Copyright 2013 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
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Here's a basic way to link some marketing concepts & practices. It's general because I need to write this for a variety of businesses.
In what I've written in this post, I linked insights from the people I've listed below:
Jay Abraham - Chet Holmes - Jim Cecil - Jay Conrad Levinson - Dan Kennedy
Clayton M. Christensen - Tom Hopkins - Marshall Goldsmith - Rob Frankel
Stephen R. Covey - Philip C. McGraw, PhD (Dr. Phil) - Jim Collins
To get the full benefits of concepts from sources I've quoted, you may need more content & context. You may need to read their books & articles, plus watch &/or listen to recordings (various forms of videos & audio lessons) to get a fuller lesson than I can present here in a limited time & space. Whether you choose to read full books or summaries, it could depend on how many details you need to implement solutions.
You can do web searches ("Google") of the names of the sources below to learn more from & about them.
Some software programs will vocally read books, articles & whatever else is in compatible forms. Versions 6 & later of Adobe Acrobat Reader have been able to read PDFs out loud so people can listen (unless a PDF was setup to prohibit that kind of reading). By using this, I've made audio versions of some things.
You can copy & paste content from blogs & other sources into documents, then use a program (like Adobe, PDF Creator or others) to convert those documents into PDFs. Adobe Acrobat Reader can read the content for you to listen to & learn.
If I included an insight from (or even just listed) each person I've learned from, I could fill books. Since they've filled books/ebooks, magazine articles, interviews, blogs, etc., you should get their knowledge as directly as you can afford. Jay Abraham, Chet Holmes, Zig Ziglar, Dan Kennedy & I have unabashedly accumulated ideas from many others, then combined those.
Dan Kennedy relies on great ideas from many sources, not just his original ideas.
I advise you to extrapolate & combine whatever you can use in practical ways. I know nobody will ever have enough time & energy to study everything & use every bit of knowledge. Yet, when you have access to what you need, you should feel obligated to produce as much value as you can. Having multiple helpers can multiply your success by bringing you more options to test.
Though you can't test every conceivable idea, your experiences should guide in choosing what fits your situation.
Example: Clayton M. Christensen & his co-authors wrote about resources, processes & values (RPV Model). The RPV Model includes what a firm does, how it's done & why it's done in a certain way at certain times. I extrapolated how it applies to individuals & families. Phil McGraw wrote about people doing what works (or what they think is working).
Trying to get people to change depends on various things like perceived benefits & the degree of change. If what you offer requires people to make relatively small adjustments, they'll be more comfortable. Yet promising big benefits from small changes could seem too good to be true.
By tracking & comparing your experiences, you'll learn what your market niche will accept or reject.
I realize some free ideas are worth the price we pay for them, but you can get a lot of valuable ideas from who/what seem to be unlikely sources.
When you can pay for service after you profit from it & as a percentage of that profit, you have little to risk & a lot to gain.
The Hedgehog Way To Build Businesses
Jim Collins (aka James C. Collins) advocates developing & improving a Hedgehog Concept. His 3 circles diagram shows how the combination of 3 things makes a huge difference. Choose your profession with 3 criteria - Do what you feel comes naturally (genetically encoded). Do what you could possibly be the best in the world at. Do what powers your economic engine (what you can profitably get paid to do).
When you establish that, enhance it with Jay Abraham's advice.
Jay Abraham advocates creating & maintaining an interlinked system of 3 ways to grow a business: Increase your customer base. Get more of what they want & need, so they'll buy more (bigger transactions) & buy more often (more frequent transactions).
Chet Holmes's advice about stacked marketing fits snugly into these 3 ways. Each part of your marketing program should reinforce the same overall value message. In effect, each part gets neatly stacked on the others that are established.
Each element & the whole marketing structure focus on a consistent message to fit into people's lives. So, stacked marketing keeps reinforcing how the business & its offers fit into people's lives (currently & in the near future).
Jay Abraham advises building a Power Parthenon - a series of sales channels & marketing pillars to consistently reach & serve clients. As clients & their situations change, it's necessary to adapt to those changes & whatever else may potentially disrupt your business.
Jay Conrad Levinson, Chet Holmes, Jay Abraham & I are among those who urge marketers to be consistent. Your marketing program doesn't have to be mono-dimensional. Your messages shouldn't be monotonous redundancy. What you test shouldn't be major differences.
The consistency I advocate is cohesion so your business brand is solid not fragmented. An optimal, long-term brand is a promise to provide the value your niche expects.
Rob Frankel advised making a brand fit each of a business�s constituencies. Plus, a solid brand is perceived as the only solution provider of what people specifically need/want. Inconsistent marketing & messaging don't reinforce a promise.
Anything you gain can replace something you've lost or will lose. Nothing works optimally forever. Few things work optimally every time - especially during the first few attempts.
That's a major part of Jay Abraham's advice about building a marketing Power Parthenon. As long as some pillars survive & work optimally, a business can thrive even if a few pillars are lost.
You shouldn't try to add more pillars (marketing & sales methods) than you can manage in any time period. Each pillar you add is a module until you stabilize & codify it.
Too Much, Too Soon Realized Too Late
You may've heard or read about businesses that had a lot of cash flow during sales frenzies. It'd seem those businesses were doing what was working. Later, people discovered despite massive sales volumes, there were no profits & big losses.
Exceeding your current sales volume may be the opposite of succeeding, if you don't do the right planning.
Negative cash flow can surprise almost anybody. Since cash flowing in feels good, it's too easy to assume less is going out. There's a reason for how ASSume is spelled. If more cash flows out than the cash level flowing in, you'd better know it, know how much & why. No knowledge means no valid plan. Little knowledge will probably have little or no positive effect.
Strong Stable Links To Make Strong Stable Chains
By linking concepts & practices, I'm adapting what I've learned from the sources I've cited in this post. If anything I've written is inaccurate or just doesn't seem to make sense, I'll accept responsibility for those mistakes. What you do or don't use & your results are your responsibilities since I don't have specific information about your situation. None of this is intended to be a diagnosis or treatment for specific problems nor should any of it be considered a substitute for diagnostic consulting.
Each time you test something, you should do each test as a potentially unstable module. When you have a successful test, it indicates (indicative, not definitive) you may have a valuable addition or a replacement for what's no longer effective or efficient. You should then test where, how & when to connect it to interdependencies (what's already stable).
Some concepts may seem strange. Since your ability & willingness to incorporate concepts will determine your success level & duration, you need to know what to test. It may be circular thinking but testing methods & variations of methods is the way to learn what to test.
Imperfection Plus Testing What May Or May Not Work - What A Combination!
People are apt to accept you & fit your advice into their lives when you consistently use what Jay Abraham calls the "Strategy of Preeminence". A quick summary of the effectiveness of the Strategy of Preeminence is: People are first more concerned about how much you care about them before they care about how much you know.
They realize you aren't perfect & they'll be more apt to forgive you for a mistake when they know care about them.
Whether it's your personal or your professional journey, Marshall Goldsmith would remind you, "What Got You Here Won't Get You There."
People & businesses may succeed despite shortcomings & quirks, yet each time a situation changes, shortcomings & quirks can cause worse consequences.
Many problems Marshall Goldsmith wrote about are interpersonal since mistakes may seem intentional when a person seems not to care about the welfare of others.
Do You Have What Will Soothe Their Itches?
Tom Hopkins & Jim Cecil referred to the patterns of some purchases as Itch Cycles. Eventually because of various factors, people feel urges to buy (or at least experience) what they perceive as newer &/or better versions (latest models) of what they have or had.
Clayton M. Christensen described how some product versions are designed & manufactured on a regular rhythm.
It's vital for you to learn what triggers your niche to purchase so you can be ready to serve them. Part of optimal retail success is having just enough inventory to supply what people demand & when they demand it. It requires knowing when itches develop & when suppliers can deliver what soothes your niche's itches.
Thank you for using my blog. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.
Copyright 2013 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here-
https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.voy.com/31049/
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