B2C Lead Generation – Orren Prunckun

Orren Prunckun’s Marketing & Sales Q&A – Episode 5: How to sell your product in a competitive market

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 20 May 2019 05:16:35 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear me answer a question about how to sell your product in a competitive market.

So, listen here as I discuss this!

To be featured, first go to http://speakpipe.com/orren and record your number #1 marketing or sales question as an audio file.

Then click send and I will answer it for you for FREE!

Transcript:

Question

Hi my name is Deb and I’m a self producing musician on the fringe circuit as each year the festivals get bigger it’s becoming harder for the smaller independent acts to cut through and compete with the big budget corporate acts in addition to this I’m aware of the massive eco footprint festivals creates so I’m trying to do my bit for the environment by cutting down on flyers and posters without the budget for a publicist aside from Facebook advertising what are some other best value for money unique ways you would use to sell your show in a competitive market.

Answer

Hello Debra this is an awesome question I really like this because I have spent a lot of time in bands and DJing emceeing and Club promoting over the years and I love this stuff so it’s really um what I’m gonna give you is hopefully super relevant to you so if I was in your shoes I’d do all of the following right so I commend you for jumping out there and doing paid Facebook ads think about Facebook Ads anything you spend I want you to be breaking even I want you to be self liquidating that so any dollar you put in I want you to be getting $1 out I don’t want you to be spending money without actually covering your cost of that ad you may be thinking or why would you want to do that you’re not making any profit all of your profits should be made on back-end for through multiple performances and getting people to come along again and again to what you’re doing and bringing their friends so if you’re gonna be doing Facebook ads make sure every dollar you put in you’re getting at least one dollar back even if you’re just covering the costs of your ads you’ll make all of your profit elsewhere and through performances because people go and see bands over and over and over again and musicians time and time again because they just love what they do in terms of getting cut through I totally agree with you the number one thing is you have to be polarizing there are going to be people that love you and if there are people that love you there are also gonna be people that hate you the only way you want to get cut through is by putting a stake in the ground and saying this is who I am and this is what I stand for and this is the type of thing that I produce now on that if you’re being polarizing it’s a really good qualifier you’re getting people to raise their hand and say yes I’m in and I mean about your music and also by default you’re disqualifying people and getting them to say they’re not a fan of what you’re doing and that is totally okay the more polarizing you can be the better agree with you with the being eco-friendly for sure and you know just beyond the environmental factors that come into that I think flies are really dumb you know we’re coming into a federal election here in Australia and I sealed the core flutes and all the core flutes are the same thing huge waste in terms of hobbies but they don’t actually do anything like no one makes a buying decision by looking at someone’s mug on a quad flute on a light pole no one makes a buying decision based on that yeah it’s a good memory reminder but that’s you know a whole other branding issue around memory reminders and why you have branding to start with so I’m not going to go into that but what I would be doing what a sir let me just go back a step with pliers most people at you know you mentioned the fringe in other festivals most people with flyers they’re just going around and everyone’s saying that they’re just handing out flyers to people in hopes that they’ll come to their show and there’s you know a little bit of a conversation that happens but not too much but people take the flour away and the users throw them out and that’s the concern that you’ve got right what with flyers what they’re trying to do is the same thing as politicians with the core foods they’re just trying to go from you know frozen or cold all the way there like boiling him you know they’re just trying to take a bit of ice and get it to 100 degrees Celsius second you try and sell someone on a bit of paper that’s a five like you have to be the best sales person in the world to be able to do that and you just don’t have the capacity through that modality or medium to do it so what I would be doing and the main concern people have is when you know you’re offering something to them is de-risk it it’s like I don’t know you I don’t like you I don’t trust you how can you do risk this buying decision for me so if I go to your show and it doesn’t pan out to be what you promised I’ve lost with this money and time and all these other opportunity costs so what I would be doing is flipping it on its head instead of giving something like a flyer to someone I would be getting something from them that I could follow up follow up with them so this is like the same thing with business cards right but I don’t carry around business cards because if I give a business card to someone it’s just going to go into the drawer into the bin and they’re just gonna totally forget about it if I take a business card from someone that means I am in control of the conversation I can follow up with that person so what I’m getting going at getting at is you to do the same thing is collect something from them cut their business card not literally collect their business card but collect their contact details in some way and I would be doing that as an incentive okay give me your contact details so I can follow up with you but in exchange for that what I’m gonna do is give you an mp3 player and some headphones with my music on it so you can go out and listen to me and you can do it in the comfort of your own home there is zero risk the other risk is you’ve given me your contact details and if you like it you will enjoy the you were welcome in the contact that I have inviting you to my show that’s gonna be a paid show or I would do the same thing is I would burn something to a CD give CDs out in exchange for contact details at these festivals same goes I know you’ve got a little bit of recorded video of the performances you do or maybe that’s an assumption but if you do a DVD or put that recorded video on a USB with you know in exchange for those contact days or so that kind of builds into the next thing is now you’ve got their contact details you’ve got their business card right and they’ve already taken zero risk and listen to your music and if you reach out to them and say I’ve got a show coming up we’d like to come along it’s paid so I’m twenty bucks the amount of conversion to get through that is far higher than anything that you’ve done with a flyer and already not you and they’re like probably like you and then it’s the buying decisions made much simpler for them what I would also be doing is looking at you so you mentioned a publicist I’m not sure if you’re doing that currently but anything to do with PR and publicity you really need to get a really strong hook or angle that makes you different and where I’m going with this is there’s a guy and I’m Rob Lee gonna give a whole bunch of examples in the hip hop rap kind of urban speakers I’m sort of into that as well as heavy metal but this guy may be slim Jesus was a kid I don’t remember how old he was about 12 years old but he was a white kid from Southern America and he call himself slim Jesus who’s doing like gangsta rap right so he’s angle and a blow up his song I remember his song was but it was just going everywhere was who’s this white kid young guy doing gangsta rap and he called himself slimming Jesus right so everything about that is unique and really interesting and meaning just jumped on it and really promoted him so I’m back just a memory on my iPhone but what I’ll be doing and I’m gonna get back to angle was just in a second but the other thing I would be doing would be turning competitors in to partners so there’s a lot of other people within festivals competing for the same attention the same sorts of people so I’ve gone back to that angle and seeing what you do as being seeing what you do that is unique or different and using that to differentiate yourselves yourself from others so yep there are other people doing you know similar musical acts then as you go how can you differentiate yourself rather than competing with other performers but turn them into partners to me that you compliment them or compliment you with and as soon as you are complimenting each other you’re not by definition competing and those partners sir those competitors them turn into partners especially promotional partners to help you get your message out to similar different cohorts like you just look at the need of theirs look at something like cooking right there people that are into cooking and they buy lots of different cooking books like I’m into books right you can see behind me like I don’t just have one book on one topic I have multiple books on multiple topics so just because someone is competing in the same sphere as you as long as you’ve got something different a different book that has different content different music it has different content people are going to go buy it they’re not actually in competition and your competition can see that you’re not directly doing the same thing as them or the same genre as then I’m providing something similar they’ll be more than happy to go out and promote for you the other thing is doing collaborations with different with different genres so we’re not even talking about competition to Ana competition to partners but different musical acts that are doing different genres and how can you actually go out and compliment each other they have access to a different certain cohort you have access to another cohort that’s quite different how can you combine what you both through into one thing and cross-promote each other that way so the example I’m thinking of is t-pain did a collaboration with tell us with like you know you’ve got that hip-hop with you know pot and they’ve got two different audiences they did a collaboration together and they opened each other’s music to different cohorts and helped promote each other in terms of that what else I would be giving away in my own music to anyone and everyone that needs music look at podcast like this right I have some intro music as mattre music I would be going to every different podcast or youtuber that has a very similar demographic of who you want to target and I’d just be giving my music away for free at the front and start or in the middle of their podcast to get your name out there same thing with tick tock if you’re not familiar with the app tick-tock this thing is blowing up and it’s super addictive it’s all music based so people are doing things to a back of backing of music so I just should be trying to get your music out there now in terms of other distribution firehoses in terms of meaning there are there are technologies out there that just already have cohorts people I would be just submitting all of my music to our YouTube SoundCloud BitTorrent who else Spotify has people I’d be submitting all of my music to those platforms I’m just getting everything out there the other thing with that is just stopping precious about how much you produce I’ve been British pretty true sorry producing so many different things that you can get out into the marketplace the thing is if no one sees sorry no one to see here’s it doesn’t really matter it’s only the big wings that matter if you are putting out a whole lot of music they example I’m trying to give here is people another urban and rap artist hey years put out he was prolific he’s put out so much stuff and a lot of the stuff wasn’t good but a lot of the stuff people didn’t hear but was only the stuff that was really good that got picked up by the mainstream and got promoted that way and he got quite a few picked up that way because it was just producing so much stuff but that quite a lot of the mainstream population don’t actually know all of the stuff that produce because not all of it was hits and just went under the radar and got kind of lost into obscurity the other thing just on this is with all this distribution firehoses those talking about like Spotify and YouTube and BitTorrent and SoundCloud is that they’re already artists out there that are producing on those platforms not sure if you really want to try this out but a guy named Soulja Boy you may have remembered him from maybe about 10 years ago so he what he used to do was um who would upload his music but with the names of other artists in his genre so he would just say whoever he knows a big ass at the time he would just you know rename his tracks the same tracks as them and then people were just going searching for those tracks and then they would come across this other track that was a soldier boy track another are this is not what I was listening for but some of them found it was a good thing others and probably the majority of them didn’t think it was a good thing and just like exited out and got all mad and so on but the ones that did like what listened to the ends and they’d be like oh this is cool and then at the very end you’d have you’d have information to go and find out more about you so even though I said a lot of people get annoyed with that Soulja Boy actually attributes a lot his initial success to that strategy so I’m not sure if you want to try that out but that’s another thing that might be um might be useful so I think that’s all I’ve got off the top of my head that you’d be worth you going out and at least considering if not trying to get your word out without having to rely on flyers not having to rely on a publicist although I did mention some of that and also not relying on Facebook but I did mention what I think you should be doing around those three things if you want to follow up with the Flyers publicists and/or Facebook but I gave you a whole bunch of other stuff that I think will help you a lot but the main thing is don’t try to sell people that don’t want to be sold take them through it my customer journey make sure they grab their contact details you can follow up because of what if your revenue will come from later purchases down the track so I’d love you to go try all of this stuff out love you too let me know how you go with it and I’m really excited to hear from you.

Orren Prunckun’s Marketing & Sales Q&A – Episode 4: How to get a product out to partners & consumers

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 20 May 2019 05:16:26 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear me answer a question about creative ways to get a product out to partners and consumers.

So, listen here as I discuss this!

To be featured, first go to http://speakpipe.com/orren and record your number #1 marketing or sales question as an audio file.

Then click send and I will answer it for you for FREE!

Transcript:

Hey Orren it’s Dragos, best of luck with a podcast it sounds really exciting and I’ve got a marketing question that I’m hoping you can help with we’ve recently started signature board games and we’ve pretty much finished that first game called flip and fish well we’ve decided to do is do a small print run instead of doing a Kickstarter or something like that because we’ve got really good feedback from people who are basically saying we want to buy this right now we want to take advantage of that and sell a few a few copies and then reinvest that that back in the business and possibly later on Kickstarter etc later on so the question is once we print out press batch which will be about 500 what’s the most creative or what are some ideas for us to marketers either to shops or to clients in a creative way to try and get them out there considering it’s a very crowded market and new designers with one game usually have a hard time getting noticed yeah any thoughts comments feedback would be much appreciated it was thought about things like partnering up that side of the industry but yeah any anything else yeah?

Answer

Hello that is a great question and I just want to congratulate you and applaud you have been following your journey I think what you’ve done and how to take an action on this is phenomenal and also in that you go in a small print run especially for a physical product is an amazing strategy without you know going out and spending thousands of dollars and tons of your time and betting the farm in case this thing does or does not work so doing a really small one rania is a really fantastic strategy so big Pats on back for that so I’m gonna tell you a question with two different ways I’m going to talk about what you’re selling and then how you are selling it so I really want you to think about what it is that you are selling now you’re going to a market where there are plenty of players and plenty of competing products now that’s not a bad thing because consumers love what you’re doing and you know the industry has been around for a really long time but which also which means that people are interested in purchasing what you have to offer but because there’s so much noise out there I really want you to think about how you’re going to position yourself amongst all of the competitors what is it that you do or what is it that your product does that stands out from everyone else now in the PR and the publicity game this is called a news anchor or certainly another news anchor a publicity angle or a PR angle so what is that that’s going to jump out and hook people’s attention because you are unique or different or better or faster than all of the other things that are on the market now yeah the product will solve that but you have to break through all of the noise that’s out there so what is it that you’re yes it is a board game but what is that that people are going to get out of it but also what is the thing that is going to grab their attention now in terms of how you’re selling I want you to go back to the cause I recorded about the fair value line and also how McDonald’s acquires customers and makes a profit and I want you to apply those two different ideas to what you’re currently doing now cards against humanity’ does this in an interesting way and that’s the only thing that’s coming to my mind on the spot is that they do expansion packs for all of their cards so you come in and buy the game and you have a fantastic time and you know usually board games are just a once-off purchase whereas cards against humanity’ they go out and do an expansion pack and I think and I understand this multiple expansion packs so they’re making a little bit more money from the beyond the initial product they’re also providing value for that now I look at all the board games that you know I’ve played as kids and played as kids and currently play we’ve got quite a few board games at the big check that I go to and these things have been you know made back in the 70s so it was a once-off purchase and we’re just getting a ton of value out of that however you know you can go along and create more value than just the once off purchase by creating the equivalent of what might be an expansion pack the cards for cards gates I’m Jana humanity so I really want to think about that in terms of what you’re selling now in terms sorry in terms of how you’re selling it so you’ve had a look at like the fair value line and how McDonald’s acquires their customers we’ve got that kind of framework of strategy of different products of different price points at different times through that customer journey I also want you to think about what the sales message of communication or the language that you’re using for each of those stages now they should come or be distilled or cascaded down from what you are talking about in terms of how differentiating yourself and how you positioning yourself in the market so all that communication of each of those different stages within that product during come from how you are different and then finally once you’ve got the stages and then you’ve got what the messaging is think about how you can go about acquiring customers now I did speak to that briefly in one of the other calls around paid earned in own media so on the paid and earn side I want you to think about all of the different ways you can pay for attention and also have all of the different ways that you can go and earn attention but not just spend all of your time doing that seeing how you convert can convert that into owned media waste you capture all of that payout all of that money you spend them all that time you spent you’ve capture that into an asset that you can communicate that sales message to all of those prospects and customers as they go through that customer journey and thereby something you know a small price point that they get a small amount of value and then you know the equivalent of the expansion packs as they go on so now in terms of partners and how you can go about creating partnerships the first stage is actually going out and finding as many partners as you can that I related to you but not direct competitors now these are going to be distributors for you so this shouldn’t be a really difficult task that was going out and finding that out about who all those distributors are both online and offline and then once you’ve done that once you’ve found those distributors what is it that they want or what is it that they are motivated by and really finding out that and doing some exploration to what they want and then being able to go out and then provide that for them so going on helping them get whatever they want just before you go out and ask them to promote your game so those four stages are really, really important to go out and find partners that are going to be behind your course and be able to go out and promote what you’re doing so I really hope that helps try it out let me know what happens and thanks your question.

Orren Prunckun’s Marketing & Sales Q&A – Episode 3: How to reduce your paid media costs

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 20 May 2019 05:16:19 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear me a question about how to reduce your paid media costs.

So, listen here as I discuss this!

To be featured, first go to http://speakpipe.com/orren and record your number #1 marketing or sales question as an audio file.

Then click send and I will answer it for you for FREE!

Transcript:

Question

Hello. I currently advertise and promote my business in many different ways for example my own website on OTAs and Facebook etc and to add or support this mix I also have adverts on Google AdWords whilst there is little doubt that their effectiveness is anything from fairly good to very good they are also very expensive especially when you take into account the cost of the company managing them as well is there some other way to achieve the same or similar results without the expense?

Answer

Fantastic question. so what I want you to do is listen to my answer I just gave to one of the previous calls about McDonald’s and how they acquire customers for breakeven or just a tiny bit of profit and then they upsell to make profit on the back end so really what this is comes down to an economic term called the fair value line so the fair value line is the amount value that you are offering is in proportion to the amount of money we are charging so if you’re offering a ton of value to customers the related price point for that is obviously very high if you’re not offering a ton of value to customer then obviously the price point in relation to that is a little bit lower so what I want you to think about is all the possible things that you could offer this customer that’s coming in now they’re obviously buying a product from you and they’re you’re spending some money on paid media and also someone to manage that process so there’s a total cost view now I really want you to think about what that cost is and all the other products that that person could buy from me so and I’m really just talking about every single product that could help them get the result that they want now I’m not sure exactly which business you’re currently in but I want you to get over to paper and just write down everything that could possibly help them get the result that they want not just the product that you’re currently selling them then I want you to plot that on a fair value line so on one of the axes so as to say the y-axis is how much value of providing them and on the x-axis they related cost that and I want you to plot all of those different things that you could possibly offer them to help them either in terms of speed or automation to get that result and plot on that line and see where it all comes out so then what I want you to do is your very, very expensive the most expensive thing that you could offer them and obviously that’s the probably going to be the most valuable thing I want you to then start splintering or skimming off other components of that getting down to something that’s a little bit more cheaper and hopefully that’s where you align your current offering so basically what I want you to be doing is thinking about getting that person that customer in at cost or maybe as a slight loss as a loss leader or just a slight profit and then once they’re in as a customer then up selling them to hire more valuable products that have a higher price point that way you can spend a lot of money acquiring that customer even though you’re not going to make money off it initially just like you know McDonald’s or Hungry Jack’s does and then upselling them and making your profit there now this takes a bit of creativity of all the types of things that could help them get that result but I really want you to think about all of those things that will help them the other thing is I want you to think about diversifying how you’re actually getting your customers now in your call you said you had like you had Facebook ads and sorry big department Google ads and you’re spending a lot of money on pay advertising and someone to go about managing that process so there are a few different ways that you can communicate with customers and prospects one of those is paid media so paid media is something that you don’t own but you actually control it you so for example Google AdWords Google owns that network but you control it by paying for it the other way you can go about getting customers and prospects is through earned media so you don’t own it nor do you control it so really good examples that this Dalek pub PR and publicity and also having the rank on Google so you don’t actually own any of those and you don’t actually control how and when you show up it’s all earned and then finally you’ve got your own media so all of the things that you control and you also own so like you mentioned your website but also communication channels like email and phone and text and messenger and all these digital communication platforms so I want you to be thinking about how you can move away from paid media into earned media and then those stories – paid and earn how can you drive them towards owned media so you’re spending money with paid media and you’re spending time and effort with earned media how can you capture although that attention and then put it into your own assets the ones that you earn and the control in your own media and then start communicating with people even before they become customers – at the prospect stage how you can communicate with them so they become customers without actually having to spend any more money and in addition to that once you’ve already captured them as your own media how can you source them again and again so hopefully those two things about really thinking about where you sit in the fair value line and how what you are currently spending can be an entry level solution or product or service and then once you’ve got them converted in from a customer sorry from a prospect into a customer how can you then upsell them and help them get whatever they’re trying to get faster cheaper with more speed or whatever adjectives they want and also make them more cost effective but then also diversifying how you’re getting those customers in terms of thinking about paid earned and owned media and pushing the forum by the former – into the ladder so you’re not actually spending a lot of money in the long run so hopefully that answers your question and helps and try it out let me know what happens and see how you do.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 12: Snail mail works as long as you do it right

Orren Prunckun — Wed, 01 May 2019 03:32:48 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear my thoughts on:

Why snail mail works;
What purposes snail mail should be used for; and
How to improve snail mail campaigns.

So, listen here as I discuss these!

Transcript:

Hello hello it’s Orren Prunckun and I’m talking about snail mail again today so I’ve talked about that quite recently but I’ve got some more fliers in the post now a lot of people I hear complain about snail mail saying that’s not very effective but depending on what you’re trying to do it can be super effective now if you’re doing localized campaigns if you’re doing things that need to be personalized new things that need to be looked at even though I talked about this before sometimes fliers that come in a post don’t get looked at I sorry don’t get opened they definitely get looked at because they are physically delivered to you so they definitely are getting looked at but not necessarily open and I talked about talked about that more recently so why is not asked why I’m talking about come from wrote came from red white thick paper color would have cost them a lot of money I don’t know maybe $2 per flyer and it’s customized Byron talked about that in a minute but two or three dollars systems done arm to print that and then delivery cost on top of that I imagine it was probably hand-delivered by paying someone to do that cost them a lot of money so the downside to snail mail is that there is a cost related tool but there are upsides you know if this localized there’s personal law and you want people day at least look at it so you gotta balance that out but the room decision really comes down to what you’re actually selling now if there’s a high ticket item or price of service snail mail is amazing for that now if it’s a low price to offer not so much that’s especially if you’re going in cold but there is an there is use for sell now if you are selling low price products and services and I’ll talk about that in a minute so basically if you are talking if you are selling low priced items and I thank you note or a welcome note in the post as I said it’s personalized and it will definitely get looked at is a really good option if you’ve already sold a low priced uprightness service setting that I’m through the physical post the snail mail anything else that’s physical so you know a gift or a a catalog or a coupon that needs to be physically redeemed at a brick-and-mortar brick-and-mortar location all really good for snail mail snail mail is a physical channel so doing physical items in the in the post and makes a lot of sense now going back to a high-priced items so this is for a property that has been sold and on the front is says you’ve got a new neighbor and it’s about 1/4 of the flyer and then the other 3/4 is actually a photo of the property that’s been sold now I give railway tons of credit for this amazing campaign the only thing I would change about that is I would flip the ratios around and I’d have you’ve got a new neighbor as the headline and for three-quarters of the flyer and then I’d also make one quarter of the flyer the actual property what a season today says the location of the property it’s been sold for the amount and then how long it took them to solve sell it now just looking at this software really high price and it’s all really really quickly so that says like a lot of great things about this product or service that they’re offering as a realtor now if the person that got this because they are delivering in snail mail they’re delivering in a geographic area so people in that area that are related to this they’re targeting is on point if that person is qualified and they are looking to sell they’re in the market to sell this is an amazing offer now it’s a high priced offer because the the rates that ruses takers you know around 2% of the sale price so it makes this a the return on investment a really effective campaign so if someone got this they look at how much it was sold for and how quickly it was so forth the offer is amazing on the back side this has got more photos of the property which indicates the what the product this is the product they were selling looks like so the person that gets this flyer says has been sold to this amount in this amount of time and I’m comparing to what something else a competing product to competing property looks like gives them a really good indication of what there probably could sell for and that’s got a call to action on what I’m saying give us a call if you like what you see and you think you are in the market for this amazing campaign there’s a cold campaign but it is hyper localized it’s not actually personable but if this one is sold you know in the last couple days so I give them credit that they weren’t able to do that and also it gets looked at headline needs to be bigger because that’s the only thing that doesn’t really work but getting looked at it was bigger some would take a look at it but it’s an amazing offer this shows that um slow mail actually works but I was in the market so I would think it’s a really good offer so what I would like you guys to do with this information is if you are selling a hot bus ticket sorry high ticket price provides a service you want to be personable you want something to be looked at and also if it writes for geographic location and or what you are offering is physical or can be redeemed physical in a physical location or can be delivered in a physical channel even though it costs a little bit of money to get this out it is really really effective campaign even if you’re similar low price I’m item with things like gifts and thank you’re welcome I’m cars that come after that so what I want you to do is try this out see what happens and then let me go and thanks for listening thanks for listening.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 10: Don’t make ads look like ads via the original click bait

Orren Prunckun — Sat, 27 Apr 2019 07:40:30 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear my thoughts on:

Why ads should not look like ads;
What the original click bait is;
What all marketing & sales communication should have; and
How to create marketing & sales communication that gets opened, read and acted on.

So, listen here to hear as I discuss these!

Transcript:

Hello hello it’s Orren Prunckun and today I am talking about junk mail like junk mail I love going through the letterbox to see what kinds of ads people try to target movie but today I’m talking about junk mail in particular I’m talking about Estonian federal election and all of the marketing material has come through so I want to lick this off with two principles the first one is don’t make an ad look like an ad and the second one I’m going to talk about is the original clickbait so when you are asking for votes for an election the people that already love you so you’re warm and you’re hot prospects they already know you very likely and they already trust you they’re part of your tribe they have already been sold on who you are and what you stand for so you do not need to reconvince those people to vote for you now people that are called prospects people that don’t know you don’t like you don’t trust you that is a completely different story so with that context I want you to start to think about everything that I’m about to talk about so the first cab off the rank is this flyer now this flyer taught us about her the candidate all about her where she went to school where she lives where she played netball where she works where she was a Girl Guide and when you flip it on the back this side down here it’s all live statements I did this I did that my name is this and then on the flip side there are some dot points some tick boxes what she can do for you now when I look at that 75% that flyer is all about her trying to convince her sorry prospects core prospects because remember all of the war prospects are already convinced cold prospects like me that I should be voting for her all about her nothing about me or what I want from my representative next one up looks like this it actually looks like the Labour flyers in labor branding with the Labour brand colors but when you flip it over is actually see still a Labour brand color down the very bottom it has got a statement saying that was authorized by the Liberal Party so what they are doing is they’re taking a different tact they’re saying how bad labor is now imagine if I went around in my business saying how bad all the other competitors were and didn’t even mention anything about what I could provide not only that there’s nothing about what they’re even providing or promising no dot points so it was even worse than this one so on each other has dot points of what they’re going to achieve this one just says how badly the competition has Hammond has delivered next one up is this guy’s faces on it so he’s a Labour candidate and the problem with cold traffic is just like what I did then I laughed at him I am going to judge this guy on his picture and picture alone if you do not believe me you are naive I will tell you a little story so many years ago when I was applying for a job I sent out a resume that had my name yes my name a weird name Orren Prunckun look at me are the pretty Caucasian I do not spit the stereotype of an Orren Prunckun now what would happen is people would be quote unquote a racist they would not give me job interviews so what I did was went out and did the exact same resume but put my photo on the resume and guess what I almost doubled the amount of callbacks just purely on that so if you don’t believe people Jake sure on first impressions you are living in a bubble people judge on first impression ever impressions especially cold prospects I don’t know him I don’t like him I don’t trust him yet now if I did and I was a warm hot prospect no I knew him I liked him and I trusted him having his photo won there is a great reminder of who he is not for cold traffic now what I have to do is I thought open up then I have to look through it now with all of these right what these so far in fact before I go into that point the next one is this this one when you open it up Scot brand colors the Palmer United Party but it has no photo of him all it has is dot points so we’re getting slightly better I don’t necessarily agree with these policies or the politician in the politician but in terms of marketing this is slightly better when you flip it over though it’s got his face on and it’s covered in brand colors now the whole purpose for marketing communication is what goes back to a gentleman named East and Norman Lewis he created an acronym called AIDA attention interest desire and action that’s what it stands for now all marketing communication in fact all sales communication at whatever level it is has those four has those four letters of the acronym attention interest desire and action and if you want to translate that to something else there’s a hook it has a story or a reason why you should be interested it has an offer of what is in it for you and then finally it has called action cook story offer call to action every marketing sales communication has that when you break it down now the purpose of all these Flyers is to get someone to open it get someone to read it get someone to believe it and get someone to take action on that with these first couple this one I don’t even need to open it why don’t you do is look at it and literally it goes in the bin I don’t even get a chance to read it because it’s got branding all over it same with this one I don’t even need to open anything to even read it read it and goes threaten the banner beam I haven’t even got to the point of reading it let alone seeing what their offer is and what their quarter action is this one slightly better I actually do have to open it to see what’s in it but it is only slightly better same with this one I’ve got to open up to see what’s in it but really really poor if you’re an accurate average hunter that is a cold prospect they are going to throw that in the bin this is an honor this is only useful for warm prospects and they are already gonna vote for you waste the money now when we move on to the next one we get this don’t even address it to anyone this is really good although not so good at the top it says important voter information for the 2019 federal election that sounds important and if I knew better and I do know better I will probably open this urgently but it is in blue writing and I really know what that means it means it’s going to be a liberal liberal party message haven’t even opened it yet but I’ll show you I guarantee it will be opening it up now and what do you know it liberal party so I opened it that hooked me to open it but I’m not going to read it because you know what I get to see this gentleman’s faced all over don’t know him don’t like him don’t trust him there is no incentive me to read on because I know that is going to be pitching policies for liberal party he would do so much better if he literally did not have any of that branding on it and look at a letter like that and at the bottom if he folded that up and he printed it off like an actual letter you send to a friend that kind of looks like that I would read it because on the front it says important information for the 2019 federal election and then I read that his both got me up open it he’s got me to read it and probably by reading it I actually haven’t read it hard yeah because I just opened it they’re probably some information of what his offer is and what he wants me to do as the call to action they’ll be so much better if you got rid of those two things the next one that came through is this one this one says important voting information inciting red riding like a warning right then it goes on to say don’t risk of fine vote and have your say now because it is in red I bet this is a Labour Party message haven’t opened it yet but let me see if I’m right all these people would get really scared by this for me open it up and think it’s from Australian tour and it’s not I thought it was but it’s actually from the Labour Party to Senator Penny Wong but she’s just got a void information to actually go read register someone to get back to that so again she’s hooked me to open it up right but it’s got all of this like brandy on it and now if I wasn’t a labor supporter and they wanted me to convert me right they better just do this a letter like that just like the Liberal Party so if I wasn’t a Liberal Party voter I should just get rid of all of that hook me into reading the whole thing to see what their story is and what their offer is and then ask me what to do at the end still half the Madrid I’m not gonna do it live on camera but this is really cool this is making my life easy so if I wasn’t already registered for the Australian federal election this would make my life easy so she’s actually added some bonus time-saving stuff in there that makes me going you know what penny you are actually helping me out and in fact in all fairness that looks like one of the liberal parties also has something very similar in there on the back it does it’s got a voidable avoider application form so with this when you are communicating with cold prospects you have to remember they don’t know you they don’t like you and they don’t trust you they’re not already converted to who you are and what your sales messages your whole goal is to follow the AIDA principles get their attention then get them interested then get them to desire what you are actually offering them get them to take action on that or hook them tell my story tell them why it’s important what you’ve got to say and then finally give them an offer and then tell them how to take action on that offer now please don’t put a whole ton of branding on stuff for cold prospects they don’t care they don’t like you they don’t know you and I don’t trust you there’s been a fun day for me I’m grabbing all of the post and going through some marketing messages for you I hope there is some valuable insights into that so what I want to do when you’re going to create a marketing or sales message take that stuff on board and see not how not to do things and try it out see what happens and let me know but I guarantee you I’ve led you up the right path with this hope you have a great day and I’ll talk to you soon.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 6: Political marketing via fliers

Orren Prunckun — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:38:47 +0000

In this episode you’ll hear my thoughts on:

What not to do with a marketing message; and
Why your marketing communication should be in the language of your market.

So, listen here to hear as I discuss these!

Transcript

Hello hello so in Australia the federal election has been cold and all candidates are now in full promotion mode to get their message out to the market of why they should be the best candidate to represent us at the national level now I’m getting all these wires in my letterbox and one of the fires that caught my attention probably for all of the wrong reasons was from one of the candidates I was a big glossy flyer and on that flyer literally 75% of the flyer was all about them who they were what their interests were where they grew up how they where they went to school and so on and literally I looked at this and I said none of this relates to me I do not care and look I get the thinking and the rationale of why they did that trying to establish that day knew the cohort intimately well but at the end of the day I don’t care about any of that stuff all I care about is results and I want certain things to happen federally in Australia and a lot of that flag didn’t address any of those basic things even if they were in opposition to some of the outcomes I wanted for this country they did not even mention what their alternative was going to be huge waste of money huge waste of time for them to print out a flyer that did not address anything that the market would want so the lesson here is if you’re going to put a communication out into the market and you are trying to convince someone in that market to take some sort of action that is favorable for you should really be putting all the words on that page in the language of what is in it for that person to take action that is in alignment with what you want so I hope that lesson is kind of useful for you and changes the way you think about how you communicate in a public forum I tried out let me know how it goes and I would love to hear from you.

Marketing Ideas – Episode 1: Facebook Now Allows You To Steal Customers From Your Competitors

Orren Prunckun — Sat, 30 Mar 2019 07:48:51 +0000

Facebook has just release Ads Library.

This is a game changer for brands as it allows you to spy on the advertising of your competitors for free.

In this video I go through:

What Ads Library is;
Why it is important; and
How you can use it for your brand.

Enjoy!

Transcript:

Facebook has just made an announcement and I want to show you how you can spy on your competitors and use that to your advantage so this is really transcended time sensitive so only give you some context around this video so if you’ve been following the news Robert Mueller has come out with a report on Russia’s influence on Trump’s 2016 election there’s been an allegation of several allegations that Russia interfered with that election in 2016 by using Facebook and particularly using Facebook ads so basically what Facebook did in relation to that was they set up what they’re called is a ad archive and I did that about a year and a half ago and it was only available for political campaigns that were advertising on Facebook it basically was a bit of a transparency play for them to go and publish anyone that was making ads creating ads sorry for political purposes so now two days ago so when this is the 31st of March 2019 so two days ago Facebook has now I can publicly what they call an ad library and basically what that does is it is a searchable database that shows every ad from every page that has been advertising on Facebook over the last seven years now this is a game going along with their lines of helping out watchdogs and also being more transparent about what they do on their platform particularly ads and particularly around political campaigns now this is a huge announcement for brands so if you’re advertising or not advertising on Facebook currently this actually is really, really good for you so basically I just want to give you a bit of an overview of what you can do so with this ads library you can search any competitor or any brand particularly for competitors for this video and you can see how much they’re spending how much how many people they’re reaching in terms of impressions you can hear you can see if the ads been approved or disapproved you can tell what demographics they are targeting can also sue the ads the actual ads but in terms of imagery and message of the ads that they are currently and have run completely searchable it shows when page names have been merged when pages were created you can see all these kinds of things particularly around the ads and where those ad clicks or lead to so what landing pages and squeeze pages that your competitors are using now this is freely accessible to everyone now it’s not the first time something of this caliber has come out there’s been quite a few other services over the years that have done this so there’s a website called builtwith.com and that would basically show you what technology the websites were being built in and it pulled out various different information around what was being run behind the scenes on those pages including Facebook retargeting pixels and pixels for a drove people one of the doing remarketing and things like that it was really super basic you had to have a bit of technology to actually interpret what all that stuff men semrush.com did something very similar but it’s unpaid comprehensive in terms of you can view what I had to being run and it has a lot about SEO backlinks and so on but a game is paid and it’s pretty expensive and the website called what runs where as in what ads run where on the internet used to be freed but if free but now is paid and you see actually are about to see what a lot of the information Facebook is now publishing or the rock what runs where didn’t actually solely be specifically on Facebook as it was just then ads and other advertising channels and mediums as well so similar to what runs where is Add Beat calm it’s not as comprehensive but it is freely it’s got some basic information about what ads are being run and how long they’ve been run and it’s only really particular around banner ads at this stage another website similarweb.com is basic it’s free it doesn’t actually show you what ads are being run but it actually shows you what channels are being utilized in terms of traffic sources of its direct or SEO and so on so Facebook Ads is currently probably arguably the biggest ad platform currently it has really, really good targeting criteria a lot of advertisers are using Facebook ads just for the sheer volume of cohorts it can go out and target with this ads library they are doing what all of these other websites are doing but they are doing it for free and they’re revealing all of this information which is a huge boon for brands so why should you actually care about it so one of the principles are followed for many years is model what works and this is particularly relevant to around what competitors are doing they have found who responds to a certain message and what that message is so competitors have already gone out and spent a lot of money and a lot of time figuring that stuff out and if you an just go see exactly what they’re doing behind the same spy on them and then go model what works necessarily saying copy what they are doing but model what is working particularly around their messaging and also their targeting strategies now look I’ve been known to do this with my some of the Instagram accounts that I own and control what I’ve been adding some of these accounts up to about 100 people only because I am targeting exactly who my competitors are targeting and I’m not gonna get into strategy behind that and how I actually go do it but I’m talking exactly the same competitors on Instagram for some of my accounts and I’m growing those accounts by up to about a hundred followers a day which is huge no paid advertising everything is organic and I’m not spending a ton of time on creating contact in fact some of them I don’t even actually create content some of those other platforms are certain accounts on Instagram I’m adding in about 40 or 50 a day only because I’m wondering what’s worked so those brands have actually gone out and done the hard yards for you and what Facebook Ads library has done for you is revealed all that information for you for free which is as a brand and if you’re trying to grow it is a huge boon now the flip side is if you are about that brand and you are trying to conceal of this too bad so sad it’s all out in the public now so going to get access you just go to facebook.com/ads/library and what really wonder was this go type you know what your competitors search for all of the information that they are using within that all of the things I just mentioned before you know around the messaging and the ads go out and take as many screenshots as possible put it into a folder see if you can now analyze all of that information you’ve got see if there’s any trends once you’ve got all the trends of what all your competitors are doing is like a common denominator then once you’ve done that try to go out and do outdo them in terms of what you’re offering in terms of your messaging and create something that’s slightly better or slightly different and then just go out and implement it as simple as that all the information is out there for free and it has been released within the last two days so I really want you to go out and try that and/or really hope this information and that announcement is useful to you.

How To Sell

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 27 Aug 2018 05:36:10 +0000

The Sales Process (How To Sell In Person)

Market Research

Identify prospects (who are you customers)

Marketing

Suspect for Prospects (finding your customers)

Marketing/Sales

Initiate Outreach (bridging the gap with your customers)
Target Outreach (qualify/disqualify your customers)

Sales

Needs Analysis (find your customers specific needs)
Solution Presentation (present your solution to your customers)
Trial Close (ask your customers to buy)
1. Negotiation (address any customer concerns – if required)
2. Close (ask your customers to buy again – if required)

The Sales Process (How To Sell Online)

Market Research

Identify prospects (who are you customers)

Marketing

Suspect for Prospects (finding your customers)
Initiate & Target Outreach (qualify/disqualify your customers)

Sales

Solution Presentation (present your solution to your customers and address any customer concerns)
Close (ask your customers to buy)

Rapport Script

Helps you build trust quickly:

“Hi, how are you? *Handshake* My name is X. What’s your name? (Emotional Willingness & Polite Conversation)
“How is your day going? Would you like a (related to product or benefit), they are free? (Facts & Information)
I love that piece of clothing you are wearing (Compliments)
I have the same at home (Commonalities)
“Great, I’m guessing that means you are into (benefit of product)? Cool, do you use already (similar product)? Are you happy with it? That’s sounds positive/negative! (Ideas & Opinions)
Why do you say that and feel that way? (Feelings & Emotions)
Hi5 (Anchor)
I think I can help you – I’d love to give you some ideas. Is that okay or are you just saying that to please me?” (Authenticity & Congruence)

Rapport!

1 Initiate Outreach

Description:

Once you have found prospect contact information you need to initiate outreach to start qualifying them. This step is about making contact and finding the correct decision maker. You need to find the prospect (or decision maker) and get implied permission to contact. If you cannot Initiate Outreach, you need to go back to the Suspect For Prospect step. Use the following scripts…

Location:

The scripts should be sent from your full name from generic email domain such as Gmail or Hotmail, not a branded domain. You will use the same email Subject line and thread. Load responses into CRM.

2 Target Outreach (Qualify)

Description:

Once you have found the correct decision maker you need to start qualifying them for interest in your product. This is not a sales step. If you sell here, you could be reported for SPAM. If you cannot Target Outreach, you need to go back to the Suspect For Prospect step. If you do not hear back send the No Reply Script. If they are not interested send the Not Interested Script. If they are too busy send the Not Now Follow-up Script.

Location:

3 Needs Analysis

Description:

Once you have contacted the prospect or decision maker and qualified them for interest in your product, you then need to find out more about their needs. This is not a sales step. If you sell here, you could be reported for SPAM. If they want to talk to you based in the Needs Analysis In-Person Script then use the Needs Analysis Script. Use the following scripts, as a guide only as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

The Needs Analysis In-Person Script should be sent from your full name from generic email domain such as Gmail or Hotmail, not a branded domain. You will use the same email Subject line and thread as in the Target Outreach Step. The Needs Analysis Script will be delivered in-person if possible or via phone as an alternative, but not via email. Neat casual attire is required. Load responses into CRM.

4 Solution Presentation

Description:

Once you have received permission from the prospect or decision maker to discuss their needs and discovered about them, if the prospect does not have a need, then move back to the Suspect For Prospects step. If the prospect has a need, you then can start selling. The script sequence should follow: Story, Solution and Offer Scripts. Use the following scripts as a guide only, as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

The scripts should be delivered in person if possible or via phone as an alternative, but not via email. Neat casual attire is required. Email should only be used for sending follow-up and written information after conversation. Load responses into CRM.

5 Trial Close

Description:

Once you have presentenced the product, you then should ask for a Trial Close. If the prospect accepts the solution, move on to the full Close step. If the prospect does not accept the solution, move on to the Negotiation step. Use the following scripts as a guide only, as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

6 Negotiation

Description:

If you have asked for a Trial Close and the prospect does not accept the solution, you then need to determine their objection(s), then answer their objection(s) and negotiation with them. Use the following scripts as a guide only, as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

Determine The Objection

The main objections prospects may have (in rough order) include:

Have no need or willingness to pay;
Have the wrong timing and it’s not urgent;
Have no buying authority or ability to pay;
Have no budget or ability to pay;
Do not know what they get with the product;
Do not like or trust your brand;
Do not believe (i.e. trust) the product, service or solution will work;
Do not believe (i.e. trust) the product, service or solution will work for them; and
Do not think the product, service or solution is valuable.

Beyond not being qualified (1-4 above), objections raised usually come down to not enough information or rapport.

These main objections could be expressed in the following ways:

“I’m not interested”;
“I can’t afford it”;
“I can’t make the decision”;
“Not right now”;
“How do I know it works?”;
“This is risky for me”;
“I don’t know you”;
“What do I get?”; and
“I’ll think about it”.

Answer the Objection

After you have determined their buying objections, it’s time to address them so they become buyers. Here are some tried-and-true ways to address the sales concerns:

Ask them demographic and psychographic questions to re-qualify and segment them, explaining what type of buyer the product, service or solution is intended to benefit and those it cannot help;
Re-contact them at a later date, inject scarcity and provide incentives or bonuses along with the purchase;
Same as 1;
Ask them demographic and psychographic questions to re-qualify and segment them and ask who the decision maker is;
Explain the product features;
Give them your product, service or solution expertise, credibility or credentials in the form of informational and educational marketing and sales content to teach about your brand and give them the brand story behind the product, service or solution;
Provide them with social proof in the form of testimonials and success stories, give them the story behind the product, service or solution, give them your product, service or solution expertise, credibility or credentials in the form of informational and educational marketing and sales content to teach about your brand and explain what type of person the product, service or solution is intended to benefit and those it cannot help ;
Provide social proof via case studies, provide a risk reversal in the form of a money back guarantee, give them the story behind the product, service or solution, give them your product, service or solution expertise, credibility or credentials in the form of informational and educational marketing and sales content to teach about your brand, show them the benefits, advantages, results or outcomes that your product, service or solution provides and show your product, service or solution is different or unique; and
Give them the product, service and solution price and translate the value of that price for them into different currencies such as time and effort.

7 Close

Description:

Once you have answered their objections and negotiated with them, the prospect has an increased chance of accepting the solution now, so you then need to ask the Close again. If the prospect still does not accept the solution, you need to move back to the Negotiation step and repeat. Use the following scripts as a guide only, as their response will be dynamic.

Location:

How To Market and Sell Commodity Products, Services and Solutions

Orren Prunckun — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 03:04:37 +0000

I see this all the time in commodity-type industries.

I call it a commodity-type industry because those businesses provide products, services or solutions that do not have a value-add, above-and-beyond the core products, services or solutions.

The customer is simply paying for a non-creative output.

A commodity could be defined as:

“A basic products, service or solution that is undifferentiated that it is and can be interchangeable with other products, service or solution of the same type.”

Emotional value as opposed to function value is what separates a brand from a commodity.

If you expand the emotional value, you can broaden the price.

I have discussed this in depth here.

Other examples of commodity-type industries could be:

Tradies;
Chippies;
Labourers;
Painters;
Etc.

The commodity issue that affects their marketing and sales is the exact same issue with promotion between affiliates – it’s really hard to differentiate one affiliate to another.

In other words if a company has 10 affiliate to sell the product, those 10 affiliates are all selling the same product for the same price and if they overlap in prospects, it’s really hard for them to be better than the other competing affiliate.

I have written about affiliates in depth here.

A great example is Uber’s refer a friend incentive, in what they call “Free Rides”.

Uber offers users a $5 discount if they refer a friend.

The friend also gets a $5 discount.

The problem is this offer is available to all current users and all prospective users.

Any prospective user can take advantage of the $5 discount from any number of users they know.

Which one do they choose?

Usually it’s the one that is front of mind when making a purchasing decision.

This is the reason why advertising or constant marketing and sales communication works.

You, as a brand, have no idea where a prospect is at metaphorically or when a need arises, so using advertising or constant marketing and sales communication helps you catch prospects and customers at the right time for them.

You, as a brand need to be different.

Customers want your product, service or solution to work.

The product, service or solution working alone is not a differentiator, it’s a bare minimum.

It needs to work!

That’s why customers purchase.

In the case of a Sparkie, the product, service or solution has to adhere to the electrical code etc.

Again, it’s a bare minimum.

Any one qualified (and there are lots of them,) could deliver the product, service or solution.

There is not real value add in-and-of-itself.

Most of these commodity-type industries market and sell the same product, service or solution.

They pitch their services the same.

But there is nothing different about them compared to their competition.

So, how do commodity-type industry businesses compete?

AKA generate leads and prospect.

They compete on price.

When businesses compete on price and discounting, they drive the market down.

Customer gets accustomed to lower prices and the process is irreversible.

It eats away at your margins meaning you need to sell more to make the same revenue.

And competing on price is a race to the bottom.

NO!

Don’t compete on price.

Don’t compete for new business based on your commodity product, service or solution alone.

Beyond these two, here are some market-proven ideas (not an exhaustive list) to help your commodity business compete:

Brand: Create a premium brand;
Free and Offers: What can you offer prospects for free or $1 that will qualify them as a prospect or customer to push them into your marketing and sales pipeline and marketing and sales communication sequence?;
Have a pipeline and communication schedule and content. This allows you to communicate with new prospects on an ongoing basis to sell them at the time of need;
Bonuses: This is related to Free and Low Priced Offers. I always suggest affiliates (as discussed previously in this guide), to differentiate themselves by creating a value add by way of a bonus above-and-beyond the core product, service or solution. A great bonus is something cheap, high perceived value to the prospect and scalable in its delivery. Usually digital products are great for this. The product is the commodity, but the bonus is the differentiator;
Partnerships: Customers with the same pains or same wanted gains actually buy more than one product, service or solution (even competing products, services or solutions) to bring them closer to that gain or away from that pain. Customers were going to buy those products, services and solutions anyway, with or without prompting from symbiotic marketing. How many books of the same genre do you own? I’m willing to guess that it’s more than one. So, case in point Another example may be hair shampoo and conditioner. A better example may be hair shampoo and a hair straightener. In the latter example, the products, services or solutions are either upstream or downstream from each other. Upstream is better than downstream because your products, services and solutions are the next logical progression for the customer who has purchased a competing product, service or solution. Products, services or solutions that are alternative or competing can also be complimentary to your product, service or solution (in the case of hair shampoo and conditioner). Embracing this dynamic puts you in a position of leverage – partners invest money, time and effort in generating leads and partners both leverage each other’s investment. Put this way, if a partner has a qualified contact list that has purchased $1,000,000 of products, services or solutions and you can leverage this to build your contact list, you have in effect gained access to $1,000,000 of qualified customers. Pretty powerful;
Advertisements: search engine ads not social medial ads, for the reasons outline previously in this guide;
Search Engine Optimization: where do most people go when looking for a commodity product without having a referral? Google. The search for the suburb and service. You want to make sure your business is in the first position; and
Use and incentivise referrals with evangelists: You have already made a promise, delivered on that promise and created trust (especially important in industries where there are charlatans and swindlers), so you now have a great basis for word-of-mouth.

Once you have differentiated yourself on the front end in how you market and sell, you also need to differentiate yourself on the back end in how you increase customer loyalty.

How To Enjoy Marketing And Sales Rejection

Orren Prunckun — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:19:22 +0000

People hate rejection.

Surveys about human fears reveal that public speaking is the most fear activity, even more than death.

Why is this?

Public speaking means getting up in from of people and presenting something.

That something, or worse still, you is being evaluated by the audience.

If they like it, then that something or you are accepted.

If they don’t like it, then that something or you are is rejected.

It’s safe to say that the fear of public speaking is the fear of rejection.

I’ll say it again…

PEOPLE HATE REJECTION.

But the thing is, in marketing and sales, not just the strict sense that is marketing and selling any product, service or solution, but in the broad sense of marketing and selling sponsorship, partnerships, romantic relationships, jobs, customers, ambassadors, yourself and so on.

People are then passive aggressive as they don’t know how to be assertive.

This comes from a fear of rejection.

Most people fear to be upfront about what they want and need, because of potential rejection.

Yet ironically, rejection is a positive thing, it reveals incompatibility really fast.

Here it is: rejection saves all parties involved time.

It acts as a way to segment suspects into alignment.

In other words, qualified.

Are they unaligned with what you are marketing and selling?

Are they aligned with what you are marketing and selling?

If it is former, they were never going to buy as they have no need.

If it is latter, they are open to buying as they have a need.

Basically, you are looking for a big enough servable market.

Let’s have a quick look at an example, in this case, a health product…

You ask someone “Do you want to be healthier?”

And they respond “No.”

For all intents and purposes, they have rejected you or what you were hopefully trying to sell.

No matter, how much begging, pleasing, over-selling or sales tricks you try on them, they will keep saying no and start to resent you.

Whether you know it or like it or not, here you are proactively trying to segment suspects into alignment.

A more subtle version is simply putting brand communication out into the market, say via marketing and sales content.

This time, you are not directly asking someone “Do you want to be healthier?”

But you are still, trying to segment suspects into alignment.

People that are not interested will not respond.

Again, for all intents and purposes, they have rejected you or what you were hopefully trying to sell, in an indirect way.

If George Clooney asked a woman out, she’d drop and cancel everything to go on it.

If they are not responding, they simply are not interested.

I have mentioned that rejection is based on lack of need.

But something people are just nasty in how they reject you.

Maybe they are rude to you; maybe they call you nasty names, maybe they ignore you, maybe they threaten you or your family (trust me I have had a cold-called for charity, and I have heard everything!)

People take rejection personally and usually make it mean that there is something wrong with themselves at a core level.

This is utter nonsense.

Except if you did something truly heinous, the rejection is not about you personally and has no reflection on your identity or who you are.

Seriously.

They don’t know you.

At this stage, they don’t know you on a deep level, so they are only rejecting the context or the image of you by association in their mind.

For example, you’re wearing a red jumper, and their high school bully also wore the same red jumper.

They only have a small amount of data to make a choice on, and they certainly haven’t had time to get to know you as a person.

Based on this small amount of data, they are not rejecting you, but their perception concept or story of you.

However, if one person says you have a tail, they are probably insane, because obviously, humans do not have tails.

However, if 100 people say you have a tail, they are probably right, and you better turn around and see if it’s true, as they may be on to something!

What does this all mean?

It means based on the small amount of data you have given them, they have run it pass all of the rules and situations and experience they have had in the past that are similar and made a snap judgment about this current situation in relation to their past.

Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his book Blink.

They are relating you to their past experience.

You have never communicated with them, so the rejection cannot be about you as a person.

If you don’t have positive signs from people, then they are unlikely to be emotionally willing to talk to you – you have no idea why, so don’t read it as a rejection.

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, humans desire to be self-actualized by being connected to things that are important to them.

Further, after physiological and safety needs, humans naturally want to be connected and deepen relationships with others.

So if you are being “rejected” or your communication isn’t working, it could be because of their emotional state.

Most people’s emotional willingness drops due to basic physiological factors such as:

They are tired;
They are hungry;
They are cold;
Etc.

They are not normally emotionally unwilling, but for those factors.

Beyond those, emotional unwillingness could be due to unusual circumstances such as:

Their cat died;
They lost their job;
They broke up with their partner;
Etc.

Or it could be that they are responding to their context of you, not actually you.

Their context of you is how you appear to them based on their past experience.

Most people’s context of a stove top is that it is hot and will burn them, even if the stove is off and physically cannot burn them.

At this stage, they don’t know you on a deep level, so they are only rejecting the context or the image of you by association in their mind.

For example, you’re wearing a red jumper, and their high school bully also wore the same red jumper.

A rejection, in other words, mean you cannot progress further in trust building, means that the person who is rejecting you is uncomfortable in deepening the relationship based on:

Them not having enough information; or
You communicating at a level of rapport that hasn’t been established yet (as per the previous “let’s get married” example.)

But if you are still being rejected or your communication isn’t working, it could be because of their emotional state…

On top of that past experience, you have no idea what situation they are currently going through.

Did they get a cancer diagnosis?

Did their cat die?

Did they lose their job?

There are so many other, legitimate and plausible factors to why they are rejecting you.

And unless you ask them directly (you may not get a straight answer then, because people lie to protect people feels or they are simply unaware or not confident to say so), you will never know the true meaning behind the rejection.

And even if you did, who cares, it doesn’t change the fact that they are still not aligned or qualified.

So there is no point, spending precious emotions energy and time dwelling on the reason.

This is not narrow either!

It applies ANYTIME you directly or indirect, proactively or passively ask something of someone.

My modus operandi is as follows: “Reject me quickly, so we do not waste both our time!”

I want to spend my time, money and effort on people that are aligned and qualified with what I am marketing and selling, as I know that is the best use of those resources.

Imagine if you follow this simple rule how much time, money and effort you would save.

This means that marketing and sales are a numbers game.

This means you can’t align and qualify them all.

This is because you are interacting with other humans.

And humans are complicated and complex, and this means you do not have 100% control over the outcome.

Attrition rates as you move down the marketing and sales funnel.

It’s also very hard for you to know where they are at.

Yes, you can ask, but unless you have a lot of rapport and trust, then it’s unlikely you will get the truth.

“Maybe,” “No,” “No, not right now,” “I don’t know” etc. are all better than ignoring communication.

But again, ignoring communication reveals incompatibility really quickly (if that’s a core value.)

No may only mean no for now, not no forever.

It means “no, until I have a need.”