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| Subject: The Best:Advantage Is The Advantage You Create | |
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Author: Dennis S. Vogel |
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Date Posted: 21:38:43 08/21/11 Sun In reply to: Bankrupture - financial hernia 's message, "AbrahamAdvantage? What is my advantage?" on 20:31:58 08/20/11 Sat I'd need more information to give you specific advice. Examples: Location (at least something general like state, country, rural, urban) & population, product line, target niche & nearest competitors. Jay Abraham has often talked about sales being a numbers game. For big retailers, marketing may be a numbers game. Often consumers are reduced to numbers in financial reports. Below I have a short model you can use - it may seem like a formula but it's not complete or specific enough to be reduced to a formula. Also, there are other factors (models) that overlap & intersect with it. When combined, even in their most basic forms, they would require a book to describe them all & show how they fit together & how to implement them. Some marketers successfully use some parts without knowing the rest. It's vital to remember successful businesses fail when they're outperformed by optimal businesses. Success & being optimal are situational & often temporary. Each business owner should specifically adapt each applicable factor & model without ignoring other details. Some of this model is like what Adam Smith wrote in "The Wealth of Nations". Though Adam Smith only used the term "invisible hand" once, it's become famous. Too often people forget about the invisible FOOT of competition (my expression). My interpretation of the concept of an invisible hand is - What we do affects the actions of others. We can do what's best for us, without hurting everybody else. Doing what's best for us can sometimes benefit others. We won't always know how results of our actions affect others or the eventual long-term effects on us. Your marketing can affect your local economy, which has an effect in the global economy. Each sale you get or miss affects more people than just you. Your actions are part of the effects of an invisible hand & invisible foot. Many people disagree with things Adam Smith wrote. You may not agree with everything I wrote, but I hope you'll profitably use what you can. The Basic Model Do you have the best solution for anybody's situation? When customers buy from you - what do they get? & what do they not get? How much are you willing to do & give so people will be persuaded to buy from you? Before, during & after a purchase, who is risking the most - you or customers? Jim Cecil (associate of Jay Abraham) talked about a need or desire being a pain. People want relief. 'Do you have a headache? I have an aspirin. No headache? Sorry!' Expanding the Basic Model Comparisons & Compromises - Opportunity Costs: How much effort & time does it take to earn the money a person spends for a product? If somebody buys from you, it means s/he won't have enough money for something else. What do people not buy so they can afford to buy from you? What do people scrimp on so they can afford to buy from you? Surprise: If somebody buys a cheaper version of something from Walmart, s/he may have enough money left over to buy from you. Here the titles of 2 books about this & other subjects - Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the New Consumer by Michael J. Silverstein & John Butman Trading Up: Why Consumers Want New Luxury Goods--and How Companies Create Them by Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske To get some idea of what it's like for somebody to buy from you search YouTube for Leap of Faith in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". (There's more below.) When you make an offer, what are you willing to do/give to get what you want? What do you expect consumers to do to get what they want/need (their Holy Grail)? What are you willing to do to make it easier for them to justify buying from you? They can buy from somebody else. They can buy something different. They can save the money & not buy from anybody. Since they have options, what will you do to make buying from you their best option? Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone to help people buy from you? How far will you step out? (For this issue, your comfort zone is what you &/or others do in similar businesses.) Your Advantages Depending on the advertising media you use, you may get quick results & be able to make adjustments. Big retailers have bureaucracies & many meetings to decide if they should do anything. After they do something, they wait for results & have meetings about results. If you meet customers, that's one of your advantages. You can know them as people, not just consumers or numbers. You don't always need definitive data to be successful. If 10 people ask for a product & if a supplier will sell those products in lots of 10, you can order & sell quickly. Jay talked about pricing in other programs. In some of the AbrahamAdvantage videos, Jay focused on value. What seems like a price issue may be a misunderstanding about product/service value. Joint ventures, consultative selling, information, risk reversal & bonuses add value. With any of these or a combination, you can make your offers different, so you'll offer BETTER value. Joint ventures - Even in the world of web sites & giant retailers, no business can provide everything a target niche may want/need. With joint ventures, you can help people get things even if you don't stock them. Be careful about the legalities & be sure you know enough about the other business(es) to determine if they match your ethical standards. When people trust you & your business, they're apt to trust your recommendations. You can also benefit from the reputations of joint venture partners. Joint venture partners can have what you can't afford to offer. You don't have to take on the higher risk of buying more lines of inventory. Information - Durability: How long will a product or service result last? What can a customer do to get maximum benefits? Other options: What else might help a customer more than the product s/he asked for? What else might help a customer in addition to the product s/he asked for? Delivery dates: How long should a customer plan to be without desired/needed results? Consultative selling - Ask & answer questions. Help customers make the best decisions. This includes product information. Product information: Too often, people buy products without fully understanding what they're buying. Sometimes they don't fully understand what they need/want or why. You can ask diagnostic questions & explain options, so people know what to buy & how to use products. It reduces customers' frustrations. That leads us to risk reversal. Risk reversal - Some big retailers will accept almost any returns when a buyer has a receipt. To return a product to a big retailer, a consumer searches for a product (without much, if any, service), then waits in line to pay for it, treks across a big parking lot & drives miles through traffic to get home. If the product is unsatisfactory, the consumer ends up doing almost that whole process (hassle) in reverse. A defective product is frustrating enough. The rest of the hassle makes it worse. You can/should reduce hassles & frustrations for consumers. Some business owners refuse to give any guarantees because they think people will cheat them. Hello, reluctant business owners, how do you think consumers feel about trusting you? Some retailers want to rely some factoids as if those factoids guarantee anything. 'I have a store, so I'm established!' Big deal, the consumer has a house & is established. 'My family has owned this business for more than 100 years.' (Yawn, sigh) How will that help consumers? Will that previous 100 years replace what they could lose? Will your ancestors explain how to solve customers' problems? People are more concerned about what they may lose more than what they may gain. Let's figure as a marketing consultant, my work brought you $10,000 of profit. You're holding that $10,000. You can see & feel it. My next idea may cost you $9,500 to implement. Realistically, which matters to you most - 1) I brought you $10,000 you wouldn't have without my work OR 2) You could lose $9,500? Faith & Trust When a person is persuaded, in effect, s/he crosses a threshold or tight rope. You can go to the customer's side & offer to carry him/her across. The customer may have faith in your ability to walk across the tight rope, since you just did it to cross over. Trust means the customer is letting you carry him/her across. S/he'd have to trust your integrity, strength, balance & ability to judge if the rope is strong enough to hold both of you at the same time. In "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", Indy is forced to pass through some physically dangerous tests. The last test is crossing a bridge, BUT... When Jones looked ahead of him & down, he didn't see a bridge. Plus, he didn't have an absolute guarantee the Holy Grail existed. Even if it existed, there was no guarantee he'd find it or that his father would live long enough to be saved by the Holy Grail. What if he stepped in the wrong place? This is an extreme example, but it should help you realize how some people feel about risks. They want/need something but they have to give something up to get a result from a product/service. You probably realize what your business needs to survive. Now look past what you need & see consumers struggling. Will you meet them where they are? Will you step out onto a bridge you can't see (is there really is a bridge there?!)? There are more things to lose than money - self-esteem/pride, reputation, time, energy, etc. Bonuses - There are probably other business owners who could provide bonus products to you as long as the recipients know where they can buy more. This is probably more than you wanted to know when you posted your message. I took a step of faith since you weren't specific about what you want/need. Thank you for using this blog. Dennis S. Vogel How far will you go to achieve success? What do members of your market niche expect from you? Some information you need for successful promotions is here - http://www.lakefield.net/~thrivingbusiness/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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