A word that people can’t stop saying is “viral.” Everyone wants their ideas, videos, books, products and services to all go viral. On the other hand, we’re stuck making the same old boring thing, slightly repackaged in hopes that people will notice. What you really need is a dramatic difference. Notice that it’s not a minor difference, it’s not a slight difference, it’s a DRAMATIC difference. Eureka! Ranch, where the Swiffer Sweeper and the American Express Centurion Card aka the “Black Card” were developed, say that a dramatic difference causes organizational chaos and provides a 370% better chance of success and profitability. That means, you have to change systems, move people, add new support or whatever else is required to cause a massive shift. So, if you want your (fill in the blank) to go viral, be remarkable and do something dramatically different.
The video above caused my wife to repeatedly say “I wish we could go back and do this” is a perfect example of doing something dramatically different. After one week and at the time of this writing, this video had over 7 million views.
Thank you for joining us over here to continue, Innovate or Die. If you hadn’t seen Part 1, head over to MySA. In developing your product or service to be meaningfully unique, you’ll need to leverage three additional points.
Explore Stimulus
Exploring stimulus is a crucial component to the development of new ideas. In typical brainstorming, people make a list of ideas to develop something out of nothing. Imagine if you decided that you wanted to buy a new digital camera. Rather than coming up with a list of features you’d dreamed up, wouldn’t it be easier and more effective if you reviewed different models for the features, benefits, designs and quality to make a decision versus trying to come up with a list of things you think you’d like? Exploring stimulus when developing a new product is the same, where you begin with some building blocks to develop brand new ideas.
Leverage Diversity
Leveraging diversity requires taking different members of your team, even suppliers and vendors, and looking to them to provide new pieces of inspiration. If you only ask one team for their view on a rose, they might all come back saying beauty. Leveraging the diversity can yield different perspectives on the same rose including vitamin c tea, romance and rose water. Bring in different teams and look at what different world views can do for your process.
Drive Out Fear
Drive out fear by applying a system to your innovation process. Deming, who helped Japan rebuild after WWII implemented what we knew in school as the Scientific Method. Plan > Do > Study > Act. Plan what you’re going to do and what you want to test. Do what you’ve planned inexpensively. Study the results. Act on your findings to adjust your idea. A fail fast, fail cheap attitude is best in finding out whether your idea is worth determining that you should continue, you should quit or you should continue but adjust course.
How do customers perceive your products, services and innovations?
5% ROI success rate: The Boston Consulting Group found that only 4.5% of innovations meet or beat targets for return on investment. This is an 86% decline, down from the 35% innovation success rate reported in 1985.
83% of brands are becoming commodities: A survey by Copernicus Marketing Consulting found that in 40 out of 48 categories consumers perceived brands as becoming more alike and, in only 3 categories (automobiles, liquor, and beer) was brand name considered more important than price.
The key distinction between innovations that exceed ROI expectations and those that fail is dramatic difference. Invest your resources in products or services which customers truly perceive an overt benefit in and provide them with a real reason to believe. Otherwise, you better fail fast and fail cheap!
10 seconds: This is how long it should take you to peak someone’s interest in what you can do for them.
Listen twice as often as you speak.
Numeric precision on your communications messages greatly increases your credibility and the difference you portray. Example: I can save you $20,000.00 this year!
Clarity in your messages (5th grade reading level) increases your odds of selling by 70%.
Focus in your messages to one thing increases your odds of selling by 60%. Eliminate the irrelevant.
Your image matters, but your overt benefit and how you are dramatically different from your competitors matters the most.
If you have dramatic difference from your competition, you have 370% greater odds of success and profitability. Source: Harvard Business Review.
Salt and Pepper: If you wanted more customers as a restaurant manager, you would not advertise that you have free salt and pepper. Are you selling salt and pepper?
Does everyone in your organization know what to say when asked what you do? These sound bites should be artwork on your walls!
Does your business card or resume give the recipient the benefit received when working with you?
For the current business owner who needs to increase sales:
Right before my former company gave up its roots of being a design firm and became an advertising agency, I was told to grow where I was planted. Today, I see event companies attempting full service advertising and continually losing their customers within a few months, as one or the other is not their calling. I see branding firms attempting to become ad agencies, but will enter the commodity bottom half rather than offering a true difference. For many entrepreneurs, the desire to expand into other areas or test other services keeps them from mastering their true purpose. I know this because I have allowed it at times, although it was not my company’s purpose nor in my heart. When you focus on your company’s true purpose while doing what you love and loving what you do, you will grow well and fast where you are planted.
As you may or may not know, I (Nan) was recently married. Last week, we went on our honeymoon in St. Lucia. The first day, there was a guy on the beach at our resort who kept yelling “Joe Knows!“ My new bride lit up and said “It’s Joe! We have to go, now.” Apparently, during her planning of the trip she had read a number of reviews on tripadvisor.com about Joe. Joe had his sales pitch down – his marketing physics were perfect. He told us how he worked for Sandals as the top tour guide for 13 years before starting his own company (real reason to believe), his tour took you to the same places that Sandals would take you but for a fraction of the cost (dramatic difference) and you would see and experience the trip feeling like a local because you had the best guy (overt benefit), after all, Joe Knows! Needless to say, we didn’t delay in signing up for his tour.
On the day of the tour, Joe took us to the volcano at St. Lucia, we hopped under a waterfall, ate lunch at a mom and pop eatery, saw the famous Pitons (twin peaks) and sampled 20 rums at a rum factory. Throughout the day, Joe told us stories about the locals, customs, the struggles people endure and gave us anecdotes for life. All much more than what we had bargained for. Joe sold us with the value that he provided and impressed us with the passion he used to tell his story. It felt like he was telling it for the first time. Thanks Joe, you made me feel like a local in your country.
An internal study at SalesBy5 from customers, vendors and colleagues has provided us the following:
Most people do not want their cell phone number given out. Typically they get countless email or phone requests asking for an hour of their time. Others hate email and delete it as fast as it comes in, while some embrace it! So what’s the key in finding a person’s preferred method of communication? Ask! The last resort is to try them all, but you may look like an obsessed boyfriend/girlfriend. Paying attention makes the dramatic difference!
I was just checking out Dave Balter’s new book, The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II(click to download in pdf free), as mentioned on Seth’s blog. Dave published an interesting formula to calculate the value of a traditional commercial to word of mouth communication-
(# of traditional media impressions) X (Average length of impressions) = (# of word of mouth communications) X (Average length of word of mouth communications)
Compare these numbers and see how many people you need talking about your product versus being totally engaged with your commercial:
# of traditional media impressions (the total number of people who saw your commercials) – 100,000
Average length of impressions – 30 seconds
Average length of word of mouth communications – 480 seconds (8 minutes)
100,000 X 30 = 3,000,000/480=6,250
According to his equation, the equivalent of 100,000 people watching, understanding and digesting a 30 second ad are 6,250 people having a conversation.
How can you get those people talking about you/your products and service instead of spending money on advertising? Did you start with a great (remarkable) product/service? Are you applying marketing physics – the product has an overt benefit, with a dramatic difference and that gives people a real reason to believe that you are able to deliver that benefit. Wrap these things all together with a 5th grade level explanation and you have a winner on your hands.
For day 10, we need to add a few last tips and cover the latest data. Today, you should be able to articulate the benefit you have in 10 seconds or less. You should be able to stand out by not selling salt and pepper. You should be able to offer a dramatic difference from your competitors that is easy for a 5th grade student to understand.
Try the following and eliminate any old way that has not worked extremely well. You should be surprised at the change. If you have a question, e-mail me at erik@salesby5.com, I will respond fast.
Tips:
#1 way people in business want to be communicated with today is e-mail.
#1 way people in business screw up a sale is THEY TALK TOO MUCH!
#1 way people lose a sale is letting a customer say “no” because the customer didn’t understand what benefit they were being offered.
Latest data shows that if you have exclusivity and/or scarcity in the offering of your product or service you will have an overt advantage.
The best of the best have a coach, who is yours? If you think you know it all, you are easy to beat!
Use the tips above and tell us how it changed your sales.
Yesterday was all about future focus being 10x more predictive of success.
Today: The ability to dominate your market!
You have it or you do not. The data proven number one reason people do not sell is they talk too much, and number two, they have no true value that they offer. It happens to us weekly and sometimes by people interviewing with us. The most (sadly) remarkable, are the ones you have two and three meetings with and you still have no idea what value they offer or what benefit they provide.
This reinforces the importance of your message clarity verbally and in writing. If you advertise, does it work? And how do you know? We have seen our clients, prior to us getting involved, spend $30,000 in one business journal without ever getting any response or business from the advertising. What you say and what you do must have a dramatic difference to make an impact. Just to be clear, you have a 370% greater chance of success and profitability if you have dramatic difference. What is dramatic difference? Let’s say you are selling a Honda Accord that gets 21 mpg in the city, meanwhile the Toyota Prius is getting 48 mpg in the city. Though both brands are great, Honda becomes low value and Toyota, high. You now have to find a way to make your offer twice as valuable as your competitor’s. Get serious about value. What can your customers not live without? What can you make available that hasn’t been done yet? That is your start and your finish to the dramatic difference!
Summary: Get serious about where you can dominate your market. What can you really offer? Focus on that for all of your customers. Do not try to be what you are not. Just focus on one or two things and maximize them by figuring out how to become the best in the world.
Thank you for joining us over here to continue, Innovate or Die. If you hadn’t seen Part 1, head over 
photo by jackhynes
