The Night Guy
Once again, Genevieve Hayes came up with a follow up to yesterday’s message: The Elephant. “I think Jerry Seinfeld expressed this one best:” This is what got me to stop passing my problems forward and making them the problems of “future me”. Mic drop, Genevieve.
Pushy marketing
It’s going into convince mode. It’s pushing your products or services down your market’s throats. Trying really hard to show you’re worth it. To show you’re really good. To prove yourself to the world. It focuses all of your energy on you and how you can beat the competition, how to keep them from getting smart, how to get things complex. How to keep them dumb. It’s all about your brand. About you. And that’s pushy. And reeks of desperation. You can let that go. And focus on helping your…
Telling the difference
Customers might not tell the difference between great work, good-enough work, and mediocre work. But they sure know a good service from a shit one.
When is the best time to look for money?
When you don’t need it. It lets you explore ideas, try things out and say no with no emotional load involved. Because when you do need it (money), you’ll have to say yes to everything. Your No’s will be less selective. And you’ll get more sunk costs in it. So, now might be the best time to start trying out things. Better now than later. When you might be in a position of actually needing it.
Evaluating decisions
You can get to the same event / happening and evaluate in different ways. And if you try to compare them, you need to have clear which was the intend for each of them. It won’t necessarily always be the same criteria. Sometimes you do things to show force in your market. Other times to grow accounts. Some others, to show up where your competition doesn’t expect you. And others, to just be there. Each one has a specific criteria. And a potential outcome. Knowing how to differentiate them will…
How did you come up with the prices?
That’s a question I got this morning from a client whose prices were implemented. The answer was this: Because pricing has numbers in it, but has very little (to nothing) to do with calculations and math. A price is the maximum amount of money to pay that is accepted by the buyers in function of the value they get. If they accept it and they’re fine with it, it’s for them to decide. It has nothing to do with what the business “thinks” of it, as whether it’s “expensive” or not. Or if inflation…
The wrong incentives
Charging by the hour creates the wrong incentives. Focusing solely on revenue creates the wrong incentives. Applying discounts without a clear criteria and policy creates the wrong incentives. Serving everyone creates the wrong incentives. Leaving things to wait so that you don’t face the hard decisions now creates the wrong incentives. Trying to make compromises with 2 opposite approaches creates the wrong incentives. Overlooking bad behaviors creates the wrong incentives. And when your…
A new series
Pre-S. Got down on a flu for a few days. No fun at all. But all good. We’re back at it. 🙂 Now, onto our thing. A new series: Marketing misconceptions It’ll be a few dailies on things clients, friends, and lots of people have a sort of an understanding, but easily gets mixed up with other things —or in the ways that things were taught. Having these things better understood will bring you clarity in your decision-making for your business. It will certainly give you an advantage to most of your…
Ep 1. Push and Pull
Push or Pull marketing? None. Because they don’t actually exist. Here’s why. What most seem to forget is the final part of it: Push or Pull marketing strategies. It’s actually a strategy that gets applied to the customer in a context of distribution (aka how you get to more people buying). What does it mean, anyways? It takes the center on the customer. It’s a push ON them or a pull FROM them. Has nothing to do with you. (: Push You push your offering towards your customers. You take…
Ep 2. Selling
Selling. The dirty word. Makes you cringe. A natural reaction. When it’s understood as we’ve been taught: convincing, finding ways to sneak in things that will be (mostly) in your favor, doing whatever it takes even when it feels wrong. You can try a different conception of Selling: “Helping people you like get what they want” Jonathan Stark. Because selling can be seen as not trying to convince anyone of anything. It’s vetting them to see if they’re a fit for you. Vetting them if it makes…