Seeing results of advertising your business can be like watching a roller coaster. The day you run your ad you see a flurry of activity; your ph0ne starts ringing, your web site traffic increases and/ or potential clients visit your store. Your hopes soar. sales go up. Two or three days pass and response goes down. You look at bill for advertising and your jaw drops. Your hopes descend.

Nancy called me from Portland, Oregon with just this problem. Every time one of her ads appears in a local publication, customers start walking in door of her home furnishing store. A few days later number of prospects and sales goes down. Her advertising gets results, but thousands of dollars she is paying each month is killing her profits. What can she do?

Whether you advertise your consulting business in The Harvard Business Review or your interior decorating service in Penny Saver, your ad will cost significant dollars.

How can you make your advertising pay for itself?

How can you use advertising to create a STEADY stream of business?

Write Your Ad to Sell and To Generate Leads Of all people who could benefit from your products and services, what percentage is likely to buy today? Hopefully a few, but majority are more likely to need your services tomorrow, next week or next month.

Write your ad to prompt people to buy and if they're not interested in making a purchase, to contact you. When you write your ad:

1. Sell your products or services by selling your solution. 2. Prompt prospects to buy. Include a call to action. 3. Motivate prospects to give you their contact information.

For each person who responds to your ad and makes a purchase today, you should be able to get ten qualified prospects to contact you. Once you have their contact information, you can send them a regular email or postcard for far less than it would cost to run your ad on a weekly basis.