• A very small % of people will buy the moment they see what you have.  However, it’s difficult to turn these people into long-term repeat business and generally won’t stick around long enough to buy your up-sells.
• Most people want to know they can trust you first, and usually prefer to build some kind of relationship to be certain you’re not going to give them something they don’t want and won’t be able to get rid of.
• Some people require a little more time than others to determine how trustworthy you are.  You have to determine for yourself how much effort you’re willing to put in before deciding to move on to other potential buyers.
• The more clearly you understand exactly what your potential buyer perceives as valuable, the easier it is to increase your closing/sales percentage rate.  These can be areas such as a smooth and well-delivered message, nice-looking packaging, or even including supplemental goods or “bonus items” in the deal …typically, more expensive bonuses are better.
• While good quality merchandise is always in demand, the greatest products in the world will never sell themselves without effective marketing.
• If you don’t get your message out there or you have the wrong message to the wrong target audience, nobody is going to buy from you regardless of how great your product is.
• If you treat your buyers poorly, they will quickly leave you for your competition.
• Branding is overrated -positioning techniques are better.  It’s great when everybody knows who you are, but if your message doesn’t effectively position you as the better choice among your competition, it will be difficult to close deals.  Also, your potential customer may try your competitor’s product along with yours because they’re not sure which is better …and may later ask for a refund.
• It’s ALWAYS better to position yourself so you have potential buyers chasing after you instead of you chasing them.
• Some people will simply never buy from you.
• In the end you will find there are some buyers you will be glad have decided to stop buying from you.  Unfortunately, in some cases you may have to refuse to do any further business with them.

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

• The largest landfill in the world is in the Pacific Ocean (known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) …consisting mostly of plastic.  It is twice the size of Texas.
• Scientists have engineered a type of bacteria that excretes crude petroleum.
• Every day, an area the size of a football field is destroyed in the rain forest.
• Scientists now know that all human decisions originate in the older part of the brain that controls emotions.  Using specialized equipment connected to this region of your head, scientists know how you will decide on something 7 seconds before you become consciously aware that you have made your decision.
• The Mayan calendar is 10,000 times more accurate than the most modern-day calendars.  Only 3 books exist (originally of hundreds) to help us decipher it.
• An alternate version of the Internet now exists that is 10,000 times faster than modern broadband …called “The Grid.”  It is currently used by research institutions and governments.
• The Chicxulub Crater is a 180 km wide asteroid impact location and one of the largest on Earth, possibly the largest in the inner solar system, and is widely believed to have been a significant factor in killing off over 50% of Earth’s species 65 million years ago, including the dinosaurs.
• Scientists and engineers now create sheets of carbon that are only 1 atom thick, as flexible as plastic wrap, can be bent or rolled, conduct electricity 100 times faster than silicon chips, and are stronger than diamond, called Graphene.
• The electrical power distribution grid in the United States has changed very little since Thomas Edison’s original system for 59 customers back in 1882.  To accommodate renewal resources (such as solar, wind, etc), the entire grid must be re-designed and re-built from scratch.
• We currently possess the technology and the know-how to build trains that can travel 3,000 miles an hour.  You could live in Los Angeles and stop in New York for an extended lunch.
• Water has been discovered on the Moon …LOTS of it!
• More new information will be created within the next 12 months than all of the collective information that currently exists since the beginning of man, combined.
• Compared to silicon, diamond has far superior electrical properties, is more thermally conductive and can handle much higher temperatures.
• If computer chips were made from diamond instead of silicon, computers would be significantly faster, smaller, more durable and could safely run hotter without elaborate cooling.
• Engineers have now figured out how to fabricate diamond wafers for use in computer chip manufacturing. As of late 2009, a 4″ silicon wafer costs roughly $6 …an equivalent diamond wafer costs over $525 each.
• “Just as the stone age, the bronze age and the steel age were named after the materials that we could make, this new age we are entering might be called the diamond age.” -Ralph C. Merkle
• Social media and social networking have recently surpassed pornography in Internet activity.
• The computer company HP has discovered forms of nano-sized switches that retain their memory and function like biological neural synapses, called Memristors.  They are smaller and use less energy than modern memory chips and can retain memory beyond the standard 1′s and 0′s of our current digital technology world, introducing the possibility of analog information storage …identical to the way biological life stores and processes information.  Not only does this discovery expand computing capability exponentially while making it exponentially smaller (and smaller = faster!) and use less energy, some engineers believe this discovery is the missing component to developing ‘true’ artificial intelligence.

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

The art and science of understanding the needs, wants and desires of what makes individuals take action, then applying that understanding in communicating a message that inspires the existing emotional and irrational drivers of individuals to elevate a psychological need, want, or desire for a perceptively external, tangible and logical satisfaction, and enticing the action of satisfying that need, want or desire by acquiring specific knowledge, products, or services provided by a specific individual or group.

Discussion

• Marketing is both an art and a science.
• Human emotions are the forces that drive us to make decisions.  Thus, all decisions made by all humans are emotional and, incidentally, irrational.
• Emotional influences result in psychological needs, wants, and desires.
• Psychological needs, wants, and desires cannot arise from emotions that do not exist.
• We humans do not function on reality, but on a perception of reality we have created in our mind.
• We rationalize and validate our psychological needs with logical factors.
• Logic is external, rational, tangible, and measurable.
• Human logical conclusions drive us to seek out solutions.
• Since solutions are perceived to be logical, solutions are perceived to be found through external, rational, tangible, and measurable means.
• External solutions are (perceived to be) found though acquiring knowledge, products, and services.

There is no globally accepted marketing definition and the most widely accepted version evolves over time.  As my personal understanding through study and application of how psychological triggers are activated to cause people to take action, I have developed this current model marketing definition.  The goal is to help people understand the incredible significance of the irrational mind in the decision-making process.

Modern brain science has only recently come to discover that we are exponentially more emotionally directed than anyone ever imagined in addition to clearly understanding the parts of the brain that control the decision-making process.  In fact, our emotions are so critical to decision-making, modern brain science has discovered that people who lack the ability to connect to the emotional part of their brain, such as from a severe brain injury, are incapable of making decisions at all.

Many former definitions relate marketing closer to consumerism and the buying and selling process. While this is certainly the purpose for doing marketing, buying and selling activities are NOT marketing, they are simply the the end result of applying proper and effective marketing principles that facilitate the emotional desire to purchase specific things.

In his book, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1974), Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, wrote (p. 64): “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy.”

The RESULT of marketing is: A customer who is ready to buy.

To illustrate the overshadowing emotional factors of marketing, here is an excerpt from the description of Seth Godin’s book “All Marketers Are Liars“ found on amazon.com:

“Every marketer tells a story. And if they do it right, we believe them. We believe that wine tastes better in a $20 glass than a $1 glass. We believe that an $80,000 Porsche Cayenne is vastly superior to a $36,000 VW Touareg, which is virtually the same car. We believe that $225 Pumas will make our feet feel better-and look cooler-than $20 no-names . . . and believing it makes it true.”

People will not buy unless they have an emotional association with something.

Some definitions suggest that marketing creates and/or delivers value.  The statement is somewhat ambiguous, as value is determined only by each individual.  Value is subjective.

Value is only created in and determined by the mind of individuals.

Marketing only facilitates the understanding that value exists within a given product or service or piece of information.  Marketing does not create or deliver the value itself, although marketing does …and SHOULD always… direct the creation of value through the understanding of what consumers want.

For example: Suppose I write a book about how to change your oil in your car.  First of all, the ONLY reason I would write such a book is because I initially did some research and discovered there are many people who would like to learn how and don’t really know where to find answers.  (…just go with me on this…) Since you cannot acquire the actual value of the content until you read the book, you must first purchase it based on your value perception.

If you were a master mechanic, what would your value perception be of this basic, fundamental book?  Probably zero.

If you knew nothing about cars …AND… wanted to learn how to change your own oil, what would your value perception be, now?

What if I inadvertently titled the book: “Pepperoni Pizza: A Love Story.”

What is your value perception of the book, now?

Here’s where marketing comes in:
Marketing fills the communication gap …in both directions!

The real value of the book, as determined by the person who has a want or desire for the information in the book, is not based on the title.  Regardless of the title, the content of the book is the same.  Yes, the perception of the value of the book is changed …and this why understanding marketing is so important: it’s about activating the emotional triggers to get people to take action.

The job of marketing is to come in and demonstrate, or paint the picture of, the value; to give you the perception that the book is valuable to you …based on YOUR needs.

While I’ve used an absurd example, it’s important to recognize and acknowledge that people DO evaluate value based on first impression or ‘the cover.’

So, ask yourself: “How many of your products and services, even your business name, have you named in such a way that people don’t instantly recognize the value?”

If you’ve done this, you’re walking an uphill battle.

The ThighMaster is a great real-world example.

The original inventor of the item (whatever he originally invented it for) couldn’t sell it for pennies.  A smart marketer came in, bought the patent, made a couple minor modifications, got a sexy, young girl to model it (Suzanne Somers), and called it the ‘Thigh-Master.’  They created a message that communicated the value to others in a way the original inventor was unable to accomplish.

They made Millions.

Why?  Because they understood what their potential buyers wanted and then slightly modified the product and created a message that spoke directly to the wants of their potential buyers.

But, the original product was essentially the same.  The intrinsic value never changed and the marketing did not actually create any value.  The marketing simply communicated the message that the item has value to those who were looking for an item that provides the value they sought after.

The value itself is actually created by the business or individual.  In a large company, marketing tells engineering that consumers prefer and value the color red and engineering creates what marketing research has discovered will motivate consumers to buy.

Sadly, too many business got it backwards.  They create their product, then go figure out a way for people to “market” (read: sell) it …often by the time things aren’t going well.

Because nobody knows what is going on inside the mind of others, research is necessary to determine the value triggers.

Understand what your customer wants, figure out the emotional triggers, build what they want, create a message that leverages those emotional triggers and entice them to buy …in that order.

That’s the application of the definition above and a proven model to get consumers to chase you to the ends of the Earth.  …now GO take action.

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

Consider these two questions:
A.) If you want someone to buy from you, who has the power to determine whether a transaction takes place or not, them or you?
B.) If someone wants to buy something from you, NOW who has the power to determine whether a transaction takes place or not?

On one side of the power equation you are giving up your power.  On the other side you keep your power.

In which scenario would you rather have your business?

Businesses and people who achieve peak sales levels have discovered ways to use psychological triggers to entice people into wanting to buy from them without ever trying to convince anyone of anything.

People who really want something will always figure out a way to obtain it.  Discovering how to create this desire in people will cause others to demand what you sell …keeping you on the preferred side of the power equation.

If you stay on the ‘convincing’ side of the power equation, your success will only be based on how many doors you can tirelessly knock on per day, working to convince people that they should buy from you.

If you master the principles of marketing using psychological triggers to entice people to want to buy from you, your sales will close much easier.

While the old ‘sales-based’ approaches of convincing people to buy still work and will likely always produce a certain level of results, if your business uses a sales-based ‘convincing’ approach to get clients and close deals, you will discover that as time moves forward it will become increasingly difficult to grow until you learn the psychological factors that attract buyers to you.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” ~ Alvin Toffler

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

The businesses who struggle focus on the ideas of themselves.

Does the name of your company and/or product mean something clever to you, or does it mean something valuable to your customers.

Here’s how to test:
The first time people see or hear your business/product name, do they instantly recognize it as something valuable to them, or do people ask “What’s that?” or “What does that mean?”

Businesses who survive have discovered ways to gain an instant recognition of value in the mind of their customer the moment the name of their company or product is seen or heard.

If you become a master of getting into the mind of your customer and understand his or her needs, fears, frustrations and goals, you will connect with them on many levels, building trust.  This will quickly increase your sales and attract many who will benefit from what your business has to offer because they will recognize your value much faster, enticing them to want to buy from you.  The application of this level of connection will give you power and influence over others and attract other to you, asking what you your secrets are.

If you choose not to develop a profound understanding of your customer’s needs, fears, frustrations and goals, you will need to use outdated sales methods of trying to convince people to buy from you.  In our now over-communicated society, buyers are more skeptical than ever, inundated with businesses trying to convince them to buy from them.  So, using methods of convincing people to buy is a steep, uphill battle that cause people to become less trusting of you and your business.  Failing to achieve the connection with others by not profoundly understanding their needs, fears, frustrations and goals will require you to work much harder to keep your business alive.

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

EVERY decision in your business should be based only on the perspective of your prospect and solid DATA.  The #1 rule in marketing is to test EVERYTHING!

The reason why most business decisions fail is because most owners make decisions based on their opinion or how they feel about something.

If you always make your business decisions based only on quantifiable data, your business will consistently grow in the direction of what your customers want, you’ll continually attract a larger audience, and you’ll have power and influence over significant groups of people.

If you typically make your business decisions based on how you feel (as most inexperienced business owners do), you will frequently struggle to give your customers what they want because your successes will be ‘hit or miss,’ the audience you attract will become stagnant, and you’ll actually tend to push people away from doing business with you, giving you very little influence over people.

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

Basically, the story goes something like this:

One day, a fox came upon a grapevine and saw some delicious grapes hanging from above.  He jumped many times desperately trying to reach the luscious grapes.  After his defeat from exhaustion, he walked away and scorned… “Those grapes are probably sour anyway.”

Have you ever done this …walked away from something you worked hard to achieve and told yourself you really didn’t want it anyway when you didn’t get your results?

Too often we try desperately to reach our goal and achieve success and ultimately fail for whatever reason.  When we allow a scarcity mindset to determine our success level, we convince ourselves of all sorts of things.

There’s a funny thing about we humans: we make all of our decisions base on emotion.  So, initially, we make an emotional decision to try to achieve a goal, and then when we don’t reach it we subconsciously create some kind of scenario to protect ourselves so we won’t feel emotionally let down.

The bottom line: if you really want to achieve something, just because you’re not getting the results you want when you want doesn’t mean you should walk away and feel resentful.  Maybe you just need to approach it from another direction.

Don’t let your emotions prevent you from achieving your goals.

“It’s supposed to be hard.  If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it.  It’s the hard that makes it great.”  -Tom Hanks, A League Of Their Own

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

Lots of people use the word ‘hope’ in their everyday normal conversation without even realizing how much they are subconsciously and actively undermining their lives.

An incredible author named R. Neville Johnston wrote a book called Hidden Language Codes.  I *highly* recommend you read this book.  Regarding the word hope, he writes:

This is a trick word designed to get us to give up our power of decision.  If we hope for something, we are not deciding the something.  In other words, when we just decide something, there is no doubt, and therefore there is no use for the word hope.

When we desire something, yet do not decide it, we “hope” for it.  It enters reality on a default code.  As long as we hope for anything, we doubt it.  Decide instead.  To say “hope” out loud is to abandon the sovereignty of the creation of life.

The concept of having no hope is like a double default code decision.  In other words, you are no longer doubting how hopeless (itself a form of doubt) things are.  Yet we still keep watch, thus injecting a third doubt code, entitled “just in case,” / “hoping against hope.”  Notice how we never hope with hope.  This would be a negative-positive-negative code.  Dismiss all these little tangles as being nonsense.  Decide, don’t hope.  In fact, boast of being “hopeless.”

Even Tony Robbins teaches to eliminate the word ‘hope’ from your vocabulary as well.

Discover ways to elevate your thinking to have actions occur in your life by making decisions for yourself and not allowing situations to simply happen without your conscious interaction.

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

When we see an advertisement that says something is the best, we have two subconscious, psychological reactions to it…

First, we instantly reflect on past experiences when we believed when something or someone said it was the best and we became disappointed.  Each similar experience lends us to having less and less trust for anything that says it’s the best product or superior service.  Ultimately, when we see something claiming it is the best, we are instantly skeptical and lower our level of trust.

Second, because we truly believe we’re aware of the world around us, when we discover something new that says it’s the best (which is most of the time because we don’t remember ever seeing the last 20 ads for it over the past month), our initial reaction is, “Well, then, how come I haven’t heard of it, especially if it’s so great?”  Remember, all decisions are made with emotions (see: irrational), not logic.

We automatically reach a conclusion connected with our first reaction, that anything that says it’s the best makes us untrustworthy because ‘everyone’ claims to be the best.  Furthermore, because we now hold less trust, we determine that the reason why we haven’t heard of it before is because it really isn’t that great after all and this is just a ploy to get us to buy whatever is being sold.

The reason why this matters is because when potential customers don’t trust us, they’re unlikely to buy from us.

So, how do we fix this problem?  Conspiracy theories.

The mind of the consumer must be taken by the proverbial hand and lead down the path you want them to follow.  The easiest way to do this it by giving reasons why.

To prevent our potential consumer from reaching the wrong conclusion after asking “Why haven’t I heard of it,” we must provide a reason why.  This is where the conspiracy theories come in to play.

The conspiracy theory reason satisfies the need to logically validate our deep-rooted emotional insecurity (that each one of us has on some level) that we’ve been left out of something.  We can validate that the reason why we didn’t know about something and its superiority is because of a conspiracy theory.  “Whew!  It’s not our fault.”

We can tell our reader:

“…this secret formula has been passed down only among our family for generations…”
“…a little-known method that’s been used behind closed-doors for years…and is now available to…”
“These powerful techniques have only been shared with the most elite Navy Seals teams.”

Even when they’re true, not only does using conspiracy theories in your marketing provide emotion validation for your reader, it also lends to some appealing storytelling, which makes the best sales letters of all.

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.

Branding is a word that gets tossed around in business like yesterday’s junk mail.  Truly, only a select few have a genuinely firm grasp of what branding is and how to accomplish it.  Endless resources on branding await discovery on the Internet from people who have never accomplished such a feat, and most likely will never.

In short, branding is expensive …too expensive, and slow.  We’re talking 8-figures on the low end, annually.  Branding in and of itself is a waste of resources that can easily be leveraged elsewhere.

The good news is: branding is completely unnecessary.

Why?  Because of a model in marketing called positioning (a term coined by Al Ries and Jack Trout about 40 years ago).  Most people believe the terms ‘branding’ and ‘positioning’ are synonymous.  They are not.

Positioning is to branding what an engine is to an automobile.  Yes, it’s a component of the whole, but what good would a car with custom leather, power everything and a kickin’ stereo be …without a motor?  On the flip side of the analogy, even an ugly junker car with a decent motor will reach its destination.

Marinate long and hard on that concept for your business.  It’s vitally important you understand and apply it.

Those who promote branding talk about creating a unique identity …something that’s memorable and evokes emotion, something people will remember.  They refer to companies like Apple and Nike as illustrative examples.  Aside from failing to mention these companies blow hundreds of millions of dollars a year just to achieve such memorable stature (Apple spends over $40K per DAY on Internet marketing alone, according to SpyFu.com), approaching business from this idea is truly backwards.

Consider:  How can a consumer have a memorable experience, positive or negative, if they’ve never done business with you?

Al Ries and Jack Trout explain that we now live in what’s know as an ‘over communicated society.’  Consumers are bombarded with thousands of advertising messages every day.  Most people cannot remember what they had for breakfast, let alone a single advertisement claiming XYZ Company is the best.  Each individual must now see your message dozens of times in multiple media to remember it.  Yes, ad agencies do love branding.

Here’s the difference between branding and positioning.  Branding is ubiquitous.  Everyone knows who you are.  I know who Ford is, but I’ve never owned a Ford.

Positioning is value.  You are the best choice among your competition.  You stand out.

Positioning is the reason why so many people and businesses you have never heard of generate multiple millions of dollars in revenue on the Internet in very short periods of time, sometimes almost overnight, literally.  The brand is irrelevant.

The purpose of marketing is to get someone to take an action.  Simply creating a memorable image, logo or jingle is not enough.  This memorable ‘thing’ must be associated with a desire to take an action, such as make a purchase.  That desire will only come from your own marketing.

When your potential customer is ready to make a purchase, it will boil down to your positioning tactics that demonstrate why you are the better choice among all the other memorable choices.

Discover what your customers want, then demonstrate your product or service is the better choice for them among the competition.  If you’re not 100% sure what they want or what to do to get them to perceive YOU as the better choice …start asking LOTS of questions (they’ll tell you).

Focusing on positioning your business will ultimately develop it into a highly memorable, leading brand all on its own.  Focusing on branding your business for mere name recognition will seldom lead to positioning.  No doubt, fewer businesses would fail if they applied the principles of positioning, instead of wasting precious dollars on branding methods that simply get their name out there.

Mike Lewitz is an innovative marketer who truly 'gets' the mental and emotional buying process of consumers. He's shown thousands of global business owners proven, cutting-edge marketing methods that bring abundant results.  Mike is a Google Certified Advertising Professional, holds two Bachelor's degrees (business & marketing) and M.B.A. in Management.

You may freely distribute, copy & share this article with acknowledgment.