Today, I’m interrupting our regularly scheduled blog series to bring you something NEW. Something different.
Something that until now… I’ve never revealed before anywhere else.
It’s an epiphany that I’ve come to recently, while doing some research for my upcoming Report Writing Workshop.
Right now, I’m actually working on all my presentations for this two-day workshop. So all this week, I’m locking myself in my back office cigar bar until I’m done with everything I’m preparing for this event.
But even though I have a lot on my plate this week, I still want to take some time out to share a glimpse at what I’m working on.
Because frankly, I’m making some HUGE breakthroughs that you need to know about.
What I have to tell you will – I have NO doubt – change your perspective on how you market your business. More importantly, it will change how you SELL your products – so you can dramatically increase your sales.
Before we get into that, I want to give you a clear picture of what you’re facing in your business every time you try to sell ANYTHING. It’s why so many marketers approach marketing and selling wrong.
Let’s call it the “marketing trifecta” you have working against you.
How Often Has This Happened to YOU?
Think back to the last time you tried to sell a product for your business.
(Or if you’re new to business, imagine you’re trying to sell a product for the first time.)
If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you either spent a lot of time focusing on creating your actual product, OR you spent a lot of time thinking about how you were going to market whatever product you would get around to creating.
Maybe you spent months perfecting the ideal recipe for the muffins you’re going to sell in your new bakery.
Or if you have an online business, maybe you spent months scripting and filming what you consider to be the world’s perfect video sales letter to sell your new information product.
Either way, you have already invested months or even whole years of your life into planning how you’re going to sell your product.
The fateful release or “launch day” finally arrives. You open the doors to your new bakery. Or you push “send” on your marketing piece to sell that cutting-edge information product…
And (drum roll please!)…
…VERY little happens. The results are dismal at best.
You’re confused. You’re stumped. And your confidence is more than a little shaken. But you’re an entrepreneur, so you write this off as a setback and you try again.
You tweak what you’re doing. Maybe you try a new marketing campaign or test a new idea to get foot traffic into your bakery. And you go out again… and perhaps a third time…
And each time, still very little happens.
Now you’re upset. You start thinking that maybe marketing and selling a product is just harder than you originally thought.
If you have ever been at this place, I can tell you from experience: Every marketer feels this way at some point or another. That brings to the first part of the “marketing trifecta” you have working against you…
#1. Since the vast majority of entrepreneurs are NOT seasoned marketers, they underestimate what it takes to market their products effectively. They just know “it should be easier than this.”
And if you have NEVER marketed anything before – believe me when I say I want to keep you from ever having to go through this painful trial and error. That’s why I’m creating this blog series – to show you how to market effectively.
But before we get into that, there are a couple of other factors working against you as a marketer that you need to understand.
The next is a bit obvious, but it needs to be said.
The Market Has Changed
It’s very easy to say, “the market has changed” and write it off as difficult to sell anything.
But the harsh truth is, we do live in a very different world than marketers of just five or 10 years ago.
Like the door-to-door salesmen of old, once marketers had two or three precious minutes to speak to their target audience before their future customers would stop listening.
Two or three minutes may not seem like long, but today in 2013, you have between three to five seconds to capture your prospect’s attention. That goes for marketing and selling anything.
And at the same time, everyone on this planet is much LESS responsive to marketing messages – than we were just five or 10 years ago.
In fact, marketing messages are so pervasive that your entire target audience has developed natural immunities to ignore whatever it is you’re going to say… before you try to say anything in your marketing.
Obviously, that puts you at a disadvantage. It’s why response rates go down. It’s why conversion rates suffer. It’s why new businesses have to work harder to make their first messages be heard.
So how do you use those three to five seconds to sell your products?
The answer is you have to get your prospects to buy without using obvious marketing.
That’s #2 of the trifecta: Obvious marketing tactics are out now that the market has changed.
So What’s Left?
If obvious marketing tactics are out, then you have to create “non-marketing” that advances your sales.
In other words, you need exceptionally valuable free content that pre-sells your products.
But – and here’s the real rub – I’d estimate that 95% of marketers don’t understand what I’m about to tell you about free content.
This is something you NEED to understand if you want to be successful…
Every single piece of free content that you create to market your business has what’s called “a frame.” Or a “frame of mind.”
A frame is a perspective. It’s how your prospects perceive your marketing. Broken down even further, it’s the mindset your prospects have when they consume every piece of free content you create.
Now this mindset can be positive or it can be negative. There is no in-between. A positive mindset (or frame) pre-sells your products. A negative mindset (or frame) doesn’t. Simple as that.
That brings me to #3 of the marketing trifecta….
#3. If you’re not making the sales you want in your business, then chances are your free content is NOT pre-selling your products. If anything it’s working against you by creating a negative frame.
Here’s the Good NEWS…
This is the epiphany I was talking about so you’ll want to pay attention…
Right now, there is an ideal frame to sell your products.
There is also an ideal way to present that frame to your prospects in your free content so that your prospects WANT to buy your products.
To be successful, you just need to find that ideal frame – and continually use it in every piece of free content you create.
Here’s another way to look at your “ideal frame”…
Right now, your prospects are at “point A.” They don’t really care about your product. They don’t really care what you have to say period.
How to Create This Frame for Your Own Business
At next month’s Report Writing Workshop, I’m going to be personally helping my high-level clients discover what this ideal frame is for their business.
I’ll be walking my clients through the exact “pre-selling” process they have to go through to sell their specific clients on their product.
I’m also going to be helping them create their own piece of free content that pre-sells prospects like my own free reports have done in the past. So they can dramatically increase their sales.
As you can imagine, finding the ideal frame for your business isn’t a simple process. It takes some deep thought. That’s why I’m spending two days going over this at next month’s workshop.
But it’s VERY possible. As a business owner, you may already know what the ideal frame is – you just never thought about it before.
Here are some questions to get you thinking…
- What’s the ideal frame for your business? What’s the ideal perspective your ideal customer would have before they buy?
- To buy your product, what do your ideal customers need to believe? Are these beliefs in any particular order?
- How you can reinforce these beliefs in your free content to sell your products?
In my next blog post, I’m going to be digging into this further – about how you really understand your customers to discover this ideal frame for your own business.
Before you go, tell me in the comments…
- Was this blog post useful to you?
- Have you discovered these problems when marketing to your own audience?
- Will you use the concept of an “ideal frame” in your own business?
There are still a few spots left for this Report Writing Workshop next month. It’s happening at my favorite hotel in Fort Lauderdale on July 27th – 28th. For pricing and other details, contact my Director of VIP Relations, Adam Kaye at +1-631-656-8400