Small Innovations Vs Large Leaps

Most successful innovations
are small steps,
not giant leaps.

Why?

Because people don’t like change.
They’ll resist big changes.
They MIGHT embrace small changes,
products or services
that are only a little bit different
from the products or services
they are already buying.

Seth Godin
shares

“Human beings are
pattern-matching machines.
Changing our beliefs, though,
is something we rarely do.

It’s far easier to sell someone
on a new kind of fruit
than it is
to get them to eat crickets,
regardless of the data
you bring to the table.”

Consider small innovations.

Fighting For Everything

The cutoff grade for my program
at university was an 87 (out of a 100) average.
I squeaked in
with an 87.5 average.
I knew at least 33% of my classmates
would flunk out.
I knew I would have to work
extra hard
to go from the bottom of the class
to the top 67%.

I worked it
and I graduated.

Many of my classmates
with the high marks?
They didn’t graduate.
They had never worked for anything,
had always gotten by
on their greater than average intelligence.
When they faced their first failure,
they didn’t have the coping tactics
to push past it.

Seth Godin
shares

“You’re going to have to
fight for every single thing,
forever and ever.
It’s really unlikely
that they will pick you,
anoint you
or hand you
the audience
and support you seek.”

Knowing this,
knowing you’ll have to fight
for everything,
is a gift.
Use it.

Build ‘Em Up, Tear ‘Em Down

The media doesn’t like
normal.
Normal isn’t a story.
Normal doesn’t attract eyeballs.

To ‘fix’ this,
the media has settled
upon a formula.
They will build a person or product
or company
up,
broadcasting only positive stories.

Then, when the public gets bored
with that,
they will tear this latest star down,
broadcasting a slew of negative stories.

This works great…
for the media,
so great that smaller review sites
and bloggers and local newspapers
are using this tactic too.

There’s almost nothing
you can do about the tear down stage.
If the media doesn’t find legitimate dirt,
they will willfully misinterpret
anything and everything
to create dirt.

What you CAN do
is take full advantage of
the build up stage,
win those new customers over
completely,
make them super fans
so they’ll stick with you
during the tear down stage.

Know the media cycles
and use them.

Tony Robbins And Practice

Even when I was working
70 hour weeks
in new business development,
I wrote at least a page a day.
I practiced
and now I’m being rewarded.
I earn a solid living
from the writing.

Tony Robbins
shares

“People are rewarded in public
for what they’ve practiced in private
obsessively, intensely,
and relentlessly.
Most things
—including public speaking—
can be mastered
if you’re willing to put in
the time and energy.”

Practice,
even if it is merely
for a few minutes today.
You WILL improve.

Intermediate Sales Goals

One of my loved ones
recently started a new sales job.
He was given no existing clients.
His task is to secure huge deals.
These huge deals take
months, perhaps years.
For a long time,
he’ll be making no sales.

This creates two issues.
His manager will be challenged
by executives
as to whether or not
my loved one is adding value
to the company.
And my loved one
won’t have sales
to keep his confidence and excitement
pumped.

One of the ways he’s solving
both issues
is by logging the clients
he contacts
in his schedule,
noting which stage
the possible sale is in.

The manager can see
at a glance
that he’s progressing.
My loved one
also can celebrate
moving to the next stage
in each possible sale.

When working on huge sales deals,
break the process down
into stages
and celebrate each stage.

Published
Categorized as Sales

Click-To-Call Phone Number

More and more
prospects and customers
are accessing our websites
and our blogs
via their phones.

It makes sense
that we make it really easy
for these users
to use their preferred mode
of communication,
to be able to call us.

Gabriel Shaoolian,
Founder of
Blue Fountain Media,
shares

“To accommodate users,
placing your phone number
at the top of your mobile pages,
and using a click-to-call number,
can be incredibly helpful.

When users try to reach you
from their smartphone,
they expect instantaneous results.”

Consider adding
a click-to-call phone number
to your site.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Verifying References

A couple of weeks ago,
a personal assistant
started aggressively
promoting my books.

I didn’t ask her
to do this.
I certainly didn’t pay her
to do this.
She simply did it.

Yesterday,
she posted
on social media about
her personal assistant business,
listing me as one of her clients.

This happens
ALL the time.

Simply because someone lists
a certain person or business
as a reference
doesn’t mean they ARE a reference.

Always contact references.

Did You Read Today?

I am a USA Today Bestselling writer
and I read at least one article/post
about improving my writing
every single day.
I also read about marketing and sales
and emerging technologies.

Reading is valuable.

Michael Simmons
shares

“Warren Buffett spends five to six hours
per day
reading five newspapers
and 500 pages of corporate reports.

Bill Gates reads 50 books per year.

Mark Zuckerberg reads at least
one book every two weeks.

Elon Musk grew up reading
two books a day,
according to his brother.

Mark Cuban reads more than
three hours every day.

Arthur Blank, co-founder of Home Depot,
reads two hours a day.

Billionaire entrepreneur
David Rubenstein reads six books a week.

Dan Gilbert,
self-made billionaire
and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers,
reads one to two hours a day.”

Make reading about your industry,
about your area of expertise
a habit.

The Value Of Customer Contact

A salesman loved one
recently switched companies.
Most of his customers
switched with him.

This is why salespeople
are often paid more
than other employees.
This is also why
companies try to force
salespeople to use systems
that record their customer information.

In the romance publishing industry,
there’s a constant battle
between booksellers, publishers
and writers
over who ‘owns’ the reader.

Publishers will take sales-suppressing actions
like disallowing live sign up links
to a writer’s newsletter
in their books
as an attempt to force
the reader to contact them.
(This doesn’t work.)
They KNOW this costs them
short term sales
(sales of the next book in the series)
yet they still do this.

As Seth Godin
shares

“The reason that
Uber drivers will always struggle”

They don’t have
a relationship with the customer.
It turns out that finding a customer
and knowing where he wants to go
is almost as valuable as
having a car
and knowing how to drive it.
Because Uber and other middlemen
are earning permission
to connect with their customers,
the driver will always get
the short end of the stick.

They can easily replace the driver,
but the driver can’t easily replace Uber.”

If you have ANY opportunity
to directly contact
a customer,
take it.
This connection is
one of the most valuable assets
your business has.

Published
Categorized as Sales

Pokemon Go And The Small Business Advantage

I’ve posted previously
about some businesses
taking advantage
of the Pokemon Go phenomenon.

This is something
small businesses can do
quicker and sometimes better
than large businesses.

Tim Lynch,
Founder of
Psychsoftpc,
shares

“It’s important for small businesses
to be aware of trends
and get in on the trend
as it’s starting,
because the big guys
are going to be getting in
eventually.

The advantage of
being a small business
is that you’re going to be
an agile business,
so there’s not going to be
as much red tape
to cut through to do something.”

Sarah Pendley,
PR manager for VERTS,
shares

“Maybe your competitors
aren’t trying it,
but that doesn’t mean
you shouldn’t.

Jumping on these trends
won’t just help with your marketing.

Your consumers see that
you’re hip,
you’re on trend.

It helps with the PR aspect
of it as well.”

We have an advantage.
Consider using it.

Published
Categorized as Marketing