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Michel Fortin started a really good conversation about whether or not Larry Winget went overboard on his blog about the guy who stole his Facebook username.
The short story is Facebook offered everyone the chance to get a Facebook.com/YourName address for your profile. Lots of people lost their names to other people who had their name and others to slicksters who stole other people’s usernames – And thats the part pissing people off.
This guy who stole Mr. Winget’s username says he did it to try and get Larry’s attention. That he was doing him a favor by holding the name hostage from anyone else and that he thought it was worth a free consultation. Well he sure got Larry’s attention!
However there are better ways to get attention, like ones that won’t make you doosh of the day in the blogosphere. Michel was talking about how you shouldn’t try to get attention at the expense of others. Which I totally agree with, but I felt a little like “well what is the right way then.”
So I’m going to pick up where Michel left off and elaborate on some ways to get attention without being annoying.
Getting The Attention Of A Potential Mentor
I got my big start online by getting the opportunity to intern with Russell Brunson. What I didn’t do was steal a domain of his and then try to sell it back to him. Instead I contacted him and told him how hard I would work for him.
Then later on when he needed a new VP of marketing for his MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR COMPANY I got his attention again. This time I wrote out all my ideas for how I could help him.
Before I get to the point let me give another example…
I now have Matt Bacak on speed dial and we chat on instant messengers about our sites. Again I didn’t try to extort him or scream over all the others that wanted his attention. I just started promoting his products and sent him case studies of results I got from his methods.
I’ve done it over and over again… Russell Brunson, Dave Lakhani, Matt Bacak, Keith Baxter, and many others. I’ve gotten some of the best mentors in my industry because I put their needs before mine. Instead of asking them to help me, I told them how I would help them. In return for helping them they helped me.
I learned of this first in a book written by Robert Greene called “The 48 Laws Of Power” and I highly suggest reading it. I use the lessons from that book everyday of my life. He talks about the “position of power” and how it’s always changing.
Positions of Power (My Favorite Lesson Of All Time)
In every discussion, conversation, and relationship there is a hidden passing back and forth of power. If you know what to look for and concentrate though you can see where the position has stopped at and bring it back to you.
For example, you want a mentor…
Well the person you want to mentor you has the position of power, you are the one needing it. No one wants to physically give you their “power ball” so you have to earn it from them. If you help that person do something they couldn’t have done with you all of a sudden that position of power is transferred to you.
Now that you have the “power ball” you can pass it back to the mentor by asking them to help you. The other important thing about positions of power is EVERYONE ALWAYS WANTS IT (especially wives! haha jk).
You can get whatever you want when you practice being aware of positions of power and how to gain them.
Getting The Attention Of A Customer
In a competitive market the most basic marketers try yelling louder then everyone else to get their customers attention. However all they are doing is intimidating their customers and once everyone is screaming and shouting the prospect is just annoyed and jaded now.
For example take a look at the history of banner ads. First they were just blocks of text, then they became colorful images, then they made them animated, then blinking, and now today we have full audio inside some banner ads!
Because everyone was screaming and shouting in the banner ads the prospects learned how to tune them out. That’s why the best banner ads today are ones that look nothing like a banner ad.
Instead of giving themselves away by blinking, shouting, and being colorful the best banner ads camouflage themselves as useful information, games, questions, and spots of interactivity. You can learn from these banners too.
If everyone else is using a salesletter… What if you used an article? In fact some of the smartest marketers are now using blogs as salesletters. For example check out http://mywhiteteeth.greatblogsabout.com
The prospect has the position of power. They have the money you want… If you put a salesmen in front of them or the equivalent they’ll hug and squeeze their “power ball” to never let it go. However, the prospect still has some sort of problem maybe it’s yellow teeth, maybe it’s toenail fungus.
If you can camouflage your sales process as a solution like a blog post instead of a salesletter then the customer will walk into your arms. Once you show them you know where the solution to their problem is, then all of a sudden the “power ball” magnetizes itself to you and you earn the position of power.
One last example because this is HIGHLY EFFECTIVE customer getting information is postcard marketing. I’m a fan of it but it’s going down the same path of banner ads on the Internet. Now the postcards are yellow, orange, pink, and red. If you open your mailbox and see a neon pink postcard… Whats your first thought?
SALES CARD! RUN!!! DON’T EVEN LOOK AT IT, JUST THROW IT OUT!
However, if you see a normal sized envelope, handwritten, and addressed to you then it almost certainly gets read. If when you open it you see a newspaper clipping that has a post it note addressed with your name handwritten on it… You’re going to read that newspaper clipping.
It looks like a friend sent you something that you need to see. This kind of marketing is called a tear sheet and there are several companies (LumpyMail.com is the best) that will do it for you in mass, even with the handwritten post it notes.
But That’s Too Complicated/Expensive
All of us inherently know that if we send a gift basket with a personalized DVD video prsentation of our product it’s probably going to work better then a neon pink mass print postcard. However, most of us have the mentality of just doing enough to get by.
You might think well I need the money fast, I don’t have time for all that fancy stuff. Which makes me think of the guy speeding down the road in his car rushing to get to work before he’s late and he gets pulled over by a cop. Sometimes it really is faster and more effective to do things right the first time then to try and cut corners or do the “rush it and pray” method.
So before you think about your next project ask yourself if there might be a more creative way of going about your business. Often times you’ll see much higher results from less work if you just stop and think about how you can be different from everyone else instead of trying to be bigger or louder.
Go Bigger,
Justin Brooke
P.S. Four more days of sitting around a house with no furniture and then I can get back to the normal way of doing business. Thanks for hanging in there with me guys! We have some crazy crazy cool stuff planned for you in July once we’re in our new house.
