Steve Miller's Blog, page 7

My 50th Class Reunion & Fat Mail

I just returned from my 50th high school class reunion! Yes, there were a lot of OLD people, so I was a little uncomfortable.

Kid Gets Bullied For His Homemade T-Shirt Design

Last week a fourth-grade boy in Florida was bullied because of his homemade University of Tennessee t-shirt design. His school was having a college colors day and he wanted to show off his favorite school.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any official UT apparel, but he did have an orange shirt. So the young man took a piece of paper and drew a large U.T. on it, complete with his now “label.” Ya gotta love that.

The young man proudly wore his t-shirt to school. During lunch, though, some girls made fun of his shirt. As you can imagine, he was devastated.

Read the whole story on this page: https://theadventure.com/tennessee

Wanting to cheer him up, his teacher reached out on social media to see if anybody had any contacts at UT who could help get him an official t-shirt.

The story went viral. The young man got a bunch of cool University of Tennessee stuff. But the best happened next.

The University of Tennessee has now created an official UT t-shirt out of his design. Portion of the proceeds are going to @STOMPOutBullying.

Obviously, this is a great human interest story. It’s also a great business lesson we can all learn from. Watch this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video and see what I mean.

Did you get my 25 Stolen Marketing & Branding Ideas?

Marketing is Officially More Important Than Sales

I don’t know exactly when the baton was officially passed, but it’s pretty clear it has been.

Marketing is more important than sales.

Actually, marketing isn’t just more important than sales; it’s CRITICALLY more important.

You might disagree. In fact, I’d guess that many of my BFFs would, which is completely understandable. It’s our heuristics. It’s in our DNA that sales is the engine that drives business.

But for most businesses, that’s not true anymore. I’ve got the stats to support my conclusion.

This means that your business today (and I’m talking to you, B2B) needs to make sure your current marketing strategy and execution has made the shift, too. Marketing has to carry the ball of establishing credibility AND trust in today’s marketplace.

Watch me state my case in this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video.



Get The UNCOPYABLE Marketing Machine now!

Meatloaf and I Won’t Do That

Next month I will be attending my 50th high school class reunion. I hope the venue will be able to accommodate all our wheel chairs.

So I was reminiscing a bit this morning about the 60s and 70s while listening to Meatloaf’s outstanding Bat Out of Hell album. One of his biggest hits was “I’ll Do Anything For Love, But I Won’t Do That.”

This reminded me of one of the things we’re well known for — Our Rules.

We developed and posted our Rules and Values prominently on our website many years ago. Initially created because of a bad client relationship, Kay and I wanted to make sure people knew what we stood for and what expect in a new relationship. To this day we still get a lot of comments…pretty much all positive.

Do you have Rules your business stands for? Can you point prospects to a document that says, “Here’s how we do business?”

Watch this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video and see what I’m talking about!

But Wait There’s More!
Big Announcement!

Watch the announcement for a brand new online course detailing how you can develop and implement a powerful and successful marketing strategy. CLICK THIS LINK! (Get it while it’s cheap!)

Spray & Pray Is Not A Marketing Strategy

I received a direct solicitation through LinkedIn messaging this week. I have no relationship with this person and they made no attempt to know much about me beforehand. I get these a lot.

Obviously, a lot of people see LinkedIn as the easiest way to connect in the business world, primarily the B2B world. Unfortunately, too many of these people see LinkedIn as just another way to annoyingly mass-blast, thinking this is a great way to generate new business.

It’s not.

Watch this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video as I dissect this most recent crack at “looking for the easy sale without making any effort.”

Have you read my Amazon #1 bestseller, UNCOPYABLE: How to Create an Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition? GET IT NOW!

Are You Ready For A Downturn?

I am definitely not one of those “the sky is falling” kind of people. But one of the most important lessons I learned from working for a major Japanese toy company was to practice “healthy paranoia.” They had a 100 year business plan, but it was tempered by the statement, “Also plan as if a recession were to happen tomorrow.”

There are a lot of signs right now pointing to a slow down, so on the oft chance it’s on the horizon, I have six hard-edged questions for you to answer. It’ll be interesting to see how you respond!



Did you get my 25 Stolen Marketing & Branding Ideas?

Stealing From Seth Today

I subscribe to Seth Godin’s daily email. You should, too. (Go to seths.blog)

Today Seth talked about the differences between types of mustard — the low cost yellow mustard you put on a hot dog versus the expensive dijon.

In reality, there’s not much difference in the cost of producing both, but they are definitely presented to the market as different, and one is much more expensive as a result.

Which mustard are you and how do you present (brand) yourself and/or your company to the marketplace?

Watch this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video and listen to why this can make a BIG difference!



 

The Secret Behind the Marketing Secret

We’ve proved there are marketing secrets. But not everybody got last week’s secret, so I’m sharing the answer to the puzzle. In addition, I’m talking about the big secret behind the secret, and even yet the secret behind the secret behind the secret.

Sounds crazy, but it’s all true. Watch this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video. Get the secrets. And then get ready to learn a LOT more next time!

BTW, it’s Kay’s 60th birthday this week! Wish her a happy birthday!

Have you downloaded Steve’s 25 Stolen Ideas yet?

A Marketing Secret You Actually Don’t Know

You probably don’t believe me when I say I have a marketing secret you don’t know.

But I’m willing to bet it’s true.

That’s the thing about secrets. Secrets are, well, secret. And pretty much all of the time we don’t even know there are secrets until somebody shares one. But then it’s no longer a secret, right? Actually, yes it is. It’s still a secret to others, but no longer to you.

So, like I said, I know a marketing secret you don’t. In fact, I’ll bet I know more than one.

Want to learn a marketing/branding secret? Watch this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video. (But I’m going to make you earn it.)

Download my Secret Wordfind.



And be sure to download my 25 Marketing & BrandingTips!

Results Not Typical

One of the most successfully used marketing messages has been the Before & After promotion. We’ve all seen the terribly fat, super unhappy before pictures of people who miraculously ended up 50 pounds lighter and not a care in the world.

Guess what? It can work for you, too!

Watch this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video and learn two lessons you can use right now to generate more business!



Check out my GOLD Inner Circle! https://theadventure.com/goldinnercircle