Archives for June 2019

How To Build Deep Emotional Bonds With Your Customers

You need to connect with your customers.

They need to feel seen, heard, and understood.

Your customers need to identify with you. If you're too concerned with being seen, heard, and understood yourself, you won't be able to connect with your customers.

Instead of being so self-absorbed and looking for validation from your customers, focus your attention on seeing, hearing, and understanding them.

Not sure what I mean? Check out this video to learn more:

The ULTIMATE Marketing Tool | How To Use Story

 

If there's one thing you should be leveraging in your marketing, it's story.

What does that mean? What does telling a story have to do with making sales?

Stories can be so powerful – certainly more powerful than “features and benefits” – but you need to appeal to your customers emotionally.

Marketing has to be humanized in some form. Tons of companies use this approach in their marketing.

Think about a company with a well-known spokesperson. How are they trying to sell the product to you? With their story.

An Emotional Appeal

Your customers need to be moved by you. How is that done?

With a f**king good story.

So, how do you know what makes a good story? What's effective? What's not?

It starts with you. Are you in touch with your emotions?

If you want to tell your story in a way that appeals to your customers' emotions, you have to understand your own. You have to take a good look at yourself – even the ugly parts. Sometimes you have to dig up old traumas and get in touch with your past.

Now, I'm not saying you have to have a full-on therapy session with your camera. But you do have to be able to open up and be honest about your past and your story with your audience.

Look for defining moments in your life. Make a timeline of your life and look for the high points and low points.

“I never tell a story without making a point, and I never make a point without telling a story.”

Learning Through Story

Have you ever been talking to someone and realize they're not listening to you at all? Think about how you were communicating with them.

Were you just talking AT them? Or telling them a story?

As humans, we were raised to listen to stories. It's how we are programmed. Growing up, our parents didn't tell us facts and figures, they told us stories.

That's how we learn.

But the stories we use in marketing aren't quite the same as the stories we might have heard growing up.

So, what's the formula? What kind of story do you need to tell to connect with your audience and sell your product?

You need the basic story formula – a beginning, middle, and end:

What it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.

The best stories are victorious journeys. Emotional journeys.

You need to tap into your customers' emotions. Now, there is a whole spectrum of emotions out there – how do you know which ones to appeal to?

At your low point, what emotions were you feeling?

Fear, doubt, anger, shame, exhaustion, pain – all of these are emotions you want to play to in your stories. Because more likely than not, your customers are feeling those emotions right now. That's why they're looking for your product in the first place.

If you can connect with your customer on that deep level, they will love you for it. You'll start to get what I like to call:

Raving Fans

When you have raving fans, that's when you know you're doing something right.

You can get raving fans just by being relatable and authentic, but there are other things you can do to push the throttle into overdrive with this.

How? By being controversial. By polarizing your audience. Yeah, you'll get haters, but where there are haters there are also ride-or-die supporters.

Think about current events. What companies, public figures, or news stories get the most attention?

The ones that divide. The ones that get people going.

Look at Donald Trump. Everyone has an opinion on Trump – you either love him or hate him. Why?

Well, if you take a look at his Twitter feed, you would probably understand.

He polarizes people. He takes a side on controversial issues. Some people agree with him, some don't. They're all very vocal.

Look at the news cycle on any given day – it's dominated by Trump. A single tweet from him can spark thousands of news articles and hours of screentime on cable news networks.

Whether you love him or hate him, you know who he is. You know what he's about.

What about companies that do this? When Nike supported Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the anthem in protest, people got fired up. Some folks were sharing videos of themselves having Nike bonfires. On the flip side, there were troves of people who went out and spent thousands of dollars on Air Jordans.

How about Chick-fil-A? They make their stance on marriage equality very clear. And yeah, they lost business. People boycotted them. But conservative Christians came out in droves to buy chicken sandwiches because they agreed with the company's message. Hell, they might not even like those chicken sandwiches, but they showed up at the drive-thru the next day to show their support.

It's a risk to polarize your audience, sure. But where there are haters, there are raving fans. And the raving fans are the ones who are gonna pay your bills.

Conclusion

By now, you surely understand how powerful storytelling can be in your marketing.

When you use storytelling effectively, you'll see just how impactful a good story is. A clear, concise, compelling story can be the rocket fuel that helps your business take off.

All of the things I talked about above make a good story, but it needs to be easy for your audience to listen to and understand. When I speak at events or write a sales letter, I follow a general format. A great sales letter has:

  • Headline
  • Lead
  • Story
  • Bullets (Features/Benefits or Results)
  • Call-to-Action or Close

If you frame your sales letters or videos in a similar way, you'll start pulling in those raving fans.

So, go out there and tell your story.

Stay Legendary.

Learn more about how to craft a compelling story when you sign up for my 15 Day Online Business Builder Challenge. Click Here for more information.

 

What’s your story? Leave a comment below and let me know!

 

The Key To Effective Advertising Is Storytelling

What makes for great marketing?

If you've been paying attention to any of the emails I've been sending you, you know the answer by now.

It's storytelling.

When you start using story, you'll notice the difference in your results.

But not all stories are created equally – some stories are more effective than others.

So what makes a clear, compelling story? Watch this video to learn more:

How To Turn Your Mess Into A Powerful Message Using The Art and Science of Storytelling

If you want to be a powerful storyteller, you need to be able to get in touch with your feelings.

You need to be able to confront your past.

Make a timeline of your life up until now. Look for the high points and low points in your life.

I was able to turn my mess into my message by doing exactly that.

How can you do the same? Watch this video to learn more:

How to Create Raving Fans by Polarizing Your Audience

People are either going to LOVE you or HATE you.

You can use that to your advantage.

There's money on both ends of the spectrum of LOVE and HATE – but not in the middle.

If people hate you, chances are you've got some raving fans as well.

That's where your money is. The people who agree with you and love what you say and do are the ones who are going to buy from you.

How can you polarize your audience and leverage it in your business?

Watch this video to learn more:

How to Identify Your Perfect, Target Customer and Niche

A lot of people starting their business try too hard to appeal to everyone.

You don't need to cater to the masses to be successful.

The truth is, when you try to please to everyone, you end up losing appeal.

You don't need to appeal to everyone. You just need to find your niche.

If you're older, you don't need to appeal to Millenials. Maybe you want to cater to retirees.

There's riches in the niches.

How do you niche down? How do you figure out who your target customer is and how to reach them?

Watch this video to learn more:

How To Be A Powerful Spokesperson For Your Brand

If you want to leverage your story to create powerful marketing for your business, you have to know yourself.

You have to be able to confront the ugliest parts of who are you.

You have to be completely self-aware.

It's very difficult for someone without self-awareness to be able to create powerful marketing.

So, how can you leverage storytelling to become the best spokesperson for your business?

Watch this video to learn more:

When Internet Marketers Start “Telling Their Story” In Videos

What's holding you back from telling your story?

Have you been meaning to post that video, but just haven't been able to get it right?

Maybe you just want to make it perfect.

One thing I've learned over the years is that perfection isn't relatable.

And what's the point of telling your story if not to relate to others?

Check out my new video where I talk about why it's important to be authentic when sharing your story with the world:

How to know when time to fire a customer

When starting a business, we get excited about any potential sales.

Believe it or not, there are some situations where you shouldn't take someone's money.

What do I mean?

Down the road, if that person becomes a stressful, toxic client, the money they paid isn't worth the stress of dealing with them.

How do you vet your customers before you accept them and take their money?

Check out my latest video where I talk about how to know when you should fire a customer:

When To Fire A Customer

When starting a business, we get excited about any potential sales.

Believe it or not, there are some situations where you shouldn't take someone's money.

What do I mean?

Down the road, if that person becomes a stressful, toxic client, the money they paid isn't worth the stress of dealing with them.

How do you vet your customers before you accept them and take their money?

Check out my latest video where I talk about how to know when you should fire a customer:

Meet A Man Who’s Heard 45,000 Stories

Storytelling is such a huge part of sales.

I use storytelling all the time in my marketing. As you might have heard me say before, I took my mess and turned it into a message.

When I was in New York, I ran into Brandon Doman from the Strangers Project.

He's been collecting stories from strangers since 2009.

This guy has heard over 45,000 stories. That's incredible.

Check out this video to see my conversation with him:

Sales is about EMPATHY

Why is empathy such a great thing to have in sales?

Recently, I had a call with my Sales Team were I discussed how having empathy for your customers helps to build trust and honesty.

It's about making people feel seen, heard, and understood. It's about acknowledging their feelings and feeling with them.

It may be a cliche, but it's so true – people really don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Customers are gonna trust you more if you empathize with them. They'll be more honest with you if you show that you see them and hear them.

Check out this video where I take you behind the scenes on this Sales Team call:

Low Ticket Vs High Ticket Business Model | Which Should YOU Choose

If you're just starting your online business or you're struggling to figure it out, you might not be sure which business model is best for you.

Different business models require different levels of skill, and produce different results.

Low-to-no-skill business models often don't earn as much revenue as a business model that requires skill.

In my latest video, I aim to shed some light on the topic to help you choose what's best for you. Check it out below:

Personal vs. Company Branding

With all the talk about brand building these days, you might find yourself asking, “Should I focus on building my company brand, or my personal brand?”

I recently made a video on this topic where I go over the different situations where you will want to focus on either a company brand or your own brand. Check it out below:

Rewire Your Brain: How To Think Like A Millionaire

How can you unlock the power of your mind to manifest wealth and abundance in your life? Believe it or not, you can actually rewire your brain for success.

What does that mean?

I go over that a bit in the video below. Check it out:

Let's unpack this a bit…

What specific steps can you take to start rewiring your brain to start thinking like a millionaire?

When I started out, I was thinking like a broke person. I was never taught to think like a successful person. I didn't have wealthy habits and behaviors. The majority of the patterns or behaviors that were modeled for me, whether from family or society, weren't wealthy behaviors. That doesn't mean they're bad people, they just didn't have anyone teaching them this kind of stuff.

Studies show that our brains can rewire themselves. It's this little thing called neuroplasticity. If you're interested in that kind of stuff, it's worth doing some research on. We used to think that once a brain was “wired” it was stuck that way, but recently we have discovered that those pathways can actually be rewired.

I'm going to give you some tips on how you can do that, including what has worked for me in the past.

1. Set Time Aside Every Single Day to THINK

Now, you might be thinking, “Dave, I already think every single day…”

I'm talking about thinking your own thoughts and not other peoples' thoughts. We're always flooded with other peoples' opinions and agendas – whether that's through news, social media, emails or the like. Most of us check our phones first thing in the morning. We're glued to the damn things. Our phones are constantly filled with other peoples' agendas. It's rare that someone is telling you to think your own thoughts.

Well, I'm here to tell you exactly that. If you want to start thinking like a millionaire, you have to start thinking for yourself.

What is your agenda? What are your goals? What do you want to achieve?

While you're thinking, take specific time to develop your visualization skills. That leads me into Tip #2…

2. Visualize It!

Visualization is key. While you're thinking, take specific time to visualize what you want to achieve. Take a look at my video on The Power of Visualization.

Let me give you an example. I used to be terrified of public speaking. In fact, studies show that people are more afraid of public speaking than of dying.

As an entrepreneur, I've been asked to speak at public events. I was sort of forced into a speaking role. Instead of getting anxiety or having a breakdown, here's what I would do.

I would actually visualize myself speaking in front of a group. I would envision my body movements. I would envision interacting with the audience. I would envision it as if I was a fly on the wall.

I would do that over and over again in the days and months leading up to the event.

I started to realize that I was getting better and better at speaking. It felt like I had already been there and done that because I visualized it so much. It was total deja vu.

Believe it or not, everybody visualizes stuff. More often than not, we visualize ourselves failing. We visualize things going wrong. Well, it's no surprise that when we visualize it that way, things go wrong.

At the University of Chicago, Dr. Judd Biasiotto did a study with basketball players to see how they could improve their free throws. He broke the team down into three groups. The first group practiced free throws every day for an hour. The second group just visualized themselves making free throws successfully. The third group did absolutely nothing.

What do you think happened?

Well, as expected, the third group saw no improvement.

The first group, who physically practiced, improved their free throws by 24%. Not bad, right?

The second group, who visualized making free throws, improved by 23%. Without ever touching a basketball.

So, by the power of visualization, the second group improved almost as much as the group who physically practiced every day.

Thoughts become things. If you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand. – Bob Proctor

3. Focus on Long Term Goals

If you really want to start thinking like a millionaire, start focusing on your long term goals. Every single wealthy person I know is focused on their long term goals. Sure, they have short term goals they want to meet, but what they're really focused on is the long haul.

I have long term goals, too. I have long term goals for my business, for my investments, for my retirement. Now, those plans may change, but they keep me focused.

Most of the time, things take longer than you think they will. If I'm focused on a short term goal, it's very likely that I'm not going to reach that goal. But if I focus on my long term goals, it's way more likely I'm going to achieve those.

The mindset of focusing on long term will help you to accomplish a lot more than you would if you focused on short term goals.

4. Act Yourself into a New Way of Thinking

This is probably the most powerful bit of advice I can give you. You cannot think yourself into a new way of acting, you have to act yourself into a new way of thinking. If you're sitting around thinking that you're already successful, it's just not going to happen. You have to start acting as if you're already successful. You have to start acting like a millionaire to think like a millionaire.

You gotta walk the walk. The way that you develop successful thinking is to ACT AS IF you are successful. In order to rewire your brain, you have to actually do different things. You have to change your behaviors.

This is exactly what I did when I got started. I was a deadbeat. I was broke. I wasn't acting successful. I didn't realize successful people attract more success. Successful people are attracted to other successful people.

Here's what I had to do: I had to trick my mind and act as if I was already successful.

What does that look like? It was my swagger. It was my confidence, my attitude. I was projecting success.

When I got on sales calls, I would speak with confidence. I would act like I've been doing this for 20 years.

One of the quickest hacks to figure out how to act as if you're successful is to hang around successful people. The reason most people don't know how to act successful because they're always around broke people. NEWSFLASH: Broke people act broke.

If you really want to learn how successful people act, how they talk, how they present themselves, you need to spend more time with succesful people – then model what they do. As I always say, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. It makes sense that when you surround yourself with successful people, you start to act like them.

According to a University study in London, it takes 66 days to make a habit. Now, you might find some other research that says it doesn't take that long, but let's err on the side of caution here and assume it falls on the longer side. A habit is something you do instinctually. There are good habits and bad habits.

In order to develop good habits, you have to create structure and repetition every day over and over again until it gets ingrained in your brain.

Feelings lead to thoughts, which lead to actions. So if you're gonna reverse engineer this, you need to start taking action with the intention of changing your thoughts. Only then can you start thinking – and feeling – like a millionaire.