GOT A GENIUS MESSAGE?

GOT GUTS?

FEARLESS MARKETING is not about thumping your chest or flailing your fists wildly about before even stepping into the ring, the key, the batter’s box, or up to the tee, the net, or line of scrimmage.

Neither is it even about performing these kinds of antics after knocking down an opponent, making a slam-dunk, hitting an extra-base hit, sinking a putt, forcing a bad serve, or rushing for a first and goal. Sorry, truth is that you’re NOT Spiderman or Wonderwoman!

Being FEARLESS doesn’t mean being insane! It’s about stepping up and out as uniquely, as wisely yet brashly, and as customer-consciously as possible.

In the mid-late 60s, a creative marketing genius named Tony Isadore –then with the great Madison Avenue advertising agency, Young & Rubicam–came up with what was, at that time, unheard-of, earth-shattering language to headline an all-out media (TV, radio, print ads and transit signs) campaign to raise donations for The New York Urban Coalition, The message: “GIVE A DAMN.”

Risky business for those involved. Many thought the use of “DAMN” would be putting careers on the line. Yet the word happened. And because it was deemed by the public as appropriate for the purpose, it became a resounding success.

There is a time and place for everything, but the trick in FEARLESS MARKETING is to be that one step ahead, to anticipate what will work and how far to go in making it work. This is not to suggest ferreting through lists of prospective curse words to throw into your marketing and branding programs.

It is simply to make the point that when we look just far enough into the immediate future, with the right eyes (!), at the right market, we can almost predict an unusual word choice that will “click” with prospects. “GOT MILK?” and “DO IT!” and “IT’S IN YOU” and “LOVIN’ IT” and “THE REAL THING” all come to mind as two or three-word, double entendre messages that have made colossal sales.

And it’s hard to beat the great social media names (GOOGLE, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) that are in themselves, sales messages, and have even gained acceptance as verbs!

But, ah, be aware that none of these (or I’d venture to guess that any great, short, FEARLESS MARKETING messages) EVER just popped out of someone’s back pocket. Marketing messages that step up and out, that make a difference, that work, typically require re-working, revising, re-thinking, re-writing hundreds if not dozens of attempts, over considerable periods of sleep-on-it time.

So if you’re paying someone to produce the winning combination of words, be patient. Great branding never happened overnight, and if you can think of exceptions . . . you’re going to be wrong 99% of the time! If you think you can produce the perfect words yourself, become a copywriter . . . but don’t give up your day job!

FEARLESS MARKETING is not just the creation of a message. It’s also having the savvy and guts that underscore the message of FEARLESS! (the stage musical), which, applied here, translates to: If the risk involved is reasonable, run the DAMN marketing. FEARLESS MARKETING ignites FEARLESS SALES!

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Hal@Businessworks.US               931.854.0474

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

You already know this, but

perhaps you’ve forgotten:

  You and your business are

here on Earth to make a

d  i  f  f  e  r  e  n  c  e  !

Does that mean you need to revamp your food business to offer only organic produce, fruits, meats and poultry? No. You may want to consider a direction like that for business reasons, but making a difference for others is not a pursuit that –unlike government bills and riders– has restrictions attached.

Making a difference with your business doesn’t mean you must suddenly be a better Boy Scout or Girl Scout. It does mean holding to a higher integrity, and offering goods and services that don’t inherently harm people. Cigarettes come to mind. Oh, and don’t rationalize with raves about all the tobacco industry jobs and good deeds.

That’s a big business/government style-defense. Drive responsibly, say the alcoholic beverage companies. We grow forests, say the paper mills and logging companies that strip mountainsides bare of trees. You can add your own examples here. Hypocrisy has become a mainstay of corporate marketing, PR, and government control.

You can’t make a difference on Earth

by being two-faced.

(Politicians take note.)

And —TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK— time marches on, so the amount of time you have to improve the business and personal lives of those around you and those who come after you are perhaps a whole lot less than you might have imagined (or maybe never thought about!) when you rolled out of bed this morning.

Bottom line: The time to act is NOW!

Start thinking about your legacy as you’re reading this, and take just one step in the direction of putting those thoughts to work by the time you walk away from your keyboard. Carpe Momento!

Recommended guiding words:

The old hit song lyrics from Seals & Crofts —

We may never pass this way again.

“There’s no time like the present,” my father always said. “Time and tide wait for no man,” my mother always said. “DO IT” says Nike. Now, entrepreneurs seem to know this instinctively, but they also seem to limit their hurries to business deals instead of to their own internal missions. Those little voices that point to reality.

What speaks to your ears from inside your gut? It may be different than the words that come from your brain. Words from the brain can be easily over-thought, manipulative, too rational, too unemotional, too logical — the stuff that corporate and government analysis paralysis is made of — What comes from your gut has no limits.

So maybe your gut instinct to meet your down-deep-inside legacy goals isn’t finding a platform in your business pursuits? Then set up something separate to make it happen. A new division, revenue stream, referral channel, product or service line extension . . . something that addresses your true life purposes.

Running a successful business is problematical enough; why saddle yourself with yet another entity? Because if the business isn’t satisfying your inner needs to, for example, help needy people and organizations, a nonprofit charitable or educational family foundation might. What’s the worst possibility?

You start a foundation and can’t make the time to run it? Find someone who believes in your purpose to step in, and you simply provide the guiding light. You start a foundation and the goals or mission become obsolete? Redefine them. You’ve already re-invented yourself and your business at least ten times over. Well?

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Hal@Businessworks.US   931.854.0474

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

BEAT THE BUSHES (NAW,

NOT GEORGE AND JEB)!

     If this economy is strangling your wallet, step back and take an honest look at what you’re doing to make a living.  A major dinnerware store closed this week.  Duh!  The most expensive special events photography business in the poorest town around just folded.  You gotta be kidding; there must not be many special events!  The local tuxedo store is on its last legs.  REEEAlly?  (When was your last tuxedo?)    

Well, there’s always the cliche path: If the bullet you’re biting is starting to hurt your teeth, it may be time for you to climb down off your high horse (yeah, the one on drugs!), beat the bushes (Naw, not George and Jeb!), and think about pounding the pavement (Ouch! The vibrations!))))) for some new way (with apologies to Porky Pig) to bring home the bacon!

     Serious that the time may have come when it would be smart to take a hard look at whether what you’re doing right now can survive tough (or tougher) times. 

     If you’ve just, for example, finished years of writing your first book that you expect should bring you millions (or even thousands!) and you’re thinking about giving up the day job to find a literary agent to help you sell it to a big-time publishing house (Shazam!  That sounds so easy, doesn’t it?), I hate to be the one to tell you to stay with the crummy day job, but the agent/publisher pursuit could take years also… stay with the crummy day job!     

     If you’re selling the latest in fashionable men’s dress clothes, pay attention to the dwindling supply of fashionably-dressed men.  You might as well be selling CB radios and 8-track cassette players (whatever those are). 

     Consider moving your career path (or business direction if you run your own business), toward a market or industry that is more recession-proof. 

     Now I realize that not all of you will want to leap into the air shouting, “Aha! That’s the suggestion I’ve needed.  Now I can go apply for a job with the funeral home; THEY’LL never run out of customers!”

     No-sir-ee-bob!  This is definitely true.

     But, aaah, I DO know that there are a few folks out there clinging to their liferafts and the seas are getting more turbulent.  It may mean having to adjust your marketing messages to fit a better, more productive, more stabilized niche.  Or it may mean having to scramble and take a second crummy job as a quick-fix solution.  

     Sometimes, it may be simply a matter of switching gears, like the old lemon/lemonade advice.  Or maybe somebody else in the household needs to start tossing a few bucks in the kitty!  Whatever you need to do, do it!  Don’t stand around thinking and talking about it for weeks on end.  Those few weeks of opportunity losses could be enough to sink the liferaft. 

     Oh, and just in case you are that writer I alluded to, you might have to give up your great American novel dreams for now and do some other kind of work, but guess what?  You’ll be gathering experience for your next book!  

     It may not, when all is said and done, actually be the exact right time to find a need and fill it as the headline suggests, but it certainly is time to consider the alternatives.          halalpiar

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