For most people it’s not much of an option – you’ll either be bare-handed or, a best, carrying a smaller knife.

My karate instructor was keenly aware of this fact and wanted to prepare us for the worst.

It was one of the most valuable lessons I ever got.

He paired us up, giving one of us a rubber (thank goodness) prop knife.

As we waited for further instruction, expecting to hear some kind of fancy ninja move that would even disarm Chuck Norris, he uttered four words that echo in my ears to this day:

“Alright, go for it!”

Huh??

Go for what – not getting stabbed by a costume weapon?

So we did what we could… one guy trying to stab, the other trying not to get stabbed.

As I faced my partner, noticing his eyes scanning my body for an opening, over and over I thought in my head, “Just don’t get cut. Don’t get cut.”

Now, you may be thinking, “Dude, it was just a toy knife!” and you’d be right.

But we were trained from Day 1 to train like it’s real, much like the military does.

The more real you make your trainings, rehearsals, trial runs – mentally, physically, and emotionally – the better you’ll perform when you’re actually going through it.

There’s no such thing as practice – you’re ALWAYS doing, even if it’s badly  or exceptionally well.

At first I was mucking things pretty badly, both as the stabber and as the stabbee.

But when I stopped worrying so much about the knife, I started getting better and better.

After about 20 minutes our instructor shouted, “Yame!” signaling us to stop, then gathered us around him.

“So what did you learn?” he asked.

Resoundingly, everyone in the group agreed, “No matter what you do, you’re going to get cut.”

No theoretical defense strategy or fancy Hollywood choreography is going to save you from that bitter truth.

Avoiding getting cut isn’t the goal…

The choices are either disabling your opponent and keeping him from seriously injuring you or getting the heck out of there.

And the same holds true in your marketing:

• You will fail
• You will have some real stinker campaigns
• You will have “genius” ideas that will crash and burn

But that just comes with the territory – business and entrepreneurship isn’t about avoiding risks, it’s about managing them.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

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When Procter & Gamble released Febreze in 1993, their execs were dreaming of how they would spend their bonuses – exotic sports cars, private jet charters, beachfront homes.

They spent millions of dollars and years of research creating a product that eliminated odors – genius!

Then the sales numbers came in, and brought with it a sad reality.

Febreze fell flat on its face.

No one bought it.

Huh??

A product that actually works, fills a real need, sold through thousands of distribution channels, and it BOMBED??

Yup.

After they licked their wounds, the P&G team took a look at what went wrong.

The people that DID buy it loved it and said that it worked, so the product wasn’t the problem.

If that was the case, then it must have been the way they were selling it.

The initial marketing campaign for Febreze touted it as an odor eliminator, a solution for an acute household problem.

But after more research, they realized that the customers who loved it didn’t use it for that purpose.

Instead, they used it as a way to “finish” their current cleaning routines.

That is, they were already in the habit of cleaning, but just sprayed the Febreze as a way to mark for themselves “this room is done”.

So P&G rolled out a new campaign.

Rather than showing it as a way to remove odors, essentially trying to teach consumers to do something new (eliminate odors with our product), they instead showed Febreze as a way to complete a routine they were ALREADY doing.

The result?

Sales doubled within two months.

Today, along with several spinoff products, the Febreze brand rakes in over $1 billion annually.

And all this success comes not because they had a superior product…

…but because they focused on a smart marketing apprach: piggyback off of what your customer is already doing rather than forcing a new behavior.

That’s one of the reasons I am a fanatic about email marketing.

Some mock and say it’s “soo 2001″, abandoning it for sexy, social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (yup, another one).

“I’m gonna get my customers to follow me on Facebook!”

Look, I’ve got nothing against tweeting and liking and posting – I do my fair share.

But here’s the thing… there are 1900 times more email accounts as Facebook and Twitter accounts combined.

And daily post totals on Facebook and Twitter add up to only 0.2% of the messages sent and shared via email – a whopping 294 billion, which DOES NOT include spam.

So I’m just following the data and piggybacking on email’s coattails.

If you want to learn to do the same, tune in for my upcoming free training on email marketing.

I’ll have the date squared away shortly, so keep an eye out for the announcement.

And if you’ve got a burning question you’d like me to address on the training, simply go to the survey link below and submit it there.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MC7Y6B6

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

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Over six years I managed to collect enough pancake-sized bruises, bell-ringing whacks to my head, and accidental groin kicks to earn myself a brown belt.

I’m pretty proud of that, but it took me a good 3 years before I could start dishing out more punishment in the sparring ring than I took.

It was around that time that, almost overnight, my fighting style went from resembling two rams smashing their horns together over and over again (where basically they guy with the highest pain tolerance won), to reminiscent of Bruce Lee having his way with a low-level henchman.

Well, at least I felt as nimble and powerful as Bruce Lee – I got hit a lot less, and started landing nearly every punch and kick I threw.

And, in addition to my increased confidence, I limped a whole lot less too.

So what made the difference?

Among the few breakthroughs that turned things around for me was a technique I learned from one of the senior black belts, or sempai, of the dojo, Michael Jai White.

If you’re not familiar with the name, you’d almost certainly recognize his face from movies such as “Spawn”, “The Mike Tyson Story”, and “The Dark Knight”.

Unlike many other Hollywood stars that rely on their stunt doubles and fancy editing to make them look like action icons, Michael is a bonafide butt-kicker, having mastered more martial arts styles that my kids have Dora the Explorer toys (which is a boatload).

He didn’t have a name for the little lesson he shared with us that night, but I call it the “Flying Karate Cam”.

Michael described how inexperienced fighters basically have one strategy: looking directly at their opponent standing in front of them and charging straight ahead, head down, fists-a-blazin’.

This approach, he explained, wasn’t effective because every opponent, from the day they put on their white belt, is trained from day one to block everything that comes straight at them.

“You’ve got to go beyond the 3 or 4 targets your physical eyes can see right in front of you.  Imagine that there’s a small camera flying all around your opponent, that transmits everything it sees directly to your brain, allowing you to see all the vulnerable areas that you opponent isn’t thinking about protecting.”

Now, although I wasn’t a big believer of out-of-body experiences, who was I to argue with a guy that’s wiped the mat with virtually everyone he’s fought.

It took me a few days to get used to it, but soon I began to see open spots all over the guys I was fighting – hands too far from the head, elbows hovering just high enough to expose the rib cage, feet spread too wide to respond to a quick kick.

Even better, the more openings I saw, the more my opponent had to worry about defending himself from my punches than throwing his own.

While they probably wouldn’t think of themselves as martial arts masters, the best marketers and copywriters I know have their own version of the Flying Karate Cam.

But rather than searching for the best angle to deliver a roundhouse kick, their cameras are trying to find the best angles to deliver their offer.

You see, the common approach used in most marketing is some head-on variation of “Here’s what I’ve got to sell you, now buy it!”

But prospects have their own natural defenses from such attacks: skepticism, the recycling bin, banner blindness, “skip this commercial” buttons on their remote controls, or just simply ignoring them altogether.

And these defense mechanisms have been conditioned to fire on hair-triggers since people are bombarded with these direct-buy messages thousands of times a day.

Your job is to set your Flying Marketing Cam loose to find creative and effective ways to bypass those defenses and deliver your message.

Take a good look at your current marketing efforts and see if they’re selling straight on, going right for the sale.

How is that approach working out for you as measured by your response rates, closing ratios, retention, and refunds?

What other angles and “less head-on” methods could you use to improve your numbers?

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. If you’re ready to discover new approaches you can use to bypass your customers’ defenses and massively improve the results of your marketing efforts, you’re in luck.  I’m working on a series of trainings that will reveal a handful of strategies that are working today that do exactly that. So keep your eyes peeled for those announcements.

P.P.S. What’s the top defense mechanism that your customers and prospects use to block your marketing messages?  Do your email open rates stink?  Are you wasting your time on too many tire-kickers?

If you would like some help guiding your Flying Marketing Cam to find solutions simply COMMENT BELOW describing your problem and I’ll be sure to address it on one of the upcoming trainings.

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Even in my hardcore running days when I consistently woke up at 7am, so that I could enjoy the crisp morning air in my lungs, it was a struggle.

And let me not forget my job in college as a fitness trainer… I had the 6am shift.

It was not pretty.

Through it all was my friend and companion: the snooze button.

“Just a few more minutes in my warm bed,” I’d say to myself.

Click the snooze button.

“Another moment or two to rest my eyes.”

CLICK.

“I think traffic will be pretty light because of the holiday.”

CLICK.

But the snooze button knows its place.

It knows it’s just a small respite, a tiny diversion from the inevitable.

The alarm must sound again, and I must, cursing and crying, put my body into motion and do what I’ve got to do.

Your customers have a snooze button too.

No matter how great your offer, how much they might want it, something inside them will click that button.

“Cool deal! But I’ve got to pick up my kid from day care right now.”

CLICK.

“Interesting… let me put it in my inbox tray that’s already overflowing.”

CLICK.

Are those reasons legitimate?

Absolutely.

But you can’t let them snooze forever.

You’ve got to sound the alarm – again and again and again.

Keep sending them reminders, offers, thank you notes.

Do it until they eventually wake up and do what they’ve got to do.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. If you’ve been clicking the snooze button on your 2012 goal setting, it’s time to wake up and do that too.

I’m facilitating a couple of sessions next week, so keep an eye out for upcoming posts about those.

But whether you join me or do it on your own – do yourself and your business a huge favor and JUST DO IT!

Social media is the collection of internet-based technology that allows the widespread creation, distribution, and collaboration of content (e.g., articles, opinions, videos, entertainment).  The technology is typically low cost and accessible to anyone with access to the Internet.  Contrast this with “industrial” media such as magazines, newspapers, radio, and television, which are expensive to produce and limit content creation and distribution to just a few.

The old world of industrial media allowed businesses to distribute specific messages regarding products and services, while the general public could choose only to accept or deny those messages.  Consumers had no other say in the matter and generally they accepted marketing messages in direct proportion to their prominence (i.e., number of times they were seen).

Although this model was the accepted environment for many years, the tide has turned. In fact, the New York Times reported that many top publications like Forbes and Fortune were down over 15%.  Thanks to advances in technology and access to high-speed Internet connections, for the first time in history, consumers have their own far-reaching voice, separate from corporate marketing messages.

For businesses this represents both good and bad news.  The bad news is that the way people buy has changed.  Social media provides such a rich source of information and opinions on any product, business, or service that many can choose to simply ignore advertisements, taglines, and positioning statements.  Even the “expert” review has yielded its authority to peer reviews from fellow consumers.  Forrester Research found that the people who say companies tell the truth in their advertisements has dropped from 13% to 7%.  Today’s consumer is more savvy, research-driven, better educated, and talking to other consumers worldwide to make very informed buying decisions.

The good news is that social media does not discriminate. Businesses have the same access to social media sites, technology, and tactics as the consumer.  This is considerably good news for the small business owner that can’t afford traditional industrial media.  Like many advances brought by the Internet, social media provides a very level playing field.

As many more businesses now come to this realization, many make the fatal assumption that, “All I’ve got to do is learn how to set up a blog, or Twitter account, or Facebook page, then start posting!” While these are absolutely important steps in the process, businesses must first familiarize themselves with the most critical pieces in social media: strategy and conversation.

A typical approach for businesses new to social media is to start selling by broadcasting their marketing message.  Imagine a single male that’s desperate to find a wife, walking into a backyard party and shouting, “Ladies, I’ve arrived! Come over here if you wanna get hitched!”  I bet you’d agree that is not the best strategy.  A solid strategy requires careful thought and planning in consideration of your overall objective, your audience, your audience’s objective, and the specific actions required to get them from where they are to where they need to be.

Because consumers have so much data available upon which to make their buying decisions, a simple one-liner won’t do the job.  Just like making friends at a backyard party, you must master the art of conversation.  People buy from people they like, and today’s Internet technology and online culture allow you to create meaningful connections with others you meet at the online party.  This is the key to social media – creating and taking part in meaningful conversations with others that will lead them to want to do business with you.

Social media CAN BE the answer for your business, provided you recognize it as another valuable tool in your marketing tool bag, create a solid strategy for its implementation, and respect the new buying landscape.

Meaning that I don’t choose what I eat based on ethnicity, ingredients, name, or price.

If it tastes good, I’m in there – regardless of what others may say.

So it doesn’t shame me one iota to to say to you…

I freakin’ LOVE my Taco Bell.

Living in Southern California, there ain’t any shortage of amazing and AUTHENTIC taco stands and “roach coaches” (among my favorites are King Taco and El Taquito).

But those places don’t get me a-jonesin’ to make a run for the border every two weeks the way Taco Bell does.

Tostadas – slather it with two packs of hot sauce and I’m off to the races.

Meximelts – a flour envelope of ooey, gooey, cheesy goodness.

Taco Supremes – the sour cream never fails to put me on cloud nine.

Just imagining it now as I write this to you got me salivating like a half-starved pit bull eyeing a 20-ounce T-bone.

One reason that Taco Bell cynics and detractors turn their nose up at them is the fact that basically every item on their menu is made of the same simple ingredients in various quantities and combinations…

Tortillas, seasoned “meat”, beans, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and a few condiments.

Admittedly, while I wouldn’t call their stuff “high cuisine”, it IS highly efficient business that works VERY well for them.

(The stock price for Taco Bell’s owner YUM! Brands Inc. continues to climb year after year, with a current market cap of $27 billion, in spite of the global economic downturn.)

It’s time for you to “make a run for the border” in your business…

Before you start, remember, there’s an appropriate time for innovation, acquisition, and expansion – this isn’t it.

First, take an inventory your CURRENT assets: products, services, partnerships, customers, etc.

Next, find ways to mix and match your “ingredients” into a different, valuable offering.

Maybe you bundle some products together in a way that you’ve never done before.

Or you take a “toll booth” position and connect your customers with one of your partners.

This is brainstorming time – focus on quantity, not quality.

Get creative, but stick to what you currently have on your inventory list.

The Cheesy Double Decker Taco didn’t make it onto the menu by adding a new, exotic, fire-roasted pepper salsa.

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. There was enough interest for my goal-setting workshop, so I’m working on scheduling now.  If you’re still interested and haven’t yet told me your scheduling preference, let me know.

Just COMMENT BELOW with your preference of a weekend/weekday, daytime/evening session.  (e.g., “Phil, I’m interested and would like a weekend evening session.)

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What do you think?

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With the Internet’s wide reach and the reduction of technology costs, even small businesses are now able to leverage video in their marketing efforts. While the “big boys” can continue to spend millions of dollars producing Super Bowl commercials, many small businesses and people are claiming their piece of the opportunity. The proverbial pie has indeed gotten bigger. In addition, tests have shown that traditional online sales pages convert at 2-3% while those using video convert at 8-11%.

In both offline and online marketing efforts, most businesses focus on persuading their customers by using logic and unique product features. While that can play a role, as you know already, people buy based on emotion and back it up with logic. You probably experience this every day when you watch television commercials. The ones that are most popular and move you to actually buy the product are those that evoked a strong emotion within you.

So how do you begin to leverage emotion through your online videos? The key lies not in WHAT you tell your viewers, it rests in HOW you communicate with them. While some would consider themselves “naturals” in moving people emotionally, it is absolutely a skill that can be acquired by discovering the fundamentals of how the mind works, and applying the proper system.

While Hollywood has distorted the phenomenon of hypnosis to a resemble a form of mind control as a way to create compelling plotlines, the concepts upon which hypnosis is based are very real and useful to the savvy marketer.  Simply put, hypnosis is an altered mental state in which one does not use their critical, logical mind to evaluate information before accepting that information and acting on it.  By understanding the science behind hypnosis, will allow you to transform your videos from ordinary to powerful tools that will compel your customers to take specific actions like signing up to your email list or even purchasing your product!

Foundations of Hypnotic Communication

There are two parts of your mind: the conscious and the subconscious.  The conscious mind is your mind’s “gatekeeper”. It is responsible for logical thinking and reasoning, and the voluntary actions you take such as moving your hand to pick up an object. Your subconscious mind is like a computer, with no reasoning or making value judgments. It’s that part of your mind that controls involuntary actions such as your breathing, blinking, heartbeat, and emotions. It also stores all your memories and experiences.

Dr. Ray Birdwhistell of the University of Pennsylvania studied human non-verbal communication, or kinesics. He understood that a person’s words contributed only a portion of the overall message they were communicating. By filming people in social situations and analyzing their interactions, he discovered that there was much more being conveyed in a conversation that what was being said.  His research showed that a person’s words only accounted for 7% of the message being conveyed.  Body language accounted for 58% and voice tonality accounted for 35%.  Video allows you to use the entire spectrum of communication to deliver your marketing message and more effectively influence your audience.

Everything we as individuals have experienced in our lives is based on the filtered translations of the outside world. The filters and translators we use are our 5 senses: sight, sound, feel, smell, and taste. The more senses we engage in our communication with others, the more likely they will receive our message. We want to engage our audience’s senses directly. The key for more successful delivery is to relate those abstract concepts to tangible, sensory-based experiences. Great communicators (e.g., salespeople, orators, authors, teachers, etc.) throughout history have shared this rare talent.

Hypnotic Techniques for Video

To create more effective and influential marketing videos you must use these psychological foundations as part of your video creation process (i.e., concepts, scripting, post-production, distribution).  Here are a few ideas you can begin using immediately.

• Build rapport by identifying with their current point of view and where they want to go.  This will significantly reduce resistance from the conscious mind.
• Tell lots of stories to get people engaged in following your train of thought.  In order for them to comprehend and identify with your story their conscious mind must accept what you’re saying as true.
• Music is one of the most powerful ways to engage people’s emotions and other subconscious triggers.  Using appropriate intro or background music to your message is a key hypnotic influence strategy.
• Make sure you (or your spokesperson) use body language and voice tonality to reflect the way you want the customer to feel.  For example, if you want them to feel calm and comforted by your message, you may want your voice to be quiter and slower, and your gestures to be slower and more reserved.
• Engage your audience’s senses even more by using appropriate visuals (movie clips, photos, props) and audio (sound effects).  While these elements can be incorporated directly into the video, eliciting a strong sensory memory can be just as effective (e.g. tell them to remember the smell/taste/touch of their favorite meal).

As more people and businesses use video as a means of online marketing, you’ll want to use these techniques and many more to differentiate your message and ensure your audience gets the greatest impact.

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I just ran across a really cool, and timely, article from one of my mentors and I had to share it with you.

I’ll get to that in a moment, but first…

I love this time of year – that sweet spot right between Christmas and the beginning of the New Year.

It’s when most others are making their list of resolutions.

24-hour Fitness memberships skyrocket.

MLM distributorships and franchise applications hit their peak.

Rosetta Stone orders hit the roof.

Of course we know that many of these things people have “resolved” to do simply don’t make it past the first week of February.

Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of New Year resolutions, or what I call “The four-letter R-word”.

Instead I’m more in line with the 3-R’s…

REVIEW
Really look back on the last year.  Go through photos, emails, calendars, etc. and reflect on what things have progressed and what hasn’t.  Make sure you bring emotion into this process.  Remember what could have been better, and celebrate what turned out better than you expected.

REVISE
Based on the results you just reviewed, ask yourself what needs to be adjusted.  This may be your end goal, your approach, your expectations, your relationships.  Maybe you need to stop one thing and do even more of another thing. Decide what specifically you must do.

REFOCUS
Knowing now what needs to take place, give yourself the “juice” to see them through by determining WHY it’s important to make them happen.  How will things be better for you?  Who else will these decisions affect for the better?  How will it make you feel?

It’s a simple and powerful process that you can do minutes at a time for different aspects of your life.

In the past I’ve hosted New Year goal-setting teleseminars or webinars for clients to go through a similar process, and I may offer one in the next few weeks.

In addition to the 3-R’s, one of the new things I’ll be doing for myself is adding a really cool technique I just learned from my mentor John Carlton.

John describes his “new year” ritual of “The January 15th Letter”.

Here’s how it works…

Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of a year in the future.

(John writes his on January 15th, hence the name.  But you can do it whenever you want.)

For example, if you’re doing this on December 31, 2011, date your letter December 31, 2012.

So the “future you” (1 year older and wiser) is writing to the “present you”.

In your letter, writing from the perspective of the “future you”, tell your younger self about all the amazing things you’ve accomplished in that previous 12-month period.

What did you accomplish?

Who did you meet?

What did you laugh about?

What did you celebrate?

Whose lives did you touch?

What are you most proud of?

Include all the stuff that’s “realistic” and remember to include those things that you’d consider “out of this world”.

Whatever you write, the key here is to write it from the point of view that THESE THINGS HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED.

You’re just writing to yourself as a way of saying, “Hey, here’s what you’ve got to look forward to.”

I’ve done similar “letters to self” in other contexts and let me tell you, it will blow your mind and open your heart to new possibilities and a deeper appreciation for yourself.

Do it now, thank me (and John) later

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. If you’d like to read the original post from John, you can check it out HERE

P.P.S. If you would like to participate in one of my guided goal-setting sessions, let me know by COMMENTING BELOW.  If there’s enough interest I’ll schedule something for sometime in January.  I’m not sure if I’ll charge for it at this point, but if I do it will be nominal.

Just COMMENT BELOW with your preference of a weekend/weekday, morning/evening session.  (e.g., “Phil, I’m interested and would like a weekend evening session.)

It shares some really good tips and tricks to make sure you’re getting the best bargain from a number of online and local merchants.

Great for me.

Great other consumers.

Bad for businesses.

Why?

Because these types of tactics effectively reduce a business’s value to one thing: PRICE.

The one with the best overall price (including shipping and tax) invariably gets the sale.

BTW… If you’re thinking, “Phil, that’s great and all, but I’m not selling electronics or toys or cookware, so this just doesn’t apply to me.”

BUZZ! WRONG ANSWER!

Make no mistake…

Whether it’s the portion of your servings, your star rating, the distance to your customer’s house, the number of reviews on your profile…

You are being compared to your customers in one way or another.

Back in my suit-and-tie days, we used to call these types of situations “column fodder”.

Purchasing managers would create reports for decision makers (AKA check signers) on their best recommendation for a product or service using a spreadsheet.

This would put every bid/vendor on an even scale so that they can make “fair apples-to-apples” comparisons.

Yeesh!  I cringe every time I hear that phrase… apples-to-apples.

So how do you get out of that one and still come out on top?

Two ways…

First, stop being an apple and be an orange instead.

Structure your offer, describe your business/product/service, and approach your prospect in a completely different way than your competitors do.

For example, bundle your services so that they can’t be broken out piecemeal and easily plugged into an Excel column.

Second, if you’re looking to win the price battle to attract customers, make sure you have a strategy for making back that lost margin.

Former customers of group buy services like Groupon and livingsocial know only too well that a flood of customers can quickly turn into disaster.

Don’t just look at winning that short-term transaction.

Think of your long term relationship with your new customer both in terms of repeat business and referrals.

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to the holidays, does it?

Cheers to your success!

Philipp

P.S. If you know you need help with creating effective, long term, automated marketing strategies, keep an eye out for my upcoming trainings.

Or for faster, more personal attention, you can request my comprehensive Marketing Process Audit at 909-297-1662.