The Big Secret to Marketing Your Business

Every entrepreneur wants a magic marketing potion that will attract all the customers and sales they can handle. Many are searching for that one, big marketing secret that will make their business successful beyond their wildest dreams.

These starry eyed people believe there exists one piece of information or tactic that will take them from obscurity to becoming the marketing champion in their industry. Sadly, most will never discover this secret even though it’s hidden in plain sight and instantly available to them at any time.

This Big Marketing Secret is your attitude!

Yes, successfully marketing your business requires the correct attitude. Just like your relationships with other people, the attitude you take decides on what you will ultimately achieve.

Your belief system and your approach play a significant role in your marketing success. It is the starting point what you will accomplish and how much money you earn in your business.

Do you believe that your marketing efforts will pay off in increased sales? Or, do you think that marketing is a waste of time and money because you’ve tried once before and failed to attract any response?

The fact of the matter is that marketing does work when you understand how. Like catching a ball or riding a bike it is a learned skill that anyone can master. All that stops you from achieving more is your attitude toward marketing.

There are millions of people who are now highly successful because they possessed the attitude that marketing is the most important activity in their business. Everything starts and relies on your ability to attract and convert prospects into buyers. It’s the only area of your business that produces the opportunities to make a sale.

When you ignore it, cut the budget when times are tough or just don’t market at all your business will suffer. Without marketing it’s tough to make a sale. Without sales, you have no business; only an expensive hobby!

Successful marketing requires desire, action and commitment. If you lack in any of these three qualities and have a bad attitude, you might as go work for someone else. It’s no secret that your attitude is critical to what you achieve in life and business. When you have a positive approach to your marketing, what you believe will be the most likely outcome.

Like the late Henry Ford said, “If you think you can or you think you cannot, you are always right.”

Need to Improve Your Marketing? Throw a PASS!

Every business has the ability to reap huge benefits by making small improvements in their marketing. By leveraging a few key areas you can create plentiful and consistent sales opportunities. One area that can produce significant improvement is the techniques you use to communicate your marketing message to your audience.

The most powerful force in marketing is the skill of persuasion. Your ability to communicate to your target market the benefits and solutions your product or service provides is the key to your business success.

One proven technique that will improve your persuasion skills is to throw them a PASS with your marketing message.

PASS stands for Problem – Agitation – Story – Solution. This communication technique utilizes a powerful psychological trigger: People are highly motivated to action on problems that cause them pain, stress and discomfort.

Your most qualified prospects are looking to solve a specific problem, dissatisfaction or challenge they are facing in their lives. Your job as a marketer is to focus their attention on this problem and show them that you have the best available solution. You must motivate them to take action by stimulating their emotional need to solve the problem and relieve the stress that is attached to it.

Here’s how to use the powerful PASS technique in your marketing materials.

1. Problem – Define the problem they are experiencing and address it clearly so it triggers an emotional response. Get them to take time to think about the pain or discomfort they are feeling.

2. Agitation – Make them feel the problem by pointing out the possible scenarios that could occur if they don’t take action. Feeling a sense of loss or missed opportunity often compels people to act immediately.

3. Story – Tell a relevant story of someone who shared the same problem and their method of solving it. Focus on the positive results they experienced and how they benefited by solving the problem with your product or service.

4. Solution – Offer them a solution to the problem with your product or service. Provide detailed benefits, examples and testimonials of satisfied clients and customers you’ve helped before.

Your goal is to whip them into a frenzy by using emotional triggers which point out the cause of the problem. Once sufficiently agitated, offer your solution and educate them on the benefits you provide to fix it. Paint them a picture of what their life will look like as a result of purchasing your product or service.

When you use the PASS technique, the prospect will sell themselves on the fact they need to make a purchase to remove the pain and problem. For excellent case studies of this formula in action, watch any of the hundreds of TV infomercials that are broadcast over every day. There’s a reason they utilize the PASS technique…it works!

To find more marketing techniques and for your free report, Ten Critical, Must-Have Techniques To Improve Your Marketing, visit at www.td-marketing-system.com.

To all your marketing victories,
Coach Ron

Applying Leverage To Beat Bigger Competitors

As football coach, if you give me a slight, 150 pound running back and I can show him how to block a 300 pound charging linebacker. It’s the same as in your business…It’s all about how you apply leverage to what you have!

I can be awfully intimidating when you look across the line and see a man twice your size waiting to knock you out. But when you understand the fundamentals and have confidence in your abilities, it is inevitable that you will defeat this bigger, badder opponent.

All it takes is positioning yourself so you can apply leverage to his weakest point.

There is no such thing as a perfect product or service that has the ability to appeal to everyone in the market. It just doesn’t happen. You can be as big and strong as Nike, McDonalds, or Starbucks but you will always have a weakness that can be attacked and exploited by savvy and more nimble entrepreneurs – like you.

Even if you are facing well established competitors with deep pockets, you can defeat them by attacking their weak points and leveraging your strengths. That’s what winning the marketing game is all about…Scoring the most sales by better positioning your offer as the obvious, risk free choice to prospects, clients and customers.

You can defeat that 300pound linebacker you face in your market just by leveraging your strengths against the vulnerable gaps in their marketing. It all starts with your strategies, tactics, and techniques!

It's Time for Some Football!!!

Yippee! Football season is almost here!

As most of you know, I coach football in the falls for my local school district in Dexter, Michigan.

Besides marketing, football is my other passion that I pursue. Hence the name of my marketing system - Touchdown Marketing System.

In my humble opinion, football is the ultimate team sport because it requires a diverse collection of players with different skills working together to achieve a goal. It requires toughness, tenacity and perseverance....just like marketing your business.

I love all sports and have played a lot of baseball, basketball, volleyball, bowling and many others. All these games have merit and I highly respect those who are dedicated to competing at all levels. But football is the most demanding physically, mentally and socially.

There are so many parallels to marketing that I could fill dozens of blog posts. Them most important is the need to prepare before you play. Preparing and practicing for a single game each week is intense and difficult. As small business owner, so is developing and sticking with your marketing to it works.

There is nothing more exciting than scoring a hard earned touchdown in football. To me it's just like winning the trust of a prospect and make a sale.

Marketing Lessons from a Magazine?

I write to you today from the Plymouth District Library. I’m in between appointments with coaching clients and all the tables at Panera Bread were taken because it’s lunchtime.

(Sidebar: when you’re at Panera by yourself during lunchtime on your laptop, get up and let someone who is there to eat lunch have your table. It’s just common courtesy and your $1.69 cup of coffee doesn’t cover rent for 3 hours.)

I’m sitting in the library adjacent to the magazine racks and a magazine caught my attention. On the cover was the title: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

I thought to myself, “Interesting, a magazine devoted to atomic scientists.”

Then I remembered, “There’s a magazine for just about any topic or industry.” Sure enough, after glancing around a little more, I spotted Backyard Bird - for bird watchers, Costal Living – even though Plymouth is land locked, Cooking for 2, Current History, Cosmopolitan, Genealogical Helper, The Herb Companion and on and on.

Each had an attention grabbing headline. Atomic scientists do have a sense of humor; one article is called “Home On the Nuclear Range.’’ Coastal Living is touting “Summer Vacations” and, of course, Cosmo’s is “Taboo Sex.” Each of these did what they were designed to do…stop me in my tracks and notice it!

Magazines are a great place to start as you select your target market of potential fans. They are so focused on a single, niche subject that you can gather a lot of marketing intelligence from the ones that serve your chosen industry.

You may not be able to afford to place an ad in a magazine at this moment. But you can check out the tactics and techniques that are being used to market to that niche. What’s their strategy…image or lead generation? Are they trying to drive traffic to their website? Do they use coupons?

Notice their headlines and ad copy. What’s the benefit their selling? What’s their call to action? Do they have a guarantee? What are the emotional triggers their using?

Check out the articles inside. What topics are they discussing? Are there any trends that you can spot? What’s the point of view and the attitude they are using? Is there anything you can leverage in your marketing?

You can learn a lot inside the cover of a magazine that serves your market. Take the time to do some research in your industry magazines and study the contents. You may find a wealth of ideas and concepts that point your marketing in the right direction.

At least now I know how to reach atomic scientists! Oh, by the way, here's their website - http://www.thebulletin.org

Whew! Here's an Offer You Can't Refuse.

Greetings fellow marketers!

I've been neglecting this blog recently due to the fact that I've been working on my new marketing program - "How to Win The Marketing Game: Six Strategic Fundamentals to Take Your Business From Existing to Marketing Champion"

I must say that writing can be very exhausting and frustrating. I respect anyone who pens any significant amount of copy or content for people to read.

Writing allows me to share my passion for marketing with others. Marketing is a big mystery to a large majority of people who start a business. My goal is to help educate as many people as possible on the need to market their business.

So for a limited time, until July 25th to be exact, I'm offering a free coaching session to entrepreneurs who want to learn how to market their business better. This will be a phone session where you call me and we will discuss the marketing challenges you currently face.

I'm doing this so I can get a better understanding of what you are facing in your business. This will help me develop my next marketing product and to serve your needs better.

You can request your coaching session by clicking this link: Free Coaching Session.

I hope you decide to take advantage of this one-time offer!

To all your marketing victories,

Coach Ron

You Can’t Win With the “Build and They Will Come” Strategy

“Build it and they will come.”

This famous quote from the movie “Field of Dreams” may work in the movies but it rarely is the basis of creating a business.

I recently met with an entrepreneur who has spent countless hours and a load of cash remodeling a building to open his dream business. He called me to design a logo for him because that’s what his ideas of marketing is – a logo to “get the name out there.”

At the end of our meeting I asked him a simple question that resulted in a puzzled look on his face…“Do you have a marketing plan?”

He admitted that he didn’t have one and said, “I’ll do fine. Were the only game in town and I’ve talked to a lot of people who will do business with me when we open.”

How many is a lot? Fifty…a hundred…five hundred? My guess would be around a hundred.

I then asked him if he had a strategy to turn those people into repeat customers who buy on a regular basis. He said, “No, our product s so good that they will come back again.”

To which I replied, “What happens when you get an unhappy customer and they tell their friends about their bad experience?” He answers, “Oh well, I guess we’ll have to find another customer.”

I could have gone on but it was very clear that he doesn’t understand he must play the marketing game.

This is a classic example of the “Build it and they will come” trap.

The business owner is so in convinced that his dream is so wonderful that people will beat a path to his door without any marketing effort. He is sure that he has a large group of prospects that will purchase out of the goodness of their heart over and over again.

They also believe that no competition exists in their market. There’s always someone to compete with! It may not be in his industry selling the same product or service, but there is another business that is trying to get their attention. If he doesn’t put forth any effort in attracting them, how will they find his business?

And finally, if he lose a customer and has no marketing system to replace them, how can he sustain his business? Marketing is the only way to ensure that he has a sustainable flow of new prospects entering his doors and buying his products.

Yes, he can build it and they may show up when he opens, but the only thing that will keep them coming back is marketing. And without a marketing plan the chances are pretty good that he is not going to be around very long.

“Build it and they will come” works in a fantasy movie, but in the real world of business it’s a strategy that has no chance of winning.

To get out of the fantasy world and focused on real life marketing solutions - click here to discover a valuable tool that shows you how!

To all your marketing victories,

Coach Ron