Hey there, I write on a number of different blogs … you might not have seen these so I wanted to share them with you here:
From my JibberJobber blog: Seth Godin: Pick Yourself
From the Career Resumes blog: Job Search: You Have To Pick Up The Phone
From my LinkedIn blog: Optimizing Slideshare On Your LinkedIn Profile
From this Jason Alba blog: pill vs. vitamin
Enjoy!
A few months ago I was talking with someone about business and marketing and they introduced a concept new to me, but I got the impression that everyone else had already heard of it.
When you are selling/marketing something to someone, do they percieve it as a PILL or a VITAMIN?
The purpose of a PILL is to alleviate a pain (for example, a very bad headache). The effects should be somewhat immediate. The value of the PILL, at the moment of pain, is really, really high. I have a PROBLEM and a PILL is an immediate SOLUTION. You know the perceived value can skyrocket, especially as the problem, or pain, is higher and immediate.
A VITAMIN, on the other hand, is more of a preventative measure. You don’t take a VITAMIN to get results within 30 minutes…. VITAMINS are a subtle solution to a long-term, non-immediate problem. The pain is not there, and you might wonder if it will ever come. It’s easy to feel like it’s a non-essential solution to a problem you might not (or, likely won’t) have.
When I heard this I was perplexed, and I asked, are my offerings (products+services) perceived as PILLs (high value, immediate need) or VITAMINS (nominal value, not sure if really needed)???
Figuring this out, and perhaps even repackaging and repositioning, can help you sell more, make more, and become more valuable.
Or, you can keep trying to sell a solution for a non-problem.
OF COURSE, if you look at Covey’s four quadrants, you know you should spend time in the Important/NotUrgent box… which seems to me to be the VITAMIN mindset… but how many of us (or, our customers) are in the Urgent/____ box? That’s where the PILL comes in.
How are you positioning YOUR offering?
I had a meeting in a coffee shop today and saw someone Seth Ahonen drawing.
DRAWING.
He had a picture of a baby and was recreating it with pencil (I’m sure there’s a cooler, more technical way to say that). It really was amazing to watch (since I have no artistic ability).
Here’s his website – check out his portfolio.
I didn’t see a picture of any of the portraits that he draws (from a picture), but I found a great portfolio of his breadth – really quite fascinating. I am thinking of a picture I can send to him to have him draw it – really, really awesome.
I recently posted my 5 favorite words, as a business owner, designer, product manager. Here are two more words I’ve been thinking about lately. Both have to do with marketing something… when someone wants to buy “something” from you, you have to be able to easily communicate what “it” is that you have to offer.
System: “7 steps to ___,” or “4 ___ in 4 days,” or something like that. Think: Seven Habits of ______. People like to know you’ve (supposedly) thought of all the angles and have come up with an amazing SYSTEM that solves their problem.
Package: Very similar concept to a “system,” but a package doesn’t have to have a system to/in it. The package can be something like “buy 8 hours for the price of 10,” or “get a book, ebook, DVD and upgrade for ___.” I do this here.
If you are a consultant I recommend you do this immediately – your clients expect it (even if they don’t know they expect it.
Go check out my other 5 favorite words – I didn’t realize this was going to be a series, and will probably be an ongoing series… 🙂
This is really clever, very scary… I think the spammers will have a good success rate with people clicking on this:
here are the things to watch for:
When you mouse over the “click here” link you see it will go to this URL:
A few red flags here, also:
This has yellow and red flags all over it – but they’ve done a very good job. PLEASE don’t click on anything that looks like this. Simply delete it (or, if you are on Gmail, report phishing, or report as spam).
UPDATE BELOW…
Taking a quick break from my book thingy…
I have migrated over to Gmail and Google Apps (which allows me to have gmail functionality on my business email) completely … and I have one major beef that would be simple to fix.
In Outlook, when I start a new email, or reply, my EMAIL SIGNATURE is put at the top of the message, no matter how long the message was (in other words, even if I’m replying to a message it is at the top, NOT the bottom).
In Gmail, if I reply to a message my EMAIL SIGNATURE is put at the BOTTOM of the entire thread… which means I have to go to the bottom, cut the sig, go back to the top and paste it. It’s a pretty lame way of doing it… and I’m guessing just an oversite… but seriously, you’d make my life 10 times easier if you just put the signature at the top of the email on all messages (new and replies)…
What do ya think – can you do that for me? Pretty please?
UPDATE: Twitter works! Gmail didn’t necessarily fix it because of Twitter, but I got my solution from Julius Solaris:
That link is a step-by-step description of how to accomplish what I want using Google Labs – it’s basically another setting I just had to turn on…. THANK YOU Julius – and Gmail – get that out of labs 🙂
This is brilliant.
Many sites grow “virally” by tricking you into “inviting” your contacts to join. The idea is an invitation from you is probably something your contacts can trust… companies count on that trust to get eyeballs and signups from your (inadvertent) actions.
This caught my attention this morning… a user of one of those systems knew what was happening and wrote a brilliant “don’t do it!’ piece – check it out:
Please disregard this invitation because they did it automatically and I don’t know how to undo it… so here’s some word of mouth – DON’T SIGN UP FOR THIS SYSTEM.
I really appreciate that my contact saw this before he blasted it out to his entire network – in my eyes his credibility shot up 10-fold.
Imagine if websites didn’t do this type of thing.
I just wrote an email and hit the send button… check out the popup that I got:
I admit it is a little eerie that gmail reads my mail, but you must realize this has been happening with all hosted email for over a decade… right?
Anyway, I regularly hit send before putting the attachment in…. it looks like that might not be an issue anymore?!?
Brilliant user design Gmail!
Have an inclintation to be an entrepreneur?
Read this post by Tim Ferriss, called Why Grow? and other wisdom from 37Signals. Here are some of my favorite parts:
>> 37Signals is focused on getting sh*t done instead of chasing the Silicon Valley venture capital death spiral. Financing has it’s place, but it’s a means to an end and shouldn’t be confused with an end.
I’ve played around in the funding space for almost four years, thinking about getting funded, talking to people who have gotten funding, asking advice, talking to investors, etc. I have recently been going to any Funding Universe Crowdpitch I can, which is really enjoyable, but I’m still leery of looking for outside investors, so I really appreciated that line 🙂
>> More than 3,000,000 people worldwide use 37Signals products
WOW. 3M. That is amazing.
>> Have you ever noticed that while small businesses wish they were bigger, big businesses dream about being more agile and flexible?
Talking about the perfect size of a company… everyone is looking for that greener grass. Huge used to be the goal, but look at all the huge companies and all the problems they have?
>> The easiest, most straightforward way to create a great product or service is to make something you want to use.
I love that entire section… examples of companies that started because founders had their own itch to scratch, came up with a solution, and have done very well.
Very nice, inspiring post. I’ll have to check out the book.
I pick up a little side work as a social marketing consultant here and there. Today I was working on a project looking for relevant bloggers to network with in a niche space. I went to alltop to find the blogs they have listed for this topic and opened all of them in tabs so I could see if I liked them.
I was specifically looking for people who had street cred as a blogger in that space. I found a bunch that I liked. I was also reminded of things I hate. Here’s my hate list: