Small Business Digital CoachGROW REVENUES BY 25 TO 100% OR MORE IN 90 DAYS OR LESS while reducing advertising cost and effort

One of my favorite management authors, Jack Trout writes with an authoritative and somewhat sarcastic style that cuts to the heart of the matter while providing some entertainment (occasionally at the expense of other “management gurus”).

I wanted to read this book ever since I began to suspect that simplicity of thought and business will become a greater and greater competitive advantage the farther we go into the info-overload of the digital age.

The book begins with a discussion of “7 kinds of common fears” as reported by psychologist John Collard.

This first part of the book is ironically the only part of the book that really doesn’t resonate with me. I have serious doubts about at least 2 of the supposedly “common” fears. They are listed as:

• Fear of failure (I can agree with that)
• Fear of sex (What the…?)
• Fear of self-defense (Huh?)
• Fear of trusting others (Hmm…I don’t know)
• Fear of thinking (I kind of agree with that)
• Fear of speaking (I get that)
• Fear of being alone (I agree)

The author apparently supports Dr. Collard’s assertion that “fear of thinking” is responsible for why people tend to avoid seeking or embracing simple solutions because “instead of thinking things through for ourselves, we rely on the thinking of others”.

I don’t think so.

First of all, there’s no evidence that this routing of thinking through others is fear-based rather than a logical short cut; an ancient habit of ‘mining the wisdom of the crowd’.

Second, even our dependence on others is based on fear of thinking, I don’t see a logical argument that shows why the thinking of the “others” we depend on should automatically avoid simple solutions themselves.

I personally believe that the 2 biggest reasons why people add needless complexity to their businesses and lives have to do with fear of failure and insecurity.

This “fear of failure” echoes the thinking of another expert mentioned in the book.

Dr. Carol Moog explains that in our [American] culture, there’s a “paranoia of omission” which may lead people to bring up every possible alternative, or eventuality in solving problems. This, I agree with.

Going back to the book in general, I think it does an excellent job of pointing out some important areas of life where unnecessary complexity is often introduced.

The authors also do a great job of providing simple prescriptions for solving the complexity trap in each of those areas.

For instance, they make a credible argument for why so-called “common sense” is often the best answer. They provide instructions for avoiding complex language, information overload, and business complexity.

In dealing with business complexity, they illustrate the high cost of complexity in communication, marketing, strategy and so on. I found this book easy to read, and very insightful.

If you’re like me and you find that you need to “De-complexify” (yes, I actually found myself thinking that word at one time), you’ll want read this book.

Some other good books whose themes intersect with this one:

Made To Stick – This is one of my absolute favorite books on business messaging. It illustrates why short, simple messages are absolutely the “stickiest”.

Differentiate or Die – Another classic from Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin. “The book” on strategic positioning and branding for businesses; the book that re-popularized Rosser Reeves old “USP” (unique selling proposition) and brought simplicity and common sense back to marketing strategy.

In this first video:
I introduce a an Assets/Strengths identification framework known as the Wealth Capital Matrix. In addition to that, I use cases like the success of Oprah Winfrey to illustrate my points.

In this second video:
I go into how the Wealth Capital Matrix can be utilized in product development, business planning and wealth-building. I also introduce another powerful proprietary tool for mining your hidden gifts called a S.H.E.L.L. audit. Lastly, I go even deeper with the 4P framework – a complete business thinking system.

“Are we in a recession”?

His response was enlightening.

“Who is We?”

From about 2003 to 2006 many real estate investors (me included) saw that despite the so-called “good times” in real estate, a record number of people were losing their homes to foreclosure…EVERY YEAR!

Charles Dickens put it best when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”. There is always someone having the time of their lives, and there’s always someone in the world going through the worst of the human experience.

That’s why what you need most as a business owner during a recession is PERSPECTIVE.

For any given situation, there is a positive. Allowing yourself (or your business) to be submerged under a deluge of negative economic news could be disastrous for your business. Instead, you can choose to give thought to the blessings you already have.

One of the most powerful advantages that recessions confer on business owners who keep their heads about them, is the ability to prosper through partnerships. Below are 6 quick and easy ways to prosper through partnerships.

1. Recruit talent to work with you.

During a tight job market, you have a far better opportunity to create superior value for your customers and clients by bundling and packaging the services of highly talented specialists. Over the last few months, I’ve been able to build service delivery relationships with world-class marketing and design minds who may not have been available to me a few years ago. They were either unaffordable, unavailable or otherwise unreachable (out of my league).

2. Enter strategic referral relationships with your clients.

This particular strategy makes sense whether there’s a recession or not. However, you’ll find that people are more willing to consider referring you business when they can put a little cash in their pockets and do their contacts a favor.

An easy way to arrange this is to approach your clients and have them promote a discounted offer of your services to their own clients and contacts. This can be done easily through a direct method like a letter of endorsement highlighting your services, or indirectly through their promotion and sponsorship of a workshop you teach.

For those of you in highly regulated industries, skillful use of the “endorsed workshop” technique can work wonders.

3. Cross promotions, Co-endorsements, JV Ad swaps

Another variant of the strategic referral partnership is an arrangement in which you and the other party (a client, vendor or complementary business) agree to promote each other to your respective customers. Cross promotions, co-endorsements, or in the online marketing world, JV ad swaps are all various ways of saying the same thing.

What you have to be careful about here is that you need to put the interests of your clients community first when choosing your partners. You do not want destroy in one day what took you a thousand to build because you didn’t check out your partners product, service or reputation first.

3. Employ Online Affiliate marketing.

One of the highest leverage ways to expand your market reach, increase your income and build long-term leverage for your business system is by attaching an information publishing profit center to your current business. A cornerstone strategy for most successful information publishers is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing marketplaces like Clickbank have over 100,000 registered affiliate marketers looking for products to represent to their email lists and their online audiences.

4. Partnerships with Trade Groups, Chambers, Associations.

Another simple strategy is to partner with non profits, trade groups, and associations to deliver free content to their clients. Whether through live workshops, or through virtual events like webinars and tele-seminars, you can add a ton of prospects to your marketing in a very short time using this method. It is also a great way to raise funds for your favorite charity. Recently I used this method to raise almost a thousand dollars for my church, only putting in a few hours of work.

5. Marketing partnerships.

You can also recruit other businesses (even competitors sometimes) to pool funds and resources for advertising, outreach or publicity purposes. One of the most common applications of this technique is with the “coupon mailers” that you receive in your mailbox. Each of those businesses can get together, contribute a particular amount that covers design, printing, mailing list and postage costs.

This principle can be applied to other marketing channels as well. Exhibits or trade shows. Publicity events. Online marketing, etc.

6. Full-scale business joint ventures and strategic alliances

This goes beyond just marketing partnerships and into delivering of goods and services. Whether it involves creating bundled offerings that combine complementary strengths of 2 businesses, or re-engineering both businesses to create a co-dependent ecosystem, joint ventures can be very powerful tools for business growth during times of macro-economic uncertainty.

If you grab a pen and a note pad and sit down to think about potential partnerships, you’ll undoubtedly come up with many other ways to partner your way to prosperity during this recession.

If you own or operate a Denver business, or are a sales professional in Denver, I recommend that you join this group (membership is free) http://www.budurl.com/DenverBusinessGroup

One of the reasons I elected to take over the organization of this group and to redirect the theme of the group is because I sense that certain irresponsible advertising agencies are beginning to do with social media services what they have long done in small business advertising.

And that’s to use it as a tool to foist dollar-wasteful “Me-too” marketing methods on hapless business owners with a completely new medium. The goal behind the 60+ member business network is to help each business owner within the group to share resources, case studies and potential partnership opportunities while studying the strategy and tactics of effective social media.

Denver social media marketing through practical and manageable step-by-step implementation has been the focus of the seminars so far. While many marketing professionals don’t dare talk explicitly about business growth (for fear of being found out), this network of business owners have made business growth the aim of their involvement on social media platforms.

Here’s just some of what people have been saying about this Denver Social Media and Digital marketing for Business Growth Network:

I’ve got Bad News and Really Bad News!

Which would you like to hear first?

Okay, let’s start with the Bad News.

The Bad News is that people hate companies. That’s why they hate the government.

They hate faceless, soulless organizations that seem to have the power to find you wherever you hide.

If you go to your mailbox, they find you there. If you run to the sanctuary of your home, they deputize telemarketers to hunt you down and annoy you. Even cell phones are no longer immune.

These powerful, faceless, soulless, organizations…

Sometimes they send your aunt’s confidential mail… TO YOUR HOUSE!!

“How did they know she was my aunt? She’s been happily married for decades. Complete with a different last name. What ungodly database connected her to me?”

That’s what people are thinking when you send them your mailers, when you call them, when you reach out to them with your alleged “marketing” efforts.

So to recap, the bad news is that people hate companies.

The Really Bad News is that if you’re like most companies (and chances are good that you are), then people hate you as well!

So how can we get people to stop hating you and get around to liking you so that you can contribute to their lives, sell them some stuff, and make a bunch of money?

Today I’ll share 3 rules for businesses who want to people to like them.

1. Speak “human” and not corporate.
2. Advertise humans and acknowledge human needs.
3. Act human when they come to you.

1. Speak human and not corporate.

In a perfect world, business marketing would be “communication of the humans, by the humans, for the humans”. Unfortunately, much of it is not.

A long time ago, business owners learned the shocking truth from their CPAs that the I.R.S. considers their businesses “an entity”.

In the bedlam that ensued, many businesses stopped acting like people and started acting like an “entity” – a painfully boring hybrid between a “person” and a doorknob.

Be different. Speak human.

Last thanksgiving, I received an email from Southwest Airlines. At the top of the email, it had the following caption, “Only Turkeys Charge For Bags”!

Why don’t other companies talk like that?

Every direct marketing expert worth his salt will tell you that when you approach the humans in a market, you should “join the conversation in their head”.

This means you should think about their biggest pet peeves as it relates to your product, service, company and industry. But don’t just end there.

You should then somehow acknowledge this pet peeve, and then side with them in the fight.

You see, human customers are tyrannical like that. They hate companies who refuse to take their side. As a matter of fact they punish them. Oh, and they keep long grudges. For instance, I have a longstanding grudge with a really big telecom company that I pay monthly. I’m just waiting for the day someone else can convince me that their mobile network is “just as good” and…BAM!!! … I’ll be gone.

2. Use Humans In Advertising, and Advertise Human Benefits

I really miss Frank Perdue. This guy had been selling chicken in TV commercials for 20 years before I first saw one of his ads in 1991.

My mother (who has a penchant for ridiculously candid observations) once remarked that, “he looks like his chickens”.

From this NY Times article, it turns out some people believe his ads were successful for that very reason.

In any case, because people like people (even though they hate companies), they bought billions of dollars worth of chickens from a man who was obsessed with the opinions of his human customers about his chickens.

And just because I think that every business owner could learn a thing or two about “Human communication” from Frank Perdue, I’ve taken the liberty to share this mini-gallery of “Frank Perdue Ads. (Warning: May not be suitable viewing if you are religiously or philosophically opposed to the eating of meat or meat products)

A more recent example of excellent use of humans in marketing is the recent “Bags Fly Free Ad campaign” from Southwest (again).

Why don’t other companies make stars of their ground crews like Southwest Airlines did with their “Bags Fly Free” Campaign? I mean these tough guys demonstrated their love for OUR BAGS in no uncertain terms in that series of marketing ads.

Yes, they were “tongue-in-cheek” but they were driving home some actual benefit-oriented points of differentiation between Southwest airlines and other airlines.

One of the most common mistakes companies make when they use humans in their advertising is “human advertising for advertising sake”… Humans in your ads cannot just be about personality or emotion marketing – there must be a customer benefit-based logic to your advertisements.

3. Act Human When They Finally Come To You

Okay so you’ve spent thousands of dollars in your advertising (millions if you’re particularly unlucky).

And you’ve finally gotten the humans to get over their aversion and to visit your location, or call you about your services.

Here’s where so many businesses drop the ball…again.

They forget to act human.

Actually, forget “acting human”…sometimes businesses are just downright inhumane.

Here’s a brief Mini-guide on the proper care and feeding of human customers:

1. As a business owner or manager, it is within your power to make sure that employee performance reviews include customer service metrics for all human-facing employees.

2. Expecting a uniform standard of customer care from your employees without a uniformly standardized and continuous training program is unrealistic.

Don’t assume your employees will automatically act human just because you assume they’re human (Didn’t you watch “Men In Black”?)

3. Humans like it when you earnestly ask their opinion of the service you allegedly provided them. They also expect that you will make a reasonable attempt to please them if they’re not completely satisfied. My suggestion is that you leverage every point of “expressed dissatisfaction’’ by going well beyond what they expect from you in resolving their complaints.

4. Right from the when they are babies, humans expect to be the center of attention. When in doubt, even though they hate companies, they will flock to those companies that show them attention and listen continuously to their needs. Yeah, humans… they’re complicated like that.

I have also had the opportunity to serve on the board of a non-profit here in Denver. As a result of my exposure, I have come to the conclusion that leaders of non-profit start ups who adopt the methods and tools of for-profit businesses give their organizations the best chance of success.

While many non-profit founders are visionaries (almost by definition), they all too often are not strategists. While visionaries and strategists deal with managing the big picture, a strategist has the added competency of being able to translate a desired big picture outcome into strategic planning and tactical execution.

One trait that marks the strategists is their ability to recognize the core challenges they face, and to quickly identify resources to overcome those challenges. The most successful nonprofit founders turn out to be big picture dreamers, masters at every day bootstrapping and problem solving.

Social media represents one of the highest leverage tools for bootstrapping funds, followers and fame (publicity). Non-profits using tools like Ning Websites, Facebook fan pages, and other such platforms are able to meet their milestones while stretching very limited budgets.