Insight #13: Want To Be An Expert Marketer? The 6 Critical Traits You'll Need

As business sales and marketing consultants, we have the opportunity to encounter almost every business situation imaginable. Over the years, the Monopolize Your Marketplace System has been used by over 11,000 different businesses covering over 350 separate industries. These businesses vary from start-ups to turnarounds to existing, highly profitable enterprises.

We deal with people who are sharp as tacks and people who are, shall we say, less so. We’ve designed and implemented marketing programs for print shops, banks, retail stores of all kinds, multi-level marketers, real estate companies, churches, politicians, famous seminar leaders, personal development coaches, and anything else you can think of.

The marketing function for every single business or organization - plus or minus 5% - is exactly the same. We aren’t so smart. We just know how to do a few key things that anyone, with a minimal amount of training, can do as well. Revealed here are the six traits to marketing mastery.

Trait #1: Taking Notice Of Your Own Buying Strategies: Pay close attention to what everyone else in the world is doing when they try to sell you something.

You’ll find that there are already lots of good ideas out there that you don’t have to invent again. Channel surf for commercials. Get on mailing lists to see what kind of “junk” will show up in your mailbox. Reverse the tables and interview those jerk telemarketers who call and interrupt your dinner. Ask how well their pitch is working with other prospects. Read all billboards. Go shopping just to see how the sales clerks treat you. Read the paper and magazines for advertisements. Read the yellow pages for fun (even though 98% of the ads stink). Respond to every “free” offer under the sun. Then check to see how well the company follows up.

Maybe you think these “exercises” are something more appropriate for marketing consultants to do rather than for you to do. Just as marketing consultants, you’re also in business to make money. Whatever you do, you’re in the business of marketing something in an effort to make money.

If you will constantly monitor what turns you on, what ads keep appearing week after week, what makes you like or hate something, you will start to find things that you can incorporate into your business.

Trait #2: Having The Ability To Cross-Pollinate Ideas: This isn’t a botany lesson. To cross-pollinate an idea means to take an idea that works well in one industry and use it in another. A shoe store client was doing things that could be adapted to an upscale floor-covering store catering to designers. How could that be?

Sound like a tough assignment? Basketball shoes and expensive oriental rugs just don’t match, do they? Without worrying about the details, start to look at things in more general terms. In this shoe store, the music is very loud and geared toward young people. There’s a huge video screen that has music videos or live sporting events playing. There’s an indoor basketball half-court that always has at least six or seven people waiting to play. There’s a snack bar and free popcorn. It’s a FUN place to be.

So what can you, as an expert marketer, take out of the shoe store and inject into the high-end floor-covering store catering to designers? The shoe store created a place for their target market (young people) to hang out. They add elements of FUN that none of their competitors have, and they’re killing their competition. The high-end floor-covering store also needs to make its store THE PLACE TO BE for designers. How? By asking designers what they want.

This stuff all sounds simple. But, here’s one interesting fact: Not one competing floor covering store offers even one of these services to designers.

Borrow ideas from everywhere. Sell grand pianos the way most car dealers sell cars...by giving away a huge package of free stuff with every purchase. Sell foundation repair and plumbing the way a realtor sells houses...with a metal yard sign that has a “take one” tube on top. Get yourself out of your usual “what you do” paradigm and realize that as long as it’s legal, moral, ethical, and the given idea makes money, it’s worth pursuing.

Trait #3: Being Specific: Because people in general are lazy communicators, 90 – 95% of what’s said in marketing and advertising is useless, non-compelling, non-specific, non-definitive, amorphous FLUFF. Statements such as tastes best, highest quality, biggest selection, fastest service, and lowest price have no real impact on your prospects.

Your prospects fully expect you to claim that you’re great. Whoever heard of a promotion that said, “Our prices are high, our service is terrible, and our quality is marginal at best!” To set yourself apart from the competition, you must quantify all claims in specific, compelling terms.

Instead of saying “Largest Selection”, say “15,400 square feet divided into 5 showrooms, with over 5,220 items from 327 manufacturers, in 2,022 styles and 460 colors, in price ranges from $.99 to $27,000.” Which do you believe? Instead of saying “Qualified Mechanics”, say “Most auto repair facilities have one or two certified mechanics. We have 11 ASE certified mechanics on staff with an average of 16 years experience...including 4 mechanics who have passed the coveted ‘L-1’ test and two who are Double Master Certified.” Where would you rather take your car?

Trait #4: Having The Ability To See From The Customer’s Perspective: If you’ve ever bought a diamond, you know how confusing that process can be. The problem? Most people rarely buy a diamond. So, most people have no clue about how to judge a diamond’s worth. They have to rely on the salesperson at the jewelry store to tell them. Is there a possibility that the merchant will say anything to make a sale because he’ll get behind in his car payments if they don’t buy? Do you think he’ll be perfectly honest with them?

There was a client who sold diamonds out of his huge, beautiful home at wholesale prices straight to the public. He very well understood his customers’ perspective, which is, “HELP! We know nothing and we’re afraid we’re going to get screwed.” He would sit perspective customers down in a nice leather chair and explain to them the history of diamonds – from volcanoes to mines, to cutting, polishing, and to wholesale buying and selling. He used a myriad of books, charts, and pictures. He explained exactly what someone needed to know about diamonds before making a decision. And oh, by the way, if they wanted to look at some diamonds, he had some of those too.

His process was so disarming, and so educational, he sold 80% of the people that sat in that nice leather chair. Compare that to the usual jewelry store, where they shove umpteen rings on you finger in 12 minutes and try to pressure you into buying the big, ugly, yellow one (the one with a huge commission check because it’s been in their inventory for so long). The average jewelry store will sell less than 10% of the people that sit in their cheesy, velvety chairs. (Bonus question: How could you cross-pollinate this sales method to other businesses? Hint: it has nothing to do with the nice leather chair.)

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