Don't Try To Be My Sugar-Daddy! Written by Dr. Bill Nieporte
When you marry a "southern girl" (like I did) you learn a brand new vocabulary! I heard an interesting phrase from my "southern born" wife. Commenting on a man who left his wife for a "younger woman," Jeana said: "That woman doesn't love him! She's just looking for a 'sugar-daddy' to pay her credit card bills!"Isn't that approach many marketers take when looking to recruit others into their business venture? How many times a day do you get junk email from people offering (in essence) to be your "sugar-daddy?" Here's just a few examples of these offers in my email box for today: "Guaranteed $90,246.00 in 60 Days or Less!" "Let Me Build Your Downline for YOU!" "I'll do ALL THE WORK-->YOU keep ALL MONEY!" "Get 10,000 in Your Downline OverNight With Our 'System!'" "Massive Advertising About To Begin: Join Now For Spillover!" Aren't you sick of it? Aren't you tired of all that *sham and scam spam* that promises unlimited riches, without work, virtually overnight? It certainly bugs me. Here's why? 1. These offers appeal lower-self. The people who want to be your "sugar-daddy" try to entice you to believe that that only thing that matters is acquisition of more wealth. For those who desire to be your "sugar-daddy" things like ethics, values, morals, and just plain good manners don't matter. What matters "mo money, mo money, mo money!" Don't you wish that somebody would appeal to your higher-self? Don't you wish that somebody would appeal to your desire to help, build, and create something of lasting value? Isn't wealth earned helping others much more enjoyable that simply getting rich? Aren't you one of those people who still think that ethics, values, morals, and good manners really do matter?
| | Recovery Marketing – Hop on and Take a RideWritten by Alfred J. Lautenslager
A little over a year ago and probably before, articles started popping up all over place about, "Selling in Tough Times," , "How To Market in a Down Economy," and like. Now that we have seen a few, more positive headlines starting to sprinkle throughout, "Turning Economical Corner,", "Have We Hit Bottom,", what now? For sake of prognostication, let me review. No I am not driving car by only looking in rear view mirror. When times got tough, managers all over place looked for places to cut costs. Marketers looked for newer places to sell and to sell more. Some business managers cut marketing and sales expenses. Let me state here, once and very clearly, that is WRONG thing to do. Jay Conrad Levinson of guerrilla marketing fame says that "recessionary marketing" is a real opportunity. Bear with me on this review as we approach some new thoughts on "recovery marketing." During tough times, customers are looking for real value. Effective marketing points out that real value to customers with ensuing result of increased sales and increased share of market. What Jay Levinson state for "recessionary marketing" applies to "turning –the-corner-and-coming-back" marketing, or "recovery marketing" as well; maybe even more. During recovery, lots of positioning is occurring, while at same time skeptics are still about. During recovery some people choose as their favorite form of transportation to be hopping on to a bandwagon. Once bandwagon fills up, companies look around at each other and start to feel that it is almost too late to start up aggressive marketing once again. The same old adage applies to marketing much like it does to work… "It's easier to keep it up than catch it up." Borrowing from "recessionary marketing" and applying same mind set, thought processes and applications to recovery marketing, will further separate marginal companies from successful ones. Recovery marketing boils down to investing in three things that should have been invested in when times got tough. 1.)increase size of orders 2.)increase frequency of orders 3.)The third item, but more costly is to increase number of customers you sell to. Enhanced marketing programs and increased investment in marketing accomplishes above items. Free samples, seminars, consulting, and speeches, are incentives for customer to buy more and to do it more often. Now is time to put that marketing line item expense back into budget. Prioritize 3 recovery marketing initiatives now, don't deviate and certainly don't cut expense or investment that is made. We'll leave concepts of consistency, persistency and long term thinking to other marketing articles. Here are a few recovery tactics that will help your positioning as customers and prospects decide where to spend their growing dollars earned from a recovering economy. Publicity – If you don't already have a PR program in place, start one now. There are a multitude of reasons to write a press release. Focus on one editor and get something published. This is free marketing and an effective technique that shows up in all "marketing in tough times" articles.
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