Month: May 2016

Servitude Heart is the Foundational Principle of Marketing

Servitude Heart has to be the Foundational Principle of everything you are and everything you do if you want to create an effective life.

Servitude Heart Says: You can get everything in life you want if you’ll help enough others get what they want.

Philippians 2:3-5
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself. Each of you should look after not only your own interests but also the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”

If you were going to follow just one principle, this would be the one.

There is no other way of getting the things you want out of life without breaking the laws of man or God.

This does not mean being a doormat, a martyr, or putting yourself in any “Lose” type situation however.

In fact, only mature, Principle-centered people truly can have a Servitude Heart.

Most marketers think “What do I have to say to get people to buy?

The Principle of Servitude Heart instead says “What do I have to give? What benefit do I have to provide?”

The more value you generate the more value you receive.

Once you understand and internalize a Principle, the techniques to accomplish anything you want are easy.

As long as you “Never Break the Laws of God or Man” almost any plan-
of-action or technique will accomplish what you want.

Five Basic rules of Marketing under the umbrella of Servitude Heart:

Define Your Market:
The very first step to success in business is to define your market by giving the market what it wants.
Almost all major breakthroughs are discovered first as opposed to created first.
But you have to know what they want. Ask them.

The Question is Always the Answer:
Learn to ask Smart Questions.
Like: WIIFM?(what’s in it for me?)

This is the simple question that needs to be answered and satisfied.
The “market” wants solutions to problems.

What is the biggest problem your market or clients have that is causing them the most pain, then provide a solution.
It’s actually pretty easy to do.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.
It’s tough to over-communicate…as long as you are providing something of value in your messages.
What adds value?
Keep this principle in mind in all communications: “An educated customer is the best customer.”

Be Authentic
Only you can be you. Be honest about yourself, your company, your products and/or services.

Don’t try to be someone you’re not.

You and your company are not going to appeal to everyone…don’t worry about it.
Jay Abraham used to pound away at me with this statement…”It is better to talk to 10 People and convince them 100% of the way then to talk to 100 people and convince them 10% of the way.”

Make it Easy for your clients to do business with you.
Make it easy for them to say…“Yes”.

Make doing business with your company easy, appealing and fun.

Eliminate steps when and where you can. Create systems.

Way too many business owners, marketers or sales people forget that their main objective is… to sell something.

The more complicated something is, the more likely your client is going to resist and say…NO THANK YOU.    Make it easy to say…YES.

 

We educate on and implement the Principles of Marketing
and we want to invest in our relationship with you.

We understand somebody has to make the first move, so we are providing this marketing audio program free of charge to you, not as something with low value, in fact we believe you’ve never heard anything quite like it.

We’re doing this to provide an investment in you and hopefully you will begin to understand some of the things we can help you with in your business growth.

Listen to Our Total Dominance audio program that teaches you a marketing plan that will make you the #1 company in your industry AND Totally Dominate your industry.
1. Learn the 2 Common Mistakes Plaguing Most Businesses Marketing
2. Learn a Simple 5 Step Formula for Every Marketing Piece You Ever Create
3. How to Stay Ahead of Your Competition-No Matter What Industry

Please follow and like us:

Why is online video such a powerful marketing tool?

The simple answer is that video can literally take control of your prospect’s mind and emotions.

Next to a face to face encounter, there is no better way to create and maintain that sense of “personal” interaction. They get to see you and hear you and get a sense of your personality and form an emotional attachment.

The same could, to a certain degree, be said for TV.  The difference is that now with smart phone capabilities, you can create a video that portrays authenticity, spontaneity and do it for next to nothing in expense.

You might think that’s crazy but have you ever cried at a movie or while you were watching a television show?

Have you ever felt thrilled at the happy ending and watched those closing credits right to the end?

Have you been watching a show so intently that you completely forgot what was going on around you? We all have and here’s why…

The area of your brain that deals with sound and sight connects with almost every other part of your brain, including the areas of your brain that control physical action.

Put another way a message delivered to your clients and prospective clients effectively [on video] can compel them to take the action you want them to take.  

The key is to have your online video created by someone who genuinely understands how to deliver an effective and compelling principle centered marketing message. And then put that video in front of the people who want to hear what you have to say.

People LOVE watching video.

Recent studies have revealed over 60% of online users are watching videos on the internet…so much so that it’s eating into TV viewing time as users go online instead of switching on the television set.

If you give your prospects videos that engage them, that entertain them, that give them a glimpse of “who you are” …while at the same time you’re educating them on why they should buy from you…they’ll come back and watch video after video that you create.  Some will even tell their friends!

In my very first Vlog here at PCM, I gave a demonstration of how easy and cost effectively you can do this.
See an example here: Sell Anything, Anywhere, Anytime

This video was done on my smart phone on the spur of the moment while taking my dog for a walk.

It may not be pretty and frankly it was too long at 7 minutes (a 1-3 minute video focused on ONE BIG idea or FAQ is all you need) but it encompassed authenticity and showed me as real person.

Consider these Stats:
• It takes 29% longer to understand the written word vs the spoken word.
• Google rankings increase with video content
• Videos can be easily shared to your website, blog, YouTube, or send them as an email messages.
• Wherever you post a video, the message is far more likely to be heard in comparison to writing.
• It’s also important to put your videos out on your social media outlets, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

Had I had this technology available 20 years ago when I owned my car dealership, I’d be talking to you from my own private island somewhere in the Carribbean.  :)

We want to invest in our relationship with you. 

We understand somebody has to make the first move, so we are providing this marketing audio program free of charge to you, not as something with low value, in fact we believe you’ve never heard anything quite like it.
We’re doing this to provide an investment in you and hopefully you will begin to understand some of the things we can help you with in your business growth.

Listen to Our Total Dominance audio program that teaches you a marketing plan that will make you the #1 company in your industry AND Totally Dominate your industry.

  1. Learn the 2 Common Mistakes Plaguing Most Businesses Marketing
  2. Learn a Simple 5 Step Formula for Every Marketing Piece You Ever Create
  3. How to Stay Ahead of Your Competition-No Matter What Industry
Please follow and like us:

Everyone Goes Thru the Same Buying Decision Cycle

Except for the “impulse” purchase items (probably anything under $100) every customer, client or patient goes thru some sort of a Decision Cycle Until that cycle hits the Urgency stage, they may not even know they have a problem looking for a solution.

So, why stay in constant and consistent contact with prospects and clients?

Here’s an example to consider:
Have you ever noticed that until you are actually ready to buy…say something like a refrigerator, you never even notice the ads for refrigerators?

That all changes once your refrigerator stops working. You come out in the morning and there’s a pool of water on the floor. You open the door and there’s no light. Everything in the freezer is thawed. That sense of Urgency is suddenly really, really acute and now, almost miraculously, you see and hear all the advertising for refrigerators.

This is why it is so important to stay in constant and consistent contact with prospects and clients; creating, building and maintaining a relationship.

You never know when that Sense of Urgency is going to hit that Buying Decision stage.
But when it does, you want them to think of you.

In addition, who do you think they are going to refer when the subject of whatever your business product (or service), comes up in conversations?

Had your business stayed in contact, like a trusted adviser or best friend would have, they would be turning to you right now.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you are collecting all of the contact data of everyone who contacts your business in any way, shape or fashion whether it’s when they walk into your place of business or come to your web site.

Then you have to have a strategy, based on principles, of what to share, how often to share and in what manner or media to share with everyone on your list.

Here are just a few ideas of the “101” different ways to stay in contact:
• Keep educating them on your product(s), values, after-sale services, back-end products or services, consequences of not properly maintaining their product, etc. How many times have you been disappointed to hear one of your clients say, “I didn’t know you even offered that.”
• Send them updates on new products, services and trends in your industry and at your place of business
• Entertain them with articles or videos with a human interest story especially if it involves you or your employees or your industry.
• Use video/vlogs to educate, create a personal touch by seeing you and your staff as real and authentic.
• Solicit complaints before they become too big to resolve. This is HUGE. See my article “3 Reasons Your Customers Stop Buying From You”
• Know what their hobbies or interests are and send them relative information
• If they’ve already purchased, Follow-up to reinforce they have made a good decision and to clarify that they got what they expected and what you promised.

There are two principles at play here:
First is Servitude Heart – You can get everything in life that you want if you’ll just help enough others get what they want, and the second is Follow-up, Follow-up, Follow-up – As long as you are following up with something of value, you can’t stay in contact too much.

The key take-away is that it’s about creating relationships built on trust and confidence.

We want to invest in our relationship with you. 

We understand somebody has to make the first move, so we are providing this marketing audio program free of charge to you, not as something with low value, in fact we believe you’ve never heard anything quite like it.
We’re doing this to provide an investment in you and hopefully you will begin to understand some of the things we can help you with in your business growth.

Listen to Our Total Dominance audio program that teaches you a marketing plan that will make you the #1 company in your industry AND Totally Dominate your industry.

  1. Learn the 2 Common Mistakes Plaguing Most Businesses Marketing
  2. Learn a Simple 5 Step Formula for Every Marketing Piece You Ever Create
  3. How to Stay Ahead of Your Competition-No Matter What Industry
Please follow and like us:

3 Reasons Why Your Clients Stop Buying From You

The easiest way to increase your client base is to regain those who have gone inactive.

It can cost a small fortune to acquire a new client – but it costs almost nothing to gain back an old client.

Here are the three most common reasons your clients stop doing business with you:

1. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Something happened in their personal or business life, totally unrelated to you, that caused them to temporarily stop doing business with you.
Once they stopped consistently having any kind of relationship with you…out-of-sight-out-of-mind syndrome sets in.

For most businesses, this accounts for over half of their lost business.

2. Bad Experience: They had a bad or unsatisfactory experience with you and simply got turned off.

The sad thing is that it was probably relatively minor in the grand scheme of things but it was enough to be an irritant.

And remember, I don’t care what business you are in, it is highly unlikely you don’t have competition that they can simply turn to.

The Silent Majority will kill your business:
• 96% of your customers who received rude or discourteous treatment will never say anything. Which means ONLY 4% will complain…but IF YOU Apologize and Resolve quickly, 70% of these will continue to do business with you.

• Want more bad news? Each of these unhappy customers will tell at least 9 other people and 13% will tell 20 other people.

• And 68% who stop doing business with you do so because of indifference…perceived or real.
(source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs)

The vast majority of business owners don’t think, even for a moment, that they or their organization might be the reason their clients stopped doing business with them.

That moment that you realize that 80% of “lost” customers can be easily won back is the day your business can have a paradigm shifting increase in business.

You know what else? I doubt your competition has thought of this either.

3. Their situation has changed and now they no longer can benefit from your product or service.

Now you might think there is nothing that can be done here, but you’d be wrong :)

By simply contacting these people and asking for referrals you will be pleasantly surprised at the positive results you will get.

Follow-up, Follow-up, Follow-up

If you have a website, you have to be doing Facebook marketing

Stay in constant and consistent contact with your clientele just like you would if they were your best friend.

I personally like emailing a video message every now and then but there are a lot of other ways to stay in contact and a lot of different messages.

The key is to do it consistently and provide messages of value that are personally interesting, educational, rewarding, or inspiring to your “friend.”

I have contacted a lot of local businesses and have subscribed to every email and newsletter mailing list they provide, but the sad thing is that every business I’ve signed up with merely goes thru the motion of staying in contact.

It is all cookie cutter newsletters or coupons or some other sort of sales communication.

While this is better than nothing, it isn’t better by much.

Marketing is Simply Selling and Selling is all about Relationships.

Our Principle Centered Marketing approach helps you to do this.

We want to invest in our relationship with you. 

We understand somebody has to make the first move, so we are providing this marketing audio program free of charge to you, not as something with low value, in fact we believe you’ve never heard anything quite like it.

We’re doing this to provide an investment in you and hopefully you will begin to understand some of the things we can help you with in your business growth.

Listen to Our Total Dominance audio program that teaches you a marketing plan that will make you the #1 company in your industry AND Totally Dominate your industry.

  1. Learn the 2 Common Mistakes Plaguing Most Businesses Marketing
  2. Learn a Simple 5 Step Formula for Every Marketing Piece You Ever Create
  3. How to Stay Ahead of Your Competition-No Matter What Industry
Please follow and like us:

Marketing Principle: Marketing is simply Salesmanship

Marketing is simply salesmanship in advance and salesmanship is all about creating and maintaining principle-centered relationships.

The stronger your relationship is with your clients/patients/customers, the more successful and profitable you are going to be.

Nothing happens until someone sells something.

We are all salespeople – parents, children, pastors, teachers, waitresses, police officers, doctors… makes no difference.
We sell every day; ideas, services, products, ourselves….Everyone has to sell something every day.

We come out of the womb selling. We had to convince our mothers that we were hungry, tired or just wanted attention.

As you were growing up, you had to “sell” your parents to get what you wanted.

You had to sell yourself to your spouse, your boss, your co-workers, your friends, your customers, your students, etc. etc. etc…

Selling is more about Principles than it is about techniques.

Once you understand the Principles, there are a 101 different techniques to selling.
But, one caveat, Never Break the Laws of God or man.

Selling and marketing is all about creating and maintaining principle-centered relationships.
You build and maintain relationships on Trust.

People buy from people they like, and people will like you if they trust you.

I have a simple formula for trust:
Trust = Competence plus Character demonstrated over Time

Competence is talent, ability, skill, and knowledge.
Character is integrity, motive, and intent.

When trust is low, everything slows down in relationships.
Low trust causes suspicion which slows down decisions and communication.
When trust is high, confidence is high, decision-making is fast and communication is effortless.

In other words success is about building sound, trustworthy relationships.

15 Habits to cultivate within yourself and your business that will help you build strong meaningful relations – both personal and business:

1. Be Honest & Authentic. Always be straight with people.

2. Act with Kindness & Courtesy. Be Respectful of everyone; even those who might be “in-your-face” and/or disagree with you. You may have to “fire” a customer one day, but be respectful about it and then move on.

3. Be Transparent – An Educated Customer is the Best Customer. Consistently tell the world what you offer, why you offer it and how it will benefit them.
Tell the complete story about what makes you and your product or service unique. You don’t have to just tell the good, tell some bad as well. Every product or service will not be the right fit for everyone. Admit it right up front. Stating what you can’t do builds trust and alleviates unpleasant problems down the road. I’d rather lose the sale right up front and build a reputation of integrity than lose a client after the sale due to disappointment.

4. Apologize When Wrong. When you screw up, take responsibility, apologize and make some sort of meaningful restitution.

5. Be Loyal – especially to the Absent (never talk badly about anyone behind their back).

6. Deliver Results – One of the best habits you can cultivate in order to accomplish the results your clients/customers/patients expect is to clarify expectations, the next habit.

7. Clarify Expectations – Make sure everyone fully understands, including yourself. Almost all conflicts are a result of violated expectations. Even though most of my business is done with a simple handshake, it is still imperative that the expectations of effort, responsibilities and results are clarified in writing.

8. Be a Student of your Business – Constantly Improve by exposing yourself to new ideas, techniques and people. This allows you to be innovative.

9. Be Honest about Reality. Being self-aware is one of the foundations of ever achieving greatness. You have to know what motivates and de-motivates you. What your strengths and weaknesses are. You must maintain an unwavering faith in your vision or desired end result and that, in the end, you will prevail but at the same time you have to confront and be honest about the facts of current reality.

10. Be Proactive – Take responsibility and hold yourself and others accountable. Learn to “Think Win-Win or No Deal.” Never blame someone else.

11. Listen with the Intent to Understand Rather than Simply to Respond. Ask Smart Questions and listen.

12. Keep your Promises. One of the best ways to accomplish this is under-promise, over-deliver.

13. Extend Trust -Give trust and expect it in return.

14. Actively Seek Complaints – Be open to feedback; That means proactively seek out complaints as an opportunity to build trust.

15. Have an Attitude of Gratitude.

Every TOP salesperson and develops their own style and techniques but they all adhere to the same Principles

Please follow and like us:

4 Things Every Client wants

Here are the 4 things every client wants and effective marketing is essential to letting the world know you offer them.

Price – Product or Service – Customer Service – Lifetime Relationship

Price: The great thing about being a Principle Centered business is that when you adhere to all of our Principles, you don’t have to be the lowest price…just provide a fair price.

Product or Service: Clients buy solutions to problems. If they are in need of a drill bit for a ¼” hole and you are a chiropractor, obviously you aren’t even on their radar.

But if you are one of a hundred hardware stores in their market area, then in order to get their business, you need to be proactive in building and maintaining that relationship where they view you as their trusted adviser for all of their hardware needs.

The more you understand their needs, the better you can serve them and the more valuable you become.
The more you understand them, the better you can anticipate their needs.

Customer Service: I want to do business with an auto repair shop that knows my driving habits and my vehicle so well, that he can anticipate my maintenance requirements, he knows the the idiosyncrasies of my particular make/model to anticipate a problem before it arises.

What are the biggest fears of having to buy a new or used automobile? Getting ripped off on price and what if something goes wrong with my car after purchase? This is especially true for used cars.

According to Stephen Covey in his book “The 3rd Alternative” there is a car dealer in Utah who sells all of his new vehicles for just a few hundred dollars over cost. He then helps his customers sell their car during the next model year for roughly the same price they paid for it.

He does his research and only sells vehicles with the highest resale value.

Before retiring from the auto business, we went to a One Best Price business model on new cars and it worked quite well for us.

For used cars, it is extremely easy to stand out from the crowd and NOT have to fight the “price war.”

Once we know what makes you unique (USP), and what the Lifetime Value (LTV) is of your customer base, and we help you create your Risk Free Guarantee, you will DOMINATE your market.

Knowing your audience is essential.
Our 50 Question Discovery Process helps you with that.

Finally a relationship based on High Trust is what creates a Lifetime Relationship: Your clients want someone whose judgement they trust.

I have a simple formula for trust.
Trust = Competence plus Character.

Clients want a trusted adviser they can rely on. Someone who has demonstrated a competence in their field and has the character to do what they say they are going to do.

Learn more at  When Trust Is High

Any business that can provide all four of these will DOMINATE their market.

Please follow and like us:

7 Reasons to practice Principle Centered Marketing:

Here are 7 straight forward Reasons that Principle Centered Marketing works.

1. Constantly chasing down NEW clients no longer has to be your main priority. The question you need to ask yourself is would you rather be always chasing down new clients or have them chase you?
Jay Abraham taught me that getting customers and clients to “raise their hand” and ask for me was what good marketing was all about.

2. Your share of the market increases.
Customers or clients no longer shop around, even temporarily. They trust you so your competition doesn’t get ANY of their business.

3. Your sales increase.
When your marketing is building strong, trusting relationships, your current clients turn into raving fans and become your own private sales force.
When I was selling cars and the subject of cars came up, I wanted everyone I came in contact with, prospects and clients, to talk about and refer me.
Because I had treated them with respect and honesty, and educated them not just on my product but on how to purchase an automobile, when the subject of automobiles came up, they automatically thought of me, even the ones who ended up not buying from me.
I created my own army of salespeople.

4. The Lifetime Value of your clients increase because they remain loyal to you.
– They purchase from you more often
– They refer others to you
– Over time, as trust builds, they are less likely to place price at the top of their list.

5. Your Cost of Doing Business Decreases.
Because customers and clients are now “raising their hand” asking you to help them, it costs you less in time, effort and money. Now you can focus that time, effort and money on your business.

6. Profits increase.
Same reason as above.

7. It’s more fun.

Please follow and like us:

An Educated Customer is the Best Customer:

In order to have the best customers, educate them through your marketing.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Consistently tell the world what you offer, why you offer it and how it will benefit them.

In the early 1920’s, there were about ten different brewing companies aggressively competing for the same market. Schlitz wasn’t doing very well and was number eight in the marketplace.

All the breweries advertised the same basic message: “Our Beer is Pure.” They didn’t explain to the beer drinkers what pure really meant. They just kept saying, “pure, pure, pure.”

Schlitz hired a marketing consultant in hopes of improving sales. The marketing consultant was taken on a tour of the brewery and was told how Schlitz brewed their beer. He was very impressed with what he learned.

The Schlitz facilities were right on Lake Michigan and the lake water back in the twenties was very clean.

However, even though they were right on the lake, they drilled two five-thousand-foot artesian wells because they had to go deep enough to find the right combination of water and mineral content to make the best beer possible.

They explained how they labored thru 1,623 separate experiments over five years to identify and develop the finest mother yeast cell that could produce the richest taste and flavor.

They showed the consultant how they went through a process of distillation of the water before they used it to brew the beer. It was heated to five thousand degrees Fahrenheit and then cooled down and condensed – and they did that not once but three times to make sure it was absolutely purified.

They described the bottling process where they steamed each bottle at temperatures of sixteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit to kill all bacteria and germs so they would not possibly contaminate the taste of their beer.

Then they explained that they had every batch tasted to make certain it was pure and rich before they would ever bottle it and send it out the door.

The consultant was overwhelmed by this brewing process. He told Schlitz management that they should tell consumers about the extraordinary measures they took to brew their beer. Schlitz management said, “Why would we do that? All breweries do the same thing we do.”

But the marketing consultant understood the concept of preemptive marketing. “But no one in your industry explains it,” he answered. “The first person who tells the story and explains how, and the reasons why, you do something, will gain distinction and preeminence in the marketplace from then on.”

Schlitz was the first and only company that ever told the story about how their beer was made. That became their unique selling proposition (USP).

The word they used was Krausening…all the breweries did it, but only Schlitz told the public.

Within six months Schlitz moved from number eight in the market to number one.

This story was shared by one of my marketing mentors, Jay Abraham

Please follow and like us: