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Often some of the best marketing lessons can be learned from the most unlikely of sources. Take a deep breath, make sure no-one's watching then settle down to discover an amazing marketing secret the Mafia has used to great effect over the last 100 years.

Listen up, because this simple marketing technique can literally transform your service business overnight!

Marlon Brando said in The Godfather (Part 1), 'I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.' What he was doing was conjuring an offer so irresistible no one in their right mind could refuse. If my memory serves me right the offer was 'pay up or die.' How could you resist that?

It's a 'trick' you can use to great effect. Okay you don't need to go to those extreme lengths, but it's a good example of what you can achieve when you create an irresistible offer.

Better still...

All it costs you is time to put in place an irresistible offer, but what you get in return is an avalanche of high quality leads and new clients.

So let's get straight to it. What is an irresistible offer?

In simple terms a irresistible offer is your sales pitch that your prospects and/or clients find impossible to resist. The key word is 'impossible.' Marlon Brando made his offer impossible to resist - that's a perfect irresistible offer!

Here are the keys to an irresistible offer…

1. It should instantly compel your prospect/client to act

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2. It should 'force' your prospect/client to say 'yes I want it now' not in 5 days time etc.

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3. It should state what your prospects/clients will 'lose' or miss out on by not responding.

Get these three things right and you've created an all powerful irresistible offer people will find impossible to resist.

Before we move on I'd like to draw your attention to the letter below…

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Dear Parents,

Change of Book Club

Baker Books have offered us a special introductory offer of free books to the value of our summer order from their pupil book club catalogues. In other words, if the value of the order is £600, we will receive £600 worth of free books for school.

This is too good an offer to refuse and so we will be changing to the BAKER BOOK CLUB. I would be grateful for your support.

Yours sincerely,

Jenny Read

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This is a letter my wife Helen and I received from the school our eldest son, Thomas attends.

As you can see the school is letting all the parents know that they've decided to change book club companies. As far as I'm aware they've been with the existing book club for over 5 years!

Take a look at paragraph two. This is what your offer needs to achieve...

"This is too good an offer to refuse and so we will be changing to the BAKER BOOK CLUB for the next few issues."

In this example, Baker Books have created such an irresistible offer that the school simply couldn't refuse - even though they have a long standing relationship with the incumbent book club.

And I'd guess many other schools have acted in a similar way.

What Baker Books have done is realise the lifetime value (what each customer is worth over the time they remain customers) of their clients (the schools) and figured out what they can afford to spend to get a customer (i.e. match the first order with the same amount of free books for the school).

Very simple, but very effective.

Also note that an irresistible offer can overcome even long term relationships. Relationships you once thought were impregnable.

But don't forget there's a double-edged sword to this...

If you can win new clients with irresistible offers, your own clients are open to offers from your competitors. (But don't worry too much. Very few people are able to grasp this simple Mafioso tactic).

The key once you've won the business is to add so much value the client never wants to leave, irrespective of the offers that come her way!

Here's another good example of an irresistible offer...

It concerns the offer made by an outside catering company.

The irresistible offer was 'A FREE Sandwich Platter.' Now you may wonder why that's so irresistible, but think about it. The target market were the people in local businesses who have a need for outside catering services.

Second who would ever turn down a free meal (you see there is such a thing as a free lunch!).

And third they had nothing to lose by ordering.

Again the company worked out the lifetime values and cost of client acquisition and could have offered even more, but they didn't need to.

The results were spectacular...

The offer was sent as a sales letter to 201 highly targeted companies within a two-mile radius of their offices.

In the space of two weeks they received 78 orders. Better still 35 of these businesses order now at least twice a month and many of them order every single week - more than once!

From sales of zero one month to sales of over £3,000 a week in less than 4 months, was the outcome! Again all because of an irresistible offer.

Be brave. Steal this brilliant marketing technique from under the noses of Mafia bosses and start using irresistible offers to rapidly grow your service business!

© Hackney Marketing Ltd