Be a linchpin not a cog!

Why do you have a front lawn?
It's a tradition.

Lawns were invented as a way for the landed gentry to demonstrate that they could afford to waste land.

By taking the land away from the grazing sheep, they were sending a message to their neighbors. We're rich, we can happily waste the opportunity to make a few quid from our front lawn.

In every city there are expensive hotels that are noisy, with £50 breakfasts, no parking, blinds that don't make the room dark and rooms that don't have enough space to swing a cat let alone hang it up with your suits.

We are paying extra to stay therby ensuring we'll be surrounded by others just as wealthy and just as interested in showing it.

Rich people will always indulge the desire to stand out, otherwise what was making it, or keeping it all about?

I think we are seeing a new rich:

Spending on and investing in time, not things..

The new trend in spending money is to buy craftsmenship and not the efficiently mass produced.

It will not be a better price than Matalan, but the very fact that you can pay for an artisan to create it, an artist to design it, a talented worker to bring it to life--that act makes a powerful statement about what you can afford and what's important to you.

Instead of a bigger house, it's a house that's built from scratch by craftsmen. Instead of a bigger steak, it's a handmade dish of locally grown organic vegetables...

In these days of quoting, losing margin all through price cutting and bad selling

Keep your eyes open for another way, use showmanship to display niche quality, tell a story rather than "this is the best price and value" story .

Price & value is just one pitch available yet rarely the most effective for the audience you may be trying to reach....

Stand for something in these unique times and be prepared to fail!

If you need a marketing consultant to discover what you stand for then give up as they will make thousands and if you to search for a marketing angle, you're unlikely to find one.

Standing for something means giving up a lot of other things, and opening yourself to criticism. Most people in any industry aren't willing to do that, which is why there are so few linchpin's in the world.

First, decide it's great to fail and to make a big noiuse while failing.

This will put you on the right path as you go searching for the way to capture that right way and share it with the world.

Now sack your salaried sales staff, find a sales agent, a great sales agent, a selective agent, one that's almost impossible to get through (as they are seeing customers or recruiting a sales team) to, one that commands respect and acts as a filter because after all, that's what you're seeking, a filtered, amplified way to spread your idea.

Often, businesses hire 'consultants & trainers' to solve a specific problem for the lowest possible cost. And a good team at the right price is often the right approach. WRONG!! Average people get average results and I say pay the most you can afford..... Also link it to sales performance.

Spend more and get something great. So seek out and find a linchpin who combines inspiration and professionalism and initiative and pushes back on your quest to be the best and dump.

When you interact with someone like that, you might pay more but you get far more than you paid.

Get self employed sales agents who sell nothing and earn nothing or sell lots and earn lots! Be prepared for some hard-work in finding the good guys as they are not easy to find and want to earn a good six figures.

You can cut the costs of pampering a salaried sales force and increase sales at the same time.

There's a lot of pressure for freelance agents to fit in, conform and comply. It seems easier to generate new business that way. That's not the sales agent you want though.

You need the person who's willing to push themselves out to an edge and will follow the only path that actually leads to success.

And then it's not just the agent I refuse more business than I accept! For me I need to see the client to cares enough about the project and in making a difference to have the guts to hire me.

The Client ofetn seem to not progress to the finishing line, lose focus, change price, worry about what the agent makes rather than the increase on bottom line business profit (so looking up the wrong end of the telescope) , sometimes clients are not trustworthy and just can't keep thier word!

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell

Whether you are a client my thoughts are the same as Seth Godin who says focus on the following:

What works to change mindsets, to spread important ideas and to create an audience for work that matters? What's worth your effort and investment as a marketer or creator?

In the race between 'who' and 'how many', who usually wins--if action is your goal. Find the right people, those that are willing to listen to what you have to say, and ignore the masses that are just going to race on, unchanged.

Quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality, quality and a bit more quality will be a good start!

One example is Pixar

At every turn, Pixar messed up the marketing of their new movie. It has a hard to spell name, no furry characters, not nearly enough dialogue (the first 45 minutes is almost silent), no nasty (but ultimately ridiculous) bad guy, hardly any violence and very little slapstick. Wall-e didn't get a huge Hollywood PR campaign or even a lot of promotion, it doesn't feature any hot stars and as far as I can tell, the merchandising options are quite limited.

Can you imagine the meetings?

Can you imagine the yelling?

Pixar, recently purchased by Disney, could crank out multi-billion dollar confections. They know all the moves, they have the chops to create merchandising powerhouses. And with just one movie a year, they certainly must have been under huge pressure to do just that.

And yet, instead, they make a great movie. A movie for the ages. A film, not 90 minutes of commerce.

The irony, of course, is that they'll make plenty of money. Bravery often pays off, even if paying off is not your goal. Especially if that's not your goal.

Marketing isn't always about pandering to the masses and shooting for the quick payoff. Often, the best marketing doesn't feel like marketing at all.

"Don't tell me you like the ad ... tell me you want to buy the product!"

Is Your Ad Agency Doing This To You?

When David Ogilvy, one of the greatest advertising masters of all time implored, "Don't tell me you like the ad ... tell me you want to buy the product!" ... he absolutely nailed it.

What Ogilvy was saying loud and clear, is that advertising isn't about being creative, or about winning industry awards for good ad agencies, or about being funny. Advertising is the serious business of generating sales and profits for the organisation it represents.

Now, of course that doesn't mean a great ad can't be funny, or clever. There are many examples of funny, clever ads that have both won awards and sales. But they are a rarity.

And typically, they are the result of a lot of serious market research and analysis of the target demographic.

Sadly, many ad agencies don't get it. They trade on 'clever' and 'funny'. And sadly, they do win awards within their peers, while the client is sitting with no phones ringing with orders, no enquiries coming in, and no sales to show for it.

Have a look at these small teaser ads. (I've changed the company name for obvious reasons.) Now, I suspect that if you saw these ads in the media, you might give a chuckle.

You wouldn't laugh though if it were you paying that 'clever' copywriter to indulge themselves in showing off their prowess at playing with words. Clever ads rarely work.

Can you imagine anyone going into their local supplier (of course, the ads don't tell you where to go, you'd have to guess!), and asking for this product as a result of these ads?

In fact, when you consider it, the market they're probably intended to appeal to would tend to be offended by these ads. They may actually lose sales for the company.

Well, you be the judge...

Now if you thought these were good ads, I can understand why. You see, we've been brainwashed by the 'arty' creative types in the ad agency world that this is what advertising should be!

Again, I make the qualification that, on rare occasions, you'll get a clever TV commercial or magazine ad that absolutely rips up the record books on producing sales.

But they tend to be the result of research and not some misguided copywriter's fantasy of what they think works.

What if your business rested on your choice out of these two ads?

I've had a lot of fun with the following two ads over the years at my seminars. I put these two ads up on the screen and ask the audience of business owners to pick the one they believe will be the winner in the sales generating stakes. (Before you read on, pick your winner. No cheating!):

These ads are reproduced from John Caples' classic, "Tested Advertising Methods". He explains that these two ads were 'split run tested'. That means, they ran in the same paper, on the same page, on the same day.

How? There are multiple print presses used in printing up a newspaper, so printing press 'A' can have ad 'A', and press 'B' can have ad 'B' ... then when they're 'shuffled' as they come out of the other end to be bundled up and sent off for distribution, they offer the perfect split run test!

So, which one did you chose as the winning ad? If you chose 'Popular Secretary Caught Red Handed', you've got a lot of company. Consistently over 90% vote for this ad.

But if you thought you'd picked the winning ad, you would be seriously disappointed. 'Hundreds Changing to Fragrant Frostilla' outpulled it by 89%.

People ask me why did this ad pull better. The real answer is, 'Who cares, it did!'

Seriously though, it is a powerful lesson in effective marketing. It tells you that the ad you may like, or even love, may well be costing you dearly in lost sales. You owe it to yourself to test your message. You owe it to yourself to measure the responses to all your marketing collateral.

And if you use an ad or marketing agency, you owe it to yourself to have them demonstrate to you their track record in producing sales generating advertising.

If an agency reels backwards at the suggestion that their creative work should be measured, and that you want to track the number and quality of responses to the ads they produce, maybe you need to be talking to a new ad agency.