Your Profit Coach, Paul Simister provides business coaching to help entrepreneurs and business owners find hidden profit with low cost, low risk strategies
This Guerrilla Marketing video is only two minutes long but I think it is inspired.
Watch it and let me know what you think.
Makes you think of all the money being wasted on pointless image advertising in newspapers, magazines and television which make negligible impact.
So how can you make your marketing stand out from the crowd?
What can you do that is different?
It's not an easy question to answer and it is one I struggle with myself.
The traditional ways to promote an advisory business are by writing a book - tried but got bored, speaking at seminars and conferences - it's crowded with much better presenters than me, webinars - but I get invited to so many.
MItch Meyerson, the person who trained me to be a Guerrilla Marketing Coach has put together a short video with three tips on how to succeed in tough times.
He just scratches the surface of some of the important ideas for finding hidden profit but it may get you thinking about your business...and if you have watched some of Mitch's videos before...I can reassure you that he doesn't sing.
Mitch Meyerson is also one of the founders of the Master Business Building Club - this has a juicy bonus offer to get you to try the MBBC and when you are in, you will want to stay in.
Jill Lublin is the co-author of Guerrilla Publicity with Rick Frishman and Jay Conrad Levinson and I have just listened to her interview with the Guerrilla Marketing Association and it is terrific.
Jill's enthusiasm for public relations and marketing through press releases comes over loud and clear and the call is absolutely packed with information.
This is a call that I will listen to time and again and hopefully I will start taking action.
I know that PR is a true Guerrilla Marketing tactic where time, effort, imagination and knowledge can genuinely replace money and create massive success but for some reason I have a mental block about public relations.
Crazy I know but it just seems like bragging - "I am great".
Jill Lublin has put me straight because what's important is to lose the focus on you and stay with the "what's in it it for me" question the reader will ask.
Just to clarify that's the reader as in the journalist or editor who will receive the press release and hopefully act and the reader of the newspaper or magazine.
The idea is to build credibility and visibility by finding creative ideas about how to communicate how you serve people.
No fluff at all in this interview with Jill which I highly recommend from the Guerrilla Marketing Association. You can find out more about Jill Lublin at her website PromisingPromotion.com and I couldn't resist joining her list.
Guerrilla Publicity is going on my list of books to read as well. Maybe there is a cure to my blindspot about PR.
The Guerrilla Marketing Association interviews Andy Sernovitz, author of "Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking."
What Is Word of Mouth Marketing
Word of Mouth Marketing has two elements:
Giving people a reason to talk about your stuff.
Making it easier for the conversation to take place.
The key issues are personal motivation and personal trust. The people we trust most are people like ourselves.
Andy Sernovitz tells the story about ACT!, the contract management system which was taken over by Sage who turned it from a popular, good product into a poor one. The latest version of ACT has kinder reviews on Amazon than the previous version but you can see for yourself how damaging bad word of mouth can be.
A key customer service measure is the net recommendation score. Ask your customers whether they would recommend you or not. If you have 70% who say they will recommend, and 30% say that they won't recommend, that gives a net 40% recommendation score.
5Ts of Word of Mouth
There are five Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing:
Talkers - who will talk about you
Topics - what can people talk about
Tools - what you can do to help people talk about you (e.g. PR, blogs). Best of all, ask people nicely.
Taking part - entering the conversation yourself
Tracking - measure progress
Also covered in the call is the importance of monitoring your word of mouth. Google Alerts is easy but not very comprehensive so you may want to try Rich Schefren's Reputation Monitor which is free.
The book by Andy Sernovitz sounds impressive - 100 reviews on Amazon.com, 75 with five stars and 20 with four stars.
This is a much better call from the Guerrilla Marketing Association with high quality content and is likely to have a permanent place on my mp3 player.
Word of moth is probably the ultimate guerrilla marketing method since it truly taps into time, energy, imagination and knowledge.
Guerrilla Marketing emphasises the importance of making your prospective customers feel confident about you before they can buy. While many things can be encourage the prospect to feel confident (testimonials, samples, free trials), you also need to be aware of problems that make your prospect lose confidence.
This review of a Guerrilla Marketing Association call is "proofreading and editing your marketing copy" with Phil Jamieson, the president of Proofread Now.
Why Proofreading Is So Important
One error can be forgiven but more than one and the confidence goes down. In most cases, the reader bails out of moving the relationship forward if repeated errors are seen so proofreading errors could be costing you money.
Unfortunately our brains have been trained to create meaning from clues and this very clever feature makes it very difficult for you to find your own typing and spelling mistakes.
The human brain is supposed to be able to read words fine provided the first letter and the last letter of each word is correct.
Techniques To Use
A technique I use and which is recommended in the call is to read the written piece out loud. It forces you to slow down and concentrate.
The call also introduced me to a new technique for short documents. Instead of reading from left to right, read each word from right to left. You can't focus on the meaning but you can evidently find the typos.
I use an add-in to Firefox to generate a visual spell check on the screen in a similar way to Microsoft Word. I also have my emails automatically spell checked although occasionally a typo sneaks through.
For websites I find it useful to copy and paste the item into a Word document to highlight word errors and key grammatical issues so that I can judge whether I want to change or not. The problem is that it doesn't pick up the wrong, valid words - for example it may mix acre and care.
Call Review
The Guerrilla Marketing Association call does degenerate into a pitch for Proofread Now in places.
Proofreading and editing may not be an exciting topic but it is important and it is worth you taking the time to learn more and to put what you learn into action. I was able to listen to this call at 200% with Faster Audio.
If your website, brochure or sales letters are not converting at the rate you think they should, take a good look and see if you have missed any typos. If you can't see any, ask a friend to take a look. Then ask another friend to do the same.
Phil Jamieson recommends that two people independent of the writer read the document.
The latest Guerrilla Marketing Association call I've listened to is Break Through the Clutter with Stu Heinecke about the impact of cartoon postcard mailing.
Stu is part marketer and part cartoonist and he finds that people respond well to cartoons in direct mail.
It's an interesting idea which has been proven to work with big and small businesses - you can find out more at his website Cartoon Link.
Cartoons and humour attract attention and cartoon postcards can be kept and pinned up on people's office walls. Stu Heinekce describes a cartoon as "headlines on steroids".
The cartoons from CartoonLink can also be personalised to the reader.
The call does become too commercialised in places for my liking although it is an intriguing idea to add to the variety and methods of following-up and keeping in contact with customers and prospects.
Unfortunately I listened to the call outside the Free E-book offer but I can see that personalised cartoon postcard marketing fits in so well with the Guerrilla Marketing idea of being creative and using unconventional techniques in your marketing.
This call from the Guerrilla Marketing Association is well worth listening to if you are interested in trying something a little different.
The Guerrilla Marketing Association on this call returns to the Father of Guerrilla himself, Jay Levinson and he discusses the important topic of how to write for the Internet.
The call starts with a long story of Jay and his experience of writing including how he became a copywriter for an advertising agency. It seems that Jay was then employed by Playboy persuading people to advertise or subscribe to the magazine!!
While Jay Levinson is always interesting to listen to, it does take too long and is not on subject. While I listen using Faster Audio (and I can listen to Jay at about 170% of normal speed) it wasted 32 minutes of my time and 54 minutes at normal speed.
The sound also plays up in places with the call breaking up.
Finally we get to the tips on writing for the Internet:
Keep everything short - words, sentences and paragraphs. Many people find it difficult to read from the monitor and they are often in a hurry to get the information they want.
Tell your reader specifics - get to the point and don't digress.
Write like you talk.
See writing in two steps - starting it and finishing it.
The call finished with a plug for the Guerrilla Marketing University.
Another disappointing call from the Guerrilla Marketing Association which I recommend that you avoid.
I hope that the GMA quickly gets its act together and returns to the great, information packed calls I've listened to before.
Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals and The Go-Giver has been interviewed by the Guerrilla Marketing Association and is one that I have pulled from the archives.
Once again too much of the time in the call is wasted by Roger Parker interviewing about the book, where the title came from and its positioning and testimonials. I am getting frustrated by this focus on the books the author is there to promote rather than the contents.
It does get better but much of the first 20 minutes is fluff in my view. Bob is a fast talker so I also had to adjust Faster Audio to play slower than my normal 170 to 200%.
Bob Burg's referral system is based on the simple premise that people like to do business with people they know, like and trust. If people want to you help succeed, they will become personal walking ambassadors.
The interview very quickly moves onto the latest book "The Go-Giver" which is a parable similar to the One Minute Manager style.
Disappointing Interview
My view is that this is a disappointing interview from someone who had a lot to contribute. If you are a member of the Guerrilla Marketing Association, don't bother wasting your time listening to the interview since it is wrongly billed as about referrals when much of the content is about the latest book.
Referrals is such an important area for businesses to master and it's a classic guerrilla marketing technique since it builds on the strong relationships that Guerrilla Marketers build and of course there is little or no cost involved.
Even the talk of The Go-Givers book is unstructured although even in my frustration, it did sound thought-provoking.
Don't ignore Bob Burg
I haven't read it but Endless Referrals appears to be a great book based on the Amazon.com review - 61 five star reviews and 8 four star reviews out of 69 reviews.
Steve and I have a lot in common as he's a chartered accountant in Canada and I'm a chartered accountant in the UK. Steve is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and so am I.
No surprise then that we see things in similar ways and that there is a connection between between the marketing and accounting disciplines that perhaps passes other people by.
He describes himself as "an accountant by training and a marketer by heart" and if I've bored you with my story of "how I got to where I am today" you'll know that it matches my sentiments.
Market By Numbers
Steve Wilkinghoff has taken his ideas and turned them into a book (one up in me there Steve, I just have this big blog) although after checking on Amazon.com and not finding it, I heard on the call that it hasn't been published yet which makes it difficult to connect with the ideas.
He does have a Market By Numbers blog and Steve has put together an eight week coaching program but I don't know too much more about it and I haven't seen a transcript of the book although Steve has been in touch.
Steve has the dubious privilege of being described by Michael Gerber as "a little bit weird" but when I met I don't think I even formed enough impression for him to think it.
Guerrilla Marketing Coaching Call With Steve Wilkinghoff
Very clear sound this week and Faster Audio worked so I was able to speed listen at about 160% which is always good and keeps me focused.
First Steve talked about the Triple Overlap of:
making a profit
creating a return on the investment
generating cash flow
You won't hear me downplay the importance of profit and cash flow and return on investment is a proven concept although as a single metric it is flawed.
However I take a slightly different approach with my entrepreneurs since I want them to consider the extent to which their business provides a return on their time, investment and entrepreneurial creativity. Too often I see business owners with their houses on the line to secure bank loans settling for returns that would be poor for a salaried employed professional manager.
I want my clients to think like a professional manager and expect to be rewarded for their time, energy and success, think like a venture capitalist for the money they have invested and think like an entrepreneur about the value of their distinctive idea or business concept.
Customer Profitability Map
I'm a sucker for a two by two matrix and while I have used a variation of the idea Steve Wilkinghoff explained I think you'll find this makes a lot of sense and will make you see the connection between finance and marketing.
Hopefully Steve is OK with me explaining this (if not email me) but he wants you to grade your customers along two factors - how much profit you make from them and how much you resonate together (how string the relationship is).
The resonance score is interesting and this ties into some of Michael Port's thinking about setting your velvet rope policy high so that you only work with people who inspire you to do your best work.
On a simple high / low basis this gives you four squares - HP/HR, HP/LR, LP/HR and LP/LR.
You don't need to be a genius to know that what you want is the majority of your clients in the high profit / high resonance box. That is who you are trying to attract in your marketing and you would identify the appropriate characteristics (demographic and psychographic) to connect with these clients.
But what about the other categories? What do they say to you?
I'm not sure I should go further without Steve's permission but you having identified who falls into which box, you should have some interesting questions. Can you move them into the HP/HR box?
Remainder Of The Guerrilla Marketing Association Interview
Unfortunately the remainder of the call didn't continue at the pace that it started. It became a discussion about writing the book and trying to get it published.
if I have a criticism of the Guerrilla Marketing Association at the moment, it is that it is too focused on book publication and helping people to become successful authors.
I agree that this is one element of marketing for some people but I'd like to see more about using direct response marketing and relationship building to help people through these difficult times. There is plenty to hear in this area in the archives but it is good to hear it said in new ways.
Learn More About Steve Wilkinghoff and Market By Numbers
There is a free teleseminar scheduled for August 28, 2008 for Guerrilla Marketing Association members but it doesn't say it's exclusive and to get in, you just submit your name and email address - give it a try. Market By Numbers teleseminar.
I have just listened to the Guerrilla Marketing Association with Harry Beckwith, leading marketing author and thinker.
I like membership sites and I particularly like the Guerrilla Marketing Association but the problem is that resources keep being added so, unless you are disciplined it's easy to spend your money and miss out. I've decided to set myself a target and listen to two of the teleseminars each week from the Guerrilla Marketing Association which will usually be the latest one plus one from the archives.
Harry Beckwith has written four books, "Selling the Invisible" his first very highly rated book (98 five star ratings on Amazon.com) which I have in my library but not yet read, "The Invisible Tough", "What Clients Love" and "You, Inc".
Recording Difficulties
Some funny noises, Harry Beckwith went missing for some time and for some reason this mp3 won't play in Faster Audio which means I was frustrated listening to it at normal speed.
You Have Nothing To Fear Except Your Clients Fear Itself
Nice phrase which raises an important point, especially on service marketing which is what "Selling the Invisible" is all about.
The very fact that services are intangible makes it difficult for prospective clients to see, feel and touch so that they have the confidence to buy.
Brand building is important for services.
Clearly communicating the problem and the solution can also be a key differentiator. This is the same point that Rich Schefren has made in his Maven Marketing training. The maven is the person who articulates the problem in a way that resonates with the market in a unique and compelling way and is then able to point towards the way forward.
Consider trials and test periods to allow your prospects to experience your service before they have to commit to buying.
What Clients Want And Love
Strip away all the periphery and it comes down to relationships.
Harry Beckwith wrote "Competence gets firms into the game that relationships win."
In the book "What Clients Love" he identifies thirteen factors that create great relationships but the call only covers apparent expertise and clarity.
A few words of warning. The Guerrilla Marketing Association has recently cleared down some of their archives so particular calls may not be available when you join.
