You’re at a party.

You talk to EVERYONE there, but you say the exact same thing to all of them. 

Do you think any of them will care what you have to say? Probably not. 

Now imagine:You’re at the same party but you only talk to THREE people there. Before you do, however, you try to honestly understand their desires and interests. You find out what makes them “tick”. You say something to each of them that is specifically customized to who THEY ARE

Now what are the chances that they’ll care about what you have to say? Probably close to 100%! 

Few people realize it but this is exactly what Target Marketing is all about. By shrinking our market size, we become far more valuable to those remaining in our market.

So how can you apply target marketing to your business? Do you need to hire a team of consultants to do market research and spend a fortune one focus groups?

NOT at all!

I like to say (Rule # 1 of the Rules of Attraction): “Become a bigger fish in a smaller pond.” These days you can use the principles of target marketing quite easily in ANY business without spending a dime. The key is doing the right kind of investigation by working smarter, not harder. All this requires is a little bit of planning. 

Breaking it down into a few simple but very powerful steps:
1) Think about the kind of clients you’re looking to attract. Are they local? Small businesses? Homeowners? Do they pay their bills on time? Do they work weekends or just during the week? What makes them different from other people in the same profession? These are just a few things to consider.

2) Brainstorm some questions that you might ask. For example, if you’re an accountant, you may want to define the income-holding of the different segments of your prospect base, how they earn income, what their tax needs usually are, etc. If you are a tailor it might be discovering how far prospects are willing to drive to get to your shop, how much they typically spend on alterations, and who they perceive as being the “expert” in your area.

3) Once you have the questions written down, call a number of prospects and existing clients and ask them to lunch. Let them know you will not be selling them anything during this visit. This is CRITICAL! You simply want to understand THEIR NEEDS a little better. Taking them to lunch is an informal way to discover the criteria that will help you to narrow your core market (make the pond smaller). Take notes! If it makes sense for your prospect base, offer them a copy of your findings when you are done interviewing others in their industry.

4) Use any research that is already available. Look for studies on the prospects on which you are focusing your efforts. I talk about this in my Attract More Business seminars and in my new Target Marketing program. If we can fully understand the “GAP” in the marketplace then we can customize a solution that is inextricably tailored to fit bridge this gap.

5) Now compile all of the information you have gathered and review it to look for commonalities between your prospects and clients. This is where the greatest opportunity exists. Chances are this is where the least price sensitive opportunity exists as well. What a fabulous way to eliminate price erosion.

By following this method, you will learn FAR more about the motivations of your ideal prospects than just by surfing the web, reading trade journals, or simple guesswork.

Let’s take a look at an example of this in practice:
In the early 90’s my firm, the SBA Network decided to focus on the growing cosmetic surgery field. We launched an exhaustive research effort to learn everything we could about cosmetic surgery. We purchased several research studies for a few hundred dollars. The agency from which we purchased the studies told us we were one of only 12 organizations that had purchased the 2600 page study. This gave us an inordinate amount of information about the history of the industry, where it was heading, the most popular forms of surgery, technological advancements, changes in the demographics and psychographics of patients electing surgery, practice management issues, insurance and managed care issues, and the predicted potential reduction in the associated costs. 

Additionally, we interviewed 30 different physicians and learned about their perceptions. We even talked to the president of the American Medical Association and invited him on our Small Business Hour radio show. I want to stress that although they all would have been great customers, we did NOT pitch ANY of these doctors. With all the information that we gained we were able to write several articles quoting all kinds of statistics about the future of various forms of cosmetic surgery. We were able to speak intelligently about nearly every area of this field. We became MORE knowledgeable in marketing and managing a cosmetic surgery practice than any plastic surgeon. 

Because of months of research and a few hundred dollars, we were soon viewed as the EXPERTS in cosmetic surgery practice management and marketing. We were asked to attend an upcoming medical conference in Sacramento where I gave a speech on the future of cosmetic surgery. It was unbelievable. We gave seminars on practice management and marketing. We were asked to be editorial contributors to the industries’ trade publication. We were even asked to do a radio show by the massive pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Merck, which we did for 18 months on CBS radio. 

As you can imagine, we were able to easily attract some of the most successful, well financed, and well respected cosmetic surgery clients in the industry in just a few short months. In fact, they begged us to take them on as a client! Companies like Sword Medical Center, Cedars Sinai Hospital, Plastico, Boston Medical, and Cosmetic and Laser Surgery all came to us. No cold calls, no mailings, no fancy brochures. We were able to secure a strong position in the market as the leaders in cosmetic surgery consulting. Can you do the same? YES, YES and YES!

It is far better to spend some extra time and money on understanding your prospects than to throw good money after bad on ad campaigns and mass marketing efforts where you hope to reel in some business. With just a little effort you can apply this mindset to your business. When you do, you will become the life of the party in your target market, rather than the boring guy that has to put a lampshade on his head to get their attention. Not to mention your bank account will grow significantly!

TAKE ACTION
If you live in Southern California and you’re looking to make this work in your business, sign-up for my Attract More Business Full Day Workshop in Long Beach or Pasadena. We will personally work with you to show you precisely how to apply this directly to your business. At the seminar we will not only teach you the rules of attraction, but we put your hand to paper and MAKE YOU develop a highly targeted attraction plan. I guarantee that every attendee will walk out of this workshop with a specific next step that will result in REVOLUTIONIZING your marketing efforts. In fact you will NEVER think about marketing the same way after spending a day with us.

The best part is if you sign up in the month of May we will GIVE YOU – that’s right, GIVE YOU our new Target Marketing Learning Program (a $99.00 value). This includes 2 CDs, a 50 page manual and our interactive forms all facilitated by me, Mark Deo teaching you exactly how to make this work in your business. This is a great preparatory tool for the workshop and can very well be the one-two punch that your business needs to make achieving your goals this year a reality.
Sign-up here: Attract More Business One Day Workshop.

You have two choices when you select a marketing message. You can choose traditional selling-based marketing, in which you take on the role of a salesperson and deliver a message of features and benefits. Or you can choose Education-Based Marketing, in which you take on the role of a consultant and educate prospective clients about their problems and the potential solutions.

Selling-based marketing is built around a selling message, sometimes called a sales pitch. The sales pitch is often delivered using methods that reach out to prospective customers, such as telephone selling, direct mail and door-to-door sales. Education-Based Marketing is built around an educational message, which replaces the sales message. The educational message is commonly delivered to prospective clients through educational means. These include written materials, media publicity (articles and interviews), advertising, seminars, newsletters, audio and video tapes, and Internet web sites. Frankly, you can educate your prospective clients using any method through which they can get your information and advice.Typically, your Education-Based Marketing program works like this: You create an educational message, which you first put into the form of a written handout. Then you offer your handout to prospects who are interested in your services. Prospects call your office to get your free written materials. You respond by sending the materials and inviting prospects to an upcoming seminar. In addition, you keep prospects educated through your educational newsletter.You put your message in front of your prospects through paid advertising, articles in newspapers and magazines, and interviews on radio and TV. In addition, you communicate with people on your mailing list and invite them to attend your seminar and bring their friends and associates.Selling-based marketing creates these problems:

1. Prospects go out of their way to avoid you because they are tired of selling and sales pressure. They don’t like to be approached by salespeople who have something to sell.
2. Prospects don’t think they can trust you because all of us have been burned by salespeople who gave us “inaccurate” and even false information in their eagerness to earn a commission.
3. Prospects are defensive and protective because they expect you to try to pressure them into buying something they don’t want or need.

Education-Based Marketing provides these solutions:

1. You give prospective clients what they want, information and advice — and you remove what they don’t want, a sales pitch.
2. You maintain your dignity because you never make any effort to sell.
3. You establish yourself as an authority because prospective clients see you as a reliable source of information.
4. You don’t seek out prospects; instead, they call you.
5. You reach prospects during the first stage of the decision-making process, often before they call your competitors.
6. You identify even marginal prospects who suffer from phone-call fear, but who aren’t afraid to call for your free information.
7. You prove that calling your office is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, it’s a positive experience.
8. You save money because you don’t need expensive brochures.
9. You receive calls from qualified prospects who are genuinely interested in your services and you screen out people who are not your prospects.
10. You establish your credibility and make a positive first impression by offering helpful information rather than a sales pitch.
11. You save time by answering common questions in your materials and seminars, rather than answering the same questions over and over.
12. You begin to earn your prospect’s loyalty because you’ve made an effort to help him, even if he or she doesn’t become your client.
13. You know precisely how well your marketing works because you can count the number of prospects who respond — and the number who go on to become clients.
14. You gain a competitive advantage simply by using this method because few, if any, of your competitors currently use it.
15. You benefit from the synergy of several educational methods that reinforce each other.
16. You earn a true profit, rather than just creating more work and more overhead.

As small business owners, we usually can’t afford to compete with the big boys on price or selection. They have economies of scale a small business can’t hope to ever match. When competing with Wal-Mart, Fry’s, Deloitte & Touche, and numerous other giants, your point of differentiation usually comes down to the knowledge and hands on approach you take. How can you leverage your knowledge to keep customers coming back, and better yet, tell others about your business?

Here are some tips on ways to better educate your client base and give them a reason to keep doing business with you instead of the low price leaders:

• Provide prospects and clients with what they want, information and advice- and remove what they don’t want, a sales pitch.
• Maintain your dignity because you never make any effort to sell.
• Establish yourself as an authority because prospects and clients see you as a reliable source of information.
• Reach out to prospects during the first stage of the decision-making process, often before they call your competitors.
• Prove that calling your office is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, it’s a positive experience.
• Screen prospects that are genuinely interested in your services and only do business with those whom you can genuinely help.
• Establish your credibility and make a positive first impression by offering helpful information rather than a sales pitch.
• Save time by answering common questions in your materials and seminars, rather than answering the same questions over and over.
• Earn your prospect’s loyalty because you’ve made an effort to help him, even if he or she doesn’t become your client.

You gain a competitive advantage simply by using this method because few, if any, of your competitors currently use it.

As an effort to keep you, our readers, informed, please note that our weekly Radio Show, Small Business Radio, can now be heard on the web live directly through the KLSX Free FM 97.1 website. Just go to: https://www.radiomat.com/register.php?action=register&station=KLSXFMand register to listen live to KLSX at any time! You can also find podcasts of our most popular shows at: http://www.sbanetwork.org/radio. 

Have a great week!

“If you know the enemy as yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.”

-Sun TzuHave you ever worked hard at getting a new piece of business? Maybe it was with a customer that perfectly matched your target profile. Or maybe your product or service fit their need so perfectly that it seemed like there was no other solution. Maybe you quoted a price that was far and away the deal of the century. But still they chose your competition. Why? How did it happen?There is only one reason we lose business:We are OUT MARKETED!The competition knew something we didn’t. Regardless of how convincing our pitch or how great our product, service, price or delivery, the client made their decision based on something more. And that particular out-weighted all of the others. Maybe the odds were so heavily stacked against us we didn’t even have a chance and we didn’t even know it. We may have been outsold while happily pitching features and benefits or perhaps the decision was made from the start. Either way we never addressed the real issues or created the right kind of influence and we lost.Good Marketing Skills are NOT Enough
Conventional sales and marketing techniques help us in only two dimensions of the selling effort. They focus on the relationship between the seller and the buyer. This is only part of the equation. It also makes the customer the threat in the process. It’s US and THEM. The real world is three- dimensional:Dimension One – Seller
Dimension Two – Buyer
Dimension Three – CompetitionWhen we leave the competition out of the picture we get a warped view of reality. Kind of like a two dimensional view of a three dimensional world. The real threat in the transaction is the competition. Now, I’m not here advocating some kind of hostile relationship with the competition. Nor am I saying that it’s not possible to collaborate with your competition. Under the right circumstance complementary competitive relationships are good and appropriate. But in most situations your competition wants that piece of business as much as you do. Typical small business marketers, however make no provisions for the competitive threat.Good Products are NOT Enough
While it is true that superior products will produce more potential marketing advantages, it is possible to win the business even with an inferior product. If you judge yourself and your efforts by the strength of your product then you may make the fatal mistake of judging your competition’s potency by the strength of their product or service. Unfortunately most marketing and selling campaigns don’t focus on building demand, strengthening relationships and infiltrating deeper into the prospective client’s organization. Exceptional marketers find ways to become viable with prospective clients despite product or service deficiencies. They play down the product’s deficiencies while playing up the political and philosophical compatibilities between themselves and the prospect. They might even find ways to bring in other vendors under the guise of a “networked solution” to fulfill the prospect’s motive. Or they may strategically muddy the waters not so much to make themselves more attractive but to make YOU less attractive to the prospect.Imagine if there were a way to weaken the competition’s footing while at the same time strengthening your own. Well there is. Here are a few suggestions about how to “prepare” to infiltrate and influence prospects more successfully. Some are marketing oriented and others are sales directed. But in either case they require good coordination of resources and a strong plan:1. Shop your competition as if you were a buyer. Get their marketing material. Subscribe to their newsletters and analyze their advertising. You can’t come up with a plan to thwart the competition if you don’t know who they are or understand their motives. Remember they are the “third dimension” of the sale.2. Early on in the marketing campaign it is critical that we build relationships at varying levels in the prospect hierarchy. I’m not recommending “going over the head” of your key contact but rather to look for ways to bring value to others in the organization BEFORE you try to close the deal.3. Connect with people within the prospect’s organization who have a clear vision of the future of their company and for whom your relationship transcends the current selling situation.4. Seek for greater “political alignment” rather than just a good fit for your product or service.5. Don’t meet competitive price cuts with further reductions. When your competition cuts their price at the 11th hour, they are doing you a favor. Give your prospect something to think about. Have a discussion as to why the competition would wait until now to offer a drastic discount? Could it affect their service in the future? Will they be paying in some other way? What will they be giving up? It is important that we do this in a casual way without disparaging the competition.6. If you are a victim of disparaging comments, you could also use this to your advantage. Early on in the relationship you will likely talk with the client about their background and they will ask about yours. Don’t respond like most with your job history, alma mater and so on. Instead tell them about your values. How important ethics are and how you would never want to work for a company that made disparaging comments. Do this without mentioning the competition. Tell them why you like working for your company. This is subtle but very powerful. Everyone likes to feel as though they are ethical, have integrity and they want to associate with those who do.Sun Tzu’s twenty-five hundred year old admonition to “know your enemy” is still good advice for small business marketers and professionals today. In order to win, one must prepare to win and one must first win in their mind.

Target marketing is the process of choosing smaller market segments at which to aim your marketing efforts. It is the process of locating specific groups of people that have reasonable commonalities in terms of their description and needs.

Target marketing is a “vertical approach” to increasing your influence and market share. The brands with the most highly focused target audience are usually the most successful. 

Here are the rules to selecting a target audience:

• Choose one target audience first. My recommendation is to work on penetrating that audience for one year before moving on. You can not be everything to everyone.
• Choose your target audience based on their revenue needs and budget capabilities.
• The tighter your focus, the more often you can provide them with relevant information and the more that this information will be beneficial.
• Choose you target audience based on you own interests.
• Choose the type of people that you like to do business with.
• Quality is far more important than quantity.
• Be Picky
• Experienced marketers know that if you are rejecting the kind of business that you don’t want, the more attractive you will become to those that are part of your vertical strategy. This also gives you the ability to become experts in your business as it relates to THEIR business.

Research Works
Don’t be afraid of doing some research to understand the vertical market that you select. There are some tremendous resources for this today:

• Vertical industry publications
• Trade magazines
• The Lifestyles Market Analyst
• FIND/SVP
• Nexus/Lexus
• The Internet

Demographics
The first step is to define WHO are target audience is. What do they look like? This is called demographics. An example of demographics are:

• Age of prospect or target company
• Gender balance
• Size of the business
• Revenues
• Location
• Industry type
• Type of customer base

Psychographics
But this isn’t really good enough. We also need to know WHY they make good prospects. In other words not just demographics but psychographics:

• Company or personal mission
• Management style
• How they make decisions
• Industry reputation

Example of my demographic profile:
Our weekly consulting clients are Southern California businesses involved in marketing growth oriented services. They typically generate from $3 to $10 million in revenue and yield a minimum of 20% gross profit. While we work with the entire staff, we primarily help owners make better management decisions.

Example of my psychographic profile:
Our clients have good reputations in their industry but seek to overtake their competitors who are typically old-line industry leaders. They have an informal management style but are committed to improvement, training/education. The desire to make better management decisions and become influencers in their industry.I encourage every small business to spend the time to develop their own demographic and psychographic profile.

One of the most important issues facing entrepreneurs and small business owners today is how to GROW their companies. This is the focus of my consulting practice, my weekly radio show, my web site and my sales and marketing classes.

Achieving sustained and profitable growth is extremely difficult without having at last one strong and differentiated core business on which to build. The need for a strong core business to support a growth strategy requires defining both what a business IS and what it is NOT.This is true for small companies as well as large ones. Even as a very small organization, Dell Computer Company established its market differentiation and eventual industry leadership by recognizing the potential for “direct selling” rather than the VAR (value added reseller) distribution channel typical for the computer industry. Today, 35% of computers are sold direct to consumers and Dell now dominates this channel.Often times companies stray from their core business in pursuit of other adjacent opportunities. This can be motivated by industry turbulence, downward price pressure or specific market demands. Take the ophthalmic giant, Bausch and Lomb. Throughout the mid-1980s they leveraged their hold on the market by creating a new technology that made soft contact lenses affordable. The result was an astounding 40% market share. Competitors began attacking their position with newer technologies. Bausch and Lomb responded by diverting their attention from their core business into other adjacent products such as electric tooth brushes, skin ointments, and hearing aids. They developed no obvious linkage to their core lens business and as a result lost their dominance and eventually declined to only 16% market share.It is important to define your core business in its clearest terms. It should be defined as that set of products, capabilities, customers, distribution channels and geographies that embody the essence of what your company is or aspires to be in order to GROW revenue in a sustained, profitable fashion.I know that’s a mouthful. But let’s break it down using my company as an example.My little company offers the following CORE PRODUCTS:

• Business consulting
• Advertising services
• Training classes
• Management coaching
• Marketing planning

Our CORE CAPABILITIES include:

1. Creating change from the “Inside-Out” – – Working directly with small business owners to gain the willing cooperation of their staff to establish systems, set goals, measure progress and improve performance.
2. Creating change from the “Outside-In” – – – Establishing a unique position in the market for the company, develop product/service differentiation, and strong brand value and client response.

Our CORE CUSTOMERS are entrepreneurs and small business ownersOur CORE DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS are our exclusive Internet-based Virtual Consulting Sessions. group training classes, business development programs and one-on-one coaching and consulting.Our CORE GEOGRAPHY is Southern California.Using this as an example, begin to define your CORE STRATEGY. If you are interested in learning more about core business strategy development, enroll in our new class, “Out-Marketing the Competition.”

About a week ago, I was glued to my computer, clicking the refresh button on my web browser over and over again. What causes this kind of silly behavior? Something known in the world of nerds as a “Woot Off”. I’ve written in the past about my favorite on-line shopping site, Woot.com. 

What makes Woot special is that they only sell one item at a time on their web site. As I write this, they are offering a universal remote control for sale. This item will remain for sale until they either sell out, or until they list their next item at 12 Midnight Central Time. This policy of “One day, one item”, however, changes once in a blue moon to a mode called a “Woot Off”. During a “Woot Off”, they sell limited quantities of items at great prices, and as soon as one is sold out, they list another for sale. When their allotment of computer video cards sold out in five minutes, they listed a backlight keyboard that sold out in seven minutes, followed by other rapid sellouts. 

As a fan of random technology gadgets and products, I couldn’t wait to see what was next, hence my constant refreshing of my web browser. This went on for a few hours, until a bread maker went on sale. Since the typical customer of this site is for lack of a better term a “computer geek”, a bread maker was not exactly tops on the list of items to buy. Instead of a rapid sellout, I was dismayed to see the bread maker sit on the page seemingly with no end in sight. One hour passed, then another, and yet another. Would someone please buy a bread maker so we can get back to USB drives, cell phone headsets, and robotic lawnmowers?

Rather then sit idly by, the customers of Woot.com went out and began posting about what a great deal this bread maker was on all kinds of websites. They mobilized on message boards, by e-mail, and even began calling friends who might be interested in the appliance. Some customers went so far as to “take one for the team” and buy a bread maker, just so they would sell out faster, despite not wanting one! Eventually, enough bread makers were sold and the “Woot Off” resumed.

Think about what happened. Customers who didn’t even want to buy what was being sold went out and actively sought new customers for this website! They became a de facto sales force for an item just so they could buy something else from them later that same day. Now THAT is customer loyalty.

Now for most businesses selling only one item at a time won’t work, but you may be able to inspire your customer base in a similar way. What can you do to mobilize the good will you have with your customers? I’d love to hear the ideas you come up with. And if any one wants a great deal on a bread maker, let me know and I’ll be sure to call you the next time they’re holding up a “Woot Off”. This article was written by SBA Network Sales technology Specialist Matt Walker.  You can reach him at: mwalker@sbanetwork.org or 714-269-4123.

Have a great week!

“It’s a war out there Mark,” I often hear people say. “Business is war. Eat or be eaten. Kill or be killed. Fight the good fight. And may the best man or women WIN!”

Some think that business IS war. Under this scenario there are victors and vanquished. As Gore Vidal said: “It is not enough to succeed, others must fail.” But does that philosophy really work? Does this really get us more business and loyal customers? Do we have to defeat our competitors to become more important to our customers? Let’s look at the flip side. There is also plenty of talk about relationship marketing, listening to customers, working with suppliers, creating teams, empowerment, strategic partnerships and so on. Aren’t these precepts mutually exclusive? Should we strive for competition or cooperation?The truth is that there are few victors when business is conducted as war. Sure there are those players with whom we are in direct competition. But there are far more that we can cooperate with to benefit the market as a whole. We can do both… co-opetition.

Price Wars
Just look at what happens in price wars. Nobody wins. The price leaders drive the market price down squeezing out competition but in the long run these victors lose their profitability and value in the mix. A good example of this was the airline price wars. Between 1990 and 1993 they lost more money collectively than they made in all the time since Orville and Wilbur Wright!

The Solution
Business is cooperation when it comes to creating a pie and competition when it comes to dividing it up. In other words, business is War and Peace. You have to compete and cooperate at the same time. Your success does not require others to fail. You can compete without having to kill the competition.

Collaboration is the process of working with others. More and more marketers are finding that their customers are demanding bundled solutions. By partnering with others we can become far more important to prospects and customers. We can also create a stream of referrals from credible partners. These type of referrals tend to be a higher quality and are more qualified.Think Compliments
Seek out those that compliment your business. A compliment is a product or service that makes any other product or service more attractive. The classic example of compliments is computer hardware and software. Faster hardware prompts people to upgrade. Powerful software motivates people to buy more faster hardware. Just look at Windows and Pentium chips. Discovering “Complimentors” is about finding a way to make the pie BIGGER rather than fighting over how to slice up a tiny Scooter Pie. So how do we identify competitors and complementors?Complementors
A player is a complementor if customers value your product MORE when they have the other player’s product than when they have your product alone. 
Example: Oscar Meyer Hot Dogs and Guldens Mustard

Competitors
A player is a competitor if customers value your product LESS when they have the other player’s product than when they have your product alone.
Example: Coca-Cola and Pepsi -Cola

Typical partners in success have been:

• Disney and McDonalds
• Universal and Burger King
• Sears and Allstate
• Visa and American Airlines
• Perfume Makers and Department Stores

Who are good complimentors for your business? As a business advisor, good complimentors for me are attorneys, CPA’s, designers, Internet professionals, computer consultants, training companies, TV and radio stations, magazines, newspapers, printers, and more. I challenge you to brainstorm a list of 5 to 10 complimentory businesses. Then make a list of specific contacts within those categories that could currently be utilized. First see what you can do to help them. Then watch the magic of co-opetition unfold!

Last week news broke about K-Mart purchasing retailing giant Sears. It sounds unbelievable but it is happening. This made me think about Attraction Rule #11: Who we are is more important than what we do. Does K-Mart know who they are? Better yet does K-Mart understand who the public THINKS they are?