Sales and Marketing Tools
That Really Work
By
Wayne Lundberg CMfgE
Sales and Marketing Tools That Really
Work
(Guarantied[1])
© 1997, Wayne Lundberg
If sales and marketing were
really difficult humanity would still be in the hunting/gathering tribal state
of being. Sales and marketing is no more difficult than the most elementary of
all social activities - getting a date.
To some, this simple act of
getting a date, may be frightening, challenging, scary and may create
nightmares. But by and large most of us figure it out and eventually join the
crowd, make babies and live in relative harmony.
If you can sell yourself to
a mate, you can succeed in sales and marketing. The principles are the same.
A major problem is the
cultural belief that sales and marketing is difficult, requires a lot of math,
is expensive, requires specialists who charge a ton of money, and can only be
performed by those anointed with an MBA. The major problem in sales and
marketing is having your own mental roadblocks - usually.
Let’s get to the point.
The secret to a successful
sales and marketing strategy is in your ability to visualize the emotional
reaction of the person who will be using your product, idea or whatever it is
you will be selling.
Since this statement is so
obvious, so simple, so uncomplicated, most will ignore it and read on searching
for the real meat of my claim that this is the most practical and down to earth
sales and marketing manual ever written.
Stop now!
Everything will depend on
how well you visualize the emotional
reaction to the person on the receiving end of your efforts.
Do it now and look for the
answers to the following questions as you imagine that end user of your
offering. What age, how are they dressed, where do they live, what is their family
income, what is their educational background, what do they do to pass the time,
are they readers, are they couch potatoes, are they healthy, do they have
imagination, are they leaders or followers, what made them buy your offering,
what will they do with it, how will they explain the expense to their most
significant other, how long with they be interested in it, will they share
their joy with others, will others listen to them, can you come up with
something later to keep them interested in your offerings, will that person be
a customer?
Now, where in all of these
questions is there a single word about the quality, price, specifications,
details of your offering? Where is there a mention of cost of production, cost
of distribution, cost of advertising, profits and loss? Please go to the end of
this booklet for insight into new product development and market analysis. This
portion of the text is aimed at the actual marketing of your idea or product.
Yet it is in these last
items that the overwhelming majority of books on sales and marketing focus.
Let’s recapture your
visualization and tackle a few of these questions.
First of all, once you have
profiled your end user you have defined your target market. You have identified
the kind of people most likely to buy from you.
You will discover that
successful sales and marketing is nothing more than breaking down every element
of this visualization into projects and into tasks; each a step toward success.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Next is the absolute must in
all sales and marketing efforts. Convert this visualization exercise into a
daily ritual in which you spend no less than 20 minutes with eyes closed, in a
quiet place, to experience the pure unadulterated joy of sharing the good
feelings of your customers enjoy your offering. See them in great quantities,
in all parts of the world, of all races and cultures, of all political beliefs.
Explore the many ways these customers enjoy the results of your work, your
business. Believe it to be true. See it as reality. Let your inner self believe
it is true. Block out any negative thought by replacing it with enthusiastic
and positive images of joy.
Immediately after your
visualization period, take a piece of paper, lay it horizontally, draw an
ellipse in the middle of the page and write a single word for the strongest
intuitive message or feeling you have at that moment. As ideas spring into your
mind draw lines from the ellipse to the edge of the paper and write a word or
two to name the picture in your imagination stemming from the intuitive
message.
Stop and do an experiment in
visualization now. Take a few deep breaths and exhale slowly, tell yourself you
will be visualizing people using your product, service, idea with joy; happy to
have it. Begin the visualization and linger as an invisible observer reading
their mind, sensing their feelings. Let your imagination run wild. Even if you
do it for a few minutes you will be rewarded with some new insight, some new
idea that will help you make this vision come true[2].
This is the secret of the
whole process. To get new insights that will lead to projects and actions to
make the visualization a reality.
Nobody knows your offering
as well as you. You can’t delegate sales and marketing strategies to outside
consultants. This is something only you, the inventor, the entrepreneur, the
commissioned sales rep can do. The strategy must come from your passion, your
sincere belief that your visualization is reality and all you have to do is
make it happen.
Michaelangelo is said to
have told his patron that his David was in the block of marble and all he had
to do was remove the excess marble to reveal the completed statue.
The same with sales and
marketing. You must believe it is already in place in order for you to make it
real.
We are being conditioned
daily to watch television, to listen to radio, to read, to be passive. To
receive information but do nothing after receiving it. What are we expected to
do as we watch a terrorist hold hostages? Our body and mind are conditioned to
accept and not to do. It is imperative that we must break this yoke, this
tougher-than-steel prison and escape into a world where we are in charge. You
start by imagining it. Flip Wilson said it years ago: “What you see, is what
you get” Change in the way we think is an imperative.
Don’t think of the cost of
advertising, sales or marketing at this point. If you think of limitations you
will limit your imagination and block your success from the get-go. Imagine you
have a magic wand in your hand and that with the tapping three times on the
kitchen table you will receive everything you have visualized. Then visualize
as though the magic wand did it’s thing.
Nobody really understands
what happens but like electricity and magnetism (which nobody understands at
all) we can see the results. They are as predictable as are the mathematics of
electricity and magnetism. How clearly you see it, how strong your ability to
self-hypnotize yourself of it’s reality, is in direct proportion to the end
results. There is no force on earth greater than the power of the inventor. The
inventor who simply will not take no for an answer. Which is the common
characteristic of successful people.
You have now set into motion
the motor, and the fuel to make your sales and marketing come true. Now to the
actual steps to make your dream come true.
By invoking the infinite
intelligence you have opened your imagination to ideas that go beyond the
normal. You are no longer being blocked by prior models of what is standard and
routine. You will be getting flashes of insight from outside the box of
normality. Only through innovation can you hope to achieve success. Sam Walton,
founder of Wal-Mart says it most eloquently. “Swim upstream. Go the other way.
Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s
a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite
direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you
you’re headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often
than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a
discount store for very long.”
The process for converting a
vision into reality is called Project Management.
Select a date from sometime
in the future, write it down, and write the sales volume you will be realizing
on that date. Don’t try to be realistic by thinking of costs, money, staffing.
Be bold and let the numbers reflect what you really want. If you have not done
this before, do it now.
Take a piece of paper and
draw an XY graph, for example:
Future Sales
Today’s Sales Today’s Date Future Date
Divide the bottom X axis
into yearly or monthly segments by writing the dates, divide the Y axis into segments and write the
figures.
This is now your roadmap
upon which every activity by you and your organization must live by. Every
action and every decision must be bounced against this map with the following
question: “Will what I am about to do take me even one step closer to my goal?”
If the answer is yes, then do it. If the answer is other than yes, then
redefine your proposed action. Here is where you apply the rules of doing what
is important or doing what is urgent (usually the urgent is something of
benefit to someone else or because something is broken and must be fixed).
Your next step is to build a
path to your success. The elements to a project are time, objective, resources
and activities. You have written the time and objectives, now you must develop
the resources and activities. Some resources – such as a loan from the bank –
will be the result of carefully planned and executed activities. As you will
see, when a firm goal is in mind, you will be able to get all the resources
needed to make it a reality.
With your imagination
enjoying the trips to that day when as many people in the world as you want are
using your product/service/idea, start a list of things that need to happen for
it to become reality. Don’t worry about costs nor even think about the ‘reality’
of such tasks. Just make a list of things that need to happen for you to
succeed. Believe in the simple truth that deep within you and from the infinite
intelligence you will clearly define each item along with the cost in time or
money to reach your objective. This is the most important lesson in this paper;
that through this questioning and these activities, you will discover the exact
things you need to do to make your goal a reality.
Please notice that there has
been no discussion on personal wealth, getting rich or the like. It is a
universal law that wealth will come from the results of your passionate quest
to bring joy and happiness to your customers through your offering. Yes, you
will be counting money and using money but primarily as a means of getting your
idea to market and to satisfy as many end users as you have visualized. If you
do it right, you will end up with a percentage of the sales dollars you
generate. This applies to a one person business as well as to Bill Gates and
Microsoft and everyone in between.
You must have a profitable
company if you intend to make your dream a reality.
The biggest mistake made by
most businesspeople is in focusing on money rather than the purpose of the
business which is to grow customers.
Yes, grow customers should
be the natural objective of your efforts.
Let’s get into the money
aspects.
What would be the loss to
your enterprise for the loss of one single customer on that day in the future
when you have achieved your first major goal?
Do the math. If you are a
grocery store you know the average family buys something like $100 a week. Your
margins (not profit) are something like $15 on that $100. Thus, a typical
customer buys $5,200 a year leaving you with $780 in cash to cover rent,
insurance, wages and the like. Over the life of a good customer, say 15 years,
the cash lost to you for one customer is $780 times 15 years = $11, 700
Dollars. Apply the same basic thinking to your own business and write down a
figure you can believe in. The cost of loss to your company for losing one
customer that day in the future when business is booming.
Now shift your thinking and
look at it from another point of view. What is the wealth creating capability
to your organization for each customer you gain? The answer should be exactly
that of the cost of loss.
It is very important for you
to go through this mental gyration of cost of loss and revenue potential from
each customer. This will be the key element in driving your projects to
completion. It will be the cornerstone upon which you will finance your
operation. You must get money to make money. Or, you must convert your only
other asset – your time – into some form of wealth, or cash to finance your
business and/or expansion. For example wealth -- the grocer who leaves the
store to knock on doors and recruit customers. Each new customer is $11,700 in
the ‘future’ bank. A clear case of converting time into money. Build on this
logic for your own business. Figure out exactly how many customers you need to
grow in order to achieve that objective you have set for yourself. If you don’t
do this you will simply be going round and round in circles never knowing where
you are going nor when you get there.
Sales and marketing is a
numbers game as well as a psychic one. As you make calls or respond to ads and
referrals you will begin to discover how many contacts you must make before
developing a customer. As a salesman for cemetery lots years ago I knew I had
to knock on 12 doors to get one appointment and from three appointments I made
one sale. If I wanted my weekly goal I had to sell three families a week. How
many doors did I have to knock on?[3]
The important thing here is
to recognize that once you have discovered the ratio, your mind-set can easily
accept the 97 “Not interested” for the 3 “Thank you so much!” My commission in
those days was $30 (factory workers were making $0.90/hr). So in effect I made
a Dollar for every door I knocked on - which only took a few minutes.
You get money from
converting your time to cash through commission sales or swapping your
expertise for something of value. Or you get it from Aunt Martha as a gift or
purchase of stock, or you go to the bank for a loan or you sell stock on the
open market. Most businesses are started today using savings, funds from friends
and family and credit cards. Expanding a business will require a line of credit
from a bank or an infusion of capital from investors or factoring purchase
orders into working capital among other options.
Maybe we’re jumping ahead
just a tad. Let’s get back to the idea of project management for a moment.
You must take each item on
the list and break it down into the following segments: Time when it must start
- usually depending on some other task which must take place first. Resources
in the form of people and money required to pull it off. And the expected
measurable result once completed.
You then draw a line to
represent the time for each on a Gantt chart such as:
Project
Name
|
Task |
Resp |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
April |
May |
June |
July |
Aug |
Sept |
Oct |
|
|
all |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
These two graphics are vital to your success.
They are the tools which best communicate your goals to yourself and to the
people who will be joining your effort. Everybody must fully understand where
you are going and what it takes to get there. When everybody knows where you
are going, it is easy for them to help. These two charts keep you on course,
keep you focused, makes your efforts measurable, gives you immediate feedback
to allow for course corrections before it is too late. These tools, the
visualization, making of lists, converting lists into action items, knowing
where you are going, are the building blocks to your success. You see how
really easy this whole thing of success in sales and marketing can be?
The thing is, that when you
have a plan, you don’t waste energy in useless stuff. The difference between
success and failure is only a 10% matter. It’s not what most people believe -
some huge luck factor or genius factor or wealth factor that differentiates
success from failure. It’s a matter of 10% better focus.
Let’s see what happens once
you have done the above.
You’re at a party sitting
next to Mr. Bloe. You’re chatting away and Mr. Bloe suddenly says: “You’re such
an enthusiastic person, why are you so happy?” To which you reply with a gleam
in your eye with the fabulous service you are providing an endless number of
customers around the world. Mr. Bloe will want to be part of the action either
as a customer or advisor or employee or friend. Your energy has just recruited
a customer. You have just put $11,700 Dollars into your bank. That’s the value
of a customer, remember?
When you call on a supplier
the gleam will be in your eye and the salesperson will want to do everything in
their power to give you the absolute best deal. The gleam will be in your eye
when you interview your first employee and that employee will be totally
committed to your vision if you give them a chance to play the game with you if
you make them part of a winning team. Your prospects will see and feel that
gleam in your eye and soul and will want to be part of it as well.
Yes, it may take time. But
your schedule is on the wall for you to see every day and it will encourage you
to take that extra hour to visit an extra prospect or write that extra letter
or make that extra phone-call. This is where the formula for success in sales
and marketing really hits gold. The power of your imagination to see your
product, service or offering as a value added something to so many people that
you are compelled to do the impossible for them to enjoy those fruits.
Let’s move ahead.
There are several cultural
lies which you must recognize and once recognized do everything in your power
to not be influenced by them any more.
The first is that work is a
pain. Most people have been duped by the labor union movement and actually
believe that hard work is for the dullards of the world - to be avoided. Yet we
all know that real happiness comes from achieving something worthwhile. If you
believe that work is a miserable state of affairs you will communicate this to
your first employee who will gladly make your concept a reality. But if you
know that work is one of the best ways to happiness then you will share this
concept and hire only those who agree with you. Suddenly you will be working
with people who enjoy work.
The second great cultural
lie is that great ideas and major improvements come from above, from the
established companies, from authority. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Change invariably comes from the outside, from the entrepreneurs who are quick
to see an opportunity and who are willing to risk it all to see it come true.
No vacuum tube manufacturer ever shifted to transistors, no buggy whip maker
shifted to making tires, the Swiss watchmakers lost 85% of their market
overnight when the world went to quartz even after their own people had
invented quartz timepieces. The list is long - Bell was laughed out of Western
Union offices - they didn’t want a toy! - Kodak and IBM fussed over dust left
by Carlson’s Xerox device on their desks after his demonstration - telephone
switching was developed by an undertaker because the town operator was the
competitor’s wife - nylon losing out to polyester - the PC revolution. Just a
few reminders.
The third major cultural lie
is that you motivate people and that you can correct their errors through a
good chewing out. False! A chewing out is a form of reward to nearly a third of
the population. Since recognition is at the top of the human needs list. Think
of the sandwich brother; a favorite baby for a while, replaced by the new baby
who gets all the attention later. What do they do? They break things to get a
spanking since that’s the only way they can get attention.
As to motivation, you don’t
motivate anybody. People come to work motivated. Then slowly through this rule
or that they become demotivated. The best you can do is to let their energy
blossom by listening to them and making them part of your team. The truly
motivated people are the people who are allowed to do things, who are allowed
to participate, who are listened to and who are permitted to contribute!
Chew these cultural lies
until you fully appreciate their true destructive power in our society. Then
use that knowledge to build a truly exceptional team because you can’t grow
without getting people involved either as helpers or buyers. Breaking these
cultural lies will make you a leader.
OK, let’s go back to the
first page of this paper. Take another look at your horizontal page with the
ellipse and the lines with the names of mental pictures. Visualize again the
kind of person who will be enjoying the fruits of your labor. Make some lists
to define the various characteristics. This will become your prospecting guide
and advertising guide. Your sales and marketing efforts will be directed to
this kind of person. Where will you find them? How will you reach them with
your message?
Decide now and forever never
to advertise in any medium without the ability to measure results and without
the ability to test one version of your sales message against another. Direct
marketing is the fastest growing method for getting things into the hands of
the customer and one of the reasons is that it is completely measurable and
very cost effective.
The trend in the world today
is to bypass middlemen and go directly to the end user. You see it every day as
Gevalia Coffee, Gourmet Wines, PCs, music, books, teas, clothing, electronics
and a zillion other things are delivered to your home by the mailman, UPS guy
or other.
Which will be your method of
delivery? How will you put your stuff in your customer’s hand. Here again, your
power of visualization must determine exactly how it will be done. As you put
yourself in the customer’s shoes you will see, feel and hear how they got it.
Prove it to yourself right
now. Make a list of the things you’ve bought over the last few months. Make an
analysis as to value added as you see it, and money spent in actuality. Your
own experience and your imagination will determine how your idea will be sold
and marketed. Again, no consultant is required.
Direct marketing is not the
same as direct mail. The image we have in mind when thinking of direct mail is
the tons of junk mail and our response to it. Direct marketing on the other
hand is a method in which the buyer place their order by phone, fax , mail or
email and receive the product via mail, package delivery or the like. The thing
that gives you the information about the product could be magazine, radio,
television, magazine, direct mail, email, home-page, blimp in the sky,
sky-writing airplane, etc. Direct marketing should create an image in your mind
of factory direct to consumer via the quickest way.
In international trade we
are seeing a major movement toward one-on-one marketing. Kino from Nigeria saw
a reference to pottery in a newsgroup. He followed the string and ended up in
Creative Industries Potter’s Wheel home page. He jotted a short query in the
response section of the page. Next day he got a reply, one he liked. He asked
for price and delivery information. Later he paid with a credit card and back
in El Cajon, California, a shipping clerk loaded a disassembled potter’s wheel
onto a FedEx truck. Gone are the days of complex paperwork, middlemen and banks
getting in the way of simple transactions between maker and buyer.
If you pick up on this trend
in marketing you will succeed.
Sometimes you may need a
direct salesperson to make that informational call on the prospective buyer.
Your magic may have to be demonstrated as vacuum cleaners were once
demonstrated before they became commodities. But even commodities are being
bought and sold via direct marketing.
Now that you know the method
for letting your prospects know of you, and how you intend to fulfill their
orders you may want to think of the message itself.
You see how everything works
backwards in this business?
First you see the end
result, clearly, in your imagination. Then you make it come true.
So what is that message that
will encourage your future customer to buy from you?
Well – back to your
visualization and sensing the emotional pleasure your customer is getting from
using your (fill in the blank________________). The message in your sales
presentation, ad or press release will tell the reader they will have this
feeling once they have bought your (fill in the blank ________).
It all boils down to this
fundamental piece of information. Not price, not quality, not competition – but
how your customer will feel once they have it and how easy for them to get
it.
You see it in car
advertising. It’s sex, glamour, being better than the neighbor, sense of
beauty, power – you name it. Could be good health, happiness, joy, escape.
Could be faith, wealth, luck or anything in between When you sell life
insurance you’re selling an idea that the wife will have something when you’re
gone. It’s a form of expressing love. It’s not the insurance, it’s the promise
of love. When I sold cemetery lots while working my way through college I did
not sell holes in the ground, worms and back to dust ideas. I showed, through
words that created an image in my prospect’s mind, the wife not having to go
out in a blizzard to select a burying spot for her beloved husband. The husband
would do anything to prevent such a thing. It was their love that was the force
behind the purchase of a cemetery lot years and years before either would need
them. Today, some thirty years later, some of my customers are beginning to use
that which they bought and paid for years ago – at bargain basement prices
compared to today’s inflated prices. So you see, we all win when the idea is
sound and there is something of value for all.
Customers are your best
source for future business by either buying more, buying more frequently or
referring you to others who will benefit as they did. Make this another
cornerstone of your sales/marketing strategy. Customers love to brag when they
have discovered a business that delivers Wow! into their lives. You must put
into motion some form of method to capture this information. Some form of
frequent flyer miles or the like. A gift for every referral. Another year
warranty on your PC for each referral that buys something, anything, from you.
The only real asset of any
company is the client base. Protect your database under lock and key. Do not
leave it unattended. Ever. Each customer is – as we discussed before thousands
of Dollars in your asset column even though not yet cash. Customers are your
only reason for being. When you assign a value to the gain or loss of a
customer you have the accounting you need. All other accounting is for tax
purposes and both are seldom the same. One dollar in fines is a loss. One
dollar in getting a new customer is an investment. Yet on the standard
accounting sheet it is shown as advertising expense. You must separate the two
accounting systems by inventing one of your own which properly expresses the
value of a customer over the value of assets, cash in the bank, commissions and
the like. Then you run your business on the other-than-tax system.
What you are reading may not
sound much like other things you have studied in sales and marketing. And that
is good. You should take the time to think both approaches through and using
your own gray matter come to conclusions. The key element is that the secret to
your sales and marketing plan is within you and your life experience. My effort
has been in helping you reach into your inner self and into the infinite
intelligence to find the formula best suited for your particular and unique
problem. Few books or articles do this. Thus, I hope to be one voice in many
that will be heard, understood, and above all – be of value added.
Some Sources
and Some Ideas
Now that you have profiled
your target market you should do the next logical thing – which surprisingly,
few people do, even though it’s free – write a press release and send it to the
magazines, periodicals, radio and TV stations that beam their messages to that
kind of audience. In visiting with dozens of clients each year I have yet to
find more than one percent who actually take advantage of this tried and true
method. Ad salespeople in the media are always looking for new prospects. They
know a free press release will generate some interest for your product. This
makes it easy for them to knock on your door to sell you space or airtime in
their media. It’s a win-win kind of thing that few people know about or are
afraid to use. A good color photo of your offering and your emotion packed
message is all it takes.
Mailing lists are available
for virtually every kind of profile you come up with. Search the Internet for
keywords such as “mailing lists”, “profile lists” and the like. Check your
library magazine rack and reference desks. Let your fingers do the walking
through the Yellow Pages and call a few direct mail companies who will gladly
quote you list prices plus printing and mailing to 500 – 1000 – 5000 or however
many pieces you want to get directly into suspect’s hands.
Everyone in your
organization should make it an absolute and inviolable rule to take the name
and all particulars of everyone they meet socially, in business, on the golf
course, plane, train or bus. A person to person contact followed by a
personalized note with a brochure of your offering could easily generate a good
portion of your business. Keep track of these names in a computerized database
such as Q&A, Alpha Four, Access or the like. You will be using it again and
again. Remember, this database is the true wealth of your company.
Any advertising on the
Internet or through any media should be interactive. This means it must be easy
for your target audience to talk back and for you to listen, to establish a
dialogue as close as possible to an actual face to face meeting. Even if you
automate responses on the Internet they must appear to come directly from the
CEO and even when people call in to the CEO’s phone number have whoever answers
say “Office of the CEO”.
Avoid the use of automated
phones! You may think you are saving money by having people handle paperwork
and administrative duties rather than answer the phone but you are dead wrong.
Nothing irritates a prospective customer more than to be answered by an
electronic voice. Bounce this idea against the cost of loss of a customer and
cost to get a customer and see if I’m not right. Make sure your phones are
answerable any time of day or night. Have each member of your team take a day
or two a week and forward the calls to that person. Or find another solution but make it
responsive! Bernie Weiss our leader at the International Trade Center suggests
that even if the answering machine (after hours!) tells the caller that someone
will call them right back, is better than not responding. This is especially
true if you are marketing beyond your state, into the US and beyond, into the
world. Think of the tremendous advantage you will have over your competition
who will be sticking to their automated systems because ‘by gosh!’ we were
supposed to save money! The difference between success and ho-hum is only a few
percentage points in efficiency, friendliness, courtesy and customer service.
While you sleep Mitsui in Tokyo is wanting to buy from you! Make it easy for
her.
Consider all avenues in
sales and marketing, experiment with as many as you can, but keep accurate
records. Each sales or advertising campaign must be measurable and you must
measure each experiment. It is the only way you will ever be able to get better
and better at sales and marketing. In the yesteryears advertisers said you must
repeat and repeat the message – (of course to stimulate long contracts). The
reality is that you test and test and test again and continue improving and
testing.
The Internet is opening a
whole new world of opportunity but it must be worked. 99% of home pages are
nothing more than display ads and are useless. This is true because home page
designers are not sales/marketing professionals – they are page designers.
Since the vast majority of business owners are computer illiterate they depend
on their kid’s friends to design the page while they stand idly by, hands in
pocket, wondering what it’s all about. Only 1% of the sites contain the kind of
‘stuff’ that will facilitate getting customers. Up front your page should
welcome inquiries and chats with the CEO. Somebody should be surfing the net –
maybe a college intern at home, on commission – searching for like minded people
in the newsgroups and in the news. Collecting these names and sending them
personal invitations to share the wonders of your product and relationships
through your home page where they will meet other like-minded people and see
the neat stuff being offered for their continued enjoyment of life. Again, sell
the end result of your offering through the emotional response. Refrigerator
companies should not sell refrigerators, they should sell the convenience of
having a full assortment of ingredients to make a succulent dinner. Car
manufacturers no longer sell the car; they are selling the ego trip that goes
with owning their car. In the near future they will be selling trouble-free
miles through some form of leasing and perpetual preventive maintenance plans. Clothing
manufacturers don't sell the quality or detail of the sewing, the fabric or
weight of the garment - they sell what the garment will do for the wearer
through the eyes of beholders looking and admiring the wearer of the garment.
Emotional stuff. Nothing else. Even business to business selling is emotional.
You may think you are selling based on competitive bids, but the reality is
that your character, the way you sound on the phone, your secretary’s voice,
the way the material is presented, and just how lazy can the buyer be to make
the transaction. In other words, how easy will it be for the buyer to buy? And
how hassle-free will the end result be? (Why do so many middle managers buy
IBMs when clearly there are better machines at better prices? - Nobody will
hassle them for buying a name brand).
First and foremost is for
everybody in your organization to know the key points and to be able to recite
them quickly and with enthusiasm. Imagine a 15 second commercial into which you
have to pack everything that’s important through creating a mental image of the
thing you are selling plus the benefit to the listener. Most important is the
benefit. What’s in it for them. What emotional bang will they get from it.
Develop your sound bite on paper using the horizontal page and ellipse concept.
Then write it and say it. Get others to listen and get them involved in
improving it. Work on it until you have it down pat. This becomes your business
mantra. Every time anybody listens to it you are putting coins in the cash
register. Not everybody will buy – but you will increase the number of
listeners and since we are talking about a numbers game (sales and marketing)
each time you pull the lever you are closer to a jackpot. How many jackpots is
a function of how many times you recite your mantra.
Checklist:
1-
In a few words define your
customer
2-
How will your offering be
delivered and paid for
3-
What is your guaranty and
how will you fulfill it
4-
List three possible ways
your message can reach your suspects
5-
Write your sound bite in 15
words or less
6-
What will be your sales
volume one year from today
7-
Write the key
milestones for this to happen
8-
What are the key emotions
your customer will enjoy from your offering
9-
How many people on this
earth would want your product/service/idea
10-
How
many ‘nos’ before you get a ‘yes’ today
11-
Tomorrow?
12-
List
two advertising campaigns along with how you will measure them
13-
Make
an idea folder and keep your scribblings in sequential order
14-
List
the key points you must get across before the prospect can be convinced
15-
List
the visual aid - graphic or story - for each key point
16-
What
is the future bank value of one customer
17-
How
much time are you willing to convert to get one customer
18-
Does
everybody on your team understand the time conversion formula
19-
Can
everybody on your team recite the 15 word sound bite
20-
How
many doors do you have to knock on to get one new customer
21-
How
many doors has your group knocked on last week
22-
Based
on last week door knocking, how will this tally with your one year objective
Determining Market Potential
and What People Are Willing To Pay To Start With
To
Patent or Not…
Over
the past 40 odd years I have assisted at least 30 inventors, product
developers, design engineers and entrepreneurs get their product idea to
market. In that time I have learned some key elements, which you may wish to
consider in your decision matrix as you move ahead.
1.
Don't pay a penny to a patent attorney - yet. Disclose your idea with a
$10 check to the patent office along with a drawing, sketch or photo of your
idea/prototype. Or better yet, apply for a $100 Provisional Application
yourself with help from folks in the inventor's newsgroup (alt.inventors). No
matter how good you think your idea is today, in months you will have changed
it and if you had spent the money on patent attorneys and all that stuff it
would be money down the drain and no money left in the pot for that very
essential engineering change to make it all work right. For more on pricing see
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2004dec08.htm#patapp)
(Courtesy of Mr. James White).
2.
Make sure your product/idea will sell at a price that will leave you a
margin. Today’s greatest tool is free and is something old time marketing
people only a year or so ago could only dream of. Create a long list of
keywords that you will be using in your advertising copy. Go to www.ebay.com and under the special search function click
‘closed items only’ and input your keywords. You will see what the market has
paid for items such as yours over the last couple of weeks. Do this every two
weeks as you go through your development process. Sony never sell their
products based on the old and obsolete MBA based manufacturing cost formulas.
They sell them at PERCEIVED value by the consumer, and then they create manufacturing/distribution
systems to achieve these targets. With eBay, you are at par with Sony’s
marketing gurus.
3.
Be first on the market if you really believe your product has a future.
Bet everything on marketing and manufacturing. When you think of making a copy
what company name comes to mind? Right, Xerox owns the concept and everybody,
no matter how good, will be second best in the eye of the consumer. What a
tremendous advantage this gives Xerox.
4.
Don't spend money on business incorporations, stock ideas, expensive
letterhead, offices and business stuff. Work your checkbook until it's ragged,
and then at some time, master Excel, Visual Basic, Access and use it until you
hit over $30 million a year in sales.
Get others to play in your sandbox by offering them a share in your
future company. Do a fictional incorporation, say for a million shares. Set
half of them aside forever - they will be used later as collateral at your
bank. Sell 25% of your stock for cash. Reserve 25% for yourself and others who
will help you build your business. Pay your lawyer, business consultant,
accountant, and engineer in fictitious paper stock. Once you explain your
business plan they will see the value of this option. Keep 12.5% of the stock
for yourself from the get-go. (Keep the voting rights on the 50% for yourself).
When you start making money distribute the 50% back into the business in the
form of tooling, machines, marketing - whatever will further the business. See
chapter 10 in my http://home.att.net/~impresario/Index.htm it’s free, no obligation, no come-ons.
5.
Find your nearest Small Business Development Center (Not SBA, and not
SCORE) at your nearby college. Have an interview and show them your idea and
basic strategy. Their service is free, funded mostly through the SBA and State
funding. They will assign people like me to help you through the maze at no
cost. You have paid for it through your taxes.
6.
Farm everything out. Do final assembly yourself. Don't buy machinery -
others do it much better. Make good drawings, get good quotes, and manage your
purchasing.
7.
Get some prototypes into the hands of friends and neighbors and let
them tell you what they would be willing to pay for such a device. This is the
second step in guerrilla marketing. Be ready for heavy duty criticism and be
willing to listen very well. You are in love with your idea, they are luke warm
but may be looking for something jazzy.
8.
Don't spend a single Dollar that does not help take you toward your
objective. Have a solid objective and put in some measurables. For example if
you send out 100 post cards showcasing your product/idea to so many businesses,
at a cost of $0.76 each, and you get two queries, but it takes four queries to
make a ‘sale’, then you know the approximate cost per sale if you repeat the
process. This is key to your promotional and advertising budget. Time share
marketing is on a strict formula; it takes something like one thousand phone
calls to get 500 people to listen, for 5 to attend an event for one to buy a
$12,000 unit.
9.
If you go after a loan or venture capital focus on showing them exactly
how you are going to spend their money in such a way as to make a positive
return on their investment. This is the real heart of a business plan.
Everything else is window dressing for which you usually pay a creative writer
a fortune --- and it adds nothing of value. The financial spreadsheet showing
exactly how you will spend and how you will gain a return from that expenditure
is what matters.
10.
Ask people to help you. Don't be afraid of rip-offs, that's why you
protected your idea! Put a non disclosure document in front of them to sign.
Use this newsgroup to the maximum.
11.
If you don’t want to get involved with the manufacturing – perhaps a
licensing deal would be best. Contact our friend with the Boomerang fish thing,
Rodney, in the alt.inventors newsgroup. He’s an expert at it.
12.
Distill your business plan, your business objective into a 15 word
sound-bite and repeat it endlessly. You will be explaining your whole business
to a fellow on the way to the third floor on an elevator. Learn how to get
their interest in those few seconds.
13.
Recognize that as the CEO of a new company you have four key
responsibilities. Recruiting, Selling, Finance and New Opportunities.
Recruiting can be getting a free consultant from the SBDC - Selling could be a
write-up by your local paper interested in promoting new talent - Finance could
be getting 30 day credit from McMaster Carr or a venture capitalist. New
Opportunities come from being observant and asking yourself "What's
new" at all times.
14.
Get a copy of Matthew Yubas “Product Idea to Product Success” www.broadword.com;
Bob DeMatteis' book "From Patent to Profit" and James White's book
"Will it Sell" and read them cover to cover. Email George H. Morgan,
Marshall Price, John Pederson, Michael F. Brown, Dave Kiewit, David M. Geshwind
and others in the inventor's newsgroup. Go to my stuff at
http://home.att.net/~impresario/Index.htm and learn about cost effective
manufacturing, how to invent and how to double your brainpower in one fell
swoop - all for free, complete and unabridged. Start by mastering Project
Management and go from there. (Although the focus is on international trade,
all the principles and tools on Project Management can be found here: http://home.att.net/~Waynelund/projectmanagement.htm
15.
Read the following Mind Map © Tony Buzon, from upper right, clockwise
to the conclusion, upper left.
