Where Is Your Marketing Plan?

I’m going to start posting the materials from my Udemy.com online course entitled The Marketing Plan Seminar so that my followers can get a feel for the kind of work that I can do for them on a consulting basis. If you can’t wait for the installments to be posted you can order the complete course at http://udemy.com/The-Marketing-Plan-Seminar. In the mean time, I hope you will enjoy each small installment and give me a call if doing so triggers something for you where I can be of help. Enjoy!

Where Is Your Marketing Plan?

Here’s a bit of a rhetorical question for you. And in the accompanying video I explain what I mean by that. Have a look and a listen.

It really is critically important that your plan be formal and published. Formal makes it more concrete and publishing it so that others can see it, review it, question it or suggest improvements to it helps create buy-in and helps make you accountable for its implementation.

November 25, 2012June 9, 2015

10 Reasons Not to Hire an Expert

$Calvin & Hobbes - Math Homework$ I’ve been curating a lot of articles lately and re-posting them for the edification of my friends, fans and connections and several of those posts have been lists of 5, 10, 12, 20 or more things you can do to improve your business, life, social media strategy or anything else. In fact a lot of experts say that the titles for your posts should have numbers in them and that lists make for good content. So here’s mine!

1. You know more about the subject of how to solve a given problem than anyone else possibly could. Especially someone from outside your organization who lacks the in-depth participation that you have in the original creation of the problem.

2. You know that an outside expert will ask you a lot of irrelevant questions in an attempt to get to the root cause of your problem and you really don’t have time to answer a bunch of those kinds of questions.

3. You worked with an expert once that your company hired to solve a problem that you couldn’t solve on your own and that expert simply presented your solution to management in such a way as to get it accepted while giving no credit to you.

4. You can’t pay an outside expert $125 an hour to quickly provide recommendations to solve the problem you’ve been wrestling with for weeks or months and that has been preventing my ability to grow my business. Too expensive!

5. You’ve been doing things this way for years and the last thing you need is some wise guy in a suit with a briefcase coming in here to tell you that there might be better ways to do things. So what if you’re working 60 hours per week? You don’t need any help.

6. Strategy, schmategy! You’ve just got to get the message out to everyone possible that they are just dumb if they don’t buy your product/service. Don’t these experts realize that you wouldn’t be in this business if you didn’t know what you were doing?

7. You don’t need some expert telling you that what you’re currently doing isn’t working as well as you’d like it to. You already know that! You just need to work harder at what you’re doing and get your people to do so as well.

8. You’ve heard all about this “working smarter” stuff and you just don’t believe in it. The old ways have always worked for you in the past and all of this newfangled stuff is just going to make more work for you.

9. How can anyone without detailed knowledge of the ins and outs of your particular business help you by showing you how generally successful goals, strategies and tactics that work for others could work for you?

10. You don’t have time to talk with any experts. You’ve got too many problems of your own to solve!

Hope you enjoyed this. Isn’t is amazing how many people — not you, of course — fit these examples? As always, I’d love to have your comments — pro or con or just plain different. Thanks for reading and don’t be shy.

November 25, 2012

Is Social Media a Passing Fad?

I’ve been reading a lot lately about predictions for the coming year. Many of those predictions have to do with social media — whether or not it will stay relevant, whether or not anyone will figure out how to really measure its return on investment (ROI), how many social media “agencies” will survive, etc.

These are interesting questions and remind me of days past when similar questions surfaced and when there were as many answers and opinions — mine among them with this writing! — as there were people brave enough to venture them.

How do you measure the impact of social media expenditures on your bottom line? Do you have real numbers in terms of dollars spent vs. dollars gained or in terms of debits and credits or do you just know that social media is working for you?

Social media has created the biggest self-employment boom in recent history. Virtually anyone can lay claim to being a social media “expert,” as they did with website search engine optimization until Google foiled them and created the current content craze. I have personal and business/company/fan pages on Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, XeeMe, Biznik and several others. I know how to use promotions and advertisements on most of these platforms. My website has all the requisite social media buttons and even uses a WordPress Facebook plug-in for you to leave comments — which I hope you will, by the way — on articles such as this one.

So am I a social media expert? I certainly don’t pass myself off as one, even though I think I know more than enough to be a little dangerous! But what I most certainly don’t know is how I would measure my effectiveness as a social media expert were I to take someone’s money to do social media implementation and optimization work. So I don’t do it. I do higher level strategy work and farm out the implementation to people who have actually helped my business increase its revenues through their improvements to my social media efforts.

Most of my clients are small companies — one to a dozen or so people who have had no formal marketing strategy training r whose marketing manager got the job because he or she knew how to use Facebook and Linkedin a few years ago. I help them figure out who their real target markets are, what messages will resonate with them and what media is most likely to be most effective in delivering those messages to those markets. It may sound simple, but it isn’t. And I normally do recommend that they invest in social media to at least some extent simply because they “have to have a social media presence” in this day and age to be considered a real company.

But am I giving them good advice? I think back to why we attended trade shows when I was in the electronics and software businesses. We had to be there because our competition was there. Until we became successful enough that we could afford not to be there and to let our customers and prospects know that it wasn’t due to lack of money or customers that we were foregoing our future trade show appearances. We were going to use the money for something that would benefit them more than our fancy exhibit booth and lavish hospitality suite. And they respected that.

Trade shows didn’t die, of course. They still have their niches and their purposes. But they have changed dramatically. And I think our fascination or even obsession with social media may become subject to similar pressures in the future. Because if you can’t measure the ROI for an activity, the bean counters are going to make sure that it is severely curtailed if not completely eliminated.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic and will share them with the “gurus” of social media to whom I am connected. Thanks for reading. I hope you found this content useful.

November 2, 2012November 2, 2012

Why, How and What

I had the opportunity recently to view a TEDx talk by Simon Sinek on the topic of how great leaders inspire action and it really got me to thinking about why I do what I do and how the approach Simon describes might work for you as well.

His premise is that most marketing messages describe the “what” of a product — its feature and benefits. The message may also contain information on how the product provides what it provides. And it may even delve into why you are offering that product (or service) but by this time you’ve lost the attention of your audience and actually never really connected to their emotions in the first place.

I’ve often mentioned the need for messages that resonate. By this I mean messages that connect with the target audience on an emotional level. If you follow Cathey Armillos at all, you’ll recognize that she says the same thing. Purchases are driven by emotion and rationalized by logic. So it makes sense, doesn’t it, to start at the center and work outward if we want to be most successful.

Why don’t we do that? Because we weren’t trained that way. Marketing 101 gets us to convert features to benefits, of course, but it doesn’t get us to why we are offering this product or service in the first place or, more importantly, why a prospective customer should care about it.

Simon uses Apple and TIVO as examples of great successes and failures in his talk (which you can find here). Apple inspires enough people to be early adopters of its products to convince the early majority to buy them as well, even though it makes them out of the same materials that any other computer company uses. But it’s purpose is to change the way people interact with technology and it thus positions itself almost as a cause or a movement instead of as a commodity product manufacturer. Whereas TIVO, which arguably produces the highest quality video recording device, has never taken off because people didn’t believe that they needed it. It didn’t cause them to feel special through owing one.

I found that Simon’s remarks resonated with me and, if you watch the video of his talk I hope they’ll resonate with you as well. I know that I’ll think twice about whether my work with clients on markets, messages and media is helping them focus on working from the inside out — why first, then how and finally what — so that they can connect best with their prospective clients and customers.

As always, I’d love to have your remarks and opinions. Thanks for reading.

Scoop.it

October 30, 2012February 5, 2013

The Marketing Seminar/Workshop – Encore Edition

The Marketing Seminar/Workshop – Table of Contents

A live encore presentation of The Marketing Seminar/Workshop will be held on January 24, 2013, in Northeast Portland. It has been produced and will be presented by Jon Turino, an award-winning speaker and one of Portland’s premier marketing strategy consultants. Here’s the Table of Contents for the session:

Helping Businesses Grow Through Better Marketing Strategies

Jon Turino Marketing Strategy Consultant Portland, OR

Our Agenda for Today
- A short presentation by Jon
- Workshop session
Where Is Your Marketing Plan?
Why a Plan?
The Process Flow
Elements of a Marketing Plan – 1
Elements of a Marketing Plan – 2
Elements of a Marketing Plan – 3
Who Are We Trying to Reach?
What Message(s) Are We Sending?
What Message(s) Are We Sending?
What Media Should We Use?
Social Media Considerations
Converting Leads to Customers
Other Elements to Consider
Other Tools in Your Arsenal
Your Networking World
Some Networking Tips
What’s In It For You?
Let’s Get You A Plan! – Workshop Session

Registration information will be forthcoming soon.

Link to Event Page with PayPal Registration Here.

October 29, 2012October 29, 2012

The Power of “Why?”

I’m prompted by reading a recent post on LinkedIn about what to do when clients ask you to do something wrong to offer some simple advice as to how to get that client to reach his or her own “Aha” moment and abandon their folly.

Simply ask “Why?” And continue to ask “Why?” until you get the same answer a minimum of three times in a row. You may, at this point, be fairly confident that you’ve discovered the root cause of the clients’ need, want or desire. And the client may, by this time, achieved the desired state of realization.

If you are a parent you know just how aggravating the constant “Why?” question from your young children can be. “Why is the sky blue?,” when asked by a 5-year-old, can’t reasonably be answered with an explanation of the layers of the atmosphere and the behavior of light in that atmosphere. Because the child won’t understand that answer and thus you will be faced with an innumerable and unending series of “why”s which will only beget another innumerable and unending series of additional “why” questions.

Far better to say something like “Because that’s the color Mother Nature wanted it to be.” If you get another “why” to this answer you’ll have to come up with some simple reason why Mother Nature would do such a thing, but you are not, in this case, constrained by reality or facts. You can use whatever it takes to end the questions, including distracting the child from that train of thought altogether. By asking, for example, “Why do you like brown (or pink or green or yellow) ice cream the best? Shall we go get some?”

When dealing in the real world of business with presumably educated and intelligent adults, however, the above example won’t work very well. You’ll want to have the client come up with real answers to your “why” questions so that you can eliminate the superficial or fallacious reasons that led to the request in the first place. You might ask “Why do you want to paint the delivery van chartreuse when the company logo colors are orange and brown?” If you get an answer like “Because my new girlfriend thinks it would be cute.” you can ask “And why do you think cute will be better than businesslike?” or something to that effect.

You can, and usually without upsetting the client too badly, get to a good solution using this powerful technique. Give it a try the next time you are faced with a demand that seems unreasonable. And please share with us the results. Why? Because I’ll bet they’ll be enlightening and humorous at the same time.

You can see some examples of wrongheadedness at 15 Question Silent Marketing Test, which also includes a video. Thanks for reading.

Scoop.it

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 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 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.