One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about success, I learned from a fish. I was recently chatting with a friend about her job at a company at which she’s been employed for many years. I asked how things were going, to which the friend replied that things were fine. “You know, it’s a job.” She confessed that she really didn’t love the job, but she said, “it’s a good company, I make a decent salary and I know what’s expected of me. It’s comfortable.” I’ve replayed that conversation
Pick One Thing and be “Crazy Good” at it! Deciding which of your business’s features to highlight when crafting your marketing message is a whole lot harder than it seems, don’t you think? After all, if you pitch too many features you risk confusing prospective customers and not being remembered for anything in particular. If you say too little you risk limiting your appeal to a broader audience. So then what’s your business to do? As brutal as it may sound you’re better off focusing on just one thing and
Selling and the McDonalds Model. Are you in the business of selling a service? Perhaps you’re a lawyer, a consultant, a realtor or financial advisor. If so, I’m sure that as you look to grow your business you spend a lot of time and effort conveying your expertise to your prospective clients. Academic degrees from prestigious institutions and certifications help do that. Awards won and honor society memberships also help. A laundry list of big clients with whom you’ve worked can also demonstrate your expertise. But, is this really what
What’s in a Name? I recently came across this hilarious graphic. It re-imagines author John Steinbeck’s rough draft notes for naming what would become his award-winning novel, “The Grapes of Wrath”. Once I stopped laughing, I thought to myself, part of what makes this image so awesome is that it reminds us that finding just the right name for a book, a business, or even a new baby is really hard. Don’t you think? (Just ask Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.) Seriously. Consider this for a moment. How often have
Got Hope? When asked what we want in life, the vast majority of us will say that we really just want to be happy. Not surprisingly, most of us tend to seek out experiences that make us feel happy and hopeful. We like to go to movies with happy endings. We like happy songs. Singer Bobby McFerrin became a household name by singing, “Don’t Worry. Be Happy.” We take our kids to McDonald’s to buy “happy meals.” Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election by selling, hope. And, Revlon Founder and
Reality v. The Lake Wobegon Effect I once saw a speaker at a conference ask participants to close their eyes and raise their hand if they thought they were among the top 50% of performers in the room. Then he asked them to keep their hand raised if they were in the top 25% of performers in the room, and then again he asked them to keep their hand raised if they believed they were in the top 10%. Finally, he asked them to open their eyes. What they saw
Fallacy: To Win You Must Be Superior Have you ever found yourself in this situation? You’ve pitched a prospective client that you were convinced would give you their business because you knew you were the superior choice. After all, you know more about this client than any competitor and you’ve had more success in this industry than any of the competition. And yet in the end, and to your great surprise, the prospect chose someone else. I know this might sound crazy but, you might not have won because; you
A Lesson on Pricing from Picasso Pricing your services is often much more difficult than just charging, “what the market will bear” don’t you think? After all, what is your talent and knowledge worth? Why are some in your profession able to charge so much? Others so little? Will you seem more attractive to potential customers if you’re perceived to be more affordable? As you ponder the answers to these questions consider this short story about the painter, Pablo Picasso. It’s a story I first read in Harry Beckwith’s best-selling book,
Tell me. Who gets to the end of a commercial and asks, “How can I learn more?” Answer: NO ONE! Exactly! Yet, isn’t it amazing that companies spend millions of dollars creating marketing that assumes this is the way we think? Why would they do this? Because, they aren’t really thinking about us, they’re thinking about them. They’re thinking about their product or service. Despite, what they may know intellectually about people and their behavior, these companies and the bright minds making their marketing decisions still often fall prey to
“New and Improved” ≠ Exceptional. Differentiating yourself, or your product from the competition is marketing 101, right? Pick me. I’m better. I said so. Or, buy my product, it’s “new and improved!” See, it’s right here on the packaging! Using these kind of tactics to persuade others may sound ridiculous and obvious but I’m willing to bet you see examples of this type of promotion all around you whether it’s a product sold at the grocery store or the self-promoting co-worker in the next cubicle. The trouble with this thinking