Uniqueness Mastery Workshop 2012: Only California Seats Remain!
Posted on 17. Feb, 2012 by Sean D'Souza in Blog, positioning, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
We have a party!
Most workshops are boring yak-yak sessions. Not a Psychotactics Workshop.You actually have a ton of fun at the workshop, because of the system in place
1) You get all the notes in advance. Weeks in advance. So you have time to learn without intimidation.
2) You spend 2/3 of the workshop actually working. I get to yak only a third of the time.
3) You spend most of your time outside the room, learning and working rather than sitting on your you-know-what!
If you look for books or courses on uniqueness, you’ll run into concepts.
Concepts that tell you, you should stand out.
So you have books like ‘Positioning’ or ‘Purple Cow’ and they all tell you that you should stand out. And they give you examples of how companies have stood out in the past.
And then you’re stuck. Because there’s no system.
There’s no methodology to take you from understanding the concept to actually implementing the concept in your business.
Worse still, once you do get your uniqueness, there’s no guideline to implement the uniqueness across your website, sales letters, articles etc. In short, the concept remains just conceptual and theoretical.
And this is why with over two and half months to go, two venues are full already!
Washington DC filled up first, followed shortly by London. And now only California remains!
This isn’t your run of the mill event. When you come to a Psychotactics workshop, you get not just training on the topic itself,
but an insider view on how to host a workshop yourself.
Check it out. Judge for yourself. Before all the seats are gone!
Uniqueness Mastery Workshop
s-
P.S. Prices will continue to rise.
Make sure you don’t pay the higher prices. They’ve already risen once, and will continue to go up.
Free!: How To Create Your Uniqueness Series (Yup, it’s here!)
Posted on 09. Jan, 2012 by Sean D'Souza in Blog, branding, positioning, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Have you heard about Domino’s Pizza?
What about FedEx?
And how about the uniqueness of Volvo?
So yeah, these companies found their uniqueness.
But what about you? Why can’t you find or create your own uniqueness?
Why does the uniqueness of your products and services play hide and seek with you?
And more importantly, is it free?
Oooh yes it is!
So as promised here’s your uniqueness series that starts on Jan 10th (3pm Eastern). You get videos, articles, cartoons—and pretty much anything else I can think of.
So where do you find all these goodies? And what’s the catch?
Find out more at: Free Uniqueness Goodies
You’ll just love what you see!
Warm regards from a psycho-summer (yup, that’s our summer so far).
Sean
P.S. Yes, you guessed right. There’s also a live workshop. And yes, you can read about the details when you fill in the form at the page above.
Four Stories Every Business Must Build
Posted on 21. Sep, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, personality, positioning, purpose, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, storytelling
Four Stories Every Business Must Build
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Stories build commitment. They allow us to go on journeys in search of our best self. They entertain, simplify, and inspire. They are easy to share. Great leaders are often great storytellers.
Sugar Pond via Flickr
The power of story as a business building and marketing tool is undeniable. A simple story can draw upon our emotional desires in ways that reams and reams of logical data never will.
While an uplifting story or even a tragic story can capture the listener’s interest, the real power of storytelling in business is that it permits a business to illustrate values and beliefs in action.
It’s one thing to say we’re trustworthy and quite another to share a story about the day your employees went without a paycheck because they so believed in what you were building and trusted you would make things right when you recovered from this unforeseen challenge.
I believe that every business must find and tell their core stories over and over again and then they must invite their employees, customers and networks to help build these stories into journeys worth taking over and over again.
Below are four core stories that must live in every business
The Passion Story
The is often the owner’s story, a tale of why they started the business, how the business serves their own personal mission or purpose in life. Why they get up and go to work, why they love what they do or what happened in life that set them on their current path.
The interior of the Grand Jury hearing room was anything but grand. It consisted of a handful of plastic chairs arranged in a way that made the jurists feel more like an audience than a court appointed arm of the United States Justice Department. Although I distinctly remember the lights, maybe it was me, but they seemed awfully bright.
What could I possibly have to offer as a witness in a hearing determined to bring federal charges upon one of my clients? As it turned out I was very boring witness with nothing to offer the case, but it was a turning point in my business and perhaps my life.
In the effort to build my business I had taken on a client that I knew was doing things I couldn’t support, that were counter to my own values, and I knew also in that moment that I would never again do business with a customer I didn’t respect.
And that’s part of my passion story. (To get the rest you need to buy the tell all book. Well, not really.)
The Purpose Story
This is mostly the story about why you do what you do in business and not at all about what you do. For many people this can be a story about mission or higher calling, but it can also be about who you serve and why.
When I was just starting to dream up the concept of Duct Tape Marketing I was operating my business as a traditional local marketing agency and doing work for organizations large and small – although I had already determined that I loved working with small business owners the most.
I had completed a very small amount of work for a very large organization and sent them in invoice for $1,525.00. When they paid the invoice, 90 days later, I opened the envelope and found a check for $152,500.00.
While there was a moment of temptation, I knew I had to return the check. I called and was directed to the five forms I needed to complete in order to return the check if I was to have any hope of getting my original bill paid.
That was the day I determined I was going to work with small business owners exclusively and set out to figure out how I could do that. There’s something equal parts gratifying and terrifying about doing work directly for the person paying the bill.
And that’s part of my purpose story.
The Positioning Story
This is the story that illustrates how you want the market to perceive your brand. Of course, perception is partly a goal and partly a measurement because some things are out of your hands. A true positioning story, however, is one that authentically captures your purpose in action – it’s how purpose is packaged in a way that allows the intended market to connect.
And, the best positioning, the best positioning stories can usually be summed up in one word.
Early on in my marketing consulting business I was invited to be part of a pitch for a very large piece of business. It was a national firm that wanted to hire a national ad agency, but also include a local marketing support company for the local branch.
The New York ad agency sent five people, all clad in black head to toe and armed with a 100-page deck filled with research and recommendations.
When it came time for me to offer my two cents I said something like – I don’t know, why don’t we just talk to some of your current customers? The meeting ended and the next day the VP that was conducting the search called and said he wanted me to do the entire project without the New York ad agency. To this day I can hear him say why – “you were the only one that said anything that was practical.”
And that’s part of my positioning story.
The Personality Story
This is the story that gets at how people experience your purpose or brand. This is the story that illustrates the traits that are on display in every action, product, service, decision, hire, process or promotion.
There’s a story behind how I came up with the name Duct Tape Marketing, but the real reason this name has served my brand so well is the association that people already have with all things duct tape. This allows them to connect their own personal stories of simple, effective and affordable use of this cuddly gray sticky stuff. (Okay, cuddly might be over the top, but you get it.)
The name comes packaged with its own personality traits and the only trick is to make sure that people experience the brand and the business in that same way.
And now for where the name came from . . . with apologies to my daughters.
My wife I decided to take a little mini vacation and figured the two oldest girls (high school sophomore and junior) could act as babysitters. You probably know where this is going and you’re right.
The party peeked at about 100 people I’m told. One of the guests decided to take my car for spin as well and bumped it into something just hard enough to knock a piece of plastic bumper off. In an effort to hide the damage my daughters duct taped the piece masterfully back in place.
There is a chance they would have gotten away with it too, but they carelessly left the role of duct tape sitting on the car hood, creating immediate suspicion when we arrived home.
The thing is, that’s when I knew Duct Tape Marketing would be the perfect name. If a sixteen year old could recognize the simple, effective and affordable use, then it might just be universally true as well.
And that’s part of my personality story.
The 4Ps of a Fully Alive Business
Posted on 12. Sep, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, personality, positioning, purpose, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
The 4Ps of a Fully Alive Business
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Back in the early 1960’s the American Marketing Association coined the term the “Four ‘P’s” as a way to describe the essential elements of the marketing mix. Since that time every first year marketing student has been taught to think in terms of product, price, place and promotion as they analyze case studies of companies real and imagined.
Much has changed in the last 50 years, including what product really is, what place entails, how package plays a role and well, pretty much everything about what promotion looks like.
In fact, the very definition of marketing has changed dramatically enough to render the original Four P’s somewhat useless as a foundational marketing and business strategy concept.
Today’s most important business and marketing directive is one of building trust. Engagement, connection and story are the new forms of promotional art. Price is a function of value and place has become bytes and ether more often than a shelf or an office.
There is a home for the Four P’s in today’s business but it’s in the very mortar of the business and the story of its people rather than in a department on an org chart.
That Four P’s are now more about how a business is experienced than what it sells. They reside in the expression of human characteristics that turn commitment into culture and culture into customer.
The following elements make up a redefinition of the Four P’s for the fully alive business and further make the case that marketing is everything you do and every business is really a marketing business.
Passion
The first element of the Four P’s in a fully alive business is the passion for living that the owner of the business brings. When the founder of a business can serve their own personal passion and purpose by growing the business good things can evolve.
The leader of a business must have a great sense of passion for the business, but they also must be able to connect that passion with purpose in order to bring out the desire to commit in others. Leading with passion is how put yourself out there and do what you were meant to do.
“A ship in port is safe but that’s not what ships are built for.” ~ Grace Murray Hopper
Purpose
Purpose is how a business defines why it does what it does. It is the reason people are drawn to work in a business, it’s the reason they come to life inside the business and it’s the reason customers voluntarily become loyal ambassadors of the brand.
Purpose builds trust because it allows people to see their own values in action in support of something they strongly believe. A regular paycheck, important sounding title, or great deal on a cool product, probably doesn’t invoke much in the way of purpose.
Joining a business that is on an epic journey to create joy, change an age old industry, innovate under the nose of a Goliath, or just do a great deal more of the right thing – that’s purpose, that’s not simply a business it’s a cause and people will do some remarkable things inside and around the support of their cause.
Positioning
Organizations that understand the power of purpose also understand that purpose is what they need to package as their reason for being, core difference and position in the market. They lead with why and let those attracted to that why create their own definition of what.
In fact, brands that start with purpose over product can effectively enter most any market with the same positioning and compete with entrenched category leaders. I know it’s become cliché to cite Apple as an example, but this computer company routinely blows competitors away in any market they enter. Think mp3 players and mobile devices – two categories they entered and dominate even though they’re a computer company.
Apple’s sense of why is so prevalent in their positioning that it wouldn’t surprise me if they entered the coffee market and became the category darling.
Personality
The final P is how a business uses desirable human traits or personality characteristics a vehicle to allow all that encounter the business to actually experience purpose.
It’s one thing to state your purpose on a plaque or marketing brochure, it’s another think entirely to live by a tangible set of daily habits, language and process that offer proof of purpose.
We are drawn to people and experience that are simple, inspirational, convenient, innovative, playful, community oriented and filled with surprise. These are the personality traits that of a fully alive business uses as the everyday creative language of the business.
These traits act as the filter for every decision and make up how the business is run internally and the brand is experienced externally.
Imagine what would occur if every college students today were taught these Four P’s. Imagine if every business were started with this framework. Imagine if everyone could go to work for a company built with this way of thinking at its core. Imagine if we could experience these Four P’s by simply becoming a customer of your business? What would that be like?
I don’t know, I think it would be pretty great.
The 4Ps of a Fully Alive Business
Posted on 12. Sep, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, personality, positioning, purpose, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
The 4Ps of a Fully Alive Business
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Back in the early 1960’s the American Marketing Association coined the term the “Four ‘P’s” as a way to describe the essential elements of the marketing mix. Since that time every first year marketing student has been taught to think in terms of product, price, place and promotion as they analyze case studies of companies real and imagined.
Much has changed in the last 50 years, including what product really is, what place entails, how package plays a role and well, pretty much everything about what promotion looks like.
In fact, the very definition of marketing has changed dramatically enough to render the original Four P’s somewhat useless as a foundational marketing and business strategy concept.
Today’s most important business and marketing directive is one of building trust. Engagement, connection and story are the new forms of promotional art. Price is a function of value and place has become bytes and ether more often than a shelf or an office.
There is a home for the Four P’s in today’s business but it’s in the very mortar of the business and the story of its people rather than in a department on an org chart.
That Four P’s are now more about how a business is experienced than what it sells. They reside in the expression of human characteristics that turn commitment into culture and culture into customer.
The following elements make up a redefinition of the Four P’s for the fully alive business and further make the case that marketing is everything you do and every business is really a marketing business.
Passion
The first element of the Four P’s in a fully alive business is the passion for living that the owner of the business brings. When the founder of a business can serve their own personal passion and purpose by growing the business good things can evolve.
The leader of a business must have a great sense of passion for the business, but they also must be able to connect that passion with purpose in order to bring out the desire to commit in others. Leading with passion is how put yourself out there and do what you were meant to do.
“A ship in port is safe but that’s not what ships are built for.” ~ Grace Murray Hopper
Purpose
Purpose is how a business defines why it does what it does. It is the reason people are drawn to work in a business, it’s the reason they come to life inside the business and it’s the reason customers voluntarily become loyal ambassadors of the brand.
Purpose builds trust because it allows people to see their own values in action in support of something they strongly believe. A regular paycheck, important sounding title, or great deal on a cool product, probably doesn’t invoke much in the way of purpose.
Joining a business that is on an epic journey to create joy, change an age old industry, innovate under the nose of a Goliath, or just do a great deal more of the right thing – that’s purpose, that’s not simply a business it’s a cause and people will do some remarkable things inside and around the support of their cause.
Positioning
Organizations that understand the power of purpose also understand that purpose is what they need to package as their reason for being, core difference and position in the market. They lead with why and let those attracted to that why create their own definition of what.
In fact, brands that start with purpose over product can effectively enter most any market with the same positioning and compete with entrenched category leaders. I know it’s become cliché to cite Apple as an example, but this computer company routinely blows competitors away in any market they enter. Think mp3 players and mobile devices – two categories they entered and dominate even though they’re a computer company.
Apple’s sense of why is so prevalent in their positioning that it wouldn’t surprise me if they entered the coffee market and became the category darling.
Personality
The final P is how a business uses desirable human traits or personality characteristics a vehicle to allow all that encounter the business to actually experience purpose.
It’s one thing to state your purpose on a plaque or marketing brochure, it’s another think entirely to live by a tangible set of daily habits, language and process that offer proof of purpose.
We are drawn to people and experience that are simple, inspirational, convenient, innovative, playful, community oriented and filled with surprise. These are the personality traits that of a fully alive business uses as the everyday creative language of the business.
These traits act as the filter for every decision and make up how the business is run internally and the brand is experienced externally.
Imagine what would occur if every college students today were taught these Four P’s. Imagine if every business were started with this framework. Imagine if everyone could go to work for a company built with this way of thinking at its core. Imagine if we could experience these Four P’s by simply becoming a customer of your business? What would that be like?
I don’t know, I think it would be pretty great.
Are Product Launches Peddling For Profits?
Posted on 09. Apr, 2010 by Michel Fortin in authority, awareness, Blog, distribution, FTC, manufacturer, marketer, Opinions, positioning, proof, psychology, relationship, salesletter, selling, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, success, urgency, value
After participating in a recent product launch (something I very rarely do), our Platinum Group was discussing the issue and I wanted to share those insights with you.
Considering the recent hysteria behind the massive Apple iPad launch, it got me thinking about how most Internet marketers conduct their product launches.
Most of them work because they’re based on basic human psychology. But I believe people who do use it do it poorly.
In fact, I think they do so because the strategy, particularly as it applies to Internet marketing and digital products specifically, is inherently flawed. What I mean is, in order for it to work — and work well — it must rely on three major factors:
- Anticipation
- Social proof
- Scarcity/urgency
Granted, you can manufacture these. And when you sell Internet, digital, or information products, you have to. Why? Because these products are, or are seen as, limitless.
And therein lies the rub…
The best and most profitable launches in history didn’t rely on any of these. At least, not in a direct way. Sure, these factors do play a huge role in most successful launches. But they occur almost as natural byproducts. They are not manufactured.
And that’s exactly what iPad did for their launch day. They used #1 (anticipation) and #2 (social proof). But they didn’t use #3. In other words, they launched without the need to create or promote any kind of manufactured scarcity.
Why? Because they didn’t need to.
Obviously, iPad is a physical product, which is naturally limited. That scarcity was made even greater on launch day because of #1 and #2. In other words, they didn’t have to “close their doors” and reopen them at some later date to create scarcity.
Granted, Apple may have limited their in-store stocks on launch day to create more demand. I don’t know. And they did a lot more. Seth Godin shares a few others. But I’m referring to the product launch strategy’s three major factors specifically.
My point here is, natural scarcity or creating a genuine sense of urgency — better said, possessing or projecting one — will trump a manufactured one. Every time.
Manufactured scarcity appears self-centered, questionable, and suspicious. When you look at how the FTC, Visa/MasterCard, Google, and now Facebook — with its recent slap — frown upon generated scarcity, you know people are lashing out against the practice.
When Jobs introduced the upcoming iPad, it created a ton of anticipation. With the iPhone being as popular as it was, news generated inherent social proof since people already had experiences with the iPhone.
But there’s more to it than that.
Apple created genuine scarcity because they have strong brand recognition, are well positioned, and have a history of delivering solid products with great value. They didn’t have to poach other people’s lists, create sales contests, or use high-pressure tactics.
Now, I’m not saying joint ventures, sales contests, and manufactured scarcity are wrong. But if you keep using them, product launch after product launch, then chances are you will be be seen as nothing more than a salesman. A slick, smarmy, snake-oil peddler.
(That’s not just my opinion, either.)
Apple didn’t create demand, which is why they didn’t need to manufacture scarcity. Whether the product was a physical one didn’t matter. To paraphrase Gene Schwartz in Breakthrough Advertising, “They didn’t create demand, they merely channeled it.”
Speaking of channeling demand, let’s look at some of the differences.
When I used to teach marketing management in college, there are two schools of thought in marketing. One is called the pull strategy, and the other the push strategy.
What do they mean? With the push marketing strategy, you are pushing the product through distribution channels. A “channel” can be, for instance:
Manufacturer
Distributor
In Internet Marketing and with downloadable products, the channel looks more like this:
Seller/Vendor
The push strategy is the one most often used by salespeople, infomercials, direct response advertisers, and direct marketers. And, obviously, Internet marketers, too.
The pull strategy, on the other hand, is where reputation and recognition generate awareness and demand. And that demand pulls the product through the distribution channel — thus requiring a lot less legwork, and a lot less need to sell. For example:
Consumer
Store
Now, let me put this in a better perspective for you.
Ostensibly, a push strategy can make a lot of money. There’s no denying that. That’s how many marketers make their “millions,” particularly via these massive product launch parades. Problem is, you have to constantly push products to stay afloat.
Sadly, this constant need to push products creates that unflattering “salesman” stigma, where most Internet marketers are largely seen as peddlers and not businesses.
In order to stay alive — or to maintain their standard of living — most Internet marketers need to constantly create new products, make new offers, and seek new “addicts” to push their products onto. (Sounds dangerously close to drug dealers, doesn’t it?)
That’s why most of them churn and burn their lists.
If they stop pushing more products, there is no business.
That’s why Sylvie and I call them “serial drive-by marketers.”
If you use a pull strategy, or complement your existing push strategy with a strong pull strategy, you will work a lot less. The rest will almost take care of itself. The business will keep going, no matter what. And above all, there will be less of that peddler stigma.
What constitutes a strong pull strategy?
Aside from offering in-demand products and solid value, there’s positioning, brand recognition, business identity, good customer service, a loyal fan base, authority in your field, and strong relationships with your customers and prospects. Just to name a few.
(Sure, there are more than that. But how many Internet marketers use any of them? Very little. For example, how many online salesletters have you seen with a logo? ‘Nuff said.)
Think of it this way: there’s a difference between the pawn-shop mentality and the retail store mentality. The former constantly needs products on its shelves to sell to stay alive. But the latter doesn’t need new products to sell. (And by “new” I mean “more.”)
Rather, retail stores need traffic. Consumers. Markets. People with needs. You simply create products to fill needs, not create needs (such as using fake scarcity) so you can shove your products down people’s throats during some big, limited product launch.
In other words, we need to think more like a retail store than like a pawn shop.
Now, I’m not saying we need to become like Wal-Mart or some other big box store. And we don’t need to focus on branding alone, or to advertise via some upscale, big budget, Madison Avenue advertising firm like many big brand stores do. No, not at all.
But we need to think like Wal-Mart.
We need to think like an Internet marketing business instead of like a peddler.
How would you feel if, upon entering your local Wal-Mart, they only had one product available at any given time? Or they had limited quantities of a product you know well and good wasn’t limited? Or they used high-pressure, time-sensitive tactics to sell you?
Sadly, most Internet marketers conduct their business like pawn shops. I’m not saying we should stop using direct response. Direct marketing, particularly for small businesses, is essential. But it should complement a good business strategy. Not replace it.
How great would it be if you sold products like crazy simply because people asked? How great would it be if you never had to sell or use any kind of manufactured scarcity to sell? And how much more money would you make, especially over the long term?
Bottom line, start focusing on creating long-term, solid businesses rather making serialized promotions for subpar products with time-limited, over-the-top product launches that at best merely provide short-term cash injections.
Something to think about.
By the way, if you’re interested in how to become a recognized authority, and position yourself and your business in a way that generates authentic demand and scarcity, then I encourage you to come to next week’s Authority Event in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Are Product Launches Peddling For Profits? originally appeared on The Michel Fortin Blog. Please visit to subscribe to it, or Tweet This.
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