Claiming Your Unique Selling Proposition Before Someone Else Does!

The term Unique Selling Proposition (USP) was first described more than 50 years ago, in the classic book by Rosser Reeves, Reality in Advertising. While given much lip service, the concept of USP is seldom understood or executed well. Reeves said that your USP must meet three criteria to be complete and powerful. It must say to your consumer; Buy this and you will receive...

A Critical Translation of the Word NO: What Exactly Does It Really Mean?

When people says no to your sales offer, what does it actually mean? It just means no! It doesn’t mean they don’t like you. It doesn’t mean they don’t respect you. It doesn’t mean they don’t like the way you dress. It doesn’t mean they don’t like your mother. It doesn’t mean your company sucks. It certainly doesn’t mean that you or your offer are...

Don’t Forget that Your Core Business Is Where the Money Is

My success, part of it certainly, is that I have focused in on just a few things. BILL GATES Do one thing and do it well. Do it better than anyone in the area. Do it better than anyone in your county. Do it better than anyone in the state, or even the nation. Most business owners make the mistake of being in too many different businesses at once, and for most of the 1990s I...

How to Ethically Clear Out a Bad Product Without Discounting a Dime!

Jon Spoelstra was a marketing consultant and eventual GM of the New Jersey Nets basketball team for three years. He had on his hands the very worst team in the NBA. Not only did they have the worst record of any team in the league, but the players had bad attitudes and the few fans who did show up hated them! So how did the new GM go from an arena that was not even half full...

Throw Away Your Job Descriptions!

If you want superior performance from your salespeople,throw away your job descriptions and opt instead for position agreements. A position agreement is not a job description. Instead it is a detailed document that quantifies performance at every level of an employee’s job. The quantification has both hard measures and soft measures. A hard measure might be a line that tells...

The Turning Point to Greatness

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill Running a small business is never easy. It comes with long hours, red tape, unreliable staff or suppliers, and finicky customers. It can be a seemingly never-ending roller coaster ride of emotional and financial highs and lows. Just about every business struggles for survival at...

Why Personal Prejudice Destroys Most Brilliant Marketing Campaigns Before They Even Start

Everyone has an opinion about marketing. Unfortunately, rarely is that opinion based on fact or real-world experience backed by actual results. Instead it is almost always based on personal preference for color or style. Many opinions are also based on myths that have been handed down for decades and repeated so many times that they are now WRONGLY considered to be FACT...