This was a broadway musical based on the early life of comedy legend, Carl Reiner
Great Minds Think Alike
When Richard Branson, arguably one of the most successful entrepreneurs alive and Seth Godin, one of the most prolific thought-leaders on marketing get together, under the auspices of American Express . . . it has to be good.
It is:
The Point:
LISTENING . . . to your customer (or, client or patient or prospect) is essential to your success.
One of the many principles — but a very essential one — for using social media is to ‘optimize your brand assets’.
What’s that mean? Good question.
It means using online social media sites to post content so people can find your content and, as a result, find you, too!
Here’s a great example of this:
Dan Zarrella, a noted expert on social media is the author of this extremely good book on social media.
But my point, for this post at least, is that he’s practicing the principle of getting ‘out there’ by posting his content (in this case, video on YouTube) so you can connect with him.
Get Dan’s book. It’s awesome.
More important, get the power of this practice . . . optimizing brand assets on the internet.
It’s good for your brand awareness and . . . your bank account.
ONE MORE EXAMPLE . . .
Here’s one of the ‘related videos’ you’ll be able to view after Dan’s video.
Notice that it’s not likely to be confused with a ‘Hollywood’ production in any way. But it’s acceptable. It’s also effective.
Question:
Can you see yourself doing something similar to this video or Dan’s? Really! And what would that do for you? ‘-)
In The Marketing Club™, we talk about knowing your VALUE PROPOSITION.
That’s what makes a prospect willing to pay you for the ‘beneficial difference’ you create in their life or business.
Seth Godin, blogs about three (3) ways to create ‘value’ that will always cause you to be employed.
He suggests the following:
- generate sales
- add value
- initiate constructive action
Revenue creators are financial necessities. If you generate more than you cost a client, you’re going to be attractive to a prospect!
Value Adders — adding value to processes, people, systems, etc. that generates revenues and profits by increasing efficiency or effectiveness (net of your cost) is always in fashion.
Activity Initiators — being able to start any activity that no one else is doing but will add value to an organization . . . will make you pretty attractive, too.
When YOU think of what you offer your clients . . . which of these three ways to ‘add value’ and, therefore be attractive . . . are you offering your prospects and existing clients?
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Point:
Is your value proposition designed to communicate what you do for a client in one or more of these three ways?
Do you communicate effectively?
How would you know? Probably by the response your reader or listener gives you after you give your message.
So, I ask again, “Do you communicate effectively?” If not, do better.
One key to that end which brilliant communicators like Seth Godin and Steve Jobs have honed to an artform is to be surgically concise.
Another key is to use visual information as much as possible. Afterall, who says, “Gee, I remember your name but I forgot your face!”.
We’re visual beings. We first process reality visually then we ‘process’ it into an abstract verbal understanding. So why make ‘getting’ a message harder than necessary?
Here’s a good example of a master presenter in action:
POINT:
Communication is an artform. Effective communication combines:
- the simplicity of your message with
- a visual rendering of it whenever possible
What does a prospective client want from you?
Do you know? Can you say? What would that look like?
If you don’t know, can’t say or can’t show it, you risk of being an order-taker — someone who invites your prospect to tell you what they need or want.
I’d argue that abdicating your responsibility to know what a prospect needs from you is akin to allowing a patient to tell their doctor what to prescribe.
Seth Godin agrees. In this post, he makes the same point.
POINT:
The true benefit of ‘packaging’ your problem-solving services in the first place, is how it communicates that you already know:
- what people want from you, and
- what that solution is supposed to look like
Once you have packaged your expertise to provide the ‘beneficial difference’ a member in your target market is seeking, you’ll never be guilty of order-taking again!
I was on a telecall last week sponsored by my good friend, Carl Utter, President of The Training Group in the Philadelphia, PA area.
During the introductions of who was joining us on the telecall, a client of Carl’s mentioned that he worked with “NFL players” and that he was a financial advisor.
My ears perked up! Here’s why . . .
Just recently, I was talking to someone else and she told me that she wanted to work with . . . “Professional Athletes”.
In that moment, I was able to make a key connection — that’s subsequently lead to a preferred introduction between my friend and Carl and, I hope, that will lead to a preferred introduction to his client, Fred . . . yep, the one who works with NFL players.
POINT:
When you’re talking with people, make sure they know WHO you can be of service to . . . and make sure they will know WHAT constitutes a ‘person-of-interest’ to you . . . when they come into proximity of one! If you don’t . . . you may miss out on some opportunities that you won’t want to miss!
If you’ve been in business any amount of time you’ve undoubtedly been exposed to what is euphemistically known as . . . the ‘Elevator Pitch’.
That’s your brief response to a stranger who asks, “What do you do?”
Ideally, your pitch or ‘Talking Logo’ is short, sweet and likely to cause a qualified person to then say something akin to, “Really? THAT is what you do? Fascinating! . . . Tell me more!”
In common practice, you follow a simple formula such as:
- Target Market . . . e.g. “I help _______________”
- Meaningful Outcome . . . e.g. “to stop having to . . .” or, “to be able to . . .”
- Resource . . . e.g. “By means of my . . .”
If the person doesn’t ‘bite’ on what you’ve said in the first two steps, they’re not qualified and you don’t ever have to share what you have to say in step 3 because, well . . . there’s no reason to do so, is there?
Sometimes, you’ll want to give a little longer explanation of what you do. And that brings me to the real subject of this post.
Beyond The Basics
OK, now just for fun, I’d like to introduce you to Karrie Kohlhaas. Karrie is the founder of Thoughtshot Consulting in Seattle, WA.
I had the pleasure of meeting her on a social network for businesspeople called Biznik.com (definitely check it out!).
Below is what Karrie has on her profile and boy does it address the question, “What do you do?”. What I’d like you to notice though is just how powerful her words are . . . they are clear, concise and paint vivid images for anyone who hears them. See for yourself. Picture Karrie standing at a business meeting and delivering the following message to ‘introduce’ herself to the room:
“I blast through barriers with independent business owners, streamlining their growth so they can move faster and easier. I work with clients to create structures and systems that cause a shift from overwhelm to profit, from scrambling to strategy. The work is unorthodox and the results are dramatic. Clients who work with me consistently report their highest income levels to date.
My background, providing cutting-edge consulting to Fortune 500 companies, translates into keen insights for business development, strategy, organization, marketing, branding and growth.
If you have a business you want to grow or an idea for a business you want to start, I’d love to hear from you. I am not a cookie cutter consultant, nor a feel-good coach. I combine cultural anthropology, brain studies and business and my commitment is that my clients produce tangible results.
If you’d like to know more about Karrie, here’s her website:
WOW! As you read the carefully chosen words and phrases Karrie uses, did you feel the rhythm she was weaving for you? Were you intrigued? Did her words fixate you? Did they transform who she is in your mind? Did you notice she speaks about the outcomes she produces / her clients want? I bet the answer is YES! And that’s good.
POINT:
When you have an opportunity to share more than a brief elevator pitch, consider the lesson Karrie is giving you here . . . choose your words to paint strong, vivid images that will not only attract and qualify people for your business but make them feel excited about working with you, too.
I write a monthly column for The National Networker.com.
This is an online weekly publication with all kinds of great information and great contributing writers and tons of really excellent resources for business people. But . . . as a writer, I still have to help myself get the word out.
Enter a little bit of self-promotion!
I graduated from The University of Connecticut. On LinkedIn, like many schools, there is a group of UCONN alumni. About 4,000 or so strong.
When I write an article, I let people know about it and this group is one of many venues to do that . . . as this image proves: (I”m the most popular article here in case you can’t read the image).
I also happened to have one of the most popular (measured by ‘views’ of my article) articles at The National Networker the same week as I began to post news of my article in various venues online. Coincidence? Hardly! It all happened . . . by design, not by accident.
Here’s an email I received from Adam Kovitz — the publisher of The National Networker shortly after I decided to see what would happen if I promoted my week 1 article even though the current issue was already in week 3. In other words, I was competing with a 3 week old article against more current articles:
Yes, my week 1 article became so popular that I made it into the ‘top 5’ articles in week 3 — even though my article came out 3 weeks earlier! And, not to brag, but I managed to attract more views than Dr. Ivan Meisner, founder of BNI pulled in that same time period. Not too shabby!
I’m sorry to disappoint you Adam, but there’s no ‘Voodoo’ involved. Just basic online PR techniques that anyone can learn and use . . . simply, effectively and very affordably.
HERE’S MY POINT:
If you’ll do a few simple things with your online media opportunities, you can get yourself some meaningful visibility with people who may be interested in what you’re doing. Once you get visibility, you’ll get traffic and getting traffic . . . well, you know where that goes . . . straight to your bank!
To learn more details on ‘How To’ do this same thing for your business, come to Session 7 of The Marketing Club where we discuss and show you how to use PR and Word-of-Mouth Marketing to get you and your business noticed so you can get more clients.
Q:
“What does a good advisor do?”
A:
“Ask better questions . . . than the client knows to ask”
It’s become painfully obvious to me that I, myself, need a good advisor to help me with a challenge I’m having with something.
Why so ‘obvious’? Simple. I’m running out of time to live with the situation ‘as is’ and I’m all out of insights as to why I’ve got the problem in the first place.
When your clients experience a similar situation . . . where something ‘isn’t right’ in their world . . . and they’re clueless about both WHY that’s happening and HOW to correct the situation, you become the knight on the white horse . . . riding in with your insightful questions to shed light on the cause that calls for a cure.
Many times, you won’t even need to have the answers. If you do, that’s a double bonus. But even if you’re only able to ask your client the questions that reveal the underlying cause or causes for the distressing symptoms (what clients call ‘the problem’) . . . then you’re providing significant value to your clue-less client.
As the surgeon told her patient who asked her to breakdown her bill, “Ok” she said. “For the incision, surgery and suturing . . . 1% . . . knowing where to operate and why . . . 99%”.
And THAT . . . is why asking insightful, revealing questions . . . that are the first step in getting your clients what they want . . . is PRICELESS!
BILL DOERR, CCO
860-798-6964