HOW DO YOU LIVE WITH “PULL?”

It’s easy. You live with Pull by leading your category. I know the idea of being the leader in your category sounds like a huge undertaking but nothing is further from the truth. How you lead is by routinely being perceived as the only alternative when compared to your competition. The alternative I am referring to is accomplished by being perceived as having an advantage over your competition.

Beyond price, there are only two ways to accomplish the perception I am referring to. First, you can develop an alternative in your product or service. A simple example would be a dry cleaner offering an unusual new service for its customers, let’s say offering to convert old VCR videos to DVD format. That sets this dry cleaner up as an alternative in the dry cleaning category and successfully differentiates this one from its competition.

Second, is that you can create a remarkable change in your sales message.  My experience is that the cheapest and easiest way to increase sales and profits is to upgrade your sales message in such a way that your product or service is perceived as remarkable. I touched on this in one of my earlier blogs, “How to Make Your Target Consumer Happy” (1/31/10). What I observed is that most businesses talk so much about their product or service that they leave the consumer out of the it sales message.

The car company BMW just did exactly that and I predict they will reap the benefit of having done so. Their new ad campaign is centered on the message “We don’t just make cars, we make joy”. That is 100% about the target consumer and what they will get out of owning a BMW. Works for me…it will for you too.

The RULE here is that if you evolve your sales message on a regular basis you will drive your competition crazy. You will be causing the evolution of your category by creating “what’s next/new” in your category. Target consumers will perceive your product or service as the leader. You will prosper and your competition will suffer. Your competition will be at the effect of your ongoing innovation. Go for it and let me know what happens.

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog with Google, by clicking the link 

   

visit my site, www.pullbizbook.com

WHAT IS PULL?

I flew to New York and back several weeks ago and was twice asked, “What is Pull?” Pull is a book title of course, but it is also a marketing distinction I discovered many years ago.

Remember how special you felt when you got your new car? It was exciting and made life a bit more fun. Remember how carefully you drove it and how carefully you parked it. Notice you still have the car but that feeling is gone. Shouldn’t it follow that if you still have the car you should still have the feeling?

You are not alone. It is humanly impossible to keep that feeling. Human beings are “hard wired” in the brain to familiarize themselves with their new car such that the newness and the feeling of excitement simply disappear. What is more aggravating is that we humans have no choice in the matter. We really are “hard wired” to acclimate to anything new because of a need to be comfortable with everything in our lives. We do it with anything that appears newly in our lives. That applies to good news or bad news, a new car or a recession. We humans have to make everything ok.

Being aware of this phenomenon and how it impacts the world of marketing will serve you well. It’s simple. When you create a unique sales message’s you need to understand that target consumers will only react emotionally to it until they make it familiar and get comfortable with it. That’s not bad news. If you think literally about it, you can see that this “Pull” creates a clearing for you and I to create what’s next for our sales message.

The learning here is that even when sales are strong, you and I should be working on creating “what’s next” for our business. Altering your sales message in this way will have your target consumers stay interested in your business and will devastate your competition. You will be the leader in your category.

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog with Google, by clicking the link 

 

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON!

If you hang around me often enough, you will come to agree that participating in Free Enterprise is akin to being in a war. Now I know how harsh that sounds but that attitude will keep you from becoming a casualty. As in any war you have some say about the weapons and the battlefield. Those two things go together by the way. Your selling proposition is your weapon and your impact point is your battlefield.

Identifying your impact point is relative simple. It’s where your message is being conveyed to your target consumer. The front of a retail package, the front of a store, a billboard ad and so forth. Your sales message is another matter.

Getting at your sales message is not quite so easy. The biggest misconception is that your message is what you say or write. It absolutely is not. There is only one true message that counts and that is the message that gets through to your target consumer. You and I may write down the message we want to convey and create an ad to convey it but that message is only in our heads. The message that counts is the message that was interpreted and received the target consumer.

What does all this mean? You need to find a way to expose your sales message to your target consumers and listen to what they have to say. Not your friends, your employees or your relatives…your target consumers. BTW, there is a correct way to do so that is covered in chapter twelve of the book. You don’t need formal research. You will have to do a little work.

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog with Google, by clicking the link 

 

IS FREE ENTERPRISE A CHOICE?

I remember being taught in college that Free Enterprise was some kind of economic choice that we in America were very proud of having made. It was sold as a doctrine or a policy that was debated and chosen. We in the U. S. like to think we mastered it and promoted it to the rest of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If Free Enterprise is not a choice, then what is it? We live in and around it daily, and yet we have never chosen to live by it and never will. It’s just there.

I say Free Enterprise is a fundamental “law of nature.” Why? Well there are three aspects of human nature that qualify it as a “law of nature.”

• The 1st aspect is that we humans love to collect things.
• The 2nd is that we like to have more things than our fellow humans.
• The 3rd is our innate desire to have some if not all of the things that other humans have.

Given that we have two choices to satisfy these three aspects of human nature, what are they? We go to war and take their things, or those of us that are more civilized, exchange our things for some of their things. Hopefully, over time we do less of the former and more of the latter. What can be learned from these choices?

If we are in this game called Free Enterprise, then learn the game, learn to play it well and learn to be successful and enjoy it. My book “Pull,” is a way to access understanding the true nature of Free Enterprise and how to take advantage of this “law of nature.”

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com