This idea is stolen from a reader — Jeff Moore…
Jeff runs International Pacific Seafoods (B2B), and Wild Things Seafood (consumer). He’s been featured on I Love Marketing, and Entrepreneur on Fire. He’s personal friends with a who’s who of the top business and marketing minds on the planet. Oh yeah, and he runs these awesome monthly meetings in the LA area called Thursday Night Boardroom, where top business minds gather to bring everybody higher.
And, I’m fortunate to count him as a professional friend, AND a regular reader and supporter of Breakthrough Marketing Secrets.
Well, in addition to being a great guest on others’ podcasts, Jeff has his own podcast — along with Brett Campbell, an Australian who is huge in the fitness market, and is now translating his experience into business advice and teachings.
And their podcast — The Deep Dive Podcast — is one I like to stay up to date on (note: that means listen to EVERY episode!).
Two episodes ago (as I write this) they talked about a very interesting topic…
How higher tech leads to lower-quality fish — and lower tech leads to higher-quality fish…
Here’s the link…
The Highest Quality Catch Method…
This is a great example of Story Selling, of using a seemingly unrelated comparison to make a relevant point.
Being in the seafood industry, Jeff knows a bit about fish.
And this is what he said about how they’re caught.
— The highest tech “mass production” ways to catch fish involve basically putting out a huge net that drags along the bottom and catches everything in its path. When you catch fish that way, you get a lot of what you don’t want along with some of what you do. Plus, what you catch is stressed, which actually impacts the quality of the meat.
— A little lower tech are a style of nets that you use to encircle a school of fish. You get a lot less of what you don’t want with this method, but it’s still stressful to the fish, and the meat suffers.
— Lower still are these long lines that you trail behind your boat, with baited hooks all along the lines. The catching process is much less stressful to the fish (although being dragged by a hook doesn’t sound that great) and you usually get almost exclusively what you want.
— Lower-tech still is a method that mirrors the casual angler’s approach. Rod and reel. Only keep what you were fishing for. You get 100% of what you want, and none of what you don’t want. The fish is somewhat less stressed, and the meat is almost the highest quality you can get.
— The only higher-quality meat you can get is from fish who are caught by spearfishing. The fish doesn’t see what’s coming and has almost no fight or struggle. One moment they’re swimming, the next they’re being brought to you for food.
Jeff connected the dots to marketing and selling…
— In terms of your broadest marketing approaches, you’ll go out to anybody, and bring in everybody you can get to respond. You’ll get a few high-quality customers, but mostly a lot of lower-quality customers you don’t want. This is the area of really broadly automated, scalable marketing. It has its value, but the average customer quality is at its lowest.
— Take somebody from mass marketing into your marketing funnel, and start communicating with them via personal-feeling (but still mass) email, and the quality is higher than if they only interacted with you via a funnel.
— Get them on a webinar or to watch a video, and the quality goes up — as they start to feel like they know you.
— Start to interact with them via email, Facebook messenger, Skype messenger, or other 1-to-1 communications channels online, and suddenly the quality of the customer you’re dealing with has shot up quite a bit.
— Even better, get them on the phone, or for a Skype call. Voice is great — video is better. The more “connected” an interaction feels, the better quality of client or customer you’re getting.
— You might even have a reason to meet with them in person. This dramatically increases the potential value of that prospect.
Notice — the less mass-communication tech between you and your customer, the better your connection and customer value becomes…
There are some considerations here…
First, the obvious. Simply getting on the phone with someone doesn’t automatically make them able to afford your highest-priced service. It doesn’t work quite that way. But if you have a way to sift and sort your customers so you can find out who might be a fit for that service sooner rather than later, it will benefit you to get in 1-on-1 communication with them ASAP.
Second, you don’t have to go through this whole hierarchy of communication technology with every prospect. Maybe you have a way to go from mass advertising (such as targeted Facebook ads) to your website and a webinar, to an application, to a phone call, to closing the deal. That’s great! As long as you’re moving them toward the medium of most connection, you’re moving in the right direction.
Third, if you’re afraid of the phone, get over it. I see this a lot. People want to make sales, but they hide behind LinkedIn and Facebook and whatever other tech. It’s really hard to be persuasive this way, especially if you’re talking high-ticket ($5k+) services. You need to get on the phone, and you need to sound comfortable.
This is a quick and dirty summary of some of the great stuff Jeff and Brett spoke about on the podcast. Click here and listen to the full episode if you’ve liked what you read.
I feel old…
I want to conclude this issue by saying that I feel old.
Today is my Birthday. (If you want to wish me Happy Birthday, I’d prefer it through Facebook here as my email inbox is crowded already!)
I turn 34 today. But that’s not why I feel old.
I feel old because last night, for the first time in 5 or 6 years, I played drop-in hockey. I didn’t know it when I stepped on the ice, but the other 3 players out there were all recently on the Nebraska Cornhuskers intramural hockey team. The Huskers aren’t a big hockey powerhouse, but they’re still some of the best players in town.
A few years back, I played beer league adult hockey. Basically, a bunch of rag-tag grown-ups get together and play on Sunday nights. And maybe sneak in beer to drink in the locker room after the game.
I was pretty good. Though I was in the lowest-level league, I was among the league’s best players.
Last night, I proved I still have the skill and thinking to play well. I just don’t have the stamina!
For about 5 minutes I kept up with these young men. They were faster than me, but I played well.
Then, my body was suddenly exhausted. My legs turned to Jello. I fell a couple times. But I got back up — I wanted to hustle.
A couple minutes later, I barely dragged myself to the bench, where I had to sit for 15 minutes catching my breath.
I never got up enough energy in the hour-long drop-in to actually play against them again.
I’ve been working hard developing my brains these last few years — but I didn’t realize how bad my body was getting compared to where it had been!
I’ve already successfully been tracking my weight and shedding a few extra pounds — now I think it’s time to add some more fitness goals in there so I can get back out on the ice again and remain competitive for a bit longer than 5 minutes!
Have a great weekend.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
