One of my old sales mentors used to say “the harder you chase money, the faster it runs”
Gerry was 63 years old and had been selling vacuums for most of his life.
He was weathered and hardened from the grind, an engineer by trade, and somehow ended up in the world of sales.
I was 23 at the time and was in my first serious sales job where the sky was the limit; Gerry was my mentor.
We were selling private equity, real estate investments, shares in apartment blocks worth $5,000,000 to $25,000,000 in Texas and Arizona.
The company I worked for had flown Gerry in to Winnipeg and was paying him to turn around the the failing Winnipeg office. The Winnipeg office had just gone from 0 employees to 1 employee; and that employee was me.
“The harder you chase the money, the faster it runs” Gerry repeated.
The words were true then, and they are true now.
I’m 31 years old now, it’s been years since I was selling private equity, but I have done hundreds of real estate deals, raised millions of dollars and have landed hundreds of high ticket consulting contracts.
People always want to know “how do you win business?”
But they don’t ask using those exact words…
Instead the words they use are:
How do I find below market value properties at 40-60 cents on the dollar?
How can I find investors to fund my deals and use other people’s money?
How can I find more coaching clients or customers?
The best answer I have for you in the modern economy is a very simple one: You must ATTRACT the customers that you want.
In the marketing world there are two types of marketing: push marketing and pull marketing.
In push marketing, a company will use it’s vast resources to sell to mass groups of people who may not be interested in their product or service. It’s expensive, can take a long time and can be very risky. In the industrial age, push marketing was the way to win.
McDonalds could buy all of the ads for cheeseburgers, Tide could buy all of the ads for dish soap, Coca Cola could buy all of the shelf space at Wal Mart.
Big industrial dollars could come in and buy their way into the market place with a cool new commercial and a cool new product.
In the 80’s and 90’s, this worked in a big way.
Enter the internet.
Now with the internet, pull marketing is weaker than ever.
Buyers are skeptical and don’t believe advertising anymore. Instead they want word of mouth, real live reviews and authenticity. Plus, you can’t just buy all of the media channels now, there are no longer 3 channels on the TV. Now, there are literally millions and millions of niches and sub niches and it’s impossible to reach them all.
This is why we will NEVER have another Beatles or Rolling Stones. There is no more industrial age radio.
There will probably never be another Seinfeld.
Even the movie theatres are dying.
Instead Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple are destroying the old business models.
Enter the world of niches and pull marketing:
Pull marketing is a little bit different. Pull marketing appeals to the people who are actively seeking your product or service.
If you are in real estate, you may want to market to people looking to “sell their home now”.
If you are raising money, you may want to market to people looking to “Make a high return on their money now”
If you are in coaching you may want to market to people who want to “increase the profits in their business now”
Each of these mentioned examples are niches and as many have said before me: “you get riche in the niche.”
Find a small niche, and win business in the oldest and most sustainable way: by ATTRACTING clients, customers and fans.
Ad services like Facebook and Google have made it easier to laser target people who are looking for EXACTLY what you are looking to sell.
Give your laser targeted customer a little bit of education, build a little trust and voila;
You catch more flies with honey than with poison. The new question is, how can you provide the best honey? Or better honey than everyone else?
I always find it amusing when people ask: What do I have to DO to win new business?
The real answer that we need to be asking is: Who do I need to BE to win new business?
We are human BE-ings not human DO-ings.
What you DO matters less than who you BEcome.
Your actions are not you, but if you become the kind of person, or build the kind of company, or kind of product that your customers REALLY want, the flies will always be attracted to your honey.
Just as they say in dating and marriage, to find you dream woman, become the man that she dreams about.
In business, to get your dream customers, you must become the person or company or offer that your customers dream about.
Get inside their head, talk to their deepest desires, calm their fears, fill the void that they are looking to fill with your tailor made product or service.
It sounds intimate, because it is intimate.
Warren Buffet says that it’s impossible to touch a candy bar like Snickers because it’s “intimate, you put it in your mouth”
Buffet is right, most people don’t want to take a risk with something so intimate, so Snickers continues to win.
Buffet is not known to be a marketing genius, but he understands people better than anyone else. People want their problem solved, their problem is intimate and they don’t want to take a risk.
They don’t want the lowest price offer, they want the lowest risk offer.
A great marketer is able to get inside of the head of their customer and speak to them, their risks and their fears.
Become what they are looking for, offer them exactly what they want, address their fears, weaknesses, and offer a strong result and guarantee… but most of all – and be the sweetest honey available.
Pull, don’t push.
Attraction…
That is the key to getting what you want.
Be the honey.
Respect The Grind,
Stefan Aarnio
