Levesque - Ask: the counterintuitive online formula to discover exactly what your customers want to ... buy ... create a mass of raving fans ... and take any

Ask.

Ask.

The counterintuitive online formula to discover exactly what your customers want to buy create a mass of raving fans and take any business to the next level

RYAN LEVESQUE

Ask. 2015 Ryan Levesque

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, or otherwisewithout permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. For information on licensing or special sales, please contact Dunham Books at

Publishing support, design, and composition by Coachzing: Marketing and publishing solutions for busy professionals. www.coachzing.com.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931330

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-939447-72-2

E-book ISBN: 978-1-939447-73-9

Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1
You: Who, What, & Why

Chapter 2
Strange Questions and Stranger Answers

Chapter 3
The Discovery

Chapter 4
My Crisis

Chapter 5
Working Hard for the Dream

Chapter 6
An Unexpected Twist

Chapter 7
The Letter

Chapter 8
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Chapter 9
Taking the Leap

Chapter 10
Things Finally Come Together

Chapter 11
Getting Started: How to Read the Ask Formula Methodology

Chapter 12
The Process: Prepare, Persuade, Segment, Prescribe, Profit, Pivot

Chapter 13
Prepare: The Deep Dive Survey

Chapter 14
Persuade: The Prospect Self-Discovery Landing Page

Chapter 15
Segment: The Micro-Commitment Bucket Survey

Chapter 16
Prescribe: The Post-Survey Sales Prescription

Chapter 17
Profit: The Profit Maximization Upsell Sequence

Chapter 18
Pivot: The Email Follow-Up Feedback Loop

Chapter 19
Case Study #1: Tennis TrainingZero to $250,000 in 6 Months

Chapter 20
Case Study #2: Water Ionizer Market$750,000 in 5 Days

Chapter 21
Why: The Reason For Writing This Book

Chapter 22
Next Steps: Now Its Your Turn to Ask

Dedicated to my wife, Tylene, who has supported me each step of the way, and without whom none of this would have been possible. And to my two incredible sons, Henry and Bradley, who are my inspiration every single day. I love you all more than words will ever express.

Thats it! we both echoed in triumphant agreement after a 12-hour marathon hike on July 18th, 2011. After 28 years pursuing the ultimate marketing formula, it all seemed so simple, so elegant, so perfect.

But it took someone like my student and good friend, Ryan Levesque, to make it so and a very painful 18-mile trek in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with no email, cell phone, or other distractions to articulate the concept in its purest form.

Of course, we both knew the devil was in the details, but how could the formula itself be so simple? Well it is.

Lets start at the beginning

I believe it was the day after Christmas, 2008, when I signed for the FedEx envelope at my door. Thats weird, I thought. Who the heck sends a FedEx on Christmas Day? But then it occurred to me: Pretty darn slick because how can I possibly NoT open and read it now that the sender has piqued my curiosity?

Inside was a passionately written letter with a $100 bill neatly stapled to the top. There was also a $500 cashiers check made out to my company.

It seems that Ryan was intent on paying for my coaching services, and the fact that I had a big Closed sign on the website, which informed people of the long waiting list, wasnt going to stop him. Of course, I politely returned his money and let him know where he could sign up for the list. (He was the first one to sign up a few months later, when I had an opening.)

In retrospect, the FedEx experience was a foreshadowing of things to come with Ryan. Ive long since learned trying to stop him from accomplishing anything is entirely fruitless.

Whether its getting the attention of someone whose attention does not want getting, climbing the tallest mountain, or figuring out how to overcome the most difficult of marketing challenges, Ryan is probably the most determined person Ive ever met

Ryan will do exactly what everyone else says cant be doneor isnt willing to doand then hell figure out how to systematize it so it becomes a lot easier to implement than everyone else thinks!

Ryan succeeds where others fail because of his keen intellect, ravenous appetite for the truth, penchant for detail, persistence, and, perhaps above all else, his willingness to play the long game until he patches every last hole in his master formula.

But before I tell you too much about why Ryan is the only person who could have possibly written this book, I should let you know WHY youll want to read it from cover to cover in the first place

In other words, whats in it for YoU, dear reader?

Exactly this: The worlds most powerful marketing formula, which YoU can use to dramatically improve the bottom-line profits in your business. Thats what! (In my not-so-humble-and-painfully-considered opinion.)

Now, please know I dont make this statement lightly. In fact, its actually a statement against my own best interest:

Ive been an aggressive student of marketing for more than 28 years. My wife and I have sold more than $30,000,000 in marketing consulting to Fortune 100 companies like Lipton, American Express, Colgate-Palmolive, Whirlpool, Panasonic, AT&T, Kodak, Hallmark, and more. (In fact, weve worked with literally dozens of Fortune 500 companies)

Along the way our work, research, and theories have been covered in major media like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun Times, the New York Daily News, Crains New York Business, the Milwaukee Business Journal, the Indiana Star Ledger, American Demographics, CBS & ABC Radio, Bloomberg Radio, WGN and UPN TV, and many, many more.

I co-founded (and eventually sold) an Internet marketing agency that managed millions in online advertising, developed and distributed marketing education programs to an international audience of thousands, and has seen the dollars-in-to-dollars-out results of hundreds of business models.

Im also in regular contact with some of the top marketing and branding experts in the world.

I should have written this book myself but I didnt, becauseas much as Im embarrassed to admit itthere were a few missing pieces to my formula which only Ryan could have figured outcritical missing pieces that made it difficult to implement on the much grander and more effective scale that Ryan has now proven, pieces I should have seen but didnt.

Ryans formula is the finished product the polished piece. And God bless him for doing it Because Id now put Ryan up against anyone in the world marketing in the same arena. Anyoneincluding me!

Now, Ive been very successful implementing, teaching, and profiting from version 1.0 of the Ask Formula on my own. And I had quite a reputation because Id entered more than a dozen markets profitably and consecutively right out of the gate.

Ryan studied this formula more intensely than any of my other students. To say he was obsessed would be an understatement. He repeatedly flew out to my house to talk to me about it. He used it to develop his own very profitable business (in an arena which had nothing to do with teaching others to make money, by the way