Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

Just came across this terrific item from my fellow marketing speaker and marketing coach, Jose Palomino of Value Prop Interactive - take a look. (Jose's ideas are ALWAYS worthwhile so you may want to subscribe too!)

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Just when we thought we had exhausted our creativity with YouTube, up comes this small brand with a truly and literally “out of the box” idea. Bringing to mind those old “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” books that became a fad among young readers in the 90’s, this recent promotional spot from Tipp-Ex (BIC’s European brand of correctional fluids and tapes) lets viewers interact with the video to change its outcome.

At first, viewers might not realize that the advertisement is interactive, or even that the video they’re watching is an advertisement at all. It starts off as an apparent home video of a two-man camping trip, but their adventure (and unfortunately, their language as well) turns sour when a bear wanders into the campsite. Much to the viewers’ surprise, they are asked to choose what happens next...

Read the rest on Jose's blog, Strategic Propositions

What do you think? Crazy? Innovative? Effective? Share your thoughts in the COMMENTS section below.

In my work with small business owners and professional services firms, I'm often asked about how to truly stand out in the marketplace.

Questions include:

• How do you brand yourself?
• How can you stand out from the crowd?
• What are your differentiators?
• Why should they hire you/buy from you?
• What's your value prop?
• How is working with you different, better, smarter?
• How can you prove your "Return on Investment"?

The answer is NOT about your products, your services, your branding, your logo, or anything else about what you SAY or how you SAY it. 

Bottom line is that people pay a LOT more attention to what you DO and how you DO it.

So I hereby proclaim myself to be an "All You Can Eat Speaker" - let's see how many of my speaker colleagues dare to try this:

For $30,000 I will speak at as many events you want for a whole year. Use me twice - I'm a $15,000 speaker. Use me 10 times, I'm a $3,000 speaker. Use me 20 times I'm a $1,500 speaker. (plus travel expenses, of course).

Details on topics you can choose from are here:
Marketing Speaker David Newman

Point/Lesson for YOU (no matter what your business happens to be - mine is speaking and marketing) = Business Model Innovation.

Forget what you're selling and help your prospects buy what they're buying.

I can't stand when other speakers have fee structures like this (and no, I'm not making this up.) A professional speaker client came to me with this fee schedule - no names to protect the guilty:

• 45-60 min: $7500
• 60-90 min: $8500
• Half day (up to 2.5 hrs): $9500
• Three quarters day (up to 4.5 hrs): $10,500
• Full day (up to 6 hrs): $11,500

Are you kidding me? Are you a thought-leading professional running an expert business or are you a cab driver charging by the minute or the mile?

Corporate executives, line managers, and association meeting planners are NOT buying minutes!

They're buying results, outcomes, headaches and heartaches that disappear; they're buying more time, more money, more freedom, more answers, less hassles, fewer goofballs, reduced waste, more signal and less noise.

Can YOU deliver that?

• I can.
• $30k.
• All you can eat.
• Meeting planners, conference producers, business owners, chamber executives, marketing VPs, franchisors, convention chairs, state association programmers - I welcome your inquiries.

Email or call me (610) 716-5984 between October 18 and November 19 and I'll tell you where to send the check. On Nov. 20, this offer goes away.

Fellow professional speakers - I welcome you to compete with me. In fact, I dare you!

Think I'm nuts? GOOD!! Leave a COMMENT below and let's mix it up right here, right now... I'm ready!

Too many thought leaders, speakers, consultants, experts, coaches, authors, and entrepreneurial business owners say "David, I've got a million ideas - I'm sooo creative."

Sad truth is these folks are also the ones struggling to grow their business and establish any traction in their revenue generating activities.

Why?

Because they have a million ideas. You can't ACT on a million ideas and only action creates results!

New game plan - You need 100 ideas.

Yep, that's it. 100 rock solid, valuable, actionable, spreadable, talkable, magnetize-able ideas.

100 ideas will give you the foundation for:

• 100 blog entries
• 10 speeches, keynotes, seminars or presentations
• 3-4 books
• 100 2-minute videos
• 2-3 solid long-term development programs, coaching packages, service offerings lasting between 10-52 weeks
• 30 webinars or teleseminars
• 100 team training topics for your employees, salespeople, franchisees, or dealers
• 5-10 white papers, implementation guides, or downloadable toolkits
• 10 different in-person seminars for your clients, customers, prospects, and partners

True thought leaders don't have a wildly different message each time you hear from them. They always present variations on a theme built on a solid foundation.

What's their foundation? Their 100 ideas!

What are YOUR 100 ideas?

How can you dial DOWN the 1,000,000 in your head - and dial UP the 5-10 you probably talk about right now - to create a lasting "Thought Leadership Platform" that you can become KNOWN for?

My 100 are always evolving (subtly) but they never go away and themes and patterns recur consistently.

As a small business marketing speaker who works with professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms, here are a handful of mine that might spark some ideas for YOU:

• Experts win on value, generalists die on price
• Effective marketing should be easy, effortless, and enjoyable
• 4 steps to marketing are Define - Organize - Implement - Track (D-O-I-T!)
• Only action creates results (headline on my home page - Marketing Speaker David Newman)
• Passion is not enough
• Plan for failure - think through failure, think ahead of failure, think around failure
• Forget about plan B - you also need plans C, D, E, F, and G!
• Smart marketers Move in, Move ahead, Move aside, and Move alone
• Your marketing materials need to be "un-chuckable"
• Who do you want to be a rock star to?
• Don't make buyers feel they're the first person to trust you

You get the point... these and about 89 more are the sum total of what I get paid to do via keynotes, seminars, strategic work sessions, coaching programs, corporate meetings, association meetings, franchise conferences, 1-on-1 mentoring, webinars, products, videos, audios, podcasts, white papers, special reports, blog entries... all that I do comes from my 100 ideas.

You can't make money if you have a million ideas.

You can - and you will - make money from your 100 ideas.

So get going... not someday, but right now!

How to Design a Client-Magnet Presentation

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I see too many speakers, consultants, and thought-leading executives who commit to a speaking strategy built around their professional passions, interests, or favorite topics within their expertise.

Sounds like common sense, right? Well, that would be a huge mistake. DON’T do it!

For your speaking efforts to pay off in terms of marketing results, you need to design the presentation content NOT around what YOU are passionate about, but what your buyers and prospects are passionate about!

Imagine a pair of X-ray vision goggles that you are now using to zoom in on your target clients. Ask yourself the following:

• What do they want?
• What are they missing in their lives?
• What hurts?
• Where is the pain?
• What are they yearning for?
• What do they worry about most?
• What are their biggest headaches, heartaches, and hassles?
• What are their urgent, pervasive, and expensive problems?

Gather Live Ammo Data

What’s the first step? Research. Preparation. Homework.

Industry, regional, business, and company news is now at everyone’s fingertips on the Internet. Look for verbatim quotes, video clips, blog entries, trade journal profiles, and audio interviews to capture as much as you can from representative members of your buyer persona.

Then go directly to the source – YOUR real live customers and prospects. If you’re not intelligently researching your prospects’ issues, challenges, and pressures, how can you possibly come in with credible high-perceived-value solutions? One of the best ways to approach prospects is with:

• Interviews
• Surveys
• Research
• Data gathering

It positions you and your firm as an expert resource and it gives you valuable data you should be getting anyway!

Bottom line: for thought-leadership marketing to work for YOU, you have to be a dealer, collector, curator, and dispenser of thoughts... and one of the best ways to LEAD is to LISTEN.

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach who works with professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms, one of THE most frequent questions I get is "How do I find the best places for me to speak so I generate business?"

I always come back with the following key question: What Audiences Are Your Clients In?

What groups do your ideal clients belong to? This will obviously determine which audiences you want to be in front of.

Not sure? Don’t guess – ask!

Here is the script to ask your current clients, prospects, and centers of influence who know your target market well…

“I’m looking to speak more in front of groups of [BUYER PERSONA]. I’d love to get your Advice, Insights, and Recommendations.”

(Thanks to my pal, networking and referral marketing speaker Michael Goldberg for the A-I-R approach!)

Another way to ask might be…

“Of all the industry groups and associations you belong to, which ones provide the most value in terms of the speakers and programs they present?”

With both of these scripts, the natural follow-up discussion would center around your desire to serve this industry/community more and to share information with them that would help them become even more successful.

Likely outcomes from this discussion would include:

• Names of specific groups, associations, and conferences
• Names of specific people serving in board or programming positions
• Names of other executives or decision-makers in the field
• Names of other companies or firms in need of similar information/services
• Specific networking introductions
• Offers of referrals to the individuals they already know
• An opportunity to reciprocate and ask how YOU might be of service to THEM

Resources for Targeting Best-Fit Venues

Finding venues to speak profitably could be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Here are some resources to help you laser-target your speaking to your best-fit audiences:

• The Directory of Associations online (http://www.marketingsource.com) 
• National Trade and Professional Associations of the United States – hardcopy from http://www.columbiabooks.com
• http://www.LeadershipDirectories.com for access to 500,000 corporate and association decision-makers (this comes at a hefty $5,000 annual fee)
• Your Public Library – free access to high-priced proprietary business databases (Hoovers, D&B Million Dollar Database, InfoUSA)

Have fun, speak well, and go generate some business.

Got questions? Comments? A resource or tip of your own? Please use the COMMENTS sections below and let's hear from YOU...

CEO Speaking is Your Best Weapon

The most successful motivational speakers, corporate executives, and professional services firm principals become recognized thought leaders in their areas of expertise because they deploy three powerful tools every time they speak – Clarity, Expertise, and Openness:

Clarity: In any speaking situation, clarity indicates power, confidence, and capability. Less is more. Convey a few points powerfully. Focus your message and like a laser beam, it will cut through even the most steely buyer you’re likely to encounter.

Expertise: Expertise has replaced dollars as your marketing investment. Those who share the most value win. Actionable, specific, do-this-now strategies and tactics are the coin of the realm. This goes beyond “educating your prospects” and even goes so far as “setting the buying criteria” or helping them do it themselves if they so choose.

Openness: Openness is about collaboration. Marketing is no longer someone yelling through a megaphone. It’s a person-to-person conversation. Forget about being the source of all information to your clients. Your new job is to open the possibilities, ask great questions, and then serve as a filter, lens, and curator. Openness means that every time you speak, you do it WITH them, you don’t do it TO them!

Mastering this kind of CEO Speaking will pay off in helping you attract, engage, and win more clients - NOW more than ever!

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, many of my clients have neither the budget nor the business model to justify a big advertising budget, much less advertising on TV... BUT a while back there was a Home Depot television commercial that brilliantly demonstrated an understanding of HOW their customers (and yours) make purchasing decisions.

It went something like this…

A man is standing in the tool department holding a drill while his wife looks on dubiously.

He obviously wants to buy it, but apparently expects some resistance from his wife so in an effort to convince her says, "Don't think of this as a drill, think of this as your new book shelves."

Well, his ploy worked because in the next scene, the same couple is standing in front of the table saws. He smiles at his wife, points to one and says, "And think of this as your new deck!"

The final scene shows the same couple getting ready to purchase a shop vac. Only this time the woman speaks up and says, "And I can think of this as my clean garage!"

Not only do they do a stellar job of articulating their products' benefits but they do so without mentioning one feature! So, the next time you're tempted to itemize your products' or services' nifty features take a deep breath and stop.

Instead, articulate how those features translate into customer benefits, outcomes, and results.

Testimonials are among the most powerful marketing ammunition in your marketing arsenal. As a small business marketing speaker, I'm often asked if testimonials are important - and if so, why?

Testimonials have the power to achieve a variety of things for your marketing and customer retention programs.

Each time you use a testimonial you need to decide what you are trying to accomplish or what message you are trying to support. For example, they can:

* Overcome buyer skepticism. Use a testimonial to shine light on your credibility, or on the quality of your product or service. This type of testimonial builds trust and overcomes natural barriers. In the example above, the testimonial could have read: "Best product I've tried in this price bracket - and I've tried many. Great value for money, and no shortcuts on quality."

 * Overcome objections. Your readers are going to be naturally skeptical of any claims, promises or bold statements. As much as you can back yourself up with facts, a third party experience or opinion will work wonders to overcome unspoken objections in the customer's mind. "It all sounded too good to be true, but when I used the hair straightener, there was more shine and less breakage."

* Simplify or make a point. A customer's personal experience with your product or service will work to persuade your audience like a story does. Complex explanations or abstract applications will make more sense when applied to real life examples. This works well with highly technical products or complex services where the customer doesn't need to understand all the details.

* Break up and maintain interest in long copy. Readers have short attention spans and they will get bored unless you can change up the structure on a regular basis. Quotations and testimonials will break up the tone or voice of the copy, and sound like the customer is reading dialogue, which will keep them engaged. You can also break up paragraphs with a testimonial that supports the point you have just made.

* Target anxieties or doubts. Just like they can overcome skepticism and objections, they can also overcome hidden anxieties or doubts at each stage of the sales process. Anticipate questions like "is this worth my money?", "do I really need this?", "can I trust the guarantee?" and "will they sell my information?", and place testimonials accordingly.

Use testimonials in your marketing efforts and you'll unleash the power of social proof, reduce risk, and induce the "I gotta get me some o' that" factor!

What has been your experience with testimonials? Use the comments area below to share your thoughts...

1. The first secret is to have a compelling business idea, one that is differentiated and sustainable.
2. The second secret is to be a zealot.
3. Third on my list of secrets is to have a conservative business plan.
4. Secret number four is to work effectively with others.
5. The last secret of truly successful entrepreneurship is to change and grow as your business grows.