I’ve barely been here 2 hours, and I can already tell that this is not where the real innovators are hanging out. The folks here at CES might be showcasing ‘new’ products, but as my lunch table companion pointed out, most of the products I’ll see on the showroom floor have been in development for several years. Couple that with the fact that the booth trolls are in charge, and you can see why I don’t hold out much hope of bumping into the next game-changer.
Why?
Because he or she is probably holed up in a garage somewhere, trying to figure out what else can be sold to pay for the materials needed to bring the dream to life. Don’t get me wrong: there are some amazing products on display. But the really amazing ideas, the ones that will really blow the doors off the future? They’re still out there, waiting to be brought to life…maybe by you?
Well, what are you waiting for? What would it take for you to get started?
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For weeks now, all I’ve been hearing is people talking about how they can’t wait for 2010 to be over and a brand new year to begin. In fact, I joined in that chorus a time or two. No doubt, 2010 was a rough year.
But it’s over now.
We’re officially three days in to 2011, and from the looks of things, it has the potential to be a truly amazing year. Personally, I’m excited to be kicking things off in style with the International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, NV. This will be my first CES, and I can’t wait to get there.
It also rocks because I’ll be making the trip to Vegas with my friend and fellow blogger, Ryan Snethen. Ryan is a very cool cat who knows his music and movies, and the more obscure, the better. His “Did You Miss It?” blog is chock-full of movies you might have missed. He’s also a writer and an entrepreneur. We’re making the 10-hour trip by car, so we’ll have lots of time to brainstorm new ideas. Can’t wait!
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This article will appear in my “Selling Points” column in the February 2011 issue of TLT Magazine. You get a preview; after all, membership has it’s privileges!
With the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a little over a week away, I’m being bombarded with email requests from companies and publicity firms asking me to “stop by our booth” to see the latest blah, blah, blah…
I’ve got all the emails flagged for follow-up; I know I need to get back to all of them and make the appointments and yet I can’t quite bring myself to do it, mostly because I just don’t care. Don’t get me wrong: I’m really looking forward to the show and getting the chance to see, touch and play with all the new toys that will soon hit the shelves of your local Best Buy. And I’m really looking forward to four days in Las Vegas. What I don’t care about is the hype.
I have some bad news for you: nobody, and I do mean NOBODY, cares about your new products nearly as much as you do. I know that probably comes as a bit of a shock; after all, your company may have dumped hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of dollars into researching, developing and testing that new product. You may be prepared to spend millions more on marketing it to the public. It’s sad, I know, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t care.
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I’m a few chapters into “Changing the Conversation” by Gary Klaben, who was kind enough to contribute a guest post here yesterday (full disclosure: yes, they did send me a free copy of the book).
The book is great so far, and I’m looking forward to the rest of it, but this paragraph caught my eye and made me want to write a quick post:
“We want a relationship. A relationship that begins with a conversation well-grounded in authority and trust. A conversation that is about us. A conversation that leads to a tailored solution based on our specific needs. That adds value. That fulfills a purpose. We want to be convincingly yet gently pulled to a decision.”
Think about your own experiences as a customer; isn’t that exactly how you want to be treated? Let me ask you this, though: when was the last time you actually were treated that way? Chances are pretty good that it stands out in your memory because it doesn’t happen very often.
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Gary Klaben
Today, there is a strong pull between the profit maximizers and the purpose maximizers. It is not that working on Wall Street or Main Street for large companies is all about profit maximization, or that starting a small business is all about purpose maximization. It is about the tide turning towards purpose, while maintaining profit.
In Daniel Pink’s recent book, Drive (2010), he identifies and discusses three types of motivation. Motivation 1.0 is the basic need to survive. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors spent nearly all their time fulfilling this need. Motivation 2.0 involves seeking rewards and avoiding punishment. From the time of antiquity through the 20th century, this was the primary motivator after achieving survival. Finally, motivation 3.0 seeks internal, intrinsic satisfaction — the fruit of personal freedom, challenge and purpose. What we like to call MVP (meaning, value & purpose).
Ours is a motivation 3.0 world. The unexpected and unpredictable will increasingly occur. Change is the only constant. Continual surprises! Microsoft’s digital Encarta encyclopedia — a profit maximizer — lost out to tens of thousands of online hobbyists writing and editing topics in Wikipedia’s open-source, interactive encyclopedia without pay — a purpose maximizer.
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Delivering outstanding customer service is simple: just give your customers everything they expect and then some.
If you think your customers’ expectations are too high or if you’re just not willing to make the commitment to do whatever it takes to make them happy, please don’t whine when they choose to do business with someone who will.
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I’ve been enjoying the looks on the faces of internet marketing folks I meet when I tell them about the two domain names that I registered this week: JustSayNoToSEO.com and SEOIsUseless.com.
Some stare in wide-eyed horror, failed by words, others gasp and clutch at their hearts, and still others start to hyperventilate. It’s pretty funny, if you’re the kind of person who enjoys upsetting apple carts. Which I am.
The way I see it, many of the SEO practices out there are a lot like the “closing techniques” and other slimy sales practices that so-called sales experts teach; they’re designed to shortcut anything that resembles effort. I learned a long time ago that shortcuts like that don’t work in the long term.
For a sales professional to be truly successful, she needs to know a lot more than a couple of lame closes; she needs to have a great product, to pay attention to her customers, to ask questions, to follow through on her commitments, all of which take effort and hard work.
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OK, I really need someone to tell me where all the days are going. Have you ever seen that 80′s movie, Looker? I saw it something like two dozen times on HBO when I was a kid. The bad guys had this really cool weapon that you could point at someone and basically freeze them for a few minutes, so that when they woke up they’d feel like they had moved forward in time; you could also smack them around while they were “frozen”.
Yeah…that’s kind of what these past few weeks have been like. I keep waking up thinking “Now what the devil happened to Tuesday? I could have sworn I left it here somewhere…”
I blame The Blog Whisperer. Since that guy showed up, I’ve been introduced to the meaning of busy…and a lot of new clients. Don’t get me wrong; it’s definitely a good thing; in fact, it’s exactly what I wanted. I’m just in that adjustment period, I guess, trying to figure out how to keep everything moving forward and not lose track of anything important along the way.
I’ve written here before about the fact that I don’t really believe in work-life balance. I’ve made a conscious decision that, for the foreseeable future at least, I’m going to throw myself whole-hog into my work. It helps that I love my work; I can’t imagine I’d be as motivated to do something that I didn’t love, let alone something that I hated with every fiber of my being.
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Let’s talk about billboards.
Seriously? Where I live in Sacramento, ClearChannel has just erected about 10 new electronic billboards and, from the looks of things, major corporations (like Bloomberg and Yahoo!) are lining up to pay the big bucks to be featured on these larger than life TVs. Unbelievable. This is a prime example of…
Mistake #5: You Don’t Follow Up To Make Sure They Did It
Millions, if not billions, of dollars are spent every year on marketing efforts that are supposed to “raise awareness” of the brands who are spending the money. Please. I’d be hard pressed to find a worse use of those marketing funds, especially when there is no way for the companies who are spending the money to measure the effectiveness of the ads.
The Bloomberg ads that are currently running on the new electronic billboards in Sacramento are a perfect example: they essentially say “Bloomberg is for smart people; you should watch it.” Really? I can’t imagine how Bloomberg expects to measure the return on this campaign, other than to make a random attribution of the 0.1% increase in viewership following the ad campaign to the billboards. What a waste.
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I hope you’re enjoying this series about the five marketing mistakes everyone makes (and how to avoid them). By way of a recap, so far we’ve talked about how to determine who, specifically, you’re talking to, how to determine what action you want them to take next, and how to go about asking them to do it. If you’ve come this far, then you definitely don’t want to fall victim to…
Mistake #4 – You Don’t Give Them a Compelling Reason To DO IT NOW!
Sometimes, just asking your prospect to take some specific action isn’t enough; you have to give them a reason to take the next step, and to take it immediately. Why the hurry?
If your prospect doesn’t take the desired action right away, what do you think are the odds he or she will remember to do it later, especially when no longer under the spell of your alluring marketing piece? I’ll tell you: the odds are non-existent. If your prospect doesn’t take the action you want her to NOW, you’ve likely lost your only shot. That said, how do you get them to do something immediately?
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