marketing – Page 4 – Jon Turino, Minister

October 8, 2012October 9, 2012

The Mayonnaise Jar and the 2 Beers

I found this post on another site and wanted to share it.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the two beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things — your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions — and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else — the small stuff.’

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.’

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and mow the lawn.

Take care of the golf balls first — the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked. The beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers with a friend.’

author unknown — happy to attribute if somebody knows

Found on Google+, posted by Jordan Arseno, October 8, 2012, 3:26 PM (edited) – Public

Jon Turino: This post hit the top of the chart on Google+. What do you think of it? I’d love to have — and share — your comments on it.

October 7, 2012October 7, 2012

Some Revealing Information

CVI Image for Jon Turino — This diagram highlights my Innovator and Merchant characteristics.

Some revealing information has recently come to light about yours truly.

A while back I took an assessment called the Core Values Index (CVI) assessment. This assessment is unlike strengths assessments or current personality assessments that can be colored by current or recent past events. The CVI looks at just what it says it does: my core values.

I am old enough to own up to being who I am. So I’ve included the link to the complete CVI results on my About Jon page. But I want to share some highlights with you. Here’s what it says:

“Jon Turino,

54% of your core value energy comes from Wisdom and Love.

Jon, the CVI assessment found you are an INNOVATOR-MERCHANT.

What does this mean? This means your primary core value is Innovator – An Innovator’s core value energy is Wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to see the way things are, and discern what to do about it. You accurately assess situations and provide solutions. Your secondary core value is Merchant – A Merchant’s core value energy is Love. Love in this sense is working toward an inspired vision of what can be, by nurturing the core values in one’s self and in others. You thrive at building relationships and providing an inspired vision for those around you.”

It goes on to say: “Your scores indicate you have INNOVATOR/MERCHANT tendencies. When you enter a room there is more wisdom and love energy suddenly in that room. You are the presence of loving wisdom. This is your assignment, to be the effective presence of loving wisdom. You look at the circumstances and situations around you through the eyes of compassion and truth. You operate from reason and intuition, seeing the way things are. Asking questions and deriving the right responses, best strategies and most workable solutions. This is balanced by your intuitive and reasoning capacity to see who people really are. You try to understanding their needs and wants. You work to nurture and support them and yourself. Your highest and best contribution can only be made in situations in which there is a significant and constant need for loving wisdom”

There is much more explanation, and some examination of the negative traits associated with my “exquisite wonderfulness” — a phrase that was coined many years ago and who’s origin and meaning will never be revealed here! In any case, I found the CVI results to be truly fascinating information and I like to think they are pretty darned accurate.

How about you? Do you think it fits me? I’d love to hear from you. And if you’d like your own assessment, just click on Taylor Protocols.

October 6, 2012October 6, 2012

A Marketing Sandwich

Sliced ham. Sliced turkey. Sliced Swiss cheese. Sliced bread. Scrambled eggs mixed with a tablespoon or two of milk, some cinnamon and some vanilla extract. Butter and a hot skillet. What are we making?

The list of ingredients isn’t very fancy now, is it? Some pretty basic ingredients to work with. We could make a variety of things with our ingredients. A ham, cheese and turkey sandwich, for instance. Some scrambled eggs and some cinnamon toast. How about some French toast? Or how about a Monte Cristo sandwich? Doesn’t that sound tasty?

And what does all of this have to do with marketing? Think about the list of ingredients as the raw materials of your product or services. Think about the recipe as the packaging and the finished product as the presentation.

How different is your ham, turkey and cheese sandwich from those supplied by your competition? Or your scrambled eggs? Or even your French toast? Ah, but a Monte Cristo sandwich? How many of your competitors offer one of those? How many restaurants for that matter?

Messages, media, markets. Monte Cristo sandwiches. It’s what’s for brunch today. Make sense?

Enjoy the sandwich. Add some syrup or jam if you like it with something sweet. Call me or take one of my courses if you’d like help cooking up your own better marketing strategies.

And please leave your comments. I will respond to them.

Chef’s Note: Mix the eggs, cinnamon, milk and vanilla together with a fork or a whisk. Soak the bread on both sides and cook on buttered skillet until golden brown on one side. Flip to cook 2nd side and add turkey, ham and cheese to sides already cooked. Then fold together to make into a complete sandwich. Flip as needed until cheese is melted and serve immediately with fruit, jam/jelly or syrup. Makes a very tasty meal!

October 1, 2012

How Much Is An Idea Worth?

It doesn’t look like much, does it? An egg made of metal. OK, a nice metal. Gold. How much is it worth?

The answer, of course, is: “It depends.” The same answer you’ll get when you ask “What’s the right marketing strategy for my business?”

What is your business? Who are your target markets? What messages are you using to create buying actions from the members of those markets? What media are you using to deliver those messages? Are they working as well as you’d like them to?

What if you took an hour to just talk to someone about some new ideas for improving your marketing strategies? What if you discovered that there were things you weren’t doing anymore that you used to do that used to bring in a consistent stream of business? What if you, or the other person, or the two of you together, came up with some new ideas for penetrating new markets, or doing a better job of converting leads to customers in your current markets, or developing more compelling messages or finding new ways to deliver those messages?

How much is that worth? Is it worth an hour of your time? Is it worth a few hundred dollars to have that discussion with someone who’s not buried in your day-to-day issues and problems and who might provide, or trigger within you, some new ideas that could dramatically, or maybe even only marginally improve your top line? Take just a moment to imagine the possibilities. It could be worth a heck of a lot more than an hour of your time and a few hundred dollars in consulting fees now, couldn’t it?

Of course you could be too busy putting out fires and chasing the next sale to make time to spend that hour. And money is tight, isn’t it? But things won’t get better if you keep doing the same things you are doing now, will they?

New ways to deliver your messages. New messages. Better messages. Maybe new markets. Maybe new ways to approach those markets. What might those ideas be worth? Give that some thought an let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading and best of luck in valuing that egg. And call or write me if you want some help with that.

October 1, 2012October 1, 2012

Markets, Messages and Media

There’s been a ton of discussion in one of my Linkedin groups about the “Three Ps” of marketing. Some of it has been practical and some pretty esoteric. Some pretty bland and some pretty heated. Some to the point and some veering pretty far off. Even to the point of introducing the Three As, the Three Bs, the Three Cs, etc., with the possibility of twenty six Three Things (using the English alphabet. So I figure I can put my two cents in for the Three Ms — Markets, Messages and Media. Because this is where I concentrate with my clients when it comes to marketing strategy development.

If you participate in networking groups you’ve no doubt heard the advice about providing your fellow participants with fairly specific targets in response to the “Who is a good lead for you?” question. The idea here is to avoid “spray and pray” marketing by trying to sell to everyone whether they might need or want your product or service or not.

You’ll need to hone your messages to resonate with their needs and wants if you expect to get them to respond to your calls to action. What problems can you solve for them? How much time or money can you save them? What painful situations can you extricate them from or prevent from happening with your offering. What will they get if they do what you ask? What’s the benefit that’s in it for them?

If you pay attention to the demographics of your real target market niches, you’ll use the right media to try to get their attention with your tailored messages. That means avoiding the “tactic of the day” trap, or throwing darts in the dark as I described it in an earlier blog post. How many 70 year old people shopping for cemetery plots are doing that on their iPhones or Android smart phones? Do you really need that mobile app to reach them or is there a more appropriate and more effective media for doing so?

Markets, messages and media. Three critical “Ms” that are central to your marketing strategies. Have you reviewed yours lately? Do they still fit with what you are trying to do, who you are trying to reach and how you are reaching them or could they use a fresh look from your advisory board or an outside consultant?

Give that some thought. And please let me know what you think about what I’ve said as well. Thanks for reading and I look forward to receiving your comments.

September 27, 2012September 28, 2012

Midnight Musings

A networking night to remember.

Bruschetta. Layered dip. Gourmet crackers. Poppy seed & almond and “B52” miniature cupcakes. No host bar for drinks if you wanted them. Great food available if the munchies weren’t enough. A bunch of people who want to do business with you and who want to let their connections know what you do so that they can do business with you.

All this and more was present at tonight’s $5 at 5PM event, hosted by the Portland Small Business Network, at the Chameleon in Portland’s Hollywood District tonight.

We had some new folks and we had some regulars. Lots of photos will be popping up on Facebook since we had two professional photographers at the event. We were a large enough group to have some real diversity in professions and a small enough group to really be able to get to know each other. Some real connections were made as were some appointments for later 1:1 meetings. All in just a few hours at a great venue.

Could your business benefit from this kind of exposure? My guess, if you are in the B2B world, is that the answer to that question is “yes.” And since many of our business visitors tonight also sell to consumers, there were lots of B2C opportunities as well.

Networking can be hard work. Or it can be fun. Or it can be a combination of both. It’s a chance for you to get outside your normal comfort zone if you don’t do it very often and a chance to nurture relationships if you do. It costs very little, except for your time investment, and it can pay big dividends.

There’s really nothing else like networking to establish relationships with people who you know, like and trust. And those are three key elements to doing business with each other and referring each other to our extended circles of contacts.

If you weren’t with us tonight I think you missed a great opportunity. We’re going to do it again in another month and the date, time and location will be posted on my calendar so please do join us for the next one.

Comments, as always, are welcome.

September 23, 2012September 23, 2012

Making Some Tough Decisions

I’ve been working on the upcoming (October 2, 2012) issue of my newsletter and as I was examining the MailChimp statistics I came to some conclusions. They’ll be announced in the newsletter itself next week but I thought I’d share them now with those of you who might not have been opening the newsletter regularly or who would like to be informed a little in advance.

The upcoming issue will be the 10th issue of my newsletter and I really enjoy writing it for everyone who reads it. I am always pleased when someone makes it a point to tell me at a networking event how much they enjoy it. I do try to keep it fresh with great content culled from all over the web that I think you’ll actually be able to use.

It is also a lot of work to put that missive together every three weeks. I save links to articles, groups, organizations and resources that I think will be helpful to you as I find them between issues and then curate the best into each new issue.

This newsletter is currently being mailed to 993 email addresses. All are people who I have met and who have shown interest in receiving information from me. Yet the average open rate for this newsletter is only 20.2%. That’s better than the industry average of 18.1% for my kind of newsletter, but it is still very disappointing. So I’m going to raise my open rate by a whole bunch over the next few issues.

How will I do such a thing? There are really only two ways to do that. I can contine to try to get more of you to open this newsletter, read it and click through on things of interest to you. Or I can begin removing the 770+ people who don’t ever open it from my email list. I’m going to do some of both, of course, and it won’t be an abrupt change, but it is going to happen.

I want to make sure that my efforts reach people who care about growing their businesses through better marketing strategies and, frankly, who will begin to spend some money with me on doing that. An Instant Strategy Session is only $125. The Marketing Plan Seminar online course is only $79. You can sign up for monthly mentoring for as little as $100 per month. There’s only so much I can do without revenue from the product and service packages I offer to support the ongoing freely supplied calendar, resource and newsletter efforts.

If you and I can’t figure out some ways for you to do some better marketing to grow your business with my help then neither of us is worth our salt and I, at least, should stop my current activities and get a “real” job!

So please don’t be one of the 770+ who will lose access to what many consider a very valuable resource. Open each issue and make use of the materials contained in it. And please see if you can’t figure out how best to support my ongoing efforts on your behalf by sending some business my way. That way we’ll both win!

September 20, 2012June 9, 2015

The Power of a Vision

I heard it way back when from Steve Thornton at the 2012 Portland Success Summit. I’ve heard it from Zig Ziglar. I’ve heard it from Anthony Robbins. I think I’ve heard it from every motivational speaker that I’ve ever had the privilege of listening to, starting 35 years ago with Louis Tice when I worked for the John Fluke Manufacturing Company.

(Quick aside: With a name like Fluke, you had better deliver results that aren’t flukes, just like Smuckers needs to deliver good tasting jams and jellies!)

I’ve not only heard it and read about it in books including The Magic of Believing, and continued to use it, but I’ve actually taught it to others. And I am still amazed at the power of a vision.

If you can create a clear picture in your mind of how things are — will be, but in the present tense — when you are doing what you most want to do, your subconscious will cause you to resolve the conflict between the current picture of your reality and the reality as you imagine it. Your subconscious does not like conflict, or disharmony as I once heard it described. It wants you to feel content.

So if you create a vision of how you are when you have accomplished the goals you need to achieve your vision, and if you can couple that with a “feeling good” emotion, it will lead you to do the things necessary to change reality as it is today into reality as you visualize it. Or it will modify your picture of reality as you visualize to match where you are now and keep you stuck where you are. But it will resolve the conflict, one way or the other.

This is not new age weirdness. It is proven science that works for people in business, in athletics, in medicine and in any other field. And there are too many people who have used it, continue to use it, proselytize about it and, in fact succeed with it, to ignore.

If you haven’t been exposed to this powerful mechanism for changing your life, you owe it to yourself to learn as much as you can about it as soon as possible so that you can begin to use it to achieve your vision in life. Unless, of course, you are perfectly happy with the way things are in your life right now.

As I used to tell my students: Make a picture, make it real and make it feel. Your creative subconscious will go to work for you to help you make your vision a reality.

Want more? Order your copy of Inspiration Now! today.

September 20, 2012September 20, 2012

Reflections on Being an Educator

Those of you who have read my many blog posts know that “once upon a time” I traveled the world teaching — and preaching — topics that I was passionate about. I did it because I believed in my causes. And because I made a pretty good living at it. And because I loved visiting new places.

Each one was a new learning experience about people and cultures even as I taught technical, management and marketing subjects. I still do that today, thankfully without nearly as much of the travel, and I still love to see companies grow as a result, at least in part, because of my work with them.

I remember by first trip to Taiwan. The Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology had sent five people to Chicago, where I was doing a public seminar, to see whether or not I could do it for their people in Taipei. These people had traveled half way around the world, with multiple delays, to participate in the day’s events. It was a challenge to keep them awake with their jet lag during the seminar, which was technical in nature, but the after-hours meeting went well and they decided to spend the $10,000 it would take to bring me to their organization. So off to Taiwan I went.

I was met by a driver and an assistant upon arrival after passing through customers with seven carousels of 35mm slides and five boxes containing 50 binders containing 300+ page each. Thankfully I had created paperwork saying that it was all for demonstration purposes and not for import and had affixed my company’s corporate seal over my signature. Very official looking and quite acceptable to the customs people. Phew! Hurdle number one navigated after my travel half way around the world.

I was given a day to recover from jet lag and then joined the top managers of the Institute for a formal dinner in a top restaurant. And I waited a long time to see what the other people would eat before selecting my meal from the large spinning circular central table upon which the food was arrayed. And finally my host told me to please take some food so that everyone could begin to eat. No one, it turns out, would begin until I, the honored guest, approved each dish.

The food was exquisite. I have no idea what was in most of the dishes, but when in Taiwan, go with the flow! And speaking of flow, there was a lot of rice wine flowing, but it was not to be imbibed without a toast to the person on the left prior to raising a glass. To drink without the toast was clearly an insult. Something that was also explained to me after my first two sips.

OK, this is getting long. The point I was going to make when I started this post was that my hosts, who had paid me a lot of money, were treating me like royalty. During the two days of seminar presentation, they took me to a separate private room during breaks for coffee so that I could have a slight break. And they took me outside for lunch so that I was not required to answer questions during a meal break. In short, I truly felt more respected than I had every previously felt.

I asked my hosts about my treatment as they took me back to the airport after the seminar. Why, I asked, had they treated me so well? And they were surprised at the question. They explained to me that educators, paid or not, were held in the highest esteem and should only be treated as such. And that they were honored that I would come to speak to their staff.

I think about this experience now and then as I teach people about marketing. I know that I gave 110% during my days in Taiwan because to do less would have been to dishonor my hosts. And that I will not do.

As you provide your product or service, I hope you will think of both your customers and your suppliers as honored partners. For they deserve no less than that.

Comments, pro and con, are welcome as always. Thanks for reading.

September 9, 2012September 18, 2012

Your Prospect and Customer Information – Your Business Lifeline

Once upon a time I wrote a book. It was actually my 2nd book but the first one I published on my own. I wrote it in a weekend on an IBM Selectric® typewriter. Yes, this was before computers so I guess I’m dating myself here. And the diagrams in the book were hand drawn using templates. Archaic, huh? But that’s what we had in those days.

I had discovered that increasing circuit complexity was driving test generation costs through the roof. And I knew the tricks needed to solve that problem. Thus the book. Everyone thought I was nuts trying to sell a 77-page book for $95 (in 1978 dollars!). But I had a hunch. So I spent $1,800 for an ad in Electronics Test magazine (see Media Selection for Your Target Markets for a related topic) and I sold enough books to put me into the teaching and preaching business for over a decade.

I decided, however, that I wanted to broaden the reach of my company by having the book published by a “legitimate” publisher and advertised and sold through that publisher’s distribution channels.

Thus came this version that sold for $39.95 to the “mass market,” such as it was at the time. And Van Nostrand Reinhold did indeed sell more of these books than I did. Three times as many, as a matter of fact, in the first year. So everything was going great, right? Not so fast.

Take a look at the chart below to see what happened financially. While unit sales tripled, income from those sales dropped from an 80% gross margin to a 15% commission rate. That cut from $80 per book to $6 per book reduced revenues by $62,000 per year!

Some deal, huh? Now look at what happened to seminar revenues. They dropped by a factor of four — from more than $200,000 per year to less than $50,000 per year.

So what happened? Where was the disconnect in this strategy for broader distribution? It can be summed up in these two pictures:

Strategies that look sound at first blush really need to be examined and vetted to make sure that they do not have hidden unintended consequences.

Have you ever had a similar experience? If you have it would be great if you’d be willing to share it. Your comments are solicited and thanks for reading.

P.S.: You can view the whole presentation from which these slides were taken here.