Business Owner/Senior Manager? Want proven Marketing Tips and Rapid Scale Strategies? This site is created for you! If you want direct help to grow your sales and profits, please Email: profit@vista-marketing.com or Call: +44 (0)7973 413316 now.
Silent Marketing: Silence is golden – How to become a successful marketer and sell more
“Speech is silver; silence is golden” is a good mantra for Silent Marketing. In this short video, you will learn how to become a great marketer and sell more.
Want to sell more and at higher margins? Become a great interviewer. Learn to ask insightful penetrating questions. Then listen to the answers with genuine care, interest and rapt attention. In short become a Silent Marketer.
One of the stupidest things I hear in business is “It’s not personal; it’s just business.” It’s often used to excuse an impolite remark or behaviour.
If it’s business, then it is personal. I’ve never had a business relationship with a non-person. Have you? Successful business is based on relationships between people so it’s important to make business personal and fun.
Far too many people spend 5 out the 7 days in a week being miserable, doing jobs that they don’t enjoy. That’s over 71% of a working life spent in misery. I think you’ll agree that this is a terrible return on investment. If anyone offered you those odds in a business transaction, you wouldn’t take it.
That’s why I’m never tired of repeating to my clients that they must enjoy what they do. If you don’t enjoy what you do – if your heart is not in it – then find something else you enjoy. Things you don’t enjoy are not worthy of your precious time. After all you only have one life.
“Yes Funsho, this is all very interesting but what has it got to do with silent marketing?” I hear you ask.
Well here is my point: if work isn’t fun for you, you won’t do your best. When you truly enjoy your work, you’re not only happier, but you’re also more enthusiastic and you perform much better.
What you do must be at the intersection of 4 critical factors: Does it fuel your passion? Does it tap into your talents? Is there a need for it? Do you feel ethically drawn to meet this need? This is your Personal Unique Magic Sweet Spot (PUMSS). I will write more about this in a future blog, but for now:
Your Personal Unique Magic Sweet Spot (PUMSS) is where your passion, your talents, a need, and your ethical desire to make a difference, are in harmony. (Click link below for Diagram.)
When you’re operating at this intersection, you’ll give your best performance. As my mother used to say; “A contented hen lays the best eggs.” Humans obey the same natural law.
Now how does this relate to silent marketing?
A contented person doing fun things at work with the goal of making a difference in their customers’ lives will do whatever it takes to give the customers what they need on their terms. That epitomizes effective marketing at its best – giving the best possible value. That is silent marketing.
So make business personal and fun for all your stakeholders and your success will be guaranteed.
Can you believe that we’re already in February? 12.33% of 2011 has already gone! So how have you spent the first 12% of 2011? Are you on target to achieve your marketing goals?
In fact today is February 14th – Valentine’s Day. It is the day for publicly celebrating romantic love. But that’s another story. I always take this opportunity to remind my clients to focus particularly on their marketing relationships. Accomplishing your sales and profit goals require good relationships with others – especially your prospects, customers and employees.
In February I urge my clients to re-establish their marketing relationships for another good reason; to regain momentum. As we all know, the New Year usually kicks off with new resolutions, high expectations and motivation but by early February, we tend to lose momentum.
Achieving goals is not always easy. How many times have you set a goal and not achieved it? Well, read on and hopefully this will help you hit the bullseye.
To achieve success with your sales and marketing goals, you need to answer the following critical questions:
Do you know what to do? – knowledge
Do you know how to do it ? – skill
Do you know why you want to do it? – motivation
The most important question, yet the least understood, is the last one. Why it is important for you personally to achieve that specific goal. Until you can answer this question, you will not be fully committed to your goal.
So, don’t forget…12.33% of the New Year has already been and gone. Isn’t it time to re-visit your marketing, sales and profit goals?
Silent Marketing: Want to close more sales? Listen more closely
Great listening begets great service and great service begets great profits. Listening is also an act of love. I once heard someone define listening as “wanting to hear. You can’t deliver great service unless you really “want to hear.” And you can’t do this without caring. So you see, listening and great service go hand in hand.
It is impossible to offer the best value and deliver great service without listening very attentively, actively and with care. And guess what? You can’t be a great marketer without listening very attentively and actively. So when someone is speaking to you, are you always disciplined to want to hear? Are you in love with your customers? Well, you ought to be.
Silent marketing is about wanting to listen because you want to hear because you want to know because you want to help because you care because you love your customers.
The most difficult task in selling and the number one key to success is to get inside the head and heart of your customer. And you certainly don’t do that by talking. You can only understand your buyers’ situations, needs and wants by listening. Then you can address their concerns appropriately. What do they value most that only your company can give them?
Want to close more sales? Listen more closely. Listening is by far the most important aspect of marketing and the selling process. It is also, sadly, the weakest skill for many sales people. Want to learn to listen? Shut up. Start by asking important questions and just listening to your prospect’s answers. Develop an aversion for hearing your own voice. Start telling yourself, “Here I go again!” whenever you find yourself talking more than you listen.
What do you think? Share your view and comments with the world.
Silent Marketing: “Empathy” – How to prosper beyond your expectations by walking in your customers’ shoes
The more you and your organization can understand and empathize with your customers’ key motivators, the more likely it is that you will have sustainable success. Do you know what motivates your customers to buy? What is the empathy level in your business? Do you and your organization really get your customers? If I ask the key players in your market today, would their answer be that you just don’t get them?
Empathy is the ability to step outside of yourself and see the world as other people do. It is one of the most under-appreciated abilities in business. Empathy helps to make good marketers into great silent marketers. Silent marketers see new opportunities faster than their competitors. You must put aside your own issues and put yourself in the other person’s shoes. This ability is a key ingredient to eventual market success because it allows you to develop products or services people really want.
When you use silent marketing to understand your customers’ needs as real human beings better, and create high-profit innovations in both current and new markets, the sky is the limit for you. When you learn to truly walk in your customers’ shoes and see the world with new eyes, you leverage empathy for growth in an unstoppable way. Ultimately it leads to better products, better profits, and happier customers, employees and owners.
So stop worrying about your own problems and start caring about the world around you – your customers’ world. In addition to its big economic benefits, silent marketing with its increased empathy for your customers can have a personal impact, as well. You have a better day at work. You and your employees will look forward to going into work every day. Has your organization got a strong sense of empathy? If so please let me know.
What do you think? Share your view and comments with the world.
Silent Marketing: How to use empathy to become the darling of your market
You want to win your prospects’ trust and business? Show them that you empathize with their circumstance and understand their “pain” better than anyone else. Then let the quality and value of your product or service prove that you care deeply about your market’s frustrations.
Empathy is the cornerstone of any effective marketing or business strategy. It is about caring and turning your focus externally. With empathy, you see your company or business from the customers’ perspective. You think like your ideal customers and then do everything you can to become the supplier they would be thrilled to buy from. Put simply, you have to fall in love with your customer.
Are you in love? If not now, have you ever fallen in love? Think about what it is like when you’re in love. The object of your affection becomes the centre of your universe. Everything else fades into insignificance. You live, breathe, and dream for that one special someone.
Your relationship with your customer must be like that. Your job is to help them engineer a better outcome from each transaction with you. You must make a conscious decision to make their lives better off as a result of your relationship. You can do this by demonstrating how much more than anyone else you understand, respect, and empathize with their circumstance. Show that you feel what they feel. Then let them see that you’d do anything and go anywhere for them.
You have to care more about your customer than you do about your business. Crazy? I don’t think so. It’s common sense – think about it. I’ve noticed that most customers who come to me because of their mediocre sales and profit levels start to prosper the moment they turn their focus externally. Stop asking: “How can we cut costs? How can we survive? How can we do better? How can we sell more?” Start asking: “How can we add more value for our customers?”
To be empathetic:
1. You must love your customers.
2. You must care.
3. You must ask penetrating and insightful questions.
4. You must listen to their answers with your whole body – with care and attention.
5. You must have a desire to learn.
6. You must want to help and make your customers’ lives better.
So instead of focusing internally, focus externally. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Let your product or service speak volumes of your empathy. That’s how you gain their trust and become the darling of your market. And that, my friend, is how you become their preferred supplier and the envy of your competitors. What do you think? Share your view and comments with the world.
Want huge profits? Hire the best people. If you’re making huge profits, thank your employees for the way they serve your customers. If you’re only making mediocre profits or losing money, pay attention to your hiring policy. You won’t grow and make increasing profits without your employees. They’re a critical and an indispensable part of your potent most silent marketing strategy.
Your hiring policy is one of your potent silent marketing tools. You can teach almost anybody to do anything, but you can’t teach them personality. You must find people who genuinely like working with other people and are going to go the extra mile to make sure your customers are happy. These people will do this, not because you tell them to, but because they want to. It’s just the way they’re wired. This is why it is very important to invest whatever it takes to hire the best people for your organization. Is he/she predisposed to helping people solve their problems?
So if you want high profits, find and hire great people. What do you think? Share your view and comments with the world.
Silent Marketing: How to get people to love buying from you
Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!
Marketing, done right, is ridiculously simple – not necessarily easy. In its purest and most effective form, it’s just about figuring out what people want and giving it to them when and how they want it. Nobody does this better than silent marketers.
Is it possible for you to arrive at the right problem definition or provide the best solution without significant input from your customer? I don’t think so.
You must satisfy and make your customers happy or very soon you would have no business. Instead of focusing on making a profit, you must focus on creating value that matters to your customers. What do they value? What are their needs, wants and aspirations? What will make them richer, happier and their lives easier? Identify these carefully and provide the best solutions for each and they will love you. They will open their wallets and willingly spend their hard-earned money with you. Moreover, they will bring their friends, family members and colleagues to buy from you.
Don’t guess what you think would satisfy your customer. Experience shows that these are usually way off the mark as they tend to be based on your wrong assumptions. Don’t try to guess the answers, as tempting as it might be. Keep it simple and do the simplest and most obvious thing – ask them. Then listen attentively to everything they say and respond appropriately to your newly gained marketplace insights.
How can you get close to and know your customers intimately? Listen to them talk about themselves – their dreams, fear, opportunities, problems, etc. Instead of telling them how wonderful you are, listen to them. They will, in effect, tell you how you can help them buy effortlessly from you. Your own subsequent communication, in response, would be right on target as a result. This is efficient and effective. This is how you achieve excellence in marketing. Dare to be different. Embrace and practice silent marketing.
As I said at the beginning, marketing is about figuring out what people want and giving it to them when and how they want it. Silent marketers do this better than anybody else. Be a silent marketer. What do you think? Share your comments or questions with the world now.
You can change the world by thinking of others before you think of yourself.
I’m sure you’re familiar with traditional sales and marketing. They’re based on the premise of the ‘gift of the gab,’ coercion, interruption, shouting, and broadcasting. There’s lack of trust. This is, in my opinion, passé. Silent marketing (listening) is the wave of the future.
How did we get to the mistrust?
In the business world, sales and marketing is justifiably perceived by many as sleazy. As a result, by the time a prospect gets to your website or starts to interact with you they’re already very weary and sceptical. Well, can you blame them? It’s no wonder that prospects believe no one. They’ve experienced being conned, yelled at, interrupted, bullied, tricked, deceived, manipulated, and sold many times. And they’re tired.
What is (and why) Silent Marketing?
Silence is golden. Saying nothing is preferable when you’re trying to know and understand your prospects and customers. Silent marketing is the perfect answer. It focuses centrally on the interest of the customer. And it is not as dumb as it might first appear, even though it is counterintuitive. It obeys perfectly our capitalist market economy’s fundamental law. You will only get what you want if you help others get what they want. Your first task is to ask great questions and listen silently to your target market (prospects or customers) to find out what they want. And then offer it to them, on their terms.
Listening is very important. When you listen, you understand. When you understand, you can empathize. And when you empathize, you’ll discover the real meaning of service. Silent marketing demands empathy. It is not about sleaze, blowing your own trumpet, or the gift of the gab. It is about listening attentively with care, understanding what the market needs and wants and giving it to them.
This is why Silent Marketers are great interviewers and listeners. You cannot be a great marketer unless you’re a great listener. And you cannot be a great listener until you learn to be silent. Learn to listen – really listen. And when you’re listening, you’re silent. People love that. It shows that you care and respect them. Well, don’t you?
My mother used to tell me from an early age, “Silence has the loudest voice. You scream loudest when you’re silent. You must be silent to touch souls.” Sometimes saying nothing says the most, and you learn at the same time. You don’t learn new things while you’re talking.
The Insanity of “Shouting” Marketing
One form of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting a different result. I saw a brilliant bumper sticker recently in America, which says “Honk if you hate noise pollution.” I love the sticker because it sums up the lunacy going on in marketing and advertising today. Marketers and advertisers know that we’re all fed up with the marketing noise everywhere and want to avoid it. Rather than find a solution to remove the noise altogether, many marketers are looking for ways to “out-shout” their competitors. They want to shout the loudest. It is madness. You will always find someone who can shout louder. The smart strategy is to do something totally different. Why not do the opposite of what annoys people – i.e. shut up and listen? I’ve only ever met one person who likes advertising and he’s an advertising agent. Silent marketing brings sanity to business.
Let us (marketers) be silent so that we can hear the whispers of the market. It is difficult to find your ideal customers amidst the current marketing noise. Customers (that’s human beings, in case we’ve forgotten) prefer silence. I love this quote from Ausonius, “He who does not know how to be silent will not know how to speak.”
Here’s my take on it: Your speech will be right on target after you’ve carefully listened attentively to everything the person has to say. If you’ve listened well, you’ll know exactly where the person is coming from and what they really want.
Selfishness versus Market focus
Traditional marketing comes across as selfishness. Silent marketing is market focused and puts the interests of the prospects and customers centre stage. Talking is about meeting your needs – selfishness; listening is about meeting theirs – market focus.
People (that’s you and me) hate being sold but they love to buy. If the heart buys, the head will follow. But you can only engage the heart through empathy and emotional bond. Silent marketing is your fastest route to developing strong empathy and emotional bond with your market.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts with the world below. I, for one, value your comments. Thanks.
Silent Marketing 
