In The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and its follow-up book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, Jack Trout writes about the importance of “exclusivity”, of “creating your own category” and of “owning a word”.
                   But many product and service categories today are already owned by someone. Home Depot might own building supplies in your market, and Coke probably owns colas.
                   If you look in the Yellow Pages under restaurants, for example, you will probably see someone already claims steaks, another claims seafood, another claims pizza, someone probably claims home-cooked burgers and yet another claims Chinese or Italian cuisine.
                   Here is a tip that will help you to uncover a category your clients can own on your airwaves.
                   Look for an experiential category to own instead of a product or service category. By choosing an experience to own, rather than a product or service, your clients can actually broaden their target audience.
                   In restaurants, for example, who owns the “romance” category in your market? Probably no-one. In the romance category, you have the ability to offer steaks, seafood, Italian or Chinese.
                   Who owns the “private business luncheons” category in your market? Or the “served in less than 10 minutes” category?
                   Does someone own fun and parties?
                   By choosing an experiential category which no one owns in the minds of your audience, your client has the opportunity to become a market leader. Wal-Mart, for example, doesn’t own a product or service category, they own an experience….low prices. Michelin doesn’t own tires, they own safety. Another tire manufacturer, Pirelli, owns performance…again, an experience, not a product or service.
                   That does not mean if you promote the romance category that the only time people will go to your restaurant is on a first date, Valentines Day or on their anniversary. It just means your restaurant now has a chance to stand for something and to be remembered. In today’s advertising maze, it is no longer adequate to just “keep your name in front of the public”. You have to stand for something to be remembered.
                   If you can help your client to discover a unique experience they can own, you will help their advertising to work harder for them and assure yourself of more renewals.
                    As always, your unique experiential offering must actually be delivered by the client, not just advertised.

          Now is the best time to approach your lucrative New Year’s Resolution Market prospects.
          Near the end of December each year most people reflect on the years gone by and tell themselves “In the New Year I’m going to do something differently.” Some choose exercise, some choose cooking or computer classes, some choose more travel or reading. What ever they choose, it’s too late to try to win them over once they already have their check books out.
          The categories you can target include; adult education facilities, fitness clubs, health food stores, Karate clubs, quit smoking clinics, travel agencies, upscale clothing stores, financial planners, diet plans, sports organizations and more.

Approach these categories now to;

          a.) pre-sell the New Year’s Resolution market
          b.) sell holiday gift certificates for their goods and services
          c.) schedule their peak-season January campaign

          Your New Year’s Resolution prospects need to capture top of mind awareness BEFORE the consumers actually make their New Year’s Resolution, and the consumer who receives an adult education gift certificate is not likely to register with a competitor when that important first two weeks of January comes around.

          Happy New Year!

P.S. If your New Year resolution includes increasing your sales, consider the consulting, training and revenue generating opportunities offered by ENS Media.  We guarantee a minimum five-to-one return on your investment.

          An uncle of mine who owned a very successful logging company in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains in the 1960’s and ‘70’s taught me a valuable lesson about productivity and asset utilization.
          Between forest fire hazards in the summer months, and heavy snowfalls in the winter months, he only had a few short months a year in which to make his money.
          I remember him telling me, “Wayne, acquiring new equipment isn’t always the answer to higher productivity”.
          He used the analogy of two old-time loggers to explain his point. “You see,” he said, “a new less-experienced logger might go all the way back into town searching for a new axe when his old one gets dull.”
          “The experienced logger knows, however, that by the time you go back to town, find a new axe, bring it back to the bush and break it in, you could have completed a good day’s work just by sharpening the axe you already have.” 
          Good managers in our business understand that same lesson. Often newer managers want to clean house and start over with a new staff. The professional manager knows that sometimes we just need to sharpen the team we already have.
          New people are seldom as good as they appear to be on their resume, and then there is the risk and down time to consider of recruiting, training and building new relationships.
          Before you give up on your old axe, maybe it just needs a little sharpening. Training does more than just sharpen the skills of your people. The investment you make in their career growth is also a huge motivating factor.
          Estimates of the cost of sales staff turnover in our industry range from $35,000 to $75,000 per person. Perhaps a wiser investment might be to budget for a good training program for your existing team. 

          Nothing will help you lose your client or your audience faster than making them feel stupid…..so watch your language.
          Often in an attempt to appear intelligent, we use language that is misunderstood or intimidating to the person or persons we are trying to influence.
          Yesterday, I was reading a trade magazine article that talked about “heuristic evaluations”. Boy did I feel dumb. But I make a point of reading and learning every day, so I typed the word heuristic into my word processor then clicked on Language and Thesaurus. Ah ha! I’m not so dumb after all, my Thesaurus did not recognize the word either.
          Being relentless in my quest for knowledge, I will admit I did find the word in a good old Webster’s Dictionary. The context in which this trade article used the word still made little sense to me.
          In different articles in that same publication words like, ‘analytics’ and ‘temerity’ also had me feeling guilty about my lack of formal education. By the way, after searching three dictionaries I’m convinced there is no such word as analytics……although in my eyes the author appears to come from  the root word “anal” in analytics.
          Here is my point. When it comes to communicating or building relationships there is nothing wrong with using four-letter words. The shorter, more easily understood a word is, the more quickly you are likely to develop an understanding and a rapport with your audience and your customers.
          Using larger words to display your intellect, or worse yet, to unveil the recipient’s ignorance, is unforgivable.
          I think Nelson Mandela said it best when he said, “Speak to a man in a language he understands and it goes to his head. Speak to him in his language and it goes to his heart.”
          I’m suggesting that speaking or writing in a language that penetrates neither the head nor the heart is a waste of time and energy.  

          Account list re-alignment is one of the most productive sales management tools you have. Re-assigning accounts that are not at potential and exposing them to a fresh approach can net amazing results.
          Having said that, it is never a good feeling for the sales manager nor the sales executive, to leave an account review with a sense of loss.
          To avoid that leaving empty-handed feeling, try awarding poker chips or monopoly money for each surrendered account.  Award chips to the account executive proportionate to the potential THEY claim the account could be worth.
          For a high level A account give the sales person three chips, for level B give them two, and for a low level C give them one.
          Following your account reviews with each rep, facilitate an account bidding session where the account executives bring their chips to the meeting, using them to bid on the accounts that are up for trade.   
          This process has been very successful with my clients because:

1.) The reps feel like they got something for the accounts they surrendered
2.) The sales manager can not be accused of favoritism in the re-distribution of accounts, and most importantly,
3.) The account executive who is willing to bid the majority of her chips for a particular account has a method to her madness…they usually have a great idea or some knowledge about the account that makes them passionate about following up.

          Account bidding meetings can be fun, and you’ll see immediate  increased sales activity if you have been aggressive and thorough in your account review.
NOTE: to maximize the productivity of the bidding process, each rep should have 4-5 days to study the list of accounts up for bidding in order to devise their priorities and bidding strategies.