Result? That one small change to the ad this salon owner had run in the previous year’s Yellow Pages increased response by no less than 30%. She tells me the ad paid for itself inside three months. Everything after that was pure cream.

A note about guarantees...for some strange reason, many business owners are terrified of them, afraid the customers will ‘rip us off’. Here’s the truth:

A strong guarantee’s ability to drive sales far, far outweighs its potential cost.

In fact, a guarantee full of conditions and fine print isn’t worth running at all.

“Money back guarantee, provided you bring back the widget on a Tuesday morning at 2.30am, accompanied by both your great grand-parents.” I call that kind of guarantee a

And here’s another interesting thing about guarantees: most businesses already refund purchases upon complaint – they just don’t tell anybody about it. My contention – proven time and again to be valid – is that you should use a strong guarantee to make the sale in the first place rather than using it as a fall-back in the event of an unhappy customer.

On making an OFFER. I’ll show you in a moment how to construct a compelling offer – after all, it is the most important part of any advertising. Yet so many business owners make the mistake of not bothering to make an offer at all, or thinking that discounting is actually an offer. It isn’t, and it will only harm your business.

Why? Because if you resort to discounting, there’ll always be somebody who’ll do it cheaper. Discounting is what I call ‘distress marketing’. Yes, it might work initially to drive sales. But it’ll have two disastrous effects: 1) It’ll put a big hole in your bottom line 2) Your clients will become conditioned to it, so they expect it all the time.

Now, some little-known secrets about building an offer. The key here is to offer massive perceived value – without the extras actually costing you much if anything at all.

For example, let’s say you’re a permanent makeup specialist, charging say $800 for eyebrows, eye-liner and lip-liner. It’s a high-margin sale, but so many practitioners seem compelled to discount at the first hint of buyer resistance.

Much better, instead of discounting, is to add extra value.

“Book Your Permanent Makeup and Receive a $95 Microdermabrasion treatment Free!”

The cost of providing that microdermabrasion treatment is negligible. But you’ve retained the full-price cosmetic tattooing and you’ve given yourself an opportunity to up-sell your new client on a full course of say, 6 microdermabrasion treatments @ $95 each, less the one you’re giving away.

And you can go further. Much further. Here’s a headline I wrote for a salon recently:

“Be Among the First 10 to book a course of Microdermabrasion and You’ll Receive 6 Nights Free Holiday Accommodation Valued at $750”

Does that sound compelling? Sure does. Now, you’re probably asking ‘where’s the catch?’

There isn’t one. I discovered a remarkable little book which entitles the bearer to free accommodation at any of hundreds of hotels and resorts around Australia. The simple logic is that hotels on average are only 60% occupied. If they can fill unused rooms, even for nothing, they’ll at least make some money on food and alcohol sales.

And any salon can buy this little book for under $40 a client and use it quite legitimately to drive sales. Yes, it comes off your profit. But it’s profit you never would have had in the first place.

These are just a few of an infinite number of ways to build an offer. What a really strong offer does is ‘re-invent the business’ from being a commodity that prospective clients compare with your competition based on price alone, to a provider of a unique service that simply cannot be compared with what your rivals are offering.

Finally, on having FUN. As I said, most small business marketing is so dull it’d make Jim Carrey weep. Here’s a headline I wrote for a salon newspaper ad that’s still running, and still gets the salon a 2 to 1 return on investment every time:

A headline has only one job, and that’s to make people read the rest of the ad. That’s it, plain and simple. This one intrigues, it begs the question, “Mmmm, how about some of those legal sexual stimulants then...”

The ad goes on to make a limited time value-added offer, a money-back guarantee, and it contains a picture of the salon owner with the caption. “Number #1 Beauty Expert”. It’s a strong ad, and it works. Now, a confession: I stole that headline from an ad written many years ago by Gary Halbert, promoting a new perfume range by Tova Borgnine (wife of actor Ernest) in the Los Angeles Times.

I stole it, and modified it for my client’s use – and there’s nothing to stop you doing the same...looking around at other industries, pinching a good headline or idea, and migrating it across to your own business. Word of warning though, don’t do a straight steal from your own industry, or you could end up in court.

Hint: The name of your business is NOT a good headline for an ad. Yet how many Yellow Pages and press ads do you see committing precisely this cardinal sin of advertising? The name or logo of a business has never sold anything. Ever. Would McDonalds have sold a single hamburger if all they ever did was run ads showing those golden arches? No, of course they wouldn’t. Toyota has never sold a single car by headlining their ads with the company name. Neither has Microsoft. So why is it that tens of thousands of businesses waste money on expensive advertising with their name at the top of the ad?

I call them ‘advertising victims’. And there’s no reason why you need to be one, if you just put a little thought into what you’re selling. In fact, that’s the most important question you as a salon owner can ever ask yourself:

No, it’s not makeup, or facials, or skin peels or even any of the dozens of product lines you display in your reception area.

As Revlon founder Charles Revson famously declared, “In the factory, we make lipstick. In the stores, we sell hope.”

The more accurately your marketing reflects that sentiment, the more profit you’ll make.