Over six years I managed to collect enough pancake-sized bruises, bell-ringing whacks to my head, and accidental groin kicks to earn myself a brown belt.

I’m pretty proud of that, but it took me a good 3 years before I could start dishing out more punishment in the sparring ring than I took.

It was around that time that, almost overnight, my fighting style went from resembling two rams smashing their horns together over and over again (where basically they guy with the highest pain tolerance won), to reminiscent of Bruce Lee having his way with a low-level henchman.

Well, at least I felt as nimble and powerful as Bruce Lee – I got hit a lot less, and started landing nearly every punch and kick I threw.

And, in addition to my increased confidence, I limped a whole lot less too.

So what made the difference?

Among the few breakthroughs that turned things around for me was a technique I learned from one of the senior black belts, or sempai, of the dojo, Michael Jai White.

If you’re not familiar with the name, you’d almost certainly recognize his face from movies such as “Spawn”, “The Mike Tyson Story”, and “The Dark Knight”.

Unlike many other Hollywood stars that rely on their stunt doubles and fancy editing to make them look like action icons, Michael is a bonafide butt-kicker, having mastered more martial arts styles that my kids have Dora the Explorer toys (which is a boatload).

He didn’t have a name for the little lesson he shared with us that night, but I call it the “Flying Karate Cam”.

Michael described how inexperienced fighters basically have one strategy: looking directly at their opponent standing in front of them and charging straight ahead, head down, fists-a-blazin’.

This approach, he explained, wasn’t effective because every opponent, from the day they put on their white belt, is trained from day one to block everything that comes straight at them.

“You’ve got to go beyond the 3 or 4 targets your physical eyes can see right in front of you.  Imagine that there’s a small camera flying all around your opponent, that transmits everything it sees directly to your brain, allowing you to see all the vulnerable areas that you opponent isn’t thinking about protecting.”

Now, although I wasn’t a big believer of out-of-body experiences, who was I to argue with a guy that’s wiped the mat with virtually everyone he’s fought.

It took me a few days to get used to it, but soon I began to see open spots all over the guys I was fighting – hands too far from the head, elbows hovering just high enough to expose the rib cage, feet spread too wide to respond to a quick kick.

Even better, the more openings I saw, the more my opponent had to worry about defending himself from my punches than throwing his own.

While they probably wouldn’t think of themselves as martial arts masters, the best marketers and copywriters I know have their own version of the Flying Karate Cam.

But rather than searching for the best angle to deliver a roundhouse kick, their cameras are trying to find the best angles to deliver their offer.

You see, the common approach used in most marketing is some head-on variation of “Here’s what I’ve got to sell you, now buy it!”

But prospects have their own natural defenses from such attacks: skepticism, the recycling bin, banner blindness, “skip this commercial” buttons on their remote controls, or just simply ignoring them altogether.

And these defense mechanisms have been conditioned to fire on hair-triggers since people are bombarded with these direct-buy messages thousands of times a day.

Your job is to set your Flying Marketing Cam loose to find creative and effective ways to bypass those defenses and deliver your message.

Take a good look at your current marketing efforts and see if they’re selling straight on, going right for the sale.

How is that approach working out for you as measured by your response rates, closing ratios, retention, and refunds?

What other angles and “less head-on” methods could you use to improve your numbers?

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. If you’re ready to discover new approaches you can use to bypass your customers’ defenses and massively improve the results of your marketing efforts, you’re in luck.  I’m working on a series of trainings that will reveal a handful of strategies that are working today that do exactly that. So keep your eyes peeled for those announcements.

P.P.S. What’s the top defense mechanism that your customers and prospects use to block your marketing messages?  Do your email open rates stink?  Are you wasting your time on too many tire-kickers?

If you would like some help guiding your Flying Marketing Cam to find solutions simply COMMENT BELOW describing your problem and I’ll be sure to address it on one of the upcoming trainings.

Keywords:

Even in my hardcore running days when I consistently woke up at 7am, so that I could enjoy the crisp morning air in my lungs, it was a struggle.

And let me not forget my job in college as a fitness trainer… I had the 6am shift.

It was not pretty.

Through it all was my friend and companion: the snooze button.

“Just a few more minutes in my warm bed,” I’d say to myself.

Click the snooze button.

“Another moment or two to rest my eyes.”

CLICK.

“I think traffic will be pretty light because of the holiday.”

CLICK.

But the snooze button knows its place.

It knows it’s just a small respite, a tiny diversion from the inevitable.

The alarm must sound again, and I must, cursing and crying, put my body into motion and do what I’ve got to do.

Your customers have a snooze button too.

No matter how great your offer, how much they might want it, something inside them will click that button.

“Cool deal! But I’ve got to pick up my kid from day care right now.”

CLICK.

“Interesting… let me put it in my inbox tray that’s already overflowing.”

CLICK.

Are those reasons legitimate?

Absolutely.

But you can’t let them snooze forever.

You’ve got to sound the alarm – again and again and again.

Keep sending them reminders, offers, thank you notes.

Do it until they eventually wake up and do what they’ve got to do.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. If you’ve been clicking the snooze button on your 2012 goal setting, it’s time to wake up and do that too.

I’m facilitating a couple of sessions next week, so keep an eye out for upcoming posts about those.

But whether you join me or do it on your own – do yourself and your business a huge favor and JUST DO IT!

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.

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:

It shares some really good tips and tricks to make sure you’re getting the best bargain from a number of online and local merchants.

Great for me.

Great other consumers.

Bad for businesses.

Why?

Because these types of tactics effectively reduce a business’s value to one thing: PRICE.

The one with the best overall price (including shipping and tax) invariably gets the sale.

BTW… If you’re thinking, “Phil, that’s great and all, but I’m not selling electronics or toys or cookware, so this just doesn’t apply to me.”

BUZZ! WRONG ANSWER!

Make no mistake…

Whether it’s the portion of your servings, your star rating, the distance to your customer’s house, the number of reviews on your profile…

You are being compared to your customers in one way or another.

Back in my suit-and-tie days, we used to call these types of situations “column fodder”.

Purchasing managers would create reports for decision makers (AKA check signers) on their best recommendation for a product or service using a spreadsheet.

This would put every bid/vendor on an even scale so that they can make “fair apples-to-apples” comparisons.

Yeesh!  I cringe every time I hear that phrase… apples-to-apples.

So how do you get out of that one and still come out on top?

Two ways…

First, stop being an apple and be an orange instead.

Structure your offer, describe your business/product/service, and approach your prospect in a completely different way than your competitors do.

For example, bundle your services so that they can’t be broken out piecemeal and easily plugged into an Excel column.

Second, if you’re looking to win the price battle to attract customers, make sure you have a strategy for making back that lost margin.

Former customers of group buy services like Groupon and livingsocial know only too well that a flood of customers can quickly turn into disaster.

Don’t just look at winning that short-term transaction.

Think of your long term relationship with your new customer both in terms of repeat business and referrals.

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to the holidays, does it?

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. If you know you need help with creating effective, long term, automated marketing strategies, keep an eye out for my upcoming trainings.

Or for faster, more personal attention, you can request my comprehensive Marketing Process Audit at 909-297-1662.

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

The overwhelming majority of respondents wanted to learn two things: how to automate their marketing, and how to get found on Google.

So keep an eye out for upcoming training events from me on those two topics.

In the meantime, let me give you a quick lesson for getting found on Google.

Assuming you’re wanting to get found in order to generate more money for your business (and not “I’m #1″ bragging rights), there are two key points you must pay attention to when it comes to making this happen.

FIRST, you need to is stand out from your competitors.

While most people that hear this thinks it means “get my website to the top of the listings” that’s a pretty limited viewpoint.

While position CAN work in your favor, there are a variety of other ways to get noticed by your customers: star reviews, headline and description copy for your listing, maps location (if you have a physical location), and images.

SECOND, you need to make sure that whatever web page you’re sending those “clicking customers” to will convert them to take the next action in your marketing sequence (e.g., clicking on a link, calling a phone number, filling out a form).

One of my favorite (and most effective) ways of setting my clients apart from their competitors that can handle both of those at the same time is video.

When Google puts a video on the search results page, it adds a thumbnail image to the listing, making it stand out like a sore thumb.

Here’s an example:

Because video adds another level of complexity to online marketing, most businesses are NOT using it as a marketing tool.

In addition, tests have found that pages with video convert better than those without video by up to 30% with some reporting up to 400% increase in conversions.

So what does all this mean?

Time get a jump on your competition and start using video right now!

Cheers!

Philipp

P.S. I’ll have more trainings specifically on video marketing in the coming weeks. If you have questions about it, just COMMENT below and I’ll be sure to address them on the trainings.

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).

Now I normally go to Lowe’s, mainly since it’s closer, but more so because their store is much cleaner and better laid out.

But since I was in the area and in a hurry, I broke my routine.

I approached one of the orange-apron-wearing attendants and ask him for directions.

“Uh, yeah, it’s on the other side of the building.  Just go up this aisle, take a left.  You’ll pass milling and then you’ll want to take a right.  It’ll be on the back wall.”

“Cool, thanks!” I reply as he walks away, confident that I’ll be back in my car in 2 minutes.

But when I took that first left, there were no signs for milling.

There were large signs for lumber, plumbing, lighting, electrical – but nothing for milling.

With no more orange aprons to be seen, I stood alone, confused and a little annoyed.

Then after a minute, it hits me.  By “milling” he meant their lumber department, where they keep all the wood, where I happened to be standing.

It felt like some secret code that only Home Depot employees know about, since there were zero references to milling on the signs for customers.

I guess you need to have an orange apron before you get the secret decoder ring…

As you look at your own marketing materials and “secret shop” the people that answer your phones and greet your customers, do you find that they’re speaking in your customers’ language?

Or are you annoying and confusing them with meaningless insider code?

What other “sales speed bumps” could you get rid of to make your sales move more smoothly and your customers feel more satisfied?

Next time I’m gonna stick with Lowe’s where I don’t have to know any special language.

On top of that, they escort me to the section I’m looking for.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. I’m scheduling my first book signing here in Los Angeles.  I wanted to make it even better, so prior I’ll also be doing a training (topic to be determined) along with Q&A.  I hope to see you there. Right now it’s looking like the first week of October. Keep an eye out for an email from me with the final details (no decoder ring necessary).

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.