A Picture Can Be Worth Thousands
Back when my wife Blanca began her first business – a housecleaning service – she was skeptical about including a photo of herself in her ads. So I told her I’d prove it would make her money.
I took a photo of her holding a broom. Then I created two advertisements. One had the picture and the other didn’t. Both versions worked, but the one with the picture outperformed the other by far. It had a 3 percent response rate compared to 1.5 percent for the one without the picture.
Think of it this way. Let’s say you’re selling a $100 product and you make 50 sales with your regular ad every time you run it. If you add your picture to the ad, you could end up doubling your sales – and putting an extra $5,000 in your pocket!
For small businesses, including a photo of the owner (or someone else connected to the company) almost always increases response. If you’re not doing it, I strongly suggest you run a test. It could greatly increase your profits.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a successful entrepreneur and business author who has started over a dozen profitable enterprises for under $100. For more information on his Cheapskate Marketing Program, click right here.]Paul Lawrence
Paul Lawrence is an entrepreneur who has made his living starting and running a series of profitable businesses. One day while cleaning his mother's pool for a few extra bucks, it dawned on Paul that he could perhaps start his own pool cleaning business. He carefully employed all the marketing techniques that he had learned in school and designed his first flyer. Immediately the business took off and within a week, Paul had his own little business. He quickly expanded, hired employees and then eventually sold it some relatives who made well over $250,000 in the next year before they eventually sold it for a six figure profit. After finishing college, Paul did a brief stint in a management program for a national rental company, but he quickly realized that he was much happier running his own show. Paul left the rental company and launched one of the most financially successful independent ballroom dance instruction companies in the state of Florida where he received quite a bit of media attention for his revolutionary business practices that included front page features in the Life Style section of the Sun Sentinel, features in the Miami Herald, Boca News, Center Stage Entertainment and many others. With that business running profitably, Paul started several other businesses either individually or as partnerships that included a million dollar video production company, a mortgage brokerage, a home maintenance business, several mail order companies, a business consulting service among others.With a love of movies, Paul began to work at breaking into Hollywood as a screenwriter where he's beaten the odds by becoming a produced writer. He is a credited writer for the film CRUEL WORLD, starring Jaime Presley and Eddie Furlong and has signed a development deal for a national television series with one of the world's largest producers of television and films among his half a dozen sales and options of movie scripts he wrote. Paul is the creator of the Quick & Easy Microbusiness program.