One segment of the tour is a visit to the “underground” part of the Magic Kingdom – the tunnels below. On tour, the very knowledgeable guides explain in detail some of the “insider” points of what Disney does and the thought process that goes with it.

On this particular trip the guide told us about Disney’s Pin trading. For those of you who don’t know, Disney borrowed the idea of trading Pins from the Olympics when they observed people from different countries using it as an ice breaker to make conversation and connect with each other. Disney then created its own pins for guests in the park to trade with Disney employees or “cast members,” as they prefer the term. Obviously, in order to trade a pin you had to buy one and thus a new product line began to the tune of what is now a $100 million a year industry with its own events, including cruises.

The Pin trading venture is a whole study itself in the process of creating new verticals for your own business – but today’s lesson is perhaps more important. Our guide pointed out excitedly that it really wasn’t the pins that were important; it was in her words, “all about the opportunity to build a relationship with our guest.”
I doubt the guide thought of this on her own, and if she did Disney should certainly give her a raise and a bigger job, for the point is dead on. A sale, no matter what the product, is an opportunity to create or continue a relationship with your customer. The sale will not last. The relationship can. The true value of any sale is not today’s value but the lifetime value of that customer today and tomorrow.

But the story I’m going to tell you about actually happened exactly a week ago, on Friday morning, at one of the biggest brunches you can be invited to, the BMI SXSW Brunch. BMI administers royalties to songwriters and music publishers all over the world to names like Aretha Franklin, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Shakira, Kanye West, Mariah Carey and about a million others. They always have GREAT music at the brunch, and you’ve rarely ever heard of anyone who they invite to play. They are usually artists who BMI is recognizing as “rising stars.”

I was eating my brunch and having a mimosa, chatting with some industry friends that I usually only see once or twice a year at events like this, when this guy came on stage. I heard about 3 notes and instinctively reached for my Flip camera (if you don’t have a Flip, do yourself a favor and go to Amazon.com now and buy one!). I couldn’t believe my ears. The vocals were amazing. I had to look at the program to see his name and I found it. Then I went on my iphone to Twitter and “tweeted” that I had just heard a great tune from a new artist named “Guy Sebastian”. I recorded a better video of him from a bit closer up and then went on my way for some more meetings and to see a few more of my artists play.

I left a few hours later because I got a call from my wife informing me that her and both of my little boys, Brock (4) and Bowen (16 months) were all sick. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say it was a bit of a “cookie toss” lol. But as I was at the airport, I logged onto my email and I saw that I had a bunch of new Twitter followers. I wasn’t sure why, but I had to shut down my computer and board my flight. When I got home, everyone was asleep, so I updated my Facebook account and posted my videos from SXSW and posted an update on Twitter that I had just uploaded the videos. Then I went to bed.

The next morning, I had about 50 Facebook friend requests. And I also started seeing the messages. Messages all about Guy Sebastian. Well, it seems that I wasn’t aware that Guy is from Australia and he won the first season of Australian Idol and had gone 6x Platinum in Australia. WOW. That’s impressive. And it made me stop and think back to 2 concepts I always teach when I’m speaking:

1. The only people who need to know who you are, are your target audience. I often give an example of walking through the mall with one of my bands, and how the teenagers freak out, and the parents have no idea what the commotion is about. But it doesn’t matter, the target audience, the teenagers, know exactly who they are! And the same applies to your business. You don’t need to be a Celebrity to everyone in the world, just your target market that would be suited to hire you and pay for your services.

Well, Guy’s fans in Australia knew EXACTLY who he was, and I can tell you that you all will too very soon. This guy is too good. Check out some of my videos (and become my friend on Facebook! at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=138863210116 ).

2. When you join the conversation that is already occurring in people’s heads, they take notice. It’s the old concept that we are all on a “Moving Parade” through life. As we move through life on our “parade,” our wants, needs and desires change, and we take notice of different things as these wants and needs change. Ever notice how you start thinking about getting a new car, and all of a sudden you start hearing about 100 car commercials on the radio every hour, and you start seeing all sorts of promotions on financing for cars, etc. Well, it’s because you are subconsciously paying attention to them on your “parade.”

The value in this concept is that your prospects and even your clients are often distracted as they move along their parade. You can try to “interrupt” them and get them to notice you, but it’s SO much easier to get noticed if you join the conversation that is already going on in their minds. Right now, no matter what business you are in, you could gain a lot of attention from talking about the things that are on top of people’s minds at this moment: Barack Obama, The Federal Bailout, The Recession, Bad Economy, Income Taxes, Spring, etc. There are lots of things that are already on people’s minds right now. If you talk about those things, and relate what you really want to tell your clients and prospects (about your product or service or whatever else) to what’s going on in their minds, they will take note much faster.

Obviously these Australians were already talking and thinking about Guy Sebastian and when I mentioned his name, they caught wind of it like wild fire. My posts hit their message boards in a matter of hours and they were all stalking me to learn more! Well, you see, it seems as if Guy is recording a new album in the US and the Aussie population is dying to hear it, so even a glimpse of a new song, which I gave them, is what they’re dying for! So by joining that conversation, I became very relevant to a whole new group of people, across the world no less, that now were interested in what I had to say. Think about how you can become relevant to the audience that you really want to pay attention to you, and start hopping in the conversation. I think you’ll be as stunned as I was, when you hit the right note!

That’s all for now! I’m off to Chicago to speak at a conference next week for the Senior Living market, for two of our clients, Traci Bild (www.TraciBild.com) and Richard Seppala, “The ROI Guy,” (www.YourROIguy.com). I’ll be sharing the stage with Bill Rancic, winner of Season 1 of the Apprentice with Donald Trump. I’m sure I’ll have some more stories for you soon!

Feel free to email me or post comments on this blog to let me know how the above lessons have applied to your marketing!

Well, here is an example of me taking my own advice (notice that the birds weren’t added sound effects! they were just part of the background, and I was still able to get my message across!)

Here is a link to the video: http://www.celebritybrandingyou.com/cby-video/

What he essentially asked me is, “How is Celebrity Branding® different from personality branding, and the long-standing concept of a personality driven business?”

While I can’t summarize everything that Celebrity Branding® includes in one short article, let me tell you one of the main differences. The main difference is in the magnitude of focus and commitment you give to your positioning. You can have personality in any brand. But Celebrity Branding® is taking your personality and making you the focus, not the back-story for your product or service. Once you make that switch, you develop a system of marketing that is centered on you as the celebrity expert, which separates you from your competition. No longer is your product or service a commodity that anyone can supply. To get what you are now offering, the client or customer must utilize you and your business.

Let me give you an example to illustrate the difference.

Let’s assume we’ve got two different financial planners that are in the same market. It doesn’t matter whether their customer base is local or national, what matters is that they compete for the same customers.

Financial Planner 1 has his photo on his business card, has ads featuring his image in several publications that his target audience reads, and his website also has his picture on it. This financial planner understands that “people buy people,” so he has put his picture on his materials so that people can identify who he is. This is personality branding.

Financial Planner 2 has some or all of the things that financial planner 1 has. These things are a great start, but she also realizes that the true value of Celebrity Branding® is to create devoted fans out of her prospects and clients. And she realizes that while having her photo on her marketing materials is a great start, ultimately she must connect with her audience in order to turn them into fans. She has to let her audience know who she is (and include some details about her “real” life outside of work, when appropriate), what her expertise is, why she’s an expert, that she’s constantly at the forefront of her industry, and just how she can help her prospects and clients. You can’t get any of this across with a photo alone! You’ve got to take the time to develop methods to communicate with your audience.

If you want to create true Celebrity Expert status, you’ve got to show your audience why they should listen to you. You’ve got to display your expertise to them and create a personal relationship in order for them to develop an affinity for you and what you do.

The difference is huge between the value of these two financial planners to their audiences. If you want to develop Celebrity Status, you’ve got to create a system for communicating with your clients and prospects. Clients should obviously get more of your time than prospects should, but the key here is to develop some methods of communicating with your entire audience that you can replicate through the use of systems.

Marketing systems for Celebrity Branding® involve multiple facets of “touch points” with your customers. Utilizing an email system that allows you to write one message and send it out in a manner that makes it look personalized to your list, instead of a generic blast, developing an ezine which contains specific content rich information about you and your business, physical newsletters that allow people to hold and feel your business in their hand, or a blog that allows you to keep in constant contact with your audience via multiple forms of social networking and social media are all examples of new ways to reach your client and create the relationship that both bonds and builds. It is this level of commitment and focus that allows you to take your brand to another level beyond even your closest competitor.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter what you include in your marketing system, the key is that you actually have a marketing system for building a relationship with your fan base. Additionally, the system should incorporate a method, or methods, to continually drive the relationship forward, whether you have the time to literally speak with every person or not. This is what we mean by Celebrity Branding®, and you can see that it is much more than people realize — which is why it is so powerful. Take a look at your current system for prospecting and follow up communication with customers and see how you can better optimize your system to create a Celebrity Brand, rather than just a personality driven business. As always, if we can help, you know where to find us.

Anyhow, as I was packing, I was reminded of the last time I flew on a plane, a few weeks ago when I was coming back from France. I had so much time on the plane I actually ran out of things to do, watch, read etc, so I resorted to the airline’s shopping catalogue…in german.

I saw an image very similar to this one:

Now I can tell you, I would be willing to bet that the first time that the tobacco companies in the EU were told that they would have to start using this label on their tobacco products, they probably weren’t really excited about it. We can be they felt blindsided and had a lot of emotions. This is a very far departure from the cigarette commercials of old that used to have Doctors giving testimonials on the benefits of smoking (seriously, here in the U.S. too). I know what you’re thinking, “Wow, I sure am glad that I don’t have to deal with that in my industry. That would really kill my sales.” But instead of just dismissing the notion for a moment, let’s play it out in our heads.

Many of us rely on the way we are doing things right now, and assume that nothing will change. We find strategies that work, and rightly so, they become easy to rely on– you might say as easy to rely on as testimonials from Doctors when selling cigarettes– but, at some point, something will change, that will affect one of your key strategies.

I know, I know, the people who relied on cold-calling consumers to sell products didn’t think that the “Do Not Call Registry” was a real threat…until it became law

and yes, I know, I know, marketers who were sending out faxes, like they were going out of style, never thought that fax broadcasts would be banned…until “junk faxes” became illegal

I’m also sure that those of you who have started to discover text messaging in your marketing, are also not excited about some recent propositions for businesses to start paying a “tax” on each and every text message they send out marketing their products and services. This free media, is about to become not so free.

I’m not here to be “Mr. Gloom and Doom,” but I do want to remind you to be conscious of the fact that things always change, and sometimes when you least expect them to, so be sure to have a plan B and continue to test new and different methods of reaching your market, even when things are going great with what you are currently doing!

There were thousands of local and regional contests that all culminated in the final that was hosted last night, by Leann Rymes, with the top 5 winners from the final 5 regions. Johnny was the winner from the Southeast region. Anyway, Johnny WON last night! So big congrats to him and we’re looking forward to lots of big things from him!

I’m heading home now for about 24 hours and then I’m off to Cannes, France for MiDEM, the world’s largest music festival for a few days. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Anyhow, I was talking with a good friend the other day and he was confiding in me that he was working with a non-profit and couldn’t figure out why the division he was working with wasn’t doing quite as well as all of the other divisions. All divisions were located in different parts of his town, but the division he was involved in just hadn’t been performing up to par.

We went through the usual excuses, the location wasn’t right, the community wasn’t as involved, etc. but when I asked the right questions, we both got the light bulb over our heads.

Between this division and the others, it was the person running the division, we’ll call him Tom for now, that was actually the problem. When you’re involved in a business that requires community support like most non-profit, philanthropic, businesses do, you’ve got to get the community personally and financially invested. Which you might say is even tougher than being a consumer business in the retail market, because while you have to get your customers to buy into what you’re doing, there is usually a correlation between how much your product or service meets the needs of your target audience and how many actually decide to give you their money. When you are looking at a philanthropic model, this usually isn’t the case.

The problem we discovered was that Tom, the guy responsible for the mission and direction of the division, was not compelling to his audience. Everyone liked him, but at the end of the day, they had no burning desire to rally around him, help fund Tom’s project and ultimately to be recognized and embraced by Tom as a contributor to the cause. The other division leaders on the other hand, were seen as pillars in their communities that everyone loved seeing, knowing, speaking with and being recognized by.

This makes all the difference not only in the non-profit sector, but in your business as well. So, think about it, are you allowing your prospects to get to know your personality well enough to be compelling to them? If you’re not, a few quick changes will take your business to new heights in 2009!

But, in any event, check out the video she has up on her site:

http://www.leannrimesworld.com/splash/splash_wicc.php

It’s to promote her song, “What I cannot Change.” What I want you to notice is that even big stars don’t always spend lots of money and time to get a great quality video up online. Many of us hide behind the fact that we can’t get into the studio, cost etc, in order to get a video up. We all need to take a lesson from this video, it’s heartfelt and connects with the audience. She’s got her hair up and you can tell she’s “just like you and me.”

This is ALL YOU NEED in a video! So, get out there with those FLIP cameras and start recording! If you don’t have a FLIP camera, just go to www.Amazon.com and type in FLIP Mino.

These celebrities, at one time or another, had millions of dollars media (radio, television, internet and newspaper), F-R-E-E media, talking about them and giving them publicity because what they had to offer, whether it was simply an entertaining personality, answers to a burning question the fans wanted to know, or the answer to a common problem the world is facing, was in high demand. And that’s a wonderful position to be in. The problem is that 99% of them never planned for the next phase of their career. Whether it’s an athlete, actor, musician, reality television star or any other personality that gets some media coverage, the simple truth is that in all but the rarest of circumstances, their current method of making substantial dollars is going to change. And likely it’s going to change before they even know what hit them.

If these celebrities and “talking heads” had taken the time to use the media they were given to create a funnel of interested prospects that they could sell products and services to, then they would be in a totally different position than they are in today.

Here’s an example.

Too Tall Jones is an amazing college basketballl player. It doesn’t matter what side of the court he is on, every time he lobs a ball up in the air he scores. He is so good that the media just can’t stop talking about him. He gets interviewed daily in every national newspaper, radio station, television market and even the biggest internet blogs. He is the MVP of the year and he’s about to get drafted into the NBA and finally make some money. He signs with the NBA, with a big signing bonus. He is making more money than he ever thought possible. He is a blockbuster hit for his team and the league as a whole. But, as his lifestyle grows, so do his expenses, and as ridiculous as it may sound to the rest of us, he’s basically getting by with great cash flow but not building up his wealth at all. He’s spending all the money he earns. He’s really helping out his family, his friends, and even some charities with huge gifts, but he’s not putting any money away. He’ll do that in a couple of years.

Fast forward to season 3, just after he put whatever money he could get his hands on into a big real estate investment that looks like it’s going to turn sour, he gets injured and he will never play basketball again. He gets dropped from the team, and even Hi-Top brand shoes pulls his endorsement. Then, as expected, the real-estate deal goes sour and his last millions are lost and gone forever.

What happens? He could use the notoriety he built to land a good job where he can build a customer base on the back of his star power and how great of an athlete he was. He could go coach high school or college basketball. There are any number of things he could be doing, but, he certainly won’t be making the kind of dollars he was making, or could have been making. Why? Because he now has to start all over in a new business.

What could he have done? While he was really getting some press during the first years of his professional career he could have been building his a business on the back of his fame. A few examples would be a membership-based website where fans would pay monthly fees to see videos of his technique and strategies so they could learn to be as good of a player as him, and where fans could connect with other die-hard fans so they could discuss their favorite plays he made, and favorite games of all time. He could have been selling DVD sets and workbooks on how to be the best player on the court and he could have even been building a list of fans online by offering them a free online video or basketball card or whatever, just so he could build his own business off the back of the fans that were trickling in based on the free publicity he was getting. Even if he was charging $10 a month, if he had several thousand fans paying to get access to his site and his videos, or paying to get the new plays of the month in their email or mailbox, he could have built up a consistent stream of income that was not reliant on the team cutting him a check.

But he didn’t. And he certainly is not alone.

When things are going great, we often don’t take the time to plan a few steps beyond our current success. We don’t take the time to build a list of our own fans so that if circumstances change beyond our control, or if we want to change them ourselves, we don’t have to start from scratch because we have a list of fans who are anxious to connect with us and hear what we have to offer next, that they will come along with us.

And while you probably aren’t lucky enough to be getting media coverage without paying for it, if you have a large influx of customers and prospects that are coming to you because they like what you have to offer, whether they learned about it from an advertisement or from a friend, you should be capturing the hearts, minds and contact information of those fans and starting to test market other things to them. Do you realize how much profit you could stack onto your business if you just sold another product or service to your existing clients and prospects without having to go out and find new people to sell to? The numbers are staggering. Take a few moments to think about what they could do for you and I’m sure you’ll quickly start writing down your plan to build a business on the back of your current Blockbuster hit.

–

As I was driving into my neighborhood a couple of weeks ago (before I moved into our new house, which is tiring to even think about, and why I didn’t get a chance to send you this sooner!) I saw a sign taped to a stop sign that read:

College Babysitter
555-555-1212*
*(actual number withheld to spare the poor kid)

Now, it doesn’t take more than about 4 seconds to find your own punchline, but if you’re like me, the first thing your mind conjures up, is probably something like one of the above pictures, or this:

No one gave this “well-educated” college kid the first lesson in marketing! You’ve got to make your message CLEAR and it’s a huge mistake for you to leave room in your message for the consumer to come up with their own objections in their mind, before you even get a chance to sell them on your product or service and why you’re the best for the job.

So, while I’m sure it took a lot of effort for this college kid to write out these words without any text messaging abbreviations (like Nd BBsttr? Txt Me), it would have helped to take a few more minutes to type out a message that might actually get someone to call you that is looking for a babysitter instead of a dogsitter. Here would be my suggestion:

Responsible College Student with 3.99 GPA NOW interviewing for babysitting opportunities for the summer.

*Resume and References Available on Request

Isn’t that a little better? It’s not as much copy as I usually like to write (and I didn’t even make the prospects call a recorded hotline to see if they could follow directions!) but it at least makes it a bit more appealing for parents to call the number to check out the opportunity. Once you get them live on the phone, then it’s much easier to get the job.

The lesson here is don’t take shortcuts when trying to get your message out there. Sure, there are times when you only have a few lines of text, but don’t be lazy, analyze every word to see what needs to be there, what gives the wrong impression, and what doesn’t give the prospect enough information to qualify themselves. If you follow these simple steps, you’ll be ahead of 99% of your competition.

http://tinyurl.com/6kvog9

When I finalized my trip to New York, I decided to take up George Ross, Donald Trump’s Lawyer and Chief Negotiator as well as his board room co-star on The Apprentice, on his offer to visit him at his office next time I was in the city. So I emailed George and we set up a time to visit yesterday morning.

You can see a picture of George and I in his office as well as a short 2 minute video I recorded after our meeting by clicking here:

Photos: http://tinyurl.com/5peokz

Video:

In the short video I reveal a marketing lesson that George and I discussed that you may not be aware of but it’s a great way to isolate yourself from the current economic situation and gives you a tip that you shouldn’t be ignoring in your business.

George and I disagreed a bit on a few issues, but it was a healthy discussion and I am sure George and I will continue to stay in touch and even debate a bit here and there. Hey, we’re lawyers, what do you expect!

Another profound comment that George made, which I think will be useful to you is the fact that:

1. he has been practicing law for over 50 years
2. has been teaching a course on negotiation at NYU, one of the greatest educational institutions in the world, for many years, and
3, has been involved in negotiating some of the biggest real estate deals in history for that past 30 years alongside Donald Trump, who is one of the biggest Celebrity Experts in the media today

but until he got on the Apprentice, no one really cared. He was known in small professional circles and certainly to those who were looking to do a deal with “The Donald,” but he certainly wasn’t known to or revered by the general public the way he is today. Now, George is a very highly sought –after (and highly paid!) lecturer and speaker brought in to many organizations and conferences to reveal his art of negotiation. And the funny thing is he’s no better at it than before he was on the Apprentice! Before, his target audience just didn’t know who he was or what he was great at.

The key point here is: his credentials are secondary to his celebrity status. To paraphrase his own words, he said its awful peculiar how sitting at a board room table sparring with eager young minds once a week for a few months a year, at the right hand of Donald Trump has completely changed his life and gained the respect of the American public as a whole. Isn’t it neat what kind of credibility you can have virtually “assigned” to you just by being in the media with the right message at the right time? I agree and its one of the strategies I teach when I’m lecturing on Celebrity Branding®™. I encourage you to think about how you can reach out to your own audience in a similar way to increase your visibility, your demand and your fees.

By the way, if you’re looking for a way to get the George Ross/Apprentice effect in your own business and personal life, shoot me an email at Nick@CelebrityBrandingYou.com. Jack and I have found a way to guarantee that 20 business owners and entrepreneurs will be seen on NBC, ABC, FOX and CBS as well as seen in USA Today, The Wall St. Journal and Newsweek all within the next 12 months.

Alright, that’s about it, hope you have a great rest of the week. As for me I’m heading off to St. Lucia with my wife for our anniversary this weekend. See you when I get back!

Dedicated to bringing out the Celebrity in YOU!

Nick