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Present like Steve Jobs (Carmine Gallo)

December 4, 2009

Drew's Note: As I try to do on many a Friday, I'm pleased to bring you a guest post. Meet a thought leader who shares his insights every day. So without further ado…Carmine Gallo.

Again, enjoy!

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is considered one of the greatest marketers in corporate history. For more than three decades, he has delivered legendary keynote presentations, raised product launches to an art form and successfully communicated the benefits of Apple products to millions of customers. Whether you're in sales, marketing, advertising or public relations, Steve Jobs has something to teach you about telling your brand story.

Plan in analog. Steve Jobs may have made a name for himself in the digital world, but he prepares presentations in the old world of pen and paper. He brainstorms, sketches and draws on whiteboards. Before a new iPhone, iPod or MacBook is introduced, the Apple team decides on the exact messages (aka, benefits) to communicate.

Those messages are consistent across all marketing platforms: presentations, Web sites, advertisements, press releases, and even the banners than are unfurled after Jobs' keynote.

Create Twitter-friendly headlines. Can you describe your product or service in 140 characters? Steve Jobs offers a headline, or description, for every product. Each headline can easily fit in a Twitter post.

For example, when he introduced the MacBook Air in January, 2008, he said that it is simply, "The world's thinnest notebook." You could visit the Apple Web site for more information, but if that's all you knew, it would tell you a lot. If your product description cannot fit in a Twitter post, keep refining.

Introduce the antagonist. In every classic story, the hero fights the villain. The same holds true for a Steve Jobs presentation. In 1984, the villain was IBM, "Big Blue." Before he introduced the famous 1984 ad to a group of Apple salespeople, he created a dramatic story around it. "IBM wants it all," he said. Apple would be the only company to stand in its way. It was very dramatic and the crowd went nuts.

Branding expert, Martin Lindstrom, has said that great brands and religions have something in common: the idea of vanquishing a shared enemy. Creating a villain allows the audience to rally around the hero — you, your ideas and your product.

Stick to the rule of three. The human brain can only absorb three or four "chunks" of information at any one time. Neuroscientists are finding that if you give your listeners too many pieces of information to retain, they won't remember a thing. It's uncanny, but every Steve Jobs presentation is divided into three parts.

On September 9, 2009, when Jobs returned to the world stage after a medical leave of absence, he told the audience that he had three things to discuss: iPhone, iTunes and iPods. Jobs even has fun with the rule of three. In January, 2007, he told the audience he had "three revolutionary" products to introduce — an iPod, a phone and an Internet communicator. After repeating the list several times he said, "Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. They are one device and we are calling it iPhone!"

Strive for simplicity. Apple chief design architect, Jonathan Ive, said Apple's products are easy to use because of the elimination of clutter. The same philosophy applies to Apple's marketing and sales material.

For example, there are forty words on the average PowerPoint slide. It's difficult to find ten words in one dozen Apple slides. Most of Steve Jobs' slides are visuals — photographs or images. When are there words, they are astonishingly sparse. For example, in January, 2008, Jobs was delivering his Macworld keynote and began the presentation by thanking his customers for making 2007 a successful year for Apple. The slide behind Jobs simply read "Thank you." Steve Jobs tells the Apple story. The slides compliment the story.

Reveal a "Holy Smokes" moment. People will forget what you said, what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. There's always one moment in a Steve Jobs presentation that is the water cooler moment, the one part of the presentation that everyone will be talking about. These show stoppers are completely scripted ahead of time.

For example, when Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air, what do people remember? They recall that he removed the computer from an inter-office envelope. It's the one moment from Macworld 2008 that everyone who watched it — and those who read about — seem to recall. The image of a computer sliding in an envelope was immediately unveiled in Apple ads and on the Apple website. The water cooler moment had run according to plan.

Sell dreams, not products. Great leaders cultivate a sense of mission among their employees and customers. Steve Jobs' mission is to change the world, to put a "dent in the universe." According to Jobs, "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to do great work is to love what you do."

True evangelists are driven by a messianic zeal to create new experiences. When he launched the iPod in 2001, Jobs said, "In our own small way we're going to make the world a better place." Where most people see the iPod as a music player, Jobs sees it as tool to enrich people's lives. It's important to have great products, of course, but passion, enthusiasm and emotion will set you apart.

Carmine Gallo is the author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, (click here to buy the book) is a presentation, media-training, and communication-skills coach for the world's most admired brands. He is an author and columnist for Businessweek.com and and a keynote speaker and seminar leader who has appeared on CNBC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC.com, BNET, RedBook, Forbes.com, and in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily, as well as many other media outlets.

Every Friday is "grab the mic" day. Want to grab the mic and be a guest blogger on Drew's Marketing Minute? Shoot me an e-mail.

Note: In keeping with the new FCC regulations, you should know that I received a copy of Gallo's book to review and if you click on the link to purchase the book, I will make a few cents from Amazon. You might also be interested in knowing that I am left handed.

What are your sales mistakes costing you?

November 28, 2009

When you lose a client or are pitching business that you don't win — do you know why you weren't chosen?

Most business leaders, if they were being honest, would have to admit they don't.

RainToday wants to offer some insights from their new report Deal or No Deal: Sales Mistakes that Turn Buyers Away. (you can download it for free here).

The biggest sales mistake? We've talked about it before but apparently, you weren't listening. The #1 mistake…Not listening. Shocker.

But….the real shocker is when you look at the chart that shows both the biggest mistakes AND the "much more likely to buy if they improved" items. Then you begin to truly understand the cost of some of those shortcomings.

One of the mistakes I find most startling is the "did not respond to my requests in a timely manner." Seriously people — they're asking to buy and you don't get back to them? Apparently 30+% of businesses out there actually make this faux pas. A whopping 57% of respondents say that if a business was better about this — they'd be much more likely to buy.

Duh. Shame on any business who makes this sadly common mistake.

The entire report is eye-opening. Download it today. And don't forget to visit RainToday's blog. Check it out here!

So….you've realized that you're making some of these huge sales mistakes. What should you do? How about getting some new sales habitudes? That's right….a new set of attitudes and habits that will get your sales on the right track.

My friend Jeff Garrison has written an excellent e-book on sales habitudes and is offering it to you for free!

Chapters include …

A Business Owner's Biggest Challenge
The Genesis of Sales Habitudes
The Sales Habitudes Explained

Download it today….and get yourself on the right sales track!

There you have it…one report to help you learn what you're doing wrong and the another to help you get back on the straight and narrow! Download them both and then get out there and make some serious sales!

Indulge in some gratitude

November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving! Even if you're not in the states — why not take a moment today and remember some of the blessings you have in your life?

I try very hard to make my blog about you. I want to infuse value, insights and fresh ideas in every post.

But I believe that one of the most powerful emotions we can experience is gratitude. I believe it literally can move mountains and change hearts. On this day of giving thanks, I ask your forgiveness as I recognize my own incredible good fortune.

Anyway…enough prelude.

In 2006 at the Balanced Life Center blog, the author created the Season of Gratitude. She invited other bloggers to share “a gratitude moment” and I couldn’t resist joining in back then and I can't resist making this my annual Thanksgiving post.

It is more true today than when I wrote it 3 years ago:

Rather than create a laundry list of the incredible and plentiful blessings that I am surrounded with every day, I decided to narrow my focus to my greatest gift.

My daughter. She is quite simply the best part of me.

Her questions force me to find my own clarity. Her humor is the perfect salve for a stressful day. Her fears remind me of my own humanity and her teen-induced insecurities keep my heart tender.

Her zest for life’s delights feeds my spirit and her need to re-charge urges me to slow down now and then. Her laughter triggers my own (sometimes in the most inappropriate places and times) and her tears show me the depth of my own vulnerability.

Her drive to succeed tempers my own so we can talk about balance and her sense of discovery (both academic and of self) lets me indulge in the same.

Her need to learn about the responsibilities that come along with being given a good life allows me to share my talents unselfishly and take her along for the ride.

Her presence gives me purpose. Her future gives me hope. And her faith in me inspires me to be a better person.

She is my Jiminy Cricket. She is my legacy. And she is, every single day, my season of gratitude.

How about you….will you take a moment and share your season of gratitude with us?

Don’t get brand sabotaged (Todd Hogan)

November 25, 2009

Drew's Note: As I try to do on many a Friday (or Thanksgiving Wednesday!), I'm pleased to bring you a guest post. Meet a thought leader who shares his insights every day. So without further ado…Todd Hogan.

Again, enjoy!

Monitoring your brand online can be a serious effort – the number of channels and outlets you need to track, the anonymity of potential brand attackers or even promoters, the speed with which fallacious information can spread and ruin the value of what would have once been a carefully planned and thoughtful brand approach.

It all makes for a challenge if you want to build your brand and not watch it be built for you (to either your detriment OR benefit). I think that's what Drew was talking about in this post re: fear.

To do a good job keeping abreast of your brand and promoting your brand's champions or quickly responding to brand threats, you could use paid real time monitoring services like biz360 or radian6. They make sense if you do have a very large brand – they can be great tools. But what if you aren't ready to spend the big bucks yet still want to influence the direction your brand is taking online?

At real time search engines like Surchur (here are some others for you to check out) you can track the majority of what you'd find on the elite brand monitoring services – all for free. Here are 3 tips to using a real time search engine to keep your brand image well above board:

Daily monitoring: Because the real time web is just that – real time – and it moves very quickly, waiting a week or two to check on your brand can be a disaster.

It's much better to respond to a potential threat with a real conversation (a topic for another post) immediately rather than weeks after a comment, tweet or post has lambasted your latest campaign. Enter your brand in a real time search engine a la this Nike example and see your brand as it is happening on the web. You'll likely be surprised where your brand is turning up.

Keep on top of all media types: Blogs, tweets, news, videos – they can all be an outlet for customer expression, and a place for your brand to find life or possibly get squeezed.

That's why we recommend you do more than just look at Twitter Search or your favorite blog search engine. Your customers will communicate according to their preferences and never fit into the neat little box we'd all like. Make sure to find a real time search approach that gives you a view on as many online methods as possible.

Automate the process: Though many of us can be disciplined and take the time everyday to check our brand, it helps to put in place an automatic method for being brand informed.

If your favorite real time search engine has an RSS feed you can follow add that to your favorite RSS reader or homepage like Netvibes. Make that your start page so that every time you open your browser you'll get the chance to see how you?re being talked about on the web. You can see an example at surchur using our previous example of Nike by visiting this link and see how quickly you can get a summary with a feed reader or feed enabled homepage.

Take your brand seriously and build it by managing the real time discussions that are taking place about you – not letting your worst detractors destroy your image with a few random tweets, posts or comments. Also with Surchur's newly released social platform it's easier for our users to influence the search results by voting or commenting — engage the surchur community to vote your brand up and establish yourself as a positive contributor on the social web.

Todd Hogan is the founder of surchur.com and builds and manages a large portfolio of social media and search websites in collaboration with designers and developers around the world.

Every Friday is "grab the mic" day. Want to grab the mic and be a guest blogger on Drew's Marketing Minute? Shoot me an e-mail.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

Don’t play chicken with your pricing

November 23, 2009

Remember the old game? You'd aim your bike or your car at another bike or car and barrel towards each other. Whoever swerved before the collision was "the chicken."

Lots of businesses play the same game with their pricing. They lock on with a prospect and offer up their price. The prospect says something to the effect of…."we really want to buy it, but that's a little expensive. What can we do about the price?"

The metaphorical headlights are in your eyes. You want the sale. You know you can do the job well. So maybe if you knock a few dollars (…or hundreds, or thousands) off, you can earn their business and prove to them how good you are.

Stop right there.

If you do that once, you'll be asked to do it every time. By playing chicken and being the one to swerve, here's what you've communicated to the potential buyer:

My prices aren't firm — you should always negotiate
I wasn't being as fair with you as I could have been…I had some pad in my pricing
I don't have enough confidence in my product/service to sell it for full price
We don't believe in our own brand — we're willing to compete on price

Do you really want to communicate any one of those things to your clients and prospects? I doubt it.

Instead, here's how to handle price objections.

First — price fairly. To them and to you. Be confident that you can over deliver on the price paid and be a genuine value. Don't price to be a loss leader or get in under the other guys. Charge what you are worth but with a nod of consideration to the market and being competitive.

Second — never apologize or over justify your price. You can't do either without sounding defensive and you have nothing to be defensive about. And once you've lowered your price — you will never be able to charge full price again.

Third — acknowledge their concern by helping them stay within budget. Try something like…."I completely understand your budget constraints. If you only have $5,000 to spend, let's look at our proposal and see what we can modify (# of options, turnaround time, features, add ons, etc.) to get you down to your ceiling." In other words….take something away or somehow modify your proposal to accommodate their budget.

This is you respecting your original pricing AND respecting their checkbook. In our experience, 90% of the time, you will not lose the sale. They'll either opt for your modifications at their reduced budget (if their budget constraint are real) or they'll end up accepting your original proposal (if they were using budget as an excuse to try to get you to reduce your price.)

Fourth — recognize that sometimes this is your brand's way of helping you recognize that this is not a good customer for you. If you just can't make the numbers work for them — they aren't your customer. Be gracious and if you want, even suggest some lower cost alternatives.

Bottom line is — don't de-value your work by playing chicken with your pricing. If you are good at what you do, about 20-30% of the time — people should push back on your prices a little.

I have a very successful friend whose philosophy is…"I want them to gulp a little when they hire us. We're an investment, not a commodity. Then it's our responsibility to make sure they come to believe their investment was a wise one."

A creativity whack for your head…and your iPhone!

November 19, 2009

Roger von Oech is responsible for whacking me upside the head more times than I can count.

20+ years ago, he created a fantastic creativity tool called A Creative Whack Pack. It's an illustrated deck of 64 creative thinking strategies that will whack you out of habitual thought patterns and enable you to look at your life and actions in a fresh way.

It's an awesome way to think different, to see something fresh and to get yourself unstuck.

Well, it's 2009 and so of course Roger has created an iPhone/iTouch app for thiscreativity powerhouse. And…he's given me 5 promo codes, so you can download it for free!

Here's how you can win. Leave a comment below and tell us one way you get your creative juices flowing.

I'll do the drawing on Friday Saturday morning so get those comments coming!

Also, check out what David Armano had to say about the app here and here.

UPDATE: First, be sure you read through the comments — lots of very good ideas on how to get those creative juices flowing.

Second…Congrats to the five winners of the promo codes: Tara, Michael, Patrick, Kare and Jason. I've e-mailed the codes directly to you!

You can put a dash of brand just about anywhere

November 15, 2009

There's nothing less interesting or more standard than a bar code, right? Not according to the people at Design Barcode, where the status quo is anything but!

Check out these jazzed up bar codes. (click on the images to see a full-size image in a pop up window)

Lest you think this is a new idea, apparently Rick Tharp was doing it (see his version) way back in 1986.

(Hat tips to Beverly Koehn and Beth Wampler for sharing this Fast Company article on the bar code designs)

Calling all art directors, designers and logo creators – win $250

November 13, 2009

I will try to make this brief. Last spring, I was approached by a company in the UK called Logo Inn who creates logos and identity packages online. They wanted to do a contest, demonstrating their services.

So I did a series of posts on logo design and offered one organization a chance to win a free logo….as long as the entire process could unfold here on the blog, so we could all learn from it.

The series looked like this:.

That last post was where things spiraled out of control. The city of Colfax (and most of my commenting readers) weren't crazy about any of the logos. So I sent all the critiques back to the logo company and then heard nothing. I've attempted to e-mail my contact there for several months — but nothing.

But I promised the city of Colfax a new logo and dang it, they're going to get one!

This is where you come in. My company, MMG could do it. We design logos for clients all the time. But instead, we decided it would be more fun and more of a learning experience, to open it up. So here are the "rules" as it were:

~ We're putting up a $250 VISA gift card for the winning designer.

~ Use the creative brief post to read about what they want

~ Download a PPT of photos from the town by clicking here

~ Read Colfax's reaction to the Logo Inn logos by clicking here

~ Submit your new logos (jpg format please) in BLACK AND WHITE ONLY to me (drew@mclellanmarketing.com) by Friday, December 4th

~ We will publish all the choices here (with a link to the designer's website/blog)

~ Colfax chooses a winner and you get a gift card before the holidays!

What do you say? You ready to show the world your work and help out a great Iowa town?

Turn your sales letters into workhorses!

November 12, 2009

Neil Sawers, a 25+ year corporate writing veteran can show you how. In his new book, How to Write Proposals, Sales Letters and Reports, he spells it out in easy to understand, follow and learn examples and guidelines.

But don't take my word for it. Listen to what the Midwest Book Review (one of the most respected reviewers out there) had to say:

"Examples, recommendations of common tools to organize one’s thoughts, and a sprinkling of solid business advice fill out this superb, easy-to-use guidebook recommended for business writers of all skill and experience levels."

If you buy the book by end of the day on Saturday the 14th, you'll only pay $10.37 AND you will get a bunch of bonus gifts. (click here to read about the special promotion and buy your copy!)

But wait….I have five copies to give away. I will draw for the winners Friday morning, so you'll still have plenty of time to buy a copy if you're not a winner.

To be eligible for the drawing, just leave a comment on this post!

Go forth and write well!

Update: The five winners are: Copywriting Maven, Director Tom, Larson Bennett, Kathleen the savvy VA and Erica!

5 ways to promote internal training and events

November 10, 2009

I had a meeting with a client this morning and one of the topics on the agenda was how could they better promote an internal training event that was optional for the employees.

When I asked how they would normally promote it, they said…we'd make up a flier with all the information and attach it to an e-mail. We'd send it out to everyone. We might send it out a couple times or ask their supervisors to also send it out.

There's nothing wrong with what they're doing. But, there's not enough right. You've got to toss a lot of messages and media into the blender and mix it all up — to try to reach everyone.

Remember, your audience needs to hear your message 8-13 times before they notice that you're talking to them!

Here are some other ideas we came up with as we brainstormed:

Tease them: Don't give them ALL the information at once. Give them the bare bones (date, time, place etc.) but keep some of the details for the next communication.

Catch it on camera: Run around the office with a flip camera and record some people who know about the event. Ask them why they're excited or looking forward to it. Post it on YouTube, your corporate intranet or someplace else that employees will go see it.

Drip marketing: Remember….you want your marketing to be a drip, not a downpour. So why get 6-8 little tidbits of the content (think if it like a snack…which is how we like to consume information) and rather than send out one huge e-mail….once a week, send a tip tied to the content of the training.

Let them eavesdrop: Using BlogTalk Radio or Skype + Audio Hijack, whip up a quick 5-minute podcast with the presenter. Let the potential audience hear the presenter's enthusiasm and energy around the topic.

Make it personal: Draft a quick 15-30 second script and ask every supervisor to personalize it and then leave a voice mail for their direct reports….inviting them to the event.

What have we done? We've hit them with the written word, teased them with tasty snacks of content, let their peers and supervisor weigh in, used multi-media, and made it personal.

All for the cost of….$0. (Audio Hijack is $32 if you opt for that solution).

How could you use this recipe for things you need to communicate internally?

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

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