Ales Lisac is an interesting marketer. Not only because Ales Lisac has lived through the political and economic changes in what was Yugoslavia he brings a unique insight into what marketing can achieve in turbulent times.

But also because Ales is an inspiring, highly entertaining teacher, having been named “Best Slovenian Speaker of the Year” and Best Professor of the Year” twice. He is also a successful entrepreneur, publisher, telemarketer, seminar organiser, an excellent copywriter and a sought-after consultant who has worked in six European countries.

Ales and I both tauught at the inagural EADIM - Drayton Bird’s European Academy for Direct and Interactive Marketing - and we met briefly again in Slovenia last week. Both of us had a very busy schedule last week, so we were forced to keep it short. But I think this video interview went well. Probably because it is so short. (Don’t mind the eye - it’s broken)

I asked Ales two questions, which he briefly answered. You can see his answers in this short “home made” video:

TRANSCRIPT of the video

Michael Leander: Hi! This is Michael Leander. I’m here in Ljubljana with Ales Lisac. Some of you have probably heard about Ales. He’s the dude who came out of nowhere and suddenly attracted 4,000 people in small beautiful Slovenia to just one of his seminars. In fact he is Mr. Marketing in Slovenia. So I managed to get him to take 10 minutes out of his busy schedule to meet me here in the center of Ljubljana to answer two important questions. Hello Ales. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are?

Ales Lisac: Hi! My name is Ales Lisac. I come from Slovenia. It’s a beautiful small country, population is just 2 million. I’m in business since 1989 so I have 20 years of experience in the business and in direct marketing. I help other Slovenian entrepreneurs and also entrepreneurs in other countries to basically to have more money - to make more money. And so what we mostly do is business seminars, consulting. We are also a  book publisher all throughout Croatia especially in business books. We publish books about marketing management and personal growth. So whatever we do is connected with helping people to make more money and be more successful in their businesses.

Michael Leander: Great! So you know quite a lot about direct marketing?

Ales Lisac: Yeah I think so. I learned a lot. I tested a lot. I spent a lot of money doing things. I learn from my own mistakes plus of course I study books I go to the seminars so I learned both ways. But mostly I learned a lot from doing things and making mistakes.

Michael Leander: And is it correct that you’re also a teacher at the European Academy of Direct and Interactive Marketing founded by Drayton Bird?

Ales Lisac: Yes that’s correct. And so far I spoke in 13 different countries but mostly all my business experience comes from Slovenia, but I’ve done business also in Croatia, in Poland and some other countries.

Michael Leander: Okay. So in your experience what is the number 1 and number 2 mistakes that most direct marketers make?

Ales Lisac: Of course there’s a lot of mistakes we all make in direct marketing and general marketing but I would say especially lately, because in the good ol’ times we could do business differently but at the moment the number one mistake is we are a bit lazy when we are selecting the list. We think that if you send one message to the whole base, to our whole list that this would work and it did work let’s say in 1995 but at the moment you have to be very careful how you pick up your list. You have to use a referred [Sounds like] model and you have to segment, you have to personalize.

You know you can do a lot of things and this is boring you know selecting people from the different list or from various list. It’s boring but its work you need to do because it’s very crucial and the response mostly depends on two things. One is of course the list and the other thing is maybe message and also who you are. The number 2 mistake you ask me and mistake that people don’t talk about a lot is you need to build credibility about you or your product before you send any message because if people don’t know you. If they don’t like you, if they don’t trust you then you can have a perfect copy and see that you have no response.

So you can build the credibility by using testimonials, by telling your story or also by using other media because it’s not just direct marketing. You need to use marketing steps, marketing media campaigns if you want to be a really successful nowadays.

Nowadays, direct marketing is more complicated than it used to be. For example, we started with one direct marketing campaign in 95. We just send 5,000 clippers, no telemarketing, no emails, nothing. The response was like you know 5%. Now if we do the same thing we would be alone in this room expecting people to come to the seminars. So things can really change. Select your list and build credibility, your credibility or credibility of you products.

Michael Leander: Excellent! Excellent answer. Just one bonus question. What does the future of direct marketing look like? Do you think that more marketers will start worrying about the motor rather than being busy checking the color? In other words more brand people likely to move more towards direct marketing?

Ales Lisac: I think it’s already happening. Also in big corporations, big companies they don’t really like the idea of throwing half of the money away. So they you know because - and marketing agencies have build this expectation that whatever money use for marketing you know if you use it - half of the money you use is not use wisely this is a good thing. But it’s not especially I’m saying that direct marketing is very scientifical discipline and especially small entrepreneurs but also big corporations they will realize that they have to understand for what they are spending their money to.

Direct marketing is really a nice tool. I think most of classic advertising still work but it will be more and more focus and direct marketing is really a perfect tool to testing, to learn a lot about our customers and to make money because the idea of every direct marketing campaign is return on investment must be higher you know you have to earn more than the cost for the campaign is very easy to measure and in classical above the landmark I think it’s a bit difficult to measure sometimes. So yes I think and the future is not in direct marketing or internet or advertising.

I think the future is in by using of different communities in different situations and people are really different and their need to market and their interest exactly. You need to know how to apply this, how to really make a good selection, how to fit the list with the message. This is very, very important.

Michael Leander: Okay thanks a lot Ales. That was wonderful. Hope to see you again soon.

Ales Lisac: Thank you.

Michael Leander: Take care.

More info about Ales Lisac:
He started one of Slovenia’s first private firms, ran the first private American MBA programme in Slovenia and organises the Slovenian Direct Marketing Championship - the only one where the winner is not chosen by a jury but through testing on real cases.

He has taught more than 25.000 entrepreneurs and organized the largest marketing seminar in Slovenia ever - with more than 4000 participants (how do you like them Apples?). The profit improvements he has consistently produced for clients in many fields are quite remarkable - as is his ability to explain how he does it.

He has written three books, plus hundreds of business articles and newsletters.

Ales will soon be presenting some of his interesting content at an upcoming Markedu web seminar. Stay tuned to learn more.

More ressources:
Ales Lisac’s personal blog
Lisac & Lisac website