True story. I’m cruising through the grocery store, racing to the 10-items-or-less lane, when a sign above a pile of red grapes stops me in my tracks. It reads:
Now I have to admit: at least this line got my attention. Read more…
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I was talking with a marketing executive at Intuit, the maker of Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax, and I asked her, “If you could change one thing about your marketing team, what would you change?” Read more…
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Looking for more sales? You might start by looking in the wastebasket.
That was the case with a popular cruise line. They had created a beautiful, expensive, elaborate cruise kit brochure and offered it free in their magazine ads. Thousands of people requested the brochure and Read more…
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The other day I saw a bumper sticker I really liked. It read:
What a huge idea this is for anyone involved in marketing!
So many businesses get burned because they get desperate for sales, or get in a hurry, and unquestioningly grab the first marketing idea that comes along. They don’t challenge their own thinking. They don’t question their own assumptions. They just run with it.
That’s usually a big mistake.
I hate to break this to you but just because a thought flies into your mind, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great thought! Read more…
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We all know about the kind of education that tuition provides.
But if you’re looking for better ways to market your product or service, you also need the kind of education that intuition provides.
Fortunately, educating yourself for intuition doesn’t have to cost a penny. In fact, you already have intuition. The only question is, how can you sharpen the intuition you have? This is an important question because…
…The sharper your intuition, the better you’ll be able to figure out the right marketing moves to make for your business.
…The sharper your intuition, the better you’ll be at brainstorming new ideas for selling your product or service.
…The sharper your intuition, the better you’ll be at spotting strengths and weaknesses in your advertising and marketing materials.
A Process for Finding New Ideas
Famed filmmaker Ingmar Bergman puts it like this: “You must train your intuition—you must trust that small voice inside you…Your intuition is your instrument…I throw a spear into the dark. That is my intuition, and then I have to send an expedition into the jungle to find the spear and find the way to the spear. That is a different process. That is my intellect.”
That may sound a bit mysterious, but Bergman is pointing to a practical three-step process for finding and developing new ideas:
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Listen for the small voice inside you. Whatever you’re working on, there comes a moment when you have to get away from all the noise of the office. Get away from the opinions of others. Get away from the corporate point of view, or the way things are always done in your industry.
Then, as you think about your advertising idea, give yourself a gut check: “Is this the best way to go? Is there a completely different, better way to do it? If I were in the customer’s shoes, would I believe this? Would I be interested? Would I be convinced? Why or why not? What would it take to stop me in my tracks?”
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Throw a spear into the dark. You have to take some chances, follow some hunches, try some outrageous ideas, think outside the box, and risk failure once in a while. Thomas Watson, founder of IBM said the way to increase success is to double the failure rate. Thomas Edison found 1800 ways not to make a light bulb…before he found the one right way to make it.
To follow your intuition, you must be willing to occasionally put up with the discomfort of being out on a limb with a new idea. I like the way actor Alan Alda puts it: “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing.”
And playwright Neil Simon says this about the importance of taking risks in work: “Don’t listen to those who say, ‘It’s not done that way.’ Maybe it’s not, but maybe you will. Don’t listen to those who say, ‘You’re taking too big a chance.’ Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out today.”
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Use your intellect to find your way to the spear of intuition. This is where you begin to ask all the questions and fill in the steps required to make your intuitive idea work. Patience and persistence will pay off here.
Stephen Hawking, the world renowned astrophysicist, says, “There is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap…and then fill in the intermediate steps.”
Those intermediate steps are where you fight for the new idea and work relentlessly to make the idea work in the real world.
Thinking Like a Customer
Finally, the whetstone against which you sharpen the spear of your intuition is your effort to think like a customer. The more you try to get inside the customer’s skin and see your business through the customer’s eyes, the sharper your intuition will be.
Mitch Kapor originally developed the famous Lotus 1-2-3 software as an assignment for a course at MIT’s Sloan School of Business. He got a B on it, rather than an A, in part because he didn’t include any statistical market surveys in his work. Instead, he talked to people, got a sense for what they were looking for, looked at customer attitudes. And, based on his intuition, he developed one of the most successful software packages.
Intuition is one of the most powerful weapons available to help you make your best marketing moves. Maybe part of the answer to the high cost of tuition is to put more emphasis on educating and sharpening our intuition!
To your success and enjoyment,
Geoffery
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Here’s a good idea that could help you build stronger relationships with prospects: turn your best prospects into an advisory board and consistently ask for their advice.
This idea is especially effective if you’re selling a service or marketing in a business-to-business environment.
Here’s how it works. You send your key prospects an official-looking, personal mailing inviting them to be part of your Advisory Board. Print something like this on the outer envelope: ADVISORY BOARD MATERIALS ENCLOSED.
This “non-selling” approach will generate a lot of curiosity and get opened at a much higher rate than a more typical mailing that is obviously selling something.
Inside, in a personal letter, you’ll invite them to be a member of your Advisory Board. You’ll tell them you put a high value on listening to customers and that, from time to time, you would like to get their response to some ideas and questions that relate to possible improvements of your product or service.
You might offer them a special discount or some other small gift in return for being a member of your Advisory Board. Perhaps you could share some inside information with them.
Include in the mailing a brief survey, with no more than five or six questions that they can respond to. You could ask for their response to a specific idea you have for improving your products or services. Or you could show them an ad you’re thinking of running and ask what they think about it. (This is a good way to get them to read your advertising!)
Make it easy for them to respond: include a postage-paid, pre-addressed envelope and/or a fax number so they can fax it in if they want to. You might even tell them that you would like to call them and get their response to these ideas or questions over the phone, if they are willing. Then, make sure you actually follow-up and call them!
The beauty of this approach—apart from the fact that you’ll be getting input from actual prospects—is that people are much more likely to pay attention to this mailing than they would to a typical selling message. People usually like it when someone asks for their advice.
And even though this is not overtly “selling” them on your services, it is, in fact, making a very powerful impression for your company. It’s getting you into their minds in a huge way.
And even those who don’t send the survey back will be much more likely to open this mailing, read it, and remember you than they otherwise would.
This approach takes time. So keep sending them. And keep following up. Persistence will pay off here. And people will be impressed that you keep asking for their advice—even if they are often too busy to give it.
Of course, you can also be upfront with prospects and tell them that you would naturally welcome any opportunity to serve them.
You can also send the Advisory Board package to your customers, as a customer retention tool.
This idea isn’t for everyone. But if it fits your situation, it can be a powerful relationship builder over time.
To your success and enjoyment,
Geoffery
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“Know a little about everything and a lot about one thing,” said Thoreau. That’s not bad advice. It’s also not a bad marketing strategy.
In fact, this strategy can help you get free advertising for your business.
Here’s how. Pick one area of your business that particularly interests you or that you are particularly good at, and become an expert in that area. (Just make sure it is an area of genuine interest to customers.)
As the expert, you’ll be able to get free publicity, interviews, and articles published that will promote your business.
A guy I know who is the head of a construction firm became an expert in building clean rooms—those special rooms used for manufacturing biochemicals, computer chips, etc. He gave talks and published articles about building clean rooms, and this created a “buzz” that helped him land other construction projects as well.
When you make yourself an expert in one particular area of your business, you will benefit from the “expert-by-association” syndrome. Customers tend to think that because you are an expert in one area, you’ll probably be pretty good in other areas as well. (Hopefully, they will be right!)
Back to my friend in the construction business: clients figured that anyone who knew so much about how to build complicated clean rooms would also be able to build an office building or a warehouse. He was an expert-by-association.
The Art of Lesser Logic
Harry Beckwith, in his book, Selling The Invisible, calls this the art of “lesser logic.” He tells the story of a New York City law firm who decided to concentrate on becoming experts at doing Mergers & Acquisitions, the kind of tough work that most law firms don’t like to do. This law firm not only took over a lot of the M&A work in New York, but their clients also gave them other work as well. Clients thought, “If they can do something that hard, then by lesser logic they can do other easier things for us.”
Here’s the question: What is the big skill that you could develop, focus on, and market that would clearly imply other skills? What is the big problem you could solve that would clearly imply the ability to solve other problems? What’s the hardest task in your business?
Make yourself an expert at this task, and customers will assume you can do other things as well. What’s more, as the expert, you’ll have an easier time getting free publicity!
To your success and enjoyment,
Geoffery
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