“The absence of empathy is the completion of emotional detachment.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (click to Tweet)Click here to get the book!
“Body Language Five Ways To Show Empathy In A Negotiation”
People don’t realize they’re always negotiating.
Don’t tell me you empathize with my position in this negotiation. You’ve not shown any empathy that I’ve discerned. What about the concession I gave you? Didn’t that display my understanding of your plight? No! You did that for your benefit. The compromise you made was not what I was seeking in this negotiation.
That was the exchange that occurred between two people during a negotiation. Does it sound like something you may have encountered in any of your negotiations?
Empathy is a potent tool in a negotiation. Its display, or its withholding, impacts the mind of a negotiator and the overall flow of the negotiation process. Empathy is something that negotiators seek in a negotiation, but few consider its impact on the talks.
The following insights outline how you can display empathy through your body language during a negotiation. It’s also insightful on how you can express empathy in other aspects of your life.
In a Breakthough Ideas in Training webinar that Anthony Amos gave for us at Tortal, he made a comment that we’ve been thinking about ever since . . .
“Good training coaches people to move through discomfort.”
The more we think about that comment, the more we realize how wise Anthony is. After all, discomfort is one of the main reasons people silently resist training . . .
Sales trainees learn your company’s strategies and scripts for structured selling . . . but some never admit that they feel uncomfortable about “asking for the buy” and closing sales.
Some mature trainees who are returning to the workforce might be reluctant to admit that they feel insecure about using new technologies.
Executives in your leadership training programs take part in workshops that encourage them to work closely with other departments . . . but some of them secretly feel defensive about sharing too much information with the heads of other divisions.
Some of the phone representatives who you are training to make cold sales calls never admit they hate to pick up the phone and call people they don’t know.
Dealing with Discomfort
Before you can overcome discomfort, you have to find ways to uncover where it lies. Here are some effective ways:
Start asking for “mood feedback” as soon as training begins. Asking a question like, “everybody good with that?” or, “anybody got a problem with that?” consistently through training can set up an atmosphere that encourages trainees to open up about any areas of discomfort. If you keep the mood lighthearted and fun, trainees will be more likely to say what is on their minds.
Anticipate and deal with possible “hot button” issues when designing your training. If you think about who your trainees are and what you would like them to learn, you can often identify areas of discomfort ahead of time and teach to them.
Effective Coaching Techniques for Areas of Discomfort
Use simulations. If a trainee for a calling center job says that she fears dealing with angry customers, let her handle two or three simulated calls from dissatisfied customers. (Other trainees can play the part of the callers.) Once she sees that she can handle those calls well, she will gain the confidence she needs.
Use videos in your training. If you can show employees dealing with situations or issues that you expect will cause trainees discomfort on the job, you can proactively train employees to perform better.
Let trainees break into small sub-groups to discuss what they are learning. Trainees who are reluctant to air fears or concerns before a room full of other trainees are often willing to share their feelings in small groups of their peers. One good technique is to ask each group to appoint a leader to collect comments and then report them to the entire training class.
Consider using anonymous feedback. You can ask trainees to anonymously write down their areas of discomfort on index cards, or have them text the training leader. Once those comments are collected, your trainer can talk about them openly with the entire group.
Be respectful of trainees’ feelings. You want to keep the mood light, but resist the temptation to poke fun at trainees’ fears. If a trainee opens up about something that is on his or her mind – something that is a concern – part of a trainer’s job is to discuss the issue respectfully and carefully.
About Evan Hackel
Evan Hackel, a 35-year franchising veteran is a nationally recognized expert and speaker on franchising. Evan is the founder and CEO of Ingage Consulting, and CEO of Tortal Training, a leading training development company. Evan is an active advisor in the C-Suite Network. He is also author of Ingaging Leadership, and host of “Training Unleashed,” a podcast covering training for business. Contact him here, follow him at @ehackel, or call 781-820-7609.
The observable problem about most marketing is that we have been making ourselves the subject of the story and not the customer. And so the message falls on deaf ears.
Most marketing messages make the brand the hero of the story and that’s where we get stuck. Our marketing message fails because the customer needs to be the hero of the story.
If you want to be the hero for your customers you have to be their guide, not hero.
In Star Wars lingo; your customer is Luke Skywalker and your brand is Yoda. Yoda is the most important person in Luke’s life because he shows him how to overcome obstacles and get what he wants.
You don’t want to be the hero of the story. The Hero is constantly getting his or her butt kicked. Be the guide instead.
Then create content and resources to help the hero (your customer) reach the destination they desire.
But Don’t Take My Word For it
If you need advice on your heart, you see a cardiologist. When you need help with your marketing message, you go to the New York Times bestselling author and former screenwriter, Donald Miller.
Miller teaches that the biggest mistake businesses make is when most marketers give the business the hero roles of the story, instead of the customer.
Brands should play the role of the guide their customer needs. In turn, consumers come to view the business as the hero for guiding them on their journey.
How Tell Your Brand Story Like an Expert?
A Harvard study found that people spend half of their thoughts just daydreaming (except during sex). People are stuck in the stories we believe.
Stories are how homo sapiens process information. We’re a story telling animal. That’s why marketers turn to stories for maximum impact.
Thus, the customer is the hero in their story and needs to be the hero in yours.
People want everything to be about them. Miller advises businesses to invite people to take a journey, rather than telling them ours.
WATCH THIS!
WARNING. This will change how you communicate to your customer forever (in a good way).
Capture What Your Audience Feels Like
When we frame our solutions into a story, it allows us to capture the experience our audience is feeling. People don’t buy products. They buy the products they understand.
In Lisa Cron’s book, Wired For Story, she says that story was more crucial to our evolution than the opposable thumb.
Opposable thumbs let us hang on; stories tell us what to hang on to.
Story is what enabled us to imagine what might happen in the future, and to prepare for it. It’s a feat no other species can lay claim to; opposable thumbs or not.
To form a bond with customers, knowing what’s important to them is key.
Next, is to identify where those customers can be reached. Where do they spend their time online?
Then it’s important to develop the story, the type of content that speaks to them.
When people ask, “What do you do?” They are really asking:
Does what you do matter to me?
If so, why?
What should I do about it?
A good guide understands their hero’s conflict and offers an alternative plan for dealing with it.
The only marketing strategy you need is to create a plan to help your customer overcome the obstacle in their way. Only then, they will connect with the story we’re telling them.
Only then, they will see visions of the brighter future we offer them.
If we can identify the internal frustration our audience feels, write it into words, and offer to resolve it, then something special happens, magic. We bond with our customers. They feel understood. They engage with the rest of our message in a more meaningful way.
But before we can identify what our audience is dealing with, we need to ask the following questions…
10 Questions to Help You Understand Your Customer Better
What tasks does your customer dread doing, as it relates to your industry?
What is your customer’s ultimate dream? What do they want to accomplish?
What confuses your customer, as it relates to your industry?
What keeps your customer up at night?
What makes your customer upset or angry?
How would your customers life look differently if they had more leisure time?
What regrets does your customer have as it relates to your industry?
What makes your customer feel embarrassed or self-conscious?
How does your customer want their friends to perceive them?
What makes your customer nervous as it relates to your industry?
Great Brands Sell Stories, Not Stuff
We don’t buy fortune cookies to eat them; we buy the stories inside them, even though the story is far more powerful than the cookie.
What message should we really tell our customers? It’s not like we’re reading them a book, but it’s how to craft a message the way humans think – in story form. When people realize they are at a point where they need help, they ask themselves the following questions.
What is the conflict I am confronting?
What different outcome do I really want?
Which guide can I turn to and trust to help me achieve my dreams?
Humans understand conflict. With the exception of lawyers, the majority of the human species hate it.
We want to avoid conflict and look for tools to solve conflict. Most businesses talk about what they sell, not which internal conflict people need resolved.
But as everything else in life, it’s a lot easier said than done…
Meet the brands growing insanely fast using this marketing tactic…
The Best Advice I Got on Building a Brand
I met Russell Brunson in Las Vegas in 2008 at a small business event where he was talking about how digital marketing works online.
While I could tell that he knew what he was talking about, what I didn’t know at the time, was that he was about to build a $360 million company (called ClickFunnels), deploying the lessons he was sharing at the event I was attending.
The Sass Company That Created a Movement
One of the many things that made ClickFunnels successful is that rather than promoting their software subscription, they intentionally created a movement for their customers to follow instead.
ClickFunnels is a software that enables entrepreneurs to sell and promote products in an easy to manage platform anyone can use without needing a developer.
Basically, it’s just a landing page builder. But what’s weird is that over a million people follow them online, wear their T-Shirts, and are in love with the company.
Because instead of promoting their company they invite people to join their movement teaching people how to grow their business and change their lives instead.
Inside Expert Secrets
Russell detailed the entire process in his book for anyone interested in copying the model.
If you haven’t read his book, Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson, then you need to stop what you’re doing and order it now.
It’s one of the most informative books on marketing I’ve ever read.
The UnderGround Marketing Playbook
Expert Secrets is the underground playbook for creating a mass movement of people who will pay for your advice.
Brunson outlines a comprehensive guide on how to become the expert in your niche and build a tribe of loyal followers who resonate with your message and ultimately buy your products.
Russell believes that you can make money when you challenge yourself to help others in the biggest way possible, and why it’s beneficial to create future opportunities for people to join in on (ie, a mass movement).
You’ll get plenty of examples and stories illustrating how he created his own loyal following that turned ClickFunnels into a $360 million business.
One of the biggest takeaways of the book is knowing what and how to communicate your message in a way people want to take part in your success.
The most successful brands communicate their mission as mass movements of change or something you can join and be apart of.
This is a Game Changer if You’re Building a Brand
To start building a mass movement, begin by thinking about how you can help the most people overcome the challenges of selling a product versus selling a service.
It’s a game changer for thinking about how we communicate our marketing message.
Take it from the Steve Jobs who created a movement with Apple when he started a computer company in the 90s:
“To me, marketing is about values.
This is an extremely complicated world; this is a very noisy world; and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us or about our company,
so you have to be really clear on what you want others to know about you and your company.”
Focus on What You Believe in
Talking about features and costs or how your company beats the competition is not the right approach.
The dairy industry tried for 20 years to convince you that milk was good for you.
Sales continuously declined for 20 years.
Then, they launched the “Got Milk” campaign, which didn’t even mention the product.
In fact, it actually focused on the absence of the product.
Apple is Committed to Passion
“To me, the best brand that tells a story is Nike.
Nike sells a commodity. They sell shoes. Or so you would think.
But in their ads, they never talk about their shoes, nor the soles, nor why they’re better than Reebok.
What does Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes. That’s who they are and what they care about.
At Apple, people want to know what we stand for. Apple’s core value is that we believe people with passion can change the world forever.”
– Steve Jobs
Elevate Your Customer
Remember when RedBull spent $65 million to produce one video so we could watch someone skydive 24 miles from outer space?
Felix Baumgartner became the first human being to break the sound barrier when the energy drink company sponsored the stunt.
But why would they do that?
They don’t sell their product. They sell stories of what’s possible.
Red Bull doesn’t rely on advertising. They have been creating a movement to inspire people.
They promote stories of people breaking the limits of what’s possible. It’s not a gimmick.
They don’t spend time explaining the benefits of their product and why you should buy from them.
They tell stories of what’s possible. They are leading a movement that people want to follow.
What Does Your Brand Actually Stand For?
RedBull doesn’t position themselves as a beverage company.
They are a peak performance movement that happens to sell five billion cans of their product to customers every year. They don’t create content for “why” to buy from them.
They sell passion, they sell energy, and they promote content from peak performing athletes.
So, when you’re at a store ready to buy an energy drink, you “choose the one that gives you wings!”
Attract Customers Like RedBull
The founder of RedBull has a net worth of $19.5 billion and is ranked #53 on the Forbes list of richest people.
He created a movement for consumers to follow.
He became the richest man in Austria and is easily the most famous individual to come out of his country since Arnold Schwarzenegger became Mr. Olympia.
How Did He Do It?
He knew that to attract the most customers, he would have to think unlike anyone in the beverage industry.
He focused on building a movement that would rally people together with a common purpose for a common result.
RedBull no longer competes on speed, quality, and price.
Their community or “tribe” is comprised of the most driven people on planet earth.
The product is just caffeinated water, but what they sell and promote is actually peak performance.
The more we make the customer the hero of our brands, the more likely they are to join our following and the more likely they will want to buy from us.
Make Passion Your Product (Even If You Sell Insurance)
Okay but would a more relatable business do this?
How would an insurance company create a mass movement?
Patrick Bet-David, an Iranian born entrepreneur and founder of PHP Agency turned the financial world upside down when he set out on a mission to save the insurance industry from their own up-tight self-destruction.
How does one make an insurance company “cool” to work with?
By creating a movement of change instead.
Instead of fitting into an industry that lacks consumer excitement, Bet-David redefined the customers’ expectations about his insurance company.
Meet The People Helping People (PHP Agency
He founded PHP in 2009 at the height of the recession.
In addition to launching PHP, he also launched one of the most viewed shows on YouTube with over 2,000,000 subscribers, called Valuetainment.
Their show has around 3 million subs and they are putting out high volumes of insanely valuable content to help other business owners. One of their original videos went viral with over 23 million views.
WATCH THIS:
The popular YouTube show, has a cult-like following, by helping other entrepreneurs grow their business.
By sharing his passion for building businesses, he was able to create a community of like-minded business builders.
Passionate entrepreneurship is his mantra for their show, company, and community. He didn’t simply launch a YouTube show.
He created a movement for people to follow and redefined how business leaders should communicate.
Bet-David doesn’t sell insurance through his content. He celebrates, encourages, teaches, and inspires other people to grow their businesses.
His team intensely shares valuable, in depth insights, and encouragement to continuously grow. They’re an example that nothing is impossible.
Invest In Your Audience
His company invests time to inform and inspire other people. This is why his followers are loyal and love Valuetainment.
He turned what he learned into four bestselling books and gained a ridiculously large digital audience.
Now, Valuetainment is a leading voice of business information online. They interview everyone including celebrities, pro-athletes, Mafia bosses, and the most interesting people who have endless passion to achieve the life of their dreams.
Patrick became a multi-published author, global speaker and internet celebrity by focusing on how to deliver content to other people who share a similar passion for running and growing businesses.
Thus, turning his passion into a movement worth following.
Even Hotel Brands Are Doing This
Marriott is known for serving those who love adventure.
After launching a successful blog from their chairman, Marriott International learned the power of pivoting their marketing strategy to approach people based on their passion for travel and love for adventure.
Upon recognizing its success, Marriott shifted to become a full media publisher and invested in a team of storytellers to produce and launch their own TV show, “ The Navigator Live,” a popular short film titled, “Two Bellmen,” and then ultimately, the “Marriott Traveler.”
In turn, Marriott International became a mass media site that shares and promotes content for millions of travelers with a shared interest in culture and adventure.
“In 2018 alone, Marriott Traveler attracted 3 million unique visitors, a 78% increase from the previous year. Visits via Traveler increased visits to individual hotel landing pages by 80%, and revenue from hotel bookings skyrocketed to 200% compared to the previous year. These results certainly make a solid case for content marketing.”
– Inc. Magazine
Lead Your Movement to a Better Opportunity
As Russell Brunson proudly stated in Expert Secrets, everything is based on beliefs.
It’s easier to influence people to embrace the opportunities available to them when your beliefs are clear, compelling, and honest.
The best way to build a mass movement is our ability to promote what we believe.
Also, every movement needs a leader, which Brunson calls “The Attractive Character.”
Becoming the Attractive Character
And if you’re the CEO, it’s almost certainly going to have to be you!
Thinking through how you, the CEO, positions yourself as the “attractive character” may sound vain, but it’s not.
The attractive character of your company is not about looking cool and popular. Its purpose is to provide the platform to explain your story in a “why” (or with reasoning) that communicates directly to your audience to prove that you understand what they care about in their interests.
Honest and authentic connections are key to the success of these types of initiatives. Consumers want to know you are a real human being and that you struggle through the same issues.
Share Your Experiences
Sharing both positive and negative experiences is a good approach to connect closely with your ideal customer base. Be open and share topics similar to these:
Articulate the frustration you experience
Share the approach and outcome about the wall you ran into when you confronted your industry to address the “elephant in the room”
Goals
Achievements
Ultimately, by opening the curtain to the inside of your company, you will convey truth.
With that truth, you will attract empathy, solidarity, and engagement.
Answer The Following Questions to Start Your Mass Movement
How are you creating a new opportunity for them by providing them with the services, tools, resources, and information to help them achieve their goals?
Which type of challenges did you face that allows you to help them prevent taking the same path?
How can you convey that you are not like everyone who is trying to pitch them some service; that you are one of them
The Conclusion
The next time someone asks you what you do for a living, explain the outcomes you provide rather than what you sell.
As consumers, we need to really care about the ultimate outcome provided, not the process it takes to get there.
The attractive character is to explain the desired outcome people really want through the content they produce to help their customer overcome the conflict in their way.
Our job if we are to build a brand, is to take our customers on a journey.
How to develop your content strategy like a media company?
Develop a Media Mindset
In order to create a content strategy like a major media publisher, you first have to start thinking like one.
If you’re in the financial services industry for example, think about your website and content strategy as if you were running Forbes Money.
Starting today, and continuing into the future, your business requires a customer-focused content marketing plan.
Start thinking like a media publisher, by answering these questions for your business:
Who are your customers?
What is their conflict they need resolved?
How will you resolve it?
What does your customer really want to learn, purchase, use?
Which platforms are your customers using?
How will you attract them to consume your content?
Content as the Sales Funnel…
Business today are attracting new leads and customers by designing content that solves a need or interest for the prospect they want to attract.
If people are searching for common questions as they relate to your industry, those are good indicators they are potentially interested in your services. Creating content can bring people into the top of your marketing funnel.
To generate awareness at the top of the funnel, highlight success stories focusing on the outcomes from people and companies who have achieved the ultimate desire your customer wants and that you can help them solve.
Once they see “proof,” the relationship starts to build because you have created a clear path of how to reach the same results for the outcome they really care about.
Increase Traffic to Your Sales Funnel
Businesses that invest in writing blogs for their customer receive 3x the amount of leads than those who don’t.
According toBrightEdge, more than 75% of B2B traffic is coming from organic and paid search alone.
Most people are searching for information to learn more about a subject; very few are actively seeking to take action, just yet.
Create content that answers questions and teaches consumers what to look out for. By being the most helpful source of information, who do you think they will want to work with when they are ready to buy?
That’s how companies are using content to add value to prospects.
The “Content Bridge” Strategy
Move your customers up the value ladder with informative content using the “content bridge strategy” to guide your customers to their ultimate goals with content designed to reach your desired success.
Think about your content strategy as the bridge to get your customer to the destination they want for themselves. What tips and insights can you create to help them achieve their results faster?
During the manufacturing economy, the “value chain” was defined as the full range of activities needed to create a product or service.
For companies that produce physical goods, value chain were all of the necessary physical steps required to develop a product from initial conception, through the procurement of raw materials, and then, manufacturing the final product.
But today, in the services economy, the value chain on the internet is literally content. Here’s why…
The Digital Economy Runs on Content
Does the world need more content? Absolutely not but it’s the only currency to doing business online.
Information-based service businesses comprise over 80% of the private sector. The service business used to be called the “Knowledge Industry” because buyers in the knowledge industry want solutions.
Therefore, the value chain for the service industry is sharing solutions, tips, and informational content.
This chain leads prospects into the traditional sales funnel by attracting an audience based on interest and turns them into advocates.
The purpose of analyzing a company’s value chain, is to increase productivity efficiency, in order for a company to deliver maximum value for the least possible cost.
Small and medium-sized service businesses are taking massive advantages of content marketing by providing content that drives value to their target audience and minimizes the costs associated with traditional advertising and marketing methods in the process.
But What’s the Catch?
In one word, time.
On average it takes over 6-9 months to begin to see organic results with your content strategy.
But the good news is that if you can persist and outlast others in your space. You win long term.
The other good news? Aside from the fact that it’s free, your competitors probably wont put in the extra effort.
For example, there are over 900k podcasts that have started since podcasting became “a thing” in the early 2000s. Many of which are business podcasts (no one knows that exact number). But the funny thing is, only 34% of podcasts have more than 10 episodes.
Most people start a content strategy and then give up.
But for those who have the stamina and willpower, there has never been an easier time to produce content that drives you to become the most helpful, and, in turn, most valuable authority in your industry.
What is the ROI?
But how does this benefit my bottom line?
The ROI of contributing content in your field produces the following benefits:
Establishes domain authority on your subject matter
Builds brand awareness
Engages your target audience
Generates leads and customers
If you want to be considered an authority in your business and increase leads and sales, then producing content is necessary.
This is one of those cliche instances where it helps to ask the same question in reverse, what will it cost you not to participate overtime?
Content Marketing Example: Vayner Media
Vayner Media
If you don’t know him, Gary Vaynerchuk, he is the founder & CEO of VaynerMedia.
He started his organization by focusing on creating valuable content in order to get the attention of an audience to sell to.
He went from solopreneur as a one-man operation to a team of now over 1o00 employees and doing over $135M in annual revenue through his digital marketing agency.
Which needless to say is pretty impressive…
Even more so knowing they did it predominantly off of the success of Gary’s personal content that he creates.
Gary challenged his industry by confronting the biggest elephant in the room in the advertising industry.
Confronting the Status Quo
Gary confronted the status quo by helping corporate America overcome a serious marketing problem.
Brands are still spending $70.3 billion dollars a year on traditional TV ads, and no one is watching them!
Nobody cares about traditional TV programming anymore and if they do, they’re more likely to go to the bathroom during an ad than pay attention to one.
His agency produces a daily YouTube show (for free) that now has 2.5M subscribers. Their content strategy isn’t complicated either. His team answers any and all questions about digital marketing, how to grow a business, and even life and career advice.
By teaching other people how to overcome their digital marketing, and life problems, “Gary Vee” (as his fans call him) instantly became the most valuable person in this industry.
Any other agency would charge you for the right to meet with them or give you their advice. VaynerMedia gave it away for free and made all of their competitors instantly less valuable.
In 2018 alone, VaynerMedia took in $131 million dollars in revenue.
And what’s even more impressive? That’s not the first time he did it…
Wine Library TV
Before launching VaynerMedia, Gary worked at a liquor business his parents started when they arrived in America from Russia.
When YouTube launched in 2005, Gary instantly saw a potential to grow a new base of customers online. He started distributing a weekly video series called Wine Library TV.
He provided weekly video reviews of wines you could order directly from the website.
When recording his very first episode, his plan was to pitch everyone why they should buy whatever brand he was going to review in the video. When the camera turned on something changed Gary’s mind.
Instead, he offered the rawest review possible of the brands he was selling, and even referring to some brands tasted like tires, and dogshit.
Gary Isn’t Afraid to Fight Back
Naturally, his comments offended some of the sellers in his space, but to the customers and wine enthusiasts, it was gold.
He said what they were all thinking. His real perspective was refreshing, and people loved it.
The only other platform reviewing wines at the time was the Wine Spectator, which were infomercials on why you should buy everything they sold. Gary took the opposite approach.
In just five years, Gary grew their family business from $3M to $60M in revenue.
In so doing, he transitioned the company to one of the first e-commerce platforms for alcohol in the country resulting in unusual and explosive top-line growth.
Gary strategically built his content library based on questions and suggestions that he received from viewers in the comment boxes.
Wine and Cereal Anyone?
At some point, a fan mentioned it would be fun to watch a wine pairing against non-traditional foods.
So, Gary produced an entire 20-minute episode on which wine pairs best with cereal. Yes, that’s right he paired the best wine for Lucky Charms, Cap N Crunch, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That video alone received 25 thousand views.
“Whether you like it or not, every person is now a media company because the tools are easy, free, and everywhere. More importantly, producing content is now the BASELINE for all brands and companies, and if you’re not producing content, you basically don’t exist.”
– Gary Vaynerchuk
Do People Actually Want Your Content Though?
After attending Vidfest, a conference designed to help people start professional YouTube channels, one of the biggest questions posed to one of the leading speakers was:
“How do I know if people will be interested in my content?”
The response from the “experts” was stunning: People are watching videos on literally any subject imaginable.
For example, you can go on YouTube right now and find videos about how to pack a school lunch.
That’s right, a lunchbox. This one video on packing a school lunch has 14 million views!
Here’s What We Found:
We found hundreds of videos detailing exactly how to pack a school lunch…
The top 5 suggested videos had well over twenty-four million combined views. As it turns out people are seeking answers to all of life’s questions, including how to pack a lunch. Chances are someone, right now is typing a question for which you know the answer.
It’s certain, if you find something interesting, there are millions more who will likely share that opinion, too! It’s never been easier to find people who share the same interests.
But you can only get “discovered” if you’re willing to put in the effort to building your content marketing strategy and sharing your content for the people you’re making it for.
For more content tips, check out the following articles:
Since publishing the book, 52% of companies on the Fortune 500 list cease to exist. However, it wasn’t the apocalypse everyone feared.
Companies for example didn’t just vanish leaving millions unemployed and unable to adapt to new tools and technology like a bunch of drooling luddites.
Rather, we retooled and slowly evolved to a changing landscape of running businesses in a post-digital economy.
In the last 12 months alone, most of us have had to find completely digital ways to doing business on zoom and digital meetings.
So it’s not that older companies cease to exist; they just ceased to exist doing business the old way.
We are in a never ending evolution to remain more relevant.
It’s also important to note that we’re also the same consumers who are choosing to work with the brands who are worth following and engaging over ones that stop innovating and finding new ways to make us happy.
Is Marketing Working?
The degree of disruption in businesses over the years has largely impacted how we communicate to the marketplace we serve.
The truth is businesses fail when we’re not creating the most compelling offer and message in our competitors’ spaces.
We’ve been tricking ourselves into the false belief that marketing isn’t working.
That would first imply that it ever was “working.” Since the beginning of time, marketing has only been a series of attempts at communicating our ideas.
Marketing at a crossroads to choose one of two paths.
Businesses can choose either the traditional path and continue renting audiences through ads or take the new path to publish content on desired networks.
On the promotional playing field, publishing free and value-added content is the name of the game.
For the past decade, we’ve been a bit selfish. The mistake we make in publishing content for ourselves is making the subject about our businesses, instead of focusing on the customers we want to attract and serve.
If we’re not publishing content that puts the customer first, then it’s just selfish. Consumers know it and leave it alone.
Having an audience is a privilege. It’s not about us anymore, it’s about them.
A Major Shift is Underway
Throughout the world, we see the simultaneous redefinition of the media and content industry and a reinvestment by many companies in media to produce their own content.
These major shifts won’t stop anytime soon; the single most important decision for businesses to make is to decide which game to play.
Do you continue to just buy ad and interrupt content or publish content to build and grow a community and scale a network?
This is the New Game Now
If businesses don’t contribute volumes of valuable content, it makes the effort almost downright impossible for customers to organically find businesses online.
17 new websites are added online every single second. Businesses competing only have no choice but to compete on volumes of content.
Obviously, if we’re truly looking to build awareness, convey quality and increase a healthy reputation, deciding to cut against the grain is not a recipe for success.
In today’s digital age, the customer experience begins online, and those brands that are easiest to find are the most helpful. The most creative brands get all of the attention.
Where Does Your Company Fall in This Space?
Today, the people and businesses that are capturing customer attention online are those communicating the clearest message. Additionally, they have the greatest plan to guide their audience to the solutions they solve, which leads to increased launches of digital movements.
Help Scout reports that 74% of people are likely to switch brands if they find the purchasing process too difficult.
And 51% of customers will never do business with a company again after a negative interaction.
Don’t you wish learning was easy? Imagine speaking a new language fluently within weeks or becoming proficient on a musical instrument after a few lessons.
We all wish things came easily. The pain that comes with learning new skills isn’t something most of us enjoy, but it is necessary to get better at anything in life. I believe the discomfort that comes along with the unfamiliar is one reason we resist trying anything new.
It’s natural to want instant gratification. In my experience, we often desire immediate achievement so much that we typically choose short-term outcomes over making necessary efforts to create permanent change. But quickly does not always equal better. It is in the pain of discomfort that we grow.
One of the biggest issues I experience working with executives is their reluctance to embrace the pain of learning. They think the skills that brought them success are the only things required to remain successful. I disagree. Influence is essential to any leader’s success, and communication skills are essential to influence. Without a continual commitment to improve communication skills, influence won’t grow. Without influence, others won’t act upon what we have to say. When leaders lose influence, they are no longer successful or necessary in their role.
Whether you are trying to influence your team, a prospect or a board of directors, your ability to guide their actions rests on your ability to communicate skillfully. Improvement requires an ongoing commitment to the discomfort of learning.
Here’s how to overcome four common excuses people make to avoid the discomfort of learning:
1. ‘I feel awkward.’
When we learn new skills, we feel robotic and unnatural. What you’re learning isn’t a normal part of your typical behavior. It’s going to be uncomfortable, like when we are learning a new sport. In the beginning, we are clumsy and awkward. Our bodies hurt and our muscles ache. As time goes on, however, we conquer those early skills and become more proficient. We hurt less as everything becomes a natural reflex.
The same goes for improving communication skills. When we learn a new skill, incorporating it can often make our speech feel clumsy. We second-guess ourselves because nothing feels natural about the changes we make. Growth, however, resides on the other side. With practice, our skills become a permanent part of who we are and how we communicate. That’s when we become influential with our ideas, and our words are impactful.
2. ‘I don’t have time.’
Unlike learning a new sport, language, or instrument, improving communication skills doesn’t require additional time to practice. It’s a matter of merely incorporating what you’ve learned into conversations. Day-to-day conversations are less intimidating and offer more opportunities to improve your skills than a high-stakes situation.
3. ‘I’m already an effective communicator.’
Just imagine if Michael Jordan used this same logic with his basketball skills. What if he looked at his coach and said, “I’m already the best basketball player of all time. I don’t need to get better.” The very best in arts, music, and sports know that with excellence comes a continual need for improvement. When we do the work and commit to practice, we see the most significant benefits.
Temporary stress and discomfort can help us reap the rewards of increased competence. Professional athletes and musicians spend hours each week practicing their skills. This doesn’t count the time they spend contemplating and preparing for their next goal. Imagine how influential you would become if you dedicated yourself in each conversation throughout the 40-hour workweek to improving your communication skills.
4. ‘It’s not getting easier.’
Learning a new skill forces us to evolve. As soon as it becomes natural in our daily behavior, it’s time to push harder and learn more. Practice pays off, but with practice comes more opportunity for improvement. Pain is an indication that you’re learning. The longer you feel it, the more you know it’s working.
Stop expecting to be an overnight success. You are trying to develop new habits and skills that force the mind to remap its way of thinking. This takes time, especially if you want permanent results.
There are no shortcuts in learning or skills improvement. A commitment to continual practice creates the momentum and habits necessary to get better. If you want to grow your influence and make an impact on others, you must do the work required to improve your communication skills.
One of my colleagues recently attended a panel discussion about millennials. A business professor and two millennial-aged entrepreneurs were on the panel. There were about 25 people in the audience.
“The conversation was pretty academic until the topic of sexism came up,” my colleague tells me. “At that point, three women in the audience began a heated discussion of how entrenched sexism is in their companies. One woman said that men’s ideas about marketing, product development, technology and more, were always valued more than women’s. Another said that she was having a hard time supervising millennial-age men, who did not take her seriously. There were more stories. The eye-opener for me was that these women were working for and with millennials. I thought that millennials were more enlightened.”
Questioning Our Assumptions
Did my colleague think that old-school sexism had disappeared in companies where millennials work and lead? Apparently, he did. I could accuse him of being naïve. But aren’t we all being naïve in some of the assumptions we make about millennials?
It is a topic that I plan to explore more, by asking questions like these . . .
Are millennials really more tech-savvy than members of other generations? When you sit in a meeting with a group of people from several generations, do you reflexively turn to millennials when issues of technology arise? Do you pay less attention to the views of other people in the room? If so, you could be overlooking the viewpoints of tech-savvy baby boomers and elders who might know just as much, or more, than the millennials in the room.
Do all millennials have less company loyalty than members of other age groups? Many people assume they aren’t as loyal as members of other cohorts are. But I have noticed that many factors (education, economic circumstances, and cultural or national background, to name a few) exert a big influence on individuals’ job loyalty. The year when someone was born is only one factor of many – and arguably not the greatest. Plus, I have noticed that millennials are often highly loyal when they understand what it takes to be valued and promoted in a company. If you provide each of them with an individual, understandable career plan, they will value your organization more.
Do millennial business owners practice more enlightened leadership than others? Like Barry, I think that a lot of people tend to assume that younger company owners have set aside negative leadership practices like sexism, prejudice against members of certain groups, favoritism, and even dishonesty. But as recent news stories have shown, that assumption is misleading. Millennials, just like members of other generations, can be good leaders – or bad.
Are millennials always good colleagues to other millennials? People who are older than they are – like me – tend to look at them and think, “They must all be getting along pretty well, they’re all about the same age.” How illogical is that? I have seen and heard about plenty of instances of millennials who steal other people’s ideas, play hard at office politics, and worse. Some people just behave that way at work. And then there is the fact that some millennials, just like everyone else, are prejudiced against members of certain ethnic and religious and racial groups, against members of the LBGTQ communities, against women, against men . . . you name it. Prejudice did not vanish the day the first millennial was born.
About Evan Hackel
Evan Hackel is a 35-year franchising veteran as both a franchisor and franchisee. He is CEO of Tortal Training, a leading training development company in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Principal and Founder of Ingage Consulting in Woburn, Massachusetts. Evan is the host of Training Unleashed and author of Ingaging Leadership. Evan speaks on Seeking Excellence, Better Together, Ingaging Leadership, and Attitude is Everything. Evan is an active member of the C-Suite Advisors Network. To hire Evan as a speaker, visit www.evanspeaksfranchising.com. Follow @ehackel.
When it comes to a blog (or blogging), you will hear the phrase “content is king” a lot. They are referring to the fact that people frequently search for content online. Thus, by having your own content online, they are suggesting that people would…
Find your content.
Consume your content.
Discover your business.
Google, of course, influences this because their search engine algorithms focus on content, and they give preference to people creating that content. In other words, they have an insatiable need for content. Without it, searching online wouldn’t be as fruitful.
Thus, content is king…
However, simply putting content into the digital landscape is not enough. In fact, it is a colossal waste of time without a strategy. In order to be discovered, the content must be structured so that the search engines, like Google, can recognize your content as valuable and serve it up to the people searching. This structuring is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
There are many parts to SEO, but in this article, I will focus on the blog post itself. These are best practices that must be followed consistently in order to increase the likelihood of your blogs being discovered online. So here they are…
Keyword or Key Phrase
You need to have a keyword or keyphrase chosen even before you write the blog. If you don’t do that, you’ll find yourself having to rewrite your blog post to meet the parameters of your keyword or key phrase.
That being a fact, I highly suggest that you first come up with the subject matter you want to write about. Then do your keyword research as the very next step. Once the keywords are decided on, you may write the blog entry with those keywords or phrases in mind.
When you write the article, the keyword or key phrase must be in the…
Title of the article.
Very first sentence.
Body of the article (2-5 times depending on the size of the article).
One or more of the subheadings.
Blog Subheadings
For ease of reading, break up the body of your blog content with subheadings. The idea is to give the reader breaks on the page. So it’s good to have a subheading for every 250 words.
Readability
Once again, it’s best to stay at a 4th-grade reading level and shorter sentences for the ease of reading. This one trips up many writers out there because they would prefer to write at a higher level to look smart. What they are missing is that to keep a reader engaged, writing on a lower reading level is a good idea.
There are exceptions to this rule. If you’re a scientist or a doctor, you will naturally have to write at a higher reading level. Forcing your writing to a lower reading level would only be allowing the ‘tail to wag the dog’ and come off inauthentic. Use your best judgment here. Know your audience.
Active Sentences
There are both active (i.e. ‘you will’) and passive (i.e. ‘you could’) types of sentences. Having your writing be far more active than passive will allow your written voice to be seen as having more confidence. That confidence will gain the trust of the reader.
Hyperlinks
Linking is an important part of blogging because that’s what ties content together online. Those ties help the Google algorithms recognize the content (if it’s structured correctly) as your web of content builds over time.
At a minimum, you will want to link to something internally (i.e., your own web page and/or an anchor post) and to something externally (referencing someone else’s content).
Alt-Text
Always make sure to add a relevant image so that it breaks up the reading for the viewer. It’s also important to make sure you add the keyword or key phrase to the Alt-Text of the image. This is just another part of the keyword building blocks.
Call-To-Action
Lastly, you should always include a single call-to-action on each post so that people can continue down their digital journey with you.
As you can see, there’s way more to a blog post than people will let on. So the next time somebody wants to tell you “Content is King,” understand that there’s more to the story.
For a free digital assessment, head over to KakVarley.com
We’ll see you back here next time! Thanks so much, and have a great day!
“Self-publishing grew at a rate of more than 28% in 2017 and is still climbing.
In 2018 alone, book titles grew from 786,935 to 1,009,188, surpassing the million mark for the first time in human history!”
Then why isn’t anyone celebrating?
It’s never been easier and more affordable to publish a book to share our knowledge with the world.
Mass printers can get book costs down to $1-$3 per book.
On-demand printers that most independent authors use can get costs around $6-$7 per book before adding the author markup.
This Is a Good Thing Right?
We have more legit subject experts than any time in human history.
This is the single greatest achievement in book publishing since Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1454, over 500 years ago!
The reason no one wants to talk about this is that there’s a dirty little secret in book publishing…
A majority of books don’t actually make any money.
Seriously, it’s true.
With the introduction of e-commerce, authors can no longer rely on traditional retail, especially with the demise of brick-and-mortar bookstores.
Publishers Weekly is an American trade magazine which has been providing industry insights to publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents since 1872.
The industry has been keeping the sales numbers close to their chest for awhile now…
Book Sales By The Numbers:
Recent reports indicate that the average independent or self-published author will sell less than 250 books.
The average published author will sell less than 2,000 books, and only 62 out of 1,000 book titles will sell over 5,000 copies in its lifetime.
And someone you’ve heard of took notice a few years back.
The Birth of Amazon
Very few people would have guessed the quiet introvert who worked at the local McDonalds in high school would one day become the world’s most successful and wealthiest man to walk the planet.
The $126 billion dollar man by the name of Jeff Bezos started Amazon in 1996 with the wild idea to sell books online.
Bezos started Amazon with the brand promise as “the world’s largest bookstore.”
In the Beginning it Was Just An Idea
Amazon started in 1994, when at the age of 30, Jeff quit a high paying job at a quantitative hedge fund company on Wall Street to pursue a life-long love of computers.
No one knew he would become one of the early pioneers of the internet.
At that time, Bezos and a handful of others were watching internet usage skyrocket at a rate of 2300%. He had to get involved.
Bezos relocated to Seattle with nothing other than an interest to start an online business.
In June of that same year, Jeff came up with arguably the lamest namefor a business in the history of the human race, “Cadabra Inc.”
…Yes, like “Abracadabra.”
He then pivoted to “relentless” for about a day, until friends convinced him otherwise.
He ultimately landed on the name “Amazon” reportedly for two reasons:
To suggest the immense scale he was hoping to eventually accomplish; “Earth’s Largest Bookstore” (which is what Amazon was in the very beginning)
Back then, website listings were often alphabetical, so he wanted something that started with the letter “a,” which was a straight-up marketing strategy from the Yellow Pages era.
The Vision Grew and So Did Bezos’s Ambition
The vision for the company was to be the “largest bookstore in the world.”
Building an online bookstore wasn’t exactly a grand master chess decision. However, it made sense at the time because there were three million active book titles in circulation.
These numbers have only increased since.
Major bookstores could only hold a max of 150,000 titles in retail locations.
While that’s an impressively large volume to logistically support at retail level, there was still no way for most bookstores to profitably sell more books that were growing ever more niche in nature.
Thus, traditional bookstores couldn’t keep up with the large and growing circulation.
In addition, books were a relatively low price-point, the perfect combination for an e-commerce play. Therefore, the founding idea was a universal selection of books.
A literal “online library.” But the idea needed funding.
The Idea Needed Seed Funding
With the concept in place, Bezos raised seed capital to turn his idea into a working model.
Like everyone raising money does at first, he turned to friends and family to borrow money. The initial $250,000 investment from his parents to start Amazon.
When explaining the concept of his internet store to his father his dad asked Jeff, “What actually is the “internet?”
…Clearly, they were not betting on an ROI from the internet. They were betting on their son, Jeff, a powerful vote of confidence, in their willingness to invest in his judgment and ability to make something out of nothing.
Jeff raised another $1M from 20 additional initial investors who each contributed $50K for shared equity of 20% in the business.
Bezos Launched Amazon From His Garage
Well technically the garage part is in mostly a myth. But close enough, he launched from his new home in Bellevue, Washington.
In 1996, Amazon sold their first book and quite possibly the most boring name and niche book of all time.
Two months later, Jeff was selling books to all 50 states in the US and 45 countries worldwide with weekly sales up to $20,000.
Amazon Expanded Out of Book Sales
By October, that same year, he announced his decision to take the company public. Amazon swelled to 11 employees, and the company started expanding outside of book sales into music and videos.
Wondering what to sell next, the small team emailed 1,000 randomly selected customers for what they would like to see Amazon sell outside of books.
The results were interesting and surprised everyone working for the e-commerce startup.
What the customers wanted was the most randomness of anything happened to need or desire in that very moment including obscure things like windshield wiper blades.
That was the feedback the team needed. This was no longer a book play. This consumer feedback changed the world as we know it.
At that point, Bezos realized the true potential for Amazon.
From Selling Books to Selling…Anything They Wanted
They were going to fulfill and deliver every purchase of any product their customers wanted right to their front door, including front doors from door manufacturers.
The doors literally flooded opened with orders of the most common and most obtuse products. Amazon was in a dead sprint to connect their customers with EVERYTHING their shopping cart hearts desired.
When Amazon’s Success Threatened the Status Quo
The following year, in May of 1997, the company issued their first stock option valued at $18 per share. Today, the stock price is over $2,000 per share.
They were well on their way to becoming a major player.
However, business is business, and the excitement was met with resistance from the industry when Barnes & Noble sued the new company over their slogan claiming to be the “largest bookstore on the planet” when they didn’t in fact have a physical store.
Their case was that Amazon was not a bookstore rather they were a “book broker.”
While they were technically correct, Amazon is a broker, and Amazon eventually settled the claim out of court.
What the retailer, and others to this day, would soon come to learn, is that to us, the consumers, brick and mortar bookstores were also “just brokers.”
We’re All “Just Brokers” Now
At it turns out, people prefer to order products from the comfort of their own homes rather than venture out to do all the tedious brokering themselves for products in massive retail locations.
To think we should somehow value going into a retail store over having whatever we want delivered to our front door for FREE SHIPPING, is absolutely ridiculous.
Convenient e-commerce shopping and delivery has been the driving force behind why more than 9,300 retail stores closed their doors in 2019 and more since, as the retail apocalypse peaked.
BARNES & NOBLE RETAIL CASE STUDY
In 1996, Amazon became a major threat to bookstores with $16 Million in sales.
Barnes and Noble took in $2 Billion that same year.
Today, Amazon controls half of the entire print book marketplace, while B&N has only one-fifth remaining. Amazon’s sales jumped to 84% for e-book sales, while B&N held at 2%. Amazon’s e-commerce revenue is around $1 Trillion in market cap while B&N has dropped to $475 Million, a .05% of Amazon’s revenue.
Today, people claim Amazon is the biggest threat to retailers
But in my humble opinion, retail disruption wasn’t Amazon’s fault. Amazon was simply the first company to offer the first online retail experience; and consumers have accepted the alternate shopping experience and prefer the convenience of it!
Amazon capitalized on the way people prefer to shop today.
The customer is not always right, but they have options for how they prefer to consume products now.
By 2010, Kindle sales exceeded print sales for the first time in the history of the company.
Amazon didn’t kill the book publishing industry!
The consumer did when we made a choice to add a premium on preferred digital consumption.
At the start, Amazon employed a handful of workers.
Growth accelerated at lightspeed with 30,000 employees in 2010, exceeding 750,000 employees today; not too shabby considering when he started, Bezos hoped that at one point, Amazon would be large enough to purchase a forklift for the warehouse.
In 2013, Amazon’s site went down for 45 minutes, and the company lost out on $5.7 million in revenue!
Since 2014, Cyber Monday has been the “online Black Friday” post-Thanksgiving holiday online shopping day. History was made, again. Analytics showed Amazon sold over 300 products per second on the first Cyber Monday.
Bezos can now afford to buy 105 million forklifts. Just saying…
Bezos made a fortune by building the most efficient platform of the era by focusing on one core principle…
“Give the customer what they want. The way they want it.”
This is the advice marketers should wisely and carefully consider.
People don’t buy most books because most people don’t want to consume them in the manner they are offered.
In today’s media world, when the consumer can consume limitless amounts of content on their own terms and devices, they have many other avenues for consuming the information they want.
Often times on platforms that make it easier to consume the information like YouTube and Podcasts.
