Marketing

5 Stages Of Market Sophistication: How To Stand Out From The Competition

May 24, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

Photo credits: rvlsoft / Shutterstock.com – Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com and Paolo Bona / Shutterstock.com

Isn’t it true that someone who has bought a smartphone will be more skeptical and demanding than someone who has never owned one before?

Your experienced cell phone owner will have a lot more questions and objections than your first time phone owner. So how can you as an entrepreneur, a business owner, communicate a marketing message that speaks to your customer, depending on their experience level with a type of product?

This is the biggest challenge that most entrepreneurs face when communicating a message: they don’t understand the five stages of market sophistication. They communicate exactly the same way with their customers regardless if it’s stage one or stage five. So what do I mean by the five stages?

These are a way of describing the amount of experience a customer has with a product, such as a cellphone. Once you see the distinction in the five levels, you see why the typical marketing message – one-size fits all message for everyone – doesn’t work.

Let’s take a look at the five stages of market sophistication and how applying these levels will distinguish you from your competition.

Watch this video about the five stages of market sophistication.

Eugene Schwartz: How To Make Yourself Number One

One of the greatest copywriters back then, Eugene Schwartz, came up with the market sophistication concept. He wrote a book called Breakthrough Advertising, which I would say is one of my top three marketing books that I have in my library. It’s out of print, but I think I brought mine for $500 on Amazon.

Here’s the key to Schwartz’s concept. You must market your product or service depending on what stage of sophistication your market is currently in.

By “stage of sophistication,” I’m talking about how long that type of product or service has been around, how many competitors you have, and whether your customers are jaded.

It’s important to understand market sophistication because you always want to aim to be number one or number two in the marketplace. It doesn’t mean you have to be the highest quality. Instead, perception is more important than reality. What does that mean?

You’ll notice that in any category, any industry, the top one or two people or companies make the most money. In fact, the top 10% of any industry make 90% of the money. And 90% of the business owners make 10% of the money in any industry.

It doesn’t matter if what you sell is a product or service, but you should aim to be number one or number two, even if you have to create your own category. For example, instead of calling yourself the “number one realtor in the universe” or the “number one realtor in Vancouver,” narrow down the category and become “the number one expert in this neighborhood.”

The Advantage Of Being First

Being first has a huge advantage. Have you seen those cola blindfolded taste tests for Coca Cola versus Pepsi? You’re supposed to guess which drink sample tastes better. Pepsi is always saying, “Seven out of 10 say our cola tastes better than Coca Cola.”

However, it doesn’t matter. Pepsi will never beat Coca Cola because Coca Cola was on the market first. When you think of cola, you think of Coke, you don’t think of Pepsi.

Because they knew the competition was too fierce, Red Bull decided not to compete with Coca Cola. They went for the first market advantage in the new energy drink market, and they promoted themselves in that category.

Red Bull started with the saying, “Red Bull gives you wings.” Then they stopped focusing on this message when more energy drinks came on the market. Now, they sponsor extreme sports events. The brand has evolved and they have more attitude.

They’ve evolved through the stages of marketing sophistication, which began at stage one when they simply announced themselves to the marketplace.

Stage 1: Announcing Your Arrival To the Marketplace

At the first stage, you are simply saying, “Hello market. I’m here!” You’re very simple and very direct with your message.

It’s similar to saying, “Hey, I’m a mortgage broker. I’m a real estate agent. I am a grand master. I’m an accountant.”

At stage one, the marketplace hasn’t seen this type of product or service before. A simple, short announcement will suffice. And since you have very little competition, your innovation is enough to capture the market.

For example, a simple, direct message can be, “Hello, my business is _____. My market is_____. I do this_____. So buy from me.”

An example of stage one advertising is a full page ad in a print publication for a weight loss supplement. The message is basically take this pill and you lose weight. They say, “I’ve got this pill. Take it and you lose weight.” Very simple and direct.

Another example is a computer ad from many years ago. It said, “Personal computer for under $200.” It’s a simple and direct message. It’s not an iPad but back then, a computer for $200 was already a big selling feature.

Then, as the market evolves, your marketing needs to evolve too.

Stage 2: Features, Benefits And Claims

At stage two, you’re getting more competition, so your direct claim isn’t enough. You need to outbid your competition with features. Now you’ve got to communicate with the marketplace why your product or service is better.

You need to take your original claims and your promise and enlarge them. You need to explain exactly what it is that makes you better.

Here’s the weight loss example again. It says, “Take this pill and you lose weight in seven days or less.” You’re more specific about the timeframe. It’s not enough to just say the customer will lose weight.

Here’s an example from Apple. They are saying every child should have an apple after school. They also say, the Apple computer “is easy to set up and learn, and it comes complete with almost everything you need to start computing in one box including a free easy to use course.”

It also has 128K of internal memory and built-in hard drive. Back then, it was a huge deal to have that much memory. That made the Apple as powerful as the average office computer!

At stage two, the descriptions of your product or service are longer, the market is more sophisticated, and you need to explain more than why you’re better than the competition.

Stage 3: How Does It Work?

At this stage, you’re telling the marketplace more than what you have and why you’re better than the others. You’re explaining how your product or service works.

Consumers are getting more skeptical by stage three. They’ve become more jaded from exaggerated claims made by the growing group of your competitors, selling pretty much the same thing as you.

To get ahead of the competition, you need to get a new mechanism to make the old promise work. What does that mean?

It means you need to reframe it. You’re saying, “Hey, here’s what we do, here’s how we’re different.” Then you’re adding one piece of information that the customer might not know about what you do, and you tie it back to your claim.

Here’s an example. “Take this pill that blocks the absorption of fat in your intestines, and you lose weight in seven days or less.” You’re now backing up the claim with a mechanism, not just, “Here’s the benefit, but let me tell you what makes this pill different because this pill blocks the absorption of fat in your intestines. That’s what makes this different from the other pills.”

Brands that enter into a saturated market need to already need be at this level. To get to stage four, you must focus on defeating the competition.

Stage 4: Crush Your Competition

At this stage, it gets more competitive. There are so many choices out there with people doing similar things as you. So now not only do you have to promise more benefits than your competitor, you need yet another mechanism.

These days, the internet is making it easier for entrepreneurs to start their business. But with market saturation and massive competition, it’s much harder to gain visibility. Some experienced entrepreneurs are charging barely anything just to get a customer.

The barrier of entry is also easier to start but it’s more difficult and takes more skill and money to succeed. That means the strong will survive and the weak will fade away.

I like that competitive environment. To stand out, a new mechanism must be created that is believable and significant by your market and you must promise more benefits. At this point, your prospects have heard it all and competitors start dropping out like flies.

Let’s return to the computer example. At the early stages, when personal computers were getting more competitive, Steve Jobs asked, “What makes it tick and talk?” That was the new mechanism. A computer that freaking talks.

Only one thing was needed to differentiate their computer from everybody else, and that one thing put them in the headlines.

At stage four, they had the Apple versus PC ads. Apple was for the cool guys. They were the cool bunch. At the time, they claimed, “Last year there were more than 114,000 viruses for PCs not for Macs.” It was a direct claim to say PC sucked and they were better.

By stage four, the competition is getting fierce. If you want to distinguish yourself from your competition at this point, then you must evolve to stage five.

Stage 5: Become Iconic

You don’t want to be just one in the marketplace. You want to be the one.

The marketplace place knows so much about the industry, they won’t buy into whatever you have to claim or hard sell anymore. They’re just so skeptical. This is where you sell on how your brand services only specific types of people and you encourage them to buy into the exclusivity.

You’ve heard the question before: are you a Mac person or a PC person? It’s usually half and half when you survey a random crowd of people. Both products serve a certain segment of the marketplace.

Macs for artists and designers and cool people. PCs for geeks and nerds and gamers and corporate. Microsoft office for businesses. As you can see, it’s two very distinct markets.

You’ve got to be clear which market you’re going after. There’s a shift from features to identifying who your customer is, who you serve, and who your product is for.

Remember when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone? “It’s an iPod, it’s a phone, it has internet.” People were freaked out. They didn’t realize you could have all that in one device.

That’s iconic. The product is totally different and made history.

Here’s another example using diet pills. “Super powerful diet pills make comeback. They’re flying off the shelf, but they’re not for everyone.” The exclusivity makes people wonder who they are for. They also want to know why they are flying off the shelves and why the pills are selling so well.

Final Thoughts On The Five Stages Of Market Sophistication

In the marketplace, there is a tremendous advantage to being first. You don’t have as much competition, it’s easier to be number one, and your customers are more easily wowed by what you have to show them.

As more competition enters the market with similar products and services, you will need to talk about your features and benefits. It’s not enough to say that you exist. When an increase in similar products and services enter the marketplace, your customers will become more skeptical.

At that stage, you must explain how your product works. To defeat your competition and stand out from them, you must introduce a new mechanism. How is your product or service different from the rest? And finally, at stage five, you become iconic. Customers buy your product or service for the exclusivity.

Which ad do you consider iconic? Comment below.

How to Use Niche Marketing to Grow Your Business

May 4, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

What if I told you I was looking for companies that deliver food or medical supplies and they only deliver to remote areas inaccessible by transportation? A fairly specific request, isn’t it?

That’s the nature of niche marketing – because if you’re selling to everyone, you’re not selling to anyone. It’s a real product by the way- drones that drop off food and medical supplies to remote areas by parachute. Marketing to businesses looking for this technology is very specific, very niche.

To be effective at your marketing, you want to specialize by profession. This is the most basic specialization and it’s ideal for service professionals. It means identifying a niche within a profession and owning it through promotion and personal brand development. You’re just working on one segment in the marketplace.

To be effective at niche marketing, you can implement any of these strategies: first, target a very particular segment of the market, second, gain an incredible advantage by becoming the competition, and third, create some mystery when describing what it is that you do.

Watch this video about using niche marketing to grow your business.

1. Be Clear About Your Target Market

To find your niche market, be explicit about what type of client you are looking for.

For example, Ken was in internet marketing for 17 years, and he was just dealing with anybody that would work with him in any area of business.

Before he started working with me, he noticed a significant part of his business – 40 to 50 percent – was with real estate agents. So I told him not only to forget everybody else, but to exclude everybody else.

We formed a company that specialized in internet marketing for realtors. It was a pretty big market. I also suggested that he write a book about the topic. After he formed the new company, he also had a new, improved business model.

The company name that he had before was called “Standard Marketing” which was as attention grabbing as a blank wall. So we changed it to “Top Agent Internet Marketing.”

The new name tells all, including who we serve.

We also have a book called Sold. It has a very powerful image for a real estate professional. The sub headline, which I came up with, is “How top real estate agents are using the internet to capture more leads and close more sales.”

The book title is very clear about the target audience.

I just put a description of the target audience right in the headline.

If you’re a plumber, are you going to read that book? No. They’re not our target market. Not unless the plumber is curious about a career in real estate.

But a real estate agent will look at it and think, “Oh that’s interesting. I should read that.” Being specific about your target market will get you much stronger results.

2. Be Your Client’s Competition

Strategy number two is a subtle, pressurized kind of marketing but it’s effective.

I want to share the story of my long time partner and client, Matt. Again, we have a specialized niche. We only provide digital marketing services for audiologists and medical professionals.

There aren’t that many of them but because we only provide our service to them, we absolutely dominate the market. We are number one and the company in second place is very far behind.

We’ve been leading their industry for a long time. We have more clients, we charge more than anybody else, and we provide a whole list of services just for that market. We started off locally and then spread out across North America.

Behind the scenes we only work with certain clients in certain cities. Our marketing is not the typical kind. We turned the tables around. Instead of telling potential clients we do digital marketing and telling them about our services, we do the reverse.

We say that in each city and in each geographical area, we only work with one clinic. If that clinic doesn’t want our services, we call their competitor.

This strategy makes it a lot easier for us to sell our services. We also do recurring. Our clients pay us anywhere from $2000-$3000 per month, sometimes up to $5000 a month to do their marketing.

We offer this recurring deal through a signed 12 month agreement. After a year they can quit anytime. But if they cancel, we call the nearest clinic to them and they’ll become a client instead.

We actually have clients say, “Damn, you guys, I’ll just keep paying you.” It’s a much easier solution. They just want to make sure their competitor doesn’t have us on their side.

Understand Your Target Market

Now I have something that I must confess. I don’t know every industry.

I’m not a realtor or an audiologist. But I have my edge because I do more research and study more than anybody else. As a result, in a niche that’s unfamiliar to me, I still understand the market.

So although I’m not a real estate agent, I can tell you I know their business inside and out. I know their frustrations, what their pain points are. What they’re looking for.

I know their goals and desires. Because I learned to speak their language, they feel like I’m one of them. It’s the only way to be successful in unfamiliar territory.

There is a lesson here as well. I want to tell you about Gary, a realtor who isn’t just any realtor.

When you introduce yourself at a business event, don’t say, “Hi, I’m a realtor.” What’s the reaction of people around you?

You’re just another nameless face of yet another realtor. Gary and I came up with an elevator pitch. It’s this. Instead of saying you’re a mortgage broker or a consultant, you say something more specific. Here it is.

The Niche Elevator Pitch

“I’m a real estate professional. I specialize in working with investors, where we generate big profits through a buy and hold or buy and flip strategy. I often generate long-term wealth through a buy and hold strategy as well as various hedge fund strategies… I go into more detail in my book, The book on Vancouver Real Estate.

A book can be more effective than a business card.

It’s pretty clear who he serves and you don’t feel like he’s just another realtor. If I want to buy my first home, maybe, he’s the right person for me, maybe not. But he’s very clear, who he works with: investors on either buy and flip, short-term, quick profit. Or long-term wealth, buy and hold.

And if you have more questions, read his book. This also tells you that he’s an author. By saying he’s a real estate professional your mind doesn’t close off. You don’t instantly jump to the conclusion that he’s going to sell you something. Instead, you wonder, what does that title mean?

Is he an investor? Realtor? What exactly does he do? Then he can go into his specialization to answer the questions in your mind. When he has your interest, he then says he has a book if you want to know more.

Do you see the difference? There are so many realtors out there. So many realtors haven’t even learned how to talk about what they do in a 30 second elevator pitch.

Now remember I said I’m not a realtor. Gary, however, is. But I understand the industry. My edge is when I go into an industry to gather information. I go nuts.

I read the publications and I attend the trade shows to learn their language. I talk to a ton of realtors and take a lot of notes. That’s how I win.

I gather as much intelligence, or data, about the market as I can. Your wealth is in direct proportion to how well you understand your marketplace. Some people have been in their market for a few years, yet they don’t actually understand their market that much.

There are no excuses for not being informed, not if your wealth depends on it.

Final Thoughts On Using Niche Marketing

The key takeaway here is that even if you’re not familiar with your niche, you still need to be familiar with the market. That means that even if I’m not a realtor, I must study the marketplace for realtors.

If you don’t understand the target market, you won’t be able to communicate with them. Have an elevator pitch handy that will tell potential clients what it is that you do. Have an element of mystery about your description so the client will want to hear more.

You want to stand out from the competition. You can even beat your competition by telling your clients that if they don’t do business with you, then you will do business with their competitors. This is how you dominate in the industry.

Which strategy do you like the most? Comment below.

How To Find Your Signature Speaking Style

April 24, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

“All public speaking is, is speaking to one person at a time in front of many people.”

This is just one of the million dollar speaking tips from ForbesSpeaker Deborah Patel. She’s the secret weapon, coach and mentor behind many of the world’s best-selling authors, experts and leaders of Fortune 500 Companies.

I asked her, “How to develop your signature speaking style so you can connect on a deeper level with your audience?”

The advice she gave provided the tools to become a speaker at the professional level, starting with how to work the room.

Watch this video about Deborah Patel’s Signature Speaking Style Tips.

Having The Personal Touch

She said that great public speaking is having a conversation with one person at a time in front of many people. As you make a connection with one person, you move on to the next person at the next table or the next section.

You make eye contact like you’re touching – making contact – as you work your way across the room.

Stay in one direction, and don’t go back and forth like you’re watching a tennis match. You want to give the impression that you are open and vulnerable, sincere and genuine, and humble. Especially in Asia where being humble is key to gaining trust.

You want to be sincere and have a connection with the audience by being able to feel what their concerns are. If they have a question they need answered, you can sense it.

The last impression you want to give is that you’re speaking to sell them something. Instead, you’re speaking to serve a need, and people will recognize that purpose through your connection with them.

If you have that sense of connection, then with one glance, even to someone at the back of the room, you’ll know that person is with you and following what you’re presenting.

Your true mastery as a public speaker shows when you are speaking in front of thousands and you can be flexible. Flexibility is key when you have audience participation.

Audience Participation

When you have a presentation in front of 5,000 to 10,000 people, you can do your opening and cover your main points and issues with the entire group. Then in the middle of your keynote, you can open it up for questions.

It’s a bit dangerous because you have to really know your content. You don’t know what the audience may ask. But for Deborah, it’s both scary and fun to do something like this, as long as you know your material.

When it comes to presentations, you can use questions as a way to break up the presentation or check in with the audience. For example, at some point in your presentation you can open it up for Q and A.

If you find people aren’t responding, then you ask then to take a moment to get a partner and share their top takeaways from the last 30 minutes.

It may require people to step outside of their comfort zone to have that discussion, depending on how you structure it. You might even have had an activity that requires people to practice a concept from your presentation.

Then you ask the group to share what was discussed in the group or partner activity. It’s a way to engage people and show that you’ve been listening when you ask them if they have questions.

Having a high level of confidence is necessary when you open up your presentation to questions from the audience. It’s also necessary when you are selling to them.

Presentation Confidence and Control

I’ve done platform selling – speaking on the stage to promote a product or service. Your presentation has to be practiced or you’ll lack confidence.

Deborah’s advice for those who sell from the stage is to aim to have more polish. If you’re not confident enough, then your insecurities will show. So when you’re more practiced, then focus on serving the needs of your audience.

I couldn’t agree more. I teach my students in the High-Ticket Closer ™ Certification program to speak with confidence in their voice. If you don’t sound confident in what you’re selling, how can prospects be confident in what they are buying from you?

Someone that Deborah has worked with is T. Harv Eker who is a master of selling from the stage. His style was to push people and irritate them for their own good to get them to buy. He needs that tough attitude to get people to move forward and take the next step.

These qualities are not easy to master overnight. When it comes to speaking and presenting, it takes “many masters to make a masterpiece.” If you’re a lifelong learner, you’ll take pieces from all the greatest presenters that you know, whether it’s T. Harv Eker or Tony Robbins to get the results you need as a speaker.

How To Act Natural In Front Of An Audience

Deborah studies how to be a coach, a facilitator or a trainer for those moments when she’s in front of the room and she needs to put people in a training exercise to master their speaking skills.

She says that what you want to do is reverse engineer everything by starting with the end in mind. You want to ask yourself how you want your audience to feel, what stories you want to tell, and what words to use to get the effect you want.

You’ll also vary the volume of your voice. Lower it, like you do when you’re in a conversation. The lowering of your voice happens naturally when you’re having a conversation or when you’re speaking with your loved ones. You also use that voice when you’re having a good time.

You want to master the volume of your voice and the effect it will have on your audience.

The problem is, when people get on a stage or they get in front of a camera, they stop being natural. Their self-consciousness kicks in. So what Deborah does as a coach is build a tool kit that people can use when they need them.

An example of a tool is when you’re in sales and you have people imagine what it would be like to paint the vision. When you’re creating the vision you need to be seeing the vision of say, financial freedom. Then your emotions create pictures, and your emotions need your voice to create this mood in the audience.

Developing A Sixth Sense

When you’re talking in front of people, then you’re reading them. You’re going to feel what they need to hear. That’s the genius of it.

As you speak more and more, you develop this sense of what’s happening in the room. You could be a room of hundreds and you’ll notice that a group at the back, having a roundtable discussion, has a question that you should address.

It’s this sixth sense that you develop when you make a lot of presentations.

It’s a matter of being present with the room. You have to know your material that you’re speaking about, and be comfortable with yourself and speaking in public. Otherwise, you will not achieve this sixth sense level of awareness about your audience.

You will also have to give up on the idea of giving perfect speeches or presentations. You want to be in control and precise about what’s happening but you can’t control everything. There are things you can control, like technology, like the mic, the sound system, and your opening and pacing, but you can’t control everything.

Perfecting Your Signature Speaking Voice

When you’re closing, then depending on what you’re offering, you want to be very careful about the words that you are using to close people.

So if you are not natural at public speaking, then you have to practice it with that intention, that you are honing in very specific speaking skills.

If you want to get better at perfecting your message, then practice the speech of someone you admire. You can also try to copy a motivational speaker. Just choose a speech to copy. For example, practice delivering the last three minutes of Martin Luther King’s speech. Imitate how the other person speaks.

Later on, when you get better at it, then you can start to develop your own style after you’ve learned the basics for good public speaking. So like learning how to sing, copy six different artists that you like and then your own signature style will start to emerge.

Final Words: Finding Your Signature Speaking Style

If you’re not comfortable speaking in front of an audience, then work on developing that talent. Having that magical amount of eye contact, that natural volume in your voice is very important when making a connection with people.

As a lifelong learner, you can start by imitating the speakers who you admire, and then when you improve, start developing your own style.

Know your material well so you can be comfortable giving up some control, for example, when you ask the audience to ask you questions.

When you have enough practice with speaking in front of large groups, you’ll start to develop a sixth sense – you’ll feel what the audience is feeling. All of these are characteristics of a master speaker.

What do you do to connect with an audience when you are speaking? Comment below.

How to Create the Story of Your Own Personal Brand

April 22, 2019 by Dan Lok

Never start at the beginning. Always start from some point halfway to the top, and work your way backwards. Now you might be wondering what I’m talking about.To create the story of your own personal brand, to be like the book that people can’t put down, you begin with climbing up the mountain.

You see, back in my early days as a copywriter, people didn’t even think I could succeed in business. And before that, when I was in high school, no one wanted to talk to me. So I don’t want to start my story there.

But now that I am a multi-millionaire, a business magnate, internet celebrity and global educator with students and fans around the world… people want to hear my story. They want to know how I became successful, and how I’ll take my success to the next level.

And now that I’ve reached this point and I’m still climbing up, people want to learn how I did it, and they can relate to how I started. They can relate to how I used to struggle to begin my career because that’s where many people are now.

This is a good place to create your story – when you are successful, and people are hungry to know how you got here from your humble beginnings. So this is how your create the story of your personal brand, using one of the following character types.

Watch this video about creating a story of your own personal brand.

The Reluctant Hero: Forced Into Action

People love a good story, and this is how you reel them into your brand, and from there, to build trust in your business.

The first character type is the reluctant hero, the person who is just like us until something extraordinary happens to him. Peter Parker was just a regular teenager, into girls and from a regular family until a radioactive spider bit him.

His life wasn’t the same after that – he had enhanced strength, speed, and reflexes. Special powers to help others. It was his uncle who said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” But Peter didn’t want extra responsibility. He just wanted the power.

Peter changed his mind when he let a thief escape and his Uncle Ben tried to stop the thief instead. When the thief killed his uncle, Peter realized the full meaning of his uncle’s words. Peter became the hero Spiderman whose mission was to find his uncle’s killer and to fight crime.

That’s the reluctant hero. A regular person with flaws just like everyone else but that hero must leave their comfort zone to make a difference in their world. It’s a formulaic storyline we’ve seen in many movies and books and it works. These characters could be any one of us.

Frodo Baggins, a hobbit from The Lord Of the Rings has no special powers and no aspirations to change his life, yet he gets sucked into an epic journey. He meets many fanatical and spectacular characters as he faces extraordinary adventures, but after all that, he’s still just a regular character.

The reluctant hero is a proven storyline that captivates.

The second type of character is the exceptional man or woman who overcomes great obstacles.

Exceptional Person Who Overcomes a Challenge

People are intrigued by characters who are good at what they do. They also love underdogs who thrive against all odds and the skepticism of others. Here’s a real life example of how someone without limbs overcame a huge challenge.

Nick, a famous motivational speaker without arms or legs, inspires millions and millions of people with his positivity. He’s an exceptional man who’s overcome challenges everyday.

For us, brushing our teeth is a simple task. For him, it’s a big challenge but he’s overcome it. We’re inspired by people like him. If you search for him online and study the message he’s trying to convey, you’ll noticed he’s narrowed down his message to mostly Christian-based philosophies. He’s found his audience.

Another example is one of the highest paid motivational speakers in the world, Tony Robbins. At one point he was overweight and broke, living in a one bedroom condo, until one day when he got sick of his life. He went for a run along the beach, then wrote in a private journal, “No more!”

Tired of who he had been, he wanted to work on himself and his psychology. He wanted to inspire others and started doing seminars on personal power. He taught people how to master’s psychology… and that brings us to where he is now. Successful and a household name.

It’s a familiar storyline.

Us Versus Them

The third type of character is us versus them. It works well because it’s based entirely on the fact that we as human beings create our own belief systems based on completely irrational beliefs.

Let me give you an example. Usually we like to blame our problems on others so it’s us versus them. When you meet someone and you both don’t have anything in common yet you have a common enemy, that instantly bonds you. You have the same enemy.

So hypothetically let’s say I don’t like Donald Trump and you don’t like Donald Trump. When we watch him in the election, we instantly have a common enemy. We can talk about a lot of things including his hair.

Here’s another example. Let’s say I am selling natural herb supplements online. I can easily talk about how in the past I wasn’t very healthy so I was overweight and sick a lot. I tried Western medicine but it didn’t quite work for me. Then I stumbled on Chinese medicine.

Then in my journey I discovered these supplements and they are amazing. I have this mission I want to share with you so I put together these products and I set up this company. Now we are fighting against these pharmaceutical companies.

They actually don’t want you to get well because if you get well you won’t buy their medicine anymore. I want to focus more on prevention and that’s what these supplements do.

A Formula For These Stories

So with these stories, you can see there’s a formula. When you use an us-versus-them storyline you stumble upon a secret. The secret proves there is a problem with the market or something similar. It’s the market’s fault.

For example, in the case of the natural supplements, the fault is the pharmaceutical companies out there selling their drugs and teaching the doctors to get them to write prescriptions. You vow to fight against them and unite on your mission to solve the problem.

You emphasize that by buying your product, your client becomes one of us, the good guys. If you don’t buy the supplements, then you support the evil pharmaceutical companies. Or you buy the supplements and you become one of the good guys who fight against evil.

It’s a very powerful formula, so you want to use it with caution.

One of the things I used to do was talk about how most internet marketing gurus haven’t been there and done that. They talk about things that they don’t have firsthand experience in. So it’s us versus them when I talk about a lot of these other people, the so-called gurus who are selling information. That’s an example of what I do in my business.

Them. So that’s an example of what I do in my business.

Now, after you’ve got your character type, you work on character crafting.

How To Craft A Character

To make a character compelling and irresistible he’s got to have some flaws. Nobody likes to meet a person who is just far too perfect. The perfect family, the perfect kids, the perfect home. People don’t want that.

They want to see a bit of loss that will reveal the character’s motive, their human side. They want you to be transparent because real people have flaws. We all have flaws and we’re all a work in progress.

You sustain your tribe’s interest over time to the degree and extent that you’re willing to be transparent. If you want to have a strong character you have to be transparent. If you want to have a powerful personal brand you have to be transparent.

Look at Superman as an example. Superman is almost perfect. What is his weakness? Kryptonite. If you take away that weakness, think about it. It won’t be as fun to follow his story. You can’t kill him, he doesn’t get hurt, and he can dominate everything.

Final Thoughts On Creating Your Branding Story

What draws an audience to you is the type of character you create. The reluctant hero, who is forced to leave his comfort zone and take on a new mission. He or she is just an ordinary person, which makes this person relatable.

Another character type is the exceptional person who overcame an obstacle. We admire this person because they have faced challenges that we haven’t. They inspire us.

And finally there is the us versus them story type. We bond instantly with another person because of a common cause or belief. We take their side so we can either become the bad guy or the good guy.

No matter which character type you choose for your personal brand story, you want to have a character who is flawed. A perfect character is uninteresting and unrelatable. It would be like watching an undefeatable Superman rid his world of his enemies in two seconds because he is invincible.

Which character type is your favorite? Comment below.

The Best Strategy To Get Clients Fast

March 13, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you want to grow your business fast. But if you want high-paying clients, then you must be willing to go against conventional wisdom.

Not everyone can be your client. If you say, “Anyone is my client,” then you’re in trouble.

Many new entrepreneurs think everyone and anyone with money is a potential lead. But for you, you must be more selective.

Most advice out there recommends that you talk to everyone you know, get involved in local business communities, optimize your website, and get into as many social media platforms as possible. But what happens if you try to catch a fish with a tiny net in an enormous sea?

You’re lucky to catch a fish or two! So if you’re patient enough to grow your business slowly, if you want to talk to dozens of people to get your first client, then follow those conventional strategies that require a high degree of time and effort. Eventually, you will find your first client. But your troubles don’t end there.

You’re new and no one has heard of you, so your first client doesn’t want to pay you hundreds or thousands of dollars. You might even have to offer some advice or service for free, just to get your first testimonial. Meanwhile, your rent and your phone and electricity bills are waiting to be paid. So what can you do to cut through this slow and painful growth stage? Is there a way to fast forward this process?

Back when I was running my one-man advertising agency as a copywriter, I was trying to get clients from all over the place. I would do the work for anyone who would hire me. As long as the client breathed, they were good enough for me. Everyone was my customer.

However, over time and with more experience, I realized that to grow my business, I had to use one powerful strategy which I’m going to teach you today to get that ideal high-paying client fast.

Watch this video to learn how to grow your business faster.

The Kingpin Strategy to Get Clients

Here’s the problem. If everyone is your customer, then nobody is your customer. What I needed was that one account that would improve the quality of my clientele. I didn’t need dozens of clients paying me a few hundred each for my services.

I just needed a couple of high-ticket clients paying me thousands for the same service. My goal was to make the same income with fewer clients. So what I had to do was find the kind of client I would attract when I had more experience… and attract that client now.

When I was struggling as a copywriter, I came across a book called Guerilla Marketing. It’s a very famous book series on small business and marketing written by Jay Conrad Levinson. Now Jay has sold over 20 million books worldwide for the Guerrilla Marketing series. He was one of the most well-known educators and marketing gurus of our time before he passed away. So I approached Jay.

At the time, Jay was marketing a Guerilla Marketing Association membership. I went to his website and saw what he did so I rewrote the entire page. I sent it to the Guerrilla Marketing Association and got a reply from Jay personally. He thanked me because I had delivered value before asking for anything in return.

“Wow, you know what, young man, that’s very nice of you,” he said. He actually used the material and it helped him to generate more sales. Afterwards, I asked him, “Hey, Jay, since you’re getting value, is it okay if you give me some kind of recommendation and endorsement?” He said he was more than happy to do that. And he did.

That was my first Kingpin client.

By getting Jay Conrad Levinson, a well-known marketing guru with credibility and authority for so many small business owners, I could approach potential clients differently. I could say, “I have an endorsement from Jay Levinson who wrote Guerilla Marketing, who sold 20 million books.” That reference impressed my next client.

At the beginning of your career, when you’re establishing credibility and reputation, don’t chase everybody. Decide on the one person or company that will launch your career and serve them.

For example, in the tech world if you could work with Google or Amazon or Microsoft you could get then get other high quality clients. Everybody else will look at that account and say, “If you’re good enough for them, you’re good enough for me.”

You skip that learning curve and grow your business much faster. You can also use this technique to draw in more customers at one time.

The Kingpin Strategy To Get Clients Fast

Let me give you another example of the Kingpin Strategy from a different perspective. In the United States, they have these huge events. The Learning Annex back then was doing massive conferences with 5,000 to 25,000 people using this Kingpin Strategy.

They would bring in “Kingpin speakers,” such as Donald Trump before he was president, Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, and Bill Clinton to draw people in.

They paid them a huge speaking fee to have them show up at the event. At the same time, platform speakers or platform closers who aren’t paid to be there will offer their programs or products. They would make a 60-minute or 90-minute pitch on stage to draw in the crowd.

These events don’t make money from 5 to 20 thousand people’s tickets.They make money from these platform closers. The event organizer would do a split with anything that the closers sell. Imagine if someone is speaking to 10,000 people and he is selling a $1,000 package.

If he sells 500 of them a day, a multi-day event would generate millions of dollars. The platform closures would get a 30 to 50 percent commission because the organizers are the ones spending all the money. The organizers made millions upon millions of dollars from these conferences going around North America, even the U.K. That’s how the business model works.

That’s the Kingpin Strategy from a different perspective. So ask yourself the question. Who is that one company, that one organization you could get that would change everything. From then on, you leverage that one person’s name or that organization’s name for the rest of your career. Before you know it, you go from a nobody to a somebody.

How will you apply the Kingpin Strategy to get new clients? Comment below.

Blue Ocean Strategy: The Art of Innovating A Sustainable Competitive Advantage In Your Market

March 4, 2019 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

With hundreds of thousands of new businesses starting up each year, is it possible to break free from your competition?

No business wants to be in a Red Ocean, fighting against cutthroat competition that turns the water bloody red. Every industry, all your competitors, are in the Red Ocean, like shark infested waters where everyone fights for the same prey.

Instead, we all prefer the Blue Ocean… calm, peaceful…and the only business of its kind in that market. Ideally, every business wants to be in the Blue Ocean, but what must your business do to be in this uncontested market space?

Before I share the business model that will differentiate you, let’s take a look at a recent phenomenon that disrupted the marketplace. Uber.

Taxis have been around for a long time as a public transportation option. There are many cab companies. Each one tries to stand out by saying, “I am better than everybody else. My services are better than everybody else’s.” But there’s one problem.

These statements may or may not be true and consumers become confused. They’re skeptical because they don’t know what is good and what is not so good. Just because you say you’re better doesn’t mean you’re better.

Then Uber comes along and introduces the concept of ride sharing services. They completely change how we pay for cab fares. No more tipping or carrying credit cards or cash. No more wondering exactly where your cab is.

There are good and bad points to this disruption, but that’s part of capitalist society. For Uber, competition becomes irrelevant. For taxi companies and drivers, they lose market share. So what can your business do to move yourself to an untapped environment?

There are three models you can follow. To be different, to be a giant in a vast blue ocean of customers, you must follow the third type.

Watch this video about how the Blue Ocean Strategy makes your business stand out.

1. Me-Too Business

In the first kind of business, the Me-Too Business, you are the same as everybody else. If you’re put next to the competitors, your message and products get swallowed up before your consumers can tell the difference. You look like everybody else. You provide the same product and service.

For example, there are over 35,000 health clubs in the USA, and at least ten, maybe more, major health club chains, each with 100 to 2000 locations. How can a customer decide to choose your club instead of someone else’s?

Maybe you tell them about your features. Does your location have a workout area? Group exercise classes? Personal training? Not surprisingly, most health and fitness clubs have these exact same features. You need to do more to stand out.

2. Me-Better Business

In the Me-Better Business, you’re better than everybody else. Maybe you’ve been in business longer than your competitors, maybe your packaging is better, or your warranty or your technology is better. It doesn’t matter. In the Me-Better Business, you’re the one saying you’re better.

Your health club is better because there are so many locations that a member can work out anytime, anywhere. Your club has the best equipment and programs for losing weight. Or, your club has more equipment and personal trainers. These are the reasons why you say your club is better.

How can you get your customers to say your club is not only better, but the best because you are different?

3. Me-Only Business

The Me-Only Business is where you want to be because you are the only person in that space that does what you do.

In the 1990s, a women’s health club broke into a market already saturated with health clubs, but it realized there was an untapped market in the fitness industry. At one end, there were high-end, full service health clubs. At the other end were home exercise programs that required little or no equipment. This club found a Blue Ocean somewhere in the middle.

It was different from a typical health club because machines were arranged a circle in groups of ten so members could talk and support one another while working out. The nonjudgmental atmosphere included the lack of mirrors on the wall. Most importantly, the company, Curves, offered value at a lower cost.

It also created a new demand for fitness consumers. And it wasn’t the only company to create new demand in the last decade. It’s possible to find a Blue Ocean in a 200 year old industry that has entertained generations.

It’s a Blue Ocean for a Me-Only Business

Creating A Blue Ocean In A Declining Industry

If you’re thinking you can’t find a Blue Ocean for your new business, think about the challenges Cirque du Soleil had in a declining, centuries old industry: the circus. Children wanted to play video games, and people protested animal rights. So what did they do?

Let’s start with what they didn’t do. They didn’t cater to the traditional end users, the children. They appealed to the traditional purchasers, and charged a lot more for an entertainment experience. Adults and corporate clients who enjoyed the theatre, ballet, Broadway shows, and opera now had another option, but in a circus setting.

Cirque now had an uncontested market space and they had eliminated costs. No more animals to feed and multiple performers to transport. People now came to the circus instead of the other way around. And they were now catering to upscale audiences.

Discovering a Blue Ocean is possible, whether you’re in an old market, or a new one. In the case of iTunes, they entered an existing market and created a new one.

Creating A Blue Ocean By Competing With An Existing Market

Now how does a company create its own market by competing with one that already exists? It can, if the current market is entirely illegal.

In the late 1990s, file sharing programs enabled the illegal downloading of digital music files. A demand for MP3 players to play mobile digital music was answered with products such as Apple’s iPod. After making an agreement with five major music companies, Apple’s iTunes offered à la carte song downloads.

Consumers no longer had to buy an entire CD for one or two songs, which was previously a major annoyance. They could get the specific songs they wanted and recording companies could have the copyright protection they wanted. It was a win-win that started a new trend.

Fast forward to today, when millions of songs, movies, TV shows, books, and podcasts are now downloaded on iTunes. Apple has been dominating this Blue Ocean for more than a decade.

Now I’ve shown you examples of how companies have created their own Blue Ocean, by breaking free from tradition, like Cirque du Soleil did, or by creating a demand, like Curves did. But what if you’re a small company, or a micro business, or sole proprietorship? How can you disrupt the marketplace?

Dan Lok’s Blue Ocean Strategy

I’ve started a lot of businesses in my career. Some were Me-Too. I mowed lawns, fixed computers, and operated just like everybody else with a single employee company.

I’ve also had Me-Better businesses in which I was striving to have better marketing skills, management skills, better service, or better products.

But where I found massive wealth was the Me-Only Business. That’s when you’re the best one in the world at this one thing that only you can do. You may not get there overnight, but you can get a bit closer over time. How I created a Me-Only Business was by creating a certification program.

I founded the High-Ticket ClosersTM Certification Program which graduated thousands of students worldwide in its first year. The concept of a salesperson wasn’t new, but the term “High-ticket Closer” to describe people who close deals for premium products wasn’t familiar to most people. That put me in a Blue Ocean.

Your business idea doesn’t have to be revolutionary. You just have to give the marketplace that perception. That perception they have becomes the reality if they perceive you as Me-Only.

Once you’re doing something nobody else is doing, then you have dominated the marketplace and you have applied the Blue Ocean Strategy.

So, think about how you can find the Blue Ocean and dominate it.

How could you apply the Blue Ocean Strategy to your business? Comment below.