As the day approached, I grew a little more panicky of what to expect. I had signed up to join the navy the summer before my senior year in high school. Ten months had passed and, although I knew I was leaving for boot camp two days after my 18th birthday, I had put being a sailor on the back burner and just enjoyed my senior year.
According to the late Walter Hailey, a behavioral scientist and sales and marketing consultant, “People have 12,367 thoughts per day. Of those, 90 percent are automatic, and 84 percent are negative.” More than 12,000 thoughts! That’s a lot of self-talking going on.
The first rule of successful communications is that you must immediately win your audience’s attention, capture their imagination, engage them, and answer their “What’s-In-It-For-Me” question. In other words, hook them into giving you their attention.
In a previous article, I shared with you the five points of experiential marketing. Here are the five points again:
1. Reputation. There is one primary “unspoken” question that every prospect has about every person or company they do business with.
What comes to mind when you think of the word marketing? For some, it’s advertising. Others might think of networking, branding, or the idea of “getting your name out there.”
Of course, marketing includes those things, but marketing is actually everything you do to attract prospects to your business.
Secret #1: A Phenomenal Marketing System
Marketing is everything you do to attract prospects to your business. Notice that I said a phenomenal marketing system. The marketing of most small business owners is poor. Marketing is the key to business growth. Without customers you have nothing. You can do a wonderful job, but if you don’t have enough customers, nothing else matters. So, you want to have not just good marketing, but phenomenal marketing. What is phenomenal marketing? Marketing that is remarkable. Extraordinary. Outstanding. Phenomenal marketing creates experiences that engage, educate, and build a sense of belonging.
Much of success is about performance. It’s about what we do and what we are able to inspire others to do. There are some simple performance principles I have learned in my life, and I want to share them with you. They really bring success, and what it takes to be successful, into sharp focus.
Have you ever used a GPS (Global Positioning System)? Of course you have. GPS is used by many to get from “here to there” these days. When I started my business 28 years ago, we used something called a “map,” and it was made of this interesting material called paper!
But today, we simply get out our smart phones (that know where we are…scary), and open our maps application.
