyond disappointed. She pitied him.
Simply put…
… The Man Was Tanking Faster Than a Fat
Kid in a Game of Dodgeball!
Well, one day he finally decided to throw in the towel. He slapped up a closing down sign out the front of the store and began packing up his store.
The next day, a local businessman walks in and says:
“Sir, my son tells me you’re closing down. He’s very upset about it shutting down. My son and all his mates love coming here. Can I buy the business?”
“This business hasn’t been profitable in 7 years”, replies the store owner. “Are you sure you want to buy it?”
The businessman asked the owner if he could take a gander at the books. The owner agreed. The next day the businessman returned after looking over the numbers and says, “Sir, about the books… I had super low expectations, and I was still bitterly disappointed. This business ain’t worth squat.
I can’t offer you much, but if you’ll take $10,000 dollars, I’ll buy your business today.
The game store owner was so desperate he accepted the businessman’s offer.
The deal was done.
Fast-forward one month:
This businessman had taken that struggling game store and turned it into a money-making machine. In fact, he had 3xd the previous owners’ best-ever month in his first month. And… he did it without changing a single thing. He didn’t gain more customers. He didn’t spend money on advertising. Nope. He just used what was there, and more importantly…
… He Used What Was
Between His Ears!
OK. What you just read, dear subscriber, is a true story.
The businessman’s name is Adam Lyons, and he’s razor-sharp. He’s the kind of guy who could turn a flea circus into a multinational corporation. But if you asked him how he turns struggling businesses around, he’ll tell you it’s all about the basics. The fundamentals. The stuff most people overlook. It’s like he’s playing a game of Jenga, and while everyone else is trying to build their tower higher and higher, he’s just making sure the foundation is solid. That’s how he does it. It’s not flashy or glamorous, but it works. And that’s why he’s successful.
Well, would you like to know exactly how he turned around this little video game store?
I thought so.
Well, I can tell you how he did it in two words:
Email Marketing!
What happened is, while Adam was going through the business’s books, he noticed there was an unused mailing list of 500 people. This email list was made up of past and present customers.
Okay, I’m gonna let Adam tell the rest of the story.
Adam:
“The very first thing I did was email the entire list and I asked them one question:
What do you wish we sold in the store that we don’t currently have?
We got 400 suggestions of things they wanted to buy. Many of them were like, Oh my gosh, I wish you guys had … this! Then I replied to every one of them and said: Would you be willing to pay for it right now, and I’ll put it in the store?
Every single person bought the thing they said they wanted because… they wanted it! This is not genius or hard selling. This is just sales 101 – give your customers what they want! Actually, I bought two of every product that was requested. One for the customer who requested it, and one to put on the shelf in the store. So, now I knew I had games and products in the store people actually wanted. So, when customers came in to collect their requested product, they saw all the other products and went, “Oh, I’ve been wanting that, too. And they bought multiple things.”
***
If that doesn’t inspire you to double down on the fundamentals of business, I don’t know what will.
Listen, most businesses are sitting on a gold mine, and they don’t even know it. That gold mine is their customer database. Those email addresses are money just lying around waiting to be picked up, Chi-Chi.
The best part is, often you don’t even need a lick of copywriting skill to rake in the sales with email. Hell, sometimes just asking a common sense question can bring in a whole bunch of dough.
However…
… if you’re extra fond of the green stuff, and you want to put your email marketing on steroids…
… you might want to check out this: https://kelvindorsey.com/email-mavericks-playbook/
Your friend,
Kelvin
Email Marketing Maverick
