photo by jsorbieus

Can generosity – giving stuff away, helping others really help you win at business?

This came up the other day during a workshop I was doing on Guerrilla Marketing – one of the characteristics of a successful Guerrilla Marketer is Generosity (contact me if you’d like to get an evaluation for all 16 characteristics).

I was talking about the importance of generosity when it comes to business and marketing success in front of 25 people and one of them interrupted and said quite brusquely:

“I totally disagree with the generosity point – I’ve given free things away for years and I’ve never…ever…gotten any business out of it!”

Nothing’s more fun than having a heckler when you’re giving a presentation!    However to be fair, I know lots of people who disagree with giving things away or helping others out when it comes to business. 

A big part of my approach with Aspire since I started over 3 years ago is a focus on the concept of generosity, paying it forward, karma, etc.  Not just as a philosophical idea, but because it’s good business!  However the heckling did get me to thinking about WHY this concept of generosity is important.  I came up with seven practical reasons you would want to develop a give first, give more approach with your business.

Read More…

photo by kennymatic

Marketing for small business owners has gotten a lot harder in the last 20 years.  Way back when, if you wanted to generate some sales, you could pull together an ad, let people know what you were selling and you stood a good chance of selling more stuff.  These days there’s way too much noise out there for poor marketing to drive any sort of results.  You have to know your target market, but even more importantly you have to know the problem you’re solving or the outcome you’re delivering.

Marketing can be a complex process – you need to understand the demographics and the psychographics of your target market. You need to have an insight into their mindset and why they buy, what drives them to spend money. You need a clear call to action. You need your message conveyed in a medium that your target market is likely to read.

In fact there are a lot of reasons why your marketing isn’t working. However the most likely reason your marketing isn’t working is because your message isn’t resonating with your target market – they don’t care!

Which of these statements is more appealing to you?

Read More…

I had a chance to check out Shrek Forever After this afternoon and one of the scenes that caught my attention was the sales process between RumpelStiltskin and Shrek (see picture above, courtesy of Dreamworks)

Rumpelstiltskin, if you’re not familiar is a magical dealmaker who specializes in granting wishes…with unfortunate consequences and lots of fine print.  In the movie he hangs out at the Crone’s Nest Carriage Park (full of witches and crones) and desperately wants to become the ruler of Far, Far Away (where Shrek lives).

What does this have to do with business?  Well our man Rumpel is a true salesman and he displays some serious selling skills in the movie that could benefit anyone in business.

Read More…

Just like everyone loves a puppy – everyone loves new functionality on applications they are already using (and you are already using LinkedIn aren’t you?).

I actively use Twitter, I reluctantly use Facebook and I’m constantly trying out a lot of the other social media and social network platforms, but I will admit I’ve got a strong bias for LinkedIn as the best place to start (and spend a lot of your valuable time) when it comes to using Social Media for your business.  It’s a great extension of the real world networking you already do (you are networking aren’t you?).

Beyond being professional, easy to use with lots of powerful features, LinkedIn has done a great job of consistently adding new functions and features.  Here’s 3 of the latest additions I thought were interesting.

Read More…

One of the foundations of Guerrilla Marketing is creativity – finding a unique and interesting way to capture attention.  However just as importantly you need to be talking to the right people and you need to be getting them to think about the problems you solve and the benefits you deliver.

The example above does a great job of being different and illustrating the benefits…the only drawback is that it probably was pretty expensive, but compared to a TV commercial, I’m sure it was a bargain and it would have much longer lasting impact.

Interested in seeing some more examples…

Read More…