Marketing, Strategy, Kosher!

True or False? If You Are An Entrepreneur, Take this Quiz and Test Your Knowledge of Marketing.

issamar — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:40:53 +0000

You can tweet to the millions out there, but unless you’re speaking their language, and I mean the language of social media, you probably won’t see worthwhile returns.

True or false? “Three out of 100 people will always buy what you are selling.”False! This is one of those famous calculations people make only to be so disappointed. They go to trade shows and tell themselves, “If there are 1,000 people at the show and only three out of a hundred buy from me, I’ll make millions.” This is an amateur mistake. If the offer is unattractive to the proper audience, you many not sell even a single dongle. (Imagine if three out of every 100 people that passed a Ferrari dealership bought a Ferrari.)

True or false? “You should spend you advertising budget as slowly as possible, so it lasts the full year.”

False. Marketing should be based on what it costs you to acquire a new customer. As long as your acquisition costs are exceeded by new profits, there should be no cap on spending.

You turn on the sink and let a trickle of water come out. If it is successful, you open the faucet wider and wider, growing your business as quickly as you can while keeping clients happy and not outgrowing your ability to provide good service and product.

True or false? “Emailing your customer list once a week is way too much.”

Well, it depends on conditioning. If they are used to getting one email a week, they will not mind at all. If however, you email once a month and then suddenly barrage them with emails once a week, you really will be harassing them. So think about how to condition your clients best. The right answer is: “Whatever schedule works best for your customers based on how you have educated them about what to expect from you.”

True or false? You have satisfied clients, degrees and prestigious awards, and therefore the client knows you are the best.

I’ve spoken at Google, for the JNF, at The Jerusalem Post and many other prestigious places. But how did you know that? Probably because you read about it somewhere in an interview with me or saw me post about it on LinkedIn, Facebook or on Twitter.

If you don’t tell your clients about your recognition, then quite frankly, they don’t know about it. And when you do show them, you keep them happier (because people enjoy working with people they know are very successful), and they are more sold going forward on working with you and referring you other business.

In fact, here’s a tidbit: Google didn’t pay me. They don’t pay anybody who comes to speak there – because they have tremendous demand and they hardly let anyone in. they came to me via a referral, which is how I ended up there. But do you think I was disappointed not to get paid? Absolutely not. I was happy to be there, develop personal connections there and have a money-can’t-buy recognition via that association that has done well for me in my own business. That was worth way more than the $1,200 I would have gotten for a paid talk. But shh! This is one of the secrets that marketers don’t like to share unless you are paying them really well. Sometimes it’s not about the money but the cachet.

True or false? “Social Media works/doesn’t work.”

My favorite expression about social media is: “Social media is only free if time has no value.” Social media is one of my favorite speaking topics because it is a miracle tool: It is free, easy to use and has a seemingly gentle learning curve. The truth is that social media can work magic, even miracles at times – but not the way most people are using it.

You can tweet to the millions out there, but unless you’re speaking their language, and I mean the language of social media, you probably won’t see worthwhile returns. It’s about leveraging the platform to get to specific people who will move your business to the next level, not the people who might buy a new pair of goggles if they happen to see your post about the sale.

True or false? “Always advertise where it is cheapest based on the distribution.”

False. Advertising is not about what’s the cheapest. It’s about the right medium for your message to get to your market. If you were trying to raise awareness about a local New York politician, then advertising in the London Times, even if it were only a third of the price of a New York publication, would be a bad idea.

Think about the positioning your clients see from their very first contact with you. Like a phone call, it’s the one who initiates the call that usually dominates the conversation. Be the one who sets the pace, and you’ll be the one who sets the price!

This article originally appeared in print in the Jerusalem Post.

The Secret Power of Strangers to Transform Your Future

issamar — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:57:02 +0000

A big mistake many of us make is to assume that if you are going into business, you want to look for who you know in that business.

If you were in my class in Bobover Yeshiva in fourth grade, you probably wouldn’t have a high opinion of me as a professional.

“Ha! Issamar is a highfalutin business consultant? I remember when…” and recall some less-then-wonderful memory of myself as a child.

Getting that person as a client would be very hard. Because he knows me well from a long time ago, it would be hard for him to come to terms with that. Just like he is not a child anymore and has grown up, so, too, I have – and, yes, I did move on from being the ADHD kid in the class who hated sports and eventually grew up.

A big mistake many of us make is to assume that if you are going into business, you want to look for who you know in that business. Going into commercial real estate? You’d probably assume that your neighbor or cousin who is in real estate is a great place to start. “Hello, Mr. Gold? I’ve just gotten my real-estate license as of yesterday and was wondering if you were looking to sell any of your buildings…”

And yet, as those who have been there can attest, that conversation does not usually end with a listing to sell property.

It’s because they see you for who you were, instead of who you are.

Say you are on LinkedIn. People you are connected with know you from your job as a sales clerk in a local shop. Now, you decide you are entering the world of design and are aiming to launch a new clothing brand.

People who know you might wish you luck. They will probably root for you to succeed. But will they run and give you business, or recommend you? Not as simple as it sounds. This is because they don’t know for certain that you can make it happen. And they still see you as a “shop clerk with a dream,” not as a bona fide entrepreneur.

In this case, your second-level connections (those who personally know the people you are connected with) on LinkedIn are (shock!) less valuable in a sense then the totally unknown people, who are third-level connections and beyond, or members of different groups on the site you might both be members of.

Because these further distanced folks start fresh with you based on what you do now, as of today, they don’t have to go through an amnesia process to get to know you as the newer you. And when you engage, interact and satisfy them with your product or services, they will gladly refer you to others and give you an all-important testimonial.

With several of these new experiences in hand, the people who know you in your old life get to meet a new you who has already been accepted as reinvented. And the social proof and validation by others will enable them to get on the bandwagon and get up to speed accepting and referring business and connections to the reinvented you.

So how do you get these new connections and clients that are key to making this scenario a success? Network – and ignore anyone you know.

A novice mistake made by many business owners who start attending networking events is that they meet someone they know and spend the night talking to them. That’s not what you came for, is it? The reason you came is to network, as in “meet people who are strangers.”

Don’t try to cover everyone in the room. This is not a business- card collection contest. But do speak to new people, and try to spend a few minutes speaking to each one. If you meet “just” five or 10 new people at an event and get to know them, you have done a good job. And this is true no matter how many people are at the event.

These people get to know you for your new career… and the people in their lives are now accessible to a totally exciting new you, the one who has the new clothing line.

The same is true online. Start a blog and write articles about your new topic of expertise. Advertise on Google (or Bing, where bids are often lower). The people who come from the traffic and buzz you are generating come based on what is now, not on what was then. And before you know it, your recent past is just back story to your past of “before I went into the apparel industry, I was a clerk in a small shop…”

Yes, I’ve had (some) schoolmates who have come to me for guidance and business strategy. But they’ll never forget to rib me with, “I still remember when the principal called your dad…” Ahh, the memories.

issamar@issamar.com

Issamar Ginzberg is a business adviser, marketer, professional speaker and rabbi who has been published in more than 50 business publications.

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This article originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post.

The Amazing Words That Get Your Emails Opened- And When To Send Them

issamar — Sun, 06 May 2012 01:22:26 +0000

Came across this infographic from the great folks at Boomerang. I use their plug-ins in Gmail myself- Truly fantastic stuff

Take a look at these priceless insights on what to send your emails, what words to use, and how to get them opened…

Six Things I Learned Speaking at Google

issamar — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:31:54 +0000

I was honored to speak at Google’s Israel headquarters two weeks ago. It was an amazing experience, with stunning and breathtaking views of the Tel Aviv skyline! )

Here’s some of my thoughts and lessons learned.

Rabbi Issamar Speaking at Google Headquarters in Israel

Get Visually Comfortable Even Before You Arrive.

Always ask for a picture of the room you will be speaking in. Especially when your talk is right after an “all hands aboard!” event, so you don’t walk into the room util literally the moment that your speech will begin, it allows you to get a feel of the room layout, which makes the mental stress of walking into unfamiliar territory almost disappear.

Think about the Why.

When your clients say “we don’t allow pictures.” always think about why they are saying that. In this case for example, more follow up revealed that they do not let in guest photographers, but if you ask early enough they can bring in someone that they do allow that will film for you. (as it turned out, I was unable to do that on such short notice, and had to settle for some still images and audio of the session…)

Understand How To Tweak Your Presentation to Your Audience, Specifically.

One of the topics I spoke about was testimonials, and how they do more for your business in more ways than you can imagine. Several of the questions and comments afterward were about how engineers tend to, well, be “engineer-y” when recommending co-workers, and overcompensating the good they say with a wallop of overdosed negatives so it seems “balanced.” while actually leaning heavily on the negatives and rendering many testimonials and letters of recommendation useless by the recipient.Another commented that about the unique way Google does employee reviews, and that one of the techniques I dropped would enable him to get better reviews at his next meeting- even though the ratings are done anonymously and he would, before my speech, have no way of controlling what anyone would write. The effusive thanks was nice, but it made me realize how much more it would have been valuable to the audience had I spelled that out specifically so!

Say something (sort of) unrelated to warm them up.
I said an old Jewish parable to expand on an audience question. (Yes, even Google-ites have questions sometimes!) That parable, as well as some other stories I mentioned (and Kenneth Cole in particular), was very well received by the audience because of it’s application to their professional as well as personal lives…

Bring Your Own Guests.
Have clients or potential clients that live nearby? Have them come and hear you speak. it adds to your credibility, gets them to kvell about you (“I was invited to a private Google lecture. oooh.”) and gives them additional reasons to hire you. (as in”I don’t care if he looks like he just stepped out of a silent film of the 1930s. If he spoke at Google, he knows what he is doing and can help us!”). assuming the client doesn’t mind, it’s a win win win… and you have someone there that you feel comfortable asking to take several snapshots of you as you speak.

Confessions…

I did not utilize this appearance “Hasidic Rabbi Speaks at Google to Resounding Applause”properly. no media mentions of it, no (that I know of) tweets or Facebook photos of it, which was partially due to a family wedding which took place just several days before. But had I done that, this event would have gotten media attention in the wider media, and that would have brought many more people to knowing about me and visiting my website.I also should have asked and encouraged the audience, at some point, to please take pictures and send them to me (for which I could have given a free book or somethin’.)

Now, why did I speak there? I did not speak there with the intentions of getting Google employees as clients, or even to “get hooked up” to an unlimited number of AdWords vouchers. I spoke there because of the prestige of Google, and the fact that once I spoke at Google, it’s a powerful name drop that I can use to further build my brand and my credibility with potential clients.

Your Thoughts? (and special request: please share this post.) I gotta ask…

Kenneth Cole… and “The Birthing of a Shoe Company”

issamar — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:30:22 +0000

From a recent seminar: A story about Kenneth Cole and real “out of the box” thinking.

Kosher?

Every Vote a Miracle- Sliding in Under the Fence

issamar — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:46:53 +0000

I just saw one of the big gurus send out an email all about “shiny object syndrome.”

Essentially, they are promising to make you focus and stop looking for the “next big thing”… How? Buy having you buy THEIR product, which incidentally costs a few thousand dollars… And for the most part, is simply a collection of repackaged old courses!

Yecch.

It reminds me of what Kevin Hogan says about democrats and republicans..

Democrats say “well do it all for you.” jobs, retirement, benefits- you just vote for us and you will get everything you need- cradle to grave- without putting in any effort!

On the other hand, if republicans can get even 30% of the common votes with suggesting that YOU will actually Need to hustle and work to better your life… Than that in itself is miraculous!

Bottom line?

No one is going to give you anything free. It’s all gimmicks, sale hooks, backend monthly programs, and PR opportunities…

Why not do it yourself? Isn’t it time to face the glowing reality that should rightfully be yours when you work hard to achieve the american dream?

Whether you are a democrat or republican, if you want to better your business and career, This is the time and this is the place to get moving.

Someone’s gotta say it, even if no one wants to hear it. the ones that make money long term, honestly and ethically… work smart and hustle to get it!

(Special note- I have room for three entrepreneurs to learn everything they need to know to build a better and much more money generating business- if you can work hard and aren’t drinking the Kool-aid. e-mail me if this is you!)

Leave your comments below….