Last Tuesday (22 April) saw the latest monthly meeting of the GKIC London Chapter at the new venue, the Eight Club, Change Alley London.
Entrance To Eight Club, Venue For GKIC London
The meeting kicked off with a special guest speaker, Tim Coe, who presented his update and alternate take on the classic USP concept. Tim prefers to talk about the “Utterly Seductive Proposal” and making clients an offer they can’t refuse. Whatever you choose to call this idea, it’s a concept that is of such importance that there is benefit in looking at this from a number of different angles.
To briefly recap, what we’re aiming to get to is a concise statement of exactly why a potential client should do business with you rather than someone else. The advantages of having a good USP are many and include standing out from the crowd, making all your marketing more compelling and being more attractive to potential clients.
Tim had lots of good points including his own formula for creating your own “Utterly Seductive Proposal”. He goes into greater depth in his book called, not surprisingly, “Your Utterly Seductive Proposal”. More about Tim at his website www.myusp.biz.
The main GKIC session topic was “Make Your Business About Something”. Another way of putting this is how can you deliver some sort of emotional benefit to customers over and above simply providing a great product or service. People like to be part of something bigger than themselves. Dan Kennedy often talks about the GKIC “tribe”, for example. Not always easy to do and there is something of an overlap with the idea of branding.
A good example of this concept is…
…”Iron Tribe Fitness”, the subject of an extended case study in “No B.S. Brand Building By Direct Response” . Here’s what Forrest Walden, one of the founders, says…
The more I played with the concept, the more I realized that what I was building was a “tribe” not a “cult”. I knew that the most important asset of a business is its list and that I would have to continue to focus on the community and the exclusivity of belonging to what would be known as “Iron Tribe Fitness”.
In the final session, GKIC London member Sarada Chaudhuri reported on her current campaign to re-activate old contacts through a classic 3-step mail campaign. I guess the recent launch of the latest edition of Dan Kennedy’s classic “Magnetic Marketing” program has led many of us to re-focus on some of the fundamentals…which is exactly what Sarada has done. Nothing fancy but a tested campaign template adapted to her specific business. Even though she’s only reached step 2, she’s already getting results and new business.
And that leads me on to one of the BIG benefits of GKIC London…how it encourages ACTION! Case in point…my upcoming self-published book “Scientific Advertising In The 21st Century”. A few months back I related how Richard Abrahams had decided to take action and get a book published…and he did! His “Fire Free Workday” was completed and published in just a couple of weeks.
Now, like many people I expect, I had been planning on publishing a book of some sort, even a “special report” for some time. I know all about the benefits of greater authority and credibility in the eyes of prospective clients. I knew a number of “quick and easy” ways to generate the content. I even had the idea for a book…a short primer and commentary on the classic “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins.
In fact, I’d even written most of the content! A couple of years ago I wrote a 21 part series of blog posts with my commentary, chapter-by-chapter, on “Scientific Advertising”.
BUT…BUT…BUT…I still hadn’t got into action. Call it competitive instinct, embarrassment, whatever…seeing Richard with his book finally prompted me to do something. The proofs are back from Createspace so just a final review before publishing.
Back to the final session of the GKIC London meeting…where we concluded with another “Voice Power” exercise from the great Fergus McClelland. This time how to read out loud with more impact and authority.
Another excellent session…thanks as always to David White for making it all happen. Next meeting is on Tuesday 20 May and you can get the details and book right here at the GKIC London page.
UPDATE (8 May 2014):
I wasn’t entirely happy with my explanation of the main session topic of “Make Your Business About Something”. To be fair it’s not an entirely straightforward matter. But while reading Dan’s “No B.S. Wealth Attraction In The New Economy” book I came across these comments about the classic advertisement and campaign “The Man In The Hathaway Shirt”…
“…when you cannot change what the product is, you have to change what it means.
In this case, this shirt, the only shirt acceptable to the man in the eye patch, The Baron, was made to mean intrigue and sophistication…
– Ogilvy focused instead on the man wearing the shirt as aspirational symbol.”
Dan goes on to say…
“…what Ogilvy did for this shirt is more important than ever. Consumers have more choices in every category. Recesssion-Think has made them much more reluctant to waste their money on anything ordinary, mundane, or unnecessary…My adaptation of Ogilvy’s principles behind advertising like that done for Hathaway is that your business must be about something (other than selling things), about something profoundly meaningful to its clientele.”
The more I write about this the more I think this is worthy of a separate post. Watch this space!
UPDATE 2 (8 May 2014):
Well, the final review and proof reading of my new book took a little longer than expected. Originally I thought a quick skim through would be adequate but a more thorough process was needed (and well worth the time). BUT NOW (drum roll!)…“Scientific Advertising” In The 21st Century has been published and is available through Amazon at the following links…
Amazon USA – “Scientific Advertising” In The 21st Century
Amazon UK – “Scientific Advertising” In The 21st Century
Should also be available on Amazon Europe sites.
If you haven’t already read the original work by the great Claude Hopkins, this is an IDEAL primer and introduction. You get the first 5 chapters of the original text along with my commentary and summary of the key points. A quick read and you’re sure to get some tips to make higher sales and bigger profits.
The whole exercise has been very instructive and I have to say CreateSpace makes it very straightforward to get your own book published. I’ll have more about all this in a separate post.