10 Years in Business–Tip #17: Your Business Must Be “Urgently Wanted”

In my special report, What I Know For Sure: Lessons Learned in 10 Years of Business, I list 75 topic areas that I have bumped into over ten years. And every day in October, I will randomly choose one of the 75 and expound on it. So here’s today’s:

TIP # 17: What you offer MUST be “urgently” wanted. Period. Unless you don’t require much income. A product or program is urgently wanted only by those with an urgent want to alleviate a problem, or experience a fantasy.

This is the look you want on your customers’ faces. Sheer exaltation when they have what you offer in their hands. You don’t have to be Apple, or offer something as world-altering as an iPhone, but you do want to elicit this look.

So, what do you feel that way over? Anything that is going to 1) bring you unadulterated joy and/or 2) dramatically uplevel the quality of your life and/or 3) enhance your status.

What has to be there in the product/program for you to feel so elated? 1) Certainty in its quality; 2) Clarity that you’re getting more value than you’re paying; 3) A true love for it (i.e. some warm and fuzzy emotional connection).

When this is there, they urgently want what you’ve got.  This is true whether it’s a product or a program, of course.

Too many intellectual products and programs (books, CD’s, seminars, presentations, opt-in gifts, etc.) are not urgently wanted. They’re not “Brain-Sticky”–compelling, original and memorable–but the authors think they are and are confounded as to why they have few clients.

Following the logic above, then, it is essential that you design all of your intellectual property around the needs and fantasies of your market. Make sure that they:

  1. Will bring them great joy
  2. Improve the quality of their life
  3. Enhance their status
  4. Have obvious quality–in other words, tangible, concrete, WANTED results
  5. Give FAR more than the ticket-price would ever reveal
  6. Enable your market to feel confident, capable, smarter, prettier, sexier–whatever they want SO much that it evokes powerful emotions in them.

Maybe you could go back to your past clients and ask them to tell you how your programs do these for them, or HOW they could in the future!

See today’s special offer–work with me privately at deep discounts. 3 topics for building a Brain-Sticky business.  http://inspiredleadershiptraining.com/10-year-offers .

 

 

A Rant About Today’s Experts

I just returned from a meeting with the principal of my
daughter’s high school. Great guy. Just love him because
he is student-centered, not teacher-centered. At one point,
we got to talking about the poor teaching that occurs across
the board in our district (despite its being one of the most
affluent in the state) and he asked me for any insights I had.

He didn’t know that I teach adults how to use brain-based
learning in their presentations and seminars, so he was
surprised, to say the least, when I rattled off many things
these teachers are not doing that they should. Things that
are brain-antagonistic. These are trained teachers who do
not know how to maximize learning. These are professionals
who are paid, yet do not know how to maximize learning.

And I have a problem with that. I have an extreme problem
with state-trained teachers of our children not knowing how
to teach. But I have just as big a beef about ANY professional
getting paid to ”transfer knowledge” without knowing how
to teach
. How to get clients/students to learn. At least
trained teachers go through a system that supposedly prepares
them to educate our kids. They at least get some guidance
on effective teaching practices. But what business professional
does? Virtually none.

Meanwhile, they proclaim they can teach you how to write
a book in thirty days; how to save on your taxes; how to get
media publicity; how to optimize your website; how to make
love with your husband; how to talk to your teen; how to
meditate; how to lose weight; how to write a proposal; how to
use XYZ software; how to market your business, etc. etc.

My ire really gets up here and I say, how dare you! You have
never learned how to teach, how can you POSSIBLY think
you can?? Do you know how intuitive teaching is? How much
of an art it is? How you must score extremely high on empathy
tests to teach well? It does not come naturally to most of the
population. Just because you know how to do something does
NOT MEAN YOU CAN TEACH IT. And shame on you for
taking money from vulnerable, unsuspecting customers when
you have not learned (and then practiced!) how to maximize
learning
.

For this very reason, it is appalling that that the information
industry is a trillion-dollar industry. There is no excuse for
trained teachers, who get paid, not to know how to tap the
brains of our students. Equally so, if you are getting paid to
teach anything–via the internet (especially), or in books or
information products (especially!), or in live seminars—
then learn how to teach first!

And student beware! If you are about to learn from a million-
aire, STOP! Ask them what they know about learning. I
took a course from a billionaire that was so bad, I could
barely contain myself. She made a lot of money off of that
training—but it was a deplorable effort and she did not
deliver results. But she led everyone to believe that she could
teach them “how,” just because she had been successful.

After witnessing too many of these accounts, as well as the
insane proliferation of on-line study programs, I am going
back to the basics and again centering all of my programs
around teaching best-teaching skills–which translate to
best leadership skills. If you’re leading, you MUST know how
to effectively convey your message. If you are on this planet
to make real change for the planet, you must transfer your
knowledge effectively. And it just won’t happen if you don’t
know how to teach! Specifically, to the brain.

So, if that describes you—a conveyor of information, a leader of
change, then stay close. You don’t want to miss out on the
direction I’m going and the brand new programs I’m offering.

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