You need to learn to love pain. Not because you're a sadist or a masochist. But because your customers are in pain. So much pain. They're not only in pain – they're also willing to pay you to get rid of it. Your customers want pain relief, not products Businesses exist to solve problems. If you [...]
Want to hear a successful three-step formula you can use to improve your marketing? The formula is called Goal-Obstacle-Plan. Here’s how a travel agent might use the Goal-Obstacle-Plan formula when pitching to a client. Goal – “Mr Client, you want to enjoy a relaxing beach holiday.” Obstacle – “But you don’t know where and when to [...]
When you read about wars and battles throughout the ages, one important lesson keeps shining through. The key to victory is to do the thing your enemy least wants you to do. Now apply that idea to business and answer this question: what is the thing your rivals least want you to do? That would be [...]
“Strive to understand before being understood.” What a wonderful piece of life advice – and marketing advice. The reason a lot of small businesses put out ineffective marketing is because they try to get their customers to understand them – so they put the focus on the business not the customers. Instead, businesses should strive to [...]
Ever heard of the Chet Holmes Pyramid? This divides buyers into five categories, ranging from the hottest buyers to the coldest. The top two categories, covering 10% of people, are filled with buyers who are either actively looking to buy RIGHT NOW or who are open to doing so. The next two categories, covering 60% of [...]
“What can we do to educate customers with this marketing?” That might be a better question to ask than: “What can we do to get customers to buy as a result of this marketing?” Obviously, the reason your small business does marketing is to make sales. But focusing on education rather than sales might be a [...]
“So, Nick, how long does this marketing thing take to work?” This is a question I get asked by most prospective clients. And their heart tends to sink when I tell them: “A long time.” The reality is, it takes a long time to build trust, credibility and brand recognition – kind of like filling a [...]
As they say, the fortune is in the follow-up. This isn’t just a sales principle; it’s also a marketing principle. If you want a message to sink in – whether you’re in sales or marketing – you need to repeat it again and again and again. You need to follow-up, in other words. People lead such [...]
Would your small business make more sales if more people knew you existed? Would your small business make more sales if more people trusted you? Would your small business make more sales if more people recognised your expertise? Then why aren’t you doing more marketing? The more times you get in front of your existing customers [...]
You may have heard that marketing is a lot like fitness. If you’re overweight and out of shape, you can’t do one exercise session and eat one good meal and think you’re magically going to burn all that fat. You need to do a lot of exercise sessions and eat a lot of good meals. And [...]
