Get a Job

The most important marketing that most people will ever do is to get their next job. Your next job can be crucial to your financial and emotional stability - and your family. Not having a job can be very destructive to your family.

Many things have changed over the past several years (and decades) – yet so many people still try to get a job the same way as their parents or grandparents.

Enjoy and listen to the lines from this 1958 song, “Get a Job.”

Especially the line, “When I get the paper, I read it through and through.”

How’s that any different from reading the job adds on Monster or any of the other online job boards. Are you still modeling your job search on the way they did things in the 50’s?

If so – break out the Brylcreem.




George Torok

Personal Marketing

8 Marketing Truths that Will Make You More Profitable

Beware of the dangerous marketing myths that can destroy your business. You’ve probably heard most of them. Many are spread by the marketing mystics who don’t understand or don’t want you to understand the simple realities of marketing. The challenge for you is to sort the truths from the myths and the mystics from the masters.

Read this article and study each of these marketing truths to increase your profits and reduce your losses. Think about how you will apply these marketing lessons to improve the profitability of your business.


1. Marketing is about sending messages
Everything you do or don’t do sends a message. Marketing is much more than advertising. Marketing includes your customer service, company policies, telephone manner, community presence and supplier relationships.

2. Marketing is about building relationships
We would rather buy from those we know and like. Marketing is how you help prospects know and like you. Marketing builds and maintains the relationship that keeps them coming back for more.

3. Marketing is long term
The payback on your marketing of today might happen next week, next month or next year. In some businesses the cycle could be even longer. Learn what your cycles are and stick with it throughout the cycle.

4. Marketing is part art and part science
Effective marketing is built on systematic principles and based on the science of persuasion. The delivery of your marketing is differentiated by your personal flair and flavored by the art of creativity.

5. Marketing is always happening – whether you intend it or not
Some business owners claim they don’t market. Nonsense! You cannot – not market. Everything you do is marketing. Some of it is intended and much of it is unintended. But you are always marketing. The question is “Are you aware of the messages you are sending?”

6. Marketing is everyone’s role and responsibility
It’s easy to identify your sales staff as the ones who close the deals. “Who’s marketing?” is a more difficult question. You are missing the point if you think marketing is the sole responsibility of your “marketing department”. Everyone in your company is marketing, from the delivery-van driver to the accounts payable clerk, to the production foreman.

7. Marketing is everything you do that makes it easier to sell
Good marketing helps you close deals. Bad marketing wastes money and kills deals. Evaluate all your marketing actives and rate them on how well they help the sales process. Stop or improve any marketing that you rate as possibly negative.

8. Marketing occurs on both a direct and indirect level
The Facts and the Feeling.The Intellect and the Emotion.The Look and the Smell.The Realities and the Perceptions.It is the second part of each of these comparisons that moves people to buy or decide not to buy. Facts don’t matter much when it comes to the buying decisions of your clients. The indirect level of marketing often overwhelms the direct marketing. Are you aware of the indirect messages that you might be sending?

Conclusion
It’s not your fault if you have heard marketing myths from the mystics. But it will be your loss if you believe them. Now that you know these eight fundamental marketing truths you have the knowledge to re-evaluate your marketing and enjoy greater profits.


© George Torok helps business owners gain an Unfair Advantage over the competition. He is the co-author of the bestselling, Secrets of Power Marketing. Claim your free copy of “50 Power Marketing Ideas” at http://www.powermarketing.ca/ Arrange for a marketing presentation or personalized marketing coaching by calling 905-335-1997

8 Marketing Truths Yhat Make You More Profitable

BRANDING : 7 Important Questions and the Straight Answers

Consider these important questions about branding and the brutally honest answers that could help you sell more and save you lots of money that is typically wasted on branding. If you sell yourself as a branding expert – you might not like these answers. These are frank answers that demystify branding.

1. What is branding?
Branding is the ongoing process of creating and enhancing the brand. The brand is the emotional connection that encourages your clients to cling to the organization, product or person. It is important for you to understand that branding is an emotional connection. And emotion is devoid of logic.

2. Why is branding important to business?
Effective branding builds that emotional connection. The more emotional that your clients are about you, your company and your product – the easier it will be for you to sell to those clients. You can appeal to emotions instead of logic. Emotions, although more complicated, are easier to influence than logic.

3. What mistakes do companies make with branding?
Many entrepreneurs get confused about branding. They believe that branding is about logos, fonts and pantone colors. That happens because graphic designers and advertising agencies, masquerading as marketing experts, claim that branding is about image.

Often bad marketing decisions and wasted money are justified with the phrase, “It’s good for branding.” Branding is not the goal – it is a tool. The goal is to sell more.

Many corporations fall into this trap. The corporate branding police insist that every PowerPoint slide be a particular color, including the company logo and in the company fonts. Readability and purpose are thrown out the window by the branding police because they lose sight of the purpose and focus on the tool. Maybe they should be fired.

4. How can business build a strong brand?
A strong brand is about feelings. First you need to decide the feelings that you want to evoke from your customers. You need to be clear on your intended message and the mindset of your best customers.

You can build feelings by the way you treat your customers. You need to treat them in a manner that stands out from the competition. Southwest and WestJet airlines demonstrate this well.

5. Give an example of successful brands.
Nike and Coke are companies that built strong brands because of huge marketing budgets and mass marketing over time. That’s the most common way that most well-known brands were built. Unfortunately it’s too often emulated by small business as the only way.Harley Davidson and Buckley’s cough medicine are examples of branding built on creative positioning. That method is the smarter choice for businesses without multimillion dollar advertising budgets.

6. Is branding the best marketing approach?
No. Branding is only one approach to marketing. Marketing is about making customers want your product. Branding is about building an emotional bond with your customers. It takes time to build that bond. And branding requires one of two things in abundance – money or creativity.


7. What is the alternative to branding for small business?
Small business can do something that’s better than branding. They can build real relationships with their clients. Big corporations can’t do that. That’s why big corporations spend millions of dollars on branding. Small business has a better tool. They can build real relationships.


When you are building your brand ask the important questions and get the straight answers about branding.


© George Torok is the coauthor of Secrets of Power Marketing – the first guide to personal marketing for the non-marketer. Claim your free copy of “50 Power Marketing Ideas” at http://www.PowerMarketing.ca Arrange for George Torok to speak to your people or work with your team at http://www.Torok.com or call 905-335-1887.


Branding: 7 Important Questions and Answers