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!

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.

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...

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...

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...

Dozens of my readers (mostly professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms) are complaining of declining response rates, a downturn in business, and the weak economy.

“Our direct mail isn’t pulling like it used to,” they complain.

“What can our firm do to generate more leads, better prospects, and bigger sales?”

Here’s what I have found works to turn ON your marketing efforts:

1. Take massive action. Figure out what you think you need to do to generate the level of leads and orders you need. Then do twice that amount.

2. Don’t rely on only one promotional vehicle, like direct mail or - heaven forbid - social media marketing. Do three, four, even five things: send out mailings; advertise in very narrow, well-targeted media; regularly e-mail your list; write an article; give a speech.

3. Make every communication a direct marketing communication. Offer a premium with a high perceived value. Feature your free offer in your promotion.

4. Test different offers, ideas, copy, formats, and media to see which work best. Roll out with those promotions that work. Scratch the others. If they don’t do well in a small test, doing more won’t help.

p.s. I don't subscribe to the "recession mindset." And I don't care much for the goofballs who now say we're "coming out of it." I DO very much believe what my pal, professional speaker Jim Mathis, CSP says -- the economy is not DOWN, it's DIFFERENT. And furthermore, it's NEVER coming back (not the way it was, anyway).

Welcome to the new world - and NOW is a great time for you to prepare your firm to market successfully in it!

"We often talk about ourselves as if we have permanent genetic flaws that can never be altered."
-- Marshall Goldsmith

This snippet from America's preeminent executive coach (and founding director of the Alliance for Strategic Leadership) speaks volumes about where most people are today, and where they COULD BE.

My wife was on the phone a while back with a friend who runs a video production business. She asked him, "So, Ron - do YOU have the sales gene?" Turns out that neither one of them believed they had "the sales gene." Problem is, HE was in sales and my wife wasn't!

Guess how robust his sales are?

Exactly.

Although I'm a marketing speaker and not a sales trainer, I can tell you that this mindset WILL hurt your bottom line.  

And the term "gene" - as in the creativity gene, the leadership gene, the money-making gene, the happiness gene - is as FLEETING in reality as it sounds BIOLOGICALLY PERMANENT when we talk about it!

Thomas Watson, Jr. of IBM weighed in on this issue when talking about excellence (or the 'excellence gene' as we might call it in this context):

"If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work."

Try this version on for size: If you want to achieve X (sales, dating, marketing, whatever), as of this second, start believing that you DO possess that gene -- and then ACT on that fact!

Marketing speakers and marketing consultants are famous for packing in "over 100 strategies you can use immediately" and "97 secrets" or "51 immutable laws" of this and that.

Problem is - those numbers are too high. You don't need 100, you can't implement 97, and you'll never get a handle on 51.

You need 3-4 max. Three strategies. Or four tactics. Used with focus, momentum, and consistency...

Less is truly more. Here's Picasso's take on it:
===
You must always work not just within, but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way, the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.

-- Pablo Picasso
===

If any one thing characterizes the time in which we live, it is the tendency to strive and to overreach and to want more, more, more, now, now, now.

The problem with multi-tasking and this go-go-go pattern of life and work is that there is no room for mastery, for ease, for “strength in reserve.”

• If you want to get more done, work more slowly.
• If you want it faster, develop a singular focus.
• If you want to get better, do less.

How to collect even higher speaking fees by creating alliances with sponsors…

Can you believe that a perfectly simple, marvelous, easy-to- implement marketing idea can be largely ignored by the community of professional speakers?

Can you imagine having an organization with deep pockets of cash promoting your programs at their expense, building your name and fame in markets you want to penetrate?

Can you picture this cash-rich sponsor sending along a logistics person - on the speaking tour they’ve set up for you (Be still, my beating heart!) - to handle all the physical details like room set-up for you.

And, of course, you may as well fantasize your sponsor then doing all the advance publicity to be sure you address a packed house. Well, hold on to your hat because all the above is true. It’s real. It’s happening now for 2 speakers. They are-in alphabetical order-Michael Chatman and Barb Schwarz, CSP. This article is due to their generously revealing how they do it.

What is a sponsor:
A Sponsor is a group, a company, any cash-generating, profit- making entity that can benefit from exposure to your target market. Sponsors need you because they want to market to the same folks you target.

When you work together you create a triple win. The third winner is your target market.

If your target market is schools and their students, logical sponsors include retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers. They get their name and logo on your handouts. They get great PR. They are the good guys. Remember the firms that place soft drink, snack and candy machines in the schools, suppliers of uniforms for school athletic teams. Purveyors of the foods served in the school cafeteria.

I share these insights anecdotally. I do not pretend to have access to any wisdom beyond my own experience. What I say here is true for me. You alone can decide whether it is true for you. And this may not be all there is. It’s simply what I get here and now:

Photographers who do class pictures, school ring vendors. Every entity that makes money from providing equipment, supplies, consumables to the school. If you address sales professionals, cellular phone companies, computer companies, vendors of everything salespeople buy are potential sponsors.

If you speak to real estate agents, title companies, escrow companies, mortgage companies, etc., are appropriate sponsors.

In any industry or trade group that buys from a group of vendors, any member of that group-including vendors presently frozen out by trade custom or long-time habits-is a prospective sponsor of your programs.

Your sponsor, or sponsors, use funds from their advertising or promotion budgets, funds already committed to be spent somewhere, to advertise and promote attendance at your programs.

How do sponsors benefit from promoting you:
Exposure of their products and their company before the program starts through the publicity created by any of the interested parties.

Sponsor can do a Pre-program presentation. You can sometimes, depending on the venue, give Sponsor table top display space in the back of the room. Sometimes you can arrange for sponsor to have a booth. Sponsor name and logo may go on all printed materials, including any tickets, book covers, albums, bumper stickers, your letterhead.

In media interviews you always mention sponsor’s name. Sponsor’s representatives can sit down in front and you can introduce them during program. Sponsor’s customer goodwill and loyalty is enhanced. Sponsor may get more direct business because they sponsored you.

Is there to be signage at this program? Arrange that each sponsor have the exclusive sign for their type product. If sponsor markets a soft drink and refreshments are to be served, you arrange that sponsor is to have exclusive pourage rights with no other soft drink to be made available.

There may be $ generated from your product sales-and you need to agree up front whether you keep all this or whether you revenue-share with sponsor. You can create a database of attendees or of key influencers for later follow-up.