Why You’ll Have To S.U.C.K. To Be Heard In 2007
For my last post of 2006, I’d like to give us all a piece of advice whose very idea was formed after reading the promo for a book I’m going out tonite to buy.
The Thursday edition of my USA Today newspaper, which I’m just getting to, had a promo written by Jacqueline Blais, about Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive And Others Die, a new book along the lines of The Tipping Point, written by Chip and Dan Heath.
Chip’s a Stanford professor and I rarely read books written by those types, but I’ll give it a shot. I prefer to read material written by those that do and not by those whose sole claim to fame is as an educator.
Since I haven’t any info on either of these guys, I’ll go read the inside and outside covers and see if it looks to be worth my time. Who knows, maybe Chip’s a doer and not just a professor.
That paragraph above is a bonus tip for you. As a blogger, don’t be afraid to give a little credit where it’s due. A LOT (every) of bloggers get ideas from reading the works of others and are deathly afraid to give a little credit like I did above. It keeps you from making a new friend and it’s u-g-l-y.
There are no new ideas. The Egyptians and the Mayans used ‘em all up. Sorry.
Socrates, Shakespeare and Seth sucked all the remaining ideas out of the universe.
All of the ideas we have today are recycled and retreads. Sorry, it’s true.
We implement them a bit differently, which is where today’s genius comes into play, but the ideas themselves are old.
Glad you asked. I have a couple of suggestions and I’m sure all of you out there can add to the list. Feel free to, here in the comments or on your own blog, but Just Do It !
To get past the gatekeepers, to get scanners to really read, to get the listener to listen and to help others help themselves in 2007, you’re gonna have to S.U.C.K.
S is for simple. Yep, I really love simple and you knew that, but did you ever figure out why ?
Because simple gets heard. Analogies, stories and quick, witty paraphrasing will get to the heart of the matter before the listener moves on.
Today’s listener is suffering from A.D.D. Every man, woman and child is being bombarded from way too many angles and has no idea as to which one to turn off or which one they should listen to.
That’s old news, but what should you do ? As a blogger, quit writing those 10,000 word blog posts that would take me 18 minutes to read. Give me a 200 ( Good ) to 500 ( Less Good ) word post and a chance to download a longer version … if I care to. I’ll stick around and I’ll subscribe to your RSS feed, but if you abuse me with 5 posts a day and they’re all way too long, I’m gone.
As a salesperson, don’t waste the first few minutes apologizing for being there. Start with shock and awe, define the problem, tell ‘em how to fix it, then show ‘em how your product or service will do that. Then shut up and listen.
Sounds like a human white paper to me.
U is for unexpected. People will pay attention if you surprise them. But your headline better not be misleading.
As a salesperson, you need to come from an angle that your competition hasn’t used. Think about their business and not your sales. Where can they make noise and how can your product/service help them do just that.
As a blogger, if you take time to write 35 headlines, choose a killer one and then your post doesn’t really do what the headline promises, you’re toast. I’m gone and I’m unsubscribing.
You need to come up with an angle that’s not being played to death on every channel. If you can’t, don’t post, take the time you would have wasted and write something that will enlighten me, not waste my time and will make me think I need to read your every post.
As for headlines, who’s been the single most influential blogger/writer/teacher to all of us … uh, that would be the one and only Brian Clark over at Copyblogger.
Now that he’s edutained us into writing better headlines, we all have to get better with the actual content. All headline and no meat makes for a bad meal.
Come up with your own, unexpected, meaty content and you’ll be fine.
We need fewer blogs that restate and link back to what other blogs are saying and more that give us a different angle, from a unique viewpoint, from someone who’s been there and done that.
C is for credible. If you haven’t done it, don’t tell me you think that your idea is better than the one I tested against 9 other ideas before I found out which one made me money.
Prove it to me. Evidence speaks loudly, your opinion is worthless.
Credibility comes from experience. Tell me about yours. Every minute detail is data that I need … and you may not know which minute detail is the very one that makes the light go on for me.
As a salesperson, I know what works for me and I’ve tested that technique against 1 to 9 others to see which works the best. Split-testing is as effective for salespeople as it is for marketers.
K is for King. If you’re not the King ( or Queen ) of your niche/industry , do you have any idea why you aren’t ?
You’re either on the way up or way down. You’re either in control or being controlled.
As a blogger, if you aren’t in control of your niche, it’s because you don’t have enough experience, you aren’t actually practicing, trying to get better or you’re in the wrong niche writing about something you shouldn’t be writing about.
Or maybe your view is skewed. Maybe you’re writing about making money and you should be writing about your journey in learning how to make money.
I couldn’t write a blog about using Photoshop. But I could write a blog about learning to use Photoshop.
If you need career advice, seek professional help. If you want to know if you’re on the right path with your blog, shoot me an email and I’ll try to brainstorm with you as to what path you might take in 2007 to be a better blogger. I can always use more friends.
If you want sales advice, tips, stories and quick bits on using human nature to your advantage, stick with me in 2007 and you’ll be a better salesperson at the end of the year than you are now.
Guaranteed.
There you have it. You’re gonna have to S.U.C.K. to be heard in 2007.
Feel free to add to the conversation on your blog or here in the comments, as that’s what blogging’s all about.
EDIT - After having seen Brian’s name in my comments, my mind realized I hadn’t given credit to the blogger who’s been more helpful to the blogosphere than anyone in creating winning headlines.
I went back and re-wrote that part. Hopefully the link love will make it clearer.
Didn’t Your Mother Teach You Not To Stare ?
As he walked into my office, there was something in his eye that I didn’t like.
The look he gave me was hard, questioning and unfriendly. It felt like the look I should have been giving him.
He was a fairly new, fairly young salesman. Someone had given him some bad advice as to how to begin a sales presentation.
I listened to all of the junk coming from his face that I could stand and started to send him on his way. I felt, for a few seconds, like leaving him with that quizzical look on his face. He had no idea why I had given him the boot without hearing his whole spiel.
But then something came over me. I’m getting soft in my old days I guess. After all, I’ll be 44 in a few weeks.
” You looked me over fairly hard when you walked in, didn’t you ? “
He said yes, and that he always does it.
” Well stop it. It’s costing you sales … like it did just now. “
Huh ? I was just sizing you up. Seeing what kind of guy you were.
” That’s my job, young fella, not yours. I’m the customer, so I’m the boss. I make the decision as to whether or not we do business, not you. “
He was having trouble with the whys and how comes, so I tried my best to explain it to him … simply. You know I love simple.
” You need to cultivate a relationship with each prospect. You need to look like someone I can trust you and feel confident in. Be alert. Be friendly. Be impressive. Be at ease. Don’t do anything that will put me on the defensive. Don’t make me suspicious. Try not to make me dislike you. Give me the chance to favorably size you up, not the other way around. ”
Will Knowing The News Help You Make More Sales ?
I have a friend who’s a sales manager. At one time, he was a newspaper reporter. He believes that the best salespeople are those who used to be reporters.
I think, or used to anyway, that he’s wrong. But the more I think about his reasoning, the more I come to feel like he might be right. At least, partially.
He says that most sales talks, and salespeople for that matter, are dry, uninteresting and dull.
Almost every human being out there wants to know the latest gossip, news, happenings and highlights.
He says that early in his sales career, he started to pepper his presentations with the news of the day and began to look at everything from the newsman’s angle. In other words, he made his presentations newsworthy.
He says he began to have success at just this point in his career.
Later in his sales life, when he had to hire a salesman, he looked for people with a nose for news. People who could carry the conversation, make it interesting and work the angles news-wise and sales-wise.
He even went so far as to say the old-time travelling medicine shows were the precursor of this type of selling.
They started their presentations with some headlines, then a little song and dance to appeal to the eye, they touted all the virtues of the product, told stories about how the product had worked for other people just like you and then they asked for the money.
Can adding the news of the day into your presentations really add up to more sales ?
I believe so.
What about you ? Could you work industry news or the recent headlines into your daily presentations ?
The Art Of Opening Doors
A few days ago, I was fortunate enough to listen to a man who has earned the right to voice his opinion about whatever he wants to talk about.
He spoke. I listened. Intently.
He said when he hires a new salesman, the first thing he teaches them is how to open doors.
I figured he meant how to get an appointment, how to get past the receptionist, etc.
Nope. He literally meant how to open doors. Ohhhh-kaaaayyy.
Granted, I thought I’d thought about every detail of a sales call, but I’d missed that one.
He mentioned that every day salespeople have to open a door and walk in to see someone. He also said that person will be influenced by their entrance.
Nobody makes a bigger entrance than me. When I hit the parking lot, they’re already bracing themselves for the force of nature known as Mike. They still have no chance to say no to me. None.
Long ago, he mentioned that he’d noticed that successful salespeople will walk in with authority, straight towards the person waiting for them, but also having care for the door they came thru.
Unsuccessful salespeople will barely open a door and try to slide in like they’re not fit to enter. Bad idea.
Be dignified. Be impressive. Be careful. Be prepared. That’s the way to enter a room.
Do not, under any circumstance, apologize for being there. Ever.
Act like you earned your time in front of them. If you didn’t earn it, turn around and leave and don’t come back til you have earned it.
When he first told me this, I thought he’d taken it a little too far, but the more I think about it, the more I think he’s right.
How about you ?
Income.com - Coming in 2007
Over the last two days I’ve exchanged a couple of emails with a guy I wish was a close personal friend of mine.
I met him in May of 2002 at an Internet Marketing seminar in Pensacola, FL. He was an attendee, not a speaker. That part soon changed.
John Reese is one of the best internet marketers of our day. I haven’t the faintest freakin’ idea if he can sell anything in person or door-to-door, but he can sell online like very few can.
He’s a fanatical tester and tracker. That’s why he’s so good. Adjust, adapt, learn, grow, sell, collect.
He’s going to devote most, if not all, of his time to teaching internet marketing in 2007.
This is a little ironic, because over the last 2 weeks, as I figured out where I’m going to expend my energy in 2007, I unsubscribed from all but a couple of the ezines I read. Goodbye gurus !
The internet marketing guru crowd makes me ill. Hell, I’ve sold over $40 million dollars worth of products in just the last 13 years alone. You think you’re hot stuff because you wrote an ebook that sold 500 copies at $47 each ? How many repeat customers do you have ? I have customers who’ve been buying from me since day one. Decades. Your ebook is a piddly mess.
I had grown sick and tired of all the pitches they send, with no content to balance it out.
Good-bye to all those who send me 7 emails over a weekend. Good-bye to those who send me the same canned emails that 17 other people send out. Good-bye to those that add no real value to my brain’s desire to learn new things.
I can guarantee that John will make himself another fortune with this effort. Hell, he ain’t stupid.
But, read this excerpt from an email and then decide if you want to join me, as I join his groupies.
” After I first went to a few seminars and realized many (but not all) of the actual speakers were full of crap, I realized that people deserved better. And so I decided to do some teaching and offer some of my own expertise and experience to anyone that was willing to listen — after all, I had been working hard on this ’stuff’ since 1990, even before the “Web” really took off.
I would spend over three years going to seminars and often hanging out in the lobby until 3AM helping eople. I was sharing some of my marketing test results and other experiences. And I really enjoyed doing it.
It wasn’t long before I would hear other people whispering about me at those seminars… ” Who the hell is THAT guy ? ” (Even, though, they meant it in a positive way.)
But all that time I had nothing to sell those people. I wasn’t doing it to make money from it. I was doing it because I really enjoyed teaching — and I honestly thought people deserved better than what some of the speakers were spewing out of their mouths.
Many of the marketing speakers that I was exposed to during that time were teaching stuff I *knew* they hadn’t even tested. Because *I* had. And I knew that if they had also tested it they wouldn’t be teaching it (and selling courses and coaching based on it !) “
I can vouch for this. I saw John sit in the audience at a seminar well before he started teaching. I watched him design whole marketing campaigns for people on napkins, for free … during a break ! I listened as he explained to them the nuances of online marketing … whole they ate and he ignored his food and taught.
His passion for teaching is real and honest. He might be as fanatical about it as I am about face-to-face sales.
In December of 2003, I saw John again, at a seminar in the Florida Keys. Again, he wasn’t teaching, but was an attendee. Again, over a meal, he could help people like nobody else could.
I wish John and I had hit it off better. I rode his ass like a borrowed mule about golf and the fact I thought I could beat him. He probably thought I was a jerk. I kinda am … especially about marketing and sales.
He was younger and everyone thought he was ” it ” and it made me a tad bit jealous. Yeah, even I do the stoopid dance.
Turns out he is pretty damn sharp. And I missed a chance to suckup and become a friend.
I sell a lot of product OFFline and make a good bit ONline, but it’s me that will be the groupie here. Whatever his plan is for www.income.com, I’ll be along for the ride.
Use your real name and real email address, because you don’t want to miss this. He’s not gonna spam you, he won’t send you a bunch of crap every day, he’s gonna help you … and me … learn more about marketing on the ‘net.
And if he don’t, or the price gets too steep or the work too hard, just unsubscribe. There’ll be a nice one-click unsubscribe button for you, like all professional’s use.
Here’s the disclosure - John did not ask me to write one single word of this. He has no idea I’m doing this. He also has no idea about the revelation I made about wishing I’d been one of those who kissed up to him, instead of acting like a jerk and calling him out to the golf course.
Take my advice for 2007 - Find one or two people to copy, steal ideas from and pay for your education. If you’ll do that, you’ll grow towards your goal on 2007, instead of deeper into your rut.
New Debt Free Living Blog
Here’s your chance to help a fairly new blogger and learn about living debt free at the same time.
Debbi Bressler, who’s a great friend to me and my family, has just started a new blog about living debt free.
She’s going to be finding her style, voice and look over the next few weeks, but she already has several good posts up and it’s up to us, as bloggers and blog readers, to help her find her way as quickly as possible.
Take the short route over there and let her know you’re around and learn more about getting rid of your debt in the process.
Want To Know Why I Hate Best Buy ?
Another wasted trip to Best Buy has gotten me riled up enough to write this post. It’s not a situation that’s singularly theirs, but they do seem to specialize in it … or almost as much as Home Depot, who I thought was the master of this error in advertising.
Here’s how it started -
I grab the Sunday paper and look for bargains in the ad inserts and circulars. Target has a great looking gizmo that toasts muffins, cooks eggs and re-heats my bacon. Looks like a great way to make my own breakfast sandwich and not have to fight the lines at the fast food places.
I drive over, walk in and grab one, head for the checkout and am gone in 60 seconds.
No problems.
Then to the Best Buy, that happens to be about 100 feet away, but eons behind in customer satisfaction.
The circular had a Wacom Graphire4 tablet that i’ve been wanting to get for a certain daughter and her fabulous mother. Both of them are really, really good with Photoshop and this will be a great addition to their arsenal.
I notice that CompUSA has it listed for $99, but it would have to wait til I get to Louisville later this week, as we don’t have a CompUSA.
Best Buy has listed it for $105, $6 more, but who would care about $6 measley dolars when you can get it now.
But wait ! It’s on sale at Best Buy for $69 ! I run over to grab one and think that the savings will pay for the sandwich machine. Cool ! Kinda like a 2-for1 deal.
Except that they don’t seem to have one on the shelves.
I’ll try to flag down one of the dozens of the denizens in blue who seem to congregate in 2’s and 3’s talking to ….uh, each other, not customers.
I look for one of them not using this herd mentality. Kinda like one that the wolves would look for. Culled from the herd because he’s weak.
I find him. Tall and has that mouth that continually hangs open. Perfect. I’ll trick him into going into the back and finding me one.
He leaves and returns the same way. Empty handed.
No deal dude, he says. Not only do we not have any, we can’t even order them.
He does mention that a whopping 2 are scheduled to come in this week on one of the two trucks that bring replenishments.
What day do those trucks come, I ask.
I have no idea, dude, he says.
I kinda knew that already.
I leave thinking these few simple things -
1) Do those who create ads have any way to see if it’s worth wasting the ad space on an item ? If you have 6 items spread out over 50 stores, don’t bother putting it in the circular.
2) Have they thought of putting something on sale that they have a lot of and need to move, instead of clearing out just a few items and pissing off those that get the same feeling that I got ?
3) Can they offer to find a store that has some inventory and have the item shipped to where they’re needed ? Think about it. There may be no need for these in New Jersey, but 100 people in Kentucky that want them.
4) Does any other electronics store habitually fare any worse with this type of situation ?
5) Is there any way to get more than one checkout lane open and have fewer blue-clad talkers talking to each other ?
I hate going to Best Buy just because they always have dozens of blue-shirts doing a lot of chit-chatting, but there’s ALWAYS a long line to checkout and only one lane open.
And that dude at the door who watches his fellow employee put my stuff in the bag and then wants to check my register receipt … get rid of him or put him in a lane that has a register, so he can actually accomplish something besides making me feel like you don’t trust me.
Anybody else want to jump on this train ?
Customer Service: No Answer Is Worse Than A Bad Answer
Back on december 3rd, 1o days ago, I asked the Hilton folks to help me out with a small and insignificant dilemma about my stays with them.
Here’s a link to my plea for customer service/saisfaction.
I emailed the post to my Hilton Honors Diamond VIP rep that day.
A week passed and I got no reply.
I then emailed that same post, with a plea for help, to one of their VP’s, Customer Satisfaction wise, and have not heard back from that either. I’ll not out him here, as he may or may not have actually seen that email.
I can’t tell what they’ve seen, since they won’t respond.
Well, I’m in need of a hotel again and I’ll have to go thru the trouble of fighting the 10 different rates at 13 locations thang again, so I’m going to the blogosphere for help.
Would all of you who have blogs related to customer service please Trackback, link to or help publicize this post in some way ?
I need to spend my time doing something besides arguing with myself, since they won’t argue back.
And if you have a Hilton Hotels contact, please send ‘em my way.
Success Crushers: Are You Guilty Of This Sin ?
I just watched a video, that really was just audio, over at John Reese’s ugly little blog.
John knows how to use Camtasia, but has no idea how to create an audio by itself.
He’s got a bunch of people stirred up because they think he’s being hypocritical. They have no idea what he’s saying, because they’re to worried about what he said.
Why do people think they have to argue with what somebody said, as if their very lives depend on it ?
Why do people feel the need to try and crush the success of someone more successful than they are ?
Why do they call someone’s blog ugly and disparage their use of video software to make an audio ?
Can we not let people be wrong without having to try and save them from their stupidity ?
That’s the biggest reason I can think of not to visit forums - The Success Crushers.
I read over 100 blogs, a city newspaper or two and a national paper … every single day.
Do I read some conflicting viewpoints about things I believe ? Sure I do.
Do I take time to argue with every one of them. Not only no, hell no.
Take the good, the parts that you know are true and throw out the bad and just … let … it … go.
Try this next time you read something that you don’t believe … repeat after me …. GOOBER !
That’s all you have to do. Call ‘em ( or me ) a GOOBER ! and keep movin’. Don’t waste your valuable time trying to save the world.
Every minute you waste arguing with people on their blog is one you didn’t use CREATING content that you can sell or leverage. That minute is gone forever and you can’t get it back to use towards your own edification or education.
Have I made this mistake in the past ? Uh, … yeah, like 5 minutes ago.
Am I gonna try to do less arguing and more creating in 2007 ? Uh, … yeah.
Think of it this way - how often do you see the uber-successful running from blog to blog, arguing semantics, fighting over nits and twiddles ? Uh, … almost never.
Does Seth Godin run from blog to blog trying to argue semantics and little piddlyass points ?
Do you see Donald Trump’s name in the comment section of every blog on the A-List ?
Is Bill Gates a known blog spammer and frequent commenter on Scobles new blog ?
Where’s all the comments from steve Jobs ?
You know, as well as I do, that the uber-successful spend their time CREATING, not RECREATING.
Let’s take 2007 and try this - if you disagree with a silly, little, minor point that you read, spend the time you’d use arguing, creating a bit of content for an ebook, an article, software or whatever you think will be valuable to the market you sell to.
If the matter is life-threatening or major, feel free to argue a bit. But if we’d just unsubscribe from the blogs that lead us into wasting our time arguing, we’d be more successful within our markets in a shorter period of time.
NOTICE - I never said commenting is bad, in fact I love it when people add to the conversation. I can even go along with sucking up AND praise, heck, I do that. It’s the 3 day bitchfests and long drawn-out aguments over piddlyass things that I’m sick of.
How about it ? Do you have any more ideas for how we can make better use of our time in 2007 ? Can you teach us a lesson that will help us create, rather than recreate, more often in 2007 ? Do we need blog created about this topic ?
Gimme one, single bit-o-advice that will help me create more content in 2007 ?
Or we can do an Ask-type thang in the comments and we’ll look for someone to answer our questions.
What’s your one, most burning question about creating content that you can leverage or sell ?
As my good friend Tone-Loc said, ” Let’s do it. “
BTW - the image above is from the good folks over at www.despair.com, where you can find some really great stuff, like the poster above.
Save The Criticism For Monday Night Football
There’s a sales manager in my past that was as easygoing as a koala bear on Thorzine. I’d never seen him upset ot even the least bit flustered … til I saw him toss a sales rep out on his ear.
I ventured into his office … after a 30 minute cooling-off period. He was still a bit upset. Which made me all the more curious as to what the fool had said to him.
He told me that the first thing that sales rep had done was criticize our way of doing business.
Bad sales approach. Very bad.
If you’re looking for a novel new way to open a meeting, that ain’t it.
Save the criticism for second guessing the quarterbacks on Monday Night Football. Or the announcers. Or politics.
Tellling a man that his methods of running his business suck is a sure way to get a size 13 planted on your arse. Especially if he’s a co-owner, like my sales manager was.
Find another opening line, another avenue for opening the conversation that leads to a sale of your product or service, but never, ever use criticism. Ever.
It’s not professional, it’s not mature and it’s not successful.
The website that had this great image also has some great words of wisdom about criticism. No endorsement implied, just thought the words were very true and as I read them, I thought of this posts theme.
