used car dealer Archives - Principle Centered Marketing

When Trust is High…

When Trust is High, so are your profits.

In his book “The Speed of Trust”, Stephen M.R. Covey said there is an economics to Trust.

Low trust = low speed and high cost

High trust = high speed and low cost

Low trust causes friction whether it is caused by low Character or low Competence or both.

Low trust causes hidden agendas, politics, personal conflicts, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication.

Low trust slows everything down – every decision, communication and every relationship.

High Trust on the other hand, produces speed.

There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, organization, nation, economy and civilization – the one thing that if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love. Trust.

Not long ago I shot a quick video, simply using my iPhone to explain to some of my Real Estate partners why I felt I was so successful in that industry. (Not to digress, but this simple and inexpensive method of video marketing is a potential gold mine for you. We will teach you and implement it for you.)

Because trust is based off of principles, my message works regardless of the industry, location or time.

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Here’s my definition of TRUST

Trust = Competence + Character demonstrated over Time.

When trust is high:

Communication is easy and effortless.
The emotional bank account with everyone in your Circle of Concern is high so mistakes are more easily forgiven.
When mistakes are made, meaning is still understood.
Everything in your life goes smoother and momentum is always in a positive direction.

Conversely, when trust is low:

Communication is ineffective, time-consuming and difficult.
Every little mistake is taken personally by the offended.

In my experience, I have found that people instinctively trust someone whose communication and personality is based on accurate Principles –those founded on God’s Natural Laws.

People recognize when they are being manipulated for the benefit of the manipulator.

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”. 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 adhere 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.

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 you strengths and weaknesses are.

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.

There is a positive velocity to your life that occurs when trust is high that can’t be compensated for in any other way.

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Only Immediate Response Marketing

If you are not creating Immediate Response marketing, you are wasting your money.

Most brick & mortar, mom & pop owned and operated businesses advertise and market like the Big Brand boys. Their marketing is full of platitudes pushing the wrong agenda of Image, Brand and Presence.

Dan Kennedy, marketing guru, shared these sad facts that coincidently follow the 80/20 Principle:

1% of Small Business Owners create tremendous income and wealth for themselves. They DOMINATE their market within their industry.

4% do quite well. They are prosperous and have created a very nice lifestyle for themselves and their families.

15% make a good living.

80% struggle day-to-day or fail altogether.

When I owned my new car franchised dealership I fought a continual battle.

The factory charged me several hundred dollars per car/truck that they designated as “co-op advertising funds”.

They would give that money back to me IF I advertised to promote their Image, Brand and Presence.

I can’t adequately communicate how much this irked me and how short-sighted I viewed this.

Like all “Policies & Regulations” there were loopholes, but what a waste of time and energy to have to run my business that way.

Those small businesses in the 20% tiers don’t blindly follow the crowd. They adhere to a different way of doing business and that especially applies to their marketing.

According to Dan Kennedy: Your Marketing Strategy needs to be and can be much SIMPLER.

Every $1.00 spent on marketing has to provide you an IMMEDIATE Return-on-Investment (ROI) – FAST! Like TODAY preferably.
That ROI must able to be accurately tracked back to that $1.00 spent.
DO NOT spend a $1.00 that does not IMMEDIATELY return more than it costs you.

We will not take on a client where we do not feel confident we can bring them a return 3 to 5x’s what they spend for our advice, strategies and plans.

As a small business owner with limited resources, your sole agenda has to be to SELL SOMETHING TODAY!

You cannot afford any other way of thinking.

Every marketing communication you create from now on must be created with these 7 Rules at the forefront of your thinking:

It must be created with the intent to get a sale TODAY!
Every marketing/advertising communication will have an Intriguing and near Impossible-to-Refuse Offer in it.
Always, always have a reason for the prospect or customer to RESPOND – Immediately.
It must have very clear instructions on What you want them to do, When and How. Always make it easy to do business with you AND to say YES!
Every marketing/advertising communication will be trackable. “You can’t manage what you don’t or can’t measure.”
Brand-building will only be done using NO-COST methods. Absolutely no platitudes.
Follow-up will be built right into every marketing communication.

If you are spending money with agencies, radio stations, television ads, newspaper ads, online advertising, websites, postcards, brochures, etc. and they are not adhering to these rules. Fire them! NOW! You are on the path to joining or remaining in that 80% that just survive.

Our Desired End Results for every owner we work with is to get them to that 1%.

Only Immediate Response Marketing will get you there.

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Principles Rule: Be Authentic

Be Authentic: “Only you can be you.”

We are all created UNIQUE.

Research shows that the average person has between 500 to 700 different skills and abilities – WOW!!

And no one else on earth can use these skills and abilities, in their combination, like you can.

DNA molecules can unite in an infinite number of ways – 10 to the 2,400,000,000 power. That’s 10 with 2 billion zeros after it!!!!

There never has been and never will be another YOU.

The secret to successful marketing is to uncover what makes you and your business Unique (your USP – Unique Selling Proposition) and then Tell your story to the world and tell it often.

Every woodworker knows that the most effective and efficient way to work with wood is to work with the grain rather than against it.

It’s the equivalent of “working smarter, rather than harder.”

The expression “Sawing against the grain” means working against oneself; not getting the most out of the effort you put into something.

If you “cut against the grain” the resulting board is not as strong as one that was cut with the grain.

In the same way, when you act in a manner that is “against the grain” of who you are, or not authentic, it creates negative tension. It requires you to expend more effort and energy which in turn produces less than the BEST results possible FOR YOU!!

When you act, speak or write consistent with the way you were Created, in other words – authentic; you experience fulfillment, satisfaction, and the Best Results possible.

Being authentic means “Doing all the Right Things Right all the Time.”

This by the way was Vince Lombardi’s definition of a Winner!

What are the Rewards of being Authentic?

The quality of your life improves

“Doing (and saying) the right thing for the right reason in the right way is the key to the quality of life, and that can only come through the power of an educated conscience that aligns us with vision, mission, and true north.” – Stephen Covey

It puts you in control of the situation rather than the situation controlling you.

“The hand of the diligent will rule, but the lazy will be put to forced labor.” – Proverbs 12:24

“People can get many good things by the words they say…;
– Proverbs 12:14

“The deceitful walk a thorny, treacherous path; whoever values life will stay away.” – Proverbs 22:5

“In the end, people appreciate frankness rather than flattery.”– Proverbs 28:3

You get the respect, admiration and trust of those in your Circle of Influence.

Being authentic is being honest. It’s being real. It’s being courageous.

It’s human nature to follow the “path of least resistance”; To just “go with the flow”. To always look for the easy way; To avoid conflict by telling people what they want to hear rather than the truth.

This is true in marketing as well.

We have come to accept that most ads are exaggerating the benefits and minimize the risks to prospective clients.

Heck, as a society, we have come to accept and condone lying at the highest levels of our government leadership. Look at Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky affair and the gyrations around the truth and the public thought nothing about it.

What we learned as a society was that a person can lie and cheat and lack moral character – and yet not forfeit his political career.

We see broken promises (lies) every day at the highest level of our leadership and the majority of people accept it as “normal”.

But…to be a 3% er, you have zig when others are zagging.

A Leader is TRUSTWORTHY.
Trust = Competence plus Character/demonstrated over time.

Since that is not “normal”, can you only imagine what rewards awaits a trustworthy person?

When I was selling cars for a living, I always understated rather than overstated benefits.

I later created a Rule for myself and my employees of UnderPromise/OverDeliver.

When we followed this Rule, it was easy to Honor every Commitment we made. Which created trust.

The worst kind of deceit is self-deceit. It is impossible to be authentic while at the same time practicing self-deceit.

We cannot be one person in our private life and someone different in our public (business) life.

Why is it so easy to lie?

Everyone of us is guilty of dishonesty at one time or another.

We lie to promote ourselves, to protect ourselves or to manipulate others.

Deceit comes in a number of different categories but can be summed up in two distinct forms:

Distortion of the truth
Outright hiding of the truth

There are always consequences to deceit.

Deceit causes never-ending stress in your life.

Having to constantly think about the lies and when you told them forces you to constantly think about them so that you don’t get caught saying something contradictory that would expose those lies.

Sooner or later, all lies are found out, and when that happens, your Circle of Influence diminishes, and the quality of friends and customers diminishes with it.

It’s the Birds of a feather syndrome.

Being Authentic is an easier way to live and conduct business and the rewards are higher because there are fewer people at the top to have share them with.

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6 Ways to Disqualify Tire Kickers

These are based on the Marketing Principle: It is better to talk to 10 people who want what you have to offer than 100 tire kickers.

In marketing, we teach our clients that it is better to Reach 10% of the Market and persuade them 100% of the way than to Reach 100% of the market and persuade them 10% of the way.

When you are in the business of selling, you better be good at figuring out as quickly as you can, these 6 things.

Here are 6 Ways to disqualify the tire kickers.

1. Are they the decision-maker? Do they have the ability to say yes?
Don’t waste your time making a presentation to an audience that can’t make the final decision.

2. Are they a member of your target audience? Every business has customers or clients that can be broken out according to the 80/20 Principle.
20% of your customers are generating 80% of your profits.

By the way, this principle holds true for your employees and your products/services you offer.

If you want to be more effective, you have to separate these and start focusing on the 20%.

Let’s say you have 3,000 active customers.
This Principle or Natural Law will show you that 600 of those are generating 80% of your profits. And ultimately, you will want to know who the 4% are that are generating 64% of your profits.

Helping you discover this 20% is the 6th element of our Essential Elements Discovery process.

See my article on this subject here: “Who should you be selling to?”

3. Do they have the money?
My two main businesses have been the automotive retail industry and real estate.
Two big ticket items. You better be good at qualifying whether your prospect can afford what you have to offer.

In the auto industry, there are “tire kickers” and there are “buyers”.

When you are strictly on commission, you better learn how to quickly and respectfully qualify your audience.

4. Is there a sense of urgency? Do they have an immediate problem that they need a solution to?

Twenty or so years ago I spent a year having Jay Abraham teach me his marketing principles. One of his pieces of advice that really stuck was “It is better to talk to 10 people who want what you have to offer than a 100 tire kickers.”

Jim Rohn had a similar approach when he said “the best advice I can offer is for you to realize that you have permission to ‘talk about what matters’ only to people who care.”

5. Do they want what you have to offer? Does your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) match what they want?
A unique selling proposition (USP) is your unique answer to these questions:
• What does your product or service do that your competitors doesn’t?
• Why should I buy from you instead of anybody else?
• What guarantee can you make that nobody else can make?

These are the things that make it easier for them to say Yes rather than No!

Effective marketing/selling gets people to raise their hand and say “I want what you have to offer.”

It’s the difference between chasing leads versus having them chasing you.

Which one sounds like more fun, easier and more lucrative?

Read my blog on this issue here: USP! What Is Your Unique Selling Proposition?

6. Do you have a solution for their problem?
Whatever you sell needs to be in harmony with the natural and existing forces in their life right now.

The sooner you learn how to disqualify the 80%, the faster you will dominate your market.

Two huge mistakes almost every business makes

1. They don’t capture the contact information on everyone they come in contact with, name, address, phone number, email address are the basics.

But if you want to excel at this, learn as much as possible about them as you can so that in your future communications, you can share things that are of interest to them.

I used to find out all of the demographic and psychographic information I could.

2. Businesses have no consistent marketing strategy for follow-up.

Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up with things that add value to their lives.
That is why, over the course of time, the more you know about who you know, the better and more trusting your relationship with them will be.

Effective marketing/selling is all about creating trusting relationships.

How badly do you want to not only DOMINATE your market within your industry but do it with less time, effort and money invested?

How badly do you want to have more personal time and more consistent cash flow and higher profits?

Remember this: It is better to reach 10% of the market and persuade them 100% of the way than to reach 100% of the market and only persuade them 10% of the way.

Stated another way: Ten sales are better than 100 “be-backs.”

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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.

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8 Things Every Website needs to Include

There are 8 things every website needs to have in order to be effective at generating leads and sales.

1. Video – more and more important, although in my experience a lot of business owners just won’t do it. But if you can get over your nervousness, and get on camera saying who you are, what you do, and why you do it – that’s personal & powerful.

Example: As a car dealer, I would use my smart phone to take a short video at delivery showing my client walking around his or her new vehicle and driving away and then sharing that video via email with my client and posting it as a testimonial on my website.

You could use the same method in any other brick & mortar business.
The possibilities are endless.

2. Phone Number – Make sure your phone number is at the upper right side of every website page – It should also be obvious & prominent on your mobile site version too. Principle of Marketing: Always Make It Easy for your Customers to do Business With You.

3. Call To Action – You have about 3 seconds to convey who you are, what you do, and why the site visitor should care. If the home page is full of text about how great you are instead of what problems you solve, site visitors aren’t going to stick around.

4. Opt-in form – or some way to capture information so that you can market to them again. Offer something of value to your client as a way to capture their information.
Just saying “Sign Up for our updates” or “get our newsletter” will not cut it. Give people a compelling REASON to give you their information.

This underscores the importance of knowing your Lifetime Value of your customers or clients.

Once you know their value, it is a lot easier for you to calculate how much you are willing to invest or reward them with an “ethical bribe”.

5. Mobile Compatibility – It’s critically important that your website works properly with mobile devices (like iPads and Smart phones) Not just a tiny rendering of your entire site, but basic info like phone number, address, maybe a menu – depends on the business. Right now over 60% of local searches are done on a mobile phone and that’s only going to increase

6. Testimonials and Proof – If people love your service and you’re the best in your industry, say so! I believe the best way is to collect video testimonials of your customers saying that in person.

7. An effective “About” page – Typically your “About” page is the second-most visited page on your website. People want to know who they’re dealing with. Don’t hide behind vague reassurances or terminology, especially if you’re local. Videos of you and your staff are highly effective.

8. Social Media Connection – Now, more than ever, it is very important to have a connection between your website and social media.
Have you ever searched for something on Amazon and the next time you went to your Facebook page, you saw an ad for that very same product? That’s re-targeting.

Think about this: You spent thousands of dollars to create a website with the sole purpose of generating leads and ultimately sales. Don’t waste that investment by treating it like a digital yellow page ad.
That is just a waste of you money, time and effort.

The only goal of marketing for a brick & mortar business is to drive traffic either to your place of business or to your website and then you have to convert that traffic to sales.

With this simple tool of Facebook re-targeting, you make sure that everyone that visits your website, continues to be exposed to your message, product or services.

It requires a minimum of 5 “touches” before people begin to “hear” you message, and several more exposures (touches) before their action is initiated.

These simple 8 website principles are your key to having an effective web site that generate additional sales.

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