The Lazy Salesman
The Lazy Salesman in Jan 2002, The Worst Customers I Ever Had, Fill the Funnel,
Negotiation, Collecting NOs, Thinking Time, Number 76 of my Selling Manifesto,
Change Now!, Sales Job Interviews, Fail, Cluetrain, Action, The Perfect
Customer, Integrity, Closing, Objection Handling, Summarising, Objectives,
Rapport, Networking, Decisiveness, Qualifying.
The Lazy Salesman in Feb 2002, Thinking Aloud,
Positioning, Honesty, Move On, Practising what I Preach?, Doing the Business –
Networking, Issues and Personal Wins, Small Acorns, 4:2 Rule, Conscious
Competence, Question, Listen, and Summarise, Sales Teams, Hunters and Farmers,
The Competition, The Truth about Selling!, What’s in it for Me? (WIIFM), The
Best Salespeople I know, Presenting, Calling High, Networking Again, Birthday –
Ghost Story, Little Things make a Big Difference, Difficult Customers,
Prospecting, Hot (Cheesy) Tips, What Irritates me as a Client.
The Lazy Salesman in March 2002; Who Wouldn’t I Work For?, Sex Sells, End
Users, Cheesy Closes, High Risk or Low Risk, High Level Contacts, The Hook,
Contact K.I.T., Pricing, Risk, Contracts, Selling Something You Don’t Believe
In, Corporate DNA, Good News, Rejection, Calling High Level Contacts, Good Days
and Bad Days, In the Client’s Shoes (The Observers learn the most), Advance not
Continuation.
The Lazy Salesman in April 2002; Wait and They Did Come!!, Persist or Walk Away,
Prospecting from Cold, Wait and They will come!, Stamina, Involve the Audience,
One Thing Each Day, Luck, Good Selling Organisations, Be your Word, Be Honest
with Yourself, More Corporate DNA and Zipf’s Law, Smile, Exceed Expectation,
Shut Up Tony, Cardbox, Grassroots Selling, Persist and Have a Dream, Pick an Onerous Task, Guilt, Style, Good
Will, Mind Expanding Questions!, Tenacity and Lunch, Recovering Lost Momentum,
Competing Customers, Selling Pranks.
The Lazy Salesman
in June/May 2002: Contact,
Resource
Availability Close, Hardware Store, SPACER, My own Call Reluctance, Greetings and Handshakes, How much
to you care?, Advancing after a Good Meeting, What
Goes Around Comes Around, Concept to Cash, The
Perfect Supplier, Follow-Up, All Talk and No Product, Elio the
Photographer, Battles and Wars, Dissatisfied Customer, Crooks, Exhibition
Leads, Small Acorns Conversations, The P.A font of all Knowledge, Practising
What I Preach, Don’t Let Things Drift, Human Touch, Dreams Really
Do Come True, Find Your Market.
Just running an Account Planning day today, for 4 selling teams.
It reminds me that Account Planning is about setting the actions and more
importantly doing them.
Also, it’s about thinking broader and higher about the account you’re
selling to, and creatively think about where there is more business.
But at the end of the day it’s usually about Contact.
Developing a Contact Plan and then Just Do It.
Get out there and contact people based on your contact plan, and keep
doing it.
One close which isn’t so cheesy, is the Resource Availability Close, which providing you’re telling the truth is a good type of close.
Something along the lines,
“This resource is only available in 2 weeks time, for 4 weeks after
that. If you want this resource, you
need to agree to it this week.”
Sounds good in practise, but having tried it over the last few weeks with
my time booking up and warning a few people they need to book me now to avoid
disappointment, I hear nothing back or complacency. But I really am booked up now until the end
of August now, and these guys haven’t come back to me. So now it will have to be September.
They won’t be pleased and I may lose business, but they didn’t believe me
or act on my warning about my availability.
What am I supposed to do?
So much for The Resource Availability Close!
Another good point yesterday.
When you go into a hardware store, the people there are knowledgeable and
ask you questions to find out what you want.
That’s how you want it to be as a customer.
Salespeople with knowledge who bother to find out exactly what it is you
want by listening to you and then advising you.
Good selling should be like a Hardware Store.
Here’s one today I heard.
People buy on SPACER.
Safety
Performance
Affordability
Comfort
Economy
Reliability
Are buying criteria in SPACER varies with age, so that at different ages
we have different prioritises.
Price doesn’t come into it.
Affordability isn’t about price so much as can we afford it, and what
proportion of our income will we devote to it, or even go into debt over it.
I train people in overcoming their Sales Call Reluctance.
Reluctance to make sales calls, and what holds us back.
Sales Call Reluctance is infectious, in that people with it, infect
others.
Sales Managers recruit in their likeness.
Sales Trainers infect others with their own reluctant beliefs.
I’ve been tested twice for Sales Call Reluctance, and I was sitting in
observing a course last week.
It was a good reminder of my own Call Reluctance, and a check of if I’m
infecting others when I’m training.
Two of the twelve types of Call Reluctance that I’m most likely to
display, are Yielder and Social Self-Conscious.
Yielder is reluctance to close.
It’s true. I don’t like to push
too much, and close people down.
I try to nice them into it. Fear
of being unreasonable. Or I find nice
ways to close, or use humour.
And it’s true; I do infect the people I train against closing.
I’ve never had to close much myself.
As long as I advance with clients and progress the relationship and sale
it seems to work out.
But there is a danger that I fail to close and I put others off from
closing.
Social Self-Conscious is interesting.
It’s Call Reluctance around people one sees as being of a different
class, or more knowledgeable, or senior.
Whilst I don’t believe I have it strongly, it’s interesting to note that
I think it’s an obsession of selling to make salespeople call high.
Call on senior decision makers.
And maybe I rail against it because I have Social Self-Conscious Call
Reluctance.
And maybe it’s not that I have Social Self Conscious Call Reluctance,
more that I’m an Over-Preparer, hesitating to call on senior people until I’ve
done my research or networked to them properly.
So maybe I’m one of the other 12 types which is Over-Preparer!
The Brits don’t
greet each other that much in the mornings.
The French say
hello to everyone in the office; so I’m told.
You want to have
a powerful effect on people?
Greet them! Shake their hands. Touch them.
Ask them how they are.
As it says below;
show how much you care.
Remember their
name by repeating it back to them.
Make sure you use
eye contact, and hold your eye contact, not just a quick glance (like I do all
too often!).
Shake hands. Not too sloppy like a wet fish, and not too
firm.
Don’t worry about
sweaty palms. Believe it or not, most
people don’t notice your sweaty palms, just cold hands.
First impressions
aren’t as important as is sometimes made out, but it can sure help.
When I’m running
a course, I try to remind myself to greet each person as they first come into
the room, shake hands, eye contact, and introduce myself.
I wish I did it
more consistently and often.
It makes a good
start when meeting people.
Of course, the
most powerful thing you can do with people is remember their name and something
about them for next time you meet them.
“No one cares how
much you know, until they know how much you care.”
Enough said.
So many people have good
meetings with each other but nothing happens after.
Why is that?
What a waste of time.
Make sure that during and
after a meeting, especially a good one, that you have a proper follow-up, an
action on both parties, a decision.
An advance of the situation
rather than a continuation.
I look back especially
recently to the good positive meeting I have, or people with mutual interest,
and nothing happens.
It’s a reminder to myself to
concentrate on Advancing, Networking, and getting that cardbox of people going
on rotation.
There’s some
pretty nasty people out there.
In fact there’s
some pretty do nothing and procrastinate people out there.
It’s a bit like
when you go for an interview, they really like you, they’re about to offer you
the job, but budgets or a change delays them for 6 months.
Do they come back
to you? Do they say, this guy was great,
we went through all the trouble to choose someone let’s call them up?
No, they start
the whole process all over again.
If you’re a
baddy, word gets around, and it catches up with you usually (hopefully!)
I was working in
Perth Australia last week, and the people on the course were telling me that
everyone know everyone, so you can’t afford to have a bad business reputation,
or piss someone off, because word travels fast in Perth.
You want to hear
what they were saying about one salesperson who’s name came up several times!!
Clean your act
up, and in the long run earn more and satisfy more people.
Oh, but I forgot,
“Greed is Good”
Just listening to
a CD about developing I.T projects and why so many fail.
Mostly they just
concentrate on installing the I.T instead of the whole project and pay-off.
They used the
phrase “Concept to Cash”
Looking at the
whole project from correctly conceiving and defining a project right through to
managing the cash pay-off which can be used as a measure of success.
I like it. It reminded me of focusing on the benefits of
a solution and not getting stuck with the advantages.
Sales training
should ultimately be about helping people to sell more and bigger things in the
right timeframe.
Making your
target with integrity; and training/helping you to do that more effectively.
It’s easy to
criticise but maybe more positive to suggest suppliers who are good.
First Direct I’ve banked
with First Direct for over 10 years. The
were the first telephone bank in the
Their aim from
the start was to be different, rather than dress up the same old crap that most
banks offer.
Even though
they’re a part of HSBC(
I love them. I’ve only once had a person who wasn’t
perfectly polite, and that says a lot for a call centre in 10+ years.
They follow an
intro script, but after that, there’s a real personal touch.
easyjet You get what you pay.
But it’s good value for money, and you can see that they think about the
business and how to keep changing it and take nothing for granted. Same with VirginBlue here in
Talking of
Virgin. I’m not sure that I’d trust
Richard Branson or Virgin, but at least they try to make a difference,
especially in markets that take their customers for granted.
The best car I’ve
ever had, was my MKIV Golf GTi 1.8T. It
oozed quality. A complete joy. The engineering side of VW has definitely got
it right.
Camden Bus my
If you hate Real
Estate Agents then check out Gary and Charles.
Similarly, Main
Streets Sports in Breckenridge
Millers
Restaurant in
John Lewis (and
Waitrose) in the
www.ciao.com website.
Great philosophy, great website.
www.friendsreunited.co.uk Great philosophy, great website.
www.google.com Just so
fast and easy to use and they maintain their integrity in this dog eat dog
world.
www.amazon.com They sell
books and they make it interesting.
They’re continually adding new experiences like booklist, reviews,
recommended reads, to make book buying and reading an exciting experience.
So what do they
all have in common. Integrity, genuine
customer focus, value, honesty, they’re trying to make a difference by doing it
better than the old way, personal touch, quality, function and performance. And they all seem to have fun branding. Branding that you recognise and cheers you
up, rather than hides a mess and acts as a carpet to sweep things under. Camden Bus Estate Agents work out of a red
London Bus and take people round in a black taxi they own. That’s fun.
The problem is
that many companies put all these words into their mission statements and it
means nothing.
But all these
guys actually display it from the bottom upwards.
Wouldn’t it be
great if the people you’d bought something from, called you up to see how
things were going.
The retailer, the
Real Estate agent, the car supplier, The Telcos, The Banks, the everyone you
buy something from.
Just to see how
things are going. No hidden agenda, no
attempt to sell something else.
The fear is that
people would complain. So just listen.
So there’s an
idea. Call the customers both recent and
past who you’ve sold something to, and see how they’re doing.
Simple
really. Can you imagine how much
business it would create in the future if you did that.
I’m getting just
a bit behind with my follow-ups of the people I’ve recently trained, so it’s a
reminder to myself to make sure I do it.
Went to my
personal bank today to try and open a business account.
My current
business account doesn’t enable me to use anything other than a cheque book.
The bank
assistant seems to have recently had “Customer Awareness Training”.
She has a deskpad
with all the ways to treat the customer.
Except she’s not listening to me.
Two hours later,
I come away with everything but what I went in for – A business account with
debit and credit card facilities.
I’ve had my
personal account updated (fine)
I’ve filled in a
few boxes and then been shown that my brick wall of security is too low and
lets get a financial advisor to call me tell me how to make my money work.
And the biggest
joke is that one of the business accounts needs to have $10,000 in it to not
carry transaction charges.
The interest
earned on the $10k for me, is something like 2%, leaving the bank to rake in
the other 3%+ on my $10k, just for the honour of me not having transaction
charges. They’re robbing bastards.
And they want to
advise me on how to make best use of my money but they want me to have 10k
sitting there doing nothing.
How stupid do
they think we are? Stupid enough to come up with enough confusing options to
look like mobile phone agreements with their array of confusing options based
upon estimates of usage you can’t predict.
How the hell do I
know how many transactions I’ll have in a month?
And the point
is….They’re all talk and no product.
Not just no
product but it’s just words.
They’re not
really listening.
This is from the
bank where the CEO interviewed just over a week ago, must have said
“shareholder value” at least ten times.
I’m a customer
and not a bloody shareholder. I’d like
to see them have “shareholder value” with no customers.
Oh, and I have to
put a business plan together and a cash flow.
This isn’t for a loan you know, it’s for a credit card.
Meanwhile
somewhere else at the other end of the universe they’re dishing the credit
cards out to someone who will screw them.
It’s all well and
good having good sales slick sales skills, but if the product is shit, and the
senior management are crap, it doesn’t matter how much you train the ground
troops.
Are you listening
Westpac and Telstra?
Where’s the
Customer Value?
Just like Abe the
insurance guy, Elio the Photographer is a pleasure to do business with.
Why?
He did our
wedding photos, and we finally went back to him today to choose the photos we
want.
He was great to
work with on the day.
In fact the photos
and driving along in the wedding car were my favourite parts of the wedding,
surprisingly.
Firstly, he
listens. He may not agree, but he
listens.
Like my own
selling style, he turns the big tanker slowly if he wants you to move in a
different direction.
As he said
himself, no hard sell.
Funnily enough he
used to be in sales!
He’s patient and
he takes his time and gave us time.
He guided us but
didn’t tell us.
He remembers
things about us.
Of course he was
with us for most of the day at our wedding, but it was 18 months ago.
I get the
impression he has a pride in his work and isn’t just in it for the money.
And finally, he
asked my what work I did and he gave me a contact because I remind him of
someone he does some work for.
So he’s a great
networker as well.
Elio, I owe you
one. (Great isn’t it, I’m paying through the nose for the photos, and I’m left
feeling I owe him a favour!)
He’s good!
Know when to
fight and when to smile with grace.
Today I smiled
and was graceful, even though I was spoiling for a fight.
I realised it
wasn’t worth it, to upset the customer.
I’m glad I let it
go.
Lose the battle
and win the war.
Actually, that’s
a good part of negotiation.
Not of course
that you should see negotiation in terms of battles and wars!!!
Joint problem
solving!
Once you have
dissatisfied and lost a customer, it’s very difficult to win them back.
Telstra my ISP
and phone company have really pissed my off, several times.
Now they’re
starting to call me up to check if the last problem was fixed.
But they’ve lost
me already.
They’d have to
move heaven and earth to win me back.
I’m just about to
move my website to a more reliable supplier (I hope).
What customers
like is consistency.
They’ll stay on
the same contract for years even if it starts to become a bad deal, just as
long as they have the convenience and consistency of having to change.
What Telstra have
consistently done is upset steady paying customers.
In fact they make
it difficult to pay on this broadband account, by not offering direct payment
from bank to Telstra (known as BPAY in
They changed my
agreement midstream.
Fine, but it
upsets the status quo.
Customers like
the status quo. They’ll pay extra for
it.
I’m just reading
a marketing book, and one of the key principles of building a customer base is
commitment and consistency.
There is no
consistency with the marketing of Telstra Broadband.
They chop and
change.
And therefore so
does the customer base, including me.
Why are there crooked people in this world?
What goes through the mind of someone defrauding someone else?
I was just reminded of this when thinking of a fellow salesperson who
apparently took lots of orders from customers, promised them free equipment if
they signed but didn’t tell his employer.
He appeared a superhero for taking so many orders, but in fact he was
defrauding everyone.
Is that the way he saw things?
It reminds me of salespeople who look the part but aren’t actually
selling.
They can get away with it for years without actually doing anything.
I have never ever got a sale from an exhibition lead or from being at an
exhibition.
Mind you, I’ve never been contacted by anyone after leaving my name with
an exhibitor.
If marketing ever come to me and say they have some leads for me from an
exhibition, I tend to dump them in the bin!
Exhibitions just give marketing people something to do, budget to spend,
and leads apparently generated.
Nowadays, I’m more open to seeing the leads as networking opportunities,
but my experience has taught me to see exhibition leads as the lowest form of
contact.
Usually because some poor soul looked in the wrong direction and was
coerced into signing on the dotted line.
I’ve always hated exhibitions.
Maybe it’s the introvert in me.
Everyone appears false, hyped up, there are very few interested clients,
and it seems to be a display competition.
Marketing people are obsessed with exhibitions, and sales feel they have
to be there if the competition are there.
But really, what are they for.
They certainly, from, my experience don’t generate any business.
Or if they do, it’s not a very efficient form of business generation.
My worst ever selling experience happened at a sort of exhibition.
We were taking a mobile exhibition around hospitals. A big artic truck with computer demos on it.
The people from the hospital we were parked at each came on to the truck
to be bored rigid with our boring demonstrations.
I was at the entrance to the truck, greeting people and asking them to
sign the guest book so we knew who had attended.
I’d been getting bored with asking the somewhat unwilling punters to sign
the guest book, so I turned it into to a joke, asking them to “Sign on the
Dotted Line”,
And striding my way across the car park, was the one person you dread at
any hospital.
Every hospital has one. He wears a
bow tie. That’s the first warning. He’s an obnoxious arrogant pig. That’s another clue.
It's the know it all bullying consultant who sits on every committee and
claims to know everything about everything.
They think they’re God.
And here was this hospital’s one striding my way.
“Good Morning” I said, “ Please can you sign on the dotted line.”
“What?”
“Please can you sign the guest book, so that we know who’s been to the
demonstrations.”
“Are you saying I can’t come on the truck unless I sign the guest book?”
“No, but please can you sign the guest book.”
And with this he turned on his heels and stormed back into the hospital.
Never to be seen again, but making damn sure he got himself on the
committee that chose the Patient Admin System they procured for a few months
later.
Of course we didn’t win that one.
I guess when God is visiting you, you shouldn’t ask him to sign the guest
book, but bow and pray!
Exhibitions. Avoid them like the
plague. Think of the time and money
spent at those peacock displays, and how the time could be better used.
You could have 5 people locked away for 3 days generating more solid
leads than damn exhibitions.
I was just thinking today how some of my biggest most successful sales
came from something said in passing by the client.
I can think of one situation, where late afternoon the client happened to
say, they’re thinking of what to do with their application software.
I asked them what they thought they were going to do, and it became
apparent very quickly that their only choice was to take the software from my
company.
He suggested this, not me.
If this was the case, I suggested, then wouldn’t you need to put it on a
hardware platform that would support the software for at least 5 years?
And wouldn’t you need a network of servers and PCs to access the central
system.
And we’re doing a special offer on the system software.
So from one casual comment, one evening about what they were doing with
the application software, it grew and grew and grew into a large contract for
lots of things.
And what I’m trying to say here, is that it’s amazing how from small
conversations, big Oak trees grow.
This doesn’t mean you should go for small difficult acorns, but be aware
of the possibility of things growing big from nothing.
It’s true of life as well. Have a
look at how you got here today, and the situation you are in now.
What happened years ago, that brought you here to your situation today.
Usually, a single comment made in passing, about a job being available,
or about a person you fancied, or an invite to something.
I’m guessing that the more acorns you seed, the more times you flap the
butterfly wings, the greater the chance of something amazing growing out of it.
Someone on the course made a great point today.
P.As are a great source of knowledge and contacts and should be a key
part of a contact plan.
I never really thought of it that way.
What I’ve always hated reading about is “Getting Past the Gatekeeper”
etc.
It’s kind of patronising.
But the thought of client P.As and secretaries being good networking
sources and someone to bounce ideas off, is a good point.
It’s true; they should be a key part of a contact plan for who you’re
going to contact at the client company.
I have a meeting today with a State Manager of the company I’m delivering training to this week.
It’s interesting to write down what process I’m going through to see what
I do.
Firstly, what is it I want to achieve?
I’d like the option to be coming to
And whilst I think about it my stretch objective is to come to
So what do I need to do in order to achieve that?
Well actually, as long as I come away from the meeting today with the
attendees at least neutral or better then I’ll be happy with that.
Let the training and feedback speak for itself.
Am I writing a call plan? I am now
by writing this!
What shall I take with me?
The training material, which is excellent, and some backup material to
show other work I do.
I don’t see this as a selling meeting, even though some would argue I’m
selling myself.
It’s just a meeting, part of an overall relationship with the clients.
Let’s second-guess what they want from the meeting.
They want reassurance that I talk the same language and won’t embarrass
them by training their staff.
There will be some key business points they want to get over.
They’ll want to review the material a bit and get a feel for it.
They’ll want to see success and payback from the training.
I don’t want to over anticipate the situation. Ask about it and see what happens.
That’s it. I have no masterplan,
other than bearing my objective and stretch in mind, and let’s see what
develops.
I’m not even looking for new areas or to grow it. I’d rather do a good job of what I’m doing,
and keep that consistently going.
In fact the best thing I can do is tell them what I’m looking for and see
if that fits in with what they want.
…….and guess what? That’s more or
less exactly how the meeting went. I
talked too much as per usual, getting over excited and wanted to demonstrate my
vast knowledge!
We seemed to get on. In sales
terms I didn’t ask enough about the business and how they want to grow and what
problems they have that need resolving.
But then again I wasn’t selling.
Just interested in meeting the guys and comparing it with the other
cities I’ve trained.
I’m seeing them tomorrow and it looks like we have a similar outlook on
things.
Most importantly I told them I was looking for more business with them
and they said as long as the course delivers then fine.
Don’t let things drift even with your best clients.
I was just thinking this right now, that I must contact the people who I
have no reason to speak to over the next few weeks, just to check everything is
ok.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your bank or real estate agent or garage or
insurer or Telco, just called to see how things are!
Usually, you can’t call often enough.
We often think we’re intruding, but put yourself in the customers’ shoes
and imagine how great it would be if suppliers called long after they’d sold
you something to check how things are going.
I just received an invitation to a seminar today.
Sounds good, but this has really irritated me.
I don’t know who the person is who’s invited me or how they’ve got my
email address.
But that’s not the main source of my irritation.
I’m being invited to a 2 day training seminar to learn something I’m
already accredited to train in.
In other words, I should be running the seminar, not attending it!!
And it seems to have come via a person associated with the company I was
talking to nearly 6 months ago about running their seminars for them.
Now perhaps it’s my fault for not Keeping In Touch, but how many emails
and calls do you have to make before you say, I don’t want to work with this
organisation.
I sent 2 emails and made all the running to work with this company.
They have to give something and they didn’t.
I reckon it’s cost them business, because the companies I’m now talking
to may be interested in their product, but What’s In It For Me?
Why is it so difficult to answer emails?
What do you all do with your emails?
They sit in your email box, and either you answer them, or you delete
them, or they sit there for months demanding a reply.
I can’t see any other option unless you block them or automatically file
them without reading them into folders.
You have to largely make a conscious decision to delete an email from me,
asking how things are.
It’s a test, a qualifying test I must subconsciously set organisations
and people to see if I want to work with them.
Why would I want to work with someone who won’t answer an email or phone
call?
If it’s difficult now to be in touch with them, how difficult is it going
to be in the future?
And what does it say about their values?
Ah look there’s an email from Tony, I’ll delete it.
It’s not as though this is from people who I’ve never had contact with.
This has happened with a few organisations who have meetings with me,
appear to love me, want to do business with me and then nothing.
These are selling organisations who aren't practising what they
preach. It's disgusting.
I don’t care if the business is lean right now. That’s no excuse for deleting my emails.
How do you know what companies I’m now talking to who would love your
products?
But you can’t be bothered to reply, or you don’t deem it important enough
for your time.
Fine, but word travels fast and to many people.
I strongly believe more and more that the way one person behaves and the
way they behave just once, will largely reflect how they are and the rest of
their organisation.
I always believe in giving someone or company a second chance, but how
often do you have to bang your head against the wall before you say enough and
move on.
When I first I arrived here in
It’s their loss now because I am developing Luxury of Choice, where I
decide what I work on.
I can almost pick and chose, and I’m gaining more and more contacts who
could have helped these companies I first talked to.
What have I learnt from all this?
I had 2 meetings last week which seemed to go well.
That isn’t enough for me now. I
want and Advance, not a continuation.
I want to know how we maintain the contact and momentum.
I say it up front, and it seems to be proving fruitful.
And as for this seminar/training workshop, I’m going to find out what the
hell is going on and why I’ve been invited.
They do.
I dreamt of training in
I wanted another big training contract, and it looks like this week I’ve
got one.
I wanted to meet a good networker, and it looks like this week I’ve found
someone who knows lots of people.
Set your Selling Dreams, however unrealistic they are, and watch them
come true.
I am amazed at how often these things happen.
I’d eased off waiting for good luck and fortune, and the work I’ve done
months ago is paying off now.
Have a look at some of your sales and success and you’d be amazed how
small events set off a big sale or success.
What small butterfly wing flapping (Chaos Theory) can you do this coming
week, which may set off big events in the future?
Who could you talk to this week, which may set off a big event in the
future?
I don’t get it
that some people will con and rip and steal from others.
I just heard the
story of a guy in his fifties who sold his scams by going to dancing classes.
He charms the
older ladies there into signing up for his scams.
When you think
about it it’s quite funny. A guy learns
to dance, and then starts cruising dance classes pretending he can’t dance and
charming all the old dears. Brilliant!!
I can just see it as a film with Michael Caine in the Dirty Rotten Scoundrel
mould.
This lacks
integrity though. Actually I only heard
part of the story on a preview last night.
Here’s the real story,
it’s fantastic.
But is does make
a point that I just read in a book I bought yesterday Multiple Streams of
Internet Income – Robert Allen
“1. Who is your target audience?
2. What do they want?
3. How can you motivate this target
audience to act now?
(I can’t
stop thinking of the con guy in the dance classes with the elderly ladies!)
Most beginning marketers spend 90% of
their time creating the perfect product and 10% of their time finding a perfect
audience. The secret is to reverse the
ratio: Spend 90% of your time finding the right audience. I call this finding hungry fish. I prefer to find a school of fish in a
feeding frenzy. If you drop your bait
(advertising) into such a school of hungry fish, they will attack the bait (ad)
– even if it’s written by an amateur.”
This has made me
think about looking for the market first rather than having the product.
I’ve talked about
Abe Grauman before who sells insurance.
After our daughter was born, Abe sent us a copy of the Birth Notice
framed, with congratulations, and then followed up with a phone call. He knows his market. Parent who have just had their first baby may
be looking for more insurance cover. He
was right. He came for a dance with the
old ladies (us) but in this case he wasn’t conning us, just “finding the right audience”