Strategic Discipline Blog

“John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool.'” – Paul McCartney

John is of course John Lennon.  Lennon wrote some pretty good songs by himself, including “Imagine” which is exactly what Joe Polish and Dean Graziosi suggested we do in our marketing following this with disciplined action steps.

At the San Antonio ScaleUp Summit, I heard some comments made about these two speakers, born out of the nature of their topics and presentations.  There’s a bit of overexaggerating, pontificating, and evangelizing, part of which comes with every marketing effort.

Despite these comments, both Joe Polish and Dean Graziosi were enthusiastic, insightful, energizing the audience of business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, and leadership team members.

IMAGINE – VISUAL & EMOTIONAL

The biggest take away from these two presentations was Joe Polish’s recommendation to shine and define your goal.  Much of his ideas were a reminder of the process I used to overcome my cancer in 2012.  With less than a 2% chance of survival, I used meditation to visualize the outcome I desired.  I outline this in Why Business is a Noble Pursuit and Catalyst Re-Discovery - The Coach & the Tool and My Leukemia Cure – Strategic Discipline. With the help of Elaine Pofeldt, Verne Harnish’s editor on Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up, a contributing writer for Forbes.com and author of The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business: Make Great Money. Work the Way You Like. Have the Life You Want I’m working on completing my cancer recovery story soon.

To achieve anything, we truly desire, we must create a fire, a burning desire to attain it.  Visualization stokes the fire, yet it must be combined with a positive emotion to attract this elusive goal. Emotions magnetizes us to our aspiration.  Simply visualizing your objective once won’t bring it to fruition. It requires repetition, action, complete faith, and confidence you will fulfill your intentions coupled with the emotional feeling of having it.

Creative minds, as we discovered in Solving the Leadership Puzzle – Leadership Circle Profile (360), are the seeds of great leaders.

Endless repetition of your visualized goal, combined with positive emotions set you to action.  Ideas sprout from a mind aspiring to greatness.

“To live through an impossible situation, you don’t need to have the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do.” ~ Anthony Greenbank, The Book of Survival

WHAT TO DO – MARKETING

Joe Polish, shared his story starting a carpet-upholstery cleaning company, achieving success through education based marketing.  He created a consumer guide to carpet cleaning providing a 100% guarantee. He focused on getting his prospects to trust him, and built credibility by helping inform them to make an intelligent decision.  His carpet-upholstery cleaning guides helped his prospects become comfortable with him, build rapport, and eliminate the question he continually faced, “How much do you charge?”

Polish’s marketing efforts proved so successfully he sold his ideas/system to carpet-upholstery cleaners around the country, eventually taking this same systematic approach to other industries to become one of the top marketing experts in the world.

Polish believes any problem can be solved with the right sales letter.

He shared this process of developing your approach, offering support again for the crucial nature of determining your ONE THING.

What’s a question your prospects already are asking themselves?

What’s a problem your prospects face in their lives that is vexing them?

The next step is to either answer the question or solve the problem.

It creates a mystery for your prospects which you solve.

ONE THING – The BIG Question or Challenge Your Prospects Face?

This formula echoed the presentation Dean Graziosi offered.  Graziosi believes in using video. He shared his experience his TV interview with Celebrity Talk Show Host Larry King to emphasis the lessons he learned.

Again, the formula starts with identifying the big question or problem your customer is facing.  Sharing how the problem can be solved, why you have the confidence and ability to share the message, and how your product, service or offering fits where they currently are in their lives. 

While I found Polish’s approach more structured and palatable, it’s hard to discount the success Graziosi has achieved as well.

It’s the Message

A $2 bill and a $100 bill are printed on the same paper. What’s the difference?  It’s the message.

The emphasis for both Graziosi and Polish was making your message as powerful as possible.

Spending 20+ years in radio and specifically in the advertising sales arena gives me an appreciation for the powerful nature of marketing.  I’m no marketing expert as Graziosi and Polish are.  Yet the lesson from both these authorities starts with simply determining your One Thing.

Discovering Your One Thing is what Positioning Systems and Strategic Discipline are experts at.   Executing properly is perhaps the most overlooked, yet most crucial element of Scaling Up’s Four Decisions.  For guaranteed results determining and achieving your One Thing contact dwick@positioningsystems.com.

NEXT BLOG – Biggest Challenge Most Small – Mid-Size Business Face

During Joe Polish and Dean Graziosi presentation I challenged myself to discover what is the greatest challenge Most Small – Mid-Size Business Face. We ask this question specifically in our Private and Public Workshops.  Which of the Four Decisions results are most challenging to you? People: Culture of Accountability, Strategy: Top Line Revenue Growth, Execution: Profit, Cash: Oxygen and Options. Not every business faces the same decision challenge, yet I’ve discovered the most frequently there is one Decision preventing business from investing sufficient time to glean results from the other three Decisions.  The answer to which of the Four Decisions is the biggest Challenge, next blog.