Earlier I was chatting with a buddy of mine who recently switched jobs (again). He has some considerable experience in job searches and switching employment so I'd consider him an authority on this topic. He was wondering why it never fails that as soon as he finds a new job, a slew of offers come pouring in almost immediately.

This is very similar to that phenomenon when you attract someone of the opposite sex to start a relationship--as soon as the other person enters your life on a more consistent basis, it seems as though there are opportunities coming out of the woodwork. The opportunities were always there, you just hadn't tuned into them. You weren't as aware when you were looking eagerly because you weren't allowing things to happen, and you were tuned into the wrong signals in addition to sending out the wrong vibes. You were pressing.

A job search is very similar to attracting a mate--the harder you press, the less likely you'll achieve your goals. Furthermore, selling is very similar to attracting a mate--the harder you press, the less likely the other person is to react the desired way. Once you allow them to make a decision on their terms, the better the odds of success. People don't make decisions when WE want them to--they make decisions when THEY want to based on what makes them most comfortable. Remember that the next time you go on a sales call, job search, or seek another mate.

It's not about you; it's all about them.

Increasing sales is a goal of just about every single company out there today but far too many don’t know how to grow their sales effectively.

My guest 10/18/07, Michael Boylan, author of "Accelerants" and "The Power to Get In," will share ways you can grow your company as a sales representative, marketer and/or a business owner including how to:

• Target new revenue opportunities more efficiently and effectively
• Compress and make more efficient your existing sales process
• Craft stronger, more persuasive value propositions that create urgency to act
• Identify and gain access to the real decision makers faster and more effectively
• More accurately assess and scope the likelihood of each opportunity’s probability to close earlier in your courting process
• Compress closing cycles and reduce your cost of sales by up to 25 percent

To join us for the show live @ 2 PM ET (11 AM PT), please visit The Bauer Pauer Hauer. If you'd like to call in and ask a question, the number is 866-472-5790. To have a question answered (on or off air), please e-mail radio@smbconsultinginc.com, and I will see to it you get your question(s) answered.

Author: Ian Lurie

Approaching prospects and customers as if you're just having a conversation tailored specifically for their situation is a great way to better connect with them and ultimately get them to buy. That's the basic premise of the book, and I found it to be a good, albeit short, read.

Since the book IS so short, this is a quick read for anyone looking for ideas on a different approach to marketing their goods or services. It's to the point and delivers some good food for thought.

Overall, I'd recommend Conversation Marketing although it won't give you a brand spanking new approach to try. There are a lot of books that touch upon this concept (Seth Godin talks a lot about it in his books) so the odds of you having read other works that deliver the same basic message are pretty good if you're into this sort of thing.

Author: Chet Holmes

First off, this is a fantastic book for anyone involved in the marketing of a business; not just salespeople. Chet Holmes does a great job connecting the strategic aspects of business with the sales and marketing functions to the point it would be hard not to increase revenue if you take action with the 12 areas he covers in the book.

As an aside: I also sat in on one of the webinars given by one of his direct reports, and it was fantastic. The webinar covered many of the same concepts included in the book, but it sometimes helps to hear the material presented in various ways so that it sticks.

Education based marketing is the way to go in today’s business climate, and Holmes’ drives that point home very well throughout the book. Potential consumers and prospects are bombarded with messages every day, and they are very self centered when they make a purchase. In order to standout from the clutter, an education based marketing approach is necessary and highly advisable based on Holmes’ approach.

Overall, I’d highly recommend this book if you’re looking to improve your marketing’s reach and increase sales as a result. If you take action, you will get results.

Guest: Barry Feig

Topic: Hot Button Marketing

Radio show number one is in the books, and I feel pretty good about how everything went. At first, I was very nervous but that quickly dissipated and the show took on much more of a telephone conversation that everyone got to listen in on. Thanks to Barry Feig for being my first guest and being very easy to talk to and informative (as he always tends to be).

On the show, Barry and I discussed his book “Hot Button Marketing” and how a marketer can tap into various combinations of the 16 hot buttons he outlines in his book. There are rational reasons people buy, and there are the real (emotional) reasons. We may rationalize something extremely well after we’ve bought it, but emotions drove us to make the purchasing decision.

The primary key to uncovering hot buttons is asking questions. That sounds very simplistic, but so many marketers miss the boat by talking about their product or service at length without learning anything helpful about the customer or prospect. Think about it—you have two ears and one mouth so you should use them in that proportion. Barry and I shared a chuckle about that.

People want status and belonging frequently when they purchase something, and Barry touched upon some ways to tap into those particular emotions when marketing a product or service.

We also talked about sex of all things on air. Sex is one of the “hottest” hot buttons, and just about any marketer can tap into that to improve their results. Whether you use the allure of possibility or blatantly utilize a very attractive person to peddle your wares, sex sells!

During the last segment we talked about Barry’s Hot Button Marketing training program. In fact, we may partner to teach this via seminars, boot-camps, and webinars as time progresses. To learn more about the program, you can visit http://barryfeig.com or e-mail Barry directly at feig@barryfeig.com.

Thanks again to Barry Feig for joining me on the air for my first show. If you’d like to listen to the podcast for the show, here’s a link: Bauer Pauer Hauer Show #1: Hot Button Marketing.

Please join me October 11, 2007 @ 2PM ET when Marcia Yudkin will talk about her book “6 Steps to Free Publicity” and learn how you can attract valuable publicity to improve your marketing reach.

I’ve gotten the radio show on VoiceAmerica.com setup for the month of October. Below you’ll find the guests along with the topics we’ll discuss. I hope you’ll join me each Thursday @ 2 PM ET to learn from the gurus.

October 4, 2007—Barry Feig, author of “Hot Button Marketing”

Naturally, Barry and I will chat about the “hot buttons” of marketing and how you can push them to attract more customers.

October 11, 2007—Marcia Yudkin, author of “Six Steps to Free Publicity.”

Learn various ways you can gain free publicity that will help attract more customers and increase awareness of your business.

October 18, 2007—Michael Boylan, author of “Accelerants” and “The Power to Get In.”

Learn how to prospect better along with ways to improve your organization’s sales performance and decrease cycle times.

October 25, 2007—Michael Nick, author of “Why Johnny Can’t Sell” and “ROI Selling.”

How can you better express your company’s value proposition and decrease sales resistance? Michael and I will explore a few ways to accomplish this goal and increase revenue.

If you have any questions you'd like to ask one of the guests, please e-mail radio@smbconsultinginc.com. To learn more about VoiceAmerica's Business Channel, check out http://www.modavox.com/VoiceAmericaBusiness/ or click the link.

The group I have been partnering with has been working with a local (Louisville, KY) franchisor to help with their marketing efforts. We've met with the franchisor four or five times, and we seem to struggle with getting our arms around everything his franchise needs from a marketing aspect. They need a lot at this stage, but our approach has been to offer certain things while pointing him in the right direction on others. (Most franchisors have similar needs so this project isn't vastly different from the ones we may face with others as we move forward.)

It dawned on me during a bike ride last week that our approach is flawed--he doesn't want us to point him in the right direction for this or that; he wants us to take over solving marketing problems for him. He wants the "easy button" where he can push it and we make his life easier. Isn't that what we all want when we seek out a solution to a problem? Don't we want someone to magically fix it? I believe we're going to be much better off if we take the "easy button" approach with him and his franchisees than we will by offering some of the services and providing guidance on the rest. What do you think?

As some of you know, and just as many may not, I have been asked to host a weekly one hour marketing radio show on Voice America's business channel starting in early October. As of this e-mail, I am 99.9% sure this will happen, and I already have six guests that have agreed to do the show. Among the guests:

Marcia Yudkin
John Jantsch
Tom Antion
Michael Nick
Michael Boylan
Debbie Allen

Some of the folks I have requests out to include:
Mike Filsaime
Rand Fishkin
Andy Sernovitz
Joe Vitale
Danny Sullivan
Stephen Pierce

I'm not listing the ones I have requests submitted to put any pressure on them, but I'm very hopeful each one agrees to do a show as I believe they have great stories and information to share that would benefit the audience. Same with the ones that have agreed to do the show--a star studded guest list to be sure.

If you have any questions you'd like to have asked to any of my future guests, please e-mail radio@smbconsultinginc.com. The show doesn't start for a couple months, but it's never too early to start planning great shows. If you have connections to a potential guest, please share them as well. Anyone who helps me land a great guest will receive a complimentary copy of my first book "Cost Effective SEO: Attract Your Target Audience Through Online Search" (a $67 value).

Speaking of the book, I am working on the companion videos that should be completed no later than month's end, but I may introduce the book for purchase online very soon as a separate product. Once the videos are done, they will be packaged with the book and several bonuses. Stay tuned for more details on that.

I also have additional product development plans in the works which I'll definitely keep everyone posted right here on the blog. It's an exciting time, and I'm very encouraged about the direction of SMB Consulting as we're moving forward very quickly.

To learn more about Voice America and their show lineup, visit http://voiceamerica.com.

By Roger Bauer

Whether you’re new to sales or a grizzled veteran, the thought of making a true cold call is unlikely to be on your favorites list. Luckily, there are simple ways to warm up a call that don’t require major changes to your approach. Let’s take a peek at six of them.

TARGETED PRE-CALL LETTERS

One of the easiest ways to warm up a cold call is to send a series of pre-call letters to the decision makers you are trying to reach within a company. Yes, I said letters. Michael Boylan in his latest book “Accelerants” talks about a simple methodology of sending letters to each of the key decision makers within a company under the guise that they’ll talk to one another, and there will need to be a decision made as to whom the call should be fielded by once you actually do call. This turns the tables to where the decision maker actually expects your call versus being blindsided by it. Place a date and time to expect your call, and be sure to make the call on time. Often times, you’ll have a decision maker within the prospective company call you to where you don’t even have to place the call.

USE FIRST NAMES ONLY

When you finally do call that key decision maker on your list, try using his/her first name only when the gatekeeper answers the phone instead of their formal name. If the gatekeeper asks “who is calling?” simply state your first name in return. This will make the call sound more personal in nature and greatly increase your chances of getting through. If the gatekeeper asks if the decision maker is expecting your call, the answer is obviously yes if you sent the pre-call letter ahead of time.

DO A SOFT TRIAL CLOSE

When you cold call someone, your objective is to get the prospect to say “yes” to something (or many somethings). Instead of pushing for the hard close outright, try asking them if they’d like to hear more or if they’d object to hearing more. It’s a little “softer” and should lead to a positive response if there is even the most remote of opportunities. Once they’ve agreed to hear more, you can dive into the meat of your call to better qualify them and/or uncover more pain to position your product as a potential solution to that pain.

LEVERAGE THE WEB

Having your own website that captures basic leads is a must in today’s business climate. Don’t expect your employer to develop a website for you either. After-all, why should they? It’s your job to make sales so what is holding you back from having a website working to capture leads for you 24/7? The beauty of having your own website, aside from the obvious, is you can change it up should you change jobs, and the leads will go with you versus sticking with your employer. If you have a non-compete, you’ll obviously have to avoid the clients you signed for your employer for a set period of time, but your pipeline will be relatively full if you’ve done a good job with the site.

START A BLOG

The next step after setting up your own website is to launch a blog so people can keep up with you and your tribulations. Blogs are more personal or journal-like in nature so you don’t have to be as formal which will allow your personality to shine through a little more, and people will feel as if they know you better. Look at it this way, if your prospect is digging through information on each company pitching them today, your website and blog will set you apart from your competitors that don’t have such tools implemented. You’ll look more professional, and they’ll feel as if you’re in it for the long-haul versus a one time sale.

JOIN BUSINESS SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Sites such as Xing, LinkedIn, Spoke, or Tribe all provide social networking for the business professional. Even MySpace or Facebook are getting some corporate play these days because people want to connect and get to know who they are dealing with. The days are almost gone where someone is completely unknown so it’s probably better to embrace that fact than to fight it.

Cold calling can become warm calling with a few minor changes that turn the tables more in your favor. Try a few of these tips to see if they can improve your success rates.

Let me ask you a quick question--are you interested in generating multiple streams of revenue to eliminate the reliance on your day job as a sole source of income? If so, I believe I just purchased a product that can help with that which I'll gladly review objectively on here once I've had a chance to view it myself. The reason I'm posting today however is to share a link to the product so you can save $300 before Friday hits. I'm really excited about receiving this thing!

If you've been around the internet for more than a few years, you've undoubtedly heard of Mike Filsaime. I recently stumbled across a few of his products over and over while doing research, and I was initially skeptical as I am of most internet marketing products. The more I viewed his videos and read about him in forums, it became apparent that he's serious and a for real guy.

If you're looking to tell your day job to shove it, as I was a couple of years ago, you might want to take a look at his new product called the 7 Figure Code. This is a package of 16 DVDs and a book that will step you through generating a 7 figure business as Mike has and includes advice on how to:

• Outsource at the right time and the right way
  
• Utilize Adwords to your advantage
• Down sell someone to capture some revenue even if your main product doesn't appeal to your customer
• Use One Time Offers (OTO) to upsell
• The eight most important questions to ask before embarking on starting your own million dollar business
• And much, much more . . .

Mike has brought in a lot of the internet marketing "heavy weights" to share their stories and help others start their own successful internet marketing company with this package. After weighing it out for a few days, I took the plunge and plopped down the money to get this thing last night, and I can't wait to check it out. I wanted to share this with you before the price goes up to $797 at the end of the week as it's currently $497 which is honestly a pretty good deal if Mike delivers on his promises. All of the research I've done on the guy indicates he will so I don't feel like it's a big risk to shell out this kind of money if it propels me to generate $1 million per year or more (the objective).

If you like the sounds of the package and want to start knocking the cover off the ball financially, I highly encourage you to check it out at 7figurecode.com. Hopefully we'll rise to 7 figure heights together to the point we can team up to do seminars, podcasts, and webinars to share our story with others and help them achieve great things.

PS--if you do end up purchasing the 7 Figure Code from one of the links provided, drop me an e-mail. I'll send you a copy of the SEO Book I spoke of the other day for free along with some other e-books that may be of interest to you.

Posted by Michael Cage on Friday, May 18, 2007

Just because marketing advice is repeated often ... doesn't make it true.

"Find a need and fill it ... that is the key to successfully marketing a business." - Someone who needs to be slapped around a little bit.

Truth is, follow this "find a need and fill it" advice and you are inviting commodity pricing.

Think about it...

People NEED to get their roof repaired ... but they WANT on-time, courteous service, clean workers and a guarantee their roof won't leak again.

People NEED a computer network set up ... but they WANT someone who understands their business, will suggest things to make it run smoother before a breakdown prompts it, and won't make them feel stupid by talking geek to them.

People NEED to have a cavity filled ... but they WANT to look good and have a pain-free experience in a friendly office with warm people.

People price shop for what they need, and even that makes them grumpy.

People pay premium prices for what they want, and they love it.

Go to an Apple Store. Play marketing anthropologist. Really observe the people. You'll "get it" in less than an hour.

Service business, retail business, business-to-business, whatever your business...

...if your business struggles with commodity pricing or if you have to "justify" your price more than once in a blue moon ... betcha an iPhone (ahem, another example) you are focusing on what your customers or clients need, and aren't paying attention to what they want. And that makes them begin to not want you.

Forget find a need and fill it.

Find a want, touch your market ... and lead a movement.

I talked about this in today's Aggressive Marketing & Entrepreneurship Daily Podcast (along with a discussion about when to release version 1 of your product or service, true entrepreneurial competencies, and how to stay passionate and energized in your business). If you haven't listened yet ... what are you waiting for? ... I'm on Episode #4. (Subscribe in iTunes.)

By GuyKawasaki

Duct tape (the tape) is simple, effective, and affordable—it’s not always the prettiest solution, but it does always work. The central theme of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide by John Jantsch is that effective small business marketing is a system—not an event—composed of simple, effective, and affordable techniques.

When you combine that with the cult-like obsession many people have for all things duct tape you also get a pretty good example of how something simple like the right name can do a great deal for a company, product, service, or book. I asked John to distill his marketing ideas to a top-ten list, and here is what he provided:

1. Narrow the market focus. Create a picture of the ideal client: what they look like, how they think, what they value, and where you can find them. Start saying no to non-ideal clients.

2. Differentiate. Strip everything you know about your product or service down to the simplest core idea. Make sure that the core idea allows you stand out.

3. Think about strategy first. Take everything you’ve done in steps one and two and create a strategy to own a word or two in the mind of your ideal client and prospect.

4. Create information that educates. You are in the information business, so think of your marketing materials, web sites, white papers, marketing kits as information products, not "sales" propoganda.

5. Package the experience. Put visual elements around every aspect of the marketing strategy that you adopt. Use design to evoke the appropriate emotional response from your ideal prospect.

6. Generate leads from many points. People learn in different ways. Your lead generation efforts must allow your prospects to experience your firm from many different angles and views.

7. Nurture leads along the logical buying path. There’s a natural way for your prospects to come to the conclusion that you have what they need. Build the lead conversion system for before, during, and after the sale.

8. Measure everything that matters. Certain things always matter. The secret sauce is in finding and measuring the intangibles – those things down on the shop floor that eventually add up to profit.

9. Automate for leverage. Embrace the Internet or else. Create access, stimulate community, capture innovation, and build knowledge to automate the basic delivery elements of your information business.

10. Commit. Resist the temptation of the marketing idea of the week. Create daily, weekly, monthly, and annual marketing calendars, make marketing your new habit, and find the money to stick with the plan.

By Seth Godin

By Seth Godin

I found this over on the Duct Tape Marketing Blog:

Adobe Labs released a very fun and useful tool for anyone that would like to learn about combining colors or creating what they call color themes. The tool is called kuler. (Requires the latest Flash player to view)

kuler is a designer playground and community that allows anyone to create color combination palettes and publish them for the community. Voting happens and the best palettes rise to the top under the "most popular" tab.

On top of being a very cool app, any business owner can go and find professional grade color combinations that can help set the mood for any print or online project. Need to know what subtle accent colors might go with your 2 color logo but still have trouble picking out what shirt and tie go together? Visit kuler, go through the popular combinations, and click on one that contains your base colors. The tool then gives you all information you might need for RGB, CMYK, and Hex settings.

Professional designers, or those that play them on TV, will love the fact that you can download the themes right into CS3. You can get the kuler release notes from Adobe Labs. If you really want to stay on top of color trends, get the widget for Mac users at MacUpdate

And just when you thought you were having too much fun with color: Check out this tool that allows you to upload an image and let the tool suggest some colors you might use as accents. Color Palette Generator

By Seth Godin

By Seth Godin

Most marketing (and most business) is usually like this:

Do this and get that.

Figure out what you want, figure out what you need to do to get it, and go do it.

I was thinking about the way my Dad does business the other day. He's been a successful executive (and then entrepreneur) for more than 50 years. I realized that I can't remember one time when he did this to get that.

When he volunteered to run the United Way or the local theatre, or when he helped a local church raise money for a new building, he didn't have an ulterior motive. When he negotiated with the UAW to create a different sort of workforce structure for his plant, it wasn't so he could get more. It was so they could get more. Same thing when he helped dozens of people emigrate from the Soviet Union a few decades ago.

It's been a consistent approach, and it sure seems to work. Consistent as in all the time, not just when it's convenient. It works for a factory in Buffalo but it also seems to work for others... for successful marketers all over the world. Now, more than ever, it's easier to give even when it seems like you're not going to get. The happy irony is that this turns out to be a very effective marketing approach, even though that's not the point.

BY STEVE COHN
Saturday, March 3, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

1. "Understanding Media" by Marshall McLuhan (MIT Press, 1964).

I have no idea who might be the smartest human ever, but the most brilliant marketing mind of all belonged to Marshall McLuhan. "Understanding Media" is a timeless analysis of how language, speech and technology shape human behavior in the era of mass communication. The book is a cautionary tale for marketers today who hear the Web's siren call and ignore the power of the spoken word. Whether heard onstage, over the phone, or on radio or TV, McLuhan says, the spoken word is ultimately much more powerful than the written. Part anthropologist, part psychologist, part behavioral scientist, McLuhan ponders many other aspects of how we connect, such as the persuasive powers of typography. He was a genius who understood why mass media holds us in its grip and never lets go.

2. "Brand Sense" by Martin Lindstrom (Free Press, 2005).

Of all the books I have read on marketing, "Brand Sense" is the most dog-eared. Martin Lindstrom makes a strong case that engaging the five senses is crucial to selling a brand. Whether marketers are trying to persuade consumers to buy a particular car or soda or shirt, they had better be aware of the role that each sense plays in the selling process, Lindstrom says, or they are working with only half a deck. Lindstrom displays much original thinking here, particularly with his "authenticity test" for brands. Does the brand feel real? Does it smell right? Does it tell a story that stirs emotion? The final payoff in "Brand Sense" is Lindstrom's checklist to help marketers build maximum brand loyalty in their customers.

3. "Reality in Advertising" by Rosser Reeves (Knopf, 1961).

Rosser Reeves is not as well-known as the advertising giants of his era, such as David Ogilvy, Leo Burnett and Bill Bernbach, but he was every bit their peer. Reeves originated many of the concepts--including what he called the "unique selling proposition"--that make the difference between marketing success and failure. Reeves was immensely talented, and he expected to be paid commensurately, which led to an incident that has become something of a legend in the advertising world. When a client demanded that he justify his fees, Reeves asked him to take two quarters out of his pocket and hold one in each hand. Reeves then explained: "You pay me to tell the consumer why the quarter in your left hand is absolutely fantastic and the quarter in your right hand is not." Reeves chose exactly the right title for "Reality in Advertising"--all the marketing theory in the world means nothing if it can't be translated into specific techniques that make a product or service stand out among all the others in its category.

4. "Why We Buy" by Paco Underhill (Simon & Schuster, 1999).

So you go to the mall, pop into a handful of stores and walk out with a few shopping bags--mission accomplished. Understanding how retailers can facilitate that experience is the particular talent of shopping-pattern researcher Paco Underhill. He and his trusty band of young sleuths have studied all age groups and looked at every angle of how we behave as shoppers. More than 70% of the purchases made on most shopping expeditions are unplanned, Underhill notes. He then explains shopper psychology and the techniques that retailers should use to maximize their chances of snagging our unintended expenditures. From describing how to create the most effective window displays to analyzing optimum shopping-basket placement, Underhill is unrivaled in his ability to dissect the countless variables that are essential to a store's success.

5. "Branded Nation" by James B. Twitchell (Simon & Schuster, 2004).

James B. Twitchell begins "Branded Nation" by asserting that "the secret to great brands is that they are often nonsensical." After all, what's golden about McDonald's? What's real about Coke? Among the endless number of books churned out each year that try to explain brand success, this is the best overview of the rules of the road. It also provides an in-depth look at the often overlooked marketing strategies of churches, universities and museums. Twitchell is unusual among college professors in that he teaches both English and advertising, two disciplines that make perfect sense together.

Mr. Cone is a senior marketing executive at Citigroup and the author of "Steal These Ideas: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star" (Bloomberg, 2005).

By Seth Godin

By David Berkowitz