by on August 17, 2010 Leave a Comment

Dan Kennedy – what would you ask him?

Picture of Dan KennedyHaving done ‘journalism’ for nearly half my insignificant life I’ve become accustomed to talking to people who are very, very good at what they do. It’s a luxury I discovered way before people figured by doing podcasts you could gain access to visionaries, luminaries and the like.

This time around I’ve managed to nail an interview with Dan Kennedy. If you’re not in business there’s a slim chance this sales guru may have passed you by. If you haven’t heard of Jim Rohn or Zig Ziglar, I forgive you at this point.

But anyway, Dan has written some incredible books based on his experiences selling everything from greetings cards up. He doesn’t get out of bed for less than a five-figure daily project fee. And his work rocks.

Direct marketing, copywriting, sales coaching… I’m a fan in a dimishing context of Drayton Bird – considered the UK’s finest copywriter. Having seen some of the work Kennedy has come up with, I wonder why I ever wasted my time on anything purveyed this side of the Atlantic.

If you’ve heard of Dan Kennedy, get your thinking cap on and tell me what question you’d ask him. And then I’ll ask him. How about that?

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by on February 25, 2010 Leave a Comment

Are you cream or concrete?

Will your business float to the top of its game, or sink like a stone to its doom?

2010 is a war cry or death knell for small companies the world over. It’s entirely attributable to the stratospheric rise in levels of customer power.

It all boils down to one thing: client and voice.

  • In 2007 every techie under the sun was mad, ravingly effusive about reviewing everything.
  • In 2008 everyone else discovered tripadvisor.com
  • In 2009 YouTube overtook everyone as the number one place on the web to go review everything. RateItAll.com was born, still my favourite place to assess products and services.
  • In 2010, the thrust to share views on businesses gained untold traction.

The game has changed forever.

Of course there’s good and bad.

Good for the business that has sculped its management and operational systems with finesse and meticulous attention to detail. To the way they are perceived, to the way they respond and the way they develop and enhance relationships, inside and outside the venture.

Bad for the business that has been sitting on its laurels, head deep in sand, for the past year. “I’m exceptional,” they say.

You have to be more than exceptional to stand still. You have to be living on Mars with fortune enough to carry you through past retirement and beyond, because your business will surely not.

2010 is the year you rise to be counted.

You’re in the public eye more than ever before. A few years ago you could take the odd negative comment from a customer. After all, word of mouth only stretched so far.

In 2010, word of mouth went all-out, online. The words used to describe your efforts are the same; it’s just they are amplified to a degree only fathomable by the finest mathematicians.

I’m desperately happy that the balance of power is being restored in favour of entrepreneurs who live customer service. Their hearts beat for the client. Their operations are consistent, products and services effortlessly delivered.

I always return to the story told by a colleague who visited a Four Seasons Hotel for a second time, and found everything – literally, everything he needed – was awaiting his arrival, down to his favourite soft drinks in the mini bar.

Those canny creators of commerce will be signed up to the titans of client feedback evaluation such as GetSatisfaction.com.

They’ll be working instinctively with tools like the free 4q survey system; they’ll be measuring every on- and off-line customer interaction in a way they can qualify, define on the ground and, more importantly, react to with far better business practices now and into the future. They’ll involve the customer in every change to products and services. Customers will even change the businesses themselves.

Quantification is everything. Orchestration is joint first. Because when you work with metrics and apply effective efficiency to everything you do, in every area of your business, that’s when you’re 2010-proof.

I wish you every success for the future. You’re ready for it. Just make sure that your customers are your every wish and whim, your products the best they can be. And then make them even better.

The rewards are beyond your wildest expectations.

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by on February 23, 2010 Leave a Comment

Stop teaching marketing; start teaching friendship.

The biggest universities do it. The practitioners – even modern-day marketers – get paid to teach it.

But why?

What can we possibly achieve by teaching conventional marketing? Choosing permission versus invasive, electronic versus direct mail; for sure, these have a place in developing a sound commercial strategies.

But these are conventions, norms. The market is expectant upon the sound-minded making decisions like this as part of the bread and butter of dealing with products and services.

Degrees and diplomas in marketing are pieces of paper that hold little kudos in determining for an employer whether one individual has the smarts to succeed in creating business growth over another.

Instinct, integrity, infusion: these three Is replace the five Ps.

Instinct for the market; instinct for what your audience wants. Tallied with empirical evidence (feedback from customer interactions aka CRM intelligence and competitor analysis), instinct is the most powerful asset in your marketing arsenal.

Integrity in everything you do. Trust creation through honesty and openness. Transparency of product development – even considering customer-gathering to inspire, create, develop and enhance your suite of offerings. Integrity means everyone, everywhere, knows what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and why you, rather than your opposite number, deserves their custom, loyalty and friendship.

Infusion of marketing in every area of business. Marketing is business – it’s not a silo behaviour. Marketing is as important as the bucks in the bank. Marketing is you, your customer, your boss and your whole marketplace, combined. Every action you take is untold marketing. From going to work in the morning with a head full of dreams and new and exciting ways to invigorate your customer and their wallet, to every goddamn meeting, it’s all an intricate weave of marketing techniques, principles, strategies and avatars. You simply have to stop thinking of marketing as a side dish to the main course of doing business. Marketing is business…

There was a hint back there – in the integrity pile. Take a look. The word is friendship. Because friendship, at a deep level, is what defines today’s customer-supplier relationship.

The minute universities and other course suppliers evolve and start understanding the value of friendship over conventional marketing is the day we can truly have faith and measure the effectiveness of business developers and entrepreneur creators the world over.

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by on November 10, 2009 Leave a Comment

Time to tell some stories…

What does communication mean to your  business?

  • Announcing price increases?
  • The launch of a new product?
  • New team structure?
  • Sales?

To the majority of businesses, one or more of these elements would be pole position in defining communication.

But we need to be more humanistic.

People want their emotions stirred. They want to be illuminated and taken on a journey.

When I worked in timeshare the sales guys used to work through a process called the discovery with their clients.

It basically meant getting all the info about their prospects’ lives and assembling a viable and attractive proposition tailored to their needs.

By being a great listener, top sales guys were able to craft a believable and tantalising sales pitch. Personalised. Real.

This empathy with your client is needed whatever the industry.

And you need to know enough about your product and your customer, so you can make the two meet in the middle with whatever sales proposition you care to spin.

So master the art of the storytell and you’ll discover a far more effective way of doing business.

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