Steve Miller's Blog

A successful B2B content strategy requires a lot of thought and planning. You need to think about the goals of your campaign, the target audience, what type of content you will produce, and how you will distribute it. In this blog post, we will discuss 5 critical elements that every B2B marketer needs in their content strategy. If you neglect any of these elements, your campaign is likely to be unsuccessful.

Easy to Grasp

An important element of any content you create, whether it’s a blog post, video, or whitepaper, is that it’s easy for your audience to grasp. You want them to be able to understand the main points without having to put in a lot of effort. If they have to work too hard, they’ll likely just give up and move on. There are a few ways to ensure your content is easy to grasp. First, make sure it’s well organized and clearly laid out. Use headings and subheadings to break up the text and make it easy to scan. Second, use simple language that anyone can understand. Avoid jargon and technical terms unless you’re absolutely sure your audience will know what they mean. And finally, use examples and analogies to illustrate your points. By following these tips, you can help ensure your content is easy for your audience to grasp.

Relevant

As a business owner, you’re always looking for ways to get more eyes on your product or service. But with the vast sea of content that’s out there, it can be difficult to make your voice heard. That’s where content marketing comes in. By creating and sharing relevant, valuable content, you can attract attention and build relationships with potential customers. And when it comes to relevancy, there are a few key things to keep in mind. First, make sure your content is timely and relevant to your audience’s needs and interests. Second, don’t be afraid to experiment with different formats and mediums- sometimes a change of pace is just what your audience needs to sit up and take notice. Finally, stay true to your brand identity- after all, consistency is key when it comes to building trust and credibility. Keep these things in mind, and you’ll be well on your way to creating relevant, engaging content that will help grow your business.

Interesting

If you want people to read your content, it better be interesting. Not every piece needs to be a laugh-out-loud piece of brilliance, but it does need to hold the reader’s attention. That means finding a way to write about topics in a new, fresh, or unique way. It could be a new angle on an old story, or taking a complex topic and breaking it down into easy to understand language. As long as you’re providing value and offering something new, you’re on the right track. So before you hit publish, ask yourself: is this actually interesting? If not, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.

Useful/Actionable

Your content needs to be useful and actionable if you want people to keep coming back for more. That means writing something that is not only informative but also helpful, whether it’s a how-to guide or an in-depth look at a particular topic. And it shouldn’t just be a rehashing of what others have already said – you need to offer your own unique insights and perspectives. If you can do that, you’ll not only keep people coming back for more, but you’ll also build up a loyal following of readers who appreciate your content.

Easy to remember

As a content marketer, you probably already know that your content needs to be interesting and informative if you want people to read it. But did you know that there’s another important element that your content must have if you want it to be successful? It needs to be easy to remember. In a world where we’re bombarded with information from all sides, it can be tough to make your content stand out. But if you can create content that is easy for people to remember, you’ll be ahead of the game. Here are a few tips for creating content that is easy to remember:

Use simple, clear language that can be understood by everyone.Repeat key points throughout the piece so that they stick in the reader’s mind.Use lists, bullet points, and other formatting devices to break up the text and make it easier to scan.Choose catchy headlines and images that will grab attention and stick in the reader’s mind. By following these tips, you can create content that is both informative and easy to remember – two essential elements for any successful marketing campaign.

Content marketing is an invaluable tool for any business, and the success of our campaigns depends on delivering high-quality content. It’s not enough to simply create interesting material – we must also make sure that it has purpose and can be easily remembered by our audience. With the right approach, we can create content that will engage readers and help grow our businesses.

By keeping these five elements in mind, we can ensure that our content is effective and well-suited for the modern world.

TL;DR

1. Easy to grasp: The information should be presented in a clear and concise manner. We should avoid using jargon or unnecessarily complicated language.

2. Relevant: The content must be relevant to our target audience. We need to make sure that we are providing value and addressing their pain points.

3. Interesting: In order to keep people’s attention, the material must be interesting and engaging. This can be achieved through stories, analogies, or humor.

4. Useful/actionable: The information should be useful and actionable. Our goal should be to provide readers with something that they can use in their everyday lives.

5. Easy to remember: Finally, the material should be easy to remember. This means using catchy headlines, bullet points, or other memory aids.

By keeping these five elements in mind, we can ensure that our content is effective and well-suited for the modern world.

45 years ago I tried and failed to make it on the PGA Tour. Do you remember me? Even if you’re old enough, of course you don’t. My MOM didn’t know.

After that, I tried to be a stuntman in Hollywood. I quickly learned a valuable lesson: There are old stunt men and women, and there are bold stunt men and women. There are no old, bold stunt men and women.

After that, I took the more traditional route of getting into sales and marketing. Surprise! I was very good at those, especially marketing.

People started asking me to share my secrets for success. Since that time, I’ve given over 1600 speeches and consulted around the world. I’ve also written 8 books, including 2 best-sellers.

Here are 10 random business lessons I’ve learned.

1. You are only productive when you are moving in the direction of a big goal. Do not confuse busyness with effectiveness. Think IMPACT.2. Marketing success isn’t magic. One of the big secrets of marketing is test, test, test.

Read Dan Kennedy’s book, “The Ultimate Marketing Plan.”

3. Get in the office at 6:00 am. Every day. You’ll be 2 hours ahead of your competition. In one year you’ll be 500 hours ahead.

I did that for almost 30 years before I started throttling back. By that time, they weren’t going to catch me.

4. When you’re working, work fast. Decide what you’re working on and get it done quickly.

Brian Tracy gave me this great advice. (One of the huge benefits of being an author and professional speaker is getting to know really, really smart people.)

5. Be generous.

Zig Ziglar* taught me, “If you help enough other people get what they want, they’ll help you get what you want.”

*Another really, really smart person I got to know.

6. Be the AUTHORITY in your field.

Write a book. Give speeches. Do a podcast. Post on Twitter and LinkedIn like @thejustinwelsh, @matt_gray_, @amandanat, @dickiebush, @elonmusk, and so many others I’ve recently discovered.

Oh, wait, scratch that last one.

7. Be the Kevin Bacon* in your field.

After I wrote my first book, “How to Get the Most Out of Trade Shows,” I made connections throughout the industry. When people wanted to meet someone, I became the connector.

(BTW, please do NOT buy that book now. It was first published in 1990 and has only had one update. It’s WAY out-of-date.)

*If you don’t know the Kevin Bacon game, google it.

8. Copywriting is the #1 superpower of marketing.

Follow @AndrewWriteCopy, @harrydry, and @GrammarHippy. Then also study Dan Kennedy, Robert Bly, and Gary Halbert.

Great copywriters get rich.

9. Follow and hang out with people who don’t think like you and have different experience.

When I was a teen, W. Edwards Deming taught me that creativity doesn’t come from inside your circle. It comes from studying people and experiences OUTSIDE your circle.

10. Stop trying to get out of the box. That’s stupid, because then where are you?

Build your own box. Create the rules of competition everybody else has to follow.

That’s a wrap! If you enjoyed this, please comment below and share with your friends.

I feel like I’m a broken record. (No, I won’t explain. Ask your grandfather.)

It seems like every time I start working with another B2B company the same three mistakes keep popping up on their website.

I understand why this continues to happen. It’s because you’re in the same box everybody else in your industry/marketplace is in, and you study the competition to see what they’re doing. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us!

Stop it. Just stop it.

Watch this, then go fix your site.

AI Transcript (not perfect)

Hey, everybody. It’s Steve Miller, better known as Kelly’s Dad, Marketing Gunslinger. I’m Not the Rock star. Sorry. Been a lot of questions about that on our B2B Marketing and Sales podcast. If you haven’t been listening to that, please go sign up and join us, on that one. But I’ve got a quick little video here for you to talk about the three.

Biggest mistakes that you are probably making on your website, specifically on your homepage of your website. Now, I want you to think about this for a second. Okay. When somebody lands on the homepage of your website, how did they get there? Let’s start with the fact that they’re probably searching for something.

They’re searching for an answer. They’re searching for a solution. They’ve got a project that they need to be working on, and they have now started to do their research online, going to Google going talking. They’re talking to their friends and they’re saying, We’ve got an issue. We’ve got a problem.

Who do we talk to? And then they start to find these companies to go look at and then they click. Now in their mind, they are thinking essentially, Okay, I am looking for this solution. Is this the company I should be talking to? This is my problem. Are they gonna help me with my problem?

Whenever we go researching something, we are thinking about ourselves when we are researching. I do it. You do it, and so do your prospects. So let’s get right into this now. Okay. All right. First big mistake that most companies make is you just talk about yourselves. Okay?

Like I just said, if I’m, if I am going onto a website, I have my issues. I am the, I’m the potential prospect. I am a potential new order. Maybe a new relationship, lifetime relationship, Who knows? But the point being that I am not thinking about your concerns about who you are just yet, I’m mostly thinking about me.

So like for example, and I just randomly went out and picked out some companies on LinkedIn and just googled some things and stuff like that. None of these companies are clients. And I’m suspecting that a couple of them are probably never gonna be clients of mine because of, because what I’m gonna show them right now.

But, so for example, boom number one. I came to I I did a, I did just a quick search for CNC machines and CAD cam and stuff like that, and I found this one okay for MasterCam. So what’s the first thing that we see? All right. Master cam creates software services that solve the world’s manufacturing challenges.

This is what they say they do. Okay, now that’s pretty random as far as I’m concerned, but point being is that it’s about master cam. Now let’s scroll down here just a little bit more and look at this. Okay. All right. Master cam is easy and intuitive. It’s all about them. Maintains the depth of features.

What? What? I have a problem. How’s this helping me with my problem? But even worse, look at this. We help connect. The largest CAM community worldwide, our success is a direct result. Okay? Over here, our dedication to the manufacturing community, we collaborate with leading tool stuff like all this stuff, master cam supports improved use of it all right?

So what are they doing? They’re talking about them cells. They’re not talking about the customer. Now, let me just and I’m, I get to use these guys a couple of times, all right? Because I, I found completely different world, different industry, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. All right, So these guys are in they’re like attorneys, okay?

They’re a law firm, marketing. Agency, and I, and look at what their headline is. Look at what their head, Let’s wait. First, let’s remind ourselves what was Master cam’s headline. Master cam creates software and services that solves the world’s manufacturing challenges.

All right. I’m sure nobody else could say that, right? Here’s consult webs for law firm marketing. All right? Get up to 236% more high quality cases than with your current agency within the first year. Who’s this? Who’s this about? This is about. The person who’s doing the searching and it says, Your search for a law firm.

Marketing ends here. Consultant Webs is your new secret weapon to aggressively scale your law firm without the headaches. Okay? Notice how they’re talking. From the customer’s perspective. Okay, so number one, stop talking about yourself on the homepage, all right? Especially the homepage. You can talk about yourself on the about page, the other pages but on the homepage, talk from the customer, from the prospect’s perspective.

Okay? The second thing that makes me a little bit crazy, And in Master Cam they don’t do it until they get they get down in here and they do something. They do what is known as the assumptive sale is that they are assuming that the person who is landing on this page wants help right now from them.

With Master Cam, you have to go through a reseller, so they’re gonna, they’re saying, they’re just saying, they’re just saying in there, Find my reseller instead of. What is your issue? What is your biggest problem? Tell us what you want to, what you wanna work on. We will help you find the person who will solve that for you with us.

Let me give you one more example of that. Okay? So another one I just jumped. I, I don’t know where this, I don’t know who this company be, Fractory, something like that. And this is something I see on most B2B websites, especially in the manufacturing world. Okay? Get instant. CNC Machine. Machine quote online, quote in seconds.

All this stuff, everything on the home, on, on the landing page. And this part, cuz like, when you go to their website, this is what right? All right, So here’s I scroll up. Here’s what you see when you land on their, on your website when they land on your website.

This is what’s known as above the fold. Above the fold is the single most important part of your website. Because when they land on your WE website, why should they? On your website, why should they stay? And if you’re not talking to them about them and about their situation and from their perspective, they’re gone.

And if you look at your analytics about money that they don’t, that most people don’t stay there very long. All right. So get a, get an instant quote that’s an assumptive sale. You’re assuming that they wanna work with you right now, or that the quote is the most important thing. Now what is the most important thing about a quote?

Let. Oh, God, what’s It starts with a p starts with a P price. Hello. If that’s all they’re doing is just going in there and getting a quote for the price, then they’re just gonna go, like that. And of course there are going to be some people like that, but for the most part, they are just, they just wanna know how you’re gonna help ’em solve their problem.

Okay. And then the third thing and is that, oh and oh, okay. Let me go back to my trustee, Law firm marketing law firm marketing. Consult webs, is that they don’t say, they don’t say, get a quote. They say, Let’s. Notice that, Let’s talk. And then, you click on that. It just says, Let’s talk.

Are you ready to crush your competition? We’re ready to guide you through all things. Okay do you have a question? Drop us a line. And they show the pictures of the people they’ll be talking to, everything like that. It’s just about saying, Let’s just connect, Hey, you want to connect?

You got some questions that we haven’t answered for you on our website? Then we’ll answer ’em for you right here. All right. And then the last. The last the third biggest mistake that we don’t see that we don’t see on your site is proof. Proof. If you tell me if I am a prospect and I land on your page, okay, number one, I expect you to tell me you’re great, right?

I expect you to tell me that you want me to contact you. Why should I contact you? Why should I talk to you? Where’s the proof? Alright. See, I’m looking along here. I’m looking along here. I don’t see anything that says that, that says what’s proof cuz. What’s proof today? Reviews testimonials.

Quotes from people, referrals, word of mouth. That’s proof. Okay. No, there’s no, there’s nothing here. There’s nothing here to give me it just, okay. Oh, here’s my capability. Their capability, Oh, here’s what they do. Okay? So again, it’s about them. It’s about them. About them. All right, So let’s go back to consult web.

Let’s go back to the homepage. This is their homepage, the landing page. All right? The home. All right. Get started, powerful results for law again. So they’re showing proof with numbers, but, but you know what? They could just say anything, right? They could say anything.

And they say, Oh, they’re, trusted partners, but then they get down here and guess what? They’ve got proof, testimonials. If someone was thinking about hiring consult webs, I would tell them, Do it now. Do not put it off because you’re costing yourself money. Here’s even better.

Even better, Way better. Since I started with consult webs, my revenue has tripled. Okay? That is a meaningful specific, So think about this. Go back to your website. Take a look at that homepage you got. Put yourself in the shoes of the prospect who is coming to look for help. And ask yourself, Okay, are you know, who are you talking about?

Are you talking about just yourself? Do you use the words we throughout it? Or do you use the words your, you in there? Okay. That’s how you, that’s how you know if you’re not using the words you and your and stuff like that, or words similar to that than you are talking about yourself. I’ll say, So number one, don’t talk about.

Talk about the prospect. Okay? Number two get rid of that. Get a quote. You’re stepping too far. You’re taking a big giant step. Ask, asking them to give you a quote. Just ask for the conversation. Just say, Got questions, need more, let’s talk. That type of thing. Don’t use terms that just, Mac of, We just want the sale.

We just want the sale. That’s all we want. And number three, put proof, get quotes, get testimonials. The best kind is a video testimonial. Second best kind is audio. Third best kind is a picture of the person with a quote like they’ve got on the law firm. Paige, you know you do those.

I guarantee you, you’re gonna start to see better. Is Steve Miller better known as Kelly’s dad, a marketing gun, Slinger and not the rockstar? , I’ll see you again down the road. I don’t know. How should I end this? Okay, I guess that’s it. Thank you. See ya.

Fifteen years ago, I published my Unfinished Marketing Manifesto. This morning I went back to read it and was very happy to see I agreed with almost everything I said.

What would you add, subtract, and/or edit to my list?

Find a need and fill it is bogus. The truth is we all think everybody needs our products and services. The problem with that thinking is that most of our targeted customers don’t necessarily agree with that statement. It should be “Find an  acknowledged  need and fill it.” Uncover those prospects who agree they have a need.Satisfied customers leave all the time. Forget satisfied. Satisfied means you met expectations. People don’t stay customers when you meet expectations. They stay when you exceed expectations…over and over and over.Don’t study your competition for new ideas. Study people and organizations outside your daily world and steal their ideas.Under promise and over deliver. The world is overcrowded with companies, small and large who make big promises and then fall short on delivery. (Of course, you need to make sure YOUR smaller promise is still more than good enough.)Focus on a niche. You can’t please everyone, so don’t even try. Hunt moose.Get thee to a podium. Professional speakers and writers have a distinct advantage. Every time they get in front of the right audience, they’re showcasing. Publishers are always looking for new authors who are also professional speakers. You can build and market a business on someone else’s dime.People do business with people they like. People do business with people they know. People do business with people they trust. AND people do business with people they remember. I really don’t care how big or small you are. People don’t do business with companies.Your Brand is what your customers think it is and what you think doesn’t matter.You can create a Branding Proposition, but all that is is a promise to your customers. Your customer decides if you’ve kept, not kept, or exceeded your promise. Their conclusion is now your Brand.The last thing you want to be is really, really good at something nobody wants to pay for It’s all well and good to be passionate about your product or service. But if nobody wants to write you a check and you can’t make a profit, then your passion is just a hobby.Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros and/or conventional wisdom, even in their own backyard. If you look at your industry “leaders,” more often than not, they are trapped in an industry orthodoxy. They look alike and act alike. People don’t want to work with people who are the same as everybody else (and besides, its boring). Rock the boat.Depth & breadth of knowledge. Being really, really smart in your field is a good thing. Being really smart in unrelated areas gives you a different perspective and separates you from the competition.Have a bias for action. Perfection is overrated. One lesson I learned from working with a Japanese company was that 80% is good enough. There comes a point in any thinking or planning when the project is good enough. Stop working on it.Don’t be afraid to fire clients. If you’ve never fired a client, you’re probably compromising your values at some point. Obviously, it’s tough to fire clients, even bad ones. It’s only human nature to look at the money you make from some clients and rationalize reasons for keeping them. But if you really are your own boss, then you work for YOU, not them. This may sound harsh, but it’s true.Occasionally surprise your clients, even after they get used to it. I call it the Expected Surprise. It’s what you have when you open a box of Cracker Jacks or when you go to  for the 43rd time. You know you’re going to be surprised, you just don’t know what the surprise will be.  Create that same situation with your customers.Maintain healthy paranoia. I actually learned this first from Phil Wexler. We were having dinner about 18 years ago, early in my speaking and consulting career. I asked what it was like to be a million-dollar a year generator. His response was, “I’m deathly afraid the phone won’t ring tomorrow. I’ve got to stay paranoid.”

 

Dave “The Voice” Loomis shares a story about an ex-client that wanted to promote their high-priced products via Hubspot’s free subscription. This begged the question, when there are so many free tools available on the Internet, should you pay for marketing?

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Transcript

For great ideas and practical tools. You can start using tomorrow to grow your business and separate you from the competition. You’ve come to the right place if you’re into b2b marketing and sales then welcome to the one and only b2b marketing and sales podcast with over 60 and counting total years in the trenches of businesses, small and large.

They have a plethora of knowledge and experience that generate you more leads, capture more clients, ring up more sales. Well, doggone it just make you more money. How about that? Always thought provoking yet dubiously entertaining. Please welcome to their respective microphones across three time zones.

Your co ringmasters, the dave loomis and not the rock star steve miller. Hey everybody, this is steve miller better known as kelly dad market and gunslinger. Not the rock star captain adventure. Um I’ve had many aliases in my life. Let’s just put it that.

Ok. Let’s just say I’ve needed many aliases in my life. Uh and uh I can’t, I can’t actually even confirm to you that steve miller is my real name. So just we’ll just leave it at that. And with me is my is my man, my best guy, my best guy.

You know, we are my writing partner. You know, we we we haven’t played golf together, but you know what if we did, we’d have a blast and we would have a blast doing anything together. They would make a movie and there would be like a scene montage with music just dancing around.

Exactly. Exactly, yeah. In fact, there’s one of those scenes in the movie “rrr” that you highly recommended to me and it’s worth a watch. I did, yes. The whole thing, it’s three hours long. Was I right or was I wrong?

Oh, it’s fantastic. It’s fantastic movie people highly recommend. Yeah, partly because you’ve never seen anything quite like it. It’s it’s very creative and interesting and just different, we see the same movie over and over and over again. It’s got tom cruise in it and it’s cool and it’s you know, action packed or whatever it is you’ve seen it because america we just make the same movie over and over and over again. This is a movie from india.

So david mayo loomis I want to make sure I get your name in there because I haven’t really properly introduced you. That is my that is my name. Yeah. No aliases, no aliases except the voice don’t misunderstand what he just said. Tom cruise is not in this movie.

All right. Uh I just want to make sure you understand it. But you know what go on netflix and watch are are are the letters are not the pirate sound. R. R. And you’ll love you will thank us. You will thank us for it. It is such a fun movie. You will.

You will. It is very interesting and I tell you it makes the british that really makes the look like it’s an indie movie. It’s an indian movie and it’s and it’s untitled and the dance scenes are unbelievable. They’re just so awesome. So yeah it’s it’s it’s very fun hey you know what people if people found themselves here they know who we are but this is actually the b2b marketing and sales podcast just very slowly getting he was gonna steve was probably going to get to it.

But right now they’re saying are we going to hear anything about marketing or? Well no but it’s entertaining and we gave you a good movie recommendation. We call that a referral. So that is marketing correct. It certainly is. We are we are telling you actually actually I will I will say this and I’m going to give a little tip to people about this alright that I teach what I teach and you can agree or disagree with me.

Alright. Mr voice mr voice. Right. I contend there is a difference between word of mouth and referral marketing. Okay. Word of mouth is exactly what we just did. Okay where where we had something really cool and we’re saying you gotta go do this, you gotta go watch this. Alright. It’s just like a restaurant.

We see we go eat a restaurant and we call a friend saying gosh we had said to me that is word of mouth that is unknown un uh it’s sort of unsolicited. But yeah it’s it’s like that unprovoked unprovoked mark referral you know and then referral marketing is something that we need to have a program about in our company uh referral marketing.

Um and can we switch topics and just talk about referral marketing? What about our topic for the day steve we’ve we labored over this for I’m willing I’m willing to save my note. I feel I feel like we did uh an episode on referral marketing. Okay. Alright, well let’s reinforce that again.

I’m not mentally, I’m not mentally. We may have. We may have but but I can’t I can’t push this enough that the vast majority of companies uh number one, number one, they are terrible at referral marketing. Okay. And referral marketing is where we help our customers and our contacts and we help them to refer people to us.

Alright. Word of mouth is not that that’s my that’s my contention. Okay. Great. Excellent. Okay. So what what is our topic for? Oh I know what I thought our topic is for today because this came up. This comes up to me. I see this stuff all the time.

All the time. I c I can’t believe how often I see it where people will come on to the internet. They come into linkedin. They go uh you know for the most part the business people hang out and linkedin. Um the other place that business people hang out uh is on facebook but it’s not facebook facebook, it’s in a facebook private group.

There are tons of private groups on facebook that are business focused. And there they are fantastic. I’m a member of a number of these and and they are wonderful but they don’t talk to each other, you know, just in the general feed and I spend very little time in the general facebook feed, but I go but I will go to the so so anyway, so the point is is that I so often people come in and they go and they’ll say something like um hey, does anybody have any recommendations of any marketing tools that are free?

You know, can you can you can somebody teach me how to do something using email because it’s free, you know, um or or just you know, in in general, they they’re just like, you know, they’re just like going, you know, I don’t feel like I need to spend the money to spend money on marketing and and I’m I’m like wait a minute, you know, and especially to the people that we’re talking to, we’re in the b2b world, okay. Most of the people that were talking to their selling expensive stuff.

Oh yeah, um I got a great example of that um from last week and it involves our mutual friend michelle jones who has been a guest on this michelle michelle and I have what is now a former client together and I will not say the name of the client, but I will say what this client does okay just because it’s important for the example.

Okay, this is uh, I would say it’s a startup, but they’re way past the initial stage because they have a very, very established product slash service and it’s nothing to um it’s not like something you invent in your garage. This is actually a way to disrupt the traditional medical care system by providing virtual primary care, uh including uh individual people that can um uh, advocate for you and send you to the right place for the right amount of money at the right time, etcetera.

Um but it also involves insurance, medical insurance, it’s a medical insurance replacement for traditional insurance and this is being sold through major brokers, insurance brokers to major companies. So there are there there are thousands of existing customers. Okay, so I’m just setting the stage for this situation, but i, but I want, I want to wrap this up by saying, I don’t mean wrap up what you’re saying.

I just think in a little bow here that that what you’re saying is that ultimately, this involves a lot of money. This is exactly what I’m saying. This is not pocket change and this is an established company with multiple staff members across the country, blah blah blah. There was a request made of our mutual friend, michelle two um help onboard.

The free version of hubspot. Excuse me, the free version of hubspot, they there’s no crm system or email marketing system, you know yet, but this particular company wanted to use the free, they want they want to use the free version of hubspot to market their their these services, correct? And there there is a version of hubspot that I believe is maybe 49

50 $50 a month, you know to get into like really serious um great you know extra services and it goes up from there but uh $50 a month. I mean individuals in their household, how much am I paying for all my streaming services? Speaking of movies, I mean plus my, you know internet and all that, I mean a lot more than 50 bucks a month. So this this is what is going on and I get why can’t I get netflix for free, why can’t I get hbo max for free?

Why can’t I why can’t I get all that stuff for free? Well you’ve got facebook for free but you’ve got ads and you are the product but that’s not really what we want and it’s not, it doesn’t stand up to this great example here these people to be company yeah a b2b company. They are, they are involved in something that is that is a lot of money, it’s a lot of money and they want uh and and they wanted michelle to to onboard them to the free version of hubspot, yep, to market their services, correct, correct.

And by the way the answer was no. Um but as you said, the former. Yes, yes, yes, exactly, exactly. So, um I’m with you steve and another part sort of part b of your um you know of your of the topic that that um you and I discussed was that not only do we get pressure to do things for free or to use free things and to have a small marketing budget in the first place, we’re also asked, especially as we go into recessions or slow times or something’s, you know, happening at a at a company and you all are listening, this has happened to you, where someone comes to you and says, you know, we’re going to need to have to cut that marketing budget.

Um and you say, well we cut the marketing budget last year um and we need to do these things and they say, you know, somebody then says, well look at give me the line item budget and you show it to them, and they say, my god, why are we spending so much on that trade show?

Why don’t you get a booth that’s like half the size, it’s like, yeah, but we just we just, you know, spend all this money creating this new booth. So it’s not just the booth. So, I mean it goes on and on and on with every example of something that they’re asking us to cut, correct? Yeah, the, you know, and and so what, what you’re talking about here, which is also a huge thorn in my side is this is this idea that marketing is an expense that makes it a line item in the budget because line items can be cut. All right.

That you know it’s it’s it’s like the old thing, you know like who was it was it wasn’t like a president who said he wanted to have line item veto or something like that, you know? You know and in corporations the ceos do have line item veto. And and so like you know if we use trade shows as an example.

But I think I think just in general marketing is the one where they see it as an expense. And if and if somebody sees marketing as an expense, it will always be cut when when when when somebody wants to, you know, it doesn’t even have to be a recession. It could just be a new ceo comes in or a new marketing director comes in and they want to look like a hero right out of the box.

And so what they do is they cut the budget and uh and they and they pat themselves on the back and they aren’t aren’t I smart aren’t I intelligent because I just saved us, you know, $100,000. I don’t know whatever it is. And uh and the and the point is is that number one and we’ve had this conversation before. And folks if you’re listening right now and you you have not listened to that episode, go back and find the one where we talk about, you know how to measure roi in marketing, right? Because because that’s where the that’s where the issue is.

Is that c. Sales is has is historically measurable. The sales department historically measurable. They’re not seen as overhead because they can make they can make a connection between the the expense that they put in for sales and the return that they get. It’s just so such an obvious and it’s so obvious uh and so directly connected that many sales people are, you know, partially or in some cases full commission.

Um in other words, a 1-to-1 relationship. So that’s trackable. But that’s I don’t hear about a lot of commission marketing people know and and and and I’m okay with that. But I mean, certainly you could you could tie bonuses in. Yeah, and and that and that happens, but but that that means you have to know how to connect marketing to roi so again, go back to our past episode.

Listen to that one. But in this episode, what we are trying to get you to understand, you have to pay for marketing people okay. And you have to but you have to change your mindset that marketing is not an expense. You have to treat it like an investment as if you were as if you were buying stocks and like right now, you know, as we’re recording this, you know, we’re still in the throes of the stock market, you know, you know, you know, causing pain, right? Uh and so so we’re all, all of us are looking at our portfolios and we’re trying to figure out, okay, how do we find, you know, how do we find something that we can put our money in that won’t cause us pain. So in other words, what we’re looking for is a return, we’re looking for a return on our investment, which is what roi stands for.

It’s not return on budget, it’s return on investment. And an investment is something that we expect a return on. You have to change your mindset. Uh and um and and so number one, you know, and I’m on I’m completely I know, I know, I know mr voices on on board with this too, is is that marketing is an investment, it should bring an roi you should be able to measure it.

And and, you know, you know, kind of going along with what you were talking about sometimes I often get the question. They’ll say, well, uh, how much do we spend on marketing or what percentage of our budget should we spend on marketing?

Right. I’m I’m always kind always kind of think about, well, okay, it’s really hard to answer that question. Yeah. It is, there’s a lot of statistics on it, you can look them all up and, and a lot of, a lot of us have at times and I’ve, I’ve done that too because I’ve been asked that question so many times and I can, you know, I can tell you, I mean you look it up and, and it, um, you know, it’ll, it’ll say, oh, between three and 12% depending on what industry.

Well, there’s a big difference between three and 12%. And if you’re a newer company, if you were, if it was a software company and was a startup, then you’re looking at a much, much higher percent because you need the eyeballs and the volume and, and the, the trials and, and all that stuff because you don’t have any revenue at first.

But let’s go back, let’s go back to the question I asked, let’s go back to the question. I remember I asked you this question in that episode, that previous episode, you are the only person in history who gave me the correct answer immediately and you gave it to me immediately.

I was, I actually, I think I was so shocked. I don’t think I even said anything about it. But uh, you know, and, and my question was, okay folks, let’s do it. Let me, let’s, let’s look at this from this perspective, okay, if I guaranteed you 20% return on your dollar guarantee 20% return on your dollar and, and, and fine we can, we can set a time period, we can say, okay, within six months, within a year, if I guaranteed you, I’ll say a year, if I guaranteed you 20% return on your money uh within a year, how much money would you give me?

Do you remember and you better answer it correctly again, because I know you did the first time, I’m pretty sure I said all of it, that was it, that was the answer. And you’re the first person in history. I’ve asked that question of thousands because thousands of people, you would have to really believe that that guarantee or the guarantee would have to be ironclad.

So there would be a couple of things, but there would be, if it’s true, if your, if your thought experiment is true, there’s really no reason why I wouldn’t in fact keep going, I’d go, I’d go out and borrow more. God, you are so far ahead of everybody else. That that’s what I have said to people, I will say, I have stood in front of audiences of 2000 people, I’ll ask that question and then, and then I’ll just kind of like, well jeez, I don’t know why should i, should I should i, would I even give you any money?

Why would you know, should I give you some money? You know, maybe, you know, maybe give you 1000 bucks, you know, or something like that, and I’m standing up there like this, I’m tearing my hair out and I’m going, I’m going, well, the first answer is you would give me all of your money, okay, the second and the back up to that is you would then go out and borrow as much money as you possibly could and give that to me because because because you’re being, you’re guaranteed.

So here’s c and here’s my point. My point is that that with marketing, if you if you develop a process in your marketing that you bring in qualified moose qualified target markets, people who fit the profile of your target market and have the money, the ability to pay. And if you are able to develop a system that it’s it’s like a flywheel, it’s like a flywheel.

And every time you put a dollar into that flywheel, it gives you a $1. 20. Every time you put in a dollar it gives you a $1. 20. So the question then is, well, how much money you gonna put in? So here’s a question for you, um, for that to work what you just suggested, agree with me or not, but you would have to have uh keep pretty close tabs on the fact that your investment in x. Y. Z.

Tactic was the thing that actually delivered those results. So there’s a little bit of learning by doing measuring and and metrics and and return, right? So you’re not throwing it because you’re not, you’re not saying, okay, I’m gonna get put thousands of dollars into these 10 tactics and I’m gonna I’m gonna implement them all at once without measuring.

And I got a bunch of sales back. I don’t know which one of those 10 worked. So you have to know, you have to know you have to know you have to be able to connect the dots and and and I’m sure you don’t remember this. But the way I describe it is you have to be able to connect the dots between your marketing and and and roi, but it has to be a solid line that connects the dots.

You know how sometimes you look at a map and you you know connect dots on a map or something like that. And and and the ones that are really, you know, you know you put a solid line, the ones that are a little bit questionable. Put a dot, you know, you put a dotted line or a dash line or something like that.

That’s what I can I think most companies are missing with marketing. Is it for for them connecting marketing to roi is a dash flying. Yeah. We sort of have a feeling we sort of have a feeling that this is a good thing but they can’t prove they can’t really prove it. So that’s the thing is that is that you have to you, first of all you have to understand marketing.

You have to understand that the purpose of marketing is to generate an roi. Don’t care what anybody else says. It’s it’s the same as sales. It’s to generate return, generate. Ultimately you need to generate sales. Sometimes with marketing you need the help of a salesperson, sometimes with marketing you don’t we need to help help with sales people.

The other thing is conversions for example, you know, you know you think about it and I find this statistic to be absolutely unbelievable is that is that in the b2b world back, you know, and it’s been a number of years since I’ve I’ve seen any studies on this. So so it could be a little bit different right now? I don’t think so.

Is that is that in the b2b world the the percentage, the conversion rate for the average b2b company is something in something like 5 to 10% now, what that means is that when you hand them 10 prospects that they are closing one or a half of one, that’s what that means.

You handle 10 prospects. So the question is how and in the past and I and I don’t argue with this, you know, it’s it’s it’s you know, is that they’ve they’ve said okay how do you double your return, how do you double your sales? And the answer is you double the number of prospects, you go see, okay because you can’t change the conversion rate. You can’t change that half of that 5% or 10% and I disagree because here’s how I look at it.

The way I look at it is the better job I do of understanding my marketplace and understanding my moose and finding my moose to where I am totally focused in. I’m talking to them that that and, and there’s a difference between a suspect a prospect and a lead. A suspect is somebody we think they might be, they might fit our profile, right? A prospect is somebody who does fit our profile.

Okay. And were able to find out that they fit our profile. A lead is somebody who fits our profile. So well that when we say to them, hey do you have this problem? They raised their hand so now. So see, so here’s, so here’s, let me, let me put it to you in this description.

I talk about moose that’s our target market. Okay, well the forest, a lot of different animals. Most companies, they go hunting for animals and they go and they talk to 10 animals in the forest. You know, they talked to a couple of chipmunks, they talked to some rabbits.

They talked to some bears and oh yeah, they talked to a couple of moose alright. And they closed 5-10% of those people guess who they’re closing? They’re closing the moose. So wouldn’t it be better? Wouldn’t it be smarter if in the before part of all of this you do nothing but identify the moose.

Yeah. Absolutely. So can we go back to the free part? I have another question. So for those listening, when when we started off and we said a lot of folks think marketing should be free, who do you think that is that thinks marketing should be free? Well, number one, I think that I think historically the mark, I guess I should say the marketing industry has done a terrible job.

You know, taking care of itself, the terrible job because because what what the mark because the marketing industry for the has has had such a terrible time of connecting the dots between marketing and roi that they’ve come up with with funny numbers to justify. Okay. But but who who has the impression who mostly are the people that have the impression that marketing should be free. Are you saying that that marketers say even marketers, marketers and.

Yeah. Yeah. So senior leadership because because because you know, you know the percentage of people who have been actually really taught to connect the dots with a solid line is I think it’s just abysmally slow. Yeah. I think part of the onus is on um us. If I say if I if I say that I’m a person in b2b.

Marketing and I report somewhere into senior leadership. Maybe I’m even part of senior leadership but I’m not ceo, but anywhere, it doesn’t matter what level you are. I think we need to do a better job of not just defending ourselves because the word defense to me indicates something somebody has challenged us.

And then we’re reacting and responding and saying, oh no, no, no, no, no. We really are a value. Hang on, hang on. Let me show you. I think we need to do a better job of proactively on a very regular basis, communicating to the rest of the organization everything we do and the value of the things that we do.

So, uh, I really, really think that um, marketers play an incredibly vital role in organizations usually and it is often a very overlooked role. And also, I would say half of what we do on a day to day basis, um, is not obvious.

It’s not always noticed. But we’re responding always were. I mean the, the obvious things are, oh, we placed this ad and such and such or we organized this trade show or we did this thing that everybody noticed. Uh, we came out with a new brand and tag line and we updated the website and we did all these things right?

Or we, we maybe we have some metrics on leads and other things like that. But you know what we’re doing, half of our day is spent, well, you know, hr calls and you know, they’re updating something for, you know, attraction and retention.

Can you help? Well of course we can help and we do it did we write down what we did and what value that would have been if they had purchased that on the outside and what the result was of of them doing that. I mean there’s 100 things every day. I’ve got a great example that I heard today that is um analogous to the situation.

Not exactly the same, but it’s a great idea. So somebody told me this is somebody that used to be head of of basically national count strategic sales for probably the largest commercial furniture manufacturer in the world. Um and they were in charge of many account money. I’m not gonna, I can’t say I can’t, I can’t say no it’s a very high end office furniture, high end office furniture.

And they they had an account with um a very big oil uh global oil company based in houston. And um part of the account was going to get pulled. Um or they were opening it up to some other people. And as a result um it prompted this person I was talking to today to create basically a value checklist, a value inventory of what they were actually providing to their client that the client didn’t realize.

So so the client thinks you just sell me furniture. Okay we do so much more than that and I think maybe you’ve forgotten because here’s the thing, it ended up being a four page list and not only did they list it, he attached the actual dollar value of what those services were to this list and handed it to him, the meeting went fine.

They do it now as a rule across the entire company. And he told me what happened after the meeting, he told me that the the procurement person for the big oil company took him aside and kind of like shoved him and said, yeah, he screwed it was not screw you. It was the a different word which you can imagine.

You you just, you just made me, you know, I was gonna I was gonna, you know, be a hero for bringing in this other firm too, you know, save some money on paper and now and now you made me look bad by showing me all the stuff that you do, which is kind of crazy.

But my point is we why not track if you are in b2b marketing, why not just start tracking more intentionally? All the things that you do, because I guarantee nobody notices half of it. And then the real challenge is try to create, try to attach value to it and potentially even an outcome.

So if you do a favor for somebody internally which you’re doing all the time every single day. Follow not only do it, track it, write it down, but follow up with that person to say what was the impact of what I did for you of what that follow up.

It’s gonna take a little extra time, but then you’ll have it then you’re proactive and I would contend and I would contend that that away two plus that is that you figure out a way to make that part of the, the deal, you know, where you are saying to people, here’s what we are going to deliver to you. And when they put it in those terms, like you’re talking about, they are now talking about things that are above and beyond what would normally have been expected.

You know, and and they are now separating themselves from the competition. Absolutely, absolutely. So that that is, I mean, if if if marketing is not respected as it should be, which is probably the case and folks are trying to pressure us to including ourselves, um to to try and do it on a shoestring.

If not free or nothing, then let’s not just sit back and accept it. Let’s fight back and let’s prove you gotta have, prove it, prove it the other way. That’s why I’m that’s what I’m talking about is proving to have make that solid line and we don’t know what we do.

If you don’t know how to do that. Well, you need to call one of us. I mean, I’m serious, it really is it really is we do this all the time, agencies, you know, and and they’re out there and they’re making up funny metrics, you know, I mean I have never cashed a check on awareness and I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who cashed a check on awareness and see that’s why I say it’s got to be a solid line and you have to know how to do it and you have to be able to talk the language with your customers, with your clients uh and with your prospects that where we’re in a lot of cases you’re going to be educating them because because as like as you pointed out dave that that you know, even when you go up higher, you know in the in the in the company, you know nowadays more and more of the people up high are financial people.

Right? Nowadays you see a lot more financial people at the top of the organization, will they come from the world of just looking at the numbers, right? And so you have to talk to them in numbers. Right. Right. Right, right. And what is something that crept into my mind when you talked about awareness was awareness, you sort of, you have to have it because if someone doesn’t know that you’re there or can’t find you, they can’t engage.

But engagement is what we want and it reminded me of. Uh and this is not be to be uh this, I was in charge of, not in charge of but I was a major consultant to because I was at the parent company of a chain of 300 kitchen stores that were at outlet malls called kitchen collection and le gourmet chef.

Uh they’re both no longer um in business, but um when when I was involved, I mean we were doing we were doing well and we didn’t track awareness because it didn’t, you know, what do you do with that? But here’s what we tracked and it was fascinating. We tracked three, we tracked a lot, but we tracked three major levers that all would impact what you know, our our top line especially, which was very very important.

Okay. So we tracked footsteps, so that was uh meter that there were uh door uh counters. So whenever whenever a human being or probably not a dog, but a human being walked in the door of one of the stores, it counted it. So we knew how many footsteps there were.

Okay. Um so there that’s the engagement we’re talking about, so that does count someone’s in the store. Second of all we counted average, I’ll say closure rate, which is what percent of those footsteps bought something? Okay? And then the third was the average sale. So what when they did buy, how much did they spend on average?

And we tracked those so intensely. And what was so interesting is that you could control things that were happened by, you know? Well let’s see could we get more footsteps? How do we get more footsteps, put better signage outside to draw people in. Um can we get a higher closure rate? Yeah, we definitely can by basically engaging with the person and you know, don’t sit there, you know, talk to the customer, sell to the customer etcetera, have average sale.

Yeah. Yeah, we definitely can get the average sale up by putting um impulse items at the counter and by by suggesting very specific add ons that go with this and this and the other thing. So my point is that’s the kind of stuff that we should be doing in b in b2b. Marketing, also tracking the levers and then actually doing things to impact those levers.

Let’s let’s let’s translate that into today today, let’s let’s do it. The door front, the storefront is the website. So the footsteps are the people coming to, you know, that’s so so it’s all well and good to tell me how many people are coming in.

Okay, tell me coming in and then then where do they go? And then what what do they do? Do they leave us money or or in the case of b2b. Very often? Of course not, they’re not gonna leave us money when they come into our website. Right, so what, so how do how do we define we define it by, do they engage with us?

I’ve I’ve always called it persuasion always said awareness without persuasion is malpractice. But I think awareness without engagement is the same thing is malpractice. So we get them to engage with us and folks, let me tell you if the only engagement uh tool that you’re using on your website is are you ready for a quote?

You know, would you like a quote? Come on people that is not engagement, you’re stepping too far, you know? Well we of course you’d of course you’d love a quote and you love them to start a quote. Um and a small percentage of people may be ready to start a quote, but there’s all sorts of other steps on the way there, there’s great content that you can write that’s of value to them.

Just capture, capture their contact information and if they’ll give you a couple a couple of selections of their interest areas then that’s going to help, even that’s going to help even more. So you get that engagement, what do we call that marketing? Ah is it free?

Not if you see you still got to develop all that stuff, you got to develop the lead magnets, you gotta develop, not free. It is free. You still have to build all that stuff. Yes, you do, yes, we do because we do this because we are passionate about this.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s not free. It’s not free shouldn’t be free. We gotta track it, folks, track it, track it, prove it, prove it, prove it and and and get the budget increase, not decrease was so good.

Everything about that was solid line. It was a solid line connection cause and effect cause and effect, yep. So, so all right. I gotta get out of here because I’m getting ready to smash my computer. So, okay. Yeah, we don’t want to do that. That wouldn’t be free.

That wouldn’t be free either. He’s passionate. I know you’re passionate about this too much. I am. I’m just a little, I’m a little more reserved about it. No. Uh, so folks, I’m going to take us out. This has been the b2b marketing and sales podcast with none other than steve miller, not the rock star ,kelly’s dad, marketing gunslingers.

So, so many many aliases because you don’t really his name might not even be steve miller. It might be something else that I used o k c and the nose. But don’t call, don’t call him late to dinner and don’t call him a cab because he’s not going anywhere.

And I am dave loomis. Also known as the dave loomis, the voice other things, but I’ve never really, I’m in plain sight, but I’m not in hiding like you are. Thanks for joining us folks. This has been a ball and uh, we will see you next time.

Toodle loo. Thank you for listening to another episode of the one and only b2b. Marketing and sales podcast. The source for b2b. Marketing and sales insight. If you enjoy the podcast, please be sure to subscribe and leave these old guys at five star rating.

Check the show notes for any links and contact information. You can always contact us by going to b2bmarketingsalespodcast. Com thank you and keep on marketing. Keep on sailing.

In 1989 Jon Carlzon, then President of Scandinavian Airlines wrote a great book titled, “Moments of Truth” (https://amzn.to/3e7PmXA). Carlzon stated that every interaction a prospect or customer has with your company impacts their perception of you. This week I received two products I ordered online. Watch as I unbox them and see how these “moments of truth” impact what I (and you) think about these suppliers.

Watch now!

And if you haven’t read any of our books, here are the links:

UNCOPYABLE — https://amzn.to/3dN3iWR

UNCOPYABLE SALES SECRETS — https://amzn.to/3wow1b2

Stealing Genius — https://amzn.to/3AI3xM6

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David Mayo Loomis is gone to Florida this week, so Steve and his smokin’ hot wife, Kay, share one of the most important cornerstones of successful sales and marketing — hunting moose.

In their conversation, they explain why knowing your who your best target market is…where they are…what bait will attract their attention…and why you should focus 100% of your planning and execution on just them! Steve and Kay call target marketing, “hunting moose.”

(Hint: it has to do with you making MORE money.)

Watch now!

And if you haven’t read any of their books, here are the links:

UNCOPYABLE — https://amzn.to/3dN3iWR

UNCOPYABLE SALES SECRETS — https://amzn.to/3wow1b2

Stealing Genius — https://amzn.to/3AI3xM6

Curious?

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There is an urban legend, widely circulated, that NASA “invented” Velcro during the Space Race years of the early and middle Sixties. The truth is both more interesting — and more illuminating.

That word “invention” isn’t my favorite, since it seems to imply that a good idea materialized more or less out of nowhere. That’s just not so. Innovations  rarely spring up out of nowhere. They usually have a source. Once we identify that source, we can get deeper clarity on the process by which we can create new breakthroughs of our own. 

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Innovations rarely spring up out of nowhere.They usually have an alien source.

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Here’s what is true: When NASA found itself in need of a reliable replacement for the zipper, which was not ideal for use by astronauts in a zero-gravity environment, its team leaders started looking around for alternatives. They didn’t need a better zipper; they needed a totally new and innovative solution. They found a company in Switzerland that offered such an alternative, and opted to give that company a contract in the early Sixties. That was the point at which the US space program started using the (now-ubiquitous) hook-and-loop touch fastening system known as Velcro on all kinds of things: spacesuits, pockets on other kinds of clothing, helmets, food and drink ports, and stuff like pens and packets that they didn’t want to see floating around the space capsule. Each design was highly customized by NASA engineers to the specific application the astronauts would be using. But NASA did not invent this technology.

The company NASA reached out to is still in operation today. It’s Velcro SA, a firm founded by a Swiss electrical engineer by the name of Georges de Mestral. It was de Mestral who invented Velcro back in the 1940s. And the means by which he did this is a classic example of Stealing Genius.

Back in 1941, de Mestral went on a walk along the mountain paths of the Swiss Alps with his dog Milka. He wasn’t thinking about fastening systems or spaceships or moon landings. He was thinking, first and foremost, about relaxation … but he was, crucially, keeping his mind open to new ideas and unexpected phenomena, which is one of the crucial requirements of Level 5: Stealing Genius. The Zen Buddhists have a saying: In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few. As he completed his walk with Milka, de Mestral was, we might say, firmly connected to his beginner’s mind.

It was that beginner’s mind that allowed him to take an experience that others might have simply considered an inconvenience — the burrs that he had to extract from Milka’s coat, and also from his own woolen socks and woolen coat — and ask a simple, powerful question: What is really happening here?

de Mestral concluded that what was really happening was that millions of years of evolution had given the burdock plant — the source of those burrs he had to brush out of his dog’s coat — a powerful bonding strategy. This strategy enabled burdock to propagate its species by spreading its seeds far and wide, throughout the Alps and beyond. At this point, de Mestral asked himself another simple, powerful question: Where else could this be used?

 The answer, he concluded, was just about anywhere people needed to fasten something to something else. De Mistral was what I call a Stealing Genius Black Belt. I’ll talk more about the technique he used in Chapter 5.

By studying something already happening in nature, de Mestral came up with a new application. The process is now known as biomimicry, and Velcro is one of its shining success stories. Velcro, of course, is a fastening system made up of two components: a fabric strip featuring hundreds of tiny hooks (analogous to the burdock seeds) capable of “mating” with another fabric strip featuring hundreds of tiny loops (analogous to Milka’s coat and de Mestral’s woolen socks). The result: Two elements that would attach strongly but temporarily, disengaging when pulled apart. His original prototype featured strips made of cotton, a material that presented a number of logistical problems; eventually de Mestral settled on a system that used nylon and polyester. He called the new system Velcro, which was a combination of the French words velour (velvet) and crochet (hook). (Side note: The word Velcro is both a registered trademark for the fastening system, which de Mestral was wise enough to patent, and the name of the company that produces it.)

So there you have it. Because NASA was looking for a totally innovative solution to their zipper problem, they discovered Velcro. And because Georges de Mestral was open to an alien source of ideas, he was able to develop Velcro…a system that helped human beings to go to the moon! That’s Stealing Genius in a nutshell.

Those two questions are worth remembering:

What is really happening here?

Where else could this be used?

Excerpted from Steve’s latest book, STEALING GENIUS: The Seven Levels Of Adaptive Innovation. Published by Sound Wisdom.

For several years I’ve encouraged my BFFs to study and join the Maker’s Mark Ambassador program. It’s a great case study of creating the club everyone wants to be a member of, a great way to be Uncopyable. You might be in that club because of something I said!

On July 14, I received an email from Rob Samuels, a Grandson of the Founders, and Managing Director for Maker’s Mark. You can read the entire email by clicking here.

It is an exceptionally brilliant marketing piece, for multiple reasons.

The subject line grabs the attention of every Maker’s Mark Ambassador:

“ACTION REQUIRED: The 2022 Ambassador Gift”

This is a great example of what I’ve been teaching for years – Next Step Marketing. Whenever you communicate or have an engagement with your moose, what is the easiest, brain-dead next step you can get them take? In the case of emails, for example, the next step is you want them to OPEN the email. That’s it. That’s the entire objective of your Subject Line. Period. This Subject Line first helps the receiver to self-identify as one of Maker’s Mark’s top moose. You are a member of their Ambassador club, and they need you to do something for them. So, you open the email.

Rob begins by reminding Ambassadors how their annual gift has become a true tradition in the Maker’s Mark community. It sure has! Every holiday, those of my BFFs who are also Ambassadors, start chatting up their excitement about what this year’s gift will be. Being an Ambassador and getting a cool holiday gift makes you a member of the Cool Kids.

Rob then asks, “Do you wish to receive your 2022 Ambassador gift?”

Whoa! What? Do I want my gift? Heck, yeah, I do!

But maybe there are a number of people who don’t really care anymore. Rob shares about being a Certified B Corporation™, whose goal is to limit environmental impact when they can. If some people don’t care if they get the gift, this could be a good place for Maker’s mark to reinforce that objective! Don’t mail stuff that’s just going straight to trash!

The rest of the message explains how I can help. If I do want the gift, all I must do is go to my Ambassador account page and click a button. If I don’t go to the site by July 19, 2022, they will assume I don’t want the gift. Next step.

Brilliant! For so many reasons.

They are letting us know that Maker’s Mark has set the objective of lowering their impact on the environment. That’s the obvious thing, right? They are good guys and it’s smart to let us know.

Ah, but there’s more.

They’re cleaning their moose list. An engaged Ambassador is a very important asset to the company, so why not try to identify them?. It  creates engagement. Engaged Ambassadors connect with other engaged Ambassadors. Ambassadors are proud to be in the club, which they show by drinking Marker’s Mark at home and when out. This reminds us. Ambassadors talk to bartenders about being an Ambassador. Ambassadors give Maker’s Mark to their friends. By going to the site and confirming I want my gift. I’m saying I’m a real moose. I’ve raised my hand to say, “Yes, I want to hear more from you.” Rob has also built anticipation. Holy cow, it’s mid-Summer and Rob is already talking about the holidays. I can’t wait to see what they’re sending this year! Without saying in specific words, Rob has reminded me of my role as an Ambassador. Rob is creating a potential FOMO situation. I haven’t heard from Maker’s Mark in a while, but what a great way to re-engage! Next time I’m walking through Total Wine & More, guess what’s going to be top of mind?

Let’s play with some numbers. I have no idea how many people are in the Ambassador program. I’ve been a member since 2008, so it’s been around a while. Do you think they have 10,000 members? Let’s go with that.

Now let’s use the 80/20 Rule and decide 20% of those members go online to confirm they want to receive the holiday gift.

That’s 2000 people. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’m betting those of us on that list will spend big, if given a good reason. I’ll bet Rob has plans for those 2000 people. He can now send extremely targeted offers (ne: high ticket) to us.

And if he doesn’t do any of this, well…

Hope Rob reads this.

My smokin’ hot wife, Kay, recently received an email from the company we use for our furnace service. This is VERY SMART MARKETING and a great example of Stealing Genius.