In our business update last week we looked at how product re-engineering is at the heart of marketing. This week I want to focus on the communication aspects after we do re-engineer our product or service. Below I have outlined the four simple keys to effective marketing communication.

1. Communicate the Benefits
It is difficult for customers today to determine how your product or service is differs from your competition in terms of benefits. This creates a big problem in understanding and application. Therefore your marketing goal needs to be to clearly show how you provide uniquely different benefits. Stop talking about the features and capabilities of your product or service. Customers are interested in the end result. Instead of talking about WHAT your product will do, talk about the results that the customer can expect. This restores the consumer’s trust and confidence and gives them a reason to buy.2. Refine the Articulation
This is where we use communication tools to refine the articulation of the message. What will be our “exclusive claims?” What specific evidence will we use? How will we build conviction? How will we position the solution so that the client or prospect has no other logical or emotional choice but to select us over the competition?3. Use Repetition
Repetition is the mother of learning. Successful marketing campaigns are well-thought out programs that are executed with timing and precision. Therefore selecting the right media and the ways in which the message will be communicated is so critical. Systematically getting our message out in front of prospects and clients allows us to plant the seed and water it.4. Be Consistent
A consistent marketing message is critical to building brand recognition, top-of-the-mind-awareness and all of the other psychological factors which are necessary to persuade someone to choose YOU. Assuming we do have something remarkable and worth recommending we must find a way to encourage our partners and stakeholders to communicate this consistently.To all of my clients, subscribers, listeners and class members have a blessed and happy holiday season. I look forward to a great new year with exciting challenges and rewards for all of us.

“Ding dong,” chimed the doorbell, so I ran to open the door. I was shocked to see a vampire, witch, and football player all standing on my doorstep. Creepy music blared in the background, with muffled screams audible under the sounds of creaking doors, howling wolves, and the song “Monster Mash” by Bobby Pickett.

“Trick or treat!” came the cry from the costumed children.

I threw some candy in their bags, and off they went.

This is a cycle that is repeated time and time again on Halloween. Wouldn’t it be nice if getting business was that simple? Imagine if we could waltz into a prospects office and say the “magic phrase” and they would hand over the business like candy. Unfortunately in the real world competing effectively involves more than simply asking for the business. In fact the more we chase customers around, the further they seem to retreat. Yet what if there were a way to “attract” customers without chasing them?

It is for this reason that we have developed our “14 rules of attraction.” Last week we sent out a brief overview that listed all 14 rules. This week we will examine one of them in more detail. 

Rule number 3, The problem is more important than the solution.

Too often marketers make broad assumptions when communicating their message to clients. This happens in both the selling interaction (face-to-face and on the phone) as well as the marketing interaction (with ads, brochures and web sites.) This is a natural tendency since as marketers we know far more about our products and services than our customers. In many cases we may know what the customer needs more than they do themselves. The danger, however, is that customers don’t care about the benefits and solutions that our company offers. Let me repeat that: CUSTOMERS DON’T CARE ABOUT OUR BENEFITS AND SOLUTIONS!

I can imagine people everywhere are reading this right now saying that I’m crazy. Traditional sales and marketing methods teach that we should elaborate on our features and benefits, and prospects will see how they can be helped by our solutions, and they will logically decide to buy. This assumption is the root of why most sales and marketing attempts fall on deaf ears. First off people today make buying decisions more emotionally than ever before. Our prospects and customers care FAR more about their problems than they ever will about our solutions! 

It is important that we speak to our prospects and customers in terms of their problems! By doing so, they become comfortable with our solutions, not based on logic, but based on their emotional reaction to the fact that we actually have taken the time to understand their problems. The solutions we offer then become the natural choice to help solve those problems.

This is why it is important that we focus on the problem, instead of on the solution. How do we do this? We have developed a four step method for creating a problem mindset, that you can use to speak intelligently with your prospects and customers about their problems.

Step one:
Identify the major problems your prospects and customers are facing. Put yourself in their shoes. Brainstorm with your colleagues. Even better, ask some of your existing clientele what THEIR problems are. Chances are there are many prospects just like them.

Step two:
Figure out what exclusive or unique solutions to these problems you offer. Why is what you do different enough from your competitors to make it the only solution to the problems you’ve identified? How can you use this knowledge to develop marketing language that speaks in terms of the problems that you have identified?

Step three:
Analyze the problems and your solutions to find what you can do that reverses the risk of using your company to solve their problems. Reducing their risk will be your ace in the hole when it comes to presenting a solution once you have made your prospects realize that you understand their problems.

Step four:
Find some evidence you can offer that shows that your exclusive solution actually works. Once you have shown a prospect that you understand their problem, that you have an exclusive solution, and that there is little to no risk in using your solution, your evidence will build credibility for all of the claims you’ve made. Use testimonials, examples, demonstrations- any form of evidence you can to back up all of your claims. 

Whether you are talking to prospects in the selling role or preparing marketing material that will be used to create attraction, I encourage you to go out and find some problems that your prospects are facing. Focus on these problems when you prepare your message. This is as close as a marketer can come to saying “Trick or Treat” in the business world.

Special news to our Southern California Readers!
Listen for the Small Business Tip of the Day on 97.1 FM KLSX, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during the 8 O’clock hour of the Conway and Steckler show. If you’re out of the listening area, we will soon be posting these segments on our website for everyone to enjoy. And if any of you are planning on attending the FM Talk Financial Fest on November 13th, please stop by and say hi to Matt and Myself. Have a great week! I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com 

Mark Deo

I thought I’d take a moment to talk about branding from a different perspective. That is “experiential” branding. Branding must be more than just making sure your clients recognize your logo or tag line. A brand should make a bold statement or take a stand. We must create an emotional association with our brand. This could be a feeling of success, happiness, or relief which our clients experience when they own or use our product or service. This can be a direct experience or an indirect experience.

Direct Experience
An example of a direct experience would be a brand which is created when someone eats at a restaurant or takes a test drive in an automobile. Their “experience” directly influences how they feel about the product or service. This is why many marketers communicate their brand in the form of samples or in trying to deliver at least part of the solution to clients or prospects before they even make the decision to buy. It allows the client to lower their risk in changing vendors by “experiencing” your product or service without making a major investment of time or money. For example, software companies often do this with trial programs. Consumer products such as cleaning solutions, magazines and even snack foods do this by sending free sample in the mail which will hopefully communicate a positive brand experience. But imagine if gardeners did this by landscaping one small corner of an office complex or if real estate brokerages and agents did this when showing at open houses. What could be the results?

Indirect Experience
On the other hand “indirect experience” is much harder to convey in the form of branding. By it’s sheer nature it requires the client or prospect to make an investment. In many cases it requires that they purchase the product or service in order to experience the brand. For example, Budweiser sponsors sporting events to encourage viewers to associate Budweiser products with the fun and excitement of the sport. Companies also create slogans (“American Express: Don’t Leave Home Without It,” or “Built Ford Tough”) and use them everywhere. TV commercials, magazine ads, and billboards are all indirect messaging. But this form of branding needs repeated exposure – conventional advertising wisdom says that a message isn’t effective until the customer has received it at least 10 times. This can be too costly a method of branding particularly for the smaller business. In order to make this type of branding more effective we must focus on narrowing our marketplace.

Obviously direct experience branding is far more powerful and cost effective than indirect experience branding. Certainly a combination of tactics is most critical. In short I would encourage every marketer to think about ways that they can create a positive branding message both in the direct experience the customer has in engaging with their product or service or indirectly, the message they receive through the company’s marketing and advertising.

For more information on how to do this in your own business, check out our program on branding in the 21st Century. You can see more information on this program by going to:http://www.sbanetwork.org/attract/branding.asp
Also I have written many free articles on branding. Here are links to a few:http://www.sbanetwork.org/articles/articles_view.asp?id=53http://www.sbanetwork.org/articles/articles_view.asp?id=202http://www.sbanetwork.org/articles/articles_view.asp?id=248http://www.sbanetwork.org/articles/articles_view.asp?id=249
I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com.

Have a great week!

Regardless of the type of business you have, event marketing is an effective way to build client loyalty and maintain top-of-the-mind awareness. Event marketing creates excitement around your company, products or services by creating something out-of-the-ordinary that entices people to think about you. More than simply encouraging people to make purchases you are educating customers and prospects alike. Sponsoring these types of activities allows us to leverage Attraction Rule #4: “Give information away without selling.” The tips below can help you create memorable, profitable events:

Demonstrate expertise Create events that take advantage of the expertise of you and the people on your team. The idea is to educate your customers about a particular subject while reinforcing the image that your company is the place to go to for expert advice and products on this subject. For example, a home decor store can sponsor a workshop on creating window treatments. The demonstration provides instruction about the design trends, while emphasizing that the store’s staff understands these trends and the store’s inventory includes all the latest products you need to accomplish the task. Influence rather than sell I recommend focusing your events on educating, influencing, and inspiring attendees. Teach them something new and valuable. The more practical and usable the skill is the better. For example, I know several financial consultants that have had tremendous success doing financial seminars. It’s more about winning their hearts than simply getting people to make a purchase. The event itself should not include a hard sell component, but everyone who attends should know how to purchase what they need. If you hold workshops or other classes, offer handouts that list relevant information and how they can order the products or sign-up for the services. Consider offering attendees discounts or other incentives to encourage to get started at the seminar. Involve customers Get customers interested in events by stimulating the senses. Let people touch, try, see, hear, and smell. Showing how to use a new set of knives? Don’t just put a person at a chopping block – have him cook up an Asian stir-fry that smells, tastes, and sounds delicious. Use a PA system so everyone around can hear what is being said. Demonstrating fly-fishing equipment? Involve customers with a small “fishing derby” and a contest for catching the biggest fish or tying the nicest fly. Having a local band come in to sign its latest CD? Set up a small stage and have a short concert before the signing. It’s good for the musicians, the customers, and you! Work with your suppliers When you hold an event, you may not have to go it alone. Talk with your top suppliers or business partners about co-sponsoring an event. This can take many forms – a clothing store can have a special designer trunk sale; a photographer can have a special “clean your camera” day with service reps from a particular camera maker. In some cases, co-sponsorship will also include increased co-op advertising funds or other supplier incentives. Speak with your suppliers to find out how and if you can qualify for these programs.  Promote Don’t hold events in a vacuum. Advertise and promote them to drive traffic to your store and build additional excitement around your events. Promote them with your current customers, on your web site and to friends and family. I even recommend sending some announcements to your vendors. Alert local media to get listings in “events” columns or other mentions. Send postcards to your mailing lists. Mention events in your ads. For example, a bookstore can put a list of upcoming readings or book signings in its customer newsletter, while arranging pre-reading profiles of the featured authors in the local arts press.  Mark Deo Event I try to take my own advice and implement what I recommend for others. With that in mind, if you want to learn more about this form of marketing attraction I’d like to invite you to attend a FREE event. It’s our Dale Carnegie Sales Advantage Reunion and Refresher and it’s happening on February 7th in Long Beach California. If you’re like me you really love it when you run into a fellow DCSA (Dale Carnegie Sales Advantage) graduate. It reminds you of all the great things you learned in the class and how motivating it was seeing your fellow class members achieving their goals (not to mention your own). Well you will have that opportunity again very soon. Because at the suggestion of a one of our graduates we will be sponsoring a FREE Sales Advantage Reunion and Refresher!  The reunion will be a time of sharing our successes, networking, and sharpening our skills. We will even learn some new sales and marketing strategies. I plan to do a summary of our Cold Call Seminar. I will also be previewing the Breakthrough Communications and the Winning Sales Presentations Class. In addition, I will introduce my new, “Attract More Business Marketing Program.” Matt and I will also be doing the most hilarious sales talk presentation you’ve ever seen. So come join us and bring a friend.  Sales Advantage Reunion and Refresher Date: Monday, February 7, 2005  Time: 6:06PM  Place: Dale Carnegie Classroom – 2525 Cherry Avenue, Suite 106 Long Beach, CA 90755  Cost: FREE, Zippo, Nada, Zilch! (Just bring your good attitude.)  Door Prizes:  1. Scholarship to an upcoming Dale Carnegie Cold Call Seminar  2. The 150 page Attract More Business Program including 9 CDs and Tele-Coaching Session  3. Enrollment in one of our upcoming Tele-Classes  RSVP: Reply to this email or call Dale Carnegie Training to RSVP at 562-427-1040 by February 2 (Confirm your attendance with Keva Williams at extension 202.)  My very best to you and I look forward to seeing all of you there! Have a great week! I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com  Mark Deo Print this article.

Evangelical marketing might sound like some new religious recruitment scheme but what we are really talking about is finding ways to educate, influence, and inspire those in our network. There are three different aspects to evangelical marketing:

1. Informational marketing
2. Collaborative programs 
3. Buzz marketing

Informational Marketing
Most often informational marketing takes the form of eBooks or eZines as they are called. It can also be streaming audio or video, free samples, or trial versions. Informational marketing is revolutionizing the world of online publishing because anyone can easily publish and distribute their content in an electronic format. An example of informational marketing is the “Business Update” that you are now reading. 

There are a myriad of uses for informational marketing and they have some distinct advantages over printed medium or typical brochures or advertising. Informational Marketing (as opposed to traditional, interrupt marketing) is the process of marketing information to a niche market, which provides a solution or solves a need of that market. The information, then, helps you to create a relationship with those clients, where they give your permission to tell them about your product or service (Opt-In). 

Information marketing is the key to success on the internet as well as the brick and mortar world, for one main reason: The number one people get on the web is find information, not to buy a product! Some examples of the uses of, and ways to market, eBooks (or any informational product) on the internet are:

* As a system or training program for business to customer or business-to-business functions. 
* As an attachment to an auto-responder that sends the informational product after a request or an order.
* As a lead generating tool to build your Opt-In list.
* To establish you or your company as credible and an expert on the particular topic of the informational product. 
* As a stand-alone product, to make you money
* To create a catalog of your products 
* To put it on a CD-ROM with a color label to distribute to your customers and potential customers 
* To use in attracting joint venture relationships and affiliates
* As valued added items as an incentive or reward for a customer’s order.

The bottom-line is that a creative, consistently implemented informational marketing program will produce a dramatic return on investment in a very short time.

Collaborative Programs
Collaboration can help us to attract more business and increase our productivity by multiples. Collaboration is the process of working with others. More and more marketers are finding that 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 types of referrals tend to be a higher quality and are more qualified. 

Co-opetition
Many people think that business is war. Under this scenario there are victors and vanquished. As Gore Vidal said, “It is not enough to success, others must fail.” Listening to the way people talk about business you wouldn’t think it’s a war at all. We talk about relationship marketing, listening to customers, working with suppliers, creating teams, empowerment, strategic partnerships and so on. The truth is that there are few victors when business is conducted as war.

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 end, 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.

Think Compliments
A compliment is one product or service that makes any other more attractive. The classic example of compliments is computer hardware and software. Faster hardware prompts people to upgrade. Powerful software motivates people to buy faster hardware. Just look at Windows and Pentium chips. Thinking compliments 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 complimentors?

A player is a complimentor 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

A player is 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

Some examples of partners in success are Disney and McDonalds, Universal and Burger King, Sears and Allstate, Visa and Airlines, Perfume Makers and Department stores and do on.

How to Launch a Collaborative Program
1. Develop a profile of potential collaborators.
2. Identify at least five non-competitive partners that you can collaborate with and create a pre-approach plan.
3. Pick only the very best people in each area. 
4. Be very selective Do NOT compromise on values or philosophy 
5. Ensure that there is mutual benefit. A one sided relationship will only breed resentment and contempt 

These collaborative strategies can transform your business, help you capture greater market share, improve your profitability, or even help you start a new business and reduce your financial risk in this difficult economy. They are just NICE IDEAS until we put them into action.

Buzz Marketing
Today customers are suffering from information overload. They see and hear so many advertising and marketing messages that it becomes difficult to filter out what is valuable and credible through all the clutter and noise. As a result, customers are turning to their friends and associates for purchasing advice more that ever. Marketing experts believe that the new customer, Generation Y – those born between 1979 and 1994 – shop by word of mouth. In the coming years, buzz marketing may that much more important. 

Buzz works so well because talking is in our genes. As human beings, we need to talk. We talk to connect with people. Sharing information is essential to our make-up. We talk about the latest movie we saw, the car we test drove, the book we read and so on. 

The last era of marketing started with the TV screen. It was all about watching advertisements and marching to the beat of Corporate America. Advertising quickly flowed from television into the rest of our lives. Everywhere we looked, from restroom urinals to the names of our favorite ballparks, we were surrounded by corporations shouting messages at us. Some companies were even paying individuals to “act” normal while pulling stunts such as wearing logos shaved into their heads. We naturally began to “tune out” and ignore the messages. Enough was enough!

Then something happened that none of us predicted. The Internet.
In the beginning, the Internet was supposed to be the new all-powerful marketing channel (“television for the next generation”), but that didn’t happen! Instead, the Internet became a giant chat room for all of us. The Internet changed how the world communicates. It opened the door for people to share opinions with each other quicker, more effectively, and more honestly than ever before.
That is bad news for traditional advertisers … but good news for all of us!
The new flow of information between people means a new phase in the history of marketing. To put it simply, we are living in a new era – the era of word-of-mouth marketing.

When Hotmail launched its Web-based free email service, it experienced the fastest adoption rate of any product ever introduced. Subscriptions went from zero to 12 million in just 18 months. Each person who signed up helped to recruit other members because a message was sent with each email. The power of Word-of-Mouth (or Word-of-Mouse) to the “n”th degree!

In the past few years, companies like BzzAgent (check them out at www.bzzagent.com) and other Word-of-Mouth advocates have proven that honest opinions are more powerful than interruptive marketing messages. When you are creating buzz, you are at the very edge of marketing. Word-of-Mouth has long been considered the most effective form of connecting people to products, but, until now, nobody has really captured its essence and power. Listen to my interview with the CEO of BzzAgent at Small Business Hour.
How to Create a Buzz Marketing Program
If you want to create buzz, you have to know your customer and how you are reaching them. It is easier to create buzz than you may think. Good buzz begins with a positive customer experience. There is no substitute for exceptional performance. 

First – Ask yourself the following: 
1. From whom do your customers learn about your products? 
2. What do people say when they recommend your products? 
3. In what invisible networks are your products discussed? 
4. What kind of information spreads through the networks fastest?
5. “How can you get people to experience your product or service without them making a big commitment? 
6. How can you giveaway a small piece of your product or service so that people will start talking about it?”

Second – Try to change your thinking from: 
1. “I need to get this sale,” to “How can I get this prospect to talk about my product or service?” 
2. Don’t focus on under-promising but rather over-delivering. 
3. Don’t be afraid to give a little away. 

Every business large or small, regardless of the industry should have some type of evangelical marketing program in place. I hope this helps you to establish an evangelical marketing program. If you are having trouble adapting this to your business, send me an email and let me know how I can help. 

I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Networkassists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com 

Mark Deo

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.