1. Know your best and worst sides
You’ll be able to demonstrate your best talents and temperament more often when you recognize them - and the flip side, your weaknesses, which are often your blind spots where you self-sabotage. Only with this knowledge can you recognize the people and situations that bring out the best and worst in you. Only then will you be able to seek out the situations and people where your best sides shine and avoid the opposite.
2. Bring out their best side
In each situation, whether with a stranger, someone you know intimately or someone in between, first bring out that person’s better side (temperament) or encourage her to demonstrate or discuss her best talent. Then she naturally sees and supports your best side. You are off to a good footing to reinforce each other’s best talents and temperament to become happier, higher-performing together.
3. Be their trusted, most remembered expert
Speak English like it tastes good. Give verbal snapshots that penetrate the mind and the gut in an instant then linger, leaving a bright after image. When seeking to persuade or be frequently-quoted be the most specific, vivid and authentic describer of the options in a situation. Provide what-if scenarios, with possible near-term consequences to your listener(s) where your approach either avoids a negative consequence and/or leads to a positive outcome.
4. Praise what you want to flourish
Reinforce the behavior you admire and support others’ self-confidence around you by praising the specific behavior you value and that benefits that person. Multiply the power of your positive words by sharing your praise with the people who matter to that person. Extra benefit? As you praise those qualities, listeners attribute to you, the very qualities you praise in others.
5. Look to their positive intent, especially when they appear to have none
When you throw mud you get dirty. When you most want to react with a cutting remark, act kindly. In a less-certain, fast-acting world your biggest gift may be kindness in the face of rancor. Even and especially when someone else is acting negatively towards you, praise the part of his current or past behavior that you genuinely respect. It’s your best chance of reducing the rancor. Regardless of what he chooses to do, others will observe the sharp contrast between your choice of words and actions and his.
6. Problems seldom exist at the level at which they are expressed.
If you are engaged in an argument that lasts more than ten minutes then you are probably not discussing the deeper, underlying conflict. You are simply hardening your opposing sides. Either ask for a break, suggesting when you would like to re-meet or say you think there is something deeper going on and, in good will, you wish to resolve it.
7. To establish trust, look for the underlying motivation or fear in that person
We are far more revealing by the questions we ask than the answers we give. To get closer to understanding her strongest motivations, let her take the lead in asking questions. Answer genially, directly but briefly so that she becomes interested in learning more. When she asks a follow-up question, again answer briefly and notice the direction of the questions. By the third, follow-up question, in quick succession you’ll have an insight into her underlying concern or wishes – even if she may not be conscious of it herself. Then you have a better chance of alleviating that concern by what you say or do, often without directly addressing it. Notice, as well, where your questions lead, in learning about your own fears and desires.
8. Go slow to go fast
Whenever you push against someone’s opposition or press for an answer or ask for something too quickly, others tend to resist rather than agree, even when it is in their best interests. In an often blunt, multi-tasking world, give people time to ask questions their way. The more actions one takes on behalf of exploring an option the more likely one is to take it, talk about it and even defend it.
9. Gain an invaluable, unlikely and treasured ally
More than once in your life, you’ve been the most neglected person in a social or work situation. You know how awkward it feels. When entering a room where a group is gathered, seek out the most ignored person. Give him your full attention. Ask an open-ended question such as, “What’s been one of your favorite moments recently?” Listen to learn and support him. Genuinely reinforce his comments, letting him take the lead.
If another person approaches to speak with you, ask that person to join you, not moving away. I’ve provided communication coaching to several pro basketball players who get “swarmed” when entering a room. This has become one of their favorite “plays” because they’ve made unexpectedly rich friendships, seen new sides in themselves - and made their world larger.
10. Keep a talisman of goodness near you
A glass prism rest on the window shelf in my study, sending rainbows across the room throughout the day, reminding me there’s always a way to nourish, to serve, not sabotage a situation, a relationship. It is my choice to ignore or to look for it.
Next to it is this poem:
Remember the many compartments of the heart, the seed of what is possible. So much of who we are is defined by the places we hold for each other. For it is not our ingenuity that sets us apart, but our capacity for love, the possibility our way will be lit by grace. Our hearts prisms, chiseling out the colors of pure light.
Friday, January 11, 2008
How Exhibitors Can Move More Attendees Closer to Buying
Q. What's the single, biggest change exhibitors can make
to move more prospects closer to a buying?
A. Exhibiting firms can make their most credible, "main differentiating benefit" the most obvious, prominent message in everything
they display, give away, or discuss.
Problem: Exhibiting staff rarely get to have a pivotal role in creating their exhibit, “uniform” clothing or collateral material.
If you are reading this article, you may be facing this situation. Read on and you'll find some ways to overcome the inadvertent barriers put in the way of your sales success.
First, consider these points:
1. Are you giving your prospects the single most important piece of information they most need to know to buy? How easy is it for them to see that information, and how credibly is it stated.
2. Exactly how can you help attendees make an informed choice and act sooner?
3. How many steps do even "warm" buyers take to complete the sale, from signing to delivery through possible training on the use of the product or service? How can you reduce that number?
4. Specifically, how do you help your buyers become obvious heroes to their significant decision makers at their work place, from their boss to the people they sell to and/or serve?
Don't bury the key reason to buy.
After walking through over 100 trade shows prior to speaking to exhibitors, I've discovered that the exhibitors' message is rarely the key headline prospective buyers most need to know. That essential message is the main differentiating benefit between an exhibitor's product or service and that of the top two or three alternative vendors, as the prospect most probably views their options.
Instead, exhibits and promotional materials usually give more prominence to the name of the product and/or the company.
Attendees rarely see or hear about an exhibitor's
main benefit first.
Benefits rarely "jump out" at attendees from the booth or collateral messages or the staff's explanation. Thus, exhibitors inadvertently hide their biggest benefit.
In most cases, features (how a product is constructed or its "capacity" or how it is operated) are still promoted more heavily than benefits (what the product does for the customer). This is not customer-centered, thoughtful marketing. The prospect has to do more work to make a fair comparison.
Exhibitors can offer succinct, specific, and easy-to-follow comparison sheets that do not insult the competition. One comparison sheet might "headline" the major benefits. Other back-up sheets can provide more detailed comparisons. Put a "human face" on the facts by providing customers' situational examples to illustrate the benefits.
Plus, exhibitors often attempt to build traffic to their booth with contests, drawings, or giveaway gadgets that don't relate to their main, differentiating benefit or even their product, so they don't get closer to their hottest prospects.
Further, staff's icebreaker comments are often general and not relevant to the reason to buy ("Having a good time?" "Want a free..?").
Unfortunately, those who staff an exhibit seldom get to be involved in the design of their exhibit or promotional materials - or even what they wear. They must accept the setting in which they sell, attempting to engage prospects as they pass with involving comments that state the main benefits verbally to attendees in a brief, involving way to pull them in rather than turn them off.
When companies don't make their main benefit easy to see and hear quickly, attendees must be deeply motivated to look and ask for the essential information they want.
Credible benefit statements increase the chances for a sale. A credible brand name then reinforces the reason to buy, not the other way around. Good benefit statements are vivid and specific examples, facts, and comparisons. Passersby are in one of three buying modes:
1. Seeking information to buy a certain kind of product for the first time and trying to select the best product
2. Considering changing vendors if they find a better product
3. "Trolling":
a. not buying now but seeing what is new for future reference
b. or without the budget or need and will never buy
Serious buyers most want to see and hear information regarding:
a. the main reason to buy at all and, if they do buy
b. the main reason they should buy from you over your closest competitors, as they see them.
26 Ways to Attract Serious Buyers to Your Booth
… and Move Them Closer to Buying
(Don’t forget to see the last two tips, now made possible
by new and free technology)
1. Draft and memorize a one-to-two-sentence top "differentiating benefit" statement, relative to your two closest competitors and without denigrating the competition. When you can weave it into conversation, you have created a shorter path to their buying process. Get tips on how by reading “Grab Their Attention”
2. Start with the specific benefit rather than building up to it with general background, so the listener will listen sooner and longer. The specific detail ("Product with the fewest parts that need replacement") proves the general benefit. The general statement ("We are the people who care") is less credible and less memorable.
3. Multiply attendees' positive exposures to your benefit in everything you say, display, point at, stand near, or offer.
4. Condense further to intensify attention. Be able to reduce that benefit to its essence in one vivid phrase, motto, slogan, or sentence. Get more ideas by reading “Speak English Like it Tastes Good”
5. Make your phrase sufficiently interesting and brief so they feel they're in charge. They'll be more likely to stay and ask you enough questions so you can recognize their main interests, level of knowledge, hot buttons, and decision-making process.
6. Offer "real life" situational examples. Cite relevant and diverse customers' experiences. Tell them what your customers actually said and did with your product or service that helped them, how.
7. Give no more than three supportive benefits.
8. Express each supportive benefit like a headline, a "billboard message" of no more than five to eight words.
9. Use everyday, non-jargon, and non-industry-specific language, even if the attendees might know the jargon. Could and would the disinterested spouse of the attendee or conference hall maintenance staff understand it?
10. The most credible proof of your benefits are third-party endorsements of three diverse customers who have little else in common other than their adoration of your product and their similarity with your prospect.
11. Display a satisfied client's quotes under each benefit on the booth and in promotional material -- preferably each in a different color and type face. When endorsements relate to a specific situation, change, vivid contrast, or improvement, their words are most credible and will be most memorable.
12. Yes! Remove all graphics and words and materials in the booth that do not relate to either the main benefit and (not more than three) supportive benefits, so attendees will be able to take in the information within 12-15 seconds, their average pause-to-scan time in such conditions. Really! Try it and you’ll become a believer in brevity for more selling power.
13. Display your main point and supportive points on the booth above the heads of the booth staff and attendees, so attendees' views are not blocked.
14. Booth visuals and words should guide attendees' eyes down a "path" from one message to the next.
15. Again, this is controversial except to those who’ve given up these unhelpful habits. Avoid opening references to weather, "Having fun?", freebies, drawings, or other non-benefit-related topics that distract and dilute your relationship with your prospect.
16. Verbally and visually make a "Conference Offer": more information; a time-limited or bundled product order price; consultation; or other vivid benefit to move them closer to a sale.
17. An attendee's attention span is shortened if you wear patterned or very detailed clothing or accessories (pin, necklace, tie, earrings) or other busy "body signage," especially on the upper half of your body.
18. For those who know your product (and you know that they are familiar with it):
a. Hand the person a gift (preferably one that does not prominently display your company or product name), while asking them: "May I give you this small gift for taking the time to answer two questions for me?"
b. Then ask, "What do you like best about our product or (service)?" Whatever is said aloud is then believed more deeply by the speaker.
c. Be a complete and supportive listener as they explain. Give uninterrupted eye contact, nod, or offer other responsive gestures that are natural for you.
d. When they have finished, ask, "Tell me more about that." As they elaborate, they move the topic closer to the top of their minds and they also become more:
- articulate and vivid
- deeply convinced about the reasons they've stated for liking your product.
The result? You've moved them closer to being fervent and articulate fans. They are more likely to talk themselves closer to a sale and voluntarily tell others why they like your product.
19. When you first meet a prospect, find the quality in them you can most like and admire and keep it uppermost in your mind as you talk with them. You are more likely to bring out that aspect of their personality when they are around you and less likely to react to their behaviors that irritate or otherwise bother you.
20. When you stand opposite someone, you are more likely to literally oppose them. Instead, "sidle" whenever possible.
Men instinctively "sidle" when together, shaking hands and then standing more or less side by side. Women instinctively continue to face each other or a man. When standing side-by-side, people feel more comfortable with each other, themselves, and their surroundings. They listen sooner and longer and are more inclined to agree with each other.
21. Do people sometimes stop listening before you stop talking?
Here’s help. Get people to remember what you say, even if they are not trying to. Here are two successful ways to "lodge" your message in their minds, even if they were NOT actively listening:
A. People remember more and feel more intensely -- for good and for bad -- when they are in motion. Say your main points while you're turning, shaking hands, demonstrating a product, or pointing to something, when a part of the booth is in motion, and/or while the visitor is reaching for something.
Here are two guides to the kinds of motion that are most memorable:
a) Things are most memorable when you're both in motion, next most memorable when the other person is in motion even if you aren't, third most memorable when you are in motion, and fourth most memorable when you are both watching something or someone in motion.
b) The more dimensions of motion involved (up, down, left, right, forward, and back), the more memorable the experience. Ways to involve motion to reinforce memory include exhibit demonstrations, staff gestures and walking, video vignettes, and parts of the exhibit.
B. Relate your benefits to THEIR three "core life experiences":
• family (theirs, yours, or a metaphorical family of services or products)
• where they work or have worked, or
• where they live or have lived.
Here’s the steps:
a) First refer to one of their currently pressing interests (not your product).
b) Then refer to how you two share a common interest in the topic.
c) And then to how it relates to you and your product's main benefit.
This method is called the "You-Us-Me" approach. Here's an example:
1. "I gather you are the expert in... "YOU"
2. and that by discussing this with you... "US"
3. I'll get more ideas about if and how our products can best serve people in your situation.... "ME"
22. To maintain rapport, use specific, emotion-laden language when stating the positive, and report the negative neutrally -- "just the facts." Your instincts are to do the reverse, by the way.
23. Begin your comments with a direct response to the prospect's last comment until they feel heard instead of working up to your response with other background information they might not want to hear. Characterize your benefits in direct response to:
a. A specific, negative "hot button" or problem they've expressed, which you can make better or solve, or
b. Some strong positive preference the prospect has just expressed.
24. Offer the tradeshow-related map they’ll want to keep and share
Google offers the technology tools for you to “mash-up” or overlay one of their maps with the key points of interest for people, including your kind of customers. For example, you could overlay a map with the customers’ sites that use your services or key locations that matter for that meeting’s members.
What’s hot about this new option is that you can mention this free service in your promotional material, attracting prospective and current customers to your web site, to which you’ve linked the customized map. Learn more at http://www.google.com/apis/maps
25. Make your customers the stars of the tradeshow who can attract others to your Web site
While we’re talking tech, you might ask your customers, as they visit yoru booth if you can interview them regarding what they most like about your product, and offer those highlights as a downloadable podcast from your web site and as part of your story on your blog about how you enjoyed seeing customers at the conference and what they had to say.
And, since people love to see and share photos of themselves and their friends, why not take digital photos of customers, store them for free in Flikr and link to each one as you describe each customer in your blog, then send them each featured person an email with “See your photo at (name of tradeshow).”
26. Closing Tip: Familiarity Breeds Acceptance
Continuously nurture your best prospects, seeding in their minds your main and vividly stated differentiating benefit and providing ideas and help at "non-sales" times.
Make every aspect of your behavior, booth, and promotional material repeat, reflect, and reinforce that benefit before, during, right after the conference, and later, again to your hottest prospects.
~*~
Bring Kare Anderson to offer a session for your exhibitors
Let Kare support your exhibitors’ success by offering her session after they have set up and at a time when the trade show is not open to attendees. How about a "coffee + rolls" breakfast session?
Here's the description:
"Move More Prospects Closer to Buying:
40 Tips in 50 Minutes"
In this no-fluff, idea-packed session, gut instincts expert Kare Anderson literally demonstrates specific ways you can move, speak, appear and use your booth and brochures to attract and involve prospects. At over 100 tradeshows, even the most experienced exhibitors raved about this program.
Learn how to keep hot prospects involved, even when low prospects dominate conversation; ways to make more parts of your booth, brochures and staff image complement rather than clash and confuse; three fresh ways increase booth traffic; create the “elevator” speech that sticks in their minds; how "sidling" builds camaraderie; booth configurations ambush or intimidate; clothing and booth patterns that shorten attention span; sensory “emotional involvers” and the pulling power of specific fax/back and email offers.
to move more prospects closer to a buying?
A. Exhibiting firms can make their most credible, "main differentiating benefit" the most obvious, prominent message in everything
they display, give away, or discuss.
Problem: Exhibiting staff rarely get to have a pivotal role in creating their exhibit, “uniform” clothing or collateral material.
If you are reading this article, you may be facing this situation. Read on and you'll find some ways to overcome the inadvertent barriers put in the way of your sales success.
First, consider these points:
1. Are you giving your prospects the single most important piece of information they most need to know to buy? How easy is it for them to see that information, and how credibly is it stated.
2. Exactly how can you help attendees make an informed choice and act sooner?
3. How many steps do even "warm" buyers take to complete the sale, from signing to delivery through possible training on the use of the product or service? How can you reduce that number?
4. Specifically, how do you help your buyers become obvious heroes to their significant decision makers at their work place, from their boss to the people they sell to and/or serve?
Don't bury the key reason to buy.
After walking through over 100 trade shows prior to speaking to exhibitors, I've discovered that the exhibitors' message is rarely the key headline prospective buyers most need to know. That essential message is the main differentiating benefit between an exhibitor's product or service and that of the top two or three alternative vendors, as the prospect most probably views their options.
Instead, exhibits and promotional materials usually give more prominence to the name of the product and/or the company.
Attendees rarely see or hear about an exhibitor's
main benefit first.
Benefits rarely "jump out" at attendees from the booth or collateral messages or the staff's explanation. Thus, exhibitors inadvertently hide their biggest benefit.
In most cases, features (how a product is constructed or its "capacity" or how it is operated) are still promoted more heavily than benefits (what the product does for the customer). This is not customer-centered, thoughtful marketing. The prospect has to do more work to make a fair comparison.
Exhibitors can offer succinct, specific, and easy-to-follow comparison sheets that do not insult the competition. One comparison sheet might "headline" the major benefits. Other back-up sheets can provide more detailed comparisons. Put a "human face" on the facts by providing customers' situational examples to illustrate the benefits.
Plus, exhibitors often attempt to build traffic to their booth with contests, drawings, or giveaway gadgets that don't relate to their main, differentiating benefit or even their product, so they don't get closer to their hottest prospects.
Further, staff's icebreaker comments are often general and not relevant to the reason to buy ("Having a good time?" "Want a free..?").
Unfortunately, those who staff an exhibit seldom get to be involved in the design of their exhibit or promotional materials - or even what they wear. They must accept the setting in which they sell, attempting to engage prospects as they pass with involving comments that state the main benefits verbally to attendees in a brief, involving way to pull them in rather than turn them off.
When companies don't make their main benefit easy to see and hear quickly, attendees must be deeply motivated to look and ask for the essential information they want.
Credible benefit statements increase the chances for a sale. A credible brand name then reinforces the reason to buy, not the other way around. Good benefit statements are vivid and specific examples, facts, and comparisons. Passersby are in one of three buying modes:
1. Seeking information to buy a certain kind of product for the first time and trying to select the best product
2. Considering changing vendors if they find a better product
3. "Trolling":
a. not buying now but seeing what is new for future reference
b. or without the budget or need and will never buy
Serious buyers most want to see and hear information regarding:
a. the main reason to buy at all and, if they do buy
b. the main reason they should buy from you over your closest competitors, as they see them.
26 Ways to Attract Serious Buyers to Your Booth
… and Move Them Closer to Buying
(Don’t forget to see the last two tips, now made possible
by new and free technology)
1. Draft and memorize a one-to-two-sentence top "differentiating benefit" statement, relative to your two closest competitors and without denigrating the competition. When you can weave it into conversation, you have created a shorter path to their buying process. Get tips on how by reading “Grab Their Attention”
2. Start with the specific benefit rather than building up to it with general background, so the listener will listen sooner and longer. The specific detail ("Product with the fewest parts that need replacement") proves the general benefit. The general statement ("We are the people who care") is less credible and less memorable.
3. Multiply attendees' positive exposures to your benefit in everything you say, display, point at, stand near, or offer.
4. Condense further to intensify attention. Be able to reduce that benefit to its essence in one vivid phrase, motto, slogan, or sentence. Get more ideas by reading “Speak English Like it Tastes Good”
5. Make your phrase sufficiently interesting and brief so they feel they're in charge. They'll be more likely to stay and ask you enough questions so you can recognize their main interests, level of knowledge, hot buttons, and decision-making process.
6. Offer "real life" situational examples. Cite relevant and diverse customers' experiences. Tell them what your customers actually said and did with your product or service that helped them, how.
7. Give no more than three supportive benefits.
8. Express each supportive benefit like a headline, a "billboard message" of no more than five to eight words.
9. Use everyday, non-jargon, and non-industry-specific language, even if the attendees might know the jargon. Could and would the disinterested spouse of the attendee or conference hall maintenance staff understand it?
10. The most credible proof of your benefits are third-party endorsements of three diverse customers who have little else in common other than their adoration of your product and their similarity with your prospect.
11. Display a satisfied client's quotes under each benefit on the booth and in promotional material -- preferably each in a different color and type face. When endorsements relate to a specific situation, change, vivid contrast, or improvement, their words are most credible and will be most memorable.
12. Yes! Remove all graphics and words and materials in the booth that do not relate to either the main benefit and (not more than three) supportive benefits, so attendees will be able to take in the information within 12-15 seconds, their average pause-to-scan time in such conditions. Really! Try it and you’ll become a believer in brevity for more selling power.
13. Display your main point and supportive points on the booth above the heads of the booth staff and attendees, so attendees' views are not blocked.
14. Booth visuals and words should guide attendees' eyes down a "path" from one message to the next.
15. Again, this is controversial except to those who’ve given up these unhelpful habits. Avoid opening references to weather, "Having fun?", freebies, drawings, or other non-benefit-related topics that distract and dilute your relationship with your prospect.
16. Verbally and visually make a "Conference Offer": more information; a time-limited or bundled product order price; consultation; or other vivid benefit to move them closer to a sale.
17. An attendee's attention span is shortened if you wear patterned or very detailed clothing or accessories (pin, necklace, tie, earrings) or other busy "body signage," especially on the upper half of your body.
18. For those who know your product (and you know that they are familiar with it):
a. Hand the person a gift (preferably one that does not prominently display your company or product name), while asking them: "May I give you this small gift for taking the time to answer two questions for me?"
b. Then ask, "What do you like best about our product or (service)?" Whatever is said aloud is then believed more deeply by the speaker.
c. Be a complete and supportive listener as they explain. Give uninterrupted eye contact, nod, or offer other responsive gestures that are natural for you.
d. When they have finished, ask, "Tell me more about that." As they elaborate, they move the topic closer to the top of their minds and they also become more:
- articulate and vivid
- deeply convinced about the reasons they've stated for liking your product.
The result? You've moved them closer to being fervent and articulate fans. They are more likely to talk themselves closer to a sale and voluntarily tell others why they like your product.
19. When you first meet a prospect, find the quality in them you can most like and admire and keep it uppermost in your mind as you talk with them. You are more likely to bring out that aspect of their personality when they are around you and less likely to react to their behaviors that irritate or otherwise bother you.
20. When you stand opposite someone, you are more likely to literally oppose them. Instead, "sidle" whenever possible.
Men instinctively "sidle" when together, shaking hands and then standing more or less side by side. Women instinctively continue to face each other or a man. When standing side-by-side, people feel more comfortable with each other, themselves, and their surroundings. They listen sooner and longer and are more inclined to agree with each other.
21. Do people sometimes stop listening before you stop talking?
Here’s help. Get people to remember what you say, even if they are not trying to. Here are two successful ways to "lodge" your message in their minds, even if they were NOT actively listening:
A. People remember more and feel more intensely -- for good and for bad -- when they are in motion. Say your main points while you're turning, shaking hands, demonstrating a product, or pointing to something, when a part of the booth is in motion, and/or while the visitor is reaching for something.
Here are two guides to the kinds of motion that are most memorable:
a) Things are most memorable when you're both in motion, next most memorable when the other person is in motion even if you aren't, third most memorable when you are in motion, and fourth most memorable when you are both watching something or someone in motion.
b) The more dimensions of motion involved (up, down, left, right, forward, and back), the more memorable the experience. Ways to involve motion to reinforce memory include exhibit demonstrations, staff gestures and walking, video vignettes, and parts of the exhibit.
B. Relate your benefits to THEIR three "core life experiences":
• family (theirs, yours, or a metaphorical family of services or products)
• where they work or have worked, or
• where they live or have lived.
Here’s the steps:
a) First refer to one of their currently pressing interests (not your product).
b) Then refer to how you two share a common interest in the topic.
c) And then to how it relates to you and your product's main benefit.
This method is called the "You-Us-Me" approach. Here's an example:
1. "I gather you are the expert in... "YOU"
2. and that by discussing this with you... "US"
3. I'll get more ideas about if and how our products can best serve people in your situation.... "ME"
22. To maintain rapport, use specific, emotion-laden language when stating the positive, and report the negative neutrally -- "just the facts." Your instincts are to do the reverse, by the way.
23. Begin your comments with a direct response to the prospect's last comment until they feel heard instead of working up to your response with other background information they might not want to hear. Characterize your benefits in direct response to:
a. A specific, negative "hot button" or problem they've expressed, which you can make better or solve, or
b. Some strong positive preference the prospect has just expressed.
24. Offer the tradeshow-related map they’ll want to keep and share
Google offers the technology tools for you to “mash-up” or overlay one of their maps with the key points of interest for people, including your kind of customers. For example, you could overlay a map with the customers’ sites that use your services or key locations that matter for that meeting’s members.
What’s hot about this new option is that you can mention this free service in your promotional material, attracting prospective and current customers to your web site, to which you’ve linked the customized map. Learn more at http://www.google.com/apis/maps
25. Make your customers the stars of the tradeshow who can attract others to your Web site
While we’re talking tech, you might ask your customers, as they visit yoru booth if you can interview them regarding what they most like about your product, and offer those highlights as a downloadable podcast from your web site and as part of your story on your blog about how you enjoyed seeing customers at the conference and what they had to say.
And, since people love to see and share photos of themselves and their friends, why not take digital photos of customers, store them for free in Flikr
26. Closing Tip: Familiarity Breeds Acceptance
Continuously nurture your best prospects, seeding in their minds your main and vividly stated differentiating benefit and providing ideas and help at "non-sales" times.
Make every aspect of your behavior, booth, and promotional material repeat, reflect, and reinforce that benefit before, during, right after the conference, and later, again to your hottest prospects.
~*~
Bring Kare Anderson to offer a session for your exhibitors
Let Kare support your exhibitors’ success by offering her session after they have set up and at a time when the trade show is not open to attendees. How about a "coffee + rolls" breakfast session?
Here's the description:
"Move More Prospects Closer to Buying:
40 Tips in 50 Minutes"
In this no-fluff, idea-packed session, gut instincts expert Kare Anderson literally demonstrates specific ways you can move, speak, appear and use your booth and brochures to attract and involve prospects. At over 100 tradeshows, even the most experienced exhibitors raved about this program.
Learn how to keep hot prospects involved, even when low prospects dominate conversation; ways to make more parts of your booth, brochures and staff image complement rather than clash and confuse; three fresh ways increase booth traffic; create the “elevator” speech that sticks in their minds; how "sidling" builds camaraderie; booth configurations ambush or intimidate; clothing and booth patterns that shorten attention span; sensory “emotional involvers” and the pulling power of specific fax/back and email offers.
How Event Planners, Exhibitors, Author/Speakers and Others Can Profitably Partner
See what these snapshots of success have in common:
• “Make Every Moment Count” is the title of a CD that a pharmaceutical company gave away at their exhibit booth at two major conferences. Half of the CD covered the company’s new product highlights and *how-to’s*; the other half featured tips from a speaker at those conferences. The gift was announced with on-the-seat cards during the speaker’s sessions.
• A fulfillment house inserts a speaker’s “Hot Tips” sheets on top of the informational updates that the fulfillment house mails out on behalf of their corporate clients in the fields of insurance, credit and healthcare. The tips on conflict resolution and persuasion are a welcome relief from the highly technical reading below it. The speaker provides the fulfillment house with camera-ready tips sheets for each corporate client, who pays for printing their sheet. The fulfillment house offers the sheets to their clients as a bonus service. Each sheet has a line at the top, “(name of company) supports your personal success.”
• Kingfisher, the largest beer producer in India introduced an upscale beer for women. Hanging from a gold cord around the neck of each bottle is a card entitled, “Live Well” that promotes a free 3” x 3” book of 100 lifestyle tips for women buyers I wrote called Beauty Inside Out. Buyers get the book from their store in India when they turn in ten bottle caps. I co-authored the book with a popular Indian woman journalist, introduced to me byy the president of Kingfisher beer, Vijay Mallya (who lives a week a month in Sausalito where I live).
These are examples of profitable partnerships among people from different industries or professions. Like all successful cross-promotions, they are aimed at better reaching and/or serving a mutual market. Successful cross-promotions can build trust, visibility, genuine value and camaraderie. Unsuccessful joint promotions can create irritation and lose credibility.
Some speakers are avid cross-promoters. Several have written about partnering and joint promotions including Jeff Slutsky and Ed Rigsbee. Some informally or formally share speaking leads. Some refer to each other in their speeches, articles, ezines, web sites, books and media interviews. Some sell each other’s products. That’s natural among friends and esteemed colleagues.
To truly stand out in an over-advertised world, some speakers are beginning to partner with people and organizations a step or two outside the meeting industry.
For your partnering opportunities, look more closely at your key stakeholders, including your “hot list” of fans who have heard you speak, meeting planners, speakers bureaus, exhibitors at trade shows where you appear, other speakers, vendors who support the industry.
Now look at the markets and organizations that are important to them. In each case, you may have a way to partner with a stakeholder - or with an organization that is important to that stakeholder - to better reach or serve one of their markets.
Your “product” is your message, delivered in person, or in some other package.
More credible than traditional advertising, our helpful and inspiring stories, tips and examples can naturally attract prospects to us and help our cross-promoting partners offer extra value or gain new visibility.
For five years now I’ve been speaking to clients about joining forces with people outside their industry or profession to offer more dramatic media and customer-attracting cross-promotions.
People are often uncomfortable with creating such partnerships because they are accustomed to talking with the people in the world they know. Only when a competitor launches an out-of-the-box cross-promotion will others offer copy cat variations.
Do you speak to manufacturers?
What if your tips appeared on their packaging, along with your contact information?
What if your product was inside the package of a big ticket consumer product? For example, techno-savvy speakers’ helpful ideas could add a human touch if they appeared on or inside computer hardware or software packages.
Speakers to dentists might approach Sonicare and Colgate to co-brand and co-sponsor a national “What Makes You Smile?” contest for healthy, humorous one-liners. The co-sponsors could announce the contest to the healthcare, womens’ and lifestyle media and send this media the contest results on the same day they were announced at the national American Dental Association convention. ADA attendees could get their free booklet of the winning collection at the sponsors’ booths.
Lexus is considering a bundled gift to be left on the front seat for car buyers. The gift would be a speaker/singer’s CD, “It’s a Beautiful Life”, tucked in the see-through packaging for a floral bouquet, provided free by an online national florist, with a follow-up offer on the attached gift card.
The speaker has suggested the cross-promotion to her two clients, Lexus and the florist.
For many years, speaker Bob Popyk has provided sales publications for retailers and other distributors of high ticket consumer products, ranging from boats to musical instruments. His clients are the manufacturers of those products. All these publications pull people to his “Creative Selling” magazine.
Agilent Technologies sponsored my presentation for their clients and prospects. Each attendee received a card pack with technology tips on one side and my communication tips on the other. The bottom card lists Agilent Technologies’ email address for the “50 follow-up tips from Kare.” For the use of my tips I received an over-printing of 400 extra card packs, printed with just my tips on one side. I also receive a list of the emails from those who asked for the 50 extra tips.
Offer leaders in your niche markets the opportunity to co-author articles. Writing an article from scratch is more daunting than revising one for a particular industry or profession.
Make it easier for the leaders in the markets in which you speak to collaborate with you. Once you have worked with someone who is well-respected, offer to email some “template” articles from which they can choose.
Email the articles they select, with places marked to insert examples and quotes from their industry. Include brief instructions for completing the revision. Ask that they send their version back to you for your final approval. Offer to submit the article to their industry and professional publication(s).
Perhaps you’ve produced a short article, top ten list, quiz, opinion poll, “before and after” photos or checklist that might interest the lifestyle or business editors of local newspapers IF it had a local angle. Consider how one of your stakeholders on your database (meeting attendee, exhibitor, company in their headquarters’ city) might benefit from adding their angle and submitting it to their local paper.
Now, more than ever, people are open to ideas about how to capture attention, offer genuine value without price-cutting and reach new markets.
Your cross-promotions can demonstrate your care for customers and your cutting edge capacity to offer extra value to them.
• “Make Every Moment Count” is the title of a CD that a pharmaceutical company gave away at their exhibit booth at two major conferences. Half of the CD covered the company’s new product highlights and *how-to’s*; the other half featured tips from a speaker at those conferences. The gift was announced with on-the-seat cards during the speaker’s sessions.
• A fulfillment house inserts a speaker’s “Hot Tips” sheets on top of the informational updates that the fulfillment house mails out on behalf of their corporate clients in the fields of insurance, credit and healthcare. The tips on conflict resolution and persuasion are a welcome relief from the highly technical reading below it. The speaker provides the fulfillment house with camera-ready tips sheets for each corporate client, who pays for printing their sheet. The fulfillment house offers the sheets to their clients as a bonus service. Each sheet has a line at the top, “(name of company) supports your personal success.”
• Kingfisher, the largest beer producer in India introduced an upscale beer for women. Hanging from a gold cord around the neck of each bottle is a card entitled, “Live Well” that promotes a free 3” x 3” book of 100 lifestyle tips for women buyers I wrote called Beauty Inside Out. Buyers get the book from their store in India when they turn in ten bottle caps. I co-authored the book with a popular Indian woman journalist, introduced to me byy the president of Kingfisher beer, Vijay Mallya (who lives a week a month in Sausalito where I live).
These are examples of profitable partnerships among people from different industries or professions. Like all successful cross-promotions, they are aimed at better reaching and/or serving a mutual market. Successful cross-promotions can build trust, visibility, genuine value and camaraderie. Unsuccessful joint promotions can create irritation and lose credibility.
Some speakers are avid cross-promoters. Several have written about partnering and joint promotions including Jeff Slutsky and Ed Rigsbee. Some informally or formally share speaking leads. Some refer to each other in their speeches, articles, ezines, web sites, books and media interviews. Some sell each other’s products. That’s natural among friends and esteemed colleagues.
To truly stand out in an over-advertised world, some speakers are beginning to partner with people and organizations a step or two outside the meeting industry.
For your partnering opportunities, look more closely at your key stakeholders, including your “hot list” of fans who have heard you speak, meeting planners, speakers bureaus, exhibitors at trade shows where you appear, other speakers, vendors who support the industry.
Now look at the markets and organizations that are important to them. In each case, you may have a way to partner with a stakeholder - or with an organization that is important to that stakeholder - to better reach or serve one of their markets.
Your “product” is your message, delivered in person, or in some other package.
More credible than traditional advertising, our helpful and inspiring stories, tips and examples can naturally attract prospects to us and help our cross-promoting partners offer extra value or gain new visibility.
For five years now I’ve been speaking to clients about joining forces with people outside their industry or profession to offer more dramatic media and customer-attracting cross-promotions.
People are often uncomfortable with creating such partnerships because they are accustomed to talking with the people in the world they know. Only when a competitor launches an out-of-the-box cross-promotion will others offer copy cat variations.
Do you speak to manufacturers?
What if your tips appeared on their packaging, along with your contact information?
What if your product was inside the package of a big ticket consumer product? For example, techno-savvy speakers’ helpful ideas could add a human touch if they appeared on or inside computer hardware or software packages.
Speakers to dentists might approach Sonicare and Colgate to co-brand and co-sponsor a national “What Makes You Smile?” contest for healthy, humorous one-liners. The co-sponsors could announce the contest to the healthcare, womens’ and lifestyle media and send this media the contest results on the same day they were announced at the national American Dental Association convention. ADA attendees could get their free booklet of the winning collection at the sponsors’ booths.
Lexus is considering a bundled gift to be left on the front seat for car buyers. The gift would be a speaker/singer’s CD, “It’s a Beautiful Life”, tucked in the see-through packaging for a floral bouquet, provided free by an online national florist, with a follow-up offer on the attached gift card.
The speaker has suggested the cross-promotion to her two clients, Lexus and the florist.
For many years, speaker Bob Popyk has provided sales publications for retailers and other distributors of high ticket consumer products, ranging from boats to musical instruments. His clients are the manufacturers of those products. All these publications pull people to his “Creative Selling” magazine.
Agilent Technologies sponsored my presentation for their clients and prospects. Each attendee received a card pack with technology tips on one side and my communication tips on the other. The bottom card lists Agilent Technologies’ email address for the “50 follow-up tips from Kare.” For the use of my tips I received an over-printing of 400 extra card packs, printed with just my tips on one side. I also receive a list of the emails from those who asked for the 50 extra tips.
Offer leaders in your niche markets the opportunity to co-author articles. Writing an article from scratch is more daunting than revising one for a particular industry or profession.
Make it easier for the leaders in the markets in which you speak to collaborate with you. Once you have worked with someone who is well-respected, offer to email some “template” articles from which they can choose.
Email the articles they select, with places marked to insert examples and quotes from their industry. Include brief instructions for completing the revision. Ask that they send their version back to you for your final approval. Offer to submit the article to their industry and professional publication(s).
Perhaps you’ve produced a short article, top ten list, quiz, opinion poll, “before and after” photos or checklist that might interest the lifestyle or business editors of local newspapers IF it had a local angle. Consider how one of your stakeholders on your database (meeting attendee, exhibitor, company in their headquarters’ city) might benefit from adding their angle and submitting it to their local paper.
Now, more than ever, people are open to ideas about how to capture attention, offer genuine value without price-cutting and reach new markets.
Your cross-promotions can demonstrate your care for customers and your cutting edge capacity to offer extra value to them.
Attract More Customers While Spending Less ...
...with the right partners and methods. Here's how others have profitably partnered:
1. Offer the Special Extra (From Your Partner) That Tips Customers Towards Choosing You
Who knows how many people chose to stay at the Ritz Carlton rather than at another luxury hotel because of an added thrill - complimentary use of a brand new Mercedes during their stay?
Ritz Carlton became the top-of-mind choice with their kind of (upscale) customers. Mercedes warmed up prospective buyers the best way – getting them to take a drive while relaxed on vacation in a beautiful area.
The bonus benefit? Priceless media coverage of their "first-ever" offer.
Want to spend less time selling and promoting and more time doing the work you love?
You can. Forge a partnership other reputable organizations that serve the same kind of customers. Together you can generate stand-out value and visibility.
Act now, before your competitor grabs the best partners and uses the most profitable method.
Here's more quick snapshots of real life successful partnering methods that you can adapt to get your business growing faster …
2. Co-brand a Product to Gain a Positive Introduction to Your Partner’s Customers
That’s how Applebee’s and Weight Watchers attracted new customers without advertising more. When Weight Watchers designed and branded low-cal menu items for Applebee’s, followers of their diet program could eat out without guilt, at Applebee’s. Applebee’s fans got a first-hand introduction to Weight Watchers.
3. Become a One-of-a-Kind Business (With Partners’ Involvement)
Over 80 U.S. campus newspapers wrote favorably about a hip new Dutch fashion label called 50/50. After the years of controversy about clothiers’ use of sweatshops, it was the first time many of the students had seen a favorable story about clothes manufacturing.
50/50 designs clothing from Salvation Army cast-offs. It shares profits with The Salvation Army whose blankets, curtains and dungarees eventually show up on racks as skirts, pants and belts, each accompanied by a flyer with Salvation Army's and 50/50’s message: people need each other and nobody should be excluded from society.
4. Demonstrate a Partner’s Product in a Way That Attracts More Interest for You Both While Reducing Your Overhead
That's how T-shirt designer Tami Minatelli could exhibit at nine street fairs last summer without paying for her booth space. A manufacturer of a new, unique, no-stain suntan lotion paid for Tami’s booth. Because she wore their lotion and her T-shirts, with a sign above her head, describing her original painting-on-cotton method and the lotion’s “do no harm” guarantee. Next to burn protection, that’s the biggest concern of people who use suntan lotions.
5. Get Introduced to Prospective Buyers Where Your Competition Isn't Even in Sight
That’s why those who fly on Delta Air Lines airlines now see cabin interiors and flight attendant uniforms created by clothing designer Kate Spade. How can you display or use each other’s products and services?
6. Become a Bigger Customer Magnet by Joining Forces to Offer More Helpful Tips Than Your Competitors
That’s why, when pillow-maker, Leo Hollander decided to drop private labeling work in favor of launching his own brand, he recruited complementary partners. On his "Live Comfortably” web site, he provides articles by a feng shui expert, a chiropractor, and a color specialist. Result? He boosted all partners’ visibility and credibility – in front of their mutual market of customers.
7. Deepen Your Customers Emotional Bond With You,
in How You Support a Local Cause – With Them
A month after Hurricane Charley and tropical storm Bonnie, when a storm the size of Texas pummeled parts of Florida, their *neighbors* in Florida and Georgia were given a small way to help with storm relief efforts.
When they shopped at Winn-Dixie grocery stores they could "even it up" at the checkout counter. That is, they can round up their food bill to the next dollar or more, with the extra change going to the local Red Cross chapter for relief efforts.
Many of the retailers and non-profits who worked together forged a second alliance faster (they knew each other better) to create bus caravans for their food-direct-to-Katrina-folks.
8. *Give Your Niche Market Something They'll Love to Talk About*
To reach men in bars, sports arenas and restaurants, advertisers used the Wizmark, otherwise called an "interactive urinal communicator.” As men step up to the urinal they activate, with the slightest movement, a sensor that prompts red lights to flash, crunchy guitar chords to sound and a 30 second commercial to appear. Yes women, the male response has been positive.
9. Recruit More Partners to Attract More Customers at Less Cost – Together
Last Valentine’s Day, several neighborhood businesses including a womens’ medical clinic, florist, health food store, clothing boutique, shopper newspaper, museum store, gym, bookstore and beauty salon joined forces for a month-long promotion to attract and serve women, especially those 30 and older.
The bookstore hosted a series of “Beauty Inside Out” - themed series of in-store demonstrations and mini-seminars each led by a manager of one of the participating businesses and highlighting a book collection and the local partners’ related products and services.
Each presenter provided a handout that included reference to at least one of the other partnering organizations, plus a joint offer of services with one of them.
As well, each presenter wrote a guest column (based on their presentation) for the local shopper paper, with the author’s follow-up offer and e-mail noted at the bottom of the article. Of course each column author quoted partners in this mutually beneficial alliance.
10. *Offer Special Touches That Your Competition Doesn't*
That’s how guests at several Holiday Inn Express motels can now enjoy Kohler’s new multi-function showerhead and spa bath.
11. Become a Bigger Customer Magnet – Together
That’s what happens when pediatricians join forces with pizza store managers school principals, city health clinic directors and others to better reach and serve their common base of customers: families with young children?
Together, they did what they could not have accomplished on their own. They offered a highly valued, emotionally-loaded and media-attracting service AND increase foot traffic into their stores and offices: "I Got Shot" free immunizations for kids on Saturdays just before school started.
Pediatricians gave immunization shots at convenient times in a roomy, cheerful childrens' store, with a party atmosphere where the kids were the center of attention. Parents heard about the offer through all the participating outlets and received free snack coupons after the kids received their shots so they could reward their children with a snack from a nearby store. Partners could provide better, more news-catching service at less cost - and inspire greater community and customer loyalty.
12. Involve Your Cause Partner in Making Purchase of Your Product Good for a Community Cause
That's how firefighters in one town got a badly-needed but expensive piece of equipment, a deluge gun, without asking their cash-strapped city council for a single dime.
Here's how. Business was slow all over their town. The firefighters were getting nowhere when they asked for donations from business owners experiencing a weak economy.
Yet when they approached the manager of a local pizzeria, he said he had an idea about how to raise more money – together. "Here's what we can do. Pick a Wednesday, say four weeks from today for an “Fire-Fighting Pizza” party here. I make $500 or so on Wednesdays. On that day, after we sell $500 worth, every dollar after that I'll split sales 50/50 with you. You can raise more money than you just asked me for."
The firefighters loved the challenge. They prepared banners and asked permission from the local supermarket and gas stations to put them up on their outside walls. They had smaller signs and announcements printed for free by the local copy shop with a bright red *donated by * credit line to the copy shop.
The headline on the signs and flyers read, “Eat at Pizza Hut. Save a Local Life”. They visited offices complexes, even those with signs that read "No soliciting." (Who's going to kick out the fire department, right?) They went to apartment complexes, video rental outlets, grade and high schools. They put flyers and signs everywhere. Once people heard about their cause, handing out flyers was like giving away candy. The radio morning DJ did an on-air interview with two firefighters. The shopper newspaper ran a story with photos of firefighters holding up a sing while stand at the back of their fire engine.
When the Wednesday‚ comes around, the pizzeria is packed from noon through midnight. They made enough money to get the Deluge Gun. Most importantly ˆ it was a fair partnership because everyone contributed, so participants are likely to want to work together again.
Bottom Line Benefit of Partnering – the Smart Ways:
SmartPartnerships generate a profitable payoff for all partners because, at the very least, they get a credible introduction to each other's customers.
Read SmartPartnering to learn more methods, steps, pitfalls to avoid and success stories.
1. Offer the Special Extra (From Your Partner) That Tips Customers Towards Choosing You
Who knows how many people chose to stay at the Ritz Carlton rather than at another luxury hotel because of an added thrill - complimentary use of a brand new Mercedes during their stay?
Ritz Carlton became the top-of-mind choice with their kind of (upscale) customers. Mercedes warmed up prospective buyers the best way – getting them to take a drive while relaxed on vacation in a beautiful area.
The bonus benefit? Priceless media coverage of their "first-ever" offer.
Want to spend less time selling and promoting and more time doing the work you love?
You can. Forge a partnership other reputable organizations that serve the same kind of customers. Together you can generate stand-out value and visibility.
Act now, before your competitor grabs the best partners and uses the most profitable method.
Here's more quick snapshots of real life successful partnering methods that you can adapt to get your business growing faster …
2. Co-brand a Product to Gain a Positive Introduction to Your Partner’s Customers
That’s how Applebee’s and Weight Watchers attracted new customers without advertising more. When Weight Watchers designed and branded low-cal menu items for Applebee’s, followers of their diet program could eat out without guilt, at Applebee’s. Applebee’s fans got a first-hand introduction to Weight Watchers.
3. Become a One-of-a-Kind Business (With Partners’ Involvement)
Over 80 U.S. campus newspapers wrote favorably about a hip new Dutch fashion label called 50/50. After the years of controversy about clothiers’ use of sweatshops, it was the first time many of the students had seen a favorable story about clothes manufacturing.
50/50 designs clothing from Salvation Army cast-offs. It shares profits with The Salvation Army whose blankets, curtains and dungarees eventually show up on racks as skirts, pants and belts, each accompanied by a flyer with Salvation Army's and 50/50’s message: people need each other and nobody should be excluded from society.
4. Demonstrate a Partner’s Product in a Way That Attracts More Interest for You Both While Reducing Your Overhead
That's how T-shirt designer Tami Minatelli could exhibit at nine street fairs last summer without paying for her booth space. A manufacturer of a new, unique, no-stain suntan lotion paid for Tami’s booth. Because she wore their lotion and her T-shirts, with a sign above her head, describing her original painting-on-cotton method and the lotion’s “do no harm” guarantee. Next to burn protection, that’s the biggest concern of people who use suntan lotions.
5. Get Introduced to Prospective Buyers Where Your Competition Isn't Even in Sight
That’s why those who fly on Delta Air Lines airlines now see cabin interiors and flight attendant uniforms created by clothing designer Kate Spade. How can you display or use each other’s products and services?
6. Become a Bigger Customer Magnet by Joining Forces to Offer More Helpful Tips Than Your Competitors
That’s why, when pillow-maker, Leo Hollander decided to drop private labeling work in favor of launching his own brand, he recruited complementary partners. On his "Live Comfortably” web site, he provides articles by a feng shui expert, a chiropractor, and a color specialist. Result? He boosted all partners’ visibility and credibility – in front of their mutual market of customers.
7. Deepen Your Customers Emotional Bond With You,
in How You Support a Local Cause – With Them
A month after Hurricane Charley and tropical storm Bonnie, when a storm the size of Texas pummeled parts of Florida, their *neighbors* in Florida and Georgia were given a small way to help with storm relief efforts.
When they shopped at Winn-Dixie grocery stores they could "even it up" at the checkout counter. That is, they can round up their food bill to the next dollar or more, with the extra change going to the local Red Cross chapter for relief efforts.
Many of the retailers and non-profits who worked together forged a second alliance faster (they knew each other better) to create bus caravans for their food-direct-to-Katrina-folks.
8. *Give Your Niche Market Something They'll Love to Talk About*
To reach men in bars, sports arenas and restaurants, advertisers used the Wizmark, otherwise called an "interactive urinal communicator.” As men step up to the urinal they activate, with the slightest movement, a sensor that prompts red lights to flash, crunchy guitar chords to sound and a 30 second commercial to appear. Yes women, the male response has been positive.
9. Recruit More Partners to Attract More Customers at Less Cost – Together
Last Valentine’s Day, several neighborhood businesses including a womens’ medical clinic, florist, health food store, clothing boutique, shopper newspaper, museum store, gym, bookstore and beauty salon joined forces for a month-long promotion to attract and serve women, especially those 30 and older.
The bookstore hosted a series of “Beauty Inside Out” - themed series of in-store demonstrations and mini-seminars each led by a manager of one of the participating businesses and highlighting a book collection and the local partners’ related products and services.
Each presenter provided a handout that included reference to at least one of the other partnering organizations, plus a joint offer of services with one of them.
As well, each presenter wrote a guest column (based on their presentation) for the local shopper paper, with the author’s follow-up offer and e-mail noted at the bottom of the article. Of course each column author quoted partners in this mutually beneficial alliance.
10. *Offer Special Touches That Your Competition Doesn't*
That’s how guests at several Holiday Inn Express motels can now enjoy Kohler’s new multi-function showerhead and spa bath.
11. Become a Bigger Customer Magnet – Together
That’s what happens when pediatricians join forces with pizza store managers school principals, city health clinic directors and others to better reach and serve their common base of customers: families with young children?
Together, they did what they could not have accomplished on their own. They offered a highly valued, emotionally-loaded and media-attracting service AND increase foot traffic into their stores and offices: "I Got Shot" free immunizations for kids on Saturdays just before school started.
Pediatricians gave immunization shots at convenient times in a roomy, cheerful childrens' store, with a party atmosphere where the kids were the center of attention. Parents heard about the offer through all the participating outlets and received free snack coupons after the kids received their shots so they could reward their children with a snack from a nearby store. Partners could provide better, more news-catching service at less cost - and inspire greater community and customer loyalty.
12. Involve Your Cause Partner in Making Purchase of Your Product Good for a Community Cause
That's how firefighters in one town got a badly-needed but expensive piece of equipment, a deluge gun, without asking their cash-strapped city council for a single dime.
Here's how. Business was slow all over their town. The firefighters were getting nowhere when they asked for donations from business owners experiencing a weak economy.
Yet when they approached the manager of a local pizzeria, he said he had an idea about how to raise more money – together. "Here's what we can do. Pick a Wednesday, say four weeks from today for an “Fire-Fighting Pizza” party here. I make $500 or so on Wednesdays. On that day, after we sell $500 worth, every dollar after that I'll split sales 50/50 with you. You can raise more money than you just asked me for."
The firefighters loved the challenge. They prepared banners and asked permission from the local supermarket and gas stations to put them up on their outside walls. They had smaller signs and announcements printed for free by the local copy shop with a bright red *donated by * credit line to the copy shop.
The headline on the signs and flyers read, “Eat at Pizza Hut. Save a Local Life”. They visited offices complexes, even those with signs that read "No soliciting." (Who's going to kick out the fire department, right?) They went to apartment complexes, video rental outlets, grade and high schools. They put flyers and signs everywhere. Once people heard about their cause, handing out flyers was like giving away candy. The radio morning DJ did an on-air interview with two firefighters. The shopper newspaper ran a story with photos of firefighters holding up a sing while stand at the back of their fire engine.
When the Wednesday‚ comes around, the pizzeria is packed from noon through midnight. They made enough money to get the Deluge Gun. Most importantly ˆ it was a fair partnership because everyone contributed, so participants are likely to want to work together again.
Bottom Line Benefit of Partnering – the Smart Ways:
SmartPartnerships generate a profitable payoff for all partners because, at the very least, they get a credible introduction to each other's customers.
Read SmartPartnering to learn more methods, steps, pitfalls to avoid and success stories.
Want Others to Listen? First, Ask Yourself This Question
I don’t know about you but sometimes I take too long to get to the point. Instead of listening, my captive audience goes on a mental vacation. They feel talked “at” rather than “with. “ Especially if something is really important to me or I know too much on the topic I fall victim to what the Heaths dub the semantic stretch). I confuse or bore them with the “underbrush” of wordy qualifiers and background details. Once they tune me out it is very hard to get them back.
Harness the Power of Us in This Flattening World
Do people stop listening before you stop talking? Want to attract support or other involvement? Then first take a deep breath and ask yourself this powerful Four-Part Question. As you get clear and specific about all four parts you and your message will be credible and compelling for the people you want to reach:
Why are 1. You telling 2. Me 2. This Message 3. Now?
Here’s an inspiring real life example …
1. You (the person who wants people to listen)
Duke College junior Josh Sommer …
2. Me (the listener or listeners)
… is telling his peers around the world (people most likely to identify with and support him)
3. This Message (what’s written or said)
… that he seeks their donations for research for a form of cancer he has.
4. Now? (the timeliness of this message for these listeners)
This is a rare bone cancer with low survival rates so more research needs to be done … soon.
Build into your message Credibility Reinforcers.
For example, what are you already doing in support of your message? Per Ben Casnocha, “Instead of waiting around for scientists to make progress on a potential cure, Josh has jumped into the fray to try to save his own life.
• He and his mom launched the Chordoma Foundation to promote research of potential cures and galvanize the research community.
• He works 30 hours a week in Duke labs with professors who have agreed to study the problem.
• In the meantime, he lobbies congress to implement legislation that would better prevent the accumulation of toxic mold in buildings as toxic mold in his house partly caused his disease.”
If you are going to ask a question or ask for something else, prepare first by using this version of the Four-Part Question:
Why are You Asking Me This Question Now?
Suggestions:
1. Stand above the growing crowd of people seeking support for their causes at Facebook by first asking yourself The Four-Part Question.
2. Then share your well-articulated message with related support groups and on other social networks that are also free for you to use, including Ning, zaadz, and gather.
3. As you build momentum for your message, praise others for their support when the media comes to interview you. Then more varied media will pick up the story and spread it for you - whatever your cause.
See the links at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2008/01/03/want-others-to-listen-first-ask-yourself-this-question/
Harness the Power of Us in This Flattening World
Do people stop listening before you stop talking? Want to attract support or other involvement? Then first take a deep breath and ask yourself this powerful Four-Part Question. As you get clear and specific about all four parts you and your message will be credible and compelling for the people you want to reach:
Why are 1. You telling 2. Me 2. This Message 3. Now?
Here’s an inspiring real life example …
1. You (the person who wants people to listen)
Duke College junior Josh Sommer …
2. Me (the listener or listeners)
… is telling his peers around the world (people most likely to identify with and support him)
3. This Message (what’s written or said)
… that he seeks their donations for research for a form of cancer he has.
4. Now? (the timeliness of this message for these listeners)
This is a rare bone cancer with low survival rates so more research needs to be done … soon.
Build into your message Credibility Reinforcers.
For example, what are you already doing in support of your message? Per Ben Casnocha, “Instead of waiting around for scientists to make progress on a potential cure, Josh has jumped into the fray to try to save his own life.
• He and his mom launched the Chordoma Foundation to promote research of potential cures and galvanize the research community.
• He works 30 hours a week in Duke labs with professors who have agreed to study the problem.
• In the meantime, he lobbies congress to implement legislation that would better prevent the accumulation of toxic mold in buildings as toxic mold in his house partly caused his disease.”
If you are going to ask a question or ask for something else, prepare first by using this version of the Four-Part Question:
Why are You Asking Me This Question Now?
Suggestions:
1. Stand above the growing crowd of people seeking support for their causes at Facebook by first asking yourself The Four-Part Question.
2. Then share your well-articulated message with related support groups and on other social networks that are also free for you to use, including Ning, zaadz, and gather.
3. As you build momentum for your message, praise others for their support when the media comes to interview you. Then more varied media will pick up the story and spread it for you - whatever your cause.
See the links at http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2008/01/03/want-others-to-listen-first-ask-yourself-this-question/
Nine Ways to Create More Success Via Partnering
Hear real life stories of partnerships that enabled people to polish their skills, grow their business faster or attract media coverage. This podcast introduces the power of partnering with one or more people to create extra value and visibility. In this flattening world this approach can enlarge your world, your work and perhaps even your circle of friends. We look forward to hearing your methods and success stories too. Click here to listen
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/11/04/nine-ways-to-create-more-success-via-partnering/
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2007/11/04/nine-ways-to-create-more-success-via-partnering/
How Will We Meet in the Future?
Last Friday the members in my audience at EMC Venues’ MEET voted on questions I asked and saw their cumulative votes appear on the screens on either side of me soon thereafter. They loved it. I only wish audiences had more ways to share and compare all year long. That’s what moms in medicine are doing.
Whatever your profession or industry in which you work you probably get invited to join one or more professional associations. And if you have attended the annual conference you know, first-hand, the power of meeting peers face-to-face to keep up with the latest trends in your work world. Plus some of your closest friendships may have blossomed through gathering at those conferences year after year. That is especially true if you are a boomer or older. Let’s not fall into the Status Quo Trap.
Younger generations are accustomed to text messaging and emailing each other all year long, checking out each others’ profiles on FaceBook, LinkedIn and other social networks. In short, they are forging friendships and finding work contacts online. In fact, many of those entering college need a workshop to learn how to meet and talk in person.
So, like many sea changes, this gap between how people are used to meeting and collaborating is a two-edged sword. The burgeoning use of social media creates discomfort and opportunity. As a frequent speaker at conferences, I have been advocating more interactive meetings, storyboarding them to make them more meaningful and involving social media to deepen the in-person connections all year long. That’s why I wrote about the threat that association professionals face from “outsiders” if they don’t provide more ways for member to interact, as these have done. My fellow MeCo members have picked up the discussion as have Jon at Confabb, Amanda Fretheim Gates and Ben Zeitlin of West Glen.
As my friend Jeff Davidson notes, in this time of increasing social isolation we crave face-to-face meetings with our peers. The high tech of social media is getting user-friendly - even for non-geek boomers like me. That means the high touch of the conference experience can only get better as people can continue to get to know each other when they are not face-to-face.
I’m optimistic. Many of us predict that 2008 will bring a rush of social media adoption among some associations, opening the floodgates for more member organizations to jump in the pool. Certainly if a social media maven goes after an association’s members with an alternative offering, more meeting professionals will be shocked into taking a quick primer on blogs, wikis, vlogs, podcasts, social networks, online groups and more. Dan Parks, Corbin Ball, Joan L. Eisenstodt, Jeff De Cagna and others are leading the way for us. Research indicates this adoption will build trust and innovation. Not a small goal for 2008, eh?
Whatever your profession or industry in which you work you probably get invited to join one or more professional associations. And if you have attended the annual conference you know, first-hand, the power of meeting peers face-to-face to keep up with the latest trends in your work world. Plus some of your closest friendships may have blossomed through gathering at those conferences year after year. That is especially true if you are a boomer or older. Let’s not fall into the Status Quo Trap.
Younger generations are accustomed to text messaging and emailing each other all year long, checking out each others’ profiles on FaceBook, LinkedIn and other social networks. In short, they are forging friendships and finding work contacts online. In fact, many of those entering college need a workshop to learn how to meet and talk in person.
So, like many sea changes, this gap between how people are used to meeting and collaborating is a two-edged sword. The burgeoning use of social media creates discomfort and opportunity. As a frequent speaker at conferences, I have been advocating more interactive meetings, storyboarding them to make them more meaningful and involving social media to deepen the in-person connections all year long. That’s why I wrote about the threat that association professionals face from “outsiders” if they don’t provide more ways for member to interact, as these have done. My fellow MeCo members have picked up the discussion as have Jon at Confabb, Amanda Fretheim Gates and Ben Zeitlin of West Glen.
As my friend Jeff Davidson notes, in this time of increasing social isolation we crave face-to-face meetings with our peers. The high tech of social media is getting user-friendly - even for non-geek boomers like me. That means the high touch of the conference experience can only get better as people can continue to get to know each other when they are not face-to-face.
I’m optimistic. Many of us predict that 2008 will bring a rush of social media adoption among some associations, opening the floodgates for more member organizations to jump in the pool. Certainly if a social media maven goes after an association’s members with an alternative offering, more meeting professionals will be shocked into taking a quick primer on blogs, wikis, vlogs, podcasts, social networks, online groups and more. Dan Parks, Corbin Ball, Joan L. Eisenstodt, Jeff De Cagna and others are leading the way for us. Research indicates this adoption will build trust and innovation. Not a small goal for 2008, eh?
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