"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.)

Tags: commodity pricing, luxury marketing, marketing, podcasting, premium pricing

Fact is ... I'm a slow writer. And while I love blogging here, and will continue to do so, going forward I'll be putting plenty of attention on podcasting my comments, marketing strategies and general "good stuff" for entrepreneurs.

The first podcast is up ... and I'm talking about everything from what really makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur to the meaning of "aggressive marketing" --- which just might surprise you.

Anyway, here is the link - The Very First Aggressive Small Business Marketing & Entrepreneurship Podcast. You can listen to it directly on the web page or download the mp3. I have the King of All Nerds (said with love) putting together the feed and iTunes buttons; so they will be up soon.

Feedback counts on this. How much I do and what I answer going forward is going to depend on the response I get. Go, listen ... and leave a comment (or a link in).

Tags: aggressive marketing, michael cage, podcasting

The trade-off is clear. You can escape commodity-pricing and increase the flow of new and repeat business by being clearly and compellingly different. But part of being different is being willing to turn away, sometimes even offend, those who do not match the new vibe your business puts off.

The more different you purport to be, the more important congruence becomes. This means the promises you make in your marketing, the experience people have when they arrive in your office, the staff they interact with ... literally every touchpoint between your customers or clients and your business must match.

For a simple example, consider the jarring experience of making an appointment with a realtor who held herself out to be an expert in luxury homes and the luxury market ... and she then picks you up in a Yugo. That is lack of congruence. (Note, it may not be "fair" ... but it is how it is.)

With a good knowledge of the market, the answers about "how" to differentiate come easily. It's the willingness to say "no" to the clients who don't fit the new differentiation that is tough (for the client).

Anyway, here a great example of clearly a differentiated marketing message from a Berkely, California dentist.

From his site:

Imagine a Berkeley dentist's office that embodies the kind of innovative thinking synonymous with Berkeley. Imagine a dental environment reminiscent of a yoga studio or your best friend's living room -- a wellness spa designed for your comfort. Imagine experiencing eco-dentistry™, the pioneering approach that values the planet and your well-being. Imagine receiving a healing foot massage and listening to meditative music while your teeth are lovingly cleaned. Imagine seeing your smile miraculously transformed with leading edge techniques, natural-looking materials, and artist-quality restorations. This is not a dream: we are transcendentist® and Dr. Fred Pockrass.

Check out the Transcendentist, Dr. Fred Pockrass. Nice job.

P.S. There is a second, and probably more important lesson here. If you read the above description, you'll notice that he is clearly marketing to values. Not to features and benefits (traditional marketing and copywriting). Do it right, and marketing to values is an order of magnitude more powerful than the old stuff. Interested? Let me know in the comments and I'll write about it in a future post.

Tags: dental marketing, dentist marketing, differentiation, experiential marketing, marketing to values

In July of 2004, I wrote that businesses and salespeople that rely on cold calling are like functional drunks. They don't grow fully because of it ... in the back of their mind they know it is bad for them ... yet they manage to survive without too many negative consequences. At least for a little while.

I'm glad old posts never get removed, because I got a "best ever angry E-mail" this afternoon from a guy who will remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

He writes...

"As a recovering alcoholic who lived for years as a functional drunk, I'm mad as hell that you'd lump me in with anyone stupid enough to cold call!"

Talk about making my day!

In all fairness, stupid is way overdoing it. Cold calling takes guts. I know. I cut my teeth as a teen selling fire alarms door-to-door during sweltering Baltimore summers. And people who are taking action and are doing anything to engage their market and grow their businesses have my respect. Far too many sit on the sidelines ... hoping, wishing, and dreaming.

Anyway...

The truth is that most entrepreneurs, salespeople and business owners who drive sales through cold calling simply don't know what they don't know. They see what the competition is doing and copy it. Or they do what they "have always done." Or they have tried another method of lead generation, couldn't get it to work and gave up. Whatever the cause, they simply don't know how to get the many systematic ways there are to generate leads working so that salespeople spend their time selling ... not begging someone to let them get in the door in order to have a chance to sell.

When you know how to engineer effective marketing systems, you flip the roles --- motivated, qualified prospects chase you instead of you chasing them.

These are all topics --- lead generation and business-to-business / b2b marketing (or, my preference, b2e or business-to-entrepreneur marketing) --- that I'll be writing about later this month. If you have any specific questions or comments, now would be a good time to get them in. Oh, and Mr. X, I'd like to thank you for the motivation.

P.S. I know I haven't posted much lately. Mucho changes happening here, including a launch of a new podcast. Details to follow. Stay close.

Tags: b2b marketing, cold calling, lead generation

People with disposable, six-figure incomes are spending money on luxury goods that used to be reserved for the "upper crust" of society. These are the mass affluent, and they have been written about in exhausting detail.

Ages ago, in order to come away with that uber-trendy LV bag, you had to go to a boutique where you were treated like a king or queen before receiving your prize. At full retail price. Nowadays, it is as likely to have been purchased at CostCo or a discounter on the web.

This democratization of luxury goods has destroyed a major selling point: Exclusivity.

Cynical or not, most luxury goods are sold at a premium in large part due to the social message they communicate. When "everyone" has access to what used to make your social group "unique" ... the symbols begin to lose their meaning.

BTW, in case you have your nose up at the "snobs" who would drop $2k on a handbag to show off ... keep in mind that everything from tribal tattoos, hybrid vehicles, fair trade coffee and Apple Computers are sold the same way.

Identifying your "tribe" through your "stuff" isn't a rich person's disease ... it's a condition of social humans. You and I included. Deal with it.

So ... with luxury goods becoming less exclusive and more available with every passing day, their value as symbols decreases. When that happens, the people who used to value the symbols seek out the next big thing.

Today, that "thing" takes the form of experiences.

The value of an experience is not limited to the experience itself. It includes the story you get to tell about the experience from that point forward.

Two weeks ago, I flew home from a speaking gig in Dallas.

I'm not a "suit guy" ... but the man sitting next to me had a stunning suit on and I told him I loved it. What followed was a 30 minute discussion about how he had flown three times to London, spent the better part of a day each time with a Saville Row tailor, and almost 9 months later this suit was the result. Good story.

He almost certainly paid upwards of $10,000 for the entire experience.

Could he have have received a similar quality suit from a Washington D.C. tailor (or a Saville Row tailor who travelled to DC)? Certainly. For less money? Absolutely. But would it have been nearly as good a story to tell? Not even close.

Let's turn this to geek culture.

Everyone in the blogging world is aware of Hugh's project with Thomas Mahon, English Cut. Is there anyone out there who does not believe that an English Cut suit does not carry a premium in Silicon Valley ... not only because of the quality ... but because of the story it allows the wearer to tell? Ozwald Boateng may be hot stuff in LA, but my money is on English Cut being the one people in the cutting edge world of tech "get."

In case you are wondering, I'm not writing all of this to talk about going bespoke.

I don't care what you sell. When you engineer your offerings to include an exceptional experience and a great story to tell about it ... you have a point of differentiation and the seed of incredible word-of-mouth marketing it'll take ages for the competition to catch up to.

Tags: affluent, affluent marketing, english cut, hugh mcleod, luxury, luxury marketing

• You’ll discover that your advertising provides compelling and powerful answers to each and every question. If so, congratulations—you’re in the top 1% of all small business advertisers, and you’re achieving amazing results from your advertising.

or

• You’ll find that your advertising is totally focused on the wrong person—it’s focused on you or your business instead of on the perfect client in your target market. If this is you, don’t feel too badly—99% of all small businesses fall into this category. Their advertising isn’t very effective and earns, at best, a small “fair share” of available business … and it only gets that much because the competition’s advertising is equally horrible.

Let me stress one very important point before you continue: do not make this an intellectual exercise.

Think of your image of the perfect client. Then physically pull out your advertisements, sit down, and answer the following five questions as if your perfect client were asking them.

These questions will make demands upon your advertising that are very different from traditional advertising. Answering may seem strange at first, but stick with it. If your current advertising doesn’t provide compelling answers, start to think about how you could change it so that it does.

Small Business Advertising Question #1: “Why Are You Bothering Me?”

FACT: Advertising is an interruption.

Your ideal clients didn’t wake up this morning, get out of bed, and proclaim, “Wow, I sure hope someone advertises to me today.” The real world simply doesn’t work that way.

Your ideal clients, however, did get out of bed with business problems, goals, and other things that are important to them. If your advertising doesn’t grab their attention with a compelling reason that’s important to them (not you, but them), it will be thrown in the trash or just ignored.

If you don’t know what’s on your ideal client’s mind, you have no business putting together an advertisement … yet.

Go back to market research, and learn more about your target market. The research and understanding are key to generating responses to your advertising.

Small Business Advertising Question #2: “What Does It Have to Do with Me?”

After you capture your clients’ attention, you must get their interest.

Every once in a while, an advertisement will run in the Wall Street Journal with a huge, bold headline that simply says:

SEX!

Does it get people’s attention? Sure. But the next line is, “Now that I have your attention, let me tell you about my worn-out, dusty shoes.” Well, unless you’re interested in worn-out, dusty shoes, your interest in the advertisement stops right there and you move onto the next page.

So you see, once you grab their attention, you must get them interested … immediately! You can do this by telling them what the advertisement’s information has to do with the things they consider to be important. Again, this is about what they consider to be important, not what you consider to be important.

A tried-and-true way to capture interest is to state the biggest possible benefit or promise you’re able to make to your target market. If you know your market well, this is a sure-fire way to keep prospective clients reading.

Small Business Advertising Question #3: “Why Should I Believe You?”

Prove it!

Decision makers default to skepticism, not belief, about your claims. If you don’t give your prospects powerful and compelling reasons to believe what you claim in your advertising, they won’t.

It’s your job to provide the proof they need to believe what you’re communicating. If your advertising doesn’t provide proof, get to work and add it in.

For every promise you make and every benefit you list, ask the question: “Why should I believe you?” Then answer the question using one of the seven methods of adding overwhelming proof to your advertising (my three favorites are testimonials, case studies, and photographs). Or answer the question as if you were sitting in front of a prospect who asked you that very question.

Small Business Advertising Question #4: “What Should I Do About It?”

Just listing a phone number or website URL isn’t enough. I’m consistently amazed by the number of advertisements I critique that lack a compelling offer and clear directions for how to act on it.

Have you given prospects a specific step to take in order to begin the process of becoming your client? The key word here is “specific.” Tell the prospects exactly what to do, how to do it, and what they’ll get as a result.

Small Business Advertising Question #5: “Why Should I Do It Right Now?”

A “cute” theory espoused by many so-called advertising gurus is that decision makers will remember you or your firm when it comes time to take action, even if they don’t take action right away.

But “reality” (you know—studies, statistics, and empirical evidence) shows that notion to be utterly false.

If your prospects don’t take the action you want when your message is in front of them, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll come back to it at a later date.

Sure, they might “mean to” take action later. They might file the ad in the pile of things to do, put it on a corkboard, or stick in the pile of “really important” stuff on their desk. But the end result is usually that your message is put aside and forgotten.

Your advertising must give prospects a compelling reason to act immediately. What will they gain if they do? What will they lose if they don’t?

Wrapping It Up

While advertising salespeople like to talk about image, exposure, and awareness, your focus belongs on making sales and on results you can deposit in your bank account. These questions will help you create advertising to do just that.

Tags: advertising, copywriting, direct mail, space advertising

From 2001 to 2004, Michele and I regularly went to the MCI Center to watch the Washington Capitals. They were underperformers, but the Caps have one hell of an owner in Ted "Teddy E-mail" Leonsis ... and we always had a great time.

Then the league went on strike and there was no NHL hockey for the 2004-2005 season.

During the strike, we found other things to fill out our time. We became used to not seeing live hockey games.

Not seeing hockey live was our "new normal."

And even though hockey came back in 2005, we haven't been to a Caps game since.

When the strike ended, neither Michele or I thought about going to see a live game again. It wasn't on the radar the way it once was.

This was true even though the Caps had one of the most exciting players in the league, Alexander Ovechkin. He is not a good player, he is a great one. A goal scorer with amazing quickness who will knock the stuffing out of people much bigger than him.

Anyway, I was aware of the great season he was having. I checked the stats on ESPN every day, I watched the highlights and I read Ted's blog. But the days of catching every game live or on TV, start to finish, were gone.

Which brings me to yesterday, when Ted wrote:

Sometimes I marvel at what the rest of the world thinks about Alexander Ovechkin. I only hope our fans and the city of DC understand how fortunate we are to have a young superstar right here in DC--blossoming before our own eyes--night in and night out.

And it hit me that I'm missing a chance to watch a great player grow into a legend.

That's an experience I don't want to miss.

And, now, Michele and I are going to see the next Caps game we can.

If you are wondering what this has to do with marketing your business, I'll tell you.

Businesses lose more customers because of apathy than anything else.

You don't see a regular for a few months, and instead of wondering what happened ... they just fade away. A consistent client for several years suddenly stops calling, and, instead of picking up the phone and making sure things are ok, a week passes ... then a month ... and then they are forgotten. Or something out of your control, like a strike, happens ... that turns once loyal fans into fans with a "new normal" about how to behave towards to the team.

If you rely on doing more of what you have always done to get those people back, you will not get them back.

If you make incremental improvements in your business, you will not get them back.

But when you stage an exceptional experience that intrudes on their "new normal" ... they can't stay away.

Alexander Ovechkin is at the heart of an exceptional experience being offered in my hometown. Ted Leonsis has been intruding on my "new normal" for months by writing about Ovechkin, offering highlight videos and talking about the team. And, finally, that post last night was the straw that brought what I' missing to my attention.

And something tells me the next game we see live won't be the last.

My questions for you?

• Are you consistently crafting new experiences to reengage customers and clients who have become bored with you?
• For past customers and clients who have forgotten you exist?
• And are you consistently bringing those experiences to the attention of your market?

Tags: alexander ovechkin, caps, experiential, leonsis, marketing, ovechkin, ted leonsis, washington capitals

I'm a huge Calacanis fan, AND I think he is "months and months behind" on the corruption of the blogosphere:

Note: I've been talking to the PayPerPost folks about how to make their service NOT destroy trust in the blogosphere. Right now my position is that any post that is paid for must say so right up top. Not on the side of your blog with some icon that no one will ever see or understand. Not at the bottom of the post where someone might miss it. Not on some blog post you did seven months ago. Every post has to be clearly marked as paid for. Anything short of that falls into the deception bucket.

I don't buy the disclosure bit ... here's why:

The best restaurant and travel critics eat and travel incognito because they know the experience they receive if recognized is not the same experience the diners they are reviewing for will receive. Andrew Harper, for example, has built a rock-solid reputation in luxury travel by never accepting a comp of any kind from a place he reviews.

From his site:

Who is Andrew Harper? It's a mystery - for a reason. Remaining a mystery lets Andrew Harper critique the world's finest resorts, hotels and hideaways objectively. * He travels incognito. * The resorts don't know him. * He pays his own way. * His respected monthly Hideaway Report accepts no advertising.

When Hugh sent bottles of Stormhoek wine around to bloggers, the bloggers wrote about the wine. They weren't required to, to be sure. Nor did Hugh have editorial control over what was written. But everything we know about social psychology tells us that when we receive a gift from an influential "somebody" there is tremendous pressure to reciprocate in some form. It's a classic "loophole" to pretend that a gift or review copy is anything but compensation in exchange for consideration that you hope leads to coverage.

Big media "Ben Metcalfe" made a similar point...

Plus there is certain expectation (be it implied or just passive) for someone to give it a favourable review having received a complimentary bottle. Of course, that’s nothing different from wine tasting reviews in newspapers or magazines — or any other reviews for that matter. I just hoped that kind of stuff wouldn’t find its way onto the blogosphere.

Which Hugh responded to, correctly, by pointing out...

Give me a break. It never occurs to Ben, the bloggers could have shredded the wine to pieces just as easily. He doesn't mention that.

True enough, they could have. But, going back to our friend, the social psychologists, the likelihood that they will do so is not "50/50." In fact, it's not even a fair fight.

The bottom line is that, regardless of the tone of the post made, the provocation for making it was receiving a gift bottle of wine.

That is compensation.

So...

If someone wrote about Stormhoek without disclosing they received Stormhoek as a gift ... have they crossed an ethical boundary?

If you apply the "no deception" standard Jason proposes ... I believe it absolutely does cross the line.

(Note, I have no problem with what Hugh did. I think it is brilliant. I also think it is silly to call it anything other than what it is.)

FACT: There is bias in even the most "authentic" of bloggers.

Whether that bias is due to...

• Cash compensation
• Gifts or review copies (since starting blogging I've receive books, CDs, offers to travel, access to thousand-dollar-plus events for free, and so on ... many from "A-list authentic bloggers")
• A desire to attract the attention of an "A-lister"
• A desire to retain insider access (web 2.0 pundits, hello!)
• A desire to attact and retain an audience for advertiser compensation
• A desire to keep advertisers (again, HELLO web 2.0 pundits!!!!!!!!!)

...whatever the reason, bias is there. And, while it would be nice if everyone disclosed their bias, the ultimate solution is self-regulation through conversation and readers who enter into any reading with a "buyer beware" attitude. Hell, truth be told, most people aren't aware of half of their biases to start with!

I believe readers are NOT looking for unbiased info ... they are looking for people who they perceive have interests aligned with their own. Witness what TV channels grow ... what magazines sell ... and what blogs get read and I think my point is made.

I also believe readers are becoming increasingly intelligent about how they sort and filter the information they receive ... due in no small part to the wide variety of opinions available on blogs and other social media.

To bring things back to PayPerPost...

What is the difference between Hugh offering sample bottles of wine to bloggers to get them writing about the wine and someone offering cash to bloggers to get them writing about a product or service?

The only significant difference is that, using the PayPerPost system the client can approve or deny a post.

So, let me take it one step further...

What if someone using PayPerPost gave up the ability to approve or deny a post and let the blogger write whatever their honest opinion is?

Now where is the difference?

I love blogs, blogging and the blogosphere. But the idea of the blogosphere being "pure" is a joke. Even the most "authentic" of bloggers have their own biases and preferences ... and there is nothing wrong with that. Part of the power of conversation is the ability to openly discuss and debate those preferences in an open forum.

In the end, it's not that I find the idea of forcing disclosure to be "bad."

I do believe it is futile, and is being applied with a healthy double-standard (see 2nd PS).

P.S. FWIW, I have never "hired" PayPerPost, nor do I intend to. I'll never "sell" my posts. Because, in the end, I believe building a business which uses blogs as a tool to interact with its market is far superior to building a business that is a blog (the advertising model).

P.P.S. The classic defense of advertising supported blogs is that they make it clear the advertisers are advertisers and that there is no implied endorsement. This, of course, is horse-puckey. The fact that is sits on your site is an implied endorsement. Period. You know what happened when newspapers started to require "advertorials" (ads that look like newspaper columns) put "this is a paid advertisement" at the top? NOTHING. It gave the media "ethical cover" and didn't effect response rates in the least. Same thing with television infomercials. If you accept the advertising, there is implied endorsement. Period.

Tags: authenticity, blogging, blog marketing, calacanis, hugh macleod, jason calacanis, payperpost, stormhoek

As I was leaving a barista who was getting the store ready to open came out to get me, asked me if I wanted a drink, invited me in and took care of me. He didn't have to do it, but he did, and I think it is an amazing testament to the hiring practices of Starbucks that they sort for people who "get" what a great customer experience is all about.

From the original post:

Managers at Starbucks put tremendous attention into hiring good "people people." People who enjoy interacting with and pleasing others. Their hiring and training process is designed ... systematically ... to produce events like the one I described. It isn't an accident. It isn't left to chance. And it's part of why they win.

Fast-forward to yesterday, and I was browsing through my local Borders and saw this book. Turns out, my story made the book.

What didn't make the book, was the following:

The barista's name is Wen, and he works at this Starbucks. If you are flying into Dulles, live or work around Herdon, Reston, Chantilly or Sterling ... pop in and tell Wen he is famous ... and appreciated. If you are from Starbucks, give the dude a raise. He and people like him make you look good.

UPDATE: Incidentally, the lesson to take from this is not to mandate that your employees do 2.3 good things per day. That'd be as silly as mandating that all the introverts in your company magically transform into extroverts. The lesson is that Starbucks (or, at the very least, the management in our region) makes it a point to hire people for whom doing things the "Starbucks" way will be easy and natural. Do that well and the company can step out of the way and let the employees be themselves.

Tags: customer service, experiential marketing, great employees, hiring, starbucks