Social media is the collection of internet-based technology that allows the widespread creation, distribution, and collaboration of content (e.g., articles, opinions, videos, entertainment).  The technology is typically low cost and accessible to anyone with access to the Internet.  Contrast this with “industrial” media such as magazines, newspapers, radio, and television, which are expensive to produce and limit content creation and distribution to just a few.

The old world of industrial media allowed businesses to distribute specific messages regarding products and services, while the general public could choose only to accept or deny those messages.  Consumers had no other say in the matter and generally they accepted marketing messages in direct proportion to their prominence (i.e., number of times they were seen).

Although this model was the accepted environment for many years, the tide has turned. In fact, the New York Times reported that many top publications like Forbes and Fortune were down over 15%.  Thanks to advances in technology and access to high-speed Internet connections, for the first time in history, consumers have their own far-reaching voice, separate from corporate marketing messages.

For businesses this represents both good and bad news.  The bad news is that the way people buy has changed.  Social media provides such a rich source of information and opinions on any product, business, or service that many can choose to simply ignore advertisements, taglines, and positioning statements.  Even the “expert” review has yielded its authority to peer reviews from fellow consumers.  Forrester Research found that the people who say companies tell the truth in their advertisements has dropped from 13% to 7%.  Today’s consumer is more savvy, research-driven, better educated, and talking to other consumers worldwide to make very informed buying decisions.

The good news is that social media does not discriminate. Businesses have the same access to social media sites, technology, and tactics as the consumer.  This is considerably good news for the small business owner that can’t afford traditional industrial media.  Like many advances brought by the Internet, social media provides a very level playing field.

As many more businesses now come to this realization, many make the fatal assumption that, “All I’ve got to do is learn how to set up a blog, or Twitter account, or Facebook page, then start posting!” While these are absolutely important steps in the process, businesses must first familiarize themselves with the most critical pieces in social media: strategy and conversation.

A typical approach for businesses new to social media is to start selling by broadcasting their marketing message.  Imagine a single male that’s desperate to find a wife, walking into a backyard party and shouting, “Ladies, I’ve arrived! Come over here if you wanna get hitched!”  I bet you’d agree that is not the best strategy.  A solid strategy requires careful thought and planning in consideration of your overall objective, your audience, your audience’s objective, and the specific actions required to get them from where they are to where they need to be.

Because consumers have so much data available upon which to make their buying decisions, a simple one-liner won’t do the job.  Just like making friends at a backyard party, you must master the art of conversation.  People buy from people they like, and today’s Internet technology and online culture allow you to create meaningful connections with others you meet at the online party.  This is the key to social media – creating and taking part in meaningful conversations with others that will lead them to want to do business with you.

Social media CAN BE the answer for your business, provided you recognize it as another valuable tool in your marketing tool bag, create a solid strategy for its implementation, and respect the new buying landscape.

Meaning that I don’t choose what I eat based on ethnicity, ingredients, name, or price.

If it tastes good, I’m in there – regardless of what others may say.

So it doesn’t shame me one iota to to say to you…

I freakin’ LOVE my Taco Bell.

Living in Southern California, there ain’t any shortage of amazing and AUTHENTIC taco stands and “roach coaches” (among my favorites are King Taco and El Taquito).

But those places don’t get me a-jonesin’ to make a run for the border every two weeks the way Taco Bell does.

Tostadas – slather it with two packs of hot sauce and I’m off to the races.

Meximelts – a flour envelope of ooey, gooey, cheesy goodness.

Taco Supremes – the sour cream never fails to put me on cloud nine.

Just imagining it now as I write this to you got me salivating like a half-starved pit bull eyeing a 20-ounce T-bone.

One reason that Taco Bell cynics and detractors turn their nose up at them is the fact that basically every item on their menu is made of the same simple ingredients in various quantities and combinations…

Tortillas, seasoned “meat”, beans, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and a few condiments.

Admittedly, while I wouldn’t call their stuff “high cuisine”, it IS highly efficient business that works VERY well for them.

(The stock price for Taco Bell’s owner YUM! Brands Inc. continues to climb year after year, with a current market cap of $27 billion, in spite of the global economic downturn.)

It’s time for you to “make a run for the border” in your business…

Before you start, remember, there’s an appropriate time for innovation, acquisition, and expansion – this isn’t it.

First, take an inventory your CURRENT assets: products, services, partnerships, customers, etc.

Next, find ways to mix and match your “ingredients” into a different, valuable offering.

Maybe you bundle some products together in a way that you’ve never done before.

Or you take a “toll booth” position and connect your customers with one of your partners.

This is brainstorming time – focus on quantity, not quality.

Get creative, but stick to what you currently have on your inventory list.

The Cheesy Double Decker Taco didn’t make it onto the menu by adding a new, exotic, fire-roasted pepper salsa.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. There was enough interest for my goal-setting workshop, so I’m working on scheduling now.  If you’re still interested and haven’t yet told me your scheduling preference, let me know.

Just COMMENT BELOW with your preference of a weekend/weekday, daytime/evening session.  (e.g., “Phil, I’m interested and would like a weekend evening session.)

With the Internet’s wide reach and the reduction of technology costs, even small businesses are now able to leverage video in their marketing efforts. While the “big boys” can continue to spend millions of dollars producing Super Bowl commercials, many small businesses and people are claiming their piece of the opportunity. The proverbial pie has indeed gotten bigger. In addition, tests have shown that traditional online sales pages convert at 2-3% while those using video convert at 8-11%.

In both offline and online marketing efforts, most businesses focus on persuading their customers by using logic and unique product features. While that can play a role, as you know already, people buy based on emotion and back it up with logic. You probably experience this every day when you watch television commercials. The ones that are most popular and move you to actually buy the product are those that evoked a strong emotion within you.

So how do you begin to leverage emotion through your online videos? The key lies not in WHAT you tell your viewers, it rests in HOW you communicate with them. While some would consider themselves “naturals” in moving people emotionally, it is absolutely a skill that can be acquired by discovering the fundamentals of how the mind works, and applying the proper system.

While Hollywood has distorted the phenomenon of hypnosis to a resemble a form of mind control as a way to create compelling plotlines, the concepts upon which hypnosis is based are very real and useful to the savvy marketer.  Simply put, hypnosis is an altered mental state in which one does not use their critical, logical mind to evaluate information before accepting that information and acting on it.  By understanding the science behind hypnosis, will allow you to transform your videos from ordinary to powerful tools that will compel your customers to take specific actions like signing up to your email list or even purchasing your product!

Foundations of Hypnotic Communication

There are two parts of your mind: the conscious and the subconscious.  The conscious mind is your mind’s “gatekeeper”. It is responsible for logical thinking and reasoning, and the voluntary actions you take such as moving your hand to pick up an object. Your subconscious mind is like a computer, with no reasoning or making value judgments. It’s that part of your mind that controls involuntary actions such as your breathing, blinking, heartbeat, and emotions. It also stores all your memories and experiences.

Dr. Ray Birdwhistell of the University of Pennsylvania studied human non-verbal communication, or kinesics. He understood that a person’s words contributed only a portion of the overall message they were communicating. By filming people in social situations and analyzing their interactions, he discovered that there was much more being conveyed in a conversation that what was being said.  His research showed that a person’s words only accounted for 7% of the message being conveyed.  Body language accounted for 58% and voice tonality accounted for 35%.  Video allows you to use the entire spectrum of communication to deliver your marketing message and more effectively influence your audience.

Everything we as individuals have experienced in our lives is based on the filtered translations of the outside world. The filters and translators we use are our 5 senses: sight, sound, feel, smell, and taste. The more senses we engage in our communication with others, the more likely they will receive our message. We want to engage our audience’s senses directly. The key for more successful delivery is to relate those abstract concepts to tangible, sensory-based experiences. Great communicators (e.g., salespeople, orators, authors, teachers, etc.) throughout history have shared this rare talent.

Hypnotic Techniques for Video

To create more effective and influential marketing videos you must use these psychological foundations as part of your video creation process (i.e., concepts, scripting, post-production, distribution).  Here are a few ideas you can begin using immediately.

• Build rapport by identifying with their current point of view and where they want to go.  This will significantly reduce resistance from the conscious mind.
• Tell lots of stories to get people engaged in following your train of thought.  In order for them to comprehend and identify with your story their conscious mind must accept what you’re saying as true.
• Music is one of the most powerful ways to engage people’s emotions and other subconscious triggers.  Using appropriate intro or background music to your message is a key hypnotic influence strategy.
• Make sure you (or your spokesperson) use body language and voice tonality to reflect the way you want the customer to feel.  For example, if you want them to feel calm and comforted by your message, you may want your voice to be quiter and slower, and your gestures to be slower and more reserved.
• Engage your audience’s senses even more by using appropriate visuals (movie clips, photos, props) and audio (sound effects).  While these elements can be incorporated directly into the video, eliciting a strong sensory memory can be just as effective (e.g. tell them to remember the smell/taste/touch of their favorite meal).

As more people and businesses use video as a means of online marketing, you’ll want to use these techniques and many more to differentiate your message and ensure your audience gets the greatest impact.

Keywords:

We were talking about relationships and how some people never really make a true commitment.

For example, when it comes to a breakfast of ham and eggs, the chicken is involved – it participated in the process.

But in the pig’s case, he’s COMMITTED!

As you approach the end of 2011, reviewing and renewing your vision for yourself and your business for the New Year, think about commitment in two ways…

First, in different areas of your business (e.g., marketing, educating yourself and your team, innovating), are you committed or just involved?

Look honestly at where you are now as a result.

Do you need to make any decisions so that you can reach your goals and realize your vision?

Second, who are you spending time with?

Whether they’re prospects, vendors, employees…

Are you spending time with the people that are committed or just involved?

No matter how much money we accumulate, no matter how much Hollywood and the beauty industry try to convince you otherwise, TIME is something you’ll ever get back.

Invest it wisely in people that are committed.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

Like any good host, I not only want people to have a great time, I want them to STICK AROUND and keep the party going.

It’s one thing for people to show up.

Keeping them from slipping out the back door is just as important.

There’s nothing that bums me out more than a guest telling me they have to leave early because they’ve got another party to go to.

“Why??  Aren’t you having a good time here?”

Forget what they told the other guy, I want them to stay at MY party!

You need to think of your business as a neverending party.

You want your customers to stay for a long, long time.

To keep any of your customers leaving your party prematurely, you need only ask on simple question…

“What would Martha do?”

And by Martha I mean the one and only Queen Hostess herself, Martha Stewart.

She knows everything there is about throwing a party and keeping guests happier than pigs in mud.

Superb hors d’ oeuvres .  Check.  Creative decor.  Check. Stimulating conversation.  Check.  Introductions to other interesting guests.  Check.

Whatever it takes, keep your guests happy so that it never even enters their mind to leave your party for someone else’s.

And even if they already had plans and made their promises to the other guy, make your party so good that they’d completely blow them off.

Even better…

….Make your party so good that they call their friends and family to come over to hang out at your shindig.

What would Martha do to spice up your party?

Cheers!

Philipp

P.S. This is one of 3 strategies I shared at the book signing/seminar event I held event last week “How To Turn Your Business Around Overnight in 3 Simple Steps”. Actually, I ended up sharing 5 strategies

I’ve made the 45-minute recording available to anyone that supports the homeless by purchasing my book “Bodybuilders in Tutus”.  A portion of proceeds are going directly to Union Station Homeless Services.  To help your business, help the homeless, and get access to my seminar, just click the following link and get your copy now http://www.bodybuildersintutus.com/bizturn

But for good or bad, I guess I’m about to find out! (I say as I put on my sunglasses even though I’m indoors)

I’m doing my first book signing next week in Los Angeles!

Thursday 7:00PM
October 6, 2011
READ Books Eagle Rock (LA Weekly’s Best Unknown Bookstore)
4972 Eagle Rock Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90041

It’s for my recently published book Bodybuilders in Tutus and 35 Other Obscure Business Boosting Observations.

The thing is (as I take off my sunglasses), I’m still not used to doing these types of PR events, and just doing a behind-the-table-meet-and-greet event seemed weird… it’s still all so new.

So while I will be bringing a box of Sharpies to sign books, I’m also going to do a Q&A and a presentation:

“How To Turn Your Business Around Overnight In 3 Simple Steps”

In it I’ll be sharing strategies I haven’t presented in this way before that will help businesses to:

• quickly generate sales
• stabilize the “revenue roller coaster”
• more easily acquire new customers

To catch the presentation live, just come on down, no purchase necessary.

If you can’t make it in person, I’ll be sending a link to the video recording to those that purchase the book from the special website we’ve set up http://www.bodybuildersintutus.com/bizturn

Also, a portion of book sales from the event and website will be donated to Union Station Homeless Services, an amazing local non-profit that assists the homeless and very low-income people.

So come on down! (Sunglasses back on, waiting for the makeup artist to powder my nose.)

Help your business, help the homeless, help me practice my autograph…

Looking forward to seeing you there or sending you the video!

Cheers!

Philipp

P.S. If you’ve ALREADY purchased my book and would still like to get a link to the recording, I’ll be automatically sending it to people that have accessed book’s “secret stash” (see the Preface).

But for a moment, just imagine you see the following image splashed across the front page of your local paper…

In the middle of a chaotic meeting room, a frightened mass of people with fear and surprise in their eyes.

On the fringe of the crowd, near the outer wall is a burly man, forearms covered in tattoos, his face strained and red. He has just thrown one of the office chairs through a window, spraying glass across the lawn outside.

If you had to form an opinion of this man, what would it be – positive or negative?

Now imagine the same scene, but the image shows a wider perspective, this time revealing the entire room.

You still see the man throwing a chair through the window, but on the other side of the room there’s smoke and fire coming in through an open door.

Do you now feel differently about this man?

Same guy, same action, different context.

In NLP this is what we call “reframing”.

Reframing changes the specific context in which you perceive a given piece of information, which changes the resulting meaning of the information.

In this case, it determines whether this man is labeled as a “hostile bully” or a “decisive hero”.

This concept applies just as well to your marketing such as your pricing, offers, and product/service features.

To minimize resistance from your customers and prospects, use reframes your messaging to get more desirable results.

For example, don’t just say, “We only sell chicken wings, that’s it.”

Instead, frame it first with something like, “You can probably agree that being the best at anything comes ONLY from years of tireless dedication and study of a single subject.  That’s why we don’t serve burgers, fries, or turkey clubs.  If we did, we couldn’t serve the best chicken wings in the country… which we do.”

Leaving your customers alone to decide what something should mean is a very dangerous proposition.

Do them (and yourself) a favor by using reframing to make both of you look like heroes.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. While I use NLP techniques daily, I’ve never never considered teaching them as a course in the past.  But if there’s enough of a demand I’ll put a special training together.  If you’d be interested in learning more about how to better apply reframing and other NLP skills like anchoring, presuppositions, pattern interrupts, and rapport to your marketing, COMMENT BELOW and let me know.

My wife and I decided to get rid of our cable and TiVo subscriptions a few years ago since we didn’t watch much of it anyway.

But thanks to Netflix we’ve “rediscovered” some pretty great stuff.

For example, we’re just NOW getting into Lost.  I hear it was a pretty big thing for a few years.

It’s such a fascinating series on many levels, but one of my favorite recurring themes is the concept of “rebirth”.

Every episode focuses on one of the main characters, weaving their present life on the island with flashbacks of their backstory in the “real world”.

For example, there’s a guy on the island named John Locke.

He’s pretty quiet at first, but then he started to do things like hunting & tracking wild boar, mentoring a couple of the youger survivors, and even building a bamboo cradle for a newborn baby.

Those acts of contribution really elevated his status on the island as someone that you could trust and respect.

Now here’s the funny part…

After all that, when one of the other guys asked him what he did “back in the real world”, Locke told him the truth… that he was a collections manager for a box company.

WHAT??

But you know what, the survivors still respected and followed Locke.

That’s how we need to be in our businesses.

Give so much value to prospects and customers RIGHT NOW so that any doubt is set aside.

Create your own little “island” in your city and/or industry where you deliver exactly what your other “survivors” need, positioning yourself as the go-to resource.

If this idea appeals to you and you want some help with it, give me a call at 909-297-1662 and we can set up a strategy session to make it happen.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

Oh, and by “cross-country” I mean LITERALLY across the country.  He ran from San Diego to New York City in 100 days. http://www.dreambigactbig.com

He blogged all about it every day of his trek, so I got to see and hear all about it.  At one point he was smack-dab in the middle of Alabama when they had all those tornadoes go through.

Truly amazing and inspiring stuff.

When I think of the scale of what he accomplished, while it was phenomenal, it really came down to three simple things:

• knowing where he was starting from
• knowing where he wanted to end up
• putting one foot in front of the other

I firmly believe that most people don’t get the things they want in life or business because one of those things is missing.

Take online marketing for example.  Most businesses don’t put much strategic thought into what they’re doing – whether it’s putting up a website, shooting videos, or Twitbook-ing.

Don’t get me wrong.  Action is great.  It’s the thing that makes entrepreneurs successful.

Just make sure step back and notice whether you’re making forward progress in the most efficient way possible.

If you need some advanced help with that, call my office at 909-297-1662 and ask for my Strategic Online Audit which includes an analysis of how you stack up against your competitors, conversion review, fast start action steps, and a 60-minute consultation call with yours truly.

Cheers!

Philipp

P.S. If you schedule yours by June 30th you’ll get 20% off as part of my “Get Me A Horsey” promotion to get riding lessons for my daughter.  Hoodathunk they’d be so pricey!

After the 7 hour drive home, the stiffness in my lower back and numbness in my butt reminded me of my own little adventure almost 13 years ago when I drove solo from upstate New York to Los Angeles.

Back then I didn’t have a fancy GPS system, much less a road atlas.  In fact, one of my best friends’ parents gave me their cell phone for the trip “just in case.”  Laughably oversized, bulky, and heavy by today’s standards, that Motorola’s importance paled in comparison to my AAA Triptik.

If you aren’t familiar with it, the Auto Club’s Triptik was a miniature, spiral bound notebook made to order that outlined the route to your destination.

Each page covered about 50-100 miles and even included road construction information. So as you drove past each area on a page, you’d just have to flip over to the next page and continue following the roads marked with orange highlighter.

It was so simple and straightfoward to use that at the times my iPhone gets all out of whack, I find myself longing for my trusty Triptik.

As you now consider your promotions and marketing materials you’ll want to take a page out of the AAA playbook and ask yourself, “Does it work as well and as easily as a Triptik?”

• Do they clearly identify the path to the destination? i.e., buying from you
• Do they point out possible roadblocks (i.e., objections) and how to overcome them?
• Have I made them readily available to my customers and prospects?

Whether high-tech or low-tech, you can’t assume that prospects and customers will be able to find their way to your cash register.  Give them the tools and instructions to help them get to that destination over and over again.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area next Tuesday evening I’ll be doing a presentation on “Local Search Engine Strategies”.  If you’d like to attend, simply go to the following link to register http://www.maramimarketing.com/resources/gkic-invite