The Millionaire Fastlane (48 page)

If you can move your audience's emotions and make them care, they will buy. Exhilarate people, make them cry and make them laugh. Your message will rise from the ashes of noise and compel people to buy.

Be Interactive
It's one thing to watch, it's another to do it. They say if you want to boil your passions, test drive the car of your dreams. Interactivity increases response for anything. If you can taste it, feel it, or use it, you will be more likely to buy it.

Interaction is like hearing your name. It's your favorite. On Facebook, the most popular applications are “surveys” and “questionnaires” because people love narcissism. My favorite movie is The Usual Suspects! I love pizza! I own a poodle! People love to talk about themselves, and if you entwine that into your marketing plan, you will improve the response to your product or service.

For example, if I launch a survey “Are you speeding the Fastlane or stuck in the Slowlane? Find out now.” I am engaging in an interactive campaign designed to get people involved and to talk about themselves. When your potential customers break down their personal barriers and expose pieces of themselves, they move closer to you as if there were a relationship. A relationship sells more than an anonymous corporate entity.

“Find out what happens next …” Some corporations are using traditional media and the Internet to foster interaction. I recently saw a commercial for an automobile manufacturer that filmed a story with a high-speed chase, except the story never concludes and we are left with “Find out what happens next … visit [Web site].” By teasing audiences with messages or stories that are incomplete, potential customers are forced to complete the story by visiting a Web site, and Web sites foster interaction.

The revolution of social media, blogs, and “Web 2.0” is founded on interaction. You just don't want to read an article; you want to comment on it! Your two cents must be heard!

Be Unconventional
Convention breeds familiarity. If you've seen it three dozen times in the last month, or something like it, do you think it will work? For example, “Be your own boss” is such an overused phrase its power has been drained. Yet, I still see advertising headlines and subtitles from so-called gurus using “Be your own boss,” as if the phrase wielded power. Its been pulverized into flaccidity, so why the heck are you using it?

What's unconventional? Have you ever seen a Lamborghini sold for a dollar? I know I haven't and if I did, I would remember. The campaign would arouse curiosity because it's unconventional. What crazy person would sell an expensive car for a buck? Is it a scam? What's the catch? I've got to see!

Another example of unconventional is to break convention by mocking it, or interrupting it. Remember the Energizer bunny? It's still going and going. These commercials built a brand based on unconvention-the advertiser created a series of standard, boring marketing messages and shattered them with sudden interruptions of the Energizer bunny. The marketer anticipated your familiarity with convention (ugh, another boring commercial) and shocked the audience by interrupting that boredom with a pink rabbit.
AdAge.com
recognized these commercials as one of the top 100 campaigns of all time.

Another mocker of convention is the Geico Insurance Company, which took typical situations and interjected the scenes with a surprise punch line: “I've got great news! I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance.” Conventional scenarios were shattered with the narrative, “I've got great news,” which created unconvention. Another Geico spot mocked convention when it appeared you were watching a promo for a new reality TV series called “Tiny House.” The promo featured a newlywed couple who supposedly move into a midget-sized apartment for one full year and endure cramped quarters and rising marital tensions. You see the couple hitting their heads on low ceilings and struggling for a good night's sleep in a tiny bed. But wait a second, this expected convention of reality is nothing but a ruse that will shatter into unconvention when an announcer voices: “The drama will be real, but it won't save you any money on car insurance.”

If you get someone's attention, half the battle is won. The other half is letting selfishness take over your audience and tailor your messages to self-interest. In other words, the good old “What's in it for me?” How about saving 15% or more on your car insurance?

What's in It for Me?

It's ironic: To succeed a Fastlane we must forsake selfishness yet satisfy the selfishness of others. Did I say this would be a nice cozy stroll down the beach?

The first human behavior you can count on is selfishness. People want what they want. People don't care about you, your business, your product or your dreams; they want to help themselves and their family. It's human nature. Therefore, our marketing messages must focus on benefits, not features. People need to be told exactly what's in it for them. How will your product or service help them? What's the benefit? In marketing speak, it's called the “What's In It For Me?” (WIIFM) principle.

My customers were small-business owners and yet I served millions of consumers, too. This intermediary relationship allowed me to study the behavior of both consumers and producers in a powerful, accelerated fashion. I learned things in weeks that would take educators months to ascertain. I noticed that small-business owners fall into their own selfish trap and love singing the praises of their company. They sell features, not realizing that people rent convenience and events, not limousines.

As consumers, we buy things to solve needs. We engage in transactions to fill voids. You don't buy a drill; you buy a hole. You don't buy a dress; you buy an image. You don't buy a Toyota; you buy reliability. You don't buy a vacation; you buy an experience. We must become problem solvers, and to identify our business as a savior to someone, we must translate features into benefits. Does the fact you are the largest limousine company in Colorado solve my problem? It doesn't until you translate that feature into a benefit.

Translating Features into Benefits

If you want to sell anything, translate features to benefits. A four-step process accomplishes this.

1. Switch places.
   
2. Identify features.
   
3. Identify advantages.
   
4. Translate advantages into benefits.
   

First, trade places with your typical buyer. Be them. Who are they? What is their modus operandi? Are they affluent CEO types? Or price-sensitive Wal-Mart shoppers? Cash-strapped students? Or single moms? If you can't identify your typical buyer, your results will be flawed and your benefit will be no benefit. Once you identify your buyer, ask: What do they want? What do they fear? What problem do they need solved? Or do they just want to “feel” something?

For example, two brands of the same product could have two different buyers. A person who buys a Corvette is going to have different psychological motives than someone who buys a Volvo. Both are cars, yet the sports car buyer isn't buying basic transportation. The Corvette buyer is most likely a risk-taker, self-employed, independent, outspoken, and assertive. The Volvo buyer is probably more concerned with family and safety. He or she is probably conservative, analytical, and family-oriented. Two totally different buyer profiles means each marketing effort must be specifically targeted to the desires of each group.

After you switch places with your customer and grasp what they want, your next step is to isolate the features of your product. For my Web service, here are just a few features I had: 1) Upload pictures 2) Target leads by vehicle, date, and service and 3) Schedule vehicles. While these features were great, it was my responsibility to translate them to benefits. What makes them so great? What advantages do they offer my client?

After you isolate the features, translate those features into benefits, or a specific result. Extrapolate forward the benefit of that certain feature. This is where you drive home why someone should buy from you, versus the other guy.

For my Web service, the feature of “upload pictures” translated to: “Quit wasting time with client meetings at garages. Upload photos of your fleet and show your clients your product!” The target leads feature translated to: “Target the clients you want-right down to the day, service, and vehicle type.” Schedule vehicles translated to: “Maximize your fleet's road time and receive leads based on your vehicle availability!” Each feature transcribed to a specific benefit that would compel my buyer to join. I didn't let them fill in the blanks; I filled in the blanks for them.

Using Price as a Branding Weapon

Price is like a paint job for your product or service.

My first taste of “paint” and its implications came young. I wasn't much older than six or seven. Mom staged a two-day garage sale, and she permitted me to sell some toys and keep the money. One item I offered for sale was a “football clock,” a time keeping monstrosity. I vividly remember its sale price-$2.55. A steal, I reasoned.

On the first day of the sale, my football clock gathered many looks, but no sale. My young mind plotted. How can I get $2.55 for my clock? I didn't want to budge on my price, surely because $2.55 was the cost of some gadget I wanted to buy at the corner store. Then I had an idea.

I grabbed the masking tape Mom used for labeling prices. I tore four small pieces of tape and stuck them above the current price. Then on the first piece of tape, I boldly wrote $5.55 and crossed it out. The next piece of tape I wrote $4.50 and crossed it out. Then, $3.95, and the next $2.95. Each piece of tape successively had a lower price, clearly crossed out so buyers could see the “price reduction,” leaving the same old price of $2.55.

Now my clock was priced exactly the same, except it was presented differently. The taped higher prices, visibly slashed, conveyed two things: 1) A higher value and 2) A smoking deal. And guess what. The second person to look at the clock bought it. I succeeded at reframing price in the mind of my buyer. Of course, at seven years old, I had no clue what “marketing” meant nor what I was doing. Yet this was my first exposure to marketing and the implication price has to value.

Price Conveys More than Just Cost

Price is a brand-builder because price implies value
. The more expensive your price, the higher its perceived value. The cheaper your price, the cheaper its perceived value. Price isn't simply a number that tells someone what something costs. It conveys value and worth.

There's an old story I heard about how price equates to value. Cleaning his basement, a man found an old dresser and decided to give it away. He moved the dresser to the street corner and placed a sign atop it: FREE. Shockingly, the dresser stood there all day, and for several days thereafter. This confused the man because the dresser, albeit old, was in decent shape and just needed a quick wood stain for perfection. The man decided a new strategy was warranted. He went to the street corner and replaced the “FREE” sign with “$50.” Not an hour later, the dresser was stolen.

Same objective, different pricing strategy.

Unless price is your brand (Wal-Mart, Southwest Airlines), don't let price steal your brand when it should be defining it. Price is more than just a competitive metric that slides up and down to sell goods faster. It also indirectly conveys the value of your product or service. I had multiple competitors who undercut me by 10%, sometimes even 20%. Yet I continued to prosper. I wasn't the cheapest, so why did I do well? My service had better value, and I kept my price correlated to that value. My leads were better targeted. I had better joint venture partners. I had great support. I was running a brand while my competitors were running businesses.

My artist friend, who painted the most exquisite, beautiful paintings, priced her work through her own limited price filter. She was a single mom, struggling to the pay the bills, living paycheck to paycheck. For her, $500 was an extraordinary amount, and because of that, she priced her works far below their true value. Her own corrupted vision of price distorted her earning power and degraded the perceived value of her work. I suggested a price increase. Take that $90 painting, make it $300, and see what happens. Sure enough, she sold just as much art at the higher price, because price implies value and defines brands.

Even in the Slowlane, pricing can play a role, in the form of a salary you're willing to take. For example, this was posted at the Fastlane Forum (
TheFastlaneForum.com
):

A company placed two ads for only one Web programmer position in the paper. One listed the salary as $120K a year. The other ad listed it for $32K a year. The first, higher paying ad received only about four responses. The second ad for MUCH less pay got over 100 responses. Most people have a lack of confidence in themselves and their ability and are willing to settle for so much less.

Are you settling for less in business? Is your warped frame of value corrupting your unrealized potential? The right pricing strategy is crucial to brand building and marketing. The wrong price conveys the wrong meaning. For industries with heavy commoditization, price is crucial. A public relations consultant can charge 30% higher than their competitors, but a gas station can't.

While I'm completely heterosexual, I have a fascination with designer purses because I admire their pricing strategy. How does a handbag sell for $4,000 when it probably costs them less than $100 to produce? Branding and marketing. Price is apart of the brand build.

Price is one of the many ways to get into the consumer's head. To use price for your brand, you have to convince the consumer of value beyond the cost of its practicality. What makes you different from the rest? Why should someone pay you more? As a marketer you have to drill into your buyer's mind and get your brand differentiated. Own the consumer's mind and you own the consumer.

Chapter Summary: Fastlane Distinctions