Many people feel badly this holiday season about what they can’t do for, or provide to, their families.
The big question is do they feel badly enough, that on December 26th before sunrise, they will be determinedly at work learning a new trade, developing a more valuable and marketable skill, seeking a better job, starting a business on the side, or otherwise striving to be sure that the next time the Santa season rolls around, they are better able to enjoy it and give their family a top experience?
It is clear this past year was a year of recession, high unemployment, and low confidence. We are at a turning point, most likely a breaking point, and the future is looking far more entrepreneurial than corporate. Kiss goodbye any expectations of a fat corporate job coming your way.
So let’s use this post to provide a secret from Santa which is a lesson in economics and learn how we can use it for the Future of All Humanity.
Here is the lesson.
We either live or we die. To live we must consume. To consume we must produce. When we produce a surplus, we can exchange the surplus. We create a market to sell our surplus and buy what we need or desire.
One common enemy is scarcity. Our mission is survival. Our goal is abundance.
We want the best system of enterprise and minimal interference to produce the most wealth, distributed to the most people.
Since we are all in this together, we must all be in balance.
Our economic system consists of individuals (we the people), enterprise (which are businesses) and government. The job of enterprise is to create wealth for the individuals of the enterprise. Government’s job is to create a climate for creating wealth but in doing so, it is a net consumer of wealth as the only way government obtains money is by taxing the wealth, the income, or both, of businesses and individuals.
Wealth is anything that has value that people are willing to work for and pay for. Wealth is basic economics – creation, production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
It is important to understand and control the balance between enterprise and government.
Over time, government may grow faster than enterprise through “creep”; it happens slowly but surely. With higher wealth consumption, and lower wealth production, we are less rich because an expanding government becomes a net consumer of wealth with less enterprise to produce wealth.
As Santa says, when you learn the lessons of basic economics, you know a lot. Combined with the concepts of freedom, you can do a lot. Now, how can we use this lesson for the Future of All Humanity?
Well, entrepreneurs are the ones out there making an impact. They are starting up businesses, building things, creating jobs, and raising the standard of living throughout the world. In reality, they are the ones that have been creating all the jobs in the past 30 years. So entrepreneurs are the future of the world.
In addition, have you noticed that the world is changing faster than our current education system can handle? While there are many dedicated and amazing teachers and professors in our current system, they are just fighting a losing battle. It is clear that large chunks of our education system are moving online and this change is being lead by information marketers.
By being an entrepreneur, by being an information marketer, or having a business helping entrepreneurs and information marketers start and grow their businesses, you are about the Future of All Humanity … you are creating jobs and providing education.
Inspired by this lesson from Santa, make a New Year’s resolution to spend your time in the upcoming year (circa 2012) to obtain education and learn to be an entrepreneur. Work, mentor, teach, and inspire others to be entrepreneurs. The time you spend gaining the knowledge and applying the principles of entrepreneurialism will be for gain, good, and success; not loss, evil, or failure.
Be ready to create, and execute in unexpected ways, and of course be ready to provide for the Future of All Humanity.
I trust this post, with a lesson from Santa, has provided some background about economics, our freedom to choose, entrepreneurialism, information marketing, and inspiration to impact the Future of All Humanity.
In closing, be sure to Read More of my Posts on my Internet Marketing blog at aspenIbiz BlackBox; Obtain Some Tips About Being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, my Affiliate website; Learn How to be Savvy with Your Money Like the Insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money blog, and How to Live Longer at aspenIbiz My Life’s Advantage Today site.
Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!
You can join me and ennoble your efforts to build a better future! Check-out this Success Roadmap
Please be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Positioning Yourself and Your Business for Maximum Success
Positioning is admittedly an advertising buzzword but it is legitimately one of the most important marketing concepts you will ever consider in your business career.
One of the definitions of positioning is the controlling how your customers and prospective customers think and feel about your business in comparison to other, similar businesses competing for their attention.
Here are several positioning strategies that may seem obvious but many people overlook the obvious and cost themselves a lot of money as a result.
Positioning Strategy 1 – How to Describe What You Do to Attract the Customers You Want.
Let’s start with the name of your business. The best business names telegraph what the business does. For example, Dunkin Donuts is better than Starbucks. At the start, Apple and Amazon were mystery names however obviously they are now hugely successful brand name companies. The question you have to ask is whether or not you want to invest an enormous amount of money and patience in creating awareness and understanding of what your name represents or to start with a name that clearly represents what your business is and does.
Positioning Strategy 2 – How to Price.
You don’t ever want to be in a business that obtained its customers with the lure of “lowest prices.” You cannot build long-term customer retention via the cheapest price. The way you get a customer has great impact on how you will sell to that customer again. There will always be someone willing to offer a cheaper price. If the only thing binding your customers to your company is the lowest price, your business will be as fragile in its tenth year as in its tenth week.
Be sure to sell quality, value, service, and unique benefits; do not sell price.
One of the most interesting things about price is not its impact on profit and income but its impact on positioning. Often, under-pricing sends the wrong message. The business owner thinks he is optimizing sales by offering the lowest price possible but he actually creating skepticism and causing discerning customers to look elsewhere.
In the New Economy, the successful businesses, based on factors other than low or aggressively competitive pricing, outnumber successful businesses that feature low or lowest price promises by at least 500 to 1. Be sure to play the odds.
Positioning Strategy 3 – How to Make Your Image Work for You.
To be perceived as successful and trustworthy in your business, you must match the image of a successful business in your field.
Places of business, product packaging, literature, and advertising, all are subject to the same image concerns as are individual appearances.
We are taught that you can’t judge a book by its cover but we can’t help but judge a book by its cover. You will be judged that way, too!
Most businesses are better served by thinking about their marketing tools as “salesmanship in media” rather than as “advertising.” In simple terms, copy is king. Message matters most. Yes, the wrong presentation for a given market can sabotage event the best message. But the more common error is a beautiful presentation of – nothing.
Ultimately, there must be appropriate marriage of substance and style to make your image work for you. Customer’s expectations must be met and exceeded, anxiety avoided, reassurance given by the image presented by you, your staff, your physical location, and your marketing material.
Positioning Strategy 4 – Self-Appointment.
When we are kids, our parents “appoint us” old enough to stay home alone or old enough to babysit our younger brothers or sisters.
At work, employers or supervisors “promote us” as qualified to do a certain thing or handle a certain responsibility.
This conditioning is not particularly useful when you step into the world of owning your own business.
Please understand that you do not need anybody’s permission to be successful. If you wait for someone to grant you the permission to be successful, you will wait a long, long time.
Business success just is not conferred upon you.
Power and influence is not granted – it is taken.
Expert positioning is all about self-appointment, self-promotion, and self-aggrandizement. Make this note: you become a promotable expert by decision, acquisition, and organization of information, pronouncement, and promotion. Not by anointment by some authority on high.
How do you do this? Write books, give teleseminars, build lists of customers interested in your product or service.
Your positioning decision is the difference between a six-figure income and a seven-figure income based on investor partnering potential, with many clients, as this is the income-multiplying power of positioning.
In positioning yourself and your business for success, you have to clearly determine who you are, then drive that message home to your marketplace. It is also important to make the right decision as the marketplace will usually accept the positioning you chose for yourself, and present to others, as you really are in control of the positioning.
Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on positioning yourself as an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.
This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
A great book to read is "No B.S. Business Success in the New Economy" by Dan S Kennedy as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
One of the definitions of positioning is the controlling how your customers and prospective customers think and feel about your business in comparison to other, similar businesses competing for their attention.
Here are several positioning strategies that may seem obvious but many people overlook the obvious and cost themselves a lot of money as a result.
Positioning Strategy 1 – How to Describe What You Do to Attract the Customers You Want.
Let’s start with the name of your business. The best business names telegraph what the business does. For example, Dunkin Donuts is better than Starbucks. At the start, Apple and Amazon were mystery names however obviously they are now hugely successful brand name companies. The question you have to ask is whether or not you want to invest an enormous amount of money and patience in creating awareness and understanding of what your name represents or to start with a name that clearly represents what your business is and does.
Positioning Strategy 2 – How to Price.
You don’t ever want to be in a business that obtained its customers with the lure of “lowest prices.” You cannot build long-term customer retention via the cheapest price. The way you get a customer has great impact on how you will sell to that customer again. There will always be someone willing to offer a cheaper price. If the only thing binding your customers to your company is the lowest price, your business will be as fragile in its tenth year as in its tenth week.
Be sure to sell quality, value, service, and unique benefits; do not sell price.
One of the most interesting things about price is not its impact on profit and income but its impact on positioning. Often, under-pricing sends the wrong message. The business owner thinks he is optimizing sales by offering the lowest price possible but he actually creating skepticism and causing discerning customers to look elsewhere.
In the New Economy, the successful businesses, based on factors other than low or aggressively competitive pricing, outnumber successful businesses that feature low or lowest price promises by at least 500 to 1. Be sure to play the odds.
Positioning Strategy 3 – How to Make Your Image Work for You.
To be perceived as successful and trustworthy in your business, you must match the image of a successful business in your field.
Places of business, product packaging, literature, and advertising, all are subject to the same image concerns as are individual appearances.
We are taught that you can’t judge a book by its cover but we can’t help but judge a book by its cover. You will be judged that way, too!
Most businesses are better served by thinking about their marketing tools as “salesmanship in media” rather than as “advertising.” In simple terms, copy is king. Message matters most. Yes, the wrong presentation for a given market can sabotage event the best message. But the more common error is a beautiful presentation of – nothing.
Ultimately, there must be appropriate marriage of substance and style to make your image work for you. Customer’s expectations must be met and exceeded, anxiety avoided, reassurance given by the image presented by you, your staff, your physical location, and your marketing material.
Positioning Strategy 4 – Self-Appointment.
When we are kids, our parents “appoint us” old enough to stay home alone or old enough to babysit our younger brothers or sisters.
At work, employers or supervisors “promote us” as qualified to do a certain thing or handle a certain responsibility.
This conditioning is not particularly useful when you step into the world of owning your own business.
Please understand that you do not need anybody’s permission to be successful. If you wait for someone to grant you the permission to be successful, you will wait a long, long time.
Business success just is not conferred upon you.
Power and influence is not granted – it is taken.
Expert positioning is all about self-appointment, self-promotion, and self-aggrandizement. Make this note: you become a promotable expert by decision, acquisition, and organization of information, pronouncement, and promotion. Not by anointment by some authority on high.
How do you do this? Write books, give teleseminars, build lists of customers interested in your product or service.
Your positioning decision is the difference between a six-figure income and a seven-figure income based on investor partnering potential, with many clients, as this is the income-multiplying power of positioning.
In positioning yourself and your business for success, you have to clearly determine who you are, then drive that message home to your marketplace. It is also important to make the right decision as the marketplace will usually accept the positioning you chose for yourself, and present to others, as you really are in control of the positioning.
Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on positioning yourself as an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.
This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
A great book to read is "No B.S. Business Success in the New Economy" by Dan S Kennedy as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
Monday, October 31, 2011
The Key Tools of Marketing and the Weapons of Influence
Before you can have your ultimate, fine-tuned business, you must turbo-charge every aspect. Use the 7 Key Tools of Marketing and the 6 Weapons of Influence to get peak performance out of your business.
This post will identify and briefly explain each of the 7 Key Tools of Marketing. It is important to understand that once the mechanics of setting up and operating these 7 Key Tools is performed, it is the message that will influence the reader to take the action you want them to take. There are 6 Key Weapons of Influence and this post will briefly introduce them. It is the combination of the mechanics of marketing, or the 7 Key Tools of Marketing, and the message principles, or the Weapons of Influence, that enable your business to be successful!
Here are the 7 Key Tools of Marketing.
Tool 1. Advertising. If you have the budget for it, advertising has the broadest reach and creates the most top-of-mind awareness. Here is what you must do to create high response-generating advertising. Be distinctive. Capture attention with a screaming headline. After your headline hooks them, the copy or the message in the body of your ad has to keep them reading. Be sure to include a Call to Action.
Tool 2. Direct Mail. A successful direct mail campaign depends on how regular and consistent your mailings are. First, use color as much as you can. Second, put messages on the envelopes. Third, think about the way you sort your own mail to increase the chances of the envelope being opened. In conclusion, use direct mail as a weapon for attacking your dream prospects.
Tool 3. Corporate Literature. Consider corporate literature to be like your direct mail pieces. Your brochures must draw from your education-based marketing efforts and should be a miniature version of your pitch or core story. It must have riveting data however remember that facts tell but stories sell. Use the same graphics that you use in your presentations, advertisements, and direct mail pieces to enhance cohesion of your marketing efforts.
Tool 4. Public Relations. If you throw splashy events such as trade show parties and benefits for your clients, you are doing PR work. PR also includes press releases, building relationships with the press to get articles written about you, and affiliating with strong forces that can help you such as trade associations and community groups. Most companies do not have a cohesive, highly effective public relations effort, yet it can work miracles for building your fame, even if you are a small company, especially with the reach and pervasiveness of the Internet.
Tool 5. Personal Contact. Personal contact is the most potent form of marketing so do it often and have quality conversations with your prospects.
Tool 6. Trade Shows and Market Education. Trade shows are a great way to provide product and market related information to your prospects. When done properly, it can take you from obscurity to the top of the market in a single event. If not done properly, it can be a big waste of money. Follow these three rules to have a great trade show. 1. Get noticed. 2. Drive traffic. 3. Capture leads.
Tool 7. Internet. The Internet can create an awesome opportunity for your business or it can become your worst nightmare overnight if some competitor learns how to utilize it better than you. As an example, Amazon struggled in its early years but it still took $1B in market share from other booksellers. Because Amazon grew with the Internet, it reached the $1B in sales in four years. Prior to the Internet, other bookstore chains took 50 years to reach $1B in sales. Here are the five key activities to perform on the Internet. 1. Capture leads. 2. Build a relationship. 3. Interact as much as possible. 4. Offer a webinar. 5. Convert traffic to sales.
It is important for all these key tools of marketing to work together. Your content and your message should be, of course, consistent and all the duplicated, or syndicated, content be cross-referenced in some manner.
Here are some important questions to ask as a way to ensure the key tools of marketing are effective. Are all your articles on your website? Are they available as downloads? Are they available to site visitors so they can be shared and or mailed to others by your site visitors? Does your content generate leads for your business? Do you offer free education as a way of building your leads list?
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, it is important that the weapons of influence (contained in your content, your pitch, your storyboard) are used to get your prospects to take the action you want them to take.
To help you understand the power of the weapons of influence, do you feel as if you are an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers or fund-raisers? Do you find yourself in possession of unwanted magazine subscriptions or tickets to various charity events? Why is it that a request stated in a certain way, is rejected while a request asking for the same favor in a slightly different way will be successful? The key is the psychology of persuasion, sometimes referred to as the weapons of influence.
Here are the 6 Weapons of Influence that need to be considered when preparing your message.
Weapon 1. Reciprocity. This rule is the old give and take and says that we should try to repay in kind what another person has provided us.
Weapon 2. Commitment and Consistency. Like other weapons of influence, this rule is quite simply our desire to be, and to appear to be, consistent with what we have already done. As an example, if we buy a small item, we are frequently asked if we would like to supersize it, or buy another item for 50% (as an example) more; all presented to us at the same time. This is part of the up-sell process.
Weapon 3. Social Proof. This rule states that we determine what is correct when we find out what other people think is correct. Said another way, we think we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it. This is why testimonials are so popular for a product; they make us think that if all the people in the testimonials like or are using the product, how could we be wrong for also using it.
Weapon 4. Liking. This rule is based on the fact the most of us would prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like. As trivial as it may seem, prospects are more likely to purchase from a sales person if the sales person were similar to the prospect in terms of age, sex, religion, politics, and several other factors such as recreation, and even career, activities.
Weapon 5. Authority. We are trained from birth that obedience to proper authority is right and that disobedience is wrong. This message is carried forward in the legal, medical, military, and political systems we encounter as adults. Advertisers frequently harness the respect and influence accorded to doctors in our culture by hiring actors to play the role of a doctor and speak in a positive way about a product. The message from the doctor, an authority figure, can sway or influence prospects to purchase the product.
Weapon 6. Scarcity. The appeal for something of interest increases when we learn that it will soon become unavailable. This is based on the rule of scarcity. There is a secondary source of power, or influence, with the scarcity principle. As opportunities become less available, we lose freedoms and we hate to lose freedoms we already have. Whenever free choice is limited, due to the scarcity of something, the need to retain our freedom makes us desire them significantly more than we did previously.
By understanding and using these weapons, you have the ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people that have a willingness to say yes without thinking first.
With the ever-accelerating pace and information crush of modern life, this form of hypnotic writing that generates unthinking compliance will be more and more prevalent in the future.
As a result, it will be important to understand the how and why of automatic persuasion using the weapons of influence.
The 7 Key Tools of Marketing and the 6 Weapons of Influence are being used by The New Professionals as a driving force for their success with their home-based businesses. As The New Professionals are becoming The Next Millionaires, this makes a home-based business opportunity very appealing for many seeking a career change.
Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on being an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.
This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "Influence" by Robert B Cialdini as it explains The Psychology of Persuasion.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about Being No 1 on Google, and learn how to Be Savvy with Your Money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
This post will identify and briefly explain each of the 7 Key Tools of Marketing. It is important to understand that once the mechanics of setting up and operating these 7 Key Tools is performed, it is the message that will influence the reader to take the action you want them to take. There are 6 Key Weapons of Influence and this post will briefly introduce them. It is the combination of the mechanics of marketing, or the 7 Key Tools of Marketing, and the message principles, or the Weapons of Influence, that enable your business to be successful!
Here are the 7 Key Tools of Marketing.
Tool 1. Advertising. If you have the budget for it, advertising has the broadest reach and creates the most top-of-mind awareness. Here is what you must do to create high response-generating advertising. Be distinctive. Capture attention with a screaming headline. After your headline hooks them, the copy or the message in the body of your ad has to keep them reading. Be sure to include a Call to Action.
Tool 2. Direct Mail. A successful direct mail campaign depends on how regular and consistent your mailings are. First, use color as much as you can. Second, put messages on the envelopes. Third, think about the way you sort your own mail to increase the chances of the envelope being opened. In conclusion, use direct mail as a weapon for attacking your dream prospects.
Tool 3. Corporate Literature. Consider corporate literature to be like your direct mail pieces. Your brochures must draw from your education-based marketing efforts and should be a miniature version of your pitch or core story. It must have riveting data however remember that facts tell but stories sell. Use the same graphics that you use in your presentations, advertisements, and direct mail pieces to enhance cohesion of your marketing efforts.
Tool 4. Public Relations. If you throw splashy events such as trade show parties and benefits for your clients, you are doing PR work. PR also includes press releases, building relationships with the press to get articles written about you, and affiliating with strong forces that can help you such as trade associations and community groups. Most companies do not have a cohesive, highly effective public relations effort, yet it can work miracles for building your fame, even if you are a small company, especially with the reach and pervasiveness of the Internet.
Tool 5. Personal Contact. Personal contact is the most potent form of marketing so do it often and have quality conversations with your prospects.
Tool 6. Trade Shows and Market Education. Trade shows are a great way to provide product and market related information to your prospects. When done properly, it can take you from obscurity to the top of the market in a single event. If not done properly, it can be a big waste of money. Follow these three rules to have a great trade show. 1. Get noticed. 2. Drive traffic. 3. Capture leads.
Tool 7. Internet. The Internet can create an awesome opportunity for your business or it can become your worst nightmare overnight if some competitor learns how to utilize it better than you. As an example, Amazon struggled in its early years but it still took $1B in market share from other booksellers. Because Amazon grew with the Internet, it reached the $1B in sales in four years. Prior to the Internet, other bookstore chains took 50 years to reach $1B in sales. Here are the five key activities to perform on the Internet. 1. Capture leads. 2. Build a relationship. 3. Interact as much as possible. 4. Offer a webinar. 5. Convert traffic to sales.
It is important for all these key tools of marketing to work together. Your content and your message should be, of course, consistent and all the duplicated, or syndicated, content be cross-referenced in some manner.
Here are some important questions to ask as a way to ensure the key tools of marketing are effective. Are all your articles on your website? Are they available as downloads? Are they available to site visitors so they can be shared and or mailed to others by your site visitors? Does your content generate leads for your business? Do you offer free education as a way of building your leads list?
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, it is important that the weapons of influence (contained in your content, your pitch, your storyboard) are used to get your prospects to take the action you want them to take.
To help you understand the power of the weapons of influence, do you feel as if you are an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers or fund-raisers? Do you find yourself in possession of unwanted magazine subscriptions or tickets to various charity events? Why is it that a request stated in a certain way, is rejected while a request asking for the same favor in a slightly different way will be successful? The key is the psychology of persuasion, sometimes referred to as the weapons of influence.
Here are the 6 Weapons of Influence that need to be considered when preparing your message.
Weapon 1. Reciprocity. This rule is the old give and take and says that we should try to repay in kind what another person has provided us.
Weapon 2. Commitment and Consistency. Like other weapons of influence, this rule is quite simply our desire to be, and to appear to be, consistent with what we have already done. As an example, if we buy a small item, we are frequently asked if we would like to supersize it, or buy another item for 50% (as an example) more; all presented to us at the same time. This is part of the up-sell process.
Weapon 3. Social Proof. This rule states that we determine what is correct when we find out what other people think is correct. Said another way, we think we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it. This is why testimonials are so popular for a product; they make us think that if all the people in the testimonials like or are using the product, how could we be wrong for also using it.
Weapon 4. Liking. This rule is based on the fact the most of us would prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like. As trivial as it may seem, prospects are more likely to purchase from a sales person if the sales person were similar to the prospect in terms of age, sex, religion, politics, and several other factors such as recreation, and even career, activities.
Weapon 5. Authority. We are trained from birth that obedience to proper authority is right and that disobedience is wrong. This message is carried forward in the legal, medical, military, and political systems we encounter as adults. Advertisers frequently harness the respect and influence accorded to doctors in our culture by hiring actors to play the role of a doctor and speak in a positive way about a product. The message from the doctor, an authority figure, can sway or influence prospects to purchase the product.
Weapon 6. Scarcity. The appeal for something of interest increases when we learn that it will soon become unavailable. This is based on the rule of scarcity. There is a secondary source of power, or influence, with the scarcity principle. As opportunities become less available, we lose freedoms and we hate to lose freedoms we already have. Whenever free choice is limited, due to the scarcity of something, the need to retain our freedom makes us desire them significantly more than we did previously.
By understanding and using these weapons, you have the ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people that have a willingness to say yes without thinking first.
With the ever-accelerating pace and information crush of modern life, this form of hypnotic writing that generates unthinking compliance will be more and more prevalent in the future.
As a result, it will be important to understand the how and why of automatic persuasion using the weapons of influence.
The 7 Key Tools of Marketing and the 6 Weapons of Influence are being used by The New Professionals as a driving force for their success with their home-based businesses. As The New Professionals are becoming The Next Millionaires, this makes a home-based business opportunity very appealing for many seeking a career change.
Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on being an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.
This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "Influence" by Robert B Cialdini as it explains The Psychology of Persuasion.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about Being No 1 on Google, and learn how to Be Savvy with Your Money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!
Friday, September 30, 2011
Finding Balance with Career Changes
What would it be like to quit your job and start over in a more appealing career?
If you are an older worker, youi may think that a major career change would require overcoming too many obstacles to be worthwhile like age discrimination, new technology, or a salary cut.
However the real obstacles to a midlife career change may reside in your own mind.
Here are several myths surrounding a midlife career change and these keep people from pursuing their dream job.
Myth 1. I am too old to make a career change. Without changing your perception of your capabilities, you will never make a successful career change. Unfortunately, while younger workers are often expected to explore different career paths, older workers are not encouraged to do so. And if you have progressed up the corporate ladder to an enviable position, friends and family may be shocked you would consider leaving success for uncharted waters. With this much pressure to stay put, it can be easy to allow your dream job to remain only a dream. Some serious soul-searching is needed to understand how and why you want your career to change, so you will have the conviction to stand up to others.
You can have access to one of the most powerful tools for self-improvement and goal attainment, so necessary in making a career change, by learning the techniques of Psycho-Cybernetics. In the book “The New Psycho-Cybernetics” Dan Kennedy updates the work of Maxwell Maltz. Kennedy explains that by using the techniques covered in this book, you will be able to improve your self-image and overcome limiting beliefs especially the myth that you are too old to make a career change.
Myth 2. If I make a career change, I will be starting at the bottom. Even though you may be new at a company, you are not the newbie you were when you entered the workforce. You have gained an impressive array of skills, plus you have professional wisdom and perspective acquired only through time. The key to bypassing entry-level status is to market these assets in your next interview.
Your life story and experience have greater importance and market value than you probably ever dreamed. The best way to make a difference in this world is to use your knowledge and advice to help others succeed. You can get paid, and bypass the entry-level status, by sharing your advice and how-to-information.
Myth 3. This old dog can’t learn new tricks. Says who? Of course there will be a learning curve to any new career you try. But isn’t having a new professional challenge part of why you seek this change? The goal is to find your innate strengths and interests.
Said another way is that once you know Why you want to do something, you will figure out How to do something… it is just natures way. Why is the reason we get out of bed in the morning. If you spring out of bed, you have a Why that is real, defined, and you believe in. If you have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, then you need to find your Why. Simon Sinek provides examples in his book “Start with Why”. The Wright Brothers had a Why that was to develop a technology that would change the world. Steve Jobs of Apple had a Why which was to create value by disrupting the status quo in certain industries. Henry Ford wanted to provide a means of transportation for the common man not just to provide a faster horse. The power of learning something new comes from that part of our brain called the limbric brain and this power is astounding. It can influence us to do things that seem illogical or irrational. Without this power there would be no small businesses; there would be no exploration; there would be very little innovation; and there would be no great leaders to inspire all these things.
If these myths are stopping you from pursuing a career change in your midlife, expand your thinking about your capabilities instead of focusing on what you see holding you back. Also, consider that accepting these myths is easier than taking a risk. If you were to read the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek, it would fan the flames inside you, lead you to levels of excellence you never considered attainable, and debunk the myths surrounding a midlife career change.
If you are ready to take the professional plunge into a new career then you should “Go for it” with these words of caution.
Keep your expectations realistic. If you have been fantasizing that your dream job will be the antidote to your personal and professional troubles, you may be glorifying what a new career can really do. Research the economic outlook and job duties for your new career.
Give it time. Deciding to venture into a new career can mean changes in your work environment, coworkers, income, and how you view yourself. Even if your new position is something you have always wanted to do, all these changes can be a shock. Before calling it quits, allow enough time to let the dust settle and adjust to your new profession.
Know yourself. You have a history of professional and personal experience to draw from when determining your natural strengths. Think about what you truly enjoy, what you do well, and what you are proud of. Is there a underlying theme?
Another opportunity being considered by many seeking a career change is a home-based business opportunity. A home business can offer people a way to update their skills and use new tools to create new income opportunities. It can empower seasoned workers, seeking to a make a career change, to venture out on their own as entrepreneurs and grow in confidence, versus being consumed by the fear associated with a shrinking job market.
Technology is available to everyone at home and it is even better than what you can get in a large company. The best tools and support needed to run a home-based business are now available to individuals at an affordable cost. This makes a home-based business opportunity very appealing.
Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on being an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.
This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "Linchpin" by Seth Godin as it explains to each of us how we can make an indispensable contribution to something we care about.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Please share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message!
If you are an older worker, youi may think that a major career change would require overcoming too many obstacles to be worthwhile like age discrimination, new technology, or a salary cut.
However the real obstacles to a midlife career change may reside in your own mind.
Here are several myths surrounding a midlife career change and these keep people from pursuing their dream job.
Myth 1. I am too old to make a career change. Without changing your perception of your capabilities, you will never make a successful career change. Unfortunately, while younger workers are often expected to explore different career paths, older workers are not encouraged to do so. And if you have progressed up the corporate ladder to an enviable position, friends and family may be shocked you would consider leaving success for uncharted waters. With this much pressure to stay put, it can be easy to allow your dream job to remain only a dream. Some serious soul-searching is needed to understand how and why you want your career to change, so you will have the conviction to stand up to others.
You can have access to one of the most powerful tools for self-improvement and goal attainment, so necessary in making a career change, by learning the techniques of Psycho-Cybernetics. In the book “The New Psycho-Cybernetics” Dan Kennedy updates the work of Maxwell Maltz. Kennedy explains that by using the techniques covered in this book, you will be able to improve your self-image and overcome limiting beliefs especially the myth that you are too old to make a career change.
Myth 2. If I make a career change, I will be starting at the bottom. Even though you may be new at a company, you are not the newbie you were when you entered the workforce. You have gained an impressive array of skills, plus you have professional wisdom and perspective acquired only through time. The key to bypassing entry-level status is to market these assets in your next interview.
Your life story and experience have greater importance and market value than you probably ever dreamed. The best way to make a difference in this world is to use your knowledge and advice to help others succeed. You can get paid, and bypass the entry-level status, by sharing your advice and how-to-information.
Myth 3. This old dog can’t learn new tricks. Says who? Of course there will be a learning curve to any new career you try. But isn’t having a new professional challenge part of why you seek this change? The goal is to find your innate strengths and interests.
Said another way is that once you know Why you want to do something, you will figure out How to do something… it is just natures way. Why is the reason we get out of bed in the morning. If you spring out of bed, you have a Why that is real, defined, and you believe in. If you have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, then you need to find your Why. Simon Sinek provides examples in his book “Start with Why”. The Wright Brothers had a Why that was to develop a technology that would change the world. Steve Jobs of Apple had a Why which was to create value by disrupting the status quo in certain industries. Henry Ford wanted to provide a means of transportation for the common man not just to provide a faster horse. The power of learning something new comes from that part of our brain called the limbric brain and this power is astounding. It can influence us to do things that seem illogical or irrational. Without this power there would be no small businesses; there would be no exploration; there would be very little innovation; and there would be no great leaders to inspire all these things.
If these myths are stopping you from pursuing a career change in your midlife, expand your thinking about your capabilities instead of focusing on what you see holding you back. Also, consider that accepting these myths is easier than taking a risk. If you were to read the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek, it would fan the flames inside you, lead you to levels of excellence you never considered attainable, and debunk the myths surrounding a midlife career change.
If you are ready to take the professional plunge into a new career then you should “Go for it” with these words of caution.
Keep your expectations realistic. If you have been fantasizing that your dream job will be the antidote to your personal and professional troubles, you may be glorifying what a new career can really do. Research the economic outlook and job duties for your new career.
Give it time. Deciding to venture into a new career can mean changes in your work environment, coworkers, income, and how you view yourself. Even if your new position is something you have always wanted to do, all these changes can be a shock. Before calling it quits, allow enough time to let the dust settle and adjust to your new profession.
Know yourself. You have a history of professional and personal experience to draw from when determining your natural strengths. Think about what you truly enjoy, what you do well, and what you are proud of. Is there a underlying theme?
Another opportunity being considered by many seeking a career change is a home-based business opportunity. A home business can offer people a way to update their skills and use new tools to create new income opportunities. It can empower seasoned workers, seeking to a make a career change, to venture out on their own as entrepreneurs and grow in confidence, versus being consumed by the fear associated with a shrinking job market.
Technology is available to everyone at home and it is even better than what you can get in a large company. The best tools and support needed to run a home-based business are now available to individuals at an affordable cost. This makes a home-based business opportunity very appealing.
Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on being an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.
This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "Linchpin" by Seth Godin as it explains to each of us how we can make an indispensable contribution to something we care about.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Please share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message!
Monday, August 29, 2011
The Law of Resources – An Idea Will Not Get Off the Ground Without Adequate Funding
If you have a good idea and you are reading this article with the thought in mind that all you need is a little marketing help, let me through cold water on that thought.
Even the best idea in the world will not go very far without the money to get it off the ground. Inventors, entrepreneurs, and assorted idea generators seem to think that all their good ideas need is professional marketing help.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Marketing is a game fought in the mind of the prospect. You need money to get into a mind. And you need money to stay in the mind once you get there.
You will get further with a mediocre idea and a million dollars than with a great idea alone.
Some entrepreneurs see advertising as the solution to the problem of getting into prospects’ minds. Advertising is expensive. It cost $9,000 a minute to fight World War II. It cost $22,000 a minute to fight the Vietnam War. A one-minute commercial shown during the Super Bowl in 2011 cost you $6 M for a one minute spot.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had a great idea. But it was Mike Markkula’s $91,000 that put Apple Computer on the map. For his money, Markkula got one-third of Apple.
Ideas without money are worthless. Well … not quite. But you have to use your idea to find the money not the marketing help. The marketing can come later.
Some entrepreneurs see publicity as a cheap way of getting into prospects’ minds. “Free advertising” is how they see it, so be sure to liberally create, upload, and distribute Free Press Releases.
Some entrepreneurs see venture capitalists as the solution to their money problems. But only a tiny percentage of entrepreneurs ever succeed in finding the funding they need this way.
Some entrepreneurs see corporate America as ready, willing, and financially able to get their off-spring off the ground. Good luck as you will need it. Very few outside ideas are ever accepted by large companies. Your only real hope is finding a smaller company and persuading it of the merits of your idea.
Remember, an idea without money is worthless. Be prepared to give away a lot for the funding.
In marketing the rich often get richer because they have the resources to drive their ideas into the mind. Their problem is separating the good ideas from the bad ones and avoiding spending money on too many products and too many programs.
Unlike a consumer product, a technical or business product has to raise less marketing money because the prospect list is shorter and media is less expensive. But there is still a need for adequate funding for a technical product to pay for brochures, sales, presentations, and trade shows as well as advertising.
Here is the bottom line. First get the idea, then go get the money to exploit it. Here are some short cuts you could take.
You can marry the money. Georgette Mosbacher married Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher. Three years after their marriage, Ms. Mosbacher bought a Swiss cosmetics firm. Where did she get the money? It came from venture capitalists; distributors in Switzerland and Japan; plus her husband’s resources. One year after her purchase, the sales were up 30% and she sold out at a heft profit.
You can divorce the money. Frances Lear arrived in New York at the age of 61 freshly divorced from her husband who produced the TV show “All in the Family.” Determined to launch a magazine for women over 40, she spent $25 million and by the fifth issue, Lear’s magazine had 350,000 readers.
You can find the money at home. Donald Trump would never have gotten anywhere with out Dad’s millions behind him.
You can share your idea by franchising it. Tom Monaghan was able to put Domino’s Pizza on the map by pursuing an aggressive program of franchising his home delivery idea.
The more successful marketers front load their investment. In other words, they take no profit for two or three years as they plow all earnings back into marketing.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Resources. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from their idea without resources. Money makes the marketing world go around. If you want to be successful today, you will have to find the money you need to spin those marketing wheels.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Resources.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Resources as your idea will not get off the ground without adequate funding.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Even the best idea in the world will not go very far without the money to get it off the ground. Inventors, entrepreneurs, and assorted idea generators seem to think that all their good ideas need is professional marketing help.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Marketing is a game fought in the mind of the prospect. You need money to get into a mind. And you need money to stay in the mind once you get there.
You will get further with a mediocre idea and a million dollars than with a great idea alone.
Some entrepreneurs see advertising as the solution to the problem of getting into prospects’ minds. Advertising is expensive. It cost $9,000 a minute to fight World War II. It cost $22,000 a minute to fight the Vietnam War. A one-minute commercial shown during the Super Bowl in 2011 cost you $6 M for a one minute spot.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had a great idea. But it was Mike Markkula’s $91,000 that put Apple Computer on the map. For his money, Markkula got one-third of Apple.
Ideas without money are worthless. Well … not quite. But you have to use your idea to find the money not the marketing help. The marketing can come later.
Some entrepreneurs see publicity as a cheap way of getting into prospects’ minds. “Free advertising” is how they see it, so be sure to liberally create, upload, and distribute Free Press Releases.
Some entrepreneurs see venture capitalists as the solution to their money problems. But only a tiny percentage of entrepreneurs ever succeed in finding the funding they need this way.
Some entrepreneurs see corporate America as ready, willing, and financially able to get their off-spring off the ground. Good luck as you will need it. Very few outside ideas are ever accepted by large companies. Your only real hope is finding a smaller company and persuading it of the merits of your idea.
Remember, an idea without money is worthless. Be prepared to give away a lot for the funding.
In marketing the rich often get richer because they have the resources to drive their ideas into the mind. Their problem is separating the good ideas from the bad ones and avoiding spending money on too many products and too many programs.
Unlike a consumer product, a technical or business product has to raise less marketing money because the prospect list is shorter and media is less expensive. But there is still a need for adequate funding for a technical product to pay for brochures, sales, presentations, and trade shows as well as advertising.
Here is the bottom line. First get the idea, then go get the money to exploit it. Here are some short cuts you could take.
You can marry the money. Georgette Mosbacher married Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher. Three years after their marriage, Ms. Mosbacher bought a Swiss cosmetics firm. Where did she get the money? It came from venture capitalists; distributors in Switzerland and Japan; plus her husband’s resources. One year after her purchase, the sales were up 30% and she sold out at a heft profit.
You can divorce the money. Frances Lear arrived in New York at the age of 61 freshly divorced from her husband who produced the TV show “All in the Family.” Determined to launch a magazine for women over 40, she spent $25 million and by the fifth issue, Lear’s magazine had 350,000 readers.
You can find the money at home. Donald Trump would never have gotten anywhere with out Dad’s millions behind him.
You can share your idea by franchising it. Tom Monaghan was able to put Domino’s Pizza on the map by pursuing an aggressive program of franchising his home delivery idea.
The more successful marketers front load their investment. In other words, they take no profit for two or three years as they plow all earnings back into marketing.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Resources. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from their idea without resources. Money makes the marketing world go around. If you want to be successful today, you will have to find the money you need to spin those marketing wheels.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Resources.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Resources as your idea will not get off the ground without adequate funding.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Friday, July 29, 2011
The Law of Acceleration – Successful program are not built on fads, they are built on trends
A fad is a wave in the ocean and a trend is the tide.
A fad gets a lot of hype and a trend gets very little.
Like a wave, a fad is very visible but it goes up and down in a big hurry. Like the tide, a trend is almost invisible but it is very powerful over the long term.
A fad is a short-term phenomenon that might be profitable but a fad does not last long enough to do a company much good. Furthermore, a company often tends to gear up as if a fad were a trend. As a result, the company is often stuck with a lot of staff, expensive manufacturing facilities, and distribution networks.
A fashion, on the other hand, is a fad that repeats itself. Examples are short skirts for women and double breasted suits for men. Halley’s Comet is a fashion because it comes back every 75 years or so.
When the fad disappears, a company often goes into a deep financial shock. What happened to Atari is typical in this respect. And look how Coleco Industries handled the Cabbage Patch Kids. Those homely dools hit the market and started to take off. Coleco’s strategy was to milk the kids for all they were worth.
Hundreds of Cabbage Patch novelties flooded the toy stores. Pens, pencils, crayon boxes, games, clothing. Two years later, Coleco racked up sales of $776 million and profits of $83 million. Then the bottom dropped out of the Cabbage patch Kids. A few years later, Coleco went into Chapter 11.
Coleco died but the kids live on. Acquired by Hasbro, the Cabbage Patch Kids are now being handled conservatively and doing quite well.
Here is the paradox. If you were faced with a rapidly rising business, with all the characteristics of a fad, the best thing you could do would be to dampen the fad. By dampening the fad, you stretch the fad out and it becomes more like a trend.
You see this in the toy business. Some owners of hot toys want to put their hot toy name on everything. The result is that it becomes an enormous fad that is bound to collapse. When everybody has a Ninja turtle, nobody wants one anymore.
The Ninja turtle is a good example of a fad that collapses in a hurry because the owner of the concept got greedy. The owner fans the fad rather than dampening it.
On the other hand, the Barbie doll is a trend. When Barbie was invented year ago, the doll was never heavily merchandised into other areas. As a result, the Barbie doll has become a long-term trend in the toy business.
The most successful entertainers are the ones who control their appearances. They do not overextend themselves. They are not all over the place. They do not wear out their welcome.
Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Parker, made a deliberate attempt to restrict the number of appearances and records the King made. As a result, every time Elvis appeared, it was an event of enormous impact. Elvis himself contributed to this strategy by overdosing early and severely dampening his future appearances, as did Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.
Forget fads. And when they appear, try to dampen them.
But the best and most profitable thing to ride in marketing is a long-term trend.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Acceleration. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from all the hype. They work hard to maintain a long-term demand for their product and to never totally satisfy the demand … they enforce some scarcity.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Acceleration.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Acceleration as successful program are not built on fads, they are built on trends.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
A fad gets a lot of hype and a trend gets very little.
Like a wave, a fad is very visible but it goes up and down in a big hurry. Like the tide, a trend is almost invisible but it is very powerful over the long term.
A fad is a short-term phenomenon that might be profitable but a fad does not last long enough to do a company much good. Furthermore, a company often tends to gear up as if a fad were a trend. As a result, the company is often stuck with a lot of staff, expensive manufacturing facilities, and distribution networks.
A fashion, on the other hand, is a fad that repeats itself. Examples are short skirts for women and double breasted suits for men. Halley’s Comet is a fashion because it comes back every 75 years or so.
When the fad disappears, a company often goes into a deep financial shock. What happened to Atari is typical in this respect. And look how Coleco Industries handled the Cabbage Patch Kids. Those homely dools hit the market and started to take off. Coleco’s strategy was to milk the kids for all they were worth.
Hundreds of Cabbage Patch novelties flooded the toy stores. Pens, pencils, crayon boxes, games, clothing. Two years later, Coleco racked up sales of $776 million and profits of $83 million. Then the bottom dropped out of the Cabbage patch Kids. A few years later, Coleco went into Chapter 11.
Coleco died but the kids live on. Acquired by Hasbro, the Cabbage Patch Kids are now being handled conservatively and doing quite well.
Here is the paradox. If you were faced with a rapidly rising business, with all the characteristics of a fad, the best thing you could do would be to dampen the fad. By dampening the fad, you stretch the fad out and it becomes more like a trend.
You see this in the toy business. Some owners of hot toys want to put their hot toy name on everything. The result is that it becomes an enormous fad that is bound to collapse. When everybody has a Ninja turtle, nobody wants one anymore.
The Ninja turtle is a good example of a fad that collapses in a hurry because the owner of the concept got greedy. The owner fans the fad rather than dampening it.
On the other hand, the Barbie doll is a trend. When Barbie was invented year ago, the doll was never heavily merchandised into other areas. As a result, the Barbie doll has become a long-term trend in the toy business.
The most successful entertainers are the ones who control their appearances. They do not overextend themselves. They are not all over the place. They do not wear out their welcome.
Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Parker, made a deliberate attempt to restrict the number of appearances and records the King made. As a result, every time Elvis appeared, it was an event of enormous impact. Elvis himself contributed to this strategy by overdosing early and severely dampening his future appearances, as did Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.
Forget fads. And when they appear, try to dampen them.
But the best and most profitable thing to ride in marketing is a long-term trend.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Acceleration. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from all the hype. They work hard to maintain a long-term demand for their product and to never totally satisfy the demand … they enforce some scarcity.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Acceleration.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Acceleration as successful program are not built on fads, they are built on trends.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Law of Hype – The Situation Is Often the Opposite of the Way it Appears in the Press
This year (circa 2011) marks the 100th birthday of IBM and over these years, when IBM was successful, the company said very little.
When things are going well, a company does not need the hype. When you need the hype, it usually means you are in trouble.
Young and inexperienced reporters and editors tend to be more impressed by what they read in other publications than by what they gather themselves. Once the hype starts, it often continues on and on.
No newspaper has received more hype than USA Today. At its launch a number of years ago were the president of the United States, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. The residue of this initial hype is still so great that most people can not believe USA Today is a loser.
History is filled with marketing failures that were successful in the press. The Tucker 48, the U.S. Football League, the personal helicopter, and polyester suits. The essence of the hype was not just that the new product was going to be successful. The essence of the hype was that existing products would now be obsolete.
Polyester was going to make wool obsolete. The personal helicopter was going to make the roads and highways obsolete. The Tucker 48 with its cyclop’s eye headlight would revolutionize the way Detroit makes automobiles however only 51 were ever built.
These predictions violate the law of unpredictability. No one can predict the future, not even a sophisticated reporter for the Wall Street Journal. The only revolutions you can predict are the ones that have already started.
Did anyone predict the overthrow of communism and the Soviet Union? Not really. It was only after the process had started that the press jumped on the “crumbling communist empire” story.
Forget the front page. If you are looking for clues to the future, look in the back of the paper for those innocuous little stories.
Over the years, the greatest hype has been for those developments that promise to single-handedly change an entire industry, preferably one that is vital to the American economy.
Remember the helicopter hype after World War II? They hype was that every garage would house a helicopter, making roads, bridges, and the entire automobile industry obsolete overnight. Did Donald Trump get a helicopter? Did you get yours? The Donald actually did get his.
From time to time, no-frills food makes the headlines. It is reported that this development will revolutionize the packaged-goods industry. Brands are out. People will read the labels and buy products on their merits rather than on the size of the brand’s advertising budget. It is all hype.
But for the most part, hype is hype. Real revolutions do not arrive at high noon with marching bands and coverage on the 6 pm news. Real revolutions arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and kind of sneak up on you.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Hype. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from all the hype.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Hype.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Hype is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
When things are going well, a company does not need the hype. When you need the hype, it usually means you are in trouble.
Young and inexperienced reporters and editors tend to be more impressed by what they read in other publications than by what they gather themselves. Once the hype starts, it often continues on and on.
No newspaper has received more hype than USA Today. At its launch a number of years ago were the president of the United States, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. The residue of this initial hype is still so great that most people can not believe USA Today is a loser.
History is filled with marketing failures that were successful in the press. The Tucker 48, the U.S. Football League, the personal helicopter, and polyester suits. The essence of the hype was not just that the new product was going to be successful. The essence of the hype was that existing products would now be obsolete.
Polyester was going to make wool obsolete. The personal helicopter was going to make the roads and highways obsolete. The Tucker 48 with its cyclop’s eye headlight would revolutionize the way Detroit makes automobiles however only 51 were ever built.
These predictions violate the law of unpredictability. No one can predict the future, not even a sophisticated reporter for the Wall Street Journal. The only revolutions you can predict are the ones that have already started.
Did anyone predict the overthrow of communism and the Soviet Union? Not really. It was only after the process had started that the press jumped on the “crumbling communist empire” story.
Forget the front page. If you are looking for clues to the future, look in the back of the paper for those innocuous little stories.
Over the years, the greatest hype has been for those developments that promise to single-handedly change an entire industry, preferably one that is vital to the American economy.
Remember the helicopter hype after World War II? They hype was that every garage would house a helicopter, making roads, bridges, and the entire automobile industry obsolete overnight. Did Donald Trump get a helicopter? Did you get yours? The Donald actually did get his.
From time to time, no-frills food makes the headlines. It is reported that this development will revolutionize the packaged-goods industry. Brands are out. People will read the labels and buy products on their merits rather than on the size of the brand’s advertising budget. It is all hype.
But for the most part, hype is hype. Real revolutions do not arrive at high noon with marching bands and coverage on the 6 pm news. Real revolutions arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and kind of sneak up on you.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Hype. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from all the hype.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Hype.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Hype is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The Law of Failure – Failure is to be expected and accepted
Too many companies try to fix things rather than drop things. “Let’s reorganize to save the situation” is their way of life.
Admitting a mistake and not doing anything about it is bad for your career: A better strategy is to recognize failure early and cut your losses. Many years ago, IBM should have dropped copiers and Xerox should have dropped computers years before they finally recognized their mistakes.
The Japanese seem to be able to admit a mistake early and then make the necessary changes. Their consensus management style tends to eliminate the ego. Since a large number of people have a small piece of a big decision, there is not stigma that can be considered career damaging. In other words, it is a lot easier to live with “We were all wrong” than the devastating “I was wrong.”
This egoless approach is a major factor in making the Japanese such relentless marketers. It is not that they do not make mistakes, but when they do, they admit them, fix them, and just keep coming.
The hugely successful WalMart has another approach that enables the company to deal with failure. It is called Sam Walton’s “ready, aim, fire” approach. It is an outgrowth of his penchant for constant tinkering.
Walton was well aware that nobody hits the target every time. But at WalMart, people aren’t punished if their experiments fail. As WalMart’s chief executive said in a Business Week article, “If you learn something and you’re trying something, then you probably get credit for it. But woe to the person who makes the same mistake twice.”
WalMart is different from many large corporations because, so far, it appears to be free of an insidious disease called the “personal agenda” that can creep into any corporation. Marketing decisions are often made first with the decision maker’s career in mind and second with the impact on the competition or the enemy in mind. There is a built-in conflict between the personal and the corporate agenda.
This leads to failure to take risks. (It is hard to be first in a new category without sticking our neck out). When the senior executive has a high salary and a short time to retirement, a bold move is highly unlikely.
Ever junior executives often make “safe” decisions so as to not disrupt their progress up the corporate ladder. Nobody has ever been fired for a bold move they did not make.
In some American companies nothing gets done unless it benefits the personal agenda of someone in top management. This severely limits the potential marketing moves a company can make. An idea gets rejected not because it is not fundamentally sound but because no one in top management will personally benefit from its success.
One way to defuse the personal agenda factor is to bring it out in the open. 3M uses the “champion” system to publicly identify the person who will benefit from the success of a new product or venture. The successful introduction of 3M’s Post-It Notes illustrates how the concept works. Art Fry is the 3M scientist who championed the Post-It Notes product, which took almost a dozen years to bring to market.
While the 3M system works, in theory the ideal environment would allow managers to judge a concept on its merits, not on whom the concept would benefit.
If a company is going to operate in an ideal way, it will take teamwork, esprit de corps, and a self-sacrificing leader: One immediately thinks of Patton and his Third Army and its dash across France. No army in history took as much territory and as many prisoners in as short a period of time.
Patton’s reward? Eisenhower fired him.
Small companies are mentally closer to the front line than big companies. They have not been tainted by the Law of Failure. That might be one reason why they grow more rapidly and are viewed as the engine to revive the economy.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Failure. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Failure.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Failure as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Admitting a mistake and not doing anything about it is bad for your career: A better strategy is to recognize failure early and cut your losses. Many years ago, IBM should have dropped copiers and Xerox should have dropped computers years before they finally recognized their mistakes.
The Japanese seem to be able to admit a mistake early and then make the necessary changes. Their consensus management style tends to eliminate the ego. Since a large number of people have a small piece of a big decision, there is not stigma that can be considered career damaging. In other words, it is a lot easier to live with “We were all wrong” than the devastating “I was wrong.”
This egoless approach is a major factor in making the Japanese such relentless marketers. It is not that they do not make mistakes, but when they do, they admit them, fix them, and just keep coming.
The hugely successful WalMart has another approach that enables the company to deal with failure. It is called Sam Walton’s “ready, aim, fire” approach. It is an outgrowth of his penchant for constant tinkering.
Walton was well aware that nobody hits the target every time. But at WalMart, people aren’t punished if their experiments fail. As WalMart’s chief executive said in a Business Week article, “If you learn something and you’re trying something, then you probably get credit for it. But woe to the person who makes the same mistake twice.”
WalMart is different from many large corporations because, so far, it appears to be free of an insidious disease called the “personal agenda” that can creep into any corporation. Marketing decisions are often made first with the decision maker’s career in mind and second with the impact on the competition or the enemy in mind. There is a built-in conflict between the personal and the corporate agenda.
This leads to failure to take risks. (It is hard to be first in a new category without sticking our neck out). When the senior executive has a high salary and a short time to retirement, a bold move is highly unlikely.
Ever junior executives often make “safe” decisions so as to not disrupt their progress up the corporate ladder. Nobody has ever been fired for a bold move they did not make.
In some American companies nothing gets done unless it benefits the personal agenda of someone in top management. This severely limits the potential marketing moves a company can make. An idea gets rejected not because it is not fundamentally sound but because no one in top management will personally benefit from its success.
One way to defuse the personal agenda factor is to bring it out in the open. 3M uses the “champion” system to publicly identify the person who will benefit from the success of a new product or venture. The successful introduction of 3M’s Post-It Notes illustrates how the concept works. Art Fry is the 3M scientist who championed the Post-It Notes product, which took almost a dozen years to bring to market.
While the 3M system works, in theory the ideal environment would allow managers to judge a concept on its merits, not on whom the concept would benefit.
If a company is going to operate in an ideal way, it will take teamwork, esprit de corps, and a self-sacrificing leader: One immediately thinks of Patton and his Third Army and its dash across France. No army in history took as much territory and as many prisoners in as short a period of time.
Patton’s reward? Eisenhower fired him.
Small companies are mentally closer to the front line than big companies. They have not been tainted by the Law of Failure. That might be one reason why they grow more rapidly and are viewed as the engine to revive the economy.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Failure. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Failure.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Failure as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Law of Success
Ego is the enemy of successful marketing.
Objectivity is what’s needed.
When people become successful, they tend to become less objective. They often substitute their own judgment for what the market wants.
Donald Trump is an example of people blinded early by success and untainted by humilty. And when you are blind, it is indeed hard to focus.
Trump’s strategy was to put his name on everything, committing the cardinal sin of line extension. Denial seems to go hand in hand with a big ego. When first meeting the Donald, he will frequently begin with a discussion about how people accuse him of having a big ego; which he denies. However, while he is speaking, it is hard to avoid noticing big T symbols all around; so much for the sermons about not having a big ego.
Success is often the fatal element behind the rash of line extensions. When a brand is successful, the company assumes the name is the primary reason for the brand’s success. So they promptly look for other products to plaster the name on.
Actually it is the opposite. The name did not make the brand famous (although a bad name might keep the brand from becoming famous). The brand got famous because you made the right marketing moves. In other words, the steps you took were in tune with the fundamental laws of marketing.
You got into the mind first. You narrowed the focus. You preempted a powerful attribute.
Your success puffs up your ego to such an extent that you put the famous name on other products. Result: early success and long-term failure as illustrated by the actions of Donald Trump.
The more you identify with your brand or corporate name, the more likely you are to fall into the line extension trap. It can’t be the name, you might be thinking when things go wrong. We have a great name. Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
One aspect of the problem is the allocation of time; too many industry activities, too many outside board meetings, too many testimonial dinners.
According to a recent survey, the average CEO spends 18 hours a week on outside activities. The next time waster is internal meetings with approx 17 hours a week attending corporate meetings and 6 hours a week preparing for those meetings.
Since the typical top executive works 60 hours a week, this leaves only 20 hours for everything else including managing the operation and going down to the front line. No wonder the chief executives delegate the marketing function, which is a big mistake.
Marketing is too important to be turned over to an underling. If you delegate anything, you should delegate the chairmanship of the next fund-raising drive; like the VP of the US attends state funerals, not the president.
The next activity to cut back is the time spent on the meetings. Instead of talking things over, walk out and see for yourself. As Gorbachev told Reagan, “It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.”
Small companies are mentally closer to the front than big companies. That might be one reason why they grow more rapidly and viewed as the engine to revive the economy. They have not been tainted by the law of success.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Success. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Success.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Success as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Objectivity is what’s needed.
When people become successful, they tend to become less objective. They often substitute their own judgment for what the market wants.
Donald Trump is an example of people blinded early by success and untainted by humilty. And when you are blind, it is indeed hard to focus.
Trump’s strategy was to put his name on everything, committing the cardinal sin of line extension. Denial seems to go hand in hand with a big ego. When first meeting the Donald, he will frequently begin with a discussion about how people accuse him of having a big ego; which he denies. However, while he is speaking, it is hard to avoid noticing big T symbols all around; so much for the sermons about not having a big ego.
Success is often the fatal element behind the rash of line extensions. When a brand is successful, the company assumes the name is the primary reason for the brand’s success. So they promptly look for other products to plaster the name on.
Actually it is the opposite. The name did not make the brand famous (although a bad name might keep the brand from becoming famous). The brand got famous because you made the right marketing moves. In other words, the steps you took were in tune with the fundamental laws of marketing.
You got into the mind first. You narrowed the focus. You preempted a powerful attribute.
Your success puffs up your ego to such an extent that you put the famous name on other products. Result: early success and long-term failure as illustrated by the actions of Donald Trump.
The more you identify with your brand or corporate name, the more likely you are to fall into the line extension trap. It can’t be the name, you might be thinking when things go wrong. We have a great name. Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
One aspect of the problem is the allocation of time; too many industry activities, too many outside board meetings, too many testimonial dinners.
According to a recent survey, the average CEO spends 18 hours a week on outside activities. The next time waster is internal meetings with approx 17 hours a week attending corporate meetings and 6 hours a week preparing for those meetings.
Since the typical top executive works 60 hours a week, this leaves only 20 hours for everything else including managing the operation and going down to the front line. No wonder the chief executives delegate the marketing function, which is a big mistake.
Marketing is too important to be turned over to an underling. If you delegate anything, you should delegate the chairmanship of the next fund-raising drive; like the VP of the US attends state funerals, not the president.
The next activity to cut back is the time spent on the meetings. Instead of talking things over, walk out and see for yourself. As Gorbachev told Reagan, “It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.”
Small companies are mentally closer to the front than big companies. That might be one reason why they grow more rapidly and viewed as the engine to revive the economy. They have not been tainted by the law of success.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Success. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Success.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Success as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
The Law of Unpredictability – Unless You Write Your Competitor’s Plans, You Can’t Predict the Future
Most marketing plans make assumptions about the future.
Have you ever noticed that even with hundreds of computers and an army of meteorologists, no one can predict the weather more than three days in advance? So how do you expect anyone to predict what the market conditions will be like in one to three years?
Failure to forecast competitive reaction is a major reason for marketing failures. Yet there are those who would say that America’s big problem is the lack of a long view and that American management is too short term in thinking. Without including a forecast of the future, in marketing plans, wouldn’t things be even worse?
On the surface, those concerns are real. But it is important to understand what is meant by long terms versus short term. Most of corporate America’s problems are not related to short-term marketing thinking; they are related to short-term financial thinking.
Most companies live from quarterly report to quarterly report. That is a receipt for problems. Companies that live by the numbers, die by the numbers.
For example, General Motors was doing fine until the financial folks took over and put the focus on the numbers instead of the brands. That allowed Alfred P. Sloan’s plan of differentiated brands to fall apart. Every division head, in order to make their short-term numbers, started to chase the middle of the market. Over time, this approach contributed to the bankruptcy in 2009.
Good short-term planning is coming up with that angle or word that differentiates your product or company. You then setup a coherent long-term marketing direction that builds a program to maximize that idea or angle. It is not a long-term plan, it is a long-term direction.
For example, Tom Monaghan’s short-term angle at Domino’s Pizza was to come up with that home delivery idea and build a system that delivered pizzas quickly and efficiently. His long-term direction was to build the first nationwide home delivery chain as rapidly as possible.
Monaghan determined he could not own the words, home delivery, until he had enough franchises to afford national advertising. He accomplished both objectives and today Domino’s is a multi-billion dollar company with a significant share of the home delivery business. Monaghan did it all without a complex, 10-year plan.
So what can you do? How can you best cope with unpredictability? While you can not predict the future, you can get a handle on trends, which is a way to take advantage of change.
One example is American’s growing orientation toward good health and wellness. This is estimated to be The Next Trillion $ industry and it has barely gotten started.
However, the danger in working with trends is extrapolation. Many companies jump to conclusions about how far a trend will go. For example, if you believed the prognosticators of a few years ago, everyone today should be eating fish or chicken; however hamburger sales are still doing just fine.
Equally bad as extrapolating a trend is the common practice of assuming the future will be a replay of the present. When you assume that nothing will change, you are predicting the future just as surely as when you assume that something will change. Remember Murphy’s Law, the unexpected always happens.
While tracking trends can be useful tool in dealing with the unpredictable future, market research can be more of a problem than a help. New ideas and concepts are almost impossible to measure. People do not know what they will do until they face an actual decision.
For online marketers, this is where keyword research is very helpful. By using keyword research tools, the online marketer is able to learn what ideas, concepts, trends, and products are in demand based on what people are searching for online. In addition, market profitability, and the amount of competition, can be determined based on good keyword analysis with the right keyword research tools.
One final note that is worth mentioning is that there is a difference between predicting the future and taking a chance on the future. Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn took a chance that people would pay twice as much for high-end popcorn. This was not a bad risk in today’s affluent society.
No one can predict the future with any degree of certainty nor should they have marketing plans that try to predict the future unless they are writing the marketing plans of their competitors.
Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must describe your value and deliver sustainable results. Without capability, you had better have a low price; a very low price.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Unpredictability. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Unpredictability.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Unpredictability as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Have you ever noticed that even with hundreds of computers and an army of meteorologists, no one can predict the weather more than three days in advance? So how do you expect anyone to predict what the market conditions will be like in one to three years?
Failure to forecast competitive reaction is a major reason for marketing failures. Yet there are those who would say that America’s big problem is the lack of a long view and that American management is too short term in thinking. Without including a forecast of the future, in marketing plans, wouldn’t things be even worse?
On the surface, those concerns are real. But it is important to understand what is meant by long terms versus short term. Most of corporate America’s problems are not related to short-term marketing thinking; they are related to short-term financial thinking.
Most companies live from quarterly report to quarterly report. That is a receipt for problems. Companies that live by the numbers, die by the numbers.
For example, General Motors was doing fine until the financial folks took over and put the focus on the numbers instead of the brands. That allowed Alfred P. Sloan’s plan of differentiated brands to fall apart. Every division head, in order to make their short-term numbers, started to chase the middle of the market. Over time, this approach contributed to the bankruptcy in 2009.
Good short-term planning is coming up with that angle or word that differentiates your product or company. You then setup a coherent long-term marketing direction that builds a program to maximize that idea or angle. It is not a long-term plan, it is a long-term direction.
For example, Tom Monaghan’s short-term angle at Domino’s Pizza was to come up with that home delivery idea and build a system that delivered pizzas quickly and efficiently. His long-term direction was to build the first nationwide home delivery chain as rapidly as possible.
Monaghan determined he could not own the words, home delivery, until he had enough franchises to afford national advertising. He accomplished both objectives and today Domino’s is a multi-billion dollar company with a significant share of the home delivery business. Monaghan did it all without a complex, 10-year plan.
So what can you do? How can you best cope with unpredictability? While you can not predict the future, you can get a handle on trends, which is a way to take advantage of change.
One example is American’s growing orientation toward good health and wellness. This is estimated to be The Next Trillion $ industry and it has barely gotten started.
However, the danger in working with trends is extrapolation. Many companies jump to conclusions about how far a trend will go. For example, if you believed the prognosticators of a few years ago, everyone today should be eating fish or chicken; however hamburger sales are still doing just fine.
Equally bad as extrapolating a trend is the common practice of assuming the future will be a replay of the present. When you assume that nothing will change, you are predicting the future just as surely as when you assume that something will change. Remember Murphy’s Law, the unexpected always happens.
While tracking trends can be useful tool in dealing with the unpredictable future, market research can be more of a problem than a help. New ideas and concepts are almost impossible to measure. People do not know what they will do until they face an actual decision.
For online marketers, this is where keyword research is very helpful. By using keyword research tools, the online marketer is able to learn what ideas, concepts, trends, and products are in demand based on what people are searching for online. In addition, market profitability, and the amount of competition, can be determined based on good keyword analysis with the right keyword research tools.
One final note that is worth mentioning is that there is a difference between predicting the future and taking a chance on the future. Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn took a chance that people would pay twice as much for high-end popcorn. This was not a bad risk in today’s affluent society.
No one can predict the future with any degree of certainty nor should they have marketing plans that try to predict the future unless they are writing the marketing plans of their competitors.
Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must describe your value and deliver sustainable results. Without capability, you had better have a low price; a very low price.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Unpredictability. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Unpredictability.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Unpredictability as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Law of Singularity – Only One Move Produces Sustainable Results
Many marketing people see success as the sum total of a lot of small efforts beautifully executed. They think they can pick and choose from a number of different strategies and still be successful as long as they put enough effort into the program. They seem to think that the best way to grow is the puppy approach - get into everything.
If they're not with the leader, they often end up trying to do the same as the leader but they try to be a little better or try a little harder. However, trying harder is not the secret of marketing success.
Whether you try hard or try easy, the differences are marginal. Furthermore the bigger the company, the more the law of averages wipes out any real advantage of a trying-harder approach.
History teaches that the only thing that works in marketing is the single, bold stroke. Furthermore, in any given situation there is only one move that will produce substantial results.
Successful generals study the battleground and look for that one bold stroke that is least expected by the enemy. Finding one is difficult. Finding more than one is usually impossible.
Military strategist and author B. H. Liddell Hart calls this bold stroke "the line of least expectation." The Allied invasion came at Normandy, a place whose tide and rocky shore the Germans felt would be an unlikely choice for a landing of any scale.
So it is in marketing. Most often there is only one place where a competitor is vulnerable. And that place should be the focus of the entire invading force.
What works in marketing is the same as what works in the military; the unexpected.
Hannibal came over the Alps, a route deemed impossible to scale. Hitler came around the Maginot Line and sent his panzer divisions through the Ardennes, terrain the French generals thought impossible to traverse with tanks. (As a matter of fact, he did it twice - once in the Battle of France and again in the Battle of the Bulge.)
The automobile industry is an interesting case in point. In recent years there have been only two strong moves made against GM. Both were flanking moves around the GM Maginot Line. The Japanese came at the low end with small cars like Toyota, Datsun, and Honda. The Germans came at the high end with super-premium cars like Mercedes and BMW.
With the success of Japanese and German flanking attacks, General Motors was under pressure to commit resources in an attempt to shore up the bottom and the top of its lines.
GM made the fateful decision to build many of its midrange cars using the same body style. Suddenly, no one could tell a Chevrolet from a Pontiac, Oldsmobile, or a Buick. They all locked alike. Its’ look-alike cars weakened General Motors in the middle as Ford broke through with the Sable. And then the Japanese jumped in with Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti. General Motors, weak across the board, spun into bankruptcy during 2008 after the start of the Global Financial Crisis.
To find that singular idea or concept, marketing managers have to know what's happening in the marketplace. They have to be down at the frontline in the mud of the battle. They have to know what's working and what isn't. They have to be involved.
Because of the high cost of mistakes, management can't afford to delegate important marketing decisions. That's what happened at General Motors.
When the financial people took over, the marketing programs collapsed. Their interest was in the numbers, not the brands. The irony is that the numbers went south, along with the brands.
It's hard to find that single move if you're hanging around headquarters and not involved in the process.
Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must have a single successful move to describe your value and deliver sustainable results. Without one, you had better have a low price; a very low price.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Singularity. They learn to identify their target market and focus on a single successful move to promoting products that will appeal and add value to their target market.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Singularity.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Singularity where only one move produces sustainable results.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
If they're not with the leader, they often end up trying to do the same as the leader but they try to be a little better or try a little harder. However, trying harder is not the secret of marketing success.
Whether you try hard or try easy, the differences are marginal. Furthermore the bigger the company, the more the law of averages wipes out any real advantage of a trying-harder approach.
History teaches that the only thing that works in marketing is the single, bold stroke. Furthermore, in any given situation there is only one move that will produce substantial results.
Successful generals study the battleground and look for that one bold stroke that is least expected by the enemy. Finding one is difficult. Finding more than one is usually impossible.
Military strategist and author B. H. Liddell Hart calls this bold stroke "the line of least expectation." The Allied invasion came at Normandy, a place whose tide and rocky shore the Germans felt would be an unlikely choice for a landing of any scale.
So it is in marketing. Most often there is only one place where a competitor is vulnerable. And that place should be the focus of the entire invading force.
What works in marketing is the same as what works in the military; the unexpected.
Hannibal came over the Alps, a route deemed impossible to scale. Hitler came around the Maginot Line and sent his panzer divisions through the Ardennes, terrain the French generals thought impossible to traverse with tanks. (As a matter of fact, he did it twice - once in the Battle of France and again in the Battle of the Bulge.)
The automobile industry is an interesting case in point. In recent years there have been only two strong moves made against GM. Both were flanking moves around the GM Maginot Line. The Japanese came at the low end with small cars like Toyota, Datsun, and Honda. The Germans came at the high end with super-premium cars like Mercedes and BMW.
With the success of Japanese and German flanking attacks, General Motors was under pressure to commit resources in an attempt to shore up the bottom and the top of its lines.
GM made the fateful decision to build many of its midrange cars using the same body style. Suddenly, no one could tell a Chevrolet from a Pontiac, Oldsmobile, or a Buick. They all locked alike. Its’ look-alike cars weakened General Motors in the middle as Ford broke through with the Sable. And then the Japanese jumped in with Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti. General Motors, weak across the board, spun into bankruptcy during 2008 after the start of the Global Financial Crisis.
To find that singular idea or concept, marketing managers have to know what's happening in the marketplace. They have to be down at the frontline in the mud of the battle. They have to know what's working and what isn't. They have to be involved.
Because of the high cost of mistakes, management can't afford to delegate important marketing decisions. That's what happened at General Motors.
When the financial people took over, the marketing programs collapsed. Their interest was in the numbers, not the brands. The irony is that the numbers went south, along with the brands.
It's hard to find that single move if you're hanging around headquarters and not involved in the process.
Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must have a single successful move to describe your value and deliver sustainable results. Without one, you had better have a low price; a very low price.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Singularity. They learn to identify their target market and focus on a single successful move to promoting products that will appeal and add value to their target market.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Singularity.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Singularity where only one move produces sustainable results.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Law of Candor – Admit a Negative and the Prospect Will Give You a Positive
It goes against corporate and human nature to admit a problem. For years, the power of positive thinking has been drummed into us and “think positive” has been the subject of endless books and articles.
So it may come as a surprise to you that one of the most effective ways to get into a prospect’s mind is to be candid and first admit a negative, then twist it into a positive.
Avis is only No 2 in rent cars.
With a name like Smucker’s it has to be good.
What’s going on here? Why does a dose of honesty work so well in the marketing process?
First and foremost, candor is very disarming. Every negative statement you make about yourself is instantly accepted as truth. Positive statements, on the other hand, are looked at as dubious at best especially in an advertisement.
You have to prove a positive statement to the prospect’s satisfaction. No proof is needed for a negative statement.
“With a name like Smucker’s it has to be good.” Most companies, especially family companies, would never make fun of their name. Yet the Smucker family did, which is one reason why Smucker’s is the No 1 brand of jams and jellies. If your name is bad, you have two choices: change the name or make fun of it.
Avis is only No 2 in rent cars so why go with them? They must try harder. Everybody knew that Avis was second in rent cars.
So why go with the obvious? Marketing is often a search for the obvious. Since you can’t change a mind once it is made up, your marketing efforts have to be devoted to using ideas and concepts already installed in the brain. You have to use your marketing programs to “rub it in.” No program did this as brilliantly as the Avis No 2 program.
The explosive growth of communications in our society has made people defensive and cautious about companies trying to sell them anything. Admitting a problem is something that very few companies do.
When a company starts a message by admitting a problem, people tend to, almost instinctively, open their minds. Think about the times that someone came to you with a problem and how quickly you got involved and wanted to help. Now think about people starting a conversation about some wonderful things they are doing. You probably were a lot less interested.
Now with that mind open, you are in a position to drive in the positive, which is our selling idea. Some years ago, Scope entered the mouthwash market with a good tasting mouthwash thus exploiting Listerine’s truly terrible taste.
What should Listerine do? It certainly could not tell people that Listerine’s taste was not all that bad. That would raise a red flag that would reinforce a negative perception. Things could get worse. Instead, Listerine brilliantly invoked the law of candor: “The taste you hate twice a day.”
Not only did the company admit the product tasted bad, it admitted that people actually hated it (now that’s honesty). This admission setup the selling idea that Listerine “kills a lot of germs.”
The prospect figured that anything that tastes like disinfectant must indeed be a germ killer. A crisis passed with help of a heavy dose of candor.
One final note: The law of candor must be used carefully and with great skill. First, your negative must be widely perceived as a negative. It has to trigger an instant agreement with your prospect’s mind. If the negative does not register quickly, your prospect will be confused and will wonder, “What is this all about?”
Next you have to shift quickly to the positive. The purpose of candor is not to apologize. The purpose of candor is to setup a benefit that will convince your prospect.
This law only proves the old maxim: Honesty is the best policy.
Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must have a unique attribute to focus and describe your value. Without one, you had better have a low price; a very low price.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Candor. They learn to identify their target market, focus on promoting products that will appeal and add value to their target market.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Candor.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Candor when you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Also, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year!
So it may come as a surprise to you that one of the most effective ways to get into a prospect’s mind is to be candid and first admit a negative, then twist it into a positive.
Avis is only No 2 in rent cars.
With a name like Smucker’s it has to be good.
What’s going on here? Why does a dose of honesty work so well in the marketing process?
First and foremost, candor is very disarming. Every negative statement you make about yourself is instantly accepted as truth. Positive statements, on the other hand, are looked at as dubious at best especially in an advertisement.
You have to prove a positive statement to the prospect’s satisfaction. No proof is needed for a negative statement.
“With a name like Smucker’s it has to be good.” Most companies, especially family companies, would never make fun of their name. Yet the Smucker family did, which is one reason why Smucker’s is the No 1 brand of jams and jellies. If your name is bad, you have two choices: change the name or make fun of it.
Avis is only No 2 in rent cars so why go with them? They must try harder. Everybody knew that Avis was second in rent cars.
So why go with the obvious? Marketing is often a search for the obvious. Since you can’t change a mind once it is made up, your marketing efforts have to be devoted to using ideas and concepts already installed in the brain. You have to use your marketing programs to “rub it in.” No program did this as brilliantly as the Avis No 2 program.
The explosive growth of communications in our society has made people defensive and cautious about companies trying to sell them anything. Admitting a problem is something that very few companies do.
When a company starts a message by admitting a problem, people tend to, almost instinctively, open their minds. Think about the times that someone came to you with a problem and how quickly you got involved and wanted to help. Now think about people starting a conversation about some wonderful things they are doing. You probably were a lot less interested.
Now with that mind open, you are in a position to drive in the positive, which is our selling idea. Some years ago, Scope entered the mouthwash market with a good tasting mouthwash thus exploiting Listerine’s truly terrible taste.
What should Listerine do? It certainly could not tell people that Listerine’s taste was not all that bad. That would raise a red flag that would reinforce a negative perception. Things could get worse. Instead, Listerine brilliantly invoked the law of candor: “The taste you hate twice a day.”
Not only did the company admit the product tasted bad, it admitted that people actually hated it (now that’s honesty). This admission setup the selling idea that Listerine “kills a lot of germs.”
The prospect figured that anything that tastes like disinfectant must indeed be a germ killer. A crisis passed with help of a heavy dose of candor.
One final note: The law of candor must be used carefully and with great skill. First, your negative must be widely perceived as a negative. It has to trigger an instant agreement with your prospect’s mind. If the negative does not register quickly, your prospect will be confused and will wonder, “What is this all about?”
Next you have to shift quickly to the positive. The purpose of candor is not to apologize. The purpose of candor is to setup a benefit that will convince your prospect.
This law only proves the old maxim: Honesty is the best policy.
Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must have a unique attribute to focus and describe your value. Without one, you had better have a low price; a very low price.
It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Candor. They learn to identify their target market, focus on promoting products that will appeal and add value to their target market.
To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Candor.
It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Candor when you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive.
You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
Also, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.
Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year!
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