Now what do you think about that?

Dumb or what?

So what? Big deal. What’s it got to do with me and my life. Well, I absolutely agree with you.

But wait a minute. Just ask yourself. Did you know the answer to the question what living creature has the biggest eye in the world? Be honest here. Unless you’re some weird nut who studies this sort of stuff for a thesis you didn’t.

Looking further though, just suppose there was some information you did not know about, that was to do with something you’re passionate about? Aha! Got you didn’t I?!

Here’s the thing. Take any topic, subject, or issue, you really are interested in, and apply the same thought process. I bet you’d walk over broken glass to find that key information to do with your pet hobby, work etc. as if your life depended on it.

This has everything to do with marketing and growing your business. If you’re not passionate about growing your business then you should not be here, so you can leave now. I’ll not be offended. I know things about marketing you don’t. I’ve spent the time and money to dig up and find out about tips, techniques, strategies few in business really know about. I’ve done this so I can bring you key stuff that works to make a big difference to your bottom line profits.

If this is the sort of information you desperately want to grab hold of, then you know what to do. Just call Tel: 01372 459955 now and tell me want you want to achieve. You may find you can get there quicker than you thought.

C

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Unique_selling_proposition

EVP a new 21st Century revision for USP

In marketing terms the acronym “USP” is of great importance to any business. A new revision may bring this valued service to business up to date. It is “Exclusive Vending Proposal”* or “EVP”. This is not simply a recapitulation for no good reason.

Firstly “unique” is a hard task master and few businesses can attain it in the marketplace today. Yet all businesses must aspire to uniqueness. “Exclusive” is an easier level of achievement to gain, yet it does not diminish its value in the marketplace. Indeed “unique” has connotations of being totally singular whereas “exclusive” has a plural position, but one where the boundaries are set to avoid commonality. This has the effect of increasing the value (perceived or real) of a business offering.

The word “selling” has negative connotations in the ears of a prospective buyer because no one wants to be sold something. Therefore all reference to sales, sell, sold, or selling are less desirable words to be used. “Vending” has no such negative associations and hence from a business viewpoint will create a less vexed position of association in all business personnel involved in business growth.

This brings us to the last word “proposition”. It is well known the oldest profession gains its business by this method but a “proposal” is that which goes before marriage and is more celebrated and positive. After all who likes to be “propositioned”?

This new expression “Exclusive Vending Proposal” was first coined in July 2009 by Christopher Doran in United Kingdom.

Just last night my youngest daughter came to get me to look at a website she was looking at. At first I have to admit I wasn’t bothered to make a move to just see a web page but after a lot of encouraging I moved myself to see what all the fuss was about. Just as an aside here if you need to find the best sales people look no further than children. They simply are the best closers on the planet.

Anyway I got to the computer and she clicked on a video link that went straight through to a video on You Tube. What I saw was staggering but not for the immediately obvious reason.

Here was a short video clip of a baby. No big deal, so far. Cute yes, loved by its parents I’m sure but nothing extraordinary in the video. It was a baby boy sitting in his high chair in a room.

What was he doing?

Well firstly before we get to that, let me explain there was an odd noise on the video presumably his Dad making sounds Dad’s do all over the planet to their babies to get a reaction from them. This Dad was making a number of weird sounds intermittently. You couldn’t see the Dad as he was either behind the camera taking the shots or just out of view.

So what was the baby doing?

Well, he was simply laughing. Just that. Every time his laughter started to wane a bit, his Dad started another noise that started him laughing again. Now this went on. And then continued. I guess I was waiting for something else to happen. The thing is nothing did. It was just a clip about two minutes long of this one shot of this little baby laughing. The boy did not stop he just kept on laughing prompted by his father in the background making silly noises. In fact he wasn’t just laughing he was gurgling out a really deep resonant chuckle and it just went on and on.

So what on earth is the big deal here, and what the devil has it to do with marketing my business your business or anyone’s business?

Good question. I completely agree with you.

Here is what is incredible.

Do you know that this clip has been watch by over one hundred million viewers! Sure maybe some of them have watched the clip again or even a few times, but 100,000,000 views of this simple short one screen shot clip is unbelievable!

No wonder this boy was laughing so much. He had found out the key ingredient to driving a ton of traffic to his web site - in this case his very own video production.

Now you will probably say he wasn’t selling anything. Wasn’t he though!? He was selling what every business needs to think very carefully indeed about - what is really important to the everyone on the planet: feeling good. If you can take the essence of what this baby boy was offering and take it into what you are marketing and selling you will transform your business overnight.

The challenge is to work out a way in which to do just that. If a baby under the age of two can do it, why can’t you?!

He connected with a population twice the size of Britain and he didn’t have a clue he was doing it! Just imagine if you could go back in time, and grab hold of the essence of what you had in those days, and bring in forward into your adult life? We unlearn so much from our early life we don’t realise how important key parts of it are, that hold the answer to so much achievement in our later careers and of course businesses.

Just also imagine the scene when this boy becomes adult and sees just how much raw power he held in his hands all those years ago and stands in awe of his junior self! Then imagine what he would think such traffic could do for his business if he could get a fraction of it? Then feel his frustration when he struggles to do just that - work out how to indeed get the hits to his web site he maybe promoting.

Isn’t this the key to the problem all business owners face? How do they get more business enquiries to look at what they have to offer? Because without new leads coming through the door there is no business.

If you would like to unlock new business for your organisation please get in touch.

Christopher

As with most things in life, it isn’t the words themselves of course that make the difference. It is the understanding of them, then the interpretation in respect of your business, and lastly the implementation.

“So big deal what are these oh so special words?”

Before I give them to you let me frame them, because you won’t appreciate them out of context.

Just before Christmas I presented to a board of directors. It was a long brain storm session to get to the bottom of why they were in business and why their customer’s bought off them.

On the face of it that would appear obvious:

“Because we do a good job.”

I agreed that was undoubtedly true. What wasn’t true was they knew really in depth, why their customers bought. (Just as an aside, in my favourite quotations on this site, there is one about ‘…reality being something else’ - it was certainly true here.)

This session of discovery lasted over three hours. We put on the table anything and everything, that could conceivably be the reason why their customers bought.

Half way through the meeting, I wrote up on the board two words and said this is blatantly why your customers are buying from you - it is contained in two words, and you are showing them through your actions and service, some expression of the meaning of these two words.

“What are they then?… ”

I wrote up in big letters in the very little space available at this time, because the board was full up…. I said this is why they are buying:

LOVE

&

CARE

In some shape or form by their actions, they were showing these essential ingredients in their business relationship with their customers.

The thing is - i.e. the big deal - they didn’t really understand that - IN WORDS. They reckoned they did a pretty good job that was totally true. What they didn’t know or really understand that they were showing - maybe in just a weak and diluted way right now - was the expression of what these words really mean.

What they mean in business is the difference between okay or mediocre, and profits beyond your comprehension.

Taking this forward is of course my goal for them. We now work in detail together to really get the fullest productivity out of these two words in relation to building customers into clients. To do that, various specific key actions are put into place inside a strategy. In my mind there is zero question this company will increase their sales and profits very substantially and immediately, based on actions I help them take. The root of these actions will be deeply embedded in the real meaning of these two essential words.

Hope this helps.

Christopher

It is very important to look at what is going on in the marketplace and adjust your offering to meet new demand. That is a good thing. However, if a marketing campaign is already working well that may not be such a good thing to change. If you do, you may just be killing off the goose that lays your golden egg.

How do we counter this? First check and see what is going on. What is really happening? Don’t just take it for granted it is a great idea to change something. It may appear old hat or boring. Boring can be very good news indeed. Profit making should be as boring (and predictable) as possible.

Just think of all the everyday items and goods sold are household names. Look at something like Marmite or Kellogg’s Corn flakes, Bic biros. These are just three lines that come quickly to mind. Why? They have kept their product and brand image the same. This is even down to the packaging. It has been the same for years and years.

The Marmite jar has not changed probably for half a century! So before you go headlong into changing a product or service your business offers, just look at exactly what is going on in the accounts. Look at the profits being made. Don’t just assume the buying public are tired of the same images and branding because you are.

A big mistake and the loss of big profits can be saved. Being too close to the canvas can mean you cannot see the picture. It is likewise very easy to be too involved with your company work and all that that entails to be truly objective. Here is where the problems start. You need to keep a very keen weather eye and not lose focus on what is really important.

It is easy to do this and become side-tracked and unsure of which way to move forward with products you are successfully marketing already. So don’t change a thing already working. Check what results are right now before you consider doing anything different. If you think a change is due, then test the result of a single change, rather than one big one. You will keep your profitable business flowing and producing essential profits well into the future.

Keep Profitable

Your Profit Coach

It happened to me last year when my father, thankfully very peacefully, slid off to another place.

Just today it happened again, sadly.

My best friend Tony (Big T) expired suddenly and quickly.

After the shock and the sense of loss and grief, you think of all the good things about the person concerned, and what they meant to you, when they were alive and kicking.

All those very personal thoughts and feelings come flooding back into your conscious mind. All the good times, and the not-so-good times, you shared together.

In Big T’s case, there were more than enough of both, but we laughed at all of it, with glasses held high.
Life, and particularly business, can be such a challenge at times. We work to give value enough to others, to hopefully pay the inevitable bills life throws at us.

We often lose sight of the fact it is the value we provide, that really only counts in the final analysis. It is through sharing ourselves, we generate the most value. In difficult times, it is easy to lose sight of this fact. If we shared more of value, we would reap a far greater harvest for ourselves.

In the business arena, it is the same: giving more value helps your business grow in ways one can only gasp at in awe. Yet we all have far greater value to provide our customers with, and we simply need to reflect on this and then work out how to do it. In achieving this, our lives can be richer than any money can possibly buy.

Is this a bit ‘far out’? No! It is routed in some of the greatest philosophy and books on business ever written. It is just daily ‘life’ that gets in the way of us seeing, and then appreciating, the ‘bigger picture’.

You get a glimpse unfortunately of this bigger picture, when someone like Big T decides it was time for himself to take a bow, and exit to another and probably better place.

R.I.P. Tony.

In fond memory…

Christopher

Second, success when you do what I am just about to outline, will - when you look back on it - be as if it felt like it was instant. Hence why I put in the “almost” proviso here.

So what’s pythons got to do with it!

Good question. Let me explain. But first things first.

Firstly the business owners I meet with are pretty much doing a great job. If they weren’t then they wouldn’t be in business at all, hence why I wouldn’t be talking to them. “Great” here, is paying respect to the enormous effort - not to mention risk - the entrepreneur who created the business in the beginning.

Now this does not mean these businesses could not be doing better - in most cases a lot better. This is where some reappraisal and reorientation of where they are and what they are doing is essential.

The answers to this are coming right now:

One get a plan - a simple but definite marketing plan. Two write it down. Yes pen on paper! It does not need to be some fifty page report you hand to your bank manager. Three implement it. Four keep it going!. Keep doing it. Do not stop and look back over your shoulder. Five record, test, adjust it.

So how do I know this works?

Easy. In starting my businesses, the only ones that worked well, and the desired result occurred, is when I did just what I have penned above. Equally, in every case I did not do the above, the efforts however strong and committed and well intentioned etc., the results withered to practically zero - i.e. failure in most people’s books.

The interesting fact that came right back to me in my situation was that the plan was simple. It was not complicated. It required work, and to some extent hard work. But the work itself was in essence simple. It was not rocket science. It did not require big brain power to carry through. The brain power required is done at the beginning of the process.

The biggest key to all these steps is the one of consistency and persistence. Once the plan is set get going and implement it with all your might. Don’t immediately start to second guess it. That is a very dangerous but easy place to be. I know I’ve been there many times. The antidote to this is to decide and move on your decision.

This last point is key because there are so many ways to cut things up these days and it is easy to be deflected down a different new path and here is the problem: you just destroyed your first perfectly good marketing plan dead.

Nothing works immediately, but here is where the python comes in. It moves slowly at first, but when it finds its prey (market), it grabs it quickly and then slowly but surely secures it and then squeezes it. This takes a little time to extract all the breath out of its prey, but it doesn’t take forever. Here is the key: the strategy is to find, then grab, then squeeze. Simple strategy and it works - have you seen how big pythons get!?

When I have adopted a similar strategy it works like magic. Presto! prospects, customers, business, money. It works looking back as if it was quick although when the process was first started and the work being carried out it seemed as if forever was the order of the day.

Here again is the dangerous water. just get the doing part done and the results will inevitably come through and this must be your goal. Don’t give up on your plan, let it breath, and have a chance to succeed, it will pay you very big dividends.

If you get stuck or don’t fully ‘get’ what I’m saying here, then get in touch quick and get me to explain more about how a simple marketing plan can bring you extraordinary growth, very quickly.

Keep profitable,

Christopher

Businesses rarely stop and think on this most important aspect of conducting their marketing efforts. Why is this?

The most obvious reason is they are too busy working in their operation to sit up and take note of what is going on around them. They are making money, they are making sales and looking after their customers, but they sometimes don’t have a clue about how they are able to be in business over the fact that customers are buying things off them.

This is dangerous water to be in. If we look at any of the most successful big businesses in the marketplace, they all have one thing very much in common. They all have very definite messages they put out saying exactly what makes them better than the competition.

Take any slogan from the major retailers and you will notice they all have a short message they put out right after they give their business title out. In advertising, especially on television, you see this all the time.

From the international food giants such as McDonald’s, to the national supermarket chains, they all without fail, have a short catch phrase they use over and over to promote what they feel makes them different to their competitors.

Some of these catch phrases are in fact so long established they stand the long test of time. For instance the old credit card Access (now absorbed into Master card) used to advertise themselves as ‘Your Flexible Friend’. McDonald’s current message is ‘I’m Lovin’ It.’

Now granted some of these phrases may look a bit obscure. You can bet though the companies concerned have spent millions on perfecting a message they want to use and be associated with. It can be low cost as their competitive advantage, or a quality such as taste or ingredients, or not harmful to the environment.

Whatever it is in your business you need to pay very close attention to what makes your offering different, special or unique. I am not so sure now of the ‘unique’ expression, because it is pretty unlikely any offering is truly unique. If it is, all well and good, blast away and broadcast uniqueness as long as you can.

I prefer ‘exclusive’ instead. This frames an offering in two ways. Firstly, it shows something may not in fact be unique, and so this is easier to have attributed to your product or service. Secondly, ‘exclusive’ conjures up a higher perceived value, and that can transfer itself into a higher price, which of course means more profit.

So look to make your offering exclusive, and watch your profits soar. In any event get the message out in all your marketing efforts, processes, advertising and materials. This is vital because the quicker your target audience of customers learn to associate your message with what you have on offer, the quicker your sales will rise.

Most businesses learn about the well-worn term ‘Unique Selling Proposition’ from long usage. The trouble is this expression has become somewhat hackneyed over time, and starts to lose its edge. This is a pity because the ubiquitous ‘USP’ is the essential foundation of all successful business ventures. It really must be carefully crafted and integrated into the whole process of commerce a venture undertakes.

Using the new term

‘Exclusive Vending Proposal’

I have coined to take its place, may help re-establish this key component for success in a business where it rightly belongs: as the corner stone on which an impressive business edifice can be built upon.

So look again deep inside your business to find out just what is exclusive, and then craft a message to broadcast this to your marketplace. You should see a significant difference in your business as a result.

You will likely need help with this part of your marketing process because it is not as easy as it first appears.

Get in touch and let me craft this vital piece of your marketing jig saw puzzle, to big and quick profits for your business.

Christopher

“The services of advisors, instructors, efficiency experts in successful management are indispensable to most business enterprises of magnitude”

So who said this and why is it so important?

It was Elbert Gary. He was chairman of the United States Steel Corporation and he was responsible in bringing together J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and Charles M. Schwab to make the biggest steel conglomerate the world had known at the time.

So if such a successful business leader looked outside his organisation for expert help, then this may help the smaller business owner realise the truth behind the simple fact ‘You cannot do it all yourself’.

To grow, you need those who can assist from outside the organisation. If you do not do this, however good you are or think you are, you are certain to leave profits ripe for the picking on the table.

These profits are right under your feet right now. They are there ready for you to harvest into new and immediate cash flow and net profit.

If you don’t believe me, then make contact I will show you where they are in your business. If I cannot do this then here is my challenge - tell me the name of your favourite charity and I will make a £50 donation that is tax deductible to your company. This way you get the credit for the donation.

If you agree this is fair, then make contact. It could be the best investment you make in and for your business this year.

Keep profitable.

Christopher

I’ve not given it much thought to it but a recent old school reunion brought it back to mind. My parents sent me off to boarding school at the ripe old age of eleven. I surprised myself to discover being quite good at chess. We used to play in our dormitories before ‘lights out’ when, like all good obedient school children we were supposed to be in bed. Of course that rarely was the case but that’s another story.

At this reunion I remembered one term winning a series of all those who could play the game. They numbered twelve in the year and I won all these contests, save the very last one, where I was taken to a draw. Unfortunately for me all these games were unofficial, as there was no chess club at the school at that time, and so there was no prize at the end of this reign.

Fast forward a decade, and I found myself playing a colleague in a bank tournament in the City of London. This was a game to see if I was good enough to enter an international banking competition of fellow chess enthusiasts. The game was held after the bank was closed. My opponent’s claim to fame was that he had earlier been in a tournament with the Chess Grand Master and Tenth World Champion Boris Spassky. (Spassky played the famous Bobby Fischer in a headline ‘illegal’ match some years back.)

Obviously there was not much chance of me winning this game. For a start I had not played for several years, and was frankly no match for an opponent in this league. We played the game surrounded by a handful of colleagues watching, as we made out moves against the clock. Everyone knew the game wouldn’t last long (me included) and I would capitulate quite soon, and everyone could go home. But as with a good David and Goliath story, you have to give it your best shot. I didn’t disappoint.

Whilst my opponent was running with his pieces full tilt towards me, he left his left flank exposed for a very short, but critical moment. Realising this, I didn’t hesitate and swiftly moved to take advantage. When he saw his mistake it was too late, and I moved to execute the final move to check mate. After moving my piece, I remained silent because I didn’t believe I could have actually won. I let my colleagues blink in disbelief first, and then let the opponent fall and concede defeat.

So what happened next? Well, I did not go on to win more games and playing chess has been a very infrequent pass time.

The parallel’s chess has with business are interesting. It is a game where anything is possible. My story proves this. Business is just the same, if you make the right moves everything can come your way. The one who wins in the long term though, is the one with a better strategy. I won this game on a short term tactic. In fact I was just about to be beaten when I saw my chance to stem the tidal wave about to hit me. This wasn’t plain luck because I had to see the opportunity to take advantage of the situation, but long term I was ‘a gonna’ that was certain.

So with business, it is better knowledge and superior application of it, that gives your business success over the long haul. You may win short term contracts and business, but unless you bring to bear a consistently better service for your customers, you will lose in the end. This isn’t accomplished by quick fix marketing solutions, because frankly they are like sticking plasters - they wash off and you are back to square one. So to bring about lasting results and profits, you simply cannot avoid making plans to implement a superior strategy for your business. This isn’t an optional ‘extra’, it is essential to your survival as a business owner.

So get a better strategy in place soon. Make contact before the tidal wave knocks your business for six.

Look forward with a critical eye on the past.

Christopher