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Sep 13 2012
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How to Make an Impression in 8 seconds

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Barry Moltz – Enjoy!

This is a world of talkers. Business people are constantly chatting on their cell phones, email, blogs, texting or using whatever social media tools they can find.  They are telling people who they are, what they do and what they think about a situation.  But, can anyone really understand them? In fact, is anyone really listening?  Most importantly, are they doing it in a clear way that helps others understand how their company can help? 

This becomes a huge issue since the average adult attention span is 8 seconds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_span  In reality, most business people will stop listening after 5 seconds. Unless they have become interested, they are lost or on to their next thought about what they want to say.  Telling someone what a particular business does in 8 seconds or less is a talent and needs to be practiced word for word. Do not depend on any improvisational skills in order to be successful. In fact, each employee at a company needs to be taught the answers to these questions:

1. What problem does the business solve?

Customers always buy painkillers, not vitamins. This is true even during challenging times. Where to Start: Complete the following sentence, “My company helps _________ who are __________” or “Customers rely on my company because we are the best at ____________________”

2. What is the business’ voice and are they consistent with their values?

Are they communicated consistently in everything that comes out of the company? Where to Start: Ask customers to name positive and negative adjectives that best describe the business. While the feedback may be uncomfortable, it is important to ask for both.

3. Who is the business’ community? What type of customers are attracted to what the business sells? To they voice their opinion in a constructive way? Where to Start: Look at the current clients.  What is the profile that is now served? (Additionally, is this the community of customers that is important to be serving?)

Ok. I am ready to listen. You have my undivided attention for the next  8 seconds. Go!

Barry Moltz gets business owners unstuck. He is the author of 4 small business books www.barrymoltz.com/books . His latest book is Small Town Rules (www.smalltownrules.com) He hosts a weekly small business radio show.

Filed Under: Content marketing, inbound marketing, Lead Conversion, Storytelling Tagged With:
Jul 3 2012
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The Rise of the Storytellers

I’m taking some vacation time this week and I’m actually going to stand waist deep in the Columbia River in Oregon and cast for Trout. (Don’t worry I won’t hurt any I’m strictly a catch and release kind of guy.)  While I am away, I have a great lineup of guest bloggers filling my shoes.  This post is brought to you from C.C. Chapman.

C.C. Chapman is a leader in the online and social media marketing space. He is an avid photographer, author and keynote speaker. His most recent book (with Ann Handley) Content Rules, is a best seller that explains how companies can create remarkable blogs, podcasts, webinars, ebooks and more. C.C. is an advocate who speaks about building passionate consumer communities, and the strategic values of content-based marketing. He is the host of Passion Hit TV and the founder of Digital Dads. C.C. is a graduate of Bentley University and happily lives in the woods outside of Boston with his loving family.

Time for a bit of tough love.

You and your company must figure out how you are going to begin telling your story and creating the media to share it with others. If you haven’t started already, you must start today because you are already behind.

Ever since my book Content Rules hit shelves in 2010, I’ve spoken to thousands of people around the globe and told them the exact same thing. No matter what city I was in, I’d recieve blank stares, vocal challenges that it didn’t apply to certain industries or knowing looks from those who had been fighting this fight in their own offices. I know I’m right and my clients are benefitting from my knowledge and starting to learn how to do this.

Pick any social network you like. Look at what is being said and shared on them. You’ll see a constant wave of photos, videos, articles and more being shared. People are finding content that kicks off an emotional response to it and then sharing it with others. They are taking content that others have created and pushing it out to their communities so that others can consume it as well.

You as a business owner must create content that shares your story for others to then pass along.

Just a few years ago, you could have gotten away with saying your customers were not online or that it wasn’t important for you particular business and I might give you a pass. Now, every single age, demographic and potential customer for you is there. They have phones connected to the web. They are doing searches for everything from peaches to PCs. Your corner store can now have a global market if you so desire.

The rise of the storyteller is upon us. You can choose the medium that is right for you, but you must start creating now. Waiting isn’t an option if you want to succeed. It is that black and white of an issue in my mind.

Google continues to tweak their algorithm so that fresh and relavent content is served up when people search. If you are not giving it things to show, then you are invisible on the web. Plus, people are consuming at a constant rate and if you give them something compelling, interesting or inspiring they will reward you with their attention (and perhaps more).

Filed Under: Content marketing, Social Marketing, Storytelling Tagged With: , ,
Jan 26 2009
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Reading Personality Types in Marketing

Face ValuesEven within our narrowly defined ideal target market there exists different personality types. One of the jobs of our marketing messages, materials and selling efforts is to find ways to connect with all of the various needs of these different types.

You can accomplish this in marketing materials by making sure that you have different types of information – tips sheets, case studies, FAQs and data sheets.

In selling situations that are face to face it can also be wise to adjust your presentations in ways that help you connect with differing personalities.

After reviewing a fascinating work called Face Values I asked the authors Michael Lovas and Pam Holloway of About People to share some thoughts on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast about a system that they teach that allows marketers to understand a personal communication style just by reading the lines on their face.

    In this podcast:

  • Face Values – how to read people and connect with them in less than 3 Minutes
  • One can tell a person’s personality type, values, and communication style just by reading a few simple lines on a person’s face
  • Is adopting one’s style of communication part of the process?
  • Understanding one’s own personality traits in order to understand how to interact with others
  • Applying these principles to identify an ideal market segment
  • Including marketing materials that appeal to all 4 personality types

iLinc Web and Video ConferencingThis episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by iLinc – Web and Video Conferencing that’s easy to use, affordable and powerful enough to make your online meetings really come alive.

Filed Under: Lead Conversion, Marketing Materials, Marketing Strategy, Selling, Storytelling Tagged With: ,
Dec 30 2007
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Share your story

NB: This is step 3 of a 5 step series – Step into 2008 with more fun.
5 Steps for 2008
In the first two steps in this series I asked you to determine who makes an ideal customer for your business and to discover, by asking, what that ideal customer was actually saying internally about your company/product/service. The point of the first two steps is to get you thinking very hard about what value is and to whom so that all of your communication can revolve around that. (Click to see the entire series)

Today I’m going to ask you to take your customer’s most relevant conversation and turn it into your core marketing story. If you’ve discovered exactly what your customer’s value, why they hire, come back and refer you, then it’s time to craft a message based on that information and turn that message into a story that everyone in the company gets and can tell.

So let’s talk about this word story – stories are nothing more than fun, captivating, motivational, honest conversations that illustrate what makes you knowable, likeable and trustable. (See my definition of small business branding.)

Every person has a story, every business has a story and prospects and customers love good stories. People connect with stories that are personal, telling, truthful and relevant.

So what’s your story?

    That’s today’s action step:

  1. From your conversations with your customers craft a story about you, your company or your products and services that would allow you to convey why you what you do, who you are, what keeps you awake at night, what motivates, thrills, and scares you, what makes you laugh, what you’ve chosen to do to make this a better world. Don’t tell me the history of your company, unless it’s so entertaining it makes we want to hug you. Tell me instead about the moment you came face to face with the biggest, most audacious idea you ever had and you charged in. Tell me instead about what was missing in the world until you created your big idea. Tell me instead that even though cleaning windows seems like an unglamorous task, you always loved doing it as a kid and now you’ve created a company around that passion.
  2. Get your story down to one page and start telling it to everyone in your company (spouses and teenagers are good subjects.) You need to start living your story and using your story as a core marketing message. Your story, if done well, is the foundation for what makes you standout. Use it on your website, on the back of invoices, during sales presentations and as a hiring tool. Here’s an example story to get you started

And, a couple books I recommend
The Story Factor
The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling

Tim Sanders, author of Love is the Killer App, video on storytelling

Filed Under: FiveStep, Marketing Strategy, Storytelling