585 – This really does work: Tom talks Nightclub Trick to Increase Sales

Episode 585 – Nightclub Trick To Increase Sales
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, is Tom here with episode 585 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about listen to this, a nightclub trick where you can use the same concept to increase your sales. Hardly anybody thinks about this. So that's what we'll do today. Now, I hope you didn't miss Episode 584. That was Stephanie Lentz. And she has you know, normally we stick with digital stuff and online stuff, but she is doing online business. But it's based on this very unique, no waste grocery store she came up with and she teaches people how to open them themselves. And she runs it out in Seattle area. Somewhere out there, yeah. That was episode 584. Now pick up a copy of our automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. If you want to know how I do things so lightning fast and don't have to pull my hair out, handling all these customers and inquiries and all this stuff. So pick it up. It's screwthecommute.com/automatefree. While you're at it, pick up a copy of our podcast app, screwthecommute.com/app, where you can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road.

[00:01:42] All right. We're still going strong with our program to help persons with disabilities. Love to have your assistance with this. It's it's so heartfelt to see these people progress and how we're changing their lives. So check it out at IMTCVA.org/disabilities that will be in the show notes and anything you can help out with to go fund me account is well appreciated. And hey, if you're really flushed with cash, you could sponsor a person yourself. What a great thing to do is to change somebody's life.

[00:02:16] All right. Let's talk about the nightclub trick. It's not as prevalent as it was in my nightclub days because, you know, I had a nightclub from 1980 to 1988. Now, more people run tabs with credit cards nowadays. But in those days, it was more cash. And anyway, this technique, which I learned from a massive disco chain, I think it was the 2001 clubs. They used to come down to the lake near where my nightclub was, and we became friends. And they taught me a lot of the techniques that they use in this massive nightclub chain. Now. I can't really remember, but exactly. But it increased the tips for the waitresses about 30%, and they were extremely happy. I taught this to them and don't worry, I'm going to tie this into your business.

[00:03:15] That has nothing to do with nightclub stuff, but I want you to know this story and you get to participate in this in this little demonstration, at least a little bit. And now as soon as you can safely do it, not while you're driving or, I don't know, doing heart surgery. I'm not sure if any heart surgeons are listening, but I want you to take out a dollar bill. And also I want you to suspend logic for a moment. A lot of great things that we do in marketing are totally illogical, but they work like a charm, right? So I want you to hold up the dollar bill and look at it from the front side with George Washington's picture. And if whatever country you're in, if you're listening to this, take your your paper money and look at it from, let's say, the front side. And remember, we're suspending logic here. Now, we logically know that whatever way, whichever way you spend it, it's worth $1. Well, lately, you know, the value has gone down. But play along with me here. Now this concept that the back side looks less valuable. It is part of the nightclub tip trick that I'm going to show you. So hold that in your mind. Chances are you felt with I remember suspending logic that the front side appeared more valuable than the back side of the bill.

[00:04:49] Now, when the waitress and we had exclusively female waitresses except for male dancer night. So don't give me any crap about being sexist, right? They were all females and. When they they would bring around the drinks purchased by someone. And that person that bought the drinks would pay her. Many times with a $20 bill. So here's what I taught the waitresses to do. Oh, and there's another factor here was that the tray that they brought the drinks on was usually wet and sticky. All right. Keep that in mind, too. So when the waitress would give the change, she would put the coins first on the tray if there was any coins. She virtually always got to keep the coins as part of her tip. Now remember how the back side of the bills looked less valuable. Where she would put any $1 bills face down on top of the coins. Then the fives face down on top of the ones, then the tens. Face down on top of the fives, and if someone paid with a 50 or 100, the twenties would come next. Of course. What? Face down. Right now, chances are she wouldn't get the twenties or the tens, but the fives and the ones they were fair game. So picture this. A dark nightclub. The waitress has delivered drinks. She took the payment and has put the change in a certain way on her tray.

[00:06:37] Then she was taught to hold the tray and this tray might have other drinks for other tables on it. So it was justified that she would keep it close to her body so as not to spill the drinks on the table she was now at. So I taught her to just imperceptibly keep the tray a tiny bit out of reach of the person paying. Not so obvious that they had to get up and walk over to you, but just imperceptibly out of their reach. And usually it was a guy trying to impress a girl or his buddies. Now, he didn't want to look cheap by grabbing for every penny and upside down bill. So frequently. Here's how it went. The coins always stayed on the tray. Almost always the ones stayed on the tray. As the tip. Occasionally a five. And maybe during the night the girl would get one of the tens or twenties. Now, let me tell you. After I taught them this, I had some really happy cocktail waitresses. We saw the average tips go up at least 30%. And remember, I'm talking about eighties dollars. So if they normally would do $100 in tips. Now, they were doing consistently $130. And this was a big deal to them. And in two nights, most of them made more than their day jobs, which made them work all week.

[00:08:14] There's lots of psychology that goes on in a nightclub. Most most people know about the mirrors behind the bar so that you can make eye contact with people seated down the bar from you. But did you know about raised tables? So so many nightclubs of the day had cocktail tables with regular chairs. Now, maybe if you were in that scene, you noticed a shift to taller tables and bar stool, like raised stools around the raised tables. I was just in Applebee's yesterday. They had the bar there, but around the bar were all raised tables. Now, the reason for this is that. Especially in a nightclub where there was dancing and stuff. Is that if a guy walked over to a girl to ask her to dance with the low tables. Well, he stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. And if the girl said no, he had to walk back and again stick out like a sore thumb, having just been rejected. Now when the tables were raised. Someone walking through them was hardly noticed if they got shot down. I mean, it wasn't so obvious. Now, this massively increased the social interaction or if you want to use modern terms, engagement, because it wasn't so obvious if a guy got rejected and this all meant more dancing, more sweating, more drink sales. Okay, so. So this was a beautiful thing.

[00:09:56] All right. So much for nightclub theory. So so, Tom, what does any of this have to do with my business? All right. Well, this is kind of a disguised copywriting and promotional episode. The waitresses were being taught to make the money look less valuable so they would get to keep more of it. What I see so many times with my beginning mentees is they make things look less valuable, but it gets the opposite effect. People don't buy. And another valuable lesson here is that it's up to you to the best of your ability to control the perceptions of your potential clients and customers. And have you really thought about how people perceive your product? Have you ever even asked? Now, from the copywriting perspective, people almost always rattle off the features of their product and totally forget about the benefits to the user, which is really the thing that makes people buy. You can have the coolest features and I have a ton of them in my mentee program. But if people can't see how that feature would help them, the chances are pretty slim. You'll get the sale. All right. So here's just one example. People in my program get to shoot video in my TV studio twice using my people, my equipment, lighting, everything. They get to do it once during the retreat with several other mentees and then on a separate trip where they are the only ones in the studio.

[00:11:43] Now, if I just said this, then people would start thinking, Gee, that sounds great, but I'll have to airfares and I might not have the time to make the trips. And I don't know about the mask mandates and they'll they'll talk themselves out of it. I mean, they've got to board their dogs, you know, who knows? Take off, work, whatever. But if I include a cost comparison, which is a copyrighting element, something that goes into advertising copy either written or in your video sales letters or whatever. And if you want more in-depth stuff on copywriting, check out screwthecommute.com/13. That's an episode on copyrighting or if you really want to get serious, which is I mean, I've coined this as the most important business skill I've ever acquired in 45. Now, almost 46 years in business is copywriting. So check out copywriting 901. com for my course. All right. But anyway, I do a cost comparison, and so I show them that the cost of just one video on the open market, which could cost $5,900 or more just for the video and the studio time. I mean, depending on where you're at, Los Angeles, one lady told me it would cost 6000 in Los Angeles to get a studio and the cameras and the videographer for one several hours, not even a whole day.

[00:13:18] So when I show them that in my program with no extra charges outside of there, they're just entry fee to my program. They could have up to 50 videos fully edited with graphics. They could get a massive web presence and get it all done in one day. Plus, included in the deal is teaching them how to monetize the videos and look way better than they ever thought they could with lighting and effects. Now we're talking a perception that the value far outweighs the cost of airfare and the hassle of flying for a day or two. Now another area to really think about is the titling of your products. In other words, what are they called? What's the perception of the product just from the title? I mean, just this week I had a mentee show me her book cover where she was using an ocean related metaphor to address some mental health issue. And her metaphor was great, but the book looked like it was a swimming book that had nothing to do with mental health. I had her add one word to the title to change the perception to where it belonged. See too many people get wrapped up in obscure metaphors that mean something to them, but absolutely nothing to the general public. This cost a lot of sales. It brings to mind. I see all the time. Hey, Tom, look at my website.

[00:14:55] And and they have this meadow with this one tree out in the field and they're talking about the uniqueness and and you're surrounded by mediocrity, and you stand out in a crowd and all this stuff. And I say, Wait a minute. What does that mean? You're selling bingo supplies? How does this have anything to do? It's all in their mind. See, you got to go where the the your customers minds are. So. So bottom line is, I want you to make a solid effort to see what people think about you and your products. Your friends are no good for this. They don't want to hurt your feelings. You might hire someone to do a survey or a poll for you so that the fear of hurting your feelings doesn't play into the responses you get. And you might want to check out the book Ask Ask by Ryan Levesque. And I think it's Lev Skew and he's got really great survey techniques in there. And the next time you're at a nightclub, teach the waitress technique I told you about, and you just might get some free drinks. All right, that's my story. And I'm sticking to it. Go out and check out the perceptions that you're portraying in the marketplace. And I guarantee you, if you fix them up, you'll increase your sales. Catch you on the next episode. See you later.