The Guerrilla Marketing Revolution is a major new book for today packed with an arsenal of devastatingly effective marketing weapons. It takes the proven methods, strategies and weapons of Guerrilla Marketing and intertwines these with advanced psychology and Neurolinguistic Programming NLP to present new Guerrilla weapons with clear and detailed instructions for their application.
The result is a selection of inexpensive marketing tools and skills perfectly suited to today's needs, aimed directly at the decision maker - the unconscious mind - in order to speed up decision making, shorten the sales cycle and create long-term relationships. It offers a structured approach to consistent marketing success. Home The Guerrilla Marketing Revolution. Guerrilla Marketing Author : Alexander L. When you review each month, make sure you revisit and check off completed goals.
Then have ideas to review and develop section. For example, I keep a folder of business planning ideas that I pick up and add it to the file. Each month when I review my month end, I review the ideas that I may implement into my business and the timeframe for completion.
If I see a new software program. I keep the idea for review until I spend the time planned for working on my business, not in my business. Review the ideas with your peer group or people who help you be accountable in the business. Do you think this exercise each month will bring greater results? One idea when you are developing your plan is to find a boardroom where you can take each section of your business plan and freely write out the benefits of your business plan.
Do this exercise with someone else or your peer group to make yourself accountable and to give you feedback on your process. Remember, success leaves clues. Ask for other successful advisors business plans and invite them to a strategy session with you.
Surround yourself with literature on building business plans. The website has hundreds of successful sites devoted to developing business plans and marketing plans. Hundreds of books are written o this topic. Ask your wholesalers or marketing representatives that you work with or even your company for help on this area. A final note, work on your vision. He is said to have answered: IBM is what it is today for three special reasons.
The first reason is that, at the very beginning, I had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was finally done. You might say I had a model in my mind of what it would look like when the dream—my vision—was in place.
The second reason was that once I had that picture, I then asked myself how a company which looked like that would have to act. I then created a picture of how IBM would act when it was finally done. The third reason IBM has been so successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there. In other words, I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever become one.
From the very outset, IBM was fashioned after the template of my vision. And each and every day we attempted to model the company after that template. At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, discovered the disparity between where we were and where we had committed ourselves to be, and, at the start of the following day, set out to make up for the difference.
If you can allow yourself to visualize success, the path to it will be easier to find. Their short- sightedness gets them in trouble when change or unforeseen circumstances occur. The hardest job in the planning of marketing is seeing the target. You must remove the shackles of insecurity and fear in order to travel to your final destination. You must see company at its finest in 20 years in order for it to operate at its peak in ten years. By knowing what must be accomplished for such optimum performance, you can see where you must be in five years.
That helps you concentrate upon what must be done by the end of one year. They aim for the cup". How do you come up with a successful business plan?
As Grant suggests, you evolve it over time. Revise and revise it until it is a powerful plan packed with enthusiasm and excitement about the future. You watch it slowly take effect, rise and falter take a bit more effect, hold on even more, stumble, then finally grab on and soar, taking you with it.
Your plan is working. Your bank account is growing. And it all happens because you were committed to your business plan. You might have changed the plan. Many entrepreneurs do. What if you dropped the plan the moment it faltered? You would have lost out. What if you lost your cool when your sales slid backwards?
You might have scrubbed the plan. Suppose you dropped the plan when you stumbled, as virtually all marketing and business plans do. You tell your clients to be patient when the market changes and stick to their plan. If you change your plan what will happen? Disaster may have ensued. But because you stayed with the plan, because you were committed to it and believed in the long-term benefits, it finally took hold and did what you wanted it to do.
Your success was very much due to your understanding of the concept of commitment. If you had not been in touch with the essence of the concept, you probably would have taken one of many tempting opportunities to kill the plan and would have killed your chances along with it. However, you understood what commitment means, and it paid off for you. Additional resources Samples: see business plan sample Website www. Client centered contact management systems Database mining contact management systems for prospects 7.
Each month plan to spend some time reviewing the ideas and how they may help your business. This is to go along with your written business plan for success.
Objective: There is nothing better in marketing than surpassing your targets and growing your business as you planned. On the flip side, there is nothing worse than finishing a slow month and starting a new month with few prospects and little potential business than a desk full of cold calls to make.
We all have financial goals and targets. Now we need a blueprint to start making those goals a reality. As an advisor I know that the ups and downs happen. But I also know that with a consistent marketing guerrilla attack program, you will smooth out your production and be more consistent in your approach. Strategy: How do you sit down and write a marketing plan? Budget at least half to one full day. Grab a pad of paper and a pen and start writing.
Sounds simple, well it is, so make it simple. Try these simple steps: First , write down all of the marketing that you are doing now , the frequency and their annual and monthly cost. You can use the attached worksheet to help you. Second, write down all of the marketing ideas that you were thinking of pursuing in the next year. Write or collect a list of ideas. At this point write it down. If you are looking for ideas check out our websites listed at the back of the book.
Ask you manager or marketing wholesalers for ideas. Use this book as a guide to some of the best ideas. Just write them down. Third, write down what your competition is doing for marketing. At the same time write down who your competition is. Fourth, write down what your peer group or top advisors you aspire to be like are doing in terms of marketing and their costs. Fifth, create an annual and monthly budget.
Remember marketing is an investment in your business, not an expense. The second part of budgeting is time. How much time will you devote to developing your marketing. How much time during the day do you spend on marketing? Now how much time should you spend on marketing during the day? I always schedule a half day per month to work on my marketing and client communication strategies.
This scheduled time is very productive time scheduled in my practice. Sixth, we will identify your ideal client profile in a later chapter, but for now write your ideal client profile down. Seventh, decide what marketing mix will work for you. This is where you make decisions based on projections of growth that you want to achieve. Although some advisors say that their business grows by referrals only, what do they do to generate those referrals?
Do they provide exceptional service, which costs money and may be defined as an excellent communication program. We will discus internal existing clients and external new client marketing in a later chapter. What is your ideal marketing mix? Eighth, once you have decided on what you are going to do in the next year, break it down into a monthly marketing calendar. Decide which months you are going to do what. Ninth, decide on costs and put annual and monthly costs down on paper.
At this point make sure that you can afford your program. If you cannot, consider the consequences of borrowing to invest into your business. That is solely your decision. I remember once when I first started in the business, I borrowed money on a credit card to attend a conference.
I learned that I was investing in myself and not just spending money on my business. Finally, Put the plan into a working document. Share it with your peer group or manager and your staff. Then commit to completing it, revisiting it on a monthly basis and measuring the results. The marketing plan should be simple to execute once you have put enough thought and effort into it.
The most challenging part of your marketing plan may be time and timing. For example, I know several advisors who start doing marketing only to stop after a few months because they are too busy. The plan depends on a constant time commitment to complete.
If you plan your seminars a year in advance and book the rooms, speakers and invitations, then you are committed. Instead, advisors have a speaker coming to town and spend a lot of time hoping one event will pay off big for them. Have multiple marketing ideas working for you. Each quarter I take one day to review the success of the marketing plan, look at future ideas that I may implement into my plan and set a course for the quarter.
Each quarter I write a mini-marketing plan for the quarter. That way I can review it with my team and plan the next quarters marketing events and ideas in advance. Another key element of your marketing plan is to look back and look forward. Then project a vision of how you want to position yourself in your marketing messages. I live in a retirement community, so it is natural to work in that niche.
But if you expect world class service, then bring that element to your practice. Look to first class organizations with a high degree of service and attention to detail and implement that type of philosophy into your business. This will help your marketing efforts when thinking of attracting new clients.
Be specific. A true Guerrilla knows that the clearer the goal in the mind and on paper, the richer the rewards of your marketing efforts. Maybe it's to develop new leads in the next month.
Or to generate web hits a day. Or cultivate ten new clients in the next 3 months. Send newsletters targeted to the most influential people. To build with success in the future, here are some tips to help you get the most out of your marketing. Forget the past. Changes in service, technology and competitive marketing savvy are taking place now. Read current publications on marketing, not the old way to do things. If your competing against a large organization, find out where they fall down and you pick up.
Become your client. What do you expect as a level of service will dictate what they might expect. Do more fusion marketing.
When your business is flat and you are not aware of how to change, team up with new collaborative marketing partners to help spread the marketing word for you, by benefiting both of you. Your mission is clear. Your task: Make prospects confident in you. Your format: The spirit of consistency Your finances: some wisely invested in marketing Your energy: apparent prior to and subsequent to attracting a new client Your operation : the essence of convenience Your creative message: it always amazes readers Your ultra profitable chore: Measurement of your marketing success There are your ten most important marketing secrets.
You now have a head start on your competition. Completing your marketing plan will help you discover how to leapfrog ahead of the competition. In a few short years they will wonder why you passed them, and at such a great speed. Keep it simple and follow through. The results come with time. You're a retiree with personal investing goals. Our business depends on listening to your plans and committed to helping individuals like you achieve your goals 2. You deserve advice you can trust.
We maintain a high degree of educational qualifications and ensure that we are using the latest insights from the fields of tax, estate, legal and financial to keep you on the right path. You need to be in control of decisions. Together we build a plan around less worry so you can enjoy your retirement financially. We will talk to you about what's important to you and what you want out of life, not about what we want to sell you. We'll provide you with a clearly understood strategy that can help you stay diversified.
It's simple to transfer your accounts to us. We take care of all transfer fees and discuss any costs associated with switching up front so you can make an informed decision. Your money is important to you and your family. We find out about your values and what is important to you about money.
Consistency is the key to long-term success in this business. How many times have you started off with a great month and ended up slowing down because your ahead of schedule, then suddenly finding yourself scrambling at the end of each month?
If you are consistent week in and week out , you will find this business more enjoyable in the long run. This is one reason why so many advisors are transitioning to fee based. They are establishing predicable cash flows to their business. Objective : A written inventory on tracking your progress from marketing and sales to focusing on referrals. Goal setting will make your success measurable and attainable. Strategy : Each month have the number of weeks your going to work, the number of days and your production target per week set out.
Then plan your production target for the month. Keeping track by a daily log will also help you track month to date year to date and outstanding commissions. It can also be used to track different targets that you set such as new clients, specific product sales and so on.
You will find that you will refer back to this sheet to keep track of transfers and information as well for your new and existing clients. Another key to planning your business is to decide wether fee based is the way to go. Setting monthly goals on the transition to fee based becomes a critical step in your planning. How are you going to accomplish this on a monthly basis and tracking your results will give you comfort knowing you have a structured plan for the transition and tracking it monthly.
Most successful sales organizations also use sales production reports to report increases or decreases of sales over the same period of time year over year.
This will help you keep track of your growth rate. Use the monthly reports to track year to date, targets and comparison over previous months and years. You can easily customize this to track your growth. It can be used for client anniversary dates from time they started working with you. I recommend a separate follow up file for work in progress and at the end of the month put a copy of the monthly production sheet in and confirm all transactions in progress or completed.
It should ALSO be used to track referrals from clients, centres of influence and others. This way it is a reminder to thank them for the referral in a special way. At the end of each month you should go over the numbers in these categories.
I want to try to measure the effectiveness of our marketing methods. Measuring and planning are part of what I call my month end. Each month we have to account for receipts as a business, but do we plan our business once a year and try to follow a plan in our mind. I know I am inspired by marketing ideas and plans that come a cross my desk al the time and it is easy to get off track in another direction and completely change your business.
That is why I developed month end worksheets for you to reflect on and the past and plan for the future as a process or habit and not once a year. One last idea on your monthly marketing review. Each month I read and receive hundreds of great business building and marketing ideas that I would love to implement. I collect them in a folder and at the month end review what I can implement in the next month or so and improve a little bit each month. If you out once new idea into your business each month and make it a habit as well as part of your business, then in one year you have twelve new ideas working for you.
You can watch you business continue to grow each month and in three years from now you will find a half a dozen ideas that will make your business as successful as you want it to be and more! Track where your efforts are being demanded and the source of new and current business. Tracking and following your marketing will make it results oriented. As a small business you could not afford to spend a fortune on image advertising or brand recognition without getting results.
For example, if you did radio or newspaper ads based on your name and what you do and after six months to a year you did not have one new piece of business as a result of those ads or referrals because of your image then you are wasting your money.
Assume your going to do what it takes to be a successful guerrilla marketer, be sure to know how to deal with success. Most people lack the skill. A good rule of thumb is to engage in no expansion until you have eliminated all of the mistakes in your current operation.
Otherwise your mistakes will be magnified and multiplied. Make sure you take some time each month for self discovery and examine what is working and what is not working.
Plan to schedule an afternoon uninterrupted to complete your month end review and plan your next month. Schedule the time in advance in your calendar. If you use a success coach, consider reviewing the results and discussing your plans for the following month. As a successful athlete, Tiger Woods examined his game right after he won the US Open by a record margin. He then decided to fire his caddy and change his game after reflecting on what he wanted his swing to be like.
You think, after doing that well, why would you want to improve on it? Tiger is an example of what Grant and I are talking about.
Each month refine, refine and refine your business. Monthly production report 2. Monthly production review 3. Referral tracking review 4. Therefore, excellence can become not just an event but a habit. Then in your annual planning next year you will know that you can count on so many referrals each year from various sources and map out where new clients will come from each year.
Track them each month. Each month set aside half a day to work on your marketing plans to get you excited about your business!!! When you go to seminars or conferences add it to the folder. Then review and implement at the end of each month.
Mastermind groups are formed in all aspects of society from religion, politics, world economics to business.
Do we as successful financial advisors know the answers and decide to stop growing. Strategy: Plan to spend one day each quarter or four to five days per year working with a peer group. For new advisors a mentoring system is critical to the first four years in the business.
Write a list of top advisors whom you can develop a peer group with. They may be local or in other cities across the country. With teleconferencing it is easy to develop a world class network of advisors to share ideas, give feedback and build ideas with. It will pay the most dividend cheques you have ever seen. Start the group, schedule the calls or meetings and develop and control the agenda.
Then watch all the answers you have been searching for in business suddenly appear. Not only will your production go up, but your enjoyment of the business will go sky high. Instead of listening to the negative attitudes of other advisors, get with a successful group. If you are in the developmental phase of your business and learning everything seems a huge task, work with a mentor or group of mentors who are willing to share their time and expertise in helping you find your way. Approach them on a mentoring or peer grouping basis and you will be sure to find that they are also willing to learn and grow from the mastermind principle.
This strategy can be developed in a couple of ways. First, form a peer group amongst associates in the industry in different cities. Then have a scheduled conference call each quarter and focus on a couple of topics and invite a speaker to co-ordinate the call. Organize a conference call and ask a popular speaker in the financial industry call me for example to host a conference call dealing with seminars.
If the geography or time permits, hold the meetings face to face and deal with the issues and topics of importance. A second way to do peer grouping is also a marketing idea. How about holding a meeting for successful entrepreneurs on business issues and topics such as marketing.
Some advisors have used this method successfully to attract top business owners as clients. You are seen as the catalyst for bringing insightful ideas while meeting other successful people to learn from. Do your homework and research numbers, bring it to the table of your peer group. Ask yourself, doing this exercise, will it be worth it? Will you get great sales and feedback and avoid mistakes? Gain Experience? Your peer group will be able to guide your development and grow. You can gain excellence by assembling this group together.
One final way of establishing a peer group without doing all of the legwork. Call up your favorite wholesaler and have them establish a peer group with their top representatives.
They have a chance to sit in and learn and at the same time and gain valuable feedback to help their business. They may even gain some referrals by finding out who your peer group is and network with them. Also, each of the representatives invited get a chance to possibly meet a new wholesaler and other top representatives that they can learn from. Your wholesaler will be delighted to be part of the process and may even cover costs such as boardroom, printing notes and circulating them as well as lunch!
Jays Comment: Guerrilla Learning Let's start with the bad news. Much that you have learned in the past, although God's own truth at the time, has changed, leaving you misinformed or uninformed, so that a lot of what you know is wrong. In social situations, your lack of information is inconvenient, but in business, it's suicidal. You've got to realize that in business, just as in sports, people are constantly trying to become better than you, and some of them succeed.
The ones that do have mastered the art of learning. To do that, you simply acknowledge to yourself that learning should never stop and is an endless process. Seagulls fly in circles in the sky, constantly searching for prey. When they find that prey, they land and eat their fill. Then, they return to the sky, only to fly in circles once again. It is their most powerful instinct. Guerrilla marketers have one instinct that is equally strong -- the need for constant learning. They gobble up data with an intellectual appetite that can never be sated.
But anybody can read books, listen to tapes, watch the tube, attend seminars and browse the Internet. How do guerrillas learn differently from other marketers? They learn with two-way brains. That means that in addition to merely learning, they act upon their new information. They do things to take advantage of their newfound wisdom. This action is the essence of guerrilla marketing. Learning is different these days than when you were a kid. The key to succeeding in your own business is not learning all about something but learning one thing after another.
The information changes and it pours in from all over the place. So you've got to be selective in your learning. Learning something will always be possible and learning everything impossible, which is why guerrillas learn with a filter in their brains.
Never before in history has so much information been available to so many people with such simplicity. In one hour in your own office today, you can learn more than you could a decade ago with a week in a library. You can learn theories and facts, up-to-the-minute information, and competitive intelligence galore. You can learn about your prospects, your customers, your industry, and your marketplace.
Key information, every bit of it. The information that is so available has never been as important as it is right now -- in The Information Age. You can give it away for it is often far more precious than any hard goods. Brochures and newsletters are very much appreciated by people who can honestly benefit from the information imparted.
They do it by providing information. Guerrillas also know well the immense power of repetition in learning and in teaching. They've seen its potency in marketing. They know, too, the joy of learning -- for its own sake, and for the sake of propelling their businesses to the top. Non-stop learning -- that describes their journey there. Additional resources: Create a list of areas that you want further help on. For example I always want to learn more about marketing so create a list of ideas and areas that you want to learn more about , form a group and discuss them.
Hiring and training people is the most costly and time consuming expense in a Financial Advisors business. You want to hire someone who is like your best client and treat them that way. Have you ever left a professionals office, frustrated by the way you were treated by the staff? Or have you been impressed by the way you were treated?
The next time you visit a world class franchise, see if you can recognize the top staff. They are all getting paid the same, however one person can make or break your experience. Now think of your practice. Are you impressed by the appearance and professionalism of the staff? The guests felt like every detail was important to the whole family. Now how much did they pay that employee? How much did it cost Disney to give that family that great experience.
Nothing, yet it was worth a thousand referrals to their resort. Really think this question through. Now how do you treat your team member s? When you are hiring, think down the road. Do you need two people, one for marketing and client communication, and one for administration and processing?
Break down the daily tasks that these people will be completing and put a dollar amount of the type of task. If your client wants service, do they go to the sales assistant? Why not go to your client service manager. They are to ensure that you have plenty of appointments set up whether it be client reviews or new contacts, they should be the one in touch with your database.
This cleared up valuable time to look for new clients. Also on your list of marketing team builders are wholesalers. They can be an invaluable part of your team when it comes to marketing. Their marketing departments usually have successful marketing and communications people to work with. Se strategy 15 for more information. A marketing, printing or communications company should also be on your team. Finding a great graphic designer to do adds, seminars , business cards etc.
Ask the top marketing people in your area who they use for their printing and design. Finally, your compliance and or in house marketing people. You may have all the resources you need inside your own company. Your compliance officer may or may not understand your marketing efforts, but it pays to have them help you get the approvals you need. Remember all printing and design MUST be approved by your compliance department first.
Jays Comment: The Designated Guerrilla Reality in running a financial advisory practice means knowing exactly what you've got to do but not having enough time to do it. If you understand how guerrilla marketing can propel you into hyper-profitability but can't take the steps to activate and maintain the process, your understanding is wasted. Here's the deal: Marketing can succeed only if time and energy are devoted to it regularly.
Insight and understanding, savvy and skill are useless unless action is taken and somebody is paying close attention to the marketing process. Maybe that somebody will be you. But perhaps you're too busy attending to the details of operations, finance, production, sales or service. If that's the case, that somebody should be your designated guerrilla -- an individual who has the expertise, interest, desire and time to mastermind your marketing.
Select that person from within your company or from the outside. There are lots of hired guns who will be delighted to eat, sleep and obsess over your marketing. Just be sure you select somebody. Find someone who will approach the marketing function in true guerrilla fashion -- with enthusiasm, confidence, high energy, and a killer instinct. If the person running your marketing show now doesn't have those attributes, get yourself another guerrilla. Marketing, for all its sophistication, is just like a little baby in that it needs constant attention and thrives best when it is nurtured and guided.
Unless you or your designated guerrilla provide this parenting, your company will begin to fade from your customers' and prospects' minds. The companies that get into trouble are often those that establish marketing momentum, then move on to other things.
Those other things should always include more and better marketing -- because marketing is a continuing connective process and not a series of disconnected events. Your designated guerrilla should be a person who knows how many marketing weapons are available to you, how many you can create right in your own office, which ones are free, what your competition is up to, and what kind of new technology can help you. Perhaps your designated guerrilla will be your marketing director or director of sales.
It might be a marketing consultant, the account supervisor at an ad agency. It might be you. If you don't have a good one, you're going to miss a lot of opportunities. You'll constantly be in a position where your marketing must react rather than act.
And the spirit of your company will never come shining through. If the person you need to shepherd your marketing doesn't quite know how to plan, launch, maintain and succeed with a guerrilla marketing attach, train them.
The science, art and business or marketing can be learned. You don't have to be a born guerrilla. There are books, seminars, lectures, courses, newsletters, Internet sites, and audio cassettes that can give a bright person more solid and realistic information about marketing than four years of study at a university that teaches Dark Ages tactics for companies with billion-dollar budgets.
How much time should your designated guerrilla spend attending to the actions required by guerrilla marketing? The most time will be necessary at the outset;, when the planning is done. Less time will be required during the launch phase, when the weapons are fired. And still less time, but constant time -- must be devoted as you sustain the attack.
That time will be devoted to three tasks: maintaining the attack, tracking your marketing efforts, and developing improved marketing. It is rare for time to be spent more valuable in your pursuit of profits and joy.
Of the many reasons for business failures, an inability to market aggressively and constantly ranks right near the top. When that happens, the finger of fault always points to the CEO -- the person who is too busy with other business functions to give proper attention to marketing, too egotistical to delegate the function to someone else, or too ignorant of the power of marketing to realize the need for consistent nurturing.
The role of the successful financial advisor is to find marketing team builders that can help grow your business. Additional resources — www. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. Does that famous song by the band U2 sound familiar? If you are looking for new clients, you need to know the following: 1. Marital status 2.
Age 3. Income 4. Occupation 5. Net worth 6. Hobbies 7. Risk tolerance 8. Rate of return objective 9.
0コメント