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Life’s Been Good

Great song. Fits my story too, but mine ain’t finished yet. Or wasn’t as of the time of this post.

Picture this: It’s August of 1977. A 14 year-old boy who’d been listening to Wolfman Jack on an AM radio gets bussed to another town to finish his high school education.

The boy gets thrown out of a class for fighting on the first day of school and the only class for that period, that has an opening, is Mass Communications.

The school is starting a radio station that has enough power to reach all the way to Highway 41, about 1/8 mile away. The radio station is run by the teacher of this Mass Communications class.

The teacher recruits the boy to his radio team because A) he likes fighters, B) the boy reads Rolling Stone, C) the boy’s dumb enough to say yes.

Simple.

The boy finds The Eagles and yes, I capitalized that on purpose.

They rule. Period.

The boy finds Hotel California. It still rules, too.

The boy hears Joe Walsh play guitar for the first time. He still rules and rocks, as well.

Fast forward to 2008: The boy, now a man, who sells for a living and coaches sales people for fun … and a small profit … gets a message from the Universe that Joe Walsh, Master Guitarist of the First Order, had hidden a sales and marketing lesson in one of his songs.

The man searches for days and days before he comes across it. He then has to decide whether or not to share it with the world. And whether or not to charge for it.

Well, the man figures, life’s been good to me so far, so I’ll just set it free and hope for reciprocity.

So here’s what Joe said that only a select few marketers have ever known:

“I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime …”

Now I guess you want me to decipher that for you, don’t you ?

Well, here’s what corporate marketers messed up a few decades ago. You have to design, test, tweak and deploy a marketing campaign from ground zero, not from the 30,000 feet view.

Before the days when corporate wonks started sitting in high rises, the sales and marketing types were out in the field, they were there talking to the customers and they got immediate feedback that hadn’t been watered down by salespeople fearful of losing their job or hurting the feelings of some marketing manager that knows nothing … but is married to the bosses niece.

Now days, everybody wants to view a situation from the 30,000 feet view and that’s not where the usable intel is. It’s down on the ground. Before it gets passed up thru several levels, before it gets watered down, before it gets altered, before it gets made politically correct and before it becomes almost worthless.

I’m a ex-military guy and we were taught to assess a situation from where the action is. After intel moves thru several hands, it’s not as good as it was when it was fresh.

If you want to stop making mistakes in your marketing, get down in the trenches and get usable info, instead of worthless words.

Ask people for their opinion, without telling them why you are asking them.

Talk to people and bring up your product or service casually.

I give my coaching clients places to go, people to see and things to do that make good intel available to them.

Here’s a hint: It ain’t a google group, it ain’t a forum and it ain’t always online.

The view from 30,000 feet is distorted, out of focus and not the best one, so don’t keep using it now that I’ve let the Genie of Truth out of the the bottle.

Columbo didn’t get his info from 30,000 feet, he went to the scene of the crime.

Rockford didn’t fill his files from 30,000 feet, he went to the scene of the crime.

Mike’s Big Message: Quit looking for ways to think outside of the box. Go to where the box gets used and look for clues there.

Meat Loaf never just sang a song.

He held musical events. Each and every song seemed to be an over-the-top, way over-done extravaganza.

His fans loved it. Hint, hint..

He never short-changed his audience. Bigger hint …

The way he added what seemed to be a full fledged orchestra to his work differentiated him from the other rockers of his time. Even bigger hint …

That same genius will serve you well as a blogger, as a podcaster and more importantly, as a content creator.

I hate with a burning, purple passion the blog posts that ride like this:

” I’m thinking that this is good, bad or indifferent. What do you think ? “

Two or three sentences and a question ? Dude. If I’d wanted a survey, I’d answer my phone when tele-idiots call. I subscribed to your RSS feed to hear what you had to say, not for you to ask me what I think.

You probably think Twitter is a good idea, too, don’t you ?

If that’s all you have time to write, then don’t bother. It’s okay to skip a day or a week. Really.

Create an event. Go big or don’t go at all. If you can’t create with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

I’ve been contemplating adding a podcast to Simplenomics and I may as well put the pressure on myself and say I’m gonna do it. That way I have to get it done … soon.

Audio content is much, much easier for most of us to create.

I know I can speak much better than I can type. There are reasons for that, the least two of which are: I can’t type and I sometimes seem to see numbers and words a bit differently than they actually appear. It’s a bit like a very, very mild case of dyslexia, but I’m not sure it actually is, since I’ve never had it tested. I have no idea why, but it seems to flare up more under pressure, even if it’s self induced. I have a half-brother who’s fully dyslexic and he’s much worse off than I am by far. My only “problem” is that I sometimes have to read something 3, 4 or 5 times to get it all and see exactly what the writer wrote. That’s more good than bad, or it’s seemed that way to me so far in my 45 years.

Numbered keypads, fax machines, calculators and such give me fits sometimes, but I can usually work thru it without throwing them … very far.

More importantly, the addition of the Thesis theme here on this site will allow me to do a better job of creating text based posts, even though my aim is to do more audio than text.

I feel like I’m shortchanging the readers and myself by not producing posts that are “events“, to steal Meat Loaf’s methodology, so I’m going to try to go the “event” route and see how that works for you and me both.

I’ve got a ton of audio content stored up and I seem to have no problem is getting interviews with sales and marketing thought leaders, so it should be a fun ride.

Stick with me, tell everyone you know and hang on, it’s gonna be a fun ride.

Me: Acting ?

Him: Acting.

The question asked before this astonished answer was:

What other profession does selling most closely resemble ?

Me: But a salesperson isn’t an actor.

Him: A good one is.

Me: How so ?

Him: They both control their emotions don’t they ?

This is getting tougher, so I’ll let the sales manager I was talking to tell you what he told me.

An actor or a salesman must control:

• His emotions
• His facial expressions
• His body movements
• His voice

Without control of all of these an actor can’t portray drama and if he doesn’t control all of these a salesman may create drama.

About now, the principle was starting to sink into my often closed, never quiet mind, so I asked:

In what other ways does a salesperson resemble an actor ?

A salesman or actor must be able exude confidence.

Not necessarily playing dumb, I asked - How ?

By the tone of his voice, the expression on his face, the words and facts he uses and how he weaves them into the conversation.

Basically, he said, by being sincere.

Suppose, I said, the salesperson isn’t all that sincere.

An honest salesperson never tries to sell anything that the prospect doesn’t really need, no more than an honest actor will take an phony part.

Hey Will Farrell, you listening ?!

Have you ever lost a bet and had to buy lunch for a coworker ?

Me too. Lotsa times.

I sometimes use it as a means of creating a bond between those who are in a support position for me.

They don’t get as many perks as I do, so I lose bets to them every now and then and buy them a lunch or some donuts or whatever.

They love to get into my wallet and I love making ‘em feel like they got something over on me.

They like me more than any of the other sales people in our organization and that works in my favor.

It’s kinda like an organized bribe on my part and they never seem to notice that I lose almost every bet.

I lost another one last week to a young man whose butt I ride all the time, trying to get him to catch on to more things and trying to get him to be a bit better. When it starts to get to him, I lose a bet and he feels better.

I went to pick up our lunches and the hostess was, how shall we put this …. stupid ? An idiot ? Worthless ?

Yeah, those will do … for a start.

I asked her if I could pick up a couple of sandwiches to go and she said she would try to find someone to take my order, but ” … they all are real good at hiding out in their places and I have trouble finding them, but when I hide, they find me. “

At this point, I wasn’t real sure who “they” were, but I was hoping it wasn’t the people from I Am Legend or the things in The Mist.

About 15 minutes into my ordeal, which I won’t document here ( I’m saving it for a podcast ), a mother and son came in. The boy looked to be 14 to 16.

The hostess with the leastess says to the young man, ” Why ain’t you in school ? “

Not Hi, not welcome to XXX ( name withheld to protect my bank account ), not anything that you’d expect from a hostess.

The young man said, ” I’m homeschooled. ”

So The Brain says, ” Oh, that means you get to play hooky and eat lunch. “

I myself went to a public school and ate lunch every day, so I don’t know where she went or if she actually went.

So here’s the questions I have:

Will that mother and son ever eat there again ?

Will the management ever find out that she’s a complete and finely tuned utter fool ?

Can she and will she affect the repeat business ?

Would you let it bother you and would you go back if you were that mother and son ?

A while back I was able to get Steve Marx, author of Close Like The Pros, on the phone for a few minutes.

We talked about the fact that neither of us truly believe in sales contests, as they’re used in today’s sales climate.

I had also previously reprinted an article by Dan Kennedy that basically agreed with us.

So take the time to listen thru the player below or download the mp3 and listen on your iPod or other mp3 player.

” He was too New York, too Italian and had too many wives.” ~ Dorothy Kaliades

Ms. Kaliades was speaking about former presidential hopeful, Rudy Giuliani, but she could have been talking about you as a salesperson, your company or your marketing campaign.

I’ll guarantee that you’re too something. Your company is too something. Your website is too something and your marketing is too something.

Guaranteed.

But what are you too much of ?

Well obviously you don’t know and can’t see it or you’d fix it. Or would you ?

If your clients or customers think you’re too something, do you care enough to change ? Or do you think you’re smarter than they are, so you won’t worry about it ?

Most people, most companies think exactly that way. They don’t care what their customer thinks. They don’t care what their clients think.

They mistakenly think there’s plenty more clients and customers where that one came from, so we’ll stay the way we are and wait for our ideal customer.

Good luck to you, my friend, because it’s 2008 and the belts are getting tightened up a notch or two all over.

Advertisers are going to waste fewer dollars on silly ads and ask for ads that actually try to sell their product and not win an award for the ad company.

Sales managers are going to keep the cream of their crop and cut the waste. They’ll spread their prize winners a bit thinner and ask ‘em to cover more ground.

Customers are going to avoid the companies that are too something and wait for their porridge to be just right, instead of accepting porridge that’s too hot or too cold.

So what can you do find out if you’re too something for your customers, your readers or clients ?

You can ask them.

Not only will they appreciate it, they’ll show their love by giving you what you want…their money.

If you need help asking your customer base or prospects what they want, simply ask me using the Contact form and I’ll try to help you.

I just read several things that all salesmen and copywriters should already know:

People love them some “them”. A lot.

We knew that already, but I didn’t know just how much.

A study of college-aged women included this test: The women were given a pen and paper and asked to write anything they wanted.

460 out of 500 wrote their own name.

Shown a map, 447 out of 500 pointed to their hometown.

I’ve personally seen people look at a group picture and immediately ask, ” Where am I ? “

Self-interest sells.

Feel free to use it.

I do.

He took over a white elephant, an albatross and a dud.

A giant hotel in New York City that had been built at the wrong time and was the hotel industry’s biggest disappointment.

He was young. He hadn’t done anything to make the receivers think he could perform a miracle, but he was all they had. In actuality, things could hardly get worse.

The hotel is The New Yorker, the time was long ago and the man was Ralph Hitz.

He used one simple secret, one technique, to turn this elephant into a towering success.

Hitz’s one simple technique was contact.

No matter which way a guest turned, someone was in contact with them.

Bellhops called them by name.

Linen girls smiled at them.

Elevator pilots called their names.

Managers, assistants and clerks all asked about their stays, their homes, their families, etc.

Guests were so flattered by all this attention, in the nations biggest city, that they dared not ever stay anywhere else.

Then, the guests did something they’d never done before, they went home and told all their friends. They became evangelists for Hitz and his hotel.

Their friends came to The New Yorker and got the same treatment. They went home and told their friends.

Not long after, The New Yorker was the largest and most profitable hotel in the world.

Someone asked Ralph Hitz how he’d engineered the turnaround. How he created this evangelism among his guests.

Simply, bluntly, he said: ” We contact the hell out of them. “

Great salespeople do the same thing with their clients. They contact the hell out of them.

The very best out there are always looking for a reason to call a customer, besides when they ask for an order.

Many years ago, I learned to call them 2, 3, 5 times with news, tips, nuggets of gossip, leads, etc., versus the number of times I inquired about a possible order.

This technique will never go out of style, will never fail to work and will always pay dividends because it’s based on a prime tenet of human nature - that people always want to feel important, crave attention and want special favors.

The first time a prospect comes in contact with your product or a demonstration of it, it must be the most powerful presentation you have of what the product has done for others and will do for him.

You need to sell him the desire to listen longer. The desire to learn why he needs your product and what it will enable him to do or become.

The presentation actually passes through three distinct stages and makes three separate sales.

First, the prospect is sold the will to listen.

Second, the will to consider.

Third, the will to act.

You’ll do well to think of the process of making a sale as leading the prospect down a flight of logical steps until he enters the arena of action.

You cannot omit a step, or the prospect will fall and you’ll fail.

You cannot rush him, or he’ll fall and you’ll fail.

Every prospect walks at their own pace, not yours. Let them walk at their own pace, a familiar pace and they’ll feel secure enough to trust you.

Leaving out the first step is particularly fatal, since jumping to the next step demands too big an effort and stops the prospect on the brink.

Whether the distance is five steps or fifty, it cannot be covered until the first step has been taken.

True salespeople are those that make wants. Wants make sales.

You’ll become more successful when you don’t think it’s your job to make sales, because that thought tends to transfer itself to the prospect, who doesn’t want to be sold.

The prospect wants to buy what he wants. So you need to make him want and the want makes him buy.

People always buy what they want, when they want it hard enough and when they can afford it. Sometimes even when they can’t afford it, just because they wanted to.

What this really means is that salesmanship is simply creating a want for the thing to be sold. That want must be more burning than any other want requiring a similar expenditure of time, energy and money for its gratification.

To create a want with this type of intensity, you need to think of the thing to be sold in terms of what it will make happen for the prospect after he buys it.

You can’t sell the features … you can sell the feeling that will come after the purchase.