My notes on “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers

My personal philosophy’s

1. Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself
2. Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself
3. When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world
4. Never do anything just for the money
5. Don’t purse business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help
6. Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working
7. Your business plan is moot. You don’t know what people really want until you start doing it
8. Starting with no money is an advantage. You don’t need money to start helping people
9. You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people
10. Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business
11. The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers

• Make every decision – even decision about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone – according to what’s best for your customers.
• If you’re ever unsure what to prioritize, just ask your customers the open-ended question, “How can I best help you now?” Then focus on satisfying those requests.
• None of your customers will ask you to turn your attention to expanding. They want you to keep your attention focused on them.

Ideas are worth nothing unless they are executed

• They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.
• Idea Value
• Awful Idea = -1
• Weak Idea = 1
• So-So Idea = 5
• Good Idea = 10
• Great Idea = 15
• Brilliant Idea = 20
• Execution Value
• No Execution = $1
• Weak Execution = $1000
• So-So Execution = $10,000
• Good Execution = $100,000
• Great Execution = $1,000,000
• Brilliant Execution = $10,000,000
• To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
• The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
• The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
• That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas.
• I’m not interested until I see their execution.

Proudly exclude people

• It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 percent of it.
• Have the confidence to know that when your target 1 percent hears you excluding the other 99 percent, the people in that 1 percent will come to you because you’ve shown how much you value them

Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake

• As a business owner, when you get screwed over by someone, you might be tempted to make a big grand policy that you think will prevent you from ever getting screwed over again
• “All violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”
• “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason”
• “No loitering. Restroom for customers only”

The most successful email I ever wrote

The automated email that let customers know when the CD was actually shipped was “Your order has shipped today. Please let us know if it doesn’t arrive. Thank you for your business”

I rewrote it to be:

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, December 11th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year”.  We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby

It’s often the tiny details that really thrill people enough to make them tell all their friends about you.

Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business

• Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles.
• To be a true business owner, make sure you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left

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Notice how I said “your world” rather than “the world”.

Can one person change the world?

Well, I do think one person can change 10 people.

And those people can change 10 people each.

And so on.

And perhaps, in that fashion, you can change the world.

But I’m talking about ”your world”.

Your world could be:

1. Your country
2. Your city
3. People with an interest in common to you
4. Your network
5. Your family, your friends
6. You

I’m confident you can change #6, and by starting there, you can change all the others.

What Are The 4 Things You Need Before You Can Change Your World?

1. You just need to find you are passionate about (passion keeps you going when everyone else quits)
2. Find people equally passionate about it and get them to help you (doing it yourself can work too)
3. Take the action you need to (taking action moves good ideas into great ideas)
4. Never give up. Let nothing stand in your way.

How Can We Change The City of Tauranga Together in 2012?

And in the last 6 months I have met dozens of people that are passionate about these same things!

But until now, no one person has held all the piece of the puzzle at once.

So in 2012 I’m going to bring all these people and elements together somehow…

Some initial ideas:

1. Run a Tauranga version of Start-Up Weekend (perhaps twice)
2. Be a mentor at “The Idea Shed” (high school students)
3. Help create a Business Incubator in Tauranga
4. And help these entrepreneurs from these 3 sources to either:
• bootstrap their business (get it going with zero capital)
• or help them pitch their ideas to local investors

Keen to help?

Then let’s talk: Phone (07) 575 8799.

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My notes on “Game-based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges and Contests” by Gabe Zichermann & Joselin Linder.

Games are all around us

• “The Subway Game” is passive – most people don’t realise there is a game on, the players stand close to the train doors, block other players with their body language and compete for a seat. Breaking the rules using aggression is not allowed.
• Variations: The Bar Game – get to the bar and order drinks for your friends the fastest. The Supermarket Game – identify which queue is likely to move the quickest
• They are big business. Games such as Frequent Flier Miles earn more revenue for airlines than flying people around

The 4 Components of “Funware”

Status and Levels

• Status is an outward display of achievement. Levels are a convenient way to divide play into achievable subgames while also creating status shorthand. They are frequently interchangeable and invariably go hand-in-hand
• Eg: First class lounges

Points

• For scorekeeping and comparisons in a leaderboard.
• Eg Facebook friend count

Rules

• Without rules their would be chaos. The rules may be explicit or unarticulated
• Eg you can’t barge someone out of the way in the Subway game or you’ll get yelled at

Demonstratability

• Sitting in a VIP section in a club would be less fun if no one saw you there. If it’s demonstrateable it is delivering power and status

The 4 Player Types

Achievers (Diamonds)

• Driven by a desire to get points, achieve goals, and hit their mark
• Go to great lengths to acquire points and prestige
• Thorough game players
• Favour games that appreciate and reward them for completing tasks
• Games must be winnable with an end point
• They require an audience (of Socialisers) to appreciate their accomplishments. Social networks and leaderboards are essential

Socialisers (Hearts)

• Play to connect with other players, rather than to demonstrate skill
• Will play just about anything that can be played in groups
• May play, and may just watch
• Have lots of online friends to spread the word about games they love

Explorers (Spades)

• Map out their environment. The richer the virtual world, the better
• Like random puzzles, side stories and accumulating obscure badges and points
• May set their own rules and challenges
• Enjoy sharing detailed and unusual information they have uncovered
• It’s about the journey, not the destination

Killers (Clubs)

• Like to win (and ensure that others lose)
• Hurting others brings them joy
• Punishing weak players / newbies is especially enjoyable
• They crave respect and power

No more gender gap

• There is no longer a gender gap, although women do prefer to play games on phones or computers rather than consoles

Pleasure today or pain tomorrow?

• They have profoundly changed our choices about what to do with our free time. Would you prefer to:
  1. Watch TV
  2. Read a book
  3. Do your taxes
  4. Or play your favourite game with your friends?
• Pleasure today is more valuable than pain tomorrow, so could game/fun elements be introduced into mundane tasks?

Badges & Levels incentivise play

• Newbie badges nudge new players through the initial stages of the game eg “invite 3 friends to join” or “complete your profile now” to receive badges early

You should always hide the true dollar value of your points

• This gives you freedom of increasing/decreasing the cost of a point to you
• Promotions are easier
• 1 million points sounds more impressive than 100 points
• People lose track of how much a point is worth (this is in your favour)
• You might be able to build an entire virtual economy. Many games offer shortcuts to acquiring upgrades (like weapons/armour) by buying points with real world money and then using those points to buy items in the game

How Leaderboards Stimulate Play

• Leaderboards allow players to compare their performance to friends and strangers
• No active game exists for the number of Facebook friends you have… yet, but we can’t help but assemble a leaderboard in our heads
• Leaderboard examples: “7 days since a deaths on our construction site”, “The Employee of the Month is…”
• The key is, what action do we want to motivate people to take? For games it’s often “to play more”
• Lots of levels is good, so there is increased competition and rivalry for the players in each level. Otherwise, the people at the bottom may lose hope when they see how far they are from the leaders. Eg a frequent flier with 5,000 air miles per annum can’t compete with a player that does 100,000 per annum

Could you introduce game elements into your workplace?

• In Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, a restaurant was losing profit by wasting a lot of food and disappointing other customers by over-selling certain dishes. Gordon offered a $100 prize to the first waiter who could sell at least one of every item on the menu in a night. The Result: No oversold items and no leftovers.
• How can you introduce challenges and rewards?

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My notes on “Real-Time Marketing and PR” by David Meerman Scott.

“How to instantly engage your market, connect with customers and create products that grow your business now.”

What’s Expected In The Corporate World:

• Wait, to make certain
• Work from checklists dictated by one-year and even five-year business plans
• Measure results quarterly
• Execute based on a long-term “new product launch” mentality
• Organise around multi-month marketing and communications campaigns
• Ger permission from your superior
• Run decision by your staff
• Bring in the experts, the agencies, and the lawyers
• Conduct extensive research
• Carefully evaluate all the alternatives
• Aim for perfection before public release
• Respond to customers on your time frame
• Engage with media, analysts, and commentators only when convenient and comfortable for you

How Real-Time Business Is Different

• Act before the window of opportunity vanishes
• Revise plans as the market changes
• Measure results today
• Execute based on what’s happening now
• Implement strategies and tactics based on breaking news
• Empower your people to act
• Move when the time is right
• Encourage people to make wise decisions quality, alone if necessary
• Make swift inquiries, but be prepared to act
• Quickly evaluate the alternatives and choose a course of action
• Get it done and push it out, because it will never by perfect
• Respond to customers on their time frames
• Engage with media at the moment they need your input

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Almost 2 years ago I wrote an article called “Should You Sell Space On Your NZ Website For Banner Advertising?“ in which I suggested you shouldn’t.

2 years later I haven’t change my mind. If it’s your core business then your website should focused on attracting new customers, and making sales, not earning a few dollars a month in advertising revenue at the cost of distracting your customers.

Blogs are a different story however.

7 Steps to Earning Income From A Passion

1. Find a topic you are deeply passionate about (this will give you the energy to keep going)
2. Be determined to write at least one short blog article per month
3. Your articles should contain useful information for other people interested in your niche. Eg lists, your findings on micro research projects, reviews and comparisons, interviews etc
4. Build up your audience by sticking to your niche and becoming a valuable resource
5. Find similar blogs/articles and write useful comments on them that contain a link back to your blog
6. Grow your audience to about 300 visits per day
7. Monetise

I create 2 or 3 new blogs like this every year. I’ve had some real duds (like ChickenCoops.co.nz) but I’ve had some big winners (like www.LoveOneDaySales.co.nz and www.NZHotPools.co.nz).

Today I want to tell you the story about NZHotPools.co.nz (which simply lists all the thermal hot pools around New Zealand) and tell you exactly how much advertising revenue I generate from it every year/month/day, so you can figure out if you could do the same with your idea for a blog.

NZHotPools.co.nz Monthly Webstats:

In this game, it is mainly about PageViews. Visits are important too but “Absolute Unique Visitors” are not.

There is a lot of confusion out there around these terms, so if you need a refresher on the definitions read: Difference Between Unique Visitors, Visitors, Visits, Page Views, Hits. And Why You Should Care

The hard part is getting an audience. Once you have an audience, monetising that audience is easy.

The 4 Ways to Sell Advertising Space On Your Website/Blog:

1. Direct Sales

• Direct Sales to businesses in your niche is the most lucrative but takes the most time
• It involves writing a list of prospects and making lots of phone calls to find out who the decision maker is to establish a relationship and to get permission to email them with your advertising rates from time to time
• Be creative with what you are selling: Eg banner ads, access to your email newsletter, sponsored blog articles, special mentions, featured businesses
• You can charge $5/$10/$20 CPM (Cost-Per-1000-Impressions) so for NZHotPools this is about $300/month
• If you use WordPress for your blog there are plugins that let you schedule the ads, or you can use http://www.google.com/doubleclick/

2. Google Adsense

• This is the easiest to manage. Decide where you will setup your advertising panels, and just generate the Adsense code and copy/paste it in. You’re done.
• Google Adsense calculate the best text-based ads to show your audience depending on the content of the webpage, the advertisers bids, and more recently, the visitors online behaviour and profile. Every bit of data they can use to generate more clicks which earns more revenue for you and for them
• On average you can expect to earn $1 per 300 visits, so for NZHotPools this is about about $50/month

3. TPN “The Performance Network” www.tpn.co.nz

• They require you to have 20,000 unique visitors per month though, so they might not want to work with you until you’ve grown your blog to that level (they bent the rules for me a little bit because I already had an account with them)
• They do display ads for big NZ brands like Kiwibank, NZPost, ASB etc
• They don’t have sophisticated technology to calculate the optimum ads to show, it’s just mass advertising rather than targeted advertising
• You can expect $1 per 300 visits so for NZHotPools this is about about $50/month

4. Affiliate Income

• An affiliate programme is where you earn a commission on every sale you make for the advertiser. Eg you could install an Amazon book widget for your topic and you’ll earn a dollar or two everytime someone purchases that book from Amazon thanks to your link
• Unfortunately, it is vary rare to find New Zealand businesses with Affiliate Programmes and your New Zealand audience is uncomfortable when they click on a link and find themselves on a USA based website so they are unlikely to whip out their credit card
• NZHotPools.co.nz doesn’t generate any affiliate income, but www.LoveOneDaySales.co.nz does generate a little

How Much Advertising Should You Switch On As Your Website/Blog Grows?

As your website/blog grows, you gradually switch on more advertising. For example, my rules are:

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I just completed my major research project for my MBA through Waikato Uni (I graduate in October 2011).

The full title is: “How New Zealand’s Cafe’s, Restaurant’s & Bar’s can best use the internet to attract new customers and encourage existing customers to return”

I poured 160 hours of my life into this project over a 4 week period and produced a report that is 115 pages long with 24,441 words.

Read The First Three Sections

You can download and read the first three sections including:

1. Table of Contents
2. Executive Summary
3. Introduction

Download the first three sections of “How New Zealand’s Cafe’s, Restaurant’s & Bar’s can best use the internet to attract new customers and encourage existing customers to return” (70Kb .pdf)

The Executive Summary for the report “How New Zealand’s Cafe’s, Restaurant’s & Bar’s can best use the internet”:

Café’s, Restaurant’s and Bar’s that learn how to use the internet to attract new customers and to remind existing customers to return, will have an advantage over owners who don’t.

7 Cafe/Restaurant/Bar owners in Tauranga were interviewed about their use/non-use of 11 different methods of online marketing which were: Business Websites, Business Facebook Pages, Email Newsletters, Online Review Websites, Online “Daily Deal” Coupon/Voucher Websites, Online Business Directories, Applications for Smart Phones, Pay-Per-Click Internet Advertising, Twitter, LinkedIn and Business Blogging.

Each method was described, the pros and cons were discussed, owners shared their perceptions and techniques, and a “how to get started” guide was provided.

One major benefit of online marketing is that you can use just about any method for free (or for next to nothing), and that, if it is set up properly, it can keep generating results infinitum with little or no maintenance. Compare that to an advertisement in yesterday’s newspaper or in last week’s Television commercial break.

However, business owners need to be convinced that each method will generate measurable results before they are willing to allocate time/resources/money to those methods.

To determine what those results may be, 105 consumers were surveyed about their use of the internet in relation to Cafe’s, Restaurant’s and Bar’s.

Firstly, they were asked about how they used the internet to find new places to visit. The 3 most common methods consumers used were Google search, “Daily Deal” websites, and Facebook.

Many respondents wanted to make it clear they did not use the internet at all to find new places to visit. However, many others are active users and several voiced frustration over not being able to find the information online, that they needed to make an informed choice.

If a growing number of consumers are using the internet looking for a new place to consider going to, are owners ensuring that their brand appears in the search results for a chance to be considered?  Owners that invest time/effort/money into this area will undoubtedly have an advantage over those that do not.

Secondly, the consumers were surveyed about the kind of information they expect to find online about a Cafe/Restaurant/Bar they are considering visiting. The importance of 18 factors was measured.

61% of respondents indicated that they were more likely to visit a place if they can find the answers to their questions online.

It is proposed that these questions and answers could form the basis of a Frequently-Asked-Questions page on a business website, and/or on a tab on a Facebook business page.

Finally, consumers were asked about how they interact with their favourite brands online.

Many respondents indicated that they would become fans of the Facebook business pages of their favourites if they could find them, and that they do subscribe to Email Newsletters.

We are living in a time when the effectiveness of traditional types of media is decreasing, the fragmentation of the media channels is increasing, and consumers are paying less and less attention. In times like this, business owners who get permission from customers to speak directly to them will have an advantage.

One third of respondents said they talk about their experiences online via social networking sites (such as Facebook) and a similar proportion take the time to write good/bad reviews online.

A growing proportion of consumers are engaging in discussions about their experiences, both positive and negative, on online platforms.

Owners that make efforts to monitor this feedback may be able to prevent damage to their brand that can result from negative criticism posted online.

Overall, it is clear that Café’s, Restaurant’s and Bar’s that make efforts to put some or all of these tools and techniques to use for their own businesses, will gain significant advantage over owners who don’t in terms of attracting new customers and maintaining relationships with existing customers.

What Should I Do With The Research Now?

My next challenge is to determine how to monetise this research. Options I’m considering:

• Could I turn it into an e-book or “how-to” guide for restaurant/cafe/bar owners and sell it to owners throughout New Zealand?
• Might the Restaurant Association of New Zealand be interested in the results? Might they hire me to present a seminar series?
• Could I start a mini-website dedicated to online marketing for restaurant’s/cafe’s/bar’s?

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My notes on “Why Now Is The Time To Crush It! Cash In On Your Passion” by Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary’s checklist for creating your personal brand:

1. Identify your passion
2. Make sure you can think of at least 50 awesome blog topics to ensure stickiness
3. Answer the following questions:
• Am I sure my passion is what I think it is?
• Can I talk about it better than anyone else?
4. Name your personal brand. You don’t have to refer to it anywhere in your content, but you should have a clear ideas of what it is. For example, “the no-be real-estate agent”, “The connoisseur of cookware”, “The cool guide to young adult books boys will love to read”.
5. Buy your user name .com and .tv if possible at GoDaddy.com
6. Choose your medium: video, audio, written word
7. Start a WordPress or Tumblr account
8. Hire a designer
9. Include a Facebook Connect link, Call-to-Action buttons, Share Functions and a button that invites people to do business with you in a prominent place on your blog
10. Create a Facebook fan page
11. Sign up for Ping.fm or TubeMogul and select all the platforms to which you want to distribute your content. Choosing Twitter and Facebook is imperative; the others you can select according to your needs and preference
12. Post your content
13. Start creating community by leaving comments on other people’s blogs and forums and replying to comments to your own comment
14. Use Twitter Search (or Search.Twitter) to find as many people as possible talking about your topic, and communicate with them
15. Use blogsearch.google.com to find more blogs that are relevant to the subject
16. Join as many active Facebook fan pages and groups relating to your blog topic as possible
17. Repeat steps 12 through 16 over and over and over and over and over
18. Do it again
19. And again
20. When you feel your personal brand has gained sufficient attention and stickiness, start reaching out to advertisers and begin monetising
21. Enjoy the ride

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I thought it would be interesting to combine age group data from Facebook with age group data from Statistics New Zealand to see what proportion of each age group is using Facebook.

In particular, I was interested in answers to questions like:

• Is Facebook mainly for teenagers?
• Are people over 50 using Facebook?
• Are people over 65 using Facebook?

What questions would you like answered?

Let’s take a look at the data:

*Source: SocialBakers.com

**Source: Stats.Govt.nz

^How is it possible that more than 100% of that age group use Facebook? I don’t know.

What do you think? Do these results surprise you?

Write your comments below

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My notes on “Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation” by Sally Hogshead

Fascination Scale

• Avoidance
  • You’ll take steps to avoid TV commercials
• Disinterest
  • You might leave the room during a commercial break to grab a bite
• Neutrality
  • You don’t really care if you watch the commercial or not. You’re not going to take steps to avoid it, or to watch it
• Mild Affinity
  • If a commercial happens to pique your curiosity, you’ll watch. Otherwise, eh, whatever
• Interest
  • Commercials entertain, at least the good ones
• Engagement
  • You actively enjoy commercials. During Super Bowl, you pay more attention to the commercials than the game
• Immersion
  • You go out of your way to watch commercials, even going online to search them out
• Preoccupation
• Obsession
• Compulsion

Trends Driving the Need for Fascination

• An overload of distracting choices
• The rise of the ADD world
• Earning attention, not paying attention
• The ability to shut out messages
• Shift from the information age to the fascination age
• The Fascination Economy

Golden Hallmarks of a Fascinating Message:

• Provokes strong and immediate emotional reactions
  • Polarising – love or hate
  • Eg Botox
• Creates advocates
  • Passionate, dedicated fans
  • Eg Religions, Nascar, The Da Vinci Code
• Becomes “cultural shorthand” for a specific set of actions or values
  • A reference point for how people define themselves and their world
  • Eg tattoo’s, Louis Vuitton, Virgin
• Incites conversation
  • Top of mind. Earns more attention than it pays for
  • Eg Twilight series, Grey’s anatomy, Richard Simmons
• Forces competitors to realign around it
  • Establishes new standards and criteria. Irreplaceable for audience. Cannot be exactly replaces or duplicated by inspires look-alikes, me-too’s, imitators.
  • Eg Microsoft, then Apple, then Microsoft. Wal-Mart
• Triggers social revolutions
  • Disrupts the status quo of accepted beliefs. Forces us to think differently about ourselves and our world
  • Eg Bono, Mini Cooper, Yoga, Prozac, YouTube

The Seven Triggers

Lust

If you trigger lust, you will draw others closer. They will crave your message, wanting more and more until satiated.

• Lust creates craving for sensory pleasure
• Stop thinking, start feeling
• Make the ordinary more emotional
• Use all five senses
• Tease and flirt
  • As a motivator, desire is more powerful than fulfillment (eg Monkeys like the sight of a luscious grape, enjoy the moment just before eating, but are a bit bored when eating it). Eg2 burlesque shows are rarely performed in the harsh morning light
  • Journal of Consumer Research says sex sells: A woman in a bikini increases man’s sexual stimulation and increase the likelihood of indulgent decision making. As the brain opens to possibilities, the wallet opens as well

Mystique

Trigger mystique, and you’ll encourage others to learn more about your message. They’ll be intrigued, and seek information

• Mystique lures with unanswered questions
  • Eg celebrity deaths
• Spark curiosity
• Withhold information
  • Information is the opposite of mystique
• Build mythology
  • Tell stories, don’t recite facts
  • Eg Coca Cola secret recipe
• Limit access

Alarm

With alarm, you compel others to behave more urgently. They’ll take action in order to avoid negative consequences.

• Alarm threatens with negative consequences
• Define consequences
• Create deadlines
• Increase perceived danger
• Focus not on the crisis most likely, but on the one most feared
• Use distress to steer positive action
  • Eg “The Tap project” charges for glasses of water, that money goes to Unicef to provide a child clean drinking water for 40 days

Prestige

A message with prestige will elevate you about others, inspiring covetousness or envy.

• Prestige earns respect through symbols of achievement
• Develop emblems
• Set a new standard
• Limit availability
• Earn it

Power

If you effectively trigger power, you will control others. They will defer to you and your message.

• Power commands and controls
• Dominate
• Control the environment
• Reward and punish

Vice

By triggering vice, your message will tempt others to deviate from their usual code of conduct. They’ll act outside of standard habits or norms.

• Vice tempts with “forbidden fruit” causing us to rebel against norms
• Create taboos
  • Eg reality stars fight for the notorious villain role – Simon Cowell
• Lead others astray
• Define absolutes
  • Eg “don’t look in the box”, “don’t do drugs”
• Give a wink
• How to encourage someone to want do break your rules:
  • Enforce rigid black and white rules. Exaggerate consequences (eg “if you kiss a boy, you’ll get pregnant)
  • Give a firm “no” without reasonable reasn why
  • Fail to establish trust (no familiar people or context)
  • Trigger mystique by telling them what not to do, without telling them why
• How boring brands can trigger vice
  • Electronic company: Include a secret “road to deafness” setting on your headphones
  • Car company: buy a private autobahn for people who buy a new car

Trust

With trust, your message will comfort others, relax them, and bind them more closely to you.

• Trust comforts us with certainty and reliability
  • Are your favourite brands the highest quality or just the most familiar?
• Become familiar
• Repeat and retell
  • You can dabble in other triggers, but you must establish trust with consistency
  • Hitler: “The greater the lie, the greater the chance that it will be believed” if it is simple and you keep saying it
• Be authentic
• Accelerate trust
  • By tapping into values
  • Bring back old marketing devices

Your Potential Fascination Badges

• Purpose: Your reason for being; your function as a brand
• Core beliefs: The code of values and principles that guides you; what you stand for.
• Heritage: Your reputation and history; the “backstory” of how you came to be.
• Products: The goods, services or information you produce.
• Benefits: The promises of reward for purchasing the product, both tangible and abstract, overt and implied.
• Actions: How you conduct yourself.
• Culture: All characteristics of your identity, including personality, executional style, and mind-set.

Steps to Find the Edge of Your Bell Curve

1. List your badges (both existing and potential)
2. Evaluate against the hallmarks of a fascinating brand
3. Plot on a bell curve
4. Push badges outward on the curve by infusing them with more of your primary trigger
5. Push badges outward on the curve by infusing them with a new trigger
6. Build your message around these badges

More Notes

Fascinating Faces

We are all find faces fascinating and we all consciously/subconsciously attempt to interpret facial expressions. Cutting edge software analysed Mona Lisa’s smile. The results: 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, 2% angry

The Fascination Economy

• Goods-based economy >> Service-based economy >> Information economy >> Knowledge economy >> Experience economy >> Fascination economy
• Fascinating company’s/brands:
  • Charge a premium
  • Command more influence in the marketplace
  • Build more loyal relationships over time

People Want to Connect with…

• Not brands. With each other.
• Fascinating companies create more opportunities for people to connect with each other through the brand (eg Harley-Davidson)
• For marketers, it’s not about marketing a message – it’s about getting the market to create messages about you.

An idea is worth…

• An idea is only as valuable as its ability to solve a problem
• Ideas don’t live in a vacuum. They only become precious only once they successfully answer a specific need; otherwise they’re just scribbles

Red-tape will kill your fascinating plan

• Avoid committee mentality. The most fascinating ideas are often fragile because they can easily be “dumbed down”
• What policies and protocol block fascination by forcing a “red tape” mentality, or an over-thought, over-controlled approval process?
• Are you so concerned with neutrality that your communication is diluted down to gray mush?
• Are you so focused on keeping a low profile, playing it safe, that you’re kill fascination opportunities before they’ve had a chance to hatch?
• Fascination requires putting yourself out there for remarkable ideas, accomplishments and innovations

Brand Example

• Cirque de Soleil: Mystique (tightly held secrets) + Prestige (high-end execution) + Power (extraordinary training and skill) + Lust (playful style, elaborate costumes, makeup, artistry) leaves the audience craving more at the end of the show

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You may have heard that money-back guarantees are a good idea but you are not sure if they are right for your business?

Perhaps you are holding back because you are worried it’s going to cost you money handing out dozens of refunds, right?

Offering any kind of money back guarantee is better than offering none at all because the main two things that customers care about is:

1. Price
2. Risk

And a money back guarantee helps with both.

A money back guarantee reduces risk for the customer because:

• It signals that you are confident about the quality of your product
• It reduces their nervousness about making a bad purchasing decision
• It goes beyond the normal offer of replacing the item if something goes wrong, because they can get their money back

A money back guarantee reduces the price for the customer because:

• There is a cost for returning something for a refund: time. Knowing that you are able to get cash back for your trouble is better compensation than a replacement
• Customers perception is: Price + money-back-guarantee = Free Trial. Free is a customers favourite price

These are all “up-front” factors that persuade a customer to buy in the first place. Which is great.

In fact, let’s just slap a number on it and say that offering a money back guarantee will generate 20% more sales for you.

But the real magic happens in the “tail-end”, a long time after the sale.

Let’s say you purchased the Ginsu 2000 never-needs-sharpening-can-cut-through-a-can knife with a 30 year money back guarantee.

And it’s year number 29 and you decide it’s crap. Do you ask for your money back? Hell no. For 4 reasons:

1. You forgot about the 30 year money back guarantee anyway
2. You can’t be bothered
3. You feel you got your moneys worth any way
4. You don’t want to impose or be a nuisance
5. You’ve had it so long it feels like yours, you feel like the owner. This reduces the obligation of the people you bought it from

Yes, it’s an extreme example but you get the idea. Let’s look at another:

Let’s say you purchased an ebook about Search Engine Optimisation for $19 with a 3 month money back guarantee.

It’s the 2nd month, and you only just got around to reading it and you decide it’s crap. Do you ask for your money back? Hell no. For 3 reasons:

1. You forgot about the 3 month money back guarantee anyway
2. You can’t be bothered
3. You don’t want to impose or be a nuisance
4. It’s in your possession and so you feel like the owner. This reduces the obligation of the author

Let’s just slap a number on it and say that you get 5% of customers that actually do go ahead and ask for their money back.

So to summarise, you are getting 20% more sales to get out 5% refunds… Ummm, that’s really good isn’t it?

Yes. Yes it is.

4 Ways to Make A Great Money Back Guarantee:

1. Make the expiry really really long. The longer it is the more chance of the customer forgetting about it, or feeling like they are imposing by asking for their money back
2. If a customer asks for their money back, provide it the same day. Don’t drag your feet and make them wait. You will impress them with your customer service, and this experience may trigger Word-of-Mouth so you might get new sales from people they talk too!
3. Tell them up-front how to get one eg “To get your money back, just call us on 0800 xyz xyz and you’ll have your money back within 24 hours”. You could just provide an email form for them to request their money-back, but in this case, I advise putting up a small barrier for them and getting them to talk directly to you
4. Arrange their refund over the phone, and when it’s finished and approved, at the last minute ask them why they asked for one. Their feedback might be valuable. Don’t ask this question upfront because it will make them feel more uncomfortable than they already are

What about services?

Money back guarantees can also work for services but you’ll have to go overboard with your offer Eg “If you are not happy with our car washing service we’ll redo it for free + give your money back”

What do you think about money back guarantees now?

What do you have to add to this? Will you give it a try for your business? What’s the most outrageous money-back guarantee you’ve ever seen?

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