This post is about charging what you’re worth, with a great lesson on pricing from the Late Pablo Picasso. Too many products or services are seen as being very similar to others and as a consequience are treated as commodities. When that happens your prospects and customers will shop around and whoever charges the best price for that product or service tends to win the business. But if you can set your product or service apart from all the others out there, you can charge what your product or service is really worth […]
What Picasso can teach you about pricing
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How to write emails that give you no choice but to read on
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America’s No.1 sales authority Jeffrey Gitomer recently received an email from me. He says the email gave him no choice but to read on. His interest had to do with the subject line, the headline, the design of the content, and the copy. He liked the email so much that he wrote a widely syndicated article spelling out the 11 factors that compelled him to respond. He kindly allowed me to reproduce the article here, and he makes some great points as he analyses what made the email work […]
Do not use Twitter for business
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Internet psychologist Graham Jones recently sent out a simple “tweet” saying he was off to give a presentation that would warn people not to use Twitter for business. Within moments the broadcaster and communications consultant James Lush had replied saying he’d be fascinated to know why on earth Graham would say such a thing. Later that day Graham rose to his feet and suggested the un-suggestible. People in the audience were perplexed because plenty of companies make money using Twitter. But therein lies the twist in this tale […]
Million dollar copywriting tips
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In my seminars and workshops I’ve referred for years to a couple of “million dollar” copywriting tips which, at a stroke, can dramatically transform the effectiveness of everything you write. Both tips are incredibly simple and easy to apply, but less than one in a hundred written pieces even begins to get them right. My first tip is to write as you speak. Be you. Use everyday language. Give your writing a human voice … and let your passion shine through. My second copywriting tip—a golden rule for effective direct response copywriting—is such a simple concept, yet it will have a profound impact on how your written communications are received […]
The forgotten cost of discounting
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Discounting can kill your business. Few business leaders or entrepreneurs realise that the biggest cost in their business can be something that doesn’t even show up in their accounts. When you’re doing a lot less business than you should be doing, it’s all too easy to push the panic button and offer discounts just to get more people through the door. In most cases these discounts make no difference to the number of people who come through the door. But even if they do, these, or any other form of discounting, can turn into a serious and very expensive mistake […]
Why it pays to move upmarket
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Move upmarket if you want to become more successful. Not so long ago Tesco was regarded as a downmarket “Pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap?” outfit, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. I know people who wouldn’t have been seen dead going into a Tesco supermarket. If they HAD to go into one they’d park
Why 8% of sales people get 80% of the sales
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Isn’t it amazing how often you express interest in a product or service, but never hear from the person or company again? It happens all the time. Research shows, amazingly, that only 20% of sales leads are ever followed up … in other words 80% of potential opportunities are lost without trace simply due to lack of follow-up. Interestingly, only 2% of sales occur when two parties meet for the first time. And 80% of sales occur only after at least five continuous follow-ups. You therefore must follow-up at least five times.
What is effective selling?
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People sometimes say “There’s a born salesman!” But have you ever read or heard in the news of someone who gave birth to a sales person, or for that matter a lawyer, a doctor, or a criminal? Birth is given to boys and girls; everything after that is down to choices that are made and skills that are learned. And sales skills are life skills. Many people would never view themselves as a sales person. Yet There isn’t a single area of your life where you cannot benefit from sales skills. Teachers use sales skills every day. Preachers use sales skills. Police officers use sales skills. Mother Teresa used sales skills. And sales people use sales skills […]
How I created 3 great websites in 2 days
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We put out the following message on Twitter one afternoon: “Have created 3 stunning websites in 2 days. Used to use vastly expensive web design co who took 6 months to achieve fraction of the same result.” That immediately excited massive interest. People clamoured to know how we did it. A professional web designer responded “Impossible … send URL’s please,” so we did. This popular post explains how it came about, what we did, and how you could do something similar yourself […]
What’s your definition of marketing?
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What’s your definition of marketing? To a lot of people marketing is marketing is about running an ad tomorrow so you can have sales the next day. If only it were that simple! On one level effective marketing is about seeing everything from your customers’ perspective. On a deeper level it impacts every area of your business from identifying and attracting customers to getting and keeping customers, the only sustaining force in any business. In fact every single role in your business falls within the deeper marketing definition. Marketing should therefore be at the epicentre of your business.
Marketing your business in our age of mass empowerment
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in Featured Articles, Lead Generation, Marketing Foundations, Mobile marketing, Online marketing, Social Media, Technology
This is a large post, but also an important one if you haven’t fully embraced or adapted your marketing approach to today’s vastly changed business landscape. For 150 years mass marketing was about the ONLY economical way to get your message out there. But today we’re living in a new age of mass empowerment fuelled by commercial clutter, the rise of internet, sophisticated online search, social media, broadband, wi-fi and smartphones. It spells the end of mass marketing as we’ve known it for most businesses […]
Why bookstores have coffee shops and what that means for your website
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Can you imagine trying to persuade Lady Gaga of anything? She is, after all, a clearly determined and opinionated individual. You would be facing up to a fairly formidable personality – you don’t get to be an international superstar by being quiet and open to persuasion. Maybe the reason that Lady Gaga is successful is she prefers tea to coffee. Lady Gaga is one of several […]
The Power of Persuasion
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The ability to influence and persuade others is a critical skill if you’re in business. Some people seem to have an inborn ability to influence others. Those lucky few, who appear able to very skilfully and elegantly engage others are often unable to explain how they have come to possess such an important and essential business skill. But if we consider influence as a science, something else happens: something much more empowering and efficient.
The Influencing Skills of Barack Obama
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The seven critical skills that make the US president so influential. Barack Obama is undoubtedly one of the greatest influencers of modern times. His accomplishment in going from a relative unknown to the most talked about person on the planet in less than 18 months provides a lot of valuable lessons to anyone marketing a product, service or person
Create an avalanche of qualified leads
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Identifying prime prospects for your product, service or expertise can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. But that’s an easy challenge to overcome when you employ “Packaged information offers” in an effective manner, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. Packaged information offers are one of my all-time favourite low-risk/high-return strategies for generating
Tell your story and change perceptions
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Successful marketers tell a compelling story, and that story creates word-of-mouth. They don’t talk about features or even benefits. They tell a story that we intuitively embrace, buy into, then pass on to other people, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. Companies go from start-up to market leadership through the correct use of stories. By articulating
The ingredients of a great story
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You need to tell your unique story. So what are the key ingredients? Developing your “behind-the-scenes” story is one of the most powerful and valuable things you can do for your business or organisation, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. If you don’t have a compelling story to tell, one that explicitly sets out everything
You have a great story to tell … so tell it!
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in Customer Loyalty, Customer Retention, Lead Conversion, Marketing Foundations, Strategy Power Boosters
You have a story to tell in your business. And you need to tell it! If you really want people to buy into your product, service or expertise, it is incredibly important to fully and deeply educate your prospects and clients about what you do.
Ask one question. Evaluate any business
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Today I want to share with you a very simple but potent technique for evaluating the potential of any product, service, company or concept, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. Net Promoter Score Frederick F. Reichheld is a global authority on customer loyalty. He is also the father of a simple but powerful theory known
7 steps to a killer social media plan
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I believe that any business with a decent product or service can build a global social media presence, and monetize it, writes Robert Clay of Marketing Wizdom. But you need to know what to do and how to do it. And most people in business really only have the vaguest notion of what is involved.
