JIM CHILTON | WWW.SOFAUSA.ORG

Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing

TO SUCCEED YOU MUST KNOW WHERE OTHERS HAVE FAILED

Jim has been successfully financially advising people in San Diego for 35 years. He founded SOFA, The Society for Financial Awareness, 20 years ago. SOFA’s mission, then and now, is to end financial illiteracy in America, one community at a time. Jim coaches hundreds of members on a daily basis to go out in their respective communities and spread financial literacy to all. Jim’s vision is to create “significance” through financial education, available to all, in schools, workplaces and communities across the nation. From adolescents to adults, SOFA will continue helping all to find financial comfort.

AUTHOR PAGE: James E. Chilton

Founder & CEO

P 4 - A Faint Heart...No Conviction to Stick with it

P 6 - Promoting to, Marketing within, Reaching Out to the "Ice -------Cold" Marketplace

P 9 - Creating a Marketing Campaign "Rollout" Before ------- Field Testing it to a Small Group

P 12 - Being Asleep at the Switch when the Leads are ------ - Around You

P 15 - Are You Accessible?

P 18 - The Timing of Your Campaign is Far from ------ -Opportune

P 21 - The Delivery of "How it Gets Out" and "What it ------ -Looks Like" Just Comes Across Amateurish

P 24 - Conclusion

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

Thomas Carlyle

CHAPTER 1: A Faint Heart... No Conviction to Stick with it

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If you have invested 30-60 days trying to solve the great issue before you, like World Hunger (sarcasm), and you find yourself no closer to success, out goes this behavior and you begin to search for the next "Genie in the Bottle" coming down the pike! Repeat, repeat, repeat!!!

Start-stop-start-stop, no results. Your conclusion: that program must be bad, it provided no miraculous cure to your business acumens. Sound familiar?

The sin of not persevering.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

Page 5

The issue here is YOU, not the marketing program.

Perseverance means sticking with it. Any new idea or program takes time to germinate, take root, grow and bear fruit.

The two keys here are:

1. Your dedication, nurture, and follow through to give this program a decent chance for success.

2. Keeping the faith, preserving your focus on doing all that you can to let it take hold and get going.

If you don’t drive your business, you will be

driven out of business.

B.C. Forbes

CHAPTER 2:

Promoting to, Marketing within, Reaching Out to the "Ice Cold" Marketplace

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Page 7

• Why would anyone want to buy from a salesman they don't know?

• Who in their right mind wants to be called on by a salesperson?

• Why is there such a high turnover rate in the sales industry?

The sin of not warming up your marketplace.

The answer to all three of these core questions is the same...without relationships, most of us feel uncomfortable being approached by anyone trying to sell us something. Yet ironically, most sales, in general come from an environment where our needs are met by strangers who offer a product or a service to satisfy our need.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

Page 8

Next, the "referral"...supposedly the greatest thing a salesperson can get from their customer.

Why? Because the nominator has a relationship with the individual or couple they're referring us to. Then when we follow up to gain access to these new folks we draw upon the relationship between the nominator and the referee bringing it all together. Do you see how this works?

Marketing to people who have some type of relationship with (through nominators) takes us away from marketing in a world of "no's" or "not interested". The negative is derived from either :

A. They don't want to buy from a stranger

-OR-

B. Spend time with a stranger (a perceived hassle)

The quickest way to fail in sales? Marketing yourself to people you do not have relationships with.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.

David Ogilvy

CHAPTER 3:

Creating a Marketing Campaign "Rollout" Before Field Testing it to a Small Group

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Page 10

In politics, Field Polls are done to focus groups all

the time. Based on those 500 to 1,000 individuals many

definite conclusions may be drawn from those individuals polled.

The sin of not testing before trying.

So, if you're going to build a campaign that's going to blanket lots of people (say a one time dinner seminar), that's going to suck your budget –

• Renting the room

• Feeding the attendees

• Direct mail to a lot of prospects

• Telephone campaigns to seek attendees

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

- why would you commit "full scale" and max out your costs before you'd ever test it on a target focus group.

$ $ $

Page 11

Testing creates:

• Data

• Information

• Patterns

• Identifies likes/dislikes

• Connection to newsworthy events

• Provides solutions to people's problems

• Establishes common interest and curiosity

"Field Test Before Invest"... a great motto for the thrifty business owner.

Also, by testing it allows you to inspect what you expect!

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

CHAPTER 4: Being Asleep at the Switch when the Leads are Around You

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.

Vince Lombardi

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Page 13

After any seminar, symposium, workshop, lecture, or presentation where you have done a terrific job, you'll most assuredly have prospects that provide you the leads to follow up on.

The sin here is not following up on them immediately.

When follow up is not immediate, the lead cools and the prospect fades away. Leads at the moment they come in are like cut flowers...they still look good but they're dying by the moment - they need nourishment. Immediate follow up is the rule.

Any leads you get MUST be contacted in 24 hours to book the appointment.

Also, before you secure leads do you have a system that allows for an orderly, organized manner so that you know exactly what to do to keep these leads from slipping through the cracks.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

• • •

Page 14

Tips to help you stay organized:

1) Do you have a way of organizing the contacts? Consider investing in a Contact Management system or finding a free service or learn how to use one you may already have like Microsoft Outlook.

2) Schedule yourself time for follow-up. If you block out hours in your schedule, it will help ensure that you actually do it.

3) Use a variety of communication tools to reach out to your contacts—calls, e-mails, blog, newsletters etc.

4) Consider building a workflow to continually reach out to the people who may not have gotten back to you. Also, by creating a series of e-mails that will be sent automatically, it frees your time and energy.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

Winston Churchill

CHAPTER 5: Are You Accessible?

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Page 16

What good is any organization or business if when the public calls in they can't reach you in an easy, hassle-free, methodology.

The sin of inaccessibility.

In today's age, computers and the telephone have replaced the carrier pigeon - often forgoing the personal touch. Instead, we now fight through the gauntlet of spam e-mails and multiple phone prompts wasting energy listening to terrible music as we "hang on" forever to finally be told the person we're wanting to speak to is "in a meeting" or "not in“. This does not create happy campers!

Look at your systems of how the public reaches you...is it easy?

If not, think about adjusting your system and making it more accessible by the public… before you realize no one's calling in anymore!

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

Page 17

Helpful tips to becoming more accessible:

1) We all lead busy lives and cannot be available 100% of the time. However, if you are going to be away from your office for a while, set up a "vacation" response, so your clients know you're not just ignoring them.

2) If you feel comfortable to leave your personal cell on your machine, do so… and answer!

3) Consider hiring an answering service- some are very affordable and are just as good as having a real life receptionist, but without the overhead costs.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

CHAPTER 6: The Timing of Your Campaign is Far from Opportune

Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is timing.

Fulton J. Sheen

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Page 19

It's easy to choose the “wrong time”. You get so excited about rolling out your products and services campaign to the public that you forget "when" it is best to be received.

The sin of lousy timing.

Let's say you had a terrific set of printed up flyers or invitations going out to 10,000 people in your community. All your focus, attention to detail was into what was going out. You worked with the printer, set up your content, haggled over the price, set up the restaurant or hall where the meeting was being conducted, hired a telemarketing service, paid for the postage, picked the menu... everything was perfect and then... a catastrophic event happens (Earthquake, Tsunami, etc.), uncontrollable by you or the common public, the entire country is in shock and goes into mourning for weeks.

Wow! You'd be absolutely flattened by fate. What if it came out during the holidays, or in the months most folks took family vacations? You have to be "time specific" of when is the best time to reach your specific demographic of people who need and seek your product or service.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

Page 20

In some instances, like the previous example, no matter when you do it, life jumps up and still gets in your way.

However, if we can eliminate most of the common variables, we have a better chance of success.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

Top 3 times of the year NOT to do a campaign: 1.) Summer (June, July, August) . Most people take vacations and are gone during these months. 2.) Holidays (Nov, Dec). 3.) January - Most people are recovering from the Holidays and trying to regain their focus for the new year.

CHAPTER 7: The Delivery of "How it Gets Out" and "What it Looks Like" Just Comes Across Amateurish

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.

john Ruskin

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Page 22

Have you ever seen a movie that just looks like it's a "B" movie - far from the top standards of Hollywood? Even though the plot might be terrific, the actors and the sets just look cheap and poorly done. It's the same with us in how we deliver our message to the public.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

The sin, lack of professionalism. "Don't go cheap.“

One of the most common of flaws is the famous "one and done" rollouts. It goes out once and that's it! No "waves" of repetitive messages. No continual feed to the same audience. For most of us our senses need reminding as to what we see or take in.

Page 23

The colors are important of what the eyes take in. Red correlates to anger, danger warning. Green and blues soothing. Black is bold, yellow neutral. Pause and think about the effect you have on your reader, If using audio or video, is it literally High Definition that is clear, crisp, sharp and it jumps out at you? Or does it look like home movies and was printed up on a $29.99 printer? The message here is direct...have your marketing materials look hot and professional.

One last point, want to fail miserably and look like a total rookie? Assume that spell check did its job and took care of it for you. Assume that everything you write and print has no typos!! They always do! Assume nothing and proof read everything lots of times! Why?

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF MARKETING

We never get a second chance to make that first impression.

CONCLUSION

Doing lousy marketing is not by intent. No, it's the outcome of what occurred. You cannot accept mediocrity and expect great results. You literally have to be "all over it". What gets shown and marketed is an extension of your values and your standards!

Good luck and do it right!

JIM CHILTON | WWW.SOFAUSA.ORG

Helping all to find financial comfort.

Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing