Archive for the ‘marketing services’ Category

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The Elevator Speech is a Dumb Idea

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Here’s a contrarian viewpoint. I believe that trying to develop an elevator speech, in which you attempt to summarize what you do in a single sentence, is an amazingly dumb idea. Lord knows, I’ve spent enough time working on one for myself and trying to develop them for clients.

Finally, it occurred to me that it was a complete waste of time.

Think about what’s typically developed.

Either it’s what I call the Yellow Page classification answer…”I’m a financial advisor”…accountant…butcher…baker…candlestick maker.” Exceeding dull and only serves to check off our list of polite chatter, “I’ve said what I do.”

Or it’s incomprehensible to anyone who doesn’t live in your business world…”I’m a supply chain consultant.” (Come again?). “I integrated proprietary networking systems into legacy based infrastructures.” (How nice for you.)

Or, we attempt to get creative…”I help people live their dreams.” “I turn potential into gold.” Blah, blah, blah. (As an aside, how does anyone actually say that stuff with a straight face? It’s a rhetorical question-so if you are someone who uses a “creative” elevator speech, there’s no reason to write me an angry note.)

But, we do have to say something. So what’s the answer?

Here’s what I think.

The goal for what you say is to stimulate curiosity. If they’re interested in learning more, they’ll let you know. That permission then enables you to tell them the short story about what you do.

I recently saw a great example of this from, of all people, a lady involved in MLM/Network marketing. As a group, these people are usually the worse at this sort of thing, but this lady had a great answer to the “what do you do?” question.

“I help mature women look as attractive as possible.”

I was intrigued and followed her around the room for a bit. Virtually everyone she said this to, asked a follow up question. That question then gave her permission to tell her story about how she started selling this product. (Did you catch why this line works so well?)

The lesson? Get them curious.

For years I told people some version of “I’m a marketing consultant.” The alternative I used, “I assist business owners attract more new clients with no cold calling” was OK, but never flowed as smoothly as I desired.

One day it occurred to me that one of the primary ways I attract clients is through my books, and that I spend the majority of my time preparing, writing or promoting them. Thus, I shifted my answer to, “I primarily spend my time writing books.”

What a change in reaction.

“What types of books?” “How many have you written?” “What are they about?” “Where can I get them?”

This naturally enables me to transition into the story about how I became an author, how I speak, train and coach people on using stories to sell.

Rather than just blab at people uninvited about what we do, or attempt to be cutesy with our elevator speech, focus instead on making them curious. That way you’ll be invited in to tell the longer story about how clients benefit from your services.

However…figuring out what precisely will make them curious requires that pesky mental heavy lifting I often refer to. But, if you’re planning on using networking events or other social engagements as a tool for meeting new clients, it’s certainly worth the effort.

Good food for thought.

PS: Would you like some assistance is developing your Anti-Elevator Speech? GO HERE

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Quit Selling

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Imagine for a moment that there was no pressure on you to sell anything…that you were free from the constraints of producing revenues.

In this mythological scenario, your focus is now 100% on building relationships.

No pressure to get them to actually buy anything. All you’re charged with is getting their attention and building a relationship.

How would you communicate differently?

The answers probably vary, but I’d imagine that there would be a lot less focus on you. Your solution. Your features. Why you are better/different/cooler than the competition.

My guess would be that you’d focus more on the person with whom you were speaking. What their challenges are. What they’re worried about. What they desire.

Now pause for a moment and put yourself in the shoes of that person. Who are you more interested in? The person who’s pushing their solution on you, or someone who is genuinely interested in you? (I realize the answer is kind of obvious.)

But here’s the point. In our desire to get people to buy, we tend to revert to a default mode that says the quickest way to do so is to evangelically preach at them about what we have to offer.

Once we’re out of the actually selling situation, we know that we should invest the time to find out needs and desires. But, once we’re actually in the white-hot fire of the sales conversation, WHAM-out come the big guns of WHY YOU SHOULD DO BUSINESS WITH ME. Let me preach at you until you see the light!

Curious, isn’t it, how we know we should do one thing, yet under pressure do something different?

I believe the reason why we don’t actually do, what we intellectually know we should, is because we feel under pressure to close the sale…make the money…meet the quota. And here’s where irony comes into play.

Which is…you’ll sell better if you just don’t care whether the person says, “Yes” or “No”. (Or at least not care too much.)

Of course, having that distance, that ability not to care, means that you have to have lots of people to present your case to. Lots of times at bat. And that’s what a great marketing system should get you-lots of “at bats”.

So you don’t have to care about making the sale (or at least not care too much.)

Food for thought
Mark
Here’s how to implement a marketing system in less than 45 days for under $300.

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Get Your Clients to Brag About You

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

Imagine that there were hundreds, or even thousands or people who were all recommending you. What would the impact be on your business? Granted that’s somewhat of a rhetorical question, since the obvious answer is “Damn that would be great!.”..but it begs the question: How precisely can we get people talking about you?

Here’s one idea from (of all places) the world of antique collecting-and don’t immediately turn off because you’re not in that business. I really believe it’s going to be helpful to you, regardless of the type of business you’re in.

A quick story…

Hanging in my office is an antique sword formerly owned by Jeanne Pierre Robinette. Monsieur Robinette was the finance secretary for Napoleon I, and since his role was administrative and not military, the sword is actually rather wimpy. Nice to look at, but it would probably break in half in a real battle. However, when he was sworn into office, Monsieur Robinette was the only member of Napoleon’s court not to have a sword, so he commissioned one from the great sword craftsman Angelo Del’Amico of Seville Spain. Unfortunately, the first time he wore the sword in court he was made fun of by Napoleon’s Chief of Staff. Tempers flared, a duel ensued and Napoleon was soon is search of new accountant.

I know this story because the person, who sold me the sword at Red Baron Antiques, here in Atlanta, told it to me. Since Marian and I entertain a lot, I’ve told that story dozens of times over the years.

In all candor, being able to tell that story is one of the most pleasurable aspects of owning the sword.

But here’s the important part.

At the end of the story I also, instinctively, include the part about how I first learned the story when I purchased the sword at Red Barron Antiques. (As I just did once again.)

And here’s the even more important point.

I also instinctively) go on to talk about Red Barron and how cool it is and how all the items they sell have these great stories behind them. (As I seem to be doing once again.)

I’m sure you see my point.

I’m bragging on Red Barron because they gave me a great story I could tell. And what I notice is that if I tell the story to someone here in Atlanta, they invariably start to tell me the story about the cool thing they bought at Red Barron. Lots of people seem to have a Red Barron story.

Obviously, there’s no shortage of antique shops. Quite frankly, Red Barron isn’t the most convenient place to get to, and the parking is often a pain. BUT, it’s become the antique shop of destination.

And a large part of the their appeal is that they arm us with great stories we can tell to others about the cool stuff we buy from them.

So…what are the stories you want your clients to be telling about the services or products they receive from you? Is it something about the experience clients have the first time they visit you? Is it something about the great information you share with them? Is it about events and activities they get invited to once they’re a part of your circle? Is it the personal handwritten note you send?

Lets make our clients proud of the fact that they’ve selected you. Let’s give them stories they’ll want to tell to others.

Food for thought
Mark
I hate to keep reminding you, but if you want to learn how to tell great stories you need to read my book. Get it Here.

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Patience

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

There’s a small rock sitting on the bar in my poolroom with the word “Patience” carved into it. I think my Sensei gave it to me, or it could have been my wife, or my neighbor…apparently there’s a long list of people who feel this is something I need to work on.

If truth be told, I don’t think I’m alone. I’m sure there’s lots of stuff you would do, if only it was simpler.

Unfortunately, simple answers usually only exist for simple problems. I’m sure there are exceptions, but I find that the more challenging the problem, the more we have to think “deep into the game”, as the chess masters say.

For example, let’s take the topic of getting more new clients.

On the surface the answer should be simple…Just ask them.

“Hey you. I realize we’ve never met, and you don’t know me, but wanna buy my stuff?”

OK, perhaps we say it a bit more elegantly, but haven’t you been guilty of that? I know I have.

It’s what’s called selling to strangers.

Does it work? Sure-if you’re willing to talk to enough people. It sort of reminds me of my strategy in the ‘70s of going up to women in the disco and asking them to go home with me. (Hey it was the ‘70s, I was young-gimme a break.)

Did it work? Sure. All right…occasionally. But what about the quality, you ask? Well…that was a bit suspect.

The problem is that if we blindly put our nose-to-the-proverbial-grindstone, asking strangers to do business with us, not only do we get a lot of rejection, but we also have no filter on the type of clients we eventually wind up with.

Granted, if you have no clients, the idea of having any clients, regardless of how bad, sounds good. But I think it’s important to remember that the goal is to have both quality and quantity.

So how do we accomplish this? Is there some sort of magic bullet/answer that if we only learned it, all of our client attraction problems would go away?

Of course not.

But…there is a strategy that will make the process a lot easier.

But…it takes a bit of patience.

Here it is…

Stop trying to sell to strangers.

That’s it. It really is that simple.

Stop trying to sell to strangers and focus instead on building a relationship with those who can either hire you, buy from you, or refer you to others.

And the way to do that?

Bribe them.

Give them something that’s interesting for free. A tip. A suggestion. Something helpful. Answer a question that people often ask you. But most importantly…

Focus on building a relationship…Not trying to sell someone something. There’s plenty of time for that down the road.

Patience & Best Regards
Mark
Want me to help you develop your marketing strategy or work with you to create your unique message? Info HERE.

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The Changing Role of Scarcity

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

I’m fascinated with the choices that are available to us about virtually everything.

When I was growing up there was NBC, CBS, ABC, plus 2 UHF channels, and a really grainy channel that, if the wind was blowing right, we could pick it up from New Hampshire.

I looked at my AT&T U-Verse choices yesterday, and discovered that not only do I have access to over 500 channels, I can now choose among 57 channels that exclusively program in Spanish and 13 in Japanese.

As a kid I loved to visit the Concord Bookshop. They carried a choice of maybe 2000 books. If I wanted an out-of-print book, I was out of luck.

Today, virtually any book ever printed is available through some bookseller via Amazon. And never mind that it used to be that if you wanted a book published you had to get accepted by one of 12 publishers. Now anyone can get published through resources such as Lightning Source. With e-books now having reached the tipping point, and all books accepted on Amazon, the shear volume of books available is almost beyond comprehension.

If I want a time management program for home-based entrepreneurs, I can choose among several.

If I want sales training for nutritional MLM entrepreneurs, there are multiple choices.

If I want to learn how to more effectively interview pharmaceutical reps, there are multiple vendors vying for my business.

In other words…scarcity doesn’t exist anymore.

Except for one thing.

As Seth Godin recently pointed out, the only thing that’s scarce is attention.

When there are numerous choices for virtually any need, how do we get people to choose us?

Two thoughts.

The days of mass marketing are over. Even my former employers in the consumer goods industry (Pepsi & Kraft Foods) largely recognize this, and are increasingly targeting their messages to the young, the old, different ethnic groups, specific types of activities…the segmentation goes on and on.

Micro-niche marketing is everything. Unfortunately this message is often lost of new entrepreneurs and small business owners for the obvious reason. “But, I might miss someone if I niche market.”

The reality is that when your message attempts to appeal to everyone, it appeals to no-one. This is a hard learned lesson for many (myself included).

Second thought. Your message needs to stand out. It needs to fall into the sweet space between boring blather and “sky is falling” hyperbole. This is where mental heavy lifting comes to play.

What’s deceiving is that the end result-the ultimate marketing message-often seems so simple. Perhaps it’s just a few words such as “How to get consistent streams of brand new clients with no cold calling or hard selling.” Yet when you examine this in more detail, you notice that the word “consistent” is crucial, since avoiding feast-or-famine business cycles is a main concern for this particular audience. “Cold calling” also is carefully selected, since that’s the default method by which this niche trolls for new business. Although they may profess otherwise, in reality most everyone hates “smiling & dialing”.

The words “Hard selling” are also carefully selected. This niche views themselves as professionals and experts, and recoils from anything that is overtly salesy.

Thus the simple phrase, “How to get consistent streams of brand new clients with no cold calling or hard selling.”, is actually the result of many hours of thinking about a particular niche; their needs, hopes, wants and desires.

Why is this important?

Because the only thing that’s scarce in this day and age, is getting (and keeping) attention.

Food for thought
Mark
Want some assistance in developing your message? Information is HERE

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A Quick Story

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Let me tell you a quick story. Maybe it will help you persuade more people to do business with you.

The story is about a guy named Mort. You probably know someone like him. Mid 50’s. Always has that slightly disheveled look. Slouched over bloke-hasn’t stood up completely straight since Clinton was in office. You know the guy. He happens to be in finance, but that’s not important.

Despite all of his best efforts, Mort just couldn’t tell an interesting story to save his life. Sometimes the stories rambled. Sometimes they made no sense what-so-ever. Sometimes-and this was the key culprit-the stories were as boring as a zealot proselytizing about global warming.

The biggest problem with Mort’s stories was that we just weren’t interested.

*He’d talk about a client who was worried that retirement meant a lower standard of living…So what?

*He’d go on about a couple who were scared to death about outliving their retirement…Big deal.

*He’d blather on about some poor schnook who was afraid he wouldn’t be able to afford medical care…b-o-r-i-in-g.

Now here’s the thing…the problem with Mort’s stories are not the issues these people face. Those are real, and lots of people are worried about them.

The problem is, we don’t care about the people in Mort’s stories.

And that’s an important point if you want to tell good stories. Your audience needs to be a bit emotionally invested in what happens to the characters.

So how do we create good characters? One of the easiest ways is by fleshing them out before starting to talk about the problems they face.

Here’s how.

When I told you the story about Mort, wasn’t it easy for you to picture him in your mind? Why was that?

First, I gave him an interesting name. Sometimes a name-like Mort-conjures up an image of a certain type of person. (Which is why you don’t run across too many suave debonair super-spies named Tristen.)

Second, I gave you some quick physical characteristics about Mort. I only used 20 words to describe him, but those were 20 important words.

If you’re going to care about my story, you first have to care about my characters. That’s why before you tell your story, think about how you’re going to describe the characters to your audience. Unfortunately we often don’t pay attention to that, and as a result, tell stories like Mort.

Good food for thought
Mark
Learn more about how to engage your audience by telling great stories in my latest book, Unique Sales Stories. Now available on Kindle and in traditional old-school paperback. Get it at Amazon HERE

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The Illusion of Expertise

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Many successful consultants, advisors and small business owners are in enamored with the concept that they will achieve success merely by being good at what they do.

However, outside of academia, and for a few elite others who fate has shined a kind eye on, expecting the world to beat a path to your door is a losing proposition.

I recognize that in an ideal world, you’d just like clients to magically appear so that you could focus on the work you most enjoy. Which is why the marketing siren’s call of “we’ll do it all for you” is so alluring.

But here’s the reality.

As the CEO you also bought (perhaps unwittingly) the role of CMO (Chief Marketing Officer).

And the sad but true reality is that you can only delegate those responsibilities after you’ve mastered them.

So the question becomes…how are you going to get up to speed?

Here’s one option

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What Do You Read?

Monday, October 31st, 2011

OK…you’ve promoted your free offer and now have a list of subscribers. The question now becomes, “How do I come up with topics to write about?”

That’s an important question since “staying in touch with your subscribers” is arguably the most important part of the whole marketing strategy. Somewhat ironically, it’s also the part that people tend to give the least amount of attention to.

If the swing-thought is to simply send people “stuff”, it’s not terribly surprising if no-one actually reads it. And if no one reads your stuff, it’s sort of difficult to develop a relationship with your subscribers.

So back to the original question, “What to write about?”

My personal belief is that the more your reading tastes are eclectic in nature, the easier you’ll find topics to write about.

So let’s start with the newspapers you read. I’m sure there’s the local daily. But what about the Wall Street Journal? You don’t have to be a financial type to get a lot of value from it. In fact, I’d argue that if you’re serious about business, the WSJ ought to be on your reading list every morning.

But let’s not stop there. How about USA Today? For my money, it’s hands-down the best daily newspaper if you want to get up to speed quickly on what’s going on. In fact I only get the Atlanta Constitution on the weekends, since USA Today does a much better job of giving me the overview I need about the worlds of Sports, Culture, Current Events and Business. Plus, it’s got the coolest weather map!

But wait…there’s more. Since I do most of my writing in the mornings, this next daily read has probably given me more great ideas to write about than any other newspaper I get. I’m talking about the Financial Times. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent outside of the USA, but the rest of the world does think differently than we do. Sometimes the differences are subtle, sometimes they’re rather substantial. What’s great about FT is that it makes you think about things differently–and that’s what causes the neurons in the brain to start to fire–which in turn gets your creative juices flowing.

Having an eclectic reading list makes us interesting people. And if we’re interesting people, it’s likely that we’ll write interesting stuff.

Moving on to magazines. Let’s take a look at what’s on the night stand. Egads, the pile is huge! We’ve got Monocle, Financial Advisor, B2B, The Hollywood Reporter, Fortune, Business Week, Steve Harrison’s Reporter Connection, Fast Times, Rolling Stone, INC, The New Yorker…

Now do I actually read all these? Candidly, the answer is, not really. But I do thumb through all of them, and I’d guess I read at least a couple of articles from each.

For those of you who like formulas here’s a great one to jump start your thinking when you find you’ve run out of ideas for what to write about.

I was reading an article in (Name of publication) which got me thinking about how (the topic) relates to (your area of expertise).

I was reading an article in Monocle which got me thinking about how an eclectic reading list can help us come up with ideas for what to write about to stay in touch with our readers.

What’s interesting about this exercise is that it will stretch you creatively, which will make your writing more interesting. Since there’s certainly no shortage of boring-same-old stuff being dumped into our in-boxes, it’s bound to help you break out of the pack.

Try subscribing to one new publication and see what effect it has.

It certainly can’t hurt.

Food for thought
Mark
Thanks for all the support for Unique Sales Stories :-)

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Making Boring Stuff Interesting

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

Nothing glazes over the eyeballs quite like reading an article about Emergency Preparedness, but the folks at the CDC (Center for Disease Control) have figured out a way to turn oh-so-boring into I-want-to-read-that with over 1 million (and counting) page views already.

The secret? Link the boring “Here’s what you need to pack into a preparedness kit”, into a story about how to brace for disaster when the zombies attack. (And you know that’s going to happen any day now-so I’m packing my kit as soon as I’m done here.)

You hear me talk a lot about “mental heavy lifting” and how it’s the most important part of any marketing campaign. Well the CDC’s, Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic is a great example of some mental heaving lifting that results in a cool story around a dull topic.

Want to know what to pack to avoid zombies (as well as prepare for other natural disasters)? The article’s HERE.

Unfortunately most of us are in rather dry businesses. But as Zombie Pandemic illustrates, that doesn’t mean we have to be boring when it comes time to promote our message.

Food for thought
Mark
PS: Unique Sales Stories is now available on Kindle. (Currently at #1!) Get your copy HERE

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Marketing With Information

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Suppose with just a one hour-long effort you could…

*Create a kick-ass free offer that would get prospective clients interested in what you do. And…

*Provide the content for the squeeze page that promotes it. And…

*Create a great video that you could sell for $595? And…

*Create a MP3 audio you could add to the video package and raise the price to $695? And…

*Create a content-rich booklet, you could add to the video and audio package and now price your information product at $795.

Or…you could just give everything away for free and have a monstrously effective lead generation machine.

All with about an hour’s worth of work.

Here’s how.

Rent a room somewhere. Might be at a hotel, or even better, at one of those office suites that are in virtually every city.

Invite some clients or prospective clients to come to hear you speak about your topic. (Maybe you charge/Maybe you don’t.) Try to get at least a dozen people.

Video tape the presentation. (Personally, I’d spend a few bucks to get it done professionally. It doesn’t cost a lot of money.)

Edit down the raw footage. If you use a Mac you can do it yourself using iMovie. I’m sure there’s a comparable program for those still using PCs. This becomes the video component of your information product.

When you do your presentation start off with an overview of what you’re going to be covering. This is the segment that you use on your squeeze page to promote the program.

Pay some kid a few bucks to strip out the audio portion of the video which you can then offer as a separate bonus. A lot of people like to listen to content rather than watch video, so it’s nice option to offer.

Pay a few more bucks to get the audio transcribed and now you’ve got a nice content-rich booklet to offer along with the video and audio.

If you don’t want to create an information product to sell, then just use the video of you doing the introduction as a hook to a free mini-course that offers segments from the rest of the video you shot.

If you line your ducks up in a row, this can basically be done over a weekend. I did a version of this when I created my Gentle Rain Blueprint program. You can see the final result here.

Food for thought
Mark
This free mini-course teaches you how to write a great sales letter.

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