Marketing - The Bold Approach Method

How Small (and Large) Businesses Kill Advertising Effectiveness

I just tried to get some information to enroll my daughter in a Montessori school in Meridian, Idaho (New Way Montessori) and the owner (or at least the person answering the phone with the same first name as the owner) did exactly everything she could to get me to NOT buy from her.

If your prospects experience doesn't meet the expectations set by your advertising, you begin the destruction of the effectiveness of the ad that got them there (in this case, I found them in the phone book and looked them up on the web). So you spend a lot of money to get a prospect and then systematically destroy the effort by the experience.

Ask yourself if you are making any of the mistakes this business owner made.

I called and asked if I could get more information and she said yes . . . good start. "Do you have a language program?" No, ok, not a deal breaker, I can send my daughter to another language school part time.

I asked about pricing since I couldn't find it on the website. Her immediate answer, "you can come in and pick up a price sheet." I said no, I'd like to find out about pricing from her.

Outsourcing The Biggest Time Waster of the Day the Tim Ferris Way or how you can come a lot closer to a 4 hour work week.

First of all, if you haven't heard of Tim Ferriss or his best selling book The Four Hour Work Week, you should read it. It is a solid read full of ready to implement ideas that will change how you think about work and time.

One of the biggest productivity killers around is email. People spend too much time on it. And Tim makes a great point that we all seem to think that we are the only ones who can handle our email. Rather than ask you to change, Tim lays out a complete process for outsourcing email, maintaining contact with those who are important and get this, increase human interaction all while freeing yourself from being a slave to your inbox.

If you've read his book, this post goes much deeper, he even gives you a copy of the rules his assistants use in interacting with clients to model, this is powerful stuff.

Read this post on Tim's blog now and even if you only implement 10% of it you'll save hours a week.

Tom Cruise, Scientology, L Ron Hubbard, Mass Influence and Andrew Morton

I've been watching the whole Andrew Morton book launch with some interest over the past few days. It is funny to me how many people don't see that "unauthorized" biographies are some of the best forms of mass influence available to celebrities and large organizations.

Now, in fairness I have not read his book "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography" yet, but I did just order it. Start here to have a look at the coverage the book is getting just on The Today Show. Here's the thing though.

There is a very high likelihood that this is a well coordinated effort by the Church of Scientology to get more publicity or to fully leverage the awareness that they know this will cause. Typically either Tom Cruise or the Church of Scientology (which was founded by a science fiction writer and who was close friends with Werner Erhard of EST fame and whose brother is intimately connected with Landmark Education) would have sued the publisher and the writer to block the book from being published. But in this case, not one lawsuit yet. Now, it may come, but not until a lot of books are in circulation. To get a better feel for Scientology, watch this video of Tom Cruise, then read on for the marketing lesson.

NOTE: Scientology made them take down the video on YouTube originally shown below, but here is a link you can use to see it: http://defamer.com/344987/the-tom-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientologists-dont-want-you-to-see 

The interesting thing from a persuasion standpoint is that both Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology stand to gain most from this. Tom Cruise is Scientology's latest star who shouts from the rooftops, he is the counter to every star who gets on stage and thanks God for thier success. He is the (not so) lone voice that says wait there is another way. But seriously, the things these guys believe are more than a little crazy. Watch this video, Tom Cruise says that if a Scientologist goes past an accident they "have" to stop because they know they are the only ones who can help . . . I think that EMS and Law Enforcement might disagree, so would common sense which would dictact you call either of the aforementioned agencies . . . but I digress into logic, my bad.

There is a strong marketing lesson here though and one that we can all benefit from.

For a very long time I've been teaching you that one of the most powerful persuasion principles you can use is the idea of polarization. Only polarized people buy things. Every Scientologist on the planet feels the need to defend their position right now (of course they'll say different) by engaging in a conversation about Scientology. They are on high alert mentally for the mere mention of the word so that they can engage. And, here is where the polarization happens. Those people who are looking for a bigger explanation of life are easily moved into a conversation, into a meeting, into an attempt at conversion. In your business, it is your responsibility to polarize the believers, your best customers and those who would be by sending a message that causes them to defend and gather more. Because in that sense, polarized people talk about things, openly, with great vigor. And the result is that the word spreads.

The second piece of the marketing lesson is around the transfer of power and credibility. Andrew Morton made his name with this book about Princess Di and he now has great credibility as a biographer. It never occurs to anyone though that in fact (and I'm certain he is smart enough to know this) he is given access and information through publicists and other carefully crafted information because they know he will report it. Now I'm not saying he isn't a good reporter who digs into his subject, I'm sure he does, but it isn't hard to direct people to sources of choice.

The final piece of the puzzle is that in terms of mass influence, traditional media still works amazingly well. Being on The Today Show brings more credibility and reaches millions. But even more millions are reached through secondary media like this blog that you are reading right now. And through all of the other new stories and blog posts you'll read in the coming days.

Is this all a big consiracy and am I a consiracy theorist? No, but I'm a big fan of well executed mass persuasion when I see it happening whether I agree with Tom Cruise or Scientology or not . . . and I don't.

Here is the marketing recap:

1. Polarize

2. Place

3. Publicize

When you follow those three easy steps (the more controversial you are the better) the more effective your influence will be.

And, if Andrew Morton isn't a willing participant in the effort to keep Scientology in the news, he is brilliant for leveraging it to sell his books!

And I promise, if I see you in an accident on the side of the road my first response will be 911.

Armand Morin Uses Report Marketing Do You?

People love doing business with experts and yet so many of us do not take the time to demonstrate our expertise. Developing a simple report around your industry, your business or your client's needs allows you to position yourself as a dominant choice in the mind of
your customer. I just read one of the best examples of a report that I've seen in quite sometime. It is a model you should consider and use. The report is quick, to the point, creates tremendous interest and most importantly, provides actionable information from beginning to end.

You can see the report I'm referring to here: http://www.boldapproach.com/thetruth
(you don't have to opt in for anything to see the report, I've uploaded it to my website to make it easy for you to download and review on your own.)

Do me a favor, review the report, go through the processes that they take you through in the report so you can see how effective it is.

Then, sit down and create a report of your own. Here is how to make it effective:

1. Be truthful - Address the big issues that people have in your industry. Forget about what you know, remember that most people know a lot less than you and have very basic questions. You probably answer the same 5 - 17 questions each day. Build a report around
those.

2. Be controversial - The last thing anyone wants is another report saying the same old thing they've already heard a thousand times. Go out on a limb and say what you mean, polarize people. Only polarized people buy things. Get them on your side.

3. Be complete - Give them all the information they need and tell them what to do next. If you want them to make an appointment, tell them to do it. If you want them to buy something, drive them to an offer.

As you go through the report I want you to download as an example http://www.boldapproach.com/thetruth do what they ask you to do, see how they use the report to create desire, to influence and to move you to action.

Also go to An Obvious Truth and see how they built interest for the report, pay attention to how they used a multimedia approach. I'm going to be talking about that in one of my
next blog posts.

Alright, that is it for this session, I look forward to providing you with even more profit producing information in the future!

P.S., my newest book Subliminal Persuasion: Influence and Marketing
Secrets They Don't Want You to Know is now available for pre-order
at a deep discount. I strongly recommend you pick it up at Amazon
today!