© Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. Quantum Marketing: Mastering Marketing from the inside – out. Discover a powerful proven process, that turns conventional marketing on its head. © Fraser J. Hay, 2010 © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. Quantum Marketing: Mastering Marketing from the inside – out. The key to successful lead generation and marketing, is NOT necessarily about your product, your target market or about which marketing tactic you're going to use. Whilst all very important, and relevant, the real secret to successful marketing is in understanding SELF. Your marketing evolutionary process consists of 4 distinct stages: · Slumber · Expansion & Awareness · Learning & Understanding · Freedom Slumber You start your marketing evolutionary process by responding automatically to situations and events, based on your conditioning about marketing to date. Your understanding of marketing is based on generalisations, and social conditioning. You do what you think you should be doing, and what is deemed acceptable and the "thing to do" by others. Yet, you are continuing to deny yourself of the one thing that eludes you, simply because you haven't woken up to the reality of how marketing really works and continue to react emotionally to your current circumstances. If you're in this phase of your marketing evolutionary process, you're probably in denial of the fact that you need to invest in marketing, or at the very least admit that the way you're investing your time in various marketing efforts, simply isn't generating the returns you want or need. You need to change, but you probably have a fear of change or don't think that it's you that needs to change. You continue to react with your emotions to the symptoms of ineffective marketing. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. You need to awaken and identify the root cause of your lack of progress and results with your marketing. You're probably making up all sorts of excuses not to do the marketing activities that need to get done, simply because you hate marketing and selling and prefer doing the work that clients pay you for. (You simply don't like finding them or persuading them to buy from you - you just wish someone else could take care of it all for you so you can focus on what you do best.) Many people even blame everyone and everything else for their lack of results with their marketing - everything from the economy to the government, to their competitors, to prospects simply not understanding or "getting" what it is they have to offer. Inevitably, the root cause of your lack of progress and results with your marketing is not actually an “external” issue. It’s much more fundamental than that. You need to stop reacting to external events you’ve created. Stop. You need to wake up, and discover WHERE you are in your marketing evolutionary process. The more diagnosis you do, by way of a marketing audit or a situation analysis, the more you will begin to question whether what you (and everyone else in your team for that matter) have been doing or not, as the case may be. More importantly, this lack of progress with your marketing is nearly always down to the unwillingness to accept responsibility, be proactive, to test new marketing approaches or to be consistent day in, day out. An aversion to risk, to be unpopular, face criticism, or to stick your head above the parapets, can also prevent you from waking up from your slumber of non performance and lack of results. For others, they suffer from what’s called “Feast or Famine” syndrome, because they remain in a cyclical process of doing a little, then nothing, and guess what, nothing happens. They then emotionally react to a lack of progress, do some promotional activity and some business is generated. They earn enough to cover immediate overheads, but take their foot of the pedal again, and guess what – they stop and so does the revenue. They remain stuck in their Slumber, and the first stage of the process. They don’t recognise that it’s their own thoughts and actions that’s preventing them from achieving the results they want. Worse still, fear of failure and ignorance of the marketing evolutionary process (not “money” or the lack of it ) are what prevents the majority of people from taking action with their marketing. The net result is that many people remain stuck in this stage of the process and don’t progress or “grow”. People in this stage of the process simply don't understand why they think the way they do, or why they hold the opinions or views they do about marketing. Many are too busy reacting to the symptoms of poor, bad or selfish marketing(that they’ve created) to awaken to the recognition or realisation as to why they're not generating the results they want. Others find their stress levels rising, not being able to sleep or continually finding themselves arguing with others about money or the lack of results they’re experiencing. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. Many also tend to criticise and lash out at others that are "different", or who appear to be proactively going about the promotion of their own wares, and will go to great lengths to justify their opinions and their own "values". Quite often, at this stage, people aren't doing any marketing planning at all, they merely react to their current circumstances which could be a lack of sales, a lack of pipeline, lack of traffic, signups, downloads, a lack of revenue, a lack of cashflow etc. All they can think of is the “lack” that they are experiencing, it consumes all their time and energy, draining them and pulling them down. Some people react to phone calls they receive from advertising telesales reps selling cheap ads in local newspapers or magazines because they have a cheap deal or a great offer available. So what happens? They buy the "cheap" space, but the ad bombs - no leads and no sales, and now they're worse off, because they've increased the size of their credit card debt by the size of the invoice of that ad. They do this time and time again with different marketing activities - reacting to circumstances that result in incurring more cost and generating little or no results. But they can change that easily. If you're at this stage of your marketing evolutionary process, then perhaps its time, to wake up, stop following the herd and to take control of your own destiny. Just because everyone else are performing certain marketing activities or sticking to a particular modus operandi, doesn't make it correct, or right for you. Is your destiny really to be the same as your peers or competitors - I think not. Stop following, stop copying, and take a stance - Wakeup, stand upright, and seize the opportunities that are all around you. You have a product or service that people need and want. You just need to find more of these people, and demonstrate that your solution costs less than the impact of the problem they are trying to address. You and your business are unique. You need to take a unique approach. You need a proven evolutionary approach to your marketing, or you could be left behind with the "dinosaurs". After all, do you really want to be facing the same marketing challenges this time next year? Expansion & Awareness Explanations, Realisations, and the ability to look for and interpret the "signs" are all parts of recognising you are in this stage of the marketing evolutionary process. You may also be able to identify certain Key Performance Indicators to help you accept your position and to recognise the current trends and WHAT your corrective actions need to be. After all, you didn’t just wake up to discover you had no leads and no sales – did you? There had been many warning signs for days, weeks, even months before today alerting you to the fact that you needed to do something about your marketing. Were you aware of them or did you choose to ignore them? You need to recognise and become aware as to which indicators are showing an INCREASE, © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. for example - cost of sales, cost of leads, stress levels, credit card bill or bank overdraft - all indicators that can help raise your awareness of your true marketing position and to help to awaken you of your true position or situation. You also need to recognise and become aware as to which indicators are showing a DECLINE, for example - Sales, Turnover, Market Share, Profit, Share Price, Margin%, Response to advertising, blogs and emails are all indicators that can also help raise your awareness of your true marketing position and help to awaken you to the fact that you need to change your approach, as it’s not working. By creating and being able to read the signs or indicators, this helps to increase your awareness, and recognise its time to come out of your slumber and modus operandi of following the crowd. It's time to fire up new levels of desire, and enthusiasm and to set new objectives, by deciding not just WHAT you want, but also what you can give and offer your target audience. Unfortunately, when most people want or need more business, they are in a state of need, and when we are in a state of need we can only focus our attention on one person – ourselves. Worse still, we can even come across as needy, desperate and “broke” and this is demonstrated in our voice, our hand shake, the way we dress, the way we speak and the way we write. It gets worse for your focus is not on the prospective client and how you can help them, your attention is focussed entirely on you and your problems, and what you need to get you out of the hole you’re in. This is what the majority of your competitors are doing, so don’t make the same mistake. Allow me, to prove it you - Next time you’re at a networking meeting, just listen as to how different people answer the question “what do you do?”, and the longer they take to answer the question, the more you’ll become aware of them talking about who they are, what they know, what they have and what they do - NOT what the client is going to get. This becomes very apparent, for in the majority of marketing communications companies focus their attention on themselves – not the client. Again, I’ll prove it to you. Go and grab a “Yellow pages” directory. Open it up randomly to any page, and count the adverts which have the name of the business in the headline of the ad. Go on, do it now. See my point? They’re all doing a “me. me. me.” If you’ve just done that exercise, I know how you’re feeling, your waking up to the reality of your marketing situation and believe it or not, you’re growing in awareness and are fine tuning your marketing intuition (eved if you aren’t aware of it - yet). You need to change your focus from a “me, me, me” to focusing on your prospective clients (their issues, challenges and obstacles, and how you can fix them.) © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. Don’t follow in the foot steps of your competitors being selfish and focussing only on yourself, and seeing what you can get. Start becoming selfless, and identify what you can give by way of solutions to problems, and identify who needs your help. Many people can take years to recognise that they need to become aware of their true situation, and need to change their perception of marketing and how they go about it. A FREE “Marketing Resistance Identification” Session can help initiate this part of the process, and can save months, even years of effort and thousands of pounds of missed revenue opportunities. You do however need a change of focus. When dealing with prospects and clients, it's not about what you can get, it's about what you can give. For remember, your prospects are in exactly the same boat, they’re tuned into only one radio station – WIIFM. (What’s in it for me). So what are the indicators and KPIs you should be monitoring? What is the next marketing objective you want to achieve? What is the real value that you offer your target audience and what will they receive from you? What is the promise you offer your prospective clients and how can/do you keep it? Learning & Understanding This occurs when you become aware of the signs, deciding upon what the value is that you can offer your target market and what your new objectives are. You now move into the 3rd stage of the process and are ready to identify the reasons WHY you have been in your auto-pilot slumber, and WHY you've been experiencing the lack of progress and results you so desperately want. You begin to identify the resistance that's been holding you back and preventing you from achieving the results you so desperately want. You begin to understand what has been blocking or preventing you from being in your flow, and from generating leads, and closing deals. It’s actually been you – and your different beliefs, thoughts, trepidations and convictions about marketing in general. Try this little experiment – PART ONE Read the list below, and decide if any "strike a chord" or sound familiar or whether you agree with them. • I haven't got the time for marketing • I don't like using speaking or selling on the phone • I don't "do" marketing © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. • I don't like public speaking • I don't like marketing • Advertising is a complete waste of time • I'm not good at Search Engine Optimisation • Marketing is for snake oil salesmen • I don't understand social networking • Nobody has any money at the moment • Marketing is selling in disguise • Marketing is expensive and doesn't work • I'm not good at asking for referrals • I don't do "selling" • I hate computers • I don't see the point in having a website • I don't have money to spend on marketing • I don't know how to generate more leads fast • Exhibitions and trade shows are a waste of time • People won't pay the price I want • They don't get "it" PART TWO Now the interesting bit... What's the impact each thought is having on your – • health • State of mind • Cashflow • Sales pipeline • Morale • Growth & development of your business • Self esteem • relationships with others PART THREE Having read that list in part one, ask your self some questions about each of the statements in part one:- • Is the statement/thought, belief or conviction you have above, really true? • How do you feel when you read that statement, and play it over in your mind? • What are you gaining from this belief? • More importantly, what are you losing, or what is it costing you? • What could you achieve if you didn't have this belief? (and think about the new impact on each of those above) • Now restate the negative statement as a positive statement. • Do you believe your new positive statement? Go on take 5 minutes out over a coffee, and complete the exercise above. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. Completing this stage of the process, you very quickly begin to find the "real" reasons for your lack of progress and what you need to do to address them. Many of which will frustrate and disappoint you, for it is not the economy, it is not the "market", or your competitors, but in fact, very simple, profound, obvious and easy to fix issues, challenges and obstacles that you've simply ignored, not been aware of or chosen not to address until now. A marketing audit can really help you at this stage in your evolutionary process, to identify all the marketing issues, challenges and obstacles that are holding you back and preventing you from achieving the results you want, as can discussing your "situation" with a marketing coach. You need to understand WHY you do what you do, and understand what it is you OFFER, and to whom. You need to understand the myths that all your false assumptions have created, why you've limited yourself the way you have and why you've ignored all the signs and indicators up until now. When you reach an appropriate level of "understanding", you will recognise that the results you are experiencing now are the cumulative total of the resistance that has been building up. All these little jobs that should be done, could have been done that haven’t have now been identified having completed your marketing audit, and can now be addressed. You may even know how to fix many of them yourself, but for lack of time or pressure of work or because you simply weren’t aware of them, you’ve simply been unable to identify and address them until now.. There are still areas of your marketing that aren't working or not performing as well as they should be, but after completing your marketing audit, you’ll understand what they are, and more importantly what needs to be done. You experience several aha moments, kerching moments and face slapping eureka moments. More importantly, you’ll understand exactly WHY your marketing hasn’t been generating the results you’ve wanted. The more you become aware and understand your current situation and how you've arrived at it, the less likely you will return to behaving or responding in auto pilot or to keeping your head in the sand. In other words, having completed this stage of the process and now understand why your marketing isnt working it will all seem obvious as to what needs to be done, and you will kick yourself as to why you hadn't done it before now. More importantly, the issues, challenges and obstacles that need addressing are so simple, so profound, and so easy to fix, you'll wish you'd done it years ago. Freedom We often limit or restrict ourselves by ignorance, or worse by making assumptions. We can believe things, we may even understand things, but when you KNOW something - it is more than just a basic understanding of the mere mechanics of cause and effect. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. Knowing comes from not just understanding by reading a book, or ebook or by attending a workshop, seminar, teleconference or webinar... Knowing means having applied what you've learned having completed the previous 3 stages of the process, and come to the realisation having assimilated and "considered" the feedback from the indicators and signs around you. (which can often be your experiences with people, or events not just what the graph, report or bank balance states). When you KNOW what needs to be done as part of the next stage of the development of your marketing, you feel alive. Your heart is pumping, you're filled with enthusiams, and you're ready to conquer the world. You have a sense of FREEDOM, a sense of purpose, and want to create a plan of action. You know your former reactionary processes, and want to correct them. You know what needs to be done, and you know how it needs to be done and why. You begin to "know" things in small chunks, and by stepping back and applying what you've learned in the last 3 stages of the process, you begin to see patterns emerging and you begin to see all the parts of the problem and the "solution" and what to do next. You begin to join the dots, recognise the themes, the cycles - the spirals , and so do your team, your stakeholders and even your investors ! Freedom also means knowing the truth about who you are, what you want, and whom you can really help. It means becoming better centred, better grounded, and having a better feeling of what's "right". Many people have a fear of failure, or a fear of success, or a fear of a whole wide range of issues, so they don't want to become aware of what they could do, or understand how they can achieve it, they stay the same, they don't grow, and they don't achieve their full potential. In fact, many simply don’t KNOW, LIKE or TRUST themselves, or their own skills, knowledge and intuition and the way they manage their marketing. Only once you can achieve that, will you will experience true freedom and mastery over the mystic art of marketing… Know / Knowing Are you busy trying all sorts of weird and wonderful marketing tactics, strategies such as networking, SEO, blogging, even attending workshops or exhibitions in an attempt to get "Known" for what you do and what you have to offer. The problem for many is that there is a problem with their life, business or marketing- just don't know what it is or why. No matter what they try, it just doesn't seem to work. Their pipeline is non existent. They're not getting the traffic to their website. People are not paying them the amount they want for their daily rate. The list goes on. Quite often they are having more arguments with loved ones, and quite often about money. (That elusive commodity many use to falsely decide whether we are in a prosperity consciousness or a poverty consciousness.) Is something not working with your marketing and do you KNOW what it is? As we discussed previously, and as we now know, quite often we are simply dealing with the © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied. symptoms, or effects of bad, poor or selfish marketing, instead of the identifying the root cause, and addressing the marketing issues, challenges, and obstacles that hold us back and are preventing us from achieving the results we want. I had an accountant chap who came to me for marketing advice, who said he was unsure why his marketing wasn't working. Now the funny thing about accountants (and most service based professional) is that many of them think selling or marketing is beneath them. They tend to treat marketing consultants or sales executives with the contempt they think they deserve. Their thoughts of an accountant performing marketing or selling their wares conjour up images of second hand car sales men, direct insurance types or snake oil salesmen. Many service based professionals view the art of selling or marketing as something beneath them, or a waste of their invaluable time and superior intellect. Its more common than you think, across many fields and disciplines - the actor who wont go to auditions, the out of job chief executive wont go to interviews, the athlete who wont train or practice, and the business professionals who won't sell, are being held back by their ego. Their ego is controlling their life, their decisions, and quite often prohibiting them from seeing the wood for the trees. They simply don't "KNOW" why things aren't working, and that's why a simple marketing audit is very powerful, for it allows the individual to recognise the situation they are really in, and allows them to take control of their situation. David completed my FREE marketing audit, and discovered 29 separate marketing issues, challenges and obstacles that were holding him back and preventing from achieving the results he wanted. What astounded him, was that he was completely unaware of 24 of those issues or factors - He simply didn't know how much "resistance" he was facing or why, but he did now. When we identify the resistance in our life or business, and are able to address or eliminate the root causes, it permits an incredible new flow of energy to be released. This new flow of energy can manifest itself in a "eureka" moment or an "aha" moment, or several of them. You begin to trust your intuition or gut instincts better, some amazing revelations appear before you, and you have a greater sense of "knowing" what you should be doing and why. Identifying the issues, challenges and obstacles that are holding you back and preventing you from manifesting the results you want, can often result in much needed clarity, and some cases this can also result in a real "aha" moment when the individual begins to realise, they haven't been on the right path, doing the right things or doing what they want to do, they've been doing certain things in certain ways just to survive financially. With fire in your belly and a new lease of life, you will want to fire up your levels of desire and set new objectives. All of a sudden, for many people, a marketing audit can help them to realise they haven't been in their "flow" for an extended period of time, and that they have been focussing on all the wrong things. For many they begin to sense a bigger picture, or vision what it is they really want to be, do or have. They begin to experience a sense of knowing, a sense of purpose and that they must change in order to change their circumstances. That sense of knowing can often be interpreted that they feel they have something much greater to offer, as part of a bigger picture. Alas, for many, stuck in the daily treadmill of life, who don't take time to do a marketing audit, they don't experience that new inspired, fired up feeling of enthusiasm, belief and hope for the future, or how they can contribute in their small way to the much bigger picture or recognise the © Copyright Fraser J. Hay, 2010 – Not to be copied.