Up Market

The Secret to Crafting Meaningful Marketing Messages
Being Average When You Could Be Great
True Entrepreneurship is About Solving Problems
Just Say No To Potential Clients Who Don’t Match Your Vibe
Moving the line (the power of a zealot)
Actionable Insights: The Lean Startup

The Secret to Crafting Meaningful Marketing Messages

Posted: 14 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Humans make decisions based on emotions, then use their rational mind to justify decisions. In the battle of the heart vs. the mind, the heart often wins, therefore, in order to earn the attention of your prospects, you need to hook them emotionally.

One of the most effective ways to improve your marketing message is by articulating the end results customers derive from your offering.

Your marketing materials need to paint a beautiful picture of how much better your customer's lives are going to be after purchasing your offering. This is similar to touting the benefits of your product or service, but in our hyper-connected, instant-gratification society, consumers want more than benefits, they want results – and they want 'em now!

Emotional engagement is still novel to small business owners who comfortably tout product features, so it may take some time before it feels authentic. That's why it's important to build relationships with your customers, so you know what their points of frustration, obstacles, and objections are.

When you have a rapport with your audience, you can ask them important questions like… Why do they patronize you? How are their lives better because of it? and What benefits would they highlight when referring your business to friends?

This information is golden when it comes time to write copy for marketing collateral — websites, brochures, advertisements, direct mail pieces and radio spots. You can use it on your sales calls, during your networking and even focus on the results of your offering when managing your social media platforms.

Let's look at a few case studies from some real-world scenarios.

Scenario #1: A husband-wife Real Estate team is trying to break into a crowded, upscale market outside of their area. They're focusing their message on the combined experience between them, and wondering why they aren't making much headway.

This reminds me of a saying that goes, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." Sure, experience is important, but there are higher priorities involved in the challenging process of buying and selling your home.

What if, instead of experience, their message spoke to the alleviation of headaches, obstacles, delays and red tape that first-time home buyers often face, and the joy, excitement and thrill of finally getting the keys to your first home?

Scenario #2: A chain of Health Clubs has been showcasing their wide selection of machines and amenities in their marketing. While impressive, people don't make emotional connections with workout equipment.

However, there are plenty of emotions – both positive and negative – surrounding workout regimens, fitness routines, dieting and weight loss. In this case, a great way to create a stronger emotional connection is for the message to focus on the thrill of experiencing positive results and the improved quality of life enjoyed by people who are committed to fitness.

Scenario #3: I was speaking with an Insurance Agent who wanted to avoid the fear-based concepts and policy-jargon that plagues most insurance advertising. Instead, this agent felt strongly that her main point of difference was in her simple, easy-to-understand policies.

The next step would be to ask, "What are the results enjoyed by simplifying something that's typically arduous, frustrating and confusing?"

In order to get you thinking in the right direction, I'll leave that question for you to answer. As for the agent in question, she managed to produce an engaging marketing message that really stood out in the typically humdrum category of insurance.

While touting your experience, equipment and policies may be enough to satisfy the logical mind, it's the results of your more unique attributes that pack the emotional punch necessary to break through the cluttered advertising landscape and forge emotional connections with your audience.

Speak the language of results, and you will also be speaking the language of success!

What are some of the results customers enjoy by using your products or services?

Image credit: Heart vs mind fight

Being Average When You Could Be Great

Posted: 14 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT

I've always loved superhero stories. At the heart of these stories are tales of individuals overcoming incredible obstacles to achieve something great.

Take Batman, for instance. He not only overcomes the tragic loss of his parents but goes on to become a successful businessman, brilliant inventor, and the “world's greatest detective.” Spider-Man learns at an early age that with great power comes great responsibility (a lesson he learns painfully by not stopping a petty criminal who ends up murdering his uncle hours later.) Even Superman struggles with having the strength to do something but not always the right to do something.

Those stories have always captured my heart and mind. They've often inspired me to work for something greater. They've reminded me that I can accomplish something special.

Unfortunately, we don't live in comic books. Our world despises the standout. The world doesn't like to be embarrassed. It doesn't like to be shown up. And it doesn't like to break out of the system it knows. This is true of school. Of work. Of life.

That's what's so curious about the story of Shouryya Ray – a mathematical genius who at the age of 16 solved a 300 year old problem posed by Isaac Newton. (How's that for a good day?)

The best part, though? His journey began when he learned calculus at age 6.

His father didn't say, “Well son, you're a bit too young to learn calculus, why don't you stick with what you're supposed to learn in first grade: addition and subtraction.”

My own daughter, who is a rapid and avid learner, sometimes asks “Will you teach me multiplication?” (She actually wants to be challenged in school.) Unfortunately, all too often I say “Not now. Daddy's tired.” Or her school tells her, "Not now. Your classmates are learning to add."

With excuses like that, is it any wonder that we end up with employees (and employers) who simply want to be average? The message is clear: While you are rocking the boat, everyone else just feels seasick.

So what do we break the cycle of mediocrity? I think there are 3 steps we can take…

1. Don't accept average. Just because "everyone" does it, doesn't mean you should. At no point should we accept average in place of greatness just because it's easier for everyone else. Obviously not everyone will excel at everything — no matter how early my parents might have started teaching me calculus, I probably never would have learned it well enough to solve a problem posed by Isaac Newton. Yet some kids will (and do) excel in math. The same is true of teaching, learning, reading, writing, and I'm sure, mopping the floors. Every profession has room for an Einstein or a Ray. Just because one person (or even most people) can't become Einstein, doesn't mean we shouldn't let a Ray emerge.

2. Practice. Practice. Practice. I've written before about the 10,000 hour rule (the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert — or about 10 years). It's not a coincidence that Ray started learning calculus at 6 and at 16 solved this problem. Greatness doesn't happen to us passively. We have to work to achieve it. When I design training programs for companies, I make sure practice is one of the major components. Why? Because without practice, learning is pretty much useless. That's true of superheroes, businesses, or mathematical geniuses.

3. Have fun. We don't excel at anything unless we love it. We don't accomplish greatness without bringing our Meaning to Work.

4. Find something you love and pursue it with all you are worth. Batman, Spider-Man and Superman are all very different. That's because they all play to their strengths — and none of them would be strong if they tried to be copycats. The same is true of employees. If someone is a gifted speaker, let her present more while letting other employees write reports, think strategically or fill in other needs. No one benefits from cookie cutters. (Well, besides those of us eating delicious cookies. But that's another column.) What we benefit from is following our passions and doing what we love.

I believe that every day we have a choice: Do we choose to be average, or work for a chance to be great?

What choice will you make today?

Photo credit: carbonNYC

True Entrepreneurship is About Solving Problems

Posted: 14 Jun 2012 02:00 AM PDT

Ask people why they want to go into business and you will hear all the of typical reasons:

“I want to make lots of money.”

“I want to be my own boss.”

“I want to own my own business.”

If these are your primary reasons for starting a business, keep reading. This article may save you lots of time, money and frustration.

Money? Really?

Entrepreneurs work crazy hours, often without drawing a salary. Behind the veil of success are many sleepless nights, phone calls from creditors and pay less paydays. I have experiences that I would not wish on my worst enemy, yet I continue because it was never just about the money. There are many ways to earn lots of money without the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. If this is your primary focus, I suggest you find another way.

Owning a Business Means Owning the Outcome

Entrepreneurship is not about big homes and fancy cars or the lofty title of “Entrepreneur.” You will eventually hit a wall and may even come crashing down. I know entrepreneurs who experienced tremendous success followed by colossal failure. Some lost everything. In fact, the most successful entrepreneurs go broke multiple times before making a breakthrough. How many people are prepared to go through this type of pain to reach their goals? Are you?

If You Think Having One Boss is Tough…

If you don’t like having a boss, you may want to look elsewhere. Every customer is your boss and each one requires a different set of criteria to be satisfied. Compare this to having a single boss at a job that you can forget about at 5pm.

So… Why Bother?

True entrepreneurship is about providing value and solving real problems. Some of the greatest successes started out as someone looking for a solution to their own problem. Sara Blake, the founder of Spanx, just wanted to get rid of panty lines. She now runs a 1 billion dollar company that is debt free. Howard Shultz, the CEO of Starbucks, wanted a “third place” between work and home to unwind. Not everyone wants to go to a bar or club after work. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, felt people in rural communities deserved quality products at competitive prices.

The passion to solve a nagging problem is what drove these entrepreneurs and many like them. It is also what keeps them going during the most difficult days. If you are considering starting a business, ask yourself an honest question. Are you passionate about solving a real problem and bringing value or do you just want to get rich? Think hard about this question before you give up your day job.

Image credit: Stock.XCHG

Just Say No To Potential Clients Who Don’t Match Your Vibe

Posted: 13 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT

I’m passionate about what it takes to create a Sweet Spot business – one that is so perfectly matched and aligned to who you are that it makes your heart sing, and allows you to thrive financially and otherwise.

While each of these businesses is (and should be) unique, there is most definitely a set of basic principles and practices that I consistently see in place. One of those is clarity, specificity, discernment around the client or customer that the business serves.

I’ve written before about avoiding the common error of trying to serve “everybody” as a client, a way-too-common marketing mistake. You can check out that post here. Today I want to point to another important and too-often overlooked aspect of serving your unique and specific ideal client: the energy of your business.

In the early stages of building a business, when money is tight and momentum is building, it’s easy to seek whatever clients you can in order to “get off the ground.” The thought is that taking whatever clients the business can get will help it move to the next level of “success.”

The problem with that approach is that it will actually slow you and your business down. At the risk of sounding “woo woo,” you and your business have a unique vibe, an “energetic signature” that people pick up on. There are certain people who will vibe with you and what you offer, and others not as much.

The time and energy required to market to, enroll and serve clients or customers that are not in strong alignment for you is greater than the benefit received from the short-term dollars coming in the door from those people. Your passion, enthusiasm, focus and confidence are all affected by the people you engage with in your business.

The ones that are well-matched for you will love what you offer, become raving fans, get the results you offer through your product or service, and spread the word on your behalf. Good energy begets good energy, and that will show up on your bottom line.

The ones that are not as well-matched will mean wasted marketing dollars and “convincing” people about what you offer, and will not give you the same kind of positive feedback, or be as fun and easy to work with, or get the best possible results or spread the word with authentic enthusiasm the same way. That creates an energetic drag on your business that will also show up on your bottom line, hindering it.

While I am all for taking “imperfect action” to keep moving forward and refining things as you go, there’s some valuable groundwork you can do to define your ideal clients as much as possible early on (or at whatever stage of business you’re at, if things aren’t flowing the way you’d like). Taking this critical step can be the difference between persistent struggle and succeeding with a sense of the wind being at your back.

There’s a myriad of ways to create a detailed and useful profile or “avatar” of your ideal client, and even just googling the term “How to define your ideal client” produces a host of results. One good, basic article I found on Evan Carmichael’s site is here, but there are many more. You can also work with a coach to help you ensure that you go narrow and deep enough in defining your ideal, truly ensuring that they are aligned and the right match for you and the business that lights you up.

Then your next step is to create the marketing that reaches those right people — something that becomes a lot easier when you clearly, specifically and narrowly define who you are talking to — and say “no” to the ones that are not a fit.

Photo credit: Todd Klassy

Moving the line (the power of a zealot)

Posted: 13 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT

Extremists move the middle.

Compromise is everywhere. Most of us can’t possibly be pure extremists or true fundamentalists, so we draw the line somewhere in the middle.

Consider the choice of what you eat (or don’t eat). It ranges from the omnivore at one end to the fruitarian at the other:

Cannibal… chimps… dogs… cats… cows… pigs… foie gras… chickens… fish… unfertilized eggs… honey… yeast… cherries… dust

My guess is that few people care so little about their role in the food chain that they’re willing to eat humans (one end of the spectrum), and there are very few strict fruitarians out there (but I’ve never met someone who wouldn’t eat yeast). Most of us draw a line somewhere between the extremes. That means we’re already compromising, we just argue about how much.

Consider government:

Karl Marx… Maoist… socialist… progressive… fiscal conservative… libertarian… Ayn Rand

Again, I don’t think that many people would be happy at all living at either end of the spectrum above, so we each draw a line. It’s ad hoc, it’s based on our community, but we pick it and then magically, we stick with it. Not just stick with our ad hoc line, but argue about it, defend it and get angry about it.

Private jet… fried baby seals… SUV…’organic’ dry cleaning… Prius… bicycle… localvore… burlap sacks… No impact man

It’s interesting to note that an enormous amount of apparently principled argument goes on about relatively tiny movements in where the line is being drawn. In most cases, to paraphrase an old joke, “we’ve already figured out what sort of girl you are, now we’re just arguing about the price.” It’s not the principle, in fact, it’s just the degree of compromise we’re comfortable with and content to argue over.

And so it’s left to the zealots. The people at either end have little hope of moving the masses all the way to their end of the argument. Instead, what they do is make it feel safer to change the boundaries, safer to recalibrate the compromise. Over time, as the edges feel more palatable, the masses are more likely to be willing to edge their way closer to one edge or another. Successful zealots don’t argue to win. They argue to move the goalposts and to make it appear sane to do so.

Photo credit: Purplemattfish

Actionable Insights: The Lean Startup

Posted: 13 Jun 2012 02:00 AM PDT