“To lack knowledge when negotiating is to forgo potential opportunities.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (click to Tweet)
“What Are The Top Five Things To Know When Negotiating”
People do not realize they are always negotiating.
I wish I had a crystal ball. Why was the question her friend asked? Because then I would know the top five things to know when negotiating. I feel a little out of my depth with my upcoming negotiation. And it is vital for the advancement of my career.
That was a synopsis of a conversation between two associates. And one of them was struggling over what to do while considering an upcoming negotiation.
There are five generic considerations to be aware of when negotiating. They are not in order of importance. Keep them in mind because they are essential to your negotiation efforts.
If You’re Not “Writing to the Margins” on LinkedIn, You’re Missing Out
Based on my experience as an Executive Branding Coach, most C-Suite Executives and senior leaders have very poor LinkedIn profiles – profiles that aren’t attracting opportunities to them. If your profile shares very little about you, you’re missing out on….
Attracting and maintaining top talent with your thought leadership
Building a more loyal customer base
Building a broad network based on professional respect
Attracting other companies interested in partnering
Being considered for in-house for succession planning, enterprise-wide special projects and growth assignments
Being considered for external opportunities for non-profit and paid board appointments and corporate executive positions
What does “writing to the margins” mean?
I’m using the expression, “writing to the margins” to indicate that you should take advantage of the full character count that LinkedIn allows for each section. At present the allowed amounts are:
Headline
220 characters
About section
2,600 characters
Each job in Experience section
2,000 characters
Skills section
50 skills
Why is does “writing to the margins” bring opportunities your way?
When we “write to the margins,” we naturally use our keywords often – keywords that express our skills, experiences, and passions in the world of work. (A keyword might be multiple words; it is a search term someone might enter into a search engine.)
Because LinkedIn is a search engine, it’s looking to match the keywords that someone is using in their search with the keywords in your profile. It is not just looking for whether the keyword is on your profile or not; it is looking at how many times the keyword appears on your profile.
The search algorithm benefits people who are connected in some way on LinkedIn with the person searching (this correlates with having a large LinkedIn network) and people who have used the keyword being searched for many, many times.
Check out how LinkedIn’s search engine works:
Try this experiment: In the LinkedIn search box, enter the top keyword you are likely to be found by. For many of us, this is our functional job title: e.g., General Manager, National Director of Sales, Chief Operations Officer. When you have entered your top keyword, use LinkedIn’s filters and enter your nearest metropolitan area for the location. This gives you a fighting chance of being found because you’ll be competing just with the people in your locale. Click apply to enable the search.
Who appears on page 1 of your search? Do you know any of them? Pick of one of the people on page 1 and count the number times LinkedIn has highlighted the keyword (or something close to the keyword) on their profile. Check out another profile or two and count the number of keyword mentions.
Do these profiles look similar to yours? In what ways do these top-ranking profiles differ from yours?
How does your profile rank on this keyword search?
Are you on page 1? Are you on page 2?
If your profile is ranked on page 1 or 2, congratulations. Your LinkedIn profile is likely to serve up many right-for-you opportunities because you are ranking at the top of the list. But don’t get too cocky: the result returned on a keyword search is dependent the searcher’s relationship with you. In this experiment, you had an advantage because you have a first-level LinkedIn relationship with yourself.
If you didn’t rank on page 1 or 2, too bad. Your 24/7 digital ambassador is not working as effectively for you as it could to bring you right-for-you opportunities, such as the talent you’d like to hire, the referral relationships you seek, or internal or external executive job possibilities.
Why does ranking on page 1 or 2 of a keyword search matter?
The magic of ranking on the top two pages is that people who are searching are not likely to look beyond the first 20 people. If you’d like to rank more highly, writing “to the margins” will certainly help. This is because when you “write to the margins” you will naturally use your keywords many times – and when you use your keywords many times, your profile is more likely to be found, and lead people to provide you with opportunities that may be right for you.
Promote Your Brand with Authenticity, Tact and Power
If you are a C-Suite executive or senior leader who would like to improve your LinkedIn profile and presence, I can make it easy for you. I have a track record of working effectively with C-Suite executives and senior leaders to create LinkedIn profiles and other executive-branded materials that help them show up as authentically and powerfully online as they do in person. This way, they can attract the talent they want to hire, increase their visibility and influence, and control their career. I also mentor clients on LinkedIn etiquette and effective posting strategies to ensure their success. Let me help you use this essential business tool effectively. Contact me through my website: www.carolkaemmerer.com or profile: www.linkedin.com/in/carolkaemmerer.
Other resources for you and your team:
For a virtual or in-person presentation on personal branding via LinkedIn, contact me. I am a member of the National Speakers Association, a Certified Virtual Presenter, and an Advisor to the C-Suite Network.
In the service business, there’s a phrase often referenced that goes like this: “Good, Fast, and Cheap…Which two to do you want?” The concept is that every service offering has those 3 components, and you will only get 2 out of the 3 of those components.
Imagine this is a game show and you have three buttons to push – Quality, Speed, and Cost. Let’s say you hit the Quality button. That means you can only choose Speed or Cost, not both.
At this point is where people will say to me, “Well, why can’t I get all three?” My reply to that is, “Give me an example where you’ve gotten all three”, and invariably, I will show them that they didn’t truly get all three. To me, if you get all three components, you’ve found a unicorn. And of course, unicorns don’t exist in my world.
Setting Expectations for a Healthier Experience
Regardless if you want to argue the point of only getting 2 out of 3, the real benefits of this logic come around when you enter into a deal or purchase. By choosing the two that are most important to you, you will be able to negotiate a deal and qualify a service provider much better.
You are also reducing your overall stress because you’re not asking a provider to do something that is outside their core competencies.
When I go into negotiations with any service person, I will go so far as to tell them which one of one of those three are not as important to me. I will say, “I really need a quality job done and have it turned around fast, so I understand that might cost more.” Every time I do that, the experience is so much smoother because it:
Shows respect for the services being provided.
Comforts the provider in knowing that they can achieve the goals.
Eliminates my anxiety because I know I don’t have to micromanage their work.
Wedding Example
Let’s talk about a wedding… Let’s say you just got engaged, so you decide to start looking for a wedding planner. Research, interviews, and proposal gathering ensues…
In the interview process, your Mother (or future Mother-In-Law) states that she is so excited that she wants you to get married sooner than later, which shortens the timeline considerably. You talk it over with your future spouse and agree to her request. By shortening the timeline, you’ve pushed the imaginary Speed button.
First button pushed…
Now that you have your selection of planners that are available for your proposed (pun intended) wedding date, you start looking at proposals. You talk it over and you pick the cheapest proposal. You’ve now hit the imaginary Cost button.
Second button pushed…and you can probably guess what happens next…
You hire the planner but you find out that you’re not really getting the planner you spoke to. Rather, to meet your Cost needs, the planner has assigned a new understudy to your wedding.
Third button cannot be selected unless you deselect one of the other buttons…
The Good, Fast, and Cheap Secret
I take this ‘good, fast, and cheap’ logic one step further to bring it home for people…
There’s a big secret when it comes to your Quality, Speed, and Cost buttons – they are not equal in power. As it turns out, your Cost button has more power than the other two. Rather than thinking of your Cost button being equal in shape and equidistant to each other, imagine the Cost button being the fulcrum to the other buttons that are on opposite ends of a seesaw.
The Cost button is the dominant driver in what goes on with the other two buttons. When you push the Cost button, one of the other two will not be able to be pushed. It’s as simple as that.
The reason why cost is a dominant factor is because it just is. It always is. In my 50 years of living, and 35+ years in sales, I have yet to have anyone come to me saying they got all the money in the world to spend with me. That just doesn’t happen because that’s how our brains are wired. It’s a behavioral trait in us humans that spans across all cultures of the globe.
It’s no wonder that there’s hundreds of sales negotiation books that teach you how to aim high, knowing full well the customer will aim low.
So, in the end, we will ALWAYS push the Cost button when we play the services game…
Manifesting Better Outcomes
Remember that, by accepting this ‘Good, Fast and Cheap’ logic, your overall day-to-day business interactions will become far more trouble-free. That, in turn, means less anxiety. Less anxiety leads to better energy. Better energy manifests better outcomes.
Long before the infamous AMC show, the term “mad men” was originally coined in the late 1950’s to describe the advertising executives of Madison Avenue.
They studied consumer behavioral psychology and were masters selling products by associating them to things customers cared about.
And they still exist. And they have some fascinating stories.
Meet Rory Sutherland.
Introducing Rory Sutherland
If you haven’t heard of Rory Sutherland yet, you have heard of his agency.
Sutherland serves as the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, the historically infamous ad agency founded by the original King of Madison Ave, David Ogilvy.
Sutherland became Internet famous a few years back after his Ted talk video went viral criticizing Europe decision to spend £6 billion to construct a high speed rail in order to increase consumer satisfaction.
Because of his knowledge of consumer behavior, he could have achieve the goal in and sixth of the cost.
Here’s the video:
Perspective is Everything
So a few years ago the UK greenlit a massive engineering project to improve the journey of the Eurostar rail line.
Why?
In order to increase commuter satisfaction, the UK decided the best way to increase the journey was to spend an enormous £6 billion to construct a high-speed rail track from London’s St. Pancras station to the coast of Kent.
This train would shorten the commute from Paris to London by a grand total of…40 minutes on an overall three and a half-hour trip.
Sutherland’s cheeky critique on the project was that the UK made a fundamental mistake (like most businesses do).
His argument was that consumer satisfaction could have been achieved much cheaper by altering consumer perception. Heres the argument:
Consumer Satisfaction. I Don’t Think That Means What You Think it Means…
The UK assumed customer satisfaction would be achieve to shorten the length of the commute and the quality of the experience was not relevant or even an option given for them to consider.
Rory suggested rather than write a £6 billion check to make the experience shorter (the proposed brand promise), the capital investment would have been better spent using a fraction of the budget to simply make the journey 10 times more enjoyable (his proposed brand promise).
Considering the budget they were consider, for a fraction of the cost (£1 billion), they could have hired male and female supermodels and pay to them serve free Chateau Petrus at $4,000 a bottle to every adult passenger on board
Effectively salvaging billions from the original budget, and in turn, passengers would have demanded the train to be slowed down, rather than save an extra 40 minutes of travel time.
There’s a War on Marketing?
Sutherland suggests that the war we face in marketing and advertising today, is that every operational role today believes that what they do is a rational science.
When human behavior economics proves we are anything but rational.
Sutherland has spent his career studying behavioral economics, a field that attempts to explain why people do what they do or more importantly why people purchase one product over another.
Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory makes the assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider real value.
For marketing to be effective, we must become as irrational as our customers perception. In a rather odd unassuming parallel, Sutherland compares this marketing mindset to military strategy. Here’s why…
What You Didn’t Know About Military Strategy
If you follow military strategy, the first thing you can’t be, is logical and efficient.
Wtf? Because that’s exactly what your enemy will expect you to do, making you susceptible to walk head-on into every trap the enemy sets for you in anticipation of your most obvious attempts to win the war.
Today’s consumers, while far from the enemy, are waiting for our much anticipated and obvious marketing tactics. They see right through them.
The strangest element which marketers face is the psychological one.
Rather than focus on rational improvements, we must make an effort to look at the far less obvious psychological innovation.
Don’t make the following mistake.
The Modern And Wrong Assumption of Consumer Behavior:
Sutherland states that the modern business assumption of the economics of a consumer purchase is as follows:
“Every purchase or exchange arrives as a standalone, individual, utility optimizing transaction between two people in a state of perfect information and trust. The conditions of which don’t exist and never happen.
The current business model sees marketing as an inefficiency, an added hard cost in the value chain because the current business framework assumes every consumer knows exactly what they want to buy and exactly what they want to pay to acquire it.”
Economics Don’t Care About Your Feelings
The economics doesn’t calibrate for human experience of emotions, feeling and instincts like trust and perspective.
The weirdness of human perception is that you can create high levels of satisfaction without high levels of expenditure if you really know what floats the customers emotional triggers.
This is Why Mirrors Are on Every Elevator
Ogilvy worked with a Midwest company that received a high level of complaints that their elevator was too slow.
So, naturally they went to Otis, (one of only 14 elevator companies in the US) who said for a few million dollars, they could replace and update the current elevator infrastructure decrease the time it took people to wait for the elevator.
Makes sense… but just before investing $2,000,000 on the project, someone said no.
Instead, they suggested, installing floor to ceiling mirrors on the walls outside the elevator. While people waited for the elevator, they participated in small acts of voyeurism and would pass the time looking at themselves in the mirror.
And that’s when they discovered something weird.
What they discovered was that people were complaining about the speed of the elevators. But what they meant was they were just getting really bored waiting for the elevator to arrive.
Once the mirrors were installed, all complaints about the elevators completely vanished. Proving again psychological insight is just, as if not more powerful, then high-cost physical advancements.
Advertisers have become masters at creating intangible or “perceived value.” But intangible value gets a bad rap in business operations because it’s much more difficult to quantify.
When Marketing Fails. Take It From GoPro
Most marketing goes wrong when we focus on solving external conflict resolutions to solutions that are really internal.
For example, GoPro didn’t reinvent the video camera.
They changed the experience we had with every camera prior to GoPro. Before GoPro, it was difficult to simultaneously capture and experience life’s greatest moments while others participated with us as we captured our adventures through our own lens in a way that was never before possible.
One of GoPro’s greatest features is its easy-to-use video editing software that users access for free.
In addition to sharing life experiences, GoPro simplified producing and distributing videos with ease.
Conclusion: Marketing is, oftentimes, seen as creating a form of “fake” value…
But the truth is, all value is perceived.
Businesses that better understand consumers and what goes into their purchase decisions have the advantage.
When addressing innovation, it is critically important to know consumer psychological behavior.
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…
“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.
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:
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.
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.
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!
Promote Your Brand with Authenticity, Tact and Power
