The Third Key: Relationships

Tom Peters, the well-known sales adviser, is often quoted, often read, and usually ignored.

Perhaps because of this he went mad several years ago.

People listened, they read, they ignored… not exactly what a coach, adviser, a guru wants to have happen.

Get Them Off The Raft Marketing

I often talk about a type of marketing (which I coined) called Get Them Off The Raft Marketing.

You're on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean and come upon a man on a raft.

He's blister upon blister. Lips are cracked. He can hardly see.

He's delirious.

You call down over the side of the ship, "Come on… get off the raft and come onto the ship" and he says……… "no."

Now: how much of your time and energy do you expend getting him OFF the raft and ONTO the ship because YOU know it's better for him?

Oh, we can have him committed because he's crazy.

(We may have some customers and clients we'd LIKE to have committed because they are crazy!)

But what we find is that WE have to change.

So many of our clients and customers would rather stay adrift in the middle of the ocean of uncertainty KNOWING that what they are doing ISN'T working, than they would like to get off the raft and come onto our ship to do something new.

So WE have to change what we say.

We can't PREACH them off the raft. We can't berate them off the raft. We can't even JOKE with them to get them off the raft.

No.

We must find the language that means the most to THEM to help them see why they must get off the raft and onto our ships.

Or Tom Peters will remain Mad.

Not only must we teach HOW to create better marketing, we must find a way to make sure our clients IMPLEMENT the changes we suggest.

Only THEN will their marketing improve.

Only THEN will they improve their bottom lines.

Only THEN will Tom Peters (and the rest of us) see that what we tell people has actually HELPED people.

And THAT's why we do it! To help them.

Best,

Charlie Seymour Jr
Blogging, Podcasting, Consulting

PS: You can find me here:

http://twitter.com/UltimateWAHDads

http://facebook.com/CharlesSeymourJr

http://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesseymourjr

PPS: Do you have trouble writing? Turn Your Words Into Gold – Go Here To Learn More! NOW is the time to start.

Follow Charlie Seymour Jr On Twitter!

Keep this with this article, please:

Charlie Seymour Jr is an entrepreneurial evangelist and marketing-success coach helping individuals and companies (up to $100MM) explode their success through online and personal-touch marketing. He specializes in blogging, podcasting, photography, video, and Facebook applications. Visit his blog at http://bit.ly/24eYTO to learn more about his successes.

Friends, if you like this post, please leave a comment, join our email list to get updates sent to you, and retweet it. And I've made it easy to retweet – just click on the icon below. Thanks!

Fallacies of Marketing

070 The Invisible Touch – Why Tom Peters Went Mad

Marketing For Work At Home – Why NOT To Use Institutional Advertising!

OK… so these are MY terms not known to you. But when you listen to this short podcast, you'll see my institutional advertising is ONLY for the rich (or those not very smart).

Direct Response Marketing is needed most of the time.

Listen now!

Best,

Charlie Seymour Jr
A Work At Home Dad, succeeding in this economy

Friends, if you like this post, please leave a comment and retweet it. And I've made it easy – just click on the icon below. Thanks!

Wall Street Journal chronicles that finally they figure out that men have some say about the food we eat!

The Wall Street Journal article starts with a subheading that says that the new Post Cereal campaign aimed at men marks a departure for cereal advertising campaigns.

(Now let's make it clear: the type advertising being talked about here is what I call "Teaching Frogs How To Drink Beer." I won't go into the whole topic (you can listen to what I said before on my GetThemOffTheRaftMarketing.com site:

This is NOT the type marketing I suggest for most entrepreneurs, but it is what car companies and even cereal companies use.)

But we're told that to revive the crunchy Post Foods Grape Nuts, marketing geniuses have come up with cheeky commercials aimed at men.

"That Takes Grape Nuts" is the catch phrase as if the cereal were ubiquitous and we'd all know what that meant. We don't. And I wonder how many people will be lured to a magic website where lots of 2-minute videos will show how many circumstances call for "That Takes Grape Nuts" fortitude.

And to butch up the site to be sure that real men will feel comfortable watching videos about and talking about cereal, they pack the website with tips on restoring vintage cars and other macho topics.

And the print campaign will run in Sports Illustrated featuring men fishing and golfing.

HOWEVER… as silly as it all sounds, learning that this is the first time cereal isn't aimed at Mom and her kids made me wonder:

What the heck have they been waiting for?

The article points out that Grape Nuts is mostly eaten by men, but there has never been an advertising campaign reinforcing that – like all the other cereals, advertising has been aimed at women figuring that they do most of the grocery shopping.

What – I can't make up my own mind about what I want to eat and either write it on the grocery list or ask my wife to shop for it when she goes weekly after church (and visiting my folks for lunch at their retirement community) each Sunday?

And if the reason for my eating it were compelling enough, I'd stop myself to get some.

"Men will be entertained by the ad, but is it going to influence their purchase if they aren't the ones doing the shopping" asks Kristi Faulkner, a principal at Womenkind, a specialist New York Marketing firm.

Grape Nuts sales dropped 15% during the year ending February 22, 2009 while for the same time frame All Bran saw sales rise 30%. (But they admit that marketing was way down – estimated at $1.9 million in 2008 vs a projected $5 million in 2009.)

See that's the problem with Teaching Frogs How To Drink Beer marketing – you need millions to get people to remember you.

What strikes me here, other than institutional advertising doesn't work much of the time, is that advertising executives feel (or their "research" has shown them) that men have NO influence over what they eat for breakfast.

Hey – if you want me to eat something, tell me about it, let me taste it, smell it, see how good it makes me feel and I will be the one to decide that I want to eat it.

My wife can decide for herself and I will decide for me.

Wow – A whole article on the front page of the Media & Marketing section of the Wall Street Journal telling us that for years men have eaten breakfast according to what someone else told them to eat.

Hey, it's the 21st Century. Let's respect men, let them eat what THEY want, and let's see if your pleasing them will generate money for you.

We're big boys now – we can decide important things like "what cereal am I going to eat today" by ourselves.

Best,

Charlie Seymour Jr
A Work At Home Dad, succeeding in this economy

Friends, if you like this post, please leave a comment and retweet it. And I've made it easy – just click on the icon below. Thanks!

Please be sure to sign up for our weekly Ezine – see the panel in the upper right corner!

.