Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

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!

---
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion.

As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew.
---

So, is this the latest pronouncement from some marketing speaker or management guru like Tom Peters, Jim Collins, or Jack Welch?

Nope.

Just some wise advice from Abraham Lincoln.

From over 140 years ago.

As the saying goes, "The more things change..."

Simon Sinek wrote a great book called Start with Why. One of the key lines in it is...

"People buy WHY you do something before they buy your WHAT or HOW."

Meaning - People first buy your purpose, your intent, your WHY.

I'll make that even more specific - they buy WHAT YOU BELIEVE. And, perhaps most important of all, they buy what you BELIEVE IN.

Face it, beliefs are easy to spot. You either believe or you don't - you either believe IN or you don't. The proof of your beliefs is in your actions.

Which of these things do YOU and YOUR TEAM and your COMPANY believe IN?

• Being nice (Zappo's)
• Overdelivering (Nordstrom's)
• Helping others (Tom's Shoes)
• Joy (BMW)
• Design (Apple)
• Simplicity (In 'n' Out Burger)
• Gifts (Seth Godin keeps sending me books!!)

Want to make this abundantly clear to your prospects, customers, clients, partners, and the world?

Great! Post it - share it - let the world see your beliefs not only in what you SAY (like my marketing pal, Steve Miller has done so brilliantly here) but in your ACTIONS.

When it comes to small business marketing, only action creates results and only action proves your beliefs.

Just finished presenting for Steelcase to a group of really smart, entrepreneurial architecture and design firm principals and executives in Philadelphia.

When I asked them the overall purpose of marketing their firms, someone volunteered the notion that they want to become the "go-to guys" and "go-to gals" for their prospects and clients and the community of folks whom they serve.

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach to professional services firms, I pointed out exactly how important that was - especially in light of the fact that a survey of over 700 clients showed that between 52-72% of them would be willing to change professional services providers across a wide variety of industries. (Architecture and design was in the middle of the pack at around 60%)

For YOU, I'd like to raise the bar even further. Once you've successfully established yourself and your organization as the go-to resource... the key question becomes:

What do people GET when they GO TO you?

Do they get help, information, tips, actionable advice and a genuine thank-you for getting in touch?

OR... Do they get a sales pitch, a come-on, an invoice, a brush-off or worst of all - silence?

There's nothing worse than doing all the hard work to establish yourself, your team and your organization as the "go-to" resource only to blow it when prospects and clients ACT on your invitation to help them.

• For free...
• Because you care...
• And because you put their needs ahead of yours.  

When it comes to becoming the "go-to" resource, be careful what you wish for... Do it right and they WILL go to you.

Question is, what will they GET?

And will they come back for more or leave disappointed?

What do you think? Share your "go-to" guy stories, tips, and strategies in the COMMENTS section below...

I was going through my old files and came across some truly excellent thinking and writing about one of the most misunderstood and overhyped areas of my beloved marketing profession: branding.

Here, then, for your enjoyment is the real deal according to people that know a thing or two about the matter:

With 35 varieties of bagels, 66 subbrands of GM cars, and more than 13,000 mutual funds, American consumers are suffering a severe case of brand overload. Marketing speaker and marketing coach Peter Sealey has a tough-love cure: "simplicity marketing."
Read more here.

Take the Brand Challenge - "Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are trying to get ideas." -- Paula Poundstone
Read more here.

Be the Brand: Creating a meaningful brand goes beyond mere product presentation. It requires vision, leadership, and communication.
Read more here.

(Re) Brand You: This marketing expert and author will help you reboot yourself after a layoff.
Read more here.

What Great Brands Do: Marketing speaker Scott Bedbury knows brands. The man who gave the world 'Just Do It' and Frappuccino shares his eight-point program to turn anything -- from sneakers to coffee to You -- into a great brand.
Read more here.

Nine Ways to Fix a Broken Brand: The marketing excesses of the past few years left broken pieces scattered across the branding landscape. As a result, many companies are left with bogged-down, boring -- even dying and dead -- brands. Now take a look at your brand: Do you know what's broken? Do you know how to fix it?
Read more here.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts, comments, and rants in the comments section below...

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 on the front lines of the meltdown economy, I'm seeing firsthand and through my clients that marketing has become even more challenging because – now more than ever – your buyers are lazy, busy, and befuddled.

See if some of these characteristics ring true with YOUR prospects and buyers over the last few months:

Lazy: Your buyers do not look forward to being marketed and sold to. The old standards of good, cheap, and fast have been replaced with the new “Web 2.0” standard of perfect, free, and now. Instant gratification, easy to buy, and effortless to install are the new watchwords for marketing and sales success. The expert at hand is the expert who gets hired.

Busy: Buyers have a million things on their plate besides researching the best options for products, services, vendors, partners, and trusted advisors. You need to become the obvious choice, the smartest choice, and the least risky choice – all in the span of a very short amount of time to be heard above their (internal and external) noise.

Befuddled: Buyers are overwhelmed with information, choices, data, specs, features, benefits, and marketing hype. It can be hard to separate the best service providers from the best marketers – and rarely are they one and the same. Your buyers have been burned, disappointed, and let down by slick marketers in the past.

So what can you do?

You won’t win them over with sizzle so your only choice is to convey TWO things with the utmost clarity and conviction:

1. We understand what you’re up against

2. We can fix it

That's marketing in a nutshell, folks! Agree? Disagree? Comments? Fire away down in the COMMENTS section and I'd love to hear from YOU...