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Most service businesses are trapped in a race to the bottom. They compete on price, match competitors’ rates, and watch their profit margins shrink while desperately trying to win customers who only care about the lowest bid.
John Dwyer has spent decades proving there’s a better way. This direct response marketing expert from Australia has helped countless businesses break free from price-based competition through creative incentive strategies that make price irrelevant.
His most famous success story involves convincing Jerry Seinfeld to become the spokesperson for an Australian bank’s “get a home loan, get a free vacation” campaign. The result: the bank tripled their home loans within the first year while never once advertising interest rates. For 11 years, they remained the most expensive home loan company in Australia while dominating their market.
The secret lies in what John calls the “Happy Meal Toy” philosophy: the same principle McDonald’s uses with low-cost, high-perceived-value incentives that take customers’ eyes off price. A 22-cent toy from China valued at $5 in stores creates the magic that makes Happy Meals irresistible to children and parents alike.
This show is sponsored by Blue Crocus Solutions, a web design and SEO agency focused on helping home service companies grow.
• Never compete on price: The moment you advertise on price, competitors can beat you within minutes, attracting the wrong customers and destroying profit margins
• The Happy Meal Toy principle works: Low-cost, high-perceived-value incentives take customers’ eyes off price and create irresistible offers
• Vacation incentives provide massive value: $50 cost vacation vouchers worth $1,000+ in accommodations appeal to all demographics and create powerful conversion tools
• Facebook contests generate hot leads: Simple contests can produce 900+ qualified leads for $200 in ad spend when executed properly
• Persistence beats perfection: A terrible Crocodile Dundee accent and relentless follow-up landed Jerry Seinfeld when polished approaches failed
John’s philosophy centers on a fundamental difference between traditional advertising and direct response marketing. While advertising agencies focus on brand building, direct response gets immediate, measurable results.
“If you go to an advertising agency, they will say, ‘We are gonna help you build your brand so that people will taste your product.’ When you’re in the direct response game, it’s the opposite. It’s we’ll get them to taste your product so they’ll fall in love with your brand.”
He uses the calamari analogy: seafood shops hand out free samples outside their stores. Once people taste the calamari, they’re more likely to enter and buy expensive seafood. The sample creates the relationship, not the other way around.
This approach directly challenges the vanity metrics that plague many service businesses. Business owners get excited about Facebook likes, shares, and brand awareness while struggling to pay bills.
“You cannot feed the family on vanity metrics. You can’t feed the family on likes and shares.”
For service businesses, this means focusing on activities that generate immediate, measurable responses: phone calls, appointments, and sales. Everything else is secondary.
“If you come home tonight and say to the kids, ‘We’ve got 150 likes today on Facebook,’ and the kids are looking at you saying, ‘But daddy, there’s no food on the table.'” – John Dwyer
The story of landing Jerry Seinfeld as a spokesperson demonstrates how persistence and creativity can overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.
John was working with The Greater Building Society, a challenger brand competing against major Australian banks. Instead of competing on interest rates, which the big banks could always beat, John proposed the Happy Meal Toy approach.
“I said to these guys, ‘Listen, you’re out there selling home loans and you are 4.5% or whatever it was at the time, the same as the big bank down the road. Because you’re a challenger brand, they’re gonna beat you every time you drop the interest rate.'”
The solution: convert the 1% honeymoon rate (standard industry practice) into vacation vouchers instead of rate discounts. This created a cost-neutral way to offer massive perceived value.
After three years of success with the vacation concept, they decided to add celebrity endorsement. A survey of members and prospects revealed Jerry Seinfeld as the top choice for spokesperson.
“We chased Jerry Seinfeld for about six months. Eventually we got to him.”
The breakthrough came through persistence and a willingness to break conventional rules. After getting nowhere through normal channels, John left a message at 2 AM using his worst Crocodile Dundee accent.
“G’day George. Look, it’s John Dwyer from down under, mate. Look, dig it, sport. I was just wondering if Jerry might be interested…”
George Shapiro, Seinfeld’s manager, called back the next day: “Are you real? That was the worst Australian accent that I’ve ever heard.”
“When I eventually said to Jerry, ‘Why did you say yes to this?’ He said, ‘Number one, I love Australian sense of humor. And number two, I never thought you would go away otherwise.'” – John Dwyer
The genius of McDonald’s Happy Meal lies in the mathematics of perceived value. John learned this directly from the Australian couple who invented the Happy Meal toy 44 years ago.
“That toy cost them 22 cents in China. And so they pay the Chinese factory 22 cents, and that toy is valued at Kmart at $5.”
This creates the magic formula: low cost to the business, high perceived value to the customer. When service businesses offer $50 movie vouchers, customers know exactly what they received. When they offer vacation vouchers worth $1,000+ for the same $50 cost, the perceived value transforms the entire transaction.
“Don’t give them a movie voucher when they know that’s worth $50. You give them a vacation voucher for three to seven nights vacation in Vancouver or Toronto or Los Angeles or New York, three to seven nights accommodation, it’s worth at least a thousand dollars, possibly $1,500 if they go to New York. But it’s costing you 50 bucks.”
The vacation incentive works because travel appeals to all demographics: both sexes, all ages, and all income levels. Unlike gender-specific or age-specific incentives, vacation vouchers have universal appeal.
This principle applies beyond vacation incentives. The key is finding incentives where the perceived value far exceeds the actual cost to the business.
“The magic formula that McDonald’s has created is low cost, but high perceived value. In this instance, a low cost $50 voucher that’s gonna give someone up to seven nights accommodation worth well over a thousand. That’s why it works.” – John Dwyer
One of John’s most dramatic success stories involves a turf farm owner who attended his seminar and needed to clear inventory before replanting season.
“He said, ‘Can you see the grass over the mountains there and the grass over the mountains there? That comes in about five miles worth of grass. I’ve gotta get rid of it before the season ends.'”
The target audience was landscapers and contractors who buy grass for multiple properties, not individual homeowners. John identified their ideal incentive: premium beer.
“I said, ‘If you’re after tradies, you’re after landscapers. What do you think would their Happy Meal toy be?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’ I said, ‘Beer. They’re 99.9% men, so therefore beer.'”
The campaign offered a carton of premium beer (24 bottles, $50-60 value) for every 500 square meters of grass purchased. They targeted the offer through direct mail to tradesmen in the area.
The results were immediate and overwhelming: “He rings me about six days into it and said, ‘JD, we have a problem. We’ve got no more grass. We’re buying grass from other turf farms to keep up with the demand for the beer.'”
The most telling example: a difficult customer who always negotiated on price immediately ordered 18 homes worth of grass after receiving the brochure. “He said, ‘I don’t care when I get the grass. I’ve got a party on Friday. I need the 18 cartons of beer.'”
“Your Happy Meal toy has now overtaken the hamburger. One guy who was the biggest pain in the ass client immediately got the brochure and said, ‘I want 18 homes worth of grass. I don’t care when I get the grass. I need the 18 cartons of beer.'” – John Dwyer
The Greater Building Society campaign with Jerry Seinfeld ran for 11 years with remarkable consistency: they never once advertised interest rates or competed on price.
“Not once in that 11 years did they ever advertise an interest rate. Not once did they ever advertise price. They were the most expensive home loan company in the world.”
Instead, their marketing focused entirely on the vacation benefit and emotional positioning against big banks. They showed people enjoying Disneyland vacations and beach holidays because they chose The Greater Building Society over major banks.
“We just went for the jugular with all the big banks and said, ‘You’re a number. You get charged all these fees. They don’t know who you are. You never get a free holiday from them.'”
The campaign’s success came from taking customers’ eyes completely off price and focusing on value, experience, and emotional benefits. While competitors fought price wars, The Greater Building Society owned the vacation benefit category.
This strategy worked because they understood a fundamental truth: customers don’t buy the cheapest option when they perceive significantly higher value elsewhere.
The bank’s willingness to be the most expensive while providing the most value created a sustainable competitive advantage that lasted over a decade.
“They were the highest home loan interest rate for 10 years in a row in the world. Take the eye off the price and what do people actually want? They want a Happy Meal toy.” – John Dwyer
Six months before COVID, John partnered with an international travel company to create a systematic vacation incentive program for small businesses.
“They said, ‘We get access to unsold rooms at four star hotels throughout Canada, United States, Europe, Australia. We don’t know what to do with them because we’re not a marketer. Why don’t we join forces whereby you sell this package of vacations to business owners?'”
The program offers businesses vacation vouchers for $50 each (normally $97) that provide three to seven nights accommodation at four-star hotels worldwide. The vouchers are worth $1,000+ in actual accommodation value.
“We give the businesses the free vacations. They’re worth about a thousand dollars. It’s three to seven nights accommodation at a four-star hotel.”
The system works through a booking platform similar to Expedia. Customers receive unique codes and can choose from over 120 destinations worldwide: major US cities, European countries, Mexico, Australia, and other popular vacation spots.
For service businesses, these vouchers serve dual purposes: lead generation incentives and conversion tools. They can offer vacation vouchers to attract leads, then use additional vacation incentives to close sales.
The timing was initially challenging: “God was watching, my head got too big, and then he decided to teach me a lesson and bring my head down to proper size. He thrust COVID upon the world.”
However, the program has since recovered and continues providing businesses with powerful incentive tools.
“You tell me if you can come up with an incentive that’s better than three to seven nights vacation at a four star resort for $50. You tell me if you can find something better than that.” – John Dwyer
John’s Facebook contest strategy generates massive lead volumes at minimal cost by targeting specific problems and offering relevant solutions.
The breakthrough came from an aluminum fence contractor struggling with traditional marketing approaches: “He said, ‘I’ve geodemographic targeted the older homes because they had a fence that was falling down, and put letterbox drops. I’ve done the Facebook, but nothing’s working.'”
John’s diagnosis: “You are clearly suffering from being a dickhead. You’ve shown features, not benefits. Nobody buys features. They buy the benefits.”
The solution: “The Ugliest Back Fence in Australia Contest.” They targeted suburbs with 25-30 year old homes likely to have deteriorating wooden fences.
“We zeroed that Facebook campaign into suburbs that had 25, 30-year-old homes. And so they had the old wooden fence that was falling down.”
The contest asked people to photograph their ugly back fences for a chance to win a $5,000 fence makeover. The results were immediate: “He got six months worth of hot leads in just three days. We spent $702 in three days.”
The formula works because it generates “hot leads” rather than cold prospects: “They’re not just leads, they’re hot leads of people saying, ‘Take my money. I need a new fence.’ Because I’ve just shown you a photo of the old one.”
Recent examples show even more dramatic results. A dentist targeting parents with children needing braces spent $30 per day and generated 909 leads in the first week: “He spent $30 a day on Facebook. In the first week, which is seven days by 30, so it’s 200 odd dollars, he got 909 leads.”
“We ran the ugliest back fence in Australia contest. He got six months worth of hot leads in just three days. They’re hot leads of people saying, ‘Take my money. I need a new fence.'” – John Dwyer
One of John’s most impressive case studies involves a small hardware store competing directly against Bunnings, Australia’s equivalent to Costco for hardware and building supplies.
“Our version of Costco is a retail chain called Bunnings. It’s like Costco. It’s the size of two or three football fields.”
A small hardware store owner contacted John after Bunnings opened directly across the street: “He said, ‘You wouldn’t believe that block of land was sold to Bunnings. And now I’ve got a 40 ton gorilla sitting opposite me.'”
Bunnings has a policy of beating any competitor’s price by 10%, making price competition impossible for small retailers.
John’s solution focused on value-added incentives: “I said, ‘You can’t compete on price. But if you actually said, look, buy your wheelbarrow from me, and I will give you free tickets to a movie or something like that, you think that might distinguish you?'”
They implemented a vacation incentive program: spend a certain amount and receive a free vacation voucher.
“He said, ‘Spend X dollars with me and I’ll give you a free vacation.’ Bunnings was sending people with secret cameras into his hardware store trying to find out what the hell was going on.”
The results exceeded expectations: “He doubled his turnover within two months. Not only had his turnover dropped considerably from what it was before Bunnings, but he doubled that turnover back to being at least 20% more than what it was even before Bunnings came along.”
The corporate giant couldn’t quickly replicate the incentive strategy: “Bunnings across the road would take six months worth of committee meetings to work out how to beat you because it’s a giant 40 ton gorilla.”
“He doubled his turnover back to being at least 20% more than what it was even before Bunnings came along within two months. If you do this properly in a direct response marketing way, it is instant.” – John Dwyer
John’s contest formula includes a sophisticated follow-up system that converts non-winners into customers through the vacation incentive.
“The evil Dr. Evil part of this says, guess what they do? The receptionist rings them and says, ‘Look, you entered our contest. You didn’t win. But clearly you have a child with crooked teeth. So we’ve got a special deal that if you actually get Invisalign braces from us by Friday, guess what? We’ll give you a free vacation.'”
This approach transforms contest entries into qualified sales prospects. People who entered contests have already identified themselves as having the specific problem the business solves.
The vacation incentive serves dual purposes: lead generation through contests and conversion tool for closing sales.
“What happens is that we bring the Happy Meal toy in as a conversion tool. So many times over, this can be a lead generator, but a lot of times it can be both a lead generator and a conversion tool and a closer.”
The system works because it provides multiple touchpoints with prospects while maintaining the high-value incentive throughout the sales process.
For service businesses, this means contests can generate leads while vacation incentives help close those leads into customers.
“We bring the Happy Meal toy in as a conversion tool. This can be both a lead generator and a conversion tool and a closer.” – John Dwyer
John’s latest innovation targets real estate agents with a sophisticated direct mail approach that eliminates traditional prospecting challenges.
“When you guys give out appraisals, how many of those appraisals turn into a listing? And they go 2, 3, 4 or five out of 10. I said, ‘Okay, well let’s just say you get three listings out of every 10 appraisals, why don’t you just give out a million appraisals?'”
The system uses technology to scrape property valuation data and create personalized direct mail pieces: “We have a company that scrapes all of the data of the valuation of the homes in any zip code around the world.”
Homeowners receive what appears to be a bank check showing their home’s current market value: “We drop this bank of America looking check into their letter box that says, ‘Did you know your home’s worth 1.2 million or 840,000, whatever it might be.'”
The mail piece includes a photo of the specific property and offers written confirmation of the valuation in exchange for meeting with the agent.
“They come home, they pull that out of the letter box and their head explodes. We show a photo of the house because that’s how sophisticated things are.”
The incentive for meeting with the agent: a free vacation voucher.
This approach could be adapted for any service business that provides assessments or consultations.
“They come home, they pull that out of the letter box and their head explodes. Guess what they get if they let the agent confirm the valuation in writing? A free vacation.” – John Dwyer
When asked for the single principle underlying every successful campaign, John’s answer is unequivocal: “Never advertise on price. Never, ever advertise on price.”
The reasoning is both strategic and practical: “Not only will that bring in the wrong crowd, but of course the moment that you advertise on price, if the guy down the road is a little bit savvy, then he’s going to probably beat you within five minutes.”
Price-based competition creates a race to the bottom that destroys profit margins and attracts customers who will leave for any cheaper alternative.
“When I say don’t advertise on price, really we specialize on showing people how to take their eyes off the price.”
This philosophy requires courage and creativity. It means finding ways to demonstrate value that transcends price comparison. It means creating offers so compelling that price becomes secondary.
The Happy Meal Toy principle provides the framework: find incentives where the perceived value far exceeds the actual cost, then build marketing campaigns around those incentives rather than price points.
For service businesses, this might mean offering vacation vouchers, premium products, exclusive experiences, or other high-perceived-value incentives that differentiate them from price-focused competitors.
“Never advertise on price because not only will that bring in the wrong crowd, but the moment that you advertise on price, the guy down the road is going to beat you within five minutes.” – John Dwyer
John’s final advice focuses on the fundamental challenge facing all service businesses: generating qualified leads consistently.
“I say to people, ‘Look, I can help you with conversions, but if you can’t convert, seriously, go and get a job, you shouldn’t be in your own business.’ What you really need is leads.”
His experience comes from running large-scale promotions for major corporations: “Those clients, because they were corporate, they’re after a shit load of leads, they want quick leads and a lot of them.”
The contest formula and vacation incentive programs address this need directly by generating high volumes of qualified prospects at low cost.
“What you need to do is come up with ideas. Come up with strategies that are gonna give you a bunch of leads.”
The key insight: most service business owners can convert prospects into customers once they get them on the phone or in person. The real challenge is generating enough qualified leads to keep the business growing.
John’s strategies solve this problem by creating irresistible offers that attract prospects while pre-qualifying them through the contest or incentive structure.
“Conversions, hopefully you can do that because you shouldn’t be running your own business if you can’t convert. But what you need to do is come up with strategies that are gonna give you a bunch of leads.” – John Dwyer
Throughout all of John’s case studies, one theme emerges consistently: properly executed incentive campaigns create immediate, dramatic results.
“If you do this properly in a direct response marketing way, it is instant. It’s not one of those slow growing things. This thing just gets turned on like a tap.”
The turf farm sold out in six days. The hardware store doubled revenue in two months. The fence contractor got six months of leads in three days. The dentist generated 909 leads in one week.
This speed comes from tapping into existing demand rather than trying to create new demand. The contests and incentives reveal people who already have the problem and are ready to buy solutions.
“When people say to me, ‘Oh, look, we sponsor the local basketball team,’ and I go, ‘Okay, how’s that working for you?’ And they go, ‘Oh, haven’t got any measurability to it.’ Pick that money up. Give it to us and we’ll spend it for you on social media. And every time we spend it, there will be a measurable outcome.”
The transformation happens because these strategies focus on direct response rather than brand building, immediate action rather than long-term awareness, and measurable results rather than vanity metrics.
“This thing just gets turned on like a tap. It’s not one of those slow growing things. Eventually I’ll get my revenue. This thing is instant.” – John Dwyer
Want to learn more from John Dwyer? Visit The Institute of Wow to explore his case studies and marketing strategies. Get his book The Book of Wow for his complete “Avalanche Leads Formula,” check out his Vacation Incentive Program for high-value customer incentives, or get his Facebook Contest Blueprint to generate hundreds of qualified leads for your service business.
This Podcast is sponsored by Blue Crocus Solutions, a marketing agency offering website design, branding, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services for Home Service businesses.
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