Attraction Marketing

This ‘photo’ was taken by Hinode’s Solar Optical Telescope, and reveals the structure of the strong solar magnetic field rising vertically from a sunspot. Image credit: Hinode JAXA/NASA

In my last post, I said I was going to talk about
Attraction Marketing, but I didn’t explain what it was.

I believe that the concept of Attraction Marketing was first put forward in a couple of books by Ann Sieg, of Network Marketing fame. They were “The Renegade Network Marketer” and “The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing”.

The principles of Attraction Marketing apply far beyond the world of MLM, however, and are extremely relevant for anyone doing business today, particularly on the internet in its modern, Web 2.0 incarnation.

Simply put, the idea is for you, as the marketer, to attract potential customers so that they are seeking you out to get stuff they want, instead of you seeking them out and selling it to them.

This is fundamental to Alex Jeffrey’s approach, as taught in his recent coaching program, where he told his students “Don’t chase the money – let the money chase you!”

An advantage to the marketer is that the people s(he) encounters are much more likely to be interested in what s(he) can provide than those who are reached randomly by, say, conventional advertising or cold-calling. They are, essentially, ready to buy: they are ‘qualified prospects’.

It’s good for the customers, too: they will be offered what they are actually looking for.

People want someone who can help them find solutions to their problems, someone who can help them with their needs.
By focusing on, and demonstrating the ability to cater for, the needs, desires and problems of the customer, the marketer can establish a position as the expert, the provider of solutions, the person to which people will come for help.

By providing valuable information freely, the marketer establishes credibility and trust, and can begin to build a relationship with his or her prospective customers. And if the relationship benefits them, customers will want it to continue.

Of course, this is all very well, but without conventional advertising or cold-calling, how are potential customers even going to know about the marketer’s ability to help them? How do you actually do the attraction part of attraction marketing?

Well, one surprisingly effective way is to leave stuff around for customers to find while they’re searching for what they want; stuff that will lead them close enough to you for you to begin establish a relationship.

And another way is to let them tell each other about you. Of course, they’ll only do that if you’re doing something worth telling about.

I’ll leave that for the next post, when I’ll be talking further about ‘new’ approaches to marketing, and why the ‘old’ ones are becoming increasingly obsolete.

Winning Hearts and Minds

As it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d write something appropriate about Attraction Marketing, using phrases like “wooing the customer” to draw parallels with the romantic ‘attraction’ associated with Valentine’s day. I thought I might contrast it with the aggressively competitive, er, business model which led to the St Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929.

But it all seemed a bit contrived, really; so, while I WILL be writing about Attraction Marketing soon, for now I’ll just wish you a happy Valentine’s Day!

However, I would like to thank my own Valentine, my wife, Carolyn, who, like Alex’s Katie, has backed me all the way on this enterprise; and for the love of whom, as much as for my own sake, I am working hard to make it a success.

A Shift in Perspective

Nigel Yip’s dramatic move away from the mainstream of the ‘Fortunate 500′ flow certainly caused some turbulence.

I think many people had been wrestling with doubts, and feeling concerned about which direction we were supposed to be heading.

Alex had seemed to be saying ‘you don’t need to understand it all; just get on with it.’ But he was also telling us to plan ahead. And how can you plot a course, if your destination is unknown?

For various reasons, though, most of these students hadn’t voiced their concerns. For one thing, I think we all – quite rightly – feel a certain loyalty to Alex himself. For another, the Alex Jeffreys Coaching community has a very positive feel to it, and no-one wants to undermine that.

We are wary of entertaining doubt on a personal level, too: we all know how important the ‘right mindset’ is. Every time a potentially negative thought appears saying “This’ll never work”, the Gazz-Man in our heads shows up and swats it, fast.

But Doubt is not just the bane of resolve. It drives scientific enquiry and honest introspection. And, carefully wielded, it’s a very important tool, especially in certain fields, such as Internet Marketing. No shortage of scam merchants there.
So perhaps we can forgive some people for starting to wonder about things, when they realised they hadn’t got rich yet.

And we can understand Nigel begining to lose faith, when his commitment and hard work hadn’t yet really paid off. And especially, perhaps, when he heard the message that “there are only results or excuses; nothing in between.”

Nigel’s crisis of faith seemed to encourage people to face their own doubts head-on, instead of turning away from them; and to reconsider their position (or positioning). Some have been moved to express their, previously unspoken, doubts.

Students are realising that it was unrealistic to expect instant success. But, rather than feeling let-down, this shift of perspective has helped many of us to realise just how far we’ve come on this journey.

The horizon may not seem any nearer, but our starting point has been left far behind, and we’re into a totally different landscape now.

As for Alex, I don’t think anyone should doubt his honesty, his sincerity, his empathy or his commitment. He’s been true to the principles he wrote about in “The Guru’s Dream”; he wants to help people, not string them along or rip them off.

I was just over at Gary Simpson’s ‘Temple’ (see the Blogroll), discussing the situation with regard to unrealistic expectations in this enterprise. As Gary suggests, you can’t cram this much learning into such a short time AND expect to get rich while you’re doing it.

Alex’s enthusiasm and positive approach may have led him to think he could do more than was realistically possible with a group of this size; and on top of that he was let down by his support team.

So Alex may have bitten off more than he can chew with this one; but that’s part of ‘failing forward’, a principle we’re supposed to be learning anyway!

Alex Jeffreys is a man of integrity, and while he may not have managed to deliver everything he set out to, no-one should feel short-changed.

The cost of the course may have seemed a lot of money to many of us, but the fact is that others have charged much more, for much less.

We’re all benefiting immensely from the training, the advice and the hands-on experience, so any money made through marketing the product he provided is really a bonus.

For anyone feeling lost, I would recommend a visit to this post at Gary’s site, where he introduced an inspirational audio message from Linda Caroll, starting a prolonged and very interesting discussion which incorporates a lot of good advice.

I would add that, in my opinion, membership of this community at least doubles the value we’ve got from the course. Quite apart from the moral support, our group constitutes a tremendous practical resource for us all in terms of collected expertise. Alex had to work hard at the networking which nurtured his success. We’ve been handed ours on a plate!

Failing / Falling Forward

Just out of interest, Alex’s phrase ‘Failing Forward’ is the title of John C Maxwell’s book (not-very-succinctly subtitled ‘Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success’).

Personally, I like the ‘falling forward’ version of the phrase.
It describes the same principle, but to my mind, it conveys more effectively the inevitable role of ‘failure’ as part of the journey to success: after all, repeatedly ‘falling forward’ and recovering, is actually how we walk!

At this point, I might be expected to mention the story of Edison’s attitude to ‘failure’ with regard to the R & D of his – now obsolescent – lightbulb. But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll use the occasion of Darwin’s bicentenary to point out, in a rather less inspiring way, that the evolution of life on Earth couldn’t have taken place without the failure of countless genomes to get themselves reproduced…

So, failure is not just endemic: it’s structural. So, live with it.

I came across this page” on ‘falling forward’ which some of you will like (I’m sure Gary Simpson will). Nothing to do with marketing, but much of it seems quite appropriate to our endeavours here.