Archive for April, 2010
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
I love learning how we make decisions. The rationale we all use never ceases to amaze me. What’s interesting now: how we rationalize our behavior during this economy. Exhibit A: a comment my client overheard during a recent speech: “I won’t change my website or marketing materials even if I need to because they cost me too much money.” (Emphasis is mine.) I am not making this up.
I understand the pain of spending hard-earned money on something just to find out later that you have to do it again. (Yes, it’s happened to me.) And…we create our own economic downturn if we’re not willing to let go of past efforts and fix our mistakes. So ask yourself: how am I getting a good return on my investment when I keep something that doesn’t work? To paraphrase an old saying, aren’t we throwing good time and energy after bad? Something to think about…
Tags: branding, decisions, investment, Marketing, mistakes, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
If 2009 was the year of the discount, then 2010 will be the year of free stuff according to ChiefMarketer.com’s 2010 prospecting survey. Why? Almost half of respondents (of over 1,000 marketers who responded) are investing in finding new clients. How are they going to attract those folks? Not just with discounts. With free gifts (88.1 percent), free shipping (93%) and — you guessed it — more free content such as white papers and webinars (94.5%).
Pay attention to that last item. More free content dumped on the market means two things: 1) more partnerships to get information out there; and, 2) a pretty noisy conversation. Prediction: watch for a lot of junk to be thrown on the wall in the name of speed. This will hurt all of us experts as folks will tune out to avoid information overload. Only the most consistently compelling ideas will get traction from this tactic. Recommendation: spend just as much time creating compelling content as you do getting it out there. I’ve got some field-tested processes in Your Position of Power if you want some help. Click here for more information.
Tags: Marketing, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan, Your Position of Power
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Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
One of the biggest tasks for experts on “mass market” areas such as health, life balance, etc.: finding one buyer who will purchase many units. To the rescue: Corporate America. Example: wellness programs are more open to healthcare coaching as a way to increase participation. (The more people participate, the more savings on costs.) This interest is great for both experts with an army of subcontractors and for the tech-savvy with Internet-based solutions.
Key question: how can your expertise fit into this scenario? Worth taking time from your busy day to figure that out? And that’s exactly what the market assessment can help with. Here’s the link. Contact Vicky Likens at vlikens@sullivanspeaker.com if you want to explore further.
Tags: branding, experts, Marketing, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Thursday, April 15th, 2010
What drives buyers (and me) crazy: when we ask a question and get a story. Folks, this is a test to see how clear you are and if you have anything worthwhile to tell the marketplace. Stories that start without insights send a message: I got nothin’ but platitudes, so I hope to blind you with my stellar storytelling skills.
The time to launch into your favorite client success story (or your life story) is AFTER you’ve answered a compelling point. Media will hear the soundbite first, then they can hear the story because it illustrates the point. Look for my proprietary formula on compelling soundbites on next Tuesday’s Extreme Mini Makeover call. I’ve spent years refining this formula and it’s worked for thousands of experts. To register for the series, click here.
Tags: branding, experts, Extreme Mini Makeovers, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
We all ramble. Why? Too much information and not a good way to decide what is the most important. The catch: what we think is important and what the buyers want to know first are usually two different things. It’s easy to get too emotionally involved in our “babies.” I call this “strategic use of details.” Here’s my latest video rant on this mistake and how to create those killer sound bites.
Want more? Sure you do. It’s not too late to register for the Extreme Mini Makeover series. All the calls are recorded, so it’s easy to catch up. This is a no-hassle way to eat the huge branding elephant one bite at a time. Take advantage of this step-by-step approach by clicking here.
Tags: branding, conversations, Extreme Mini Makeovers, Marketing, positioning, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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Thursday, April 8th, 2010
One of my favorite industry insider pubs has gone to magazine heaven. Training Magazine and its website is no more after last month’s issue. I knew it was sick when the issues got smaller and smaller. While I hoped that the community could live via the Internet, owner Neilsen Business Media is getting out of the trade publishing business.
Moral of the story: even a well-respected expo, industry conference and a subscription base of 45,000 couldn’t save this platform. Will be interesting to see what happens in the vacuum Training leaves behind.
Tags: education, Marketing, publishing, trends, Vickie Sullivan
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Thursday, April 1st, 2010
The last place a speakers wants to bomb is in front of a bunch of meeting planners. Just ask brand expert Marty Neumeier, who got plummeted by complaints for his lackluster style during his keynote at MPI’s MeetDifferent 2010 Conference. The charge: not engaging the audience. And I’m not talking about interacting with the audience: this man looked at his computer and read from his slides the whole time. Yep, it was that bad. The virtual participants went ballistic. Almost two months have gone by and folks are still talking about it.
This became a teachable moment on two fronts: 1) how speakers should interact with virtual attendees; and, 2) whether organizations should accept keynotes with rudimentary presentation skills in the first place, even if their content is stellar. The moral of the story for the rest of us isn’t that we need good presentation skills. It’s the realization that meetings now have two different audiences: the face-to-face crowd and the virtual event attendees. And the latter are getting louder about being served. Get ready to change how you make your material come alive.
Tags: Marketing, meetings, speakers, Speaking, strategy, Vickie Sullivan
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