Thursday, July 23, 2015

I scream, you scream

The cops show up and it gets really awkward...

Marketing is a form of sales. Marketing is shared information generating awareness.

There's a problem with marketing. Most of us don't care about the millions of messages directed at us.

And here's why.

Our brains are split into three levels. The first level is what Seth Godin calls "the lizard brain". It is the part of the brain responsible for humanity's ability to survive. It generates "fight and flight". It's been with humans throughout our existence so we continue to use it without our knowledge. Call it instinct.

Here's how the lizard brain processes outside stimuli.

If these things are not dangerous, ignore it.
If this is not new and exciting, ignore it.
If it is new, summarize it as quickly as possible and forget about the details.
Do not send information to the problem solving part of the brain (neocortex) unless you have a situation really unexpected or totally out of the ordinary.

The neocortex evolved for humanity to understand mathematics, physics, medicine.

The lizard brain makes all initial decisions. It filters all messages before we interpret them in the higher evolved section of our brains.

Knowing this makes it easier to be a good marketer.

The message must be either dangerous, new, and exciting or the lizard brain will ignore it.
Not only must the message be new and exciting, it be unexpected and totally out of the ordinary or the lizard brain will not send the information to the neocortex. The lizard brain is the gatekeeper. The neocortex is the president. The lizard brain is the office secretary who won't let anyone visit the president without a pre-scheduled meeting. And she may not allow the meeting to ever take place if she doesn't see value for her boss.

That's her job as the lizard brain.

When you think of marketing, you have to be willing to take chances. There will be those who will criticize your decisions. But they were never going to buy anyways. Their lizard brains were looking for a reason to ignore you and you gave them an easy reason.

I saw the "I scream, you scream" message on a Dairy Queen readerboard sign. It was intriguing because it was out of the ordinary. I expected "... we all scream for ice cream". But they didn't go to the expected. That would have been easy. That would've been unremarkable. That would've been boring.

It reminded me of two other readerboard signs.

One was from 11 years ago, promoting a liquor store in Alberta. The sign read, "My boss told me to change the sign so I did". The playful act got my attention. The sign changed every week and they were all cute and unexpected.

Thanks to Seth Godin, we've learned in a pasture filled with cows, the purple one will get the attention.

The other readerboard sign never existed but I wish it would. There is a Chinese restaurant in my town with the same message for the past 10 years. It reads, "Experience the difference quality makes". Not only is the message now part of the landscape, it's boring. It's un-unique. It's a cow and could represent any cow-like business or industry.

Quality is nothing. Every one says they have quality. I wish someone would have the balls to put a new message on that board. Something like, "No cat or dog will be harmed in the cooking of your meal here". Deep down we know that restaurants don't use cats or dogs to cook meals. It's become a stereotype. It's a bad joke that lies beneath the covers. If you own a chinese restaurant, use it to your advantage. Laugh about it and others will laugh with you. Some will be upset, only because you said something they were already thinking.

Real marketing happens when someone has enough courage to stand up, be noticed and says something unexpected.

Don't scream to get attention. Say something remarkable. Slip past the lizard gatekeeper and speak directly to the president. She holds the money and decides where it gets spent. Nothing good ever came from screaming, unless you're in the bedroom...


With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/05/1667819805.htm





Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Grass is greener...

Do you want to travel to exotic lands?
Do you want to drive a fancy car or own a boat or RV?
What about paying off that mortgage?

Most of us get out of school to find a good job, earning decent money to pay for a house, car, kids and vacations. All while paying off massive student loan debt, only to get into middle age wondering what all these things serve.

I was mowing the lawn asking myself to what purpose does a lawn actually serve. A lawn is a statement. It feeds a need. I don't have cows, but it still feeds me. It makes me feel good. My ego loves it.

It wasn't long ago when lawns didn't exist. Looking at old pictures of my ancestors on the front step of the house, there was two foot long strands of grass, or as the farmers call it, hay.

Lawns are a newer phenomenon as houses got built closer and closer together. Lawns were developed as we moved away from farms and into cities as the industrial revolution clenched its knuckles around us.

Lawns were invented by Kings. The rich, with the desire of royalty, robbed the idea. The middle class, firmly entrapped in the American Dream, copied that feeling by replacing cattle, sheep and horses with machines.

It became an affordable luxury in the 20th century as subdivisions and the American Dream pushed our idealic thoughts toward wealth to the high diving board. The bigger the lawn, the greater the person and the bigger the statement.

I tell myself that I like mowing my lawn. It gives me time to listen to my latest audio book while turning and twisting in the hay. But it serves no real purpose. It's not productive. It doesn't make me money. It doesn't give me time with my kids.

It does the opposite of anything productive.
My lawn serves one sole purpose. It feeds my ego.

Yet, I continue to cut the grass around the property like a cud chewing cow. It seems like I have a choice to make.
-Keep doing what I'm doing
-Hire someone
-Stop mowing altogether and let the grass grow.

What would you do?


With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/05/1667819805.htm



Monday, July 20, 2015

Opinions or Analysis

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one...

What about analysis? Can you analyze a product, a situation, a person and keep the subjective emotional state from penetrating the objective, scientific, logical self?

Recently, I was in a room with six bureaucrats arguing the value of my property assessment. They said I didn't pay enough for my house and I should pay more in property taxes.

I argued the only issue to be analyzed is the subjective value (what we think) versus an objective value (what we know).

Subjective data was shared at nauseum from the bureaucrats as they justified their importance and validated their credibility to do their jobs. They suggested at one point that the method of analysis could be changed to increase the value of the property even further.

I thought to myself, "I'm dealing with cogs. Better yet, as my grade 11 English teacher used to call them, pinheads." There's no way I can win this argument. They are speaking a foreign language to me. They're speaking government talk.

As they tried to justify value, they used subjective data on the sale of comparable homes. As I questioned the interior of each of those homes, I discovered there was no data. I questioned the motivations of the sellers.  Seller motivation on other homes could not be ascertained. Yet, the value of my home was based on seller motivation and its interior.

I asked if any comparable homes had gold plated floors. The executive director who wished to be called Madame Chair, informed me that no two houses were exactly the same.

Exactly!

In retrospect, I could have asked Madame Chair to refer to me as Supreme Chancellor. It was a farce.

Then it occurred to me that data is used this way all the time. Prospective business owners are not encouraged to use objective data to predict future revenues in the purchase process. They make opinions about how much better the business will be when they own it.

Unfortunately sometimes data is limited. And we have to use what we have to form an opinion. The usage of that data is risky because of the multiple variables that could change the outcome. In these cases, the opinion is only an opinion. However, it's the closest value we can rely on to make a decision.

Imagine having chronic back pain. You go to your family doctor to relieve the pain and he tells you that you have cancer of the kidneys. His opinion, based on what you told him, is that cancer is the problem. You're not going to believe him. You're going to want to see a specialist or a second opinion. You'll want a blood test. You'll want to have accurate data before moving to the next stage of treatment.

But that probably won't happen. Doctor's aren't trained to give their opinions. Even though their opinions are based on experience and training. They are trained to get data and act on the information the data provides.

Do you look for data to support your thinking or do you look for data and then form your analysis? The first is subjective and is called confirmation bias. The second is objective.


With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/05/1667819805.htm


Thursday, July 16, 2015

What?

What?

I can't hear you.

What did you say?

I can't hear what you're saying because what you're doing is too loud.

Some of us has heard the famous saying from our parents, "Don't do as I do, do as I say", only to do exactly what our wiser older onspring told us not to do.

I was searching for professional services online this week, when I looked up the services of writers. Writers are like engineers. There is a special type depending on what you're trying to do. Some have to be technical. Some are creative. Some have a unique ability to capture a thought and describe it so well the reader sees herself in the story. And some are horrible.

I evaluate a writer based on her ability to sell.

If a writer can sell himself to me, then he should be able to sell me to my target audience.

I searched over 50 writers on a well known website that converges writers globally. With the exception of two, none of them used the power of their craft forcefully to convince me to buy their services. They tried to sell me on features and benefits using testimonials, level of experience and years of labour.

There's no emotion in features and benefits. The average person doesn't buy a drill for the voltage, revolutions per minute or the battery life. People buy drills based on its ability to make a hole in the wall. People buy for results. Unfortunately the results are not what you think.

We don't buy the latest BoFlex to get in shape. That's hard work. We buy it to be sexy.
We don't buy the red convertible because it's summer. We buy it to relive our youth.
And we don't buy Starbucks because it's better coffee. We buy it to prove we can afford a $5 coffee.

People buy on emotion. People think they buy rationally. But they don't. They buy emotionally and rationalize why they purchased after the fact.

Since people buy emotionally,  a good writer must capture the audience with magical words taking them on a roller coaster adventure. A good writer must be able to pull that very same emotion out of guys like me as we peruse their services. And if they can't, then they can't help me sell my services.

I was disappointed today.  But I learned a valuable lesson. There is a blustery snowstorm of noise from companies and people trying to sell us their stuff.  The magical ones worth buying from are rare and easy to pick out of a crowd.

Here are three examples of writers' sales pitches. Who would you hire to use the power of words to sell for you?

CC
Every word on the page is fluorescent through my eyes, with every syllable illuminated; having a meaning and a soul. When I write, I am not just merely typing words out on a page; I am living them, breathing them and experiencing them so that when my words are read, that experience lives on. 

KJ
Do you need help with your plot, characters, conflict, or dialogue? I'm an experienced book doctor, ghostwriter, and editor for general fiction, crime suspense, romance, young adult, new adult, fantasy, adventure, and science fiction. As an author and editor, I understand story structure, pacing, character development, and what makes a story sell. I enjoy working across genres,and I love helping others polish their work to reach more readers. Storytelling is my passion, and I'm here to make your story shine. I'll take your fiction to the next level! 

A little about me: I'm the author of over thirty books which have hit the top 100 in Kindle in the US, UK, and Canada, and #1 in ten categories. My fiction work includes short stories, novellas, and novels in contemporary romance, romantic suspense and thriller, western romance, new adult, Native American fiction, and military. I also have four nonfiction books on authorship and experience ghostwriting business and nonfiction.

PW
PW is an experienced writing corporation started in Boston, Massachusetts. We are a dynamic team of 10-15 writers with an exquisite blend of experience in the areas of article writing, ghost writing, academic writing, blogs, press releases, proofreading and editing and so our services will prove to be useful for your project.

Our work is unrivaled, seizes the reader's attention and ensures continued reading.

Working under strict deadline to complete the project or walking an extra mile just to satisfy our clients is never a...




With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/05/1667819805.htm



Wednesday, July 15, 2015

The power of power

I thought that power over others was a negative connotation. Power was supposed to be bad. I can still hear my grade 10 history teacher, Mr. Olscamp scream, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely".

To not lose one's power is well...powerful.

Yoda said in the Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace, "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."

As one is lead to fear, they give up their power to that which they fear.

In a dark period of my life, I was angry. My friends advised to keep my power. At first, I thought they meant that I was using my energy for negative things. When in fact, I was allowing someone to exert power over me.

To keep my power, I couldn't be scared. But I was scared. How could I not be when someone was threatening me with absolute financial ruin?

Oren Klaff explains in his book, "Pitch Anything", that in any relationship someone controls the power frame and someone doesn't. The use of fear is a tactic . The person who allows fear to control their emotions allows the other party to have power over them.

In one of my business relationships, a colleague exerted his power over me by instilling fear. And I allowed it to happen by being the beta (and he the alpha) of the relationship. As long as I gave him my power, he ruled.

Until the last day of our relationship, when I no longer had fear of any consequences. My businesses were sold and I was riding away, no longer fearful of financial ruin. Twice that day, he tried to exert his power as he had done countless times before only to be met with an indifferent, more powerful foe. Fear, anger, hatred and suffering were no longer part of my landslide of personal detriment.

I was now in charge. And he knew it.

To watch him recoil and return to his hovel was pleasing. I had taken over the power frame. I was now the Alpha while he rolled over and showed his belly.

Funny enough as my fear filled body exploded with anger, I had seen him as much taller than I. The day the weight was lifted off my shoulders, as I stood next to my powerless partner, he looked shorter.

As the Alpha, the world looked much different. Suffering squashed. Fear destroyed. Three inches taller, I once again ruled my life.

Are you afraid of anything? If there's anything I learned from my experience it's this: "Fear will hurt your progress."

As hard as it may seem, you must not be afraid.



With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/05/1667819805.htm

Monday, July 13, 2015

Interchangeable parts

December 1, 1913 was the day the business world changed forever.

Henry Ford started production on his Model T. The assembly line had been perfected using interchangeable parts. Now instead of taking four hours to build a car, Ford could do it in 93 minutes.

By increasing production, he could sell more cars.

Although the modern assembly line looks nothing like that of Ford's in 1913, there is one significant contribution.

Parts needed to be standardized.

Seems simple enough.

But the business world took this idea one step further over the next one hundred years.

Parts included people.
People needed to be standardized and interchangeable.

Ford started a revolution that was responsible for mass production, mass pollution and mass emotional abuse.  Emotional abuse wasn't defined by our early 20th century ancestors. It's effects were only dissected as the civilization looked for more humanity in work and life.

The saying "Anyone can be replaced", puts a low value on people in business. People are cogs. They fill a need until someone else comes along filling that same need who is younger, cheaper or prettier.

Unions protect cogs. And in a cog filled world, we need unions.

The industrial revolution gave us this thinking.

But what if people weren't replaceable.
What if we valued the contribution of the employee to the point that they weren't interchangeable?
What's the value of a union when companies treat people like we're supposed to be treated?

To not be a cog is difficult.
It's hard for us who grew up being told to listen.
It's hard for us who were taught to respect authority.
It's hard for us who were taught to go to school, get good grades and get a good job.

It's not as hard for our children.

The information age is upon us. The ability to think, the ability to bring immense value is now the new irreplaceable employee.

Interchangeable employees will be used, abused and eventually tossed out, just like that inanimate nut that you can buy at the local hardware store.

Interchangeable employees were taught to listen, obey and to not be disruptive.

There will always be a need for cogs. Cogs can be bought anywhere. Cogs can be found offshore. Cogs will get cheaper and cheaper.

The future of cogs is bleak. There's no future in it.

The time for the irreplaceable employee is upon us. And our kids will benefit greatly from it.

With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/05/1667819805.htm

Friday, July 10, 2015

No longer employable - Another story

I knew the day I was no longer employable.

It was at a job interview.

I didn't want to be there. I felt sick to my stomach as it felt like I pimped my services to another John Incorporated.

I didn't want the job. I wanted money to pay my expenses until another business opportunity came along.

I teach new entrepreneurs about the transition from being an employee to becoming an entrepreneur every month. The mentality is very different.

An employee gets paid every two weeks. If they do good work, don't piss off management, are honest, respectful and get along with others they get to keep that job and its benefits as long as they want it or until the company is forced to make changes.

An entrepreneur gets paid only when their company makes enough money to pay them. Entrepreneurs can do good work, be honest, respectful and get along with others and there is still no guarantee of a paycheque at the end of two weeks.

Entrepreneurs only get paid when they perform.
Entrepreneurs only get paid when they learn how to sell.

For some, the risk involved in getting paid as an entrepreneur is too great compared to the perceived security of a bi monthly salary and two weeks vacation as an employee. And those people should remain employees.

For about 5% of the population, there is a deep burning desire to step out on the skinny branch. To move forward pursuing a dream of working for oneself. To report to no one but yourself.  For that small segment of the population, entrepreneurship is the only way they will ever find happiness in their work.

Someone recently told me about all the things they loved about their federal government job. I didn't want to offend my friend so I played along. I think his job would be one of the worst jobs in the world. But he's well paid and he said he liked it there. Like a cat with a string, I asked one simple question, "When do you think you'll be able to retire?"

He's living a lie. He serves up his bullshit everyday telling himself he loves his job, when in fact what he really loves is the lifestyle the high paying job has afforded him. No one who loves what they do would think about early retirement.

I know of one entrepreneur who's in his eighties and still goes to work everyday, even though his children have taken over the business.

I love my kids. I don't want them removed from my life.
I love my wife. I can't imagine living without her.

To love what you do, would mean that you can't imagine ever stopping doing it.

I love entrepreneurship. I will never retire from it. I may slow down as I get older, but retire I won't.

And that's the true difference between an entrepreneur and an employee.