Marami Marketing Group

You ever had this happen to you?

One of my good friends just moved out here from the East coast.  Not knowing too many other people here, my wife and I invite him to eat out with us quite a bit.

Aside from the joys of his company, it’s also a good perk for us since he’s one of the few friends we know that’s as gastronomically open-minded as we are (I won’t get into details, but if you’ve seen that Food Network show Bizarre Foods, you get the picture).

Over the weekend we took him to one of our favorite holes-in-the-wall and halfway through the meal I see this HUGE piece of leafy green stuck in his teeth.

Now I don’t say anything at first because I figured he’d notice it soon enough, or that it would just dislodge on its own.

Well, after a few more bites and a gulp of Diet Coke, neither of those things happened, which was baffling to me because it was such a huge piece of vegetation.

Maybe he was just caught up in the good grub we ordered, or he just didn’t feel it because of his recent dental work, I have no idea.

In any case I finally tell him, “Dude, you’ve got some produce stuck in your grill*.”

“Really? Where?”

After a few rounds of “It’s right there, no the other side, the other other side, to the left” he finally hits paydirt and takes care of business.

I’m sure you’ve had to bail some of your own friends and family out of those situations before.  And no doubt there were times where YOU were the one with lettuce stuck in your teeth and a caring friend had to break the news to you.

In fact, you could probably make a could make a list of your “go to” buddies that you would trust to immediately save you from those kinds of embarrassing situations: mustard on your face, your fly undone, boogie hanging from your nose, “kick me” sign on your back…

My question to you is, do you have those “go to” people for your business?  A person or group of people that you can trust to tell you about things you really need to be aware of and correct?

We all have our blind spots in everything we do, from our personal hygiene to the way we operate our business.

Make sure you have some eyes on the outside that can help out and play “spotter” for you.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. I’ve decided to add a Q&A section to my “snail mail” Marketing Mashup Monthly Newsletter.  If you’ve got a burning question you’d like to get my 2-cents on, just shoot them over to answers [at] maramimarketing [dot] com.  If your question is interesting enough and something that will benefit other subscribers, you just may see it featured in an upcoming issue.

* http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grill

I was catching up with my sister this morning and I asked her, “So, what did you do this weekend?”

“We dropped the kids off at the in-laws and Jim and I went out.”

Eh?  What does “out” mean?

Did you go to Ruth’s Chris for a sizzling ribeye or to a WWE no-holds-barred cage match?

Of course, I remember giving my parents similar grief when I was a kid.

“Where are you going, Philipp?” they’d shout after me.

I’d yell, “Outside!” as I slammed the door closed.  Luckily for me they just left it at that.

While that may have been acceptable in our youth, that simply isn’t the case in our marketing.

When someone calls in to ask about our products and services and you ask, “How did you hear about us?” (and you are ALWAYS asking this, AREN’T YOU?) and you hear “on the internet” or “in some ad” you should feel your “Scooby ears” perk up.

Well, does that mean you found us through the Yellow Pages ad that I just renewed for $25,000 or through the email promotion I sent via a joint venture partner that I’m paying 15% for every sale?

It may not matter to them, but it sure as heck better matter to you.

Now I know you’re busy trying to close the sale, and I definitely know there’s a lot more going on in your business that’s floating around in your noggin’, so giving a prospect the third degree when they call you isn’t necessarily your cup of tea.

That’s why having lead tracking systems in place is crucial: different phone numbers, coupon codes, link tracking, etc.

Once you have the data to work from, you’ll be much better equipped to make the right decisions for your business.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. I’ve been thinking about putting a training together on lead tracking systems, but have been so busy with writing and editing my two upcoming books (what the heck was I thinking??) that it’s fallen to the back burner. If you’d be interested in having me do this sooner than later, JUST COMMENT BELOW and let me know. It won’t be free, but you’ll get a TON of value from it, especially if you’re new to implementing this type of thing.

Someone just sent a story to me and it impressed me so much that I wanted to share an excerpt with you.

Naturally, the first things that came to mind as I read it were former clients, partners, vendors, and employees.

“Good help IS hard to find!”

But it struck a greater chord when I turned the focus back to me and I asked myself the question, “Can I carry a message to Garcia?”

INTRODUCTION:
In 1895, Calixto García, a lawyer and general in the Cuban army, took command of the insurrection against Spanish rule. Three years later, the sinking of the Maine in Havana harbor started the Spanish-American war. President McKinley composed a message of support to Garcia, and was advised that US Army lieutenant Andrew S. Rowan could be relied upon to deliver the message.

Rowan accepted with a ‘consider-it-done’ attitude, completing the mission that arguably was key to the eventual outcome of Spain’s defeat.

EXCERPT:
Someone said to the President, “There is a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.”

Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and having delivered his letter to Garcia—are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.

The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?”

By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing—”Carry a message to Garcia.”

General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.

No man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands are needed, but has been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man—the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook or threat he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant.

You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office—six clerks are within call. Summon any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio.”

Will the clerk quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task?

On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye, and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

Was I hired for that?

Don’t you mean Bismarck?

What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Sha’n't I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?

What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him find Garcia—and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course, I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average I will not.

Cheers!

Philipp

P.S. I don’t know if you’ve got your own “messages to Garcia” to deliver.  I’ve got mine. It’s time to step up.

P.P.S. Story excerpt and introduction from http://kakopa.com/geo/garcia.htm

A few years ago I took group golf lessons – one of the best things I’ve ever done – for both my personal sanity and the personal safety of anyone I golf with.

Two things I took from those lessons and try to apply even outside of golf.

#1 Relax.

A common mistake you’ll see in begnning golfers is they try to “kill the ball.”  They think that it’s like baseball and use all of their muscle strength to hit the ball as hard as they can.

But in golf, it’s actually the opposite.  The more relaxed you are (in both your mind and body), the less muscle strength you’ll need, and the FURTHER your ball will go.

#2 Get your receipt.

No, this isn’t referring to your tab at the 19th hole.  What my instructor was referring to was the position of your body AFTER hitting the ball.

Many novices focus only on the movements of their hands and arms up to the point that they hit the ball.  But your follow-through AFTER you hit the ball counts just as much.

He compared it to going to a restaurant.  After you eat and pay, you also want to “get your receipt”.  So when I follow through on each drive, I make sure that both my hips and chest are turned fully out towards the direction I hit my ball.

It’s rare that business owners will “get their receipts” and follow-through completely.

So many focus on just “hitting the ball” and getting the sale, and forget to follow through by asking for a review or testimonial from the client.  Whether it’s done at the point of sale, or 2 weeks later, only then will the transaction be complete.

And of course, by having those reviews and testimonials, you now have more social proof to help with future sales.

If you’d like to have a simple way of getting reviews and testimonials, I’ve created a FREE template for you.  Just click the link below to get it.

Testimonial Card Template

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the “Big G” has been making some crazy changes over the last few weeks.

Typically this is good news for you, me, and the almost 2 billion other web surfers out there.

Bad news for the SEO guys “guaranteeing” top Google rankings to their clients.  Bad news for their clients too, especially if it’s their only source of generating leads.

Whether you’re using SEO or not, let this serve as a HUGE reminder that things are always changing and you can’t rely on just one source of leads for your business, no matter how good it may have worked in the past.

I subscribe to marketing guru Dan Kennedy’s monthly newsletter, where in this month’s issue he shared that “there is stability in diversity.”

This is true in many areas of life and business, but even more so in your marketing.

• SEO
• newspaper
• PPC
• postcards
• telemarketing
• speaking engagements
• voicemail broadcast
• text/SMS
• email
• joint ventures
• and on and on…

Balance a “healthy paranoia” about your best lead source drying up with an optimism of how many times your profits will grow with each additional lead source.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

A good friend just sent me to an insightful blog post from Perry Marshall.

In it, Perry talks about the tendency for non-profit organizations (NPOs) to have really crappy marketing.

And because of that crappy marketing, they don’t get as much money as they could get.  Hence, they can’t give help where it’s needed.  Hence, the people that they are trying to help are actually suffering needlessly.

The reason, he says, that companies (whether for-profit or NPO) don’t bother to master their marketing is because they rely so much on the “merit” of their product or service to sell itself.

Unfortunately, this is the same for many businesses.

The fact of your product/service being the best, cheapest, fastest, oldest, etc., NO MATTER HOW TRUE IT MAY BE, just isn’t enough.

There is just way too much clutter these days.  Customers are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages every single day, much of them bad and saying the same thing as the other guy.

Because it’s too difficult to wade through so much data, customers are forced to either do nothing at all, or they make uninformed decisions, at times to their detriment.

So what’s a business to do?

First, you have to DECIDE that what’ you’re offering is TOO IMPORTANT to be lumped in the same category with everyone else.

Second, you need to get good at marketing yourself so that you leave the fog of obscurity and bring a clear  message to your customers that compels them to do business with YOU.

Third, you have to recognize that taking those steps will lead not only to your business growing and thriving.  It also saves your customers from suffering the effects of sub-par deliverables from your competitors.

I recently spoke with a business owner about some ideas he was tossing around for his business.  While he’s a very creative person, he didn’t have any experience in marketing so he wanted to get my feedback.

He had created some newly designed cards to hand out to customers when their job was complete as a replacement for his previous materials.  The piece itself was very nicely designed and even gave some good information to the customer.

But I had to ask the question, “What happened to the old materials?” which had been working very well for him in the past.

To which he replied, “I was kinda bored with them.  I get like that with a lot of our marketing stuff and just want to do something new and different.”

That’s when my ears perked up.

Your level of boredom is NOT the indicator that you should use to determine when to change your marketing.

Your primary indicator should be RESULTS!

Let me ask you a question…

Are you getting the results you would like from your current method?

If not, then by all means use your creative energy to come up with an alternate strategy that can be measured to determine whether the change worked.

If you ARE getting the results you’d like, keep on doing it!

At the end of the day, your customers don’t care how bored YOU are, and you shouldn’t either.  Focus instead on generating the maximum amount of return for your efforts and expense.

Profitability is determined through a simple equation:

[Dollars brought in] – [Dollars given out]

You’ll notice that boredom and creativity aren’t part of it.

As I talk to small business owners, particularly those on “Main Street”, the recurring theme is their belief that social media doesn’t apply to them.  They typically chalk it up to to large corporate budgets or entertainment for young people.  And while the underlying feeling is, “My business is based on referrals and relationships, not technology,”  I say that’s precisely why Main Street businesses MUST use social media.

Your average local accountant, barber shop, restaurant, and boutique retailer build much of their business through foot traffic, local advertising, and networking.  Across the board, networking is the biggest and most reliable source – referrals (leveraging someone else’s trusted relationship) and face-to-face interaction (creating a trusted relationship).

The Internet was initially built as a way for education and military institutions to share information with others.  When it became available to business, the same model applied in communicating with customers.  A company would create their website and broadcast their message to whomever found their way to the virtual storefront.

Yet unlike brick-and-mortar storefronts, there was no equivalent method of having a conversation with that customer.  Without a conversation, it was extremely difficult to really connect with people and create those trusted relationships.  Because of that technological limitation, many small businesses simply abandoned or ignored the Internet as a way of generating business.

But the time has now come where technology has caught up to the needs of Main Street, and social media is the prime vehicle.  It no longer relies on the “broadcast” communication style of the old Internet.  It’s even moved beyond mere interactivity.  Social media provides a real way to create that same connection, conversation, and trust that has always made Main Street businesses successful.

At the heart of social media is the customer’s own innate desire to have a trusted relationship.  Spam, banners, email, video ads, et al. have flooded the minds of customers for years.  While they’ve adapted to filter them out as much as they can, new broadcast methods are created every day.  Social media outlets like blogs, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook give customers a way to find and cultivate those connections, have conversations, and build those relationships.

Any business owner can now go to a site like Twitter, search for people that are talking about their brand, industry, or product, and start conversations with those people.  Note that I didn’t say “start selling”.  Social media conversations are your opportunity to establish yourself as credible, helpful, and valuable.  After that, the selling comes much more easily.  The best part is that because your conversation is public, many others will benefit from your contribution, which helps to grow your popularity naturally and organically (i.e., word of mouth).

I remember years ago I went to a Japanese restaurant and ordered some miso soup.  Normally I eat my soup with a spoon, but this particular restaurant didn’t give me one.  I noticed that no one else got one either.  They only gave us chopsticks.  I like to have my soup while it’s hot.  The waitress was very busy so I couldn’t even get her attention to get me a spoon, and my soup was losing its warmth.  Then I noticed that the other people in the restaurant were enjoying their soup by simply picking up the bowl and drinking from it directly.  Occasionally they would stir the soup with their chopsticks to help cool it down and pick up the little pieces of tofu and seaweed.  While it seemed odd to me, they looked as if it was a natural way for them to have their soup.   With no waitress in sight I picked up my bowl and started drinking.  To my surprise, I really enjoyed it!  It was different, yet I was still able to enjoy my soup while it was hot.  And to this day when I go to a Japanese restaurant, even if they give me a spoon, I still pick up the bowl.

With today’s economic climate, in order for Main Street businesses to thrive (not just survive), they must  be open to new ways of cultivating the same relationships they’re seeking.  No one knows if or when the spoon is going to come.  It’s time to pick up the bowl…