4 Things That You Need In Your Perfect Pitch.

In order to make your ideas fly you have to make sure that people understand them and care about you. Everyday we are surrounded by marketers and business owners making a pitch. It is an intrinsic component of every sale’s strategy.

Over the course of time we developed strategies that help us filter all the gibberish. Our brains have this wonderful ability to separate useful information from the garbage. It’s gotten so good at it, that sometimes it cleans up more than it should.


There are brands, products and solutions that we very often need in our lives. They make everything easier for us, they’re making us better in every part of our lives.

But unfortunately most of the good stuff goes unnoticed. How to make sure your products and services are noticed right away?

Here are the 4 major components that you need to include in every pitch that you’re making. If you miss even one of them there’s 99% possibility that your product or business idea won’t get noticed.

Emotion

I’ve never heard of a great pitch that was based on logic. It’s all about emotions, moving your customers hearts, not just minds. Don’t overflow them with information, show them the emotional effect your product or services will have on them. Pour your heart out, show them that you care about them.

Passion
Passion is what drives the brand’s success. People fall in love with products that come from a place of passion. Show them the real you. A person who put hundreds of hours of effort to bring value to people’s lives. Passion is addictive, and if it’s genuine, people will catch on.

Simplicity

Human attention span got so much shorter over the course of time. Today you’ve got only 8 seconds to make people interested in what you do. If you can’t do that within this timeframe your audience will go somewhere else. Use it well, keep it simple, focus on what really matters.

Confidence

Having people believe you is the most important aspect of doing any business. Without trust there’s no place for business. There’s no place for relationship. No place for engagement. But before people can believe in you, you have to believe in yourself first. Becoming confident about what you do and why you do it is the first step to building a successful company.



No matter how good is your product or services if nobody knows it. So the next time you talk about your business, include all of these 4 and see what happens. It will change your results instantly.

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Facebook Shot Itself In The Head in Attempt to Kill Social Media...

Do you want to know the most ridiculous reason why we’re all still on Facebook?

Because everybody else hang out there…

I know… It sounds silly but that’s the truth. Facebook with its 1,3 Billion active users crashes the competition. It’s the biggest, the baddest, the maddest, the spammiest and… least understood social platform from all. And I’m not sure if it’s still “social” enough to be considered as a one of social media channels.

And yes, I know, you can say that one out of every 5 page views is on Facebook. We all know what it is and what it does. It changed our culture more than the radio and television combined. But it didn’t happen without mistakes being made.

Facebook guys made another one recently. They tried to kill two birds with one stone. And this is where the whole tirade about EdgeRank begins.

EdgeRank addressed one major problem → huge numbers were making Facebook fail to deliver a great content. At one point Facebook became a noisy social world with spam hitting in its walls. It was very unlikely to see a good content, if any.

So the Facebook guys figured out a way to de-clutter our social space making it available for a great content that we enjoy. They’ve come up with an algorithm that filters everything that show up on our NewsFeed right before we can actually see it. If you’re not familiar with Edgerank, here’s the short explanation:

The more engagement a user has with a piece of content, the stronger Edgerank knows that user’s interest will be in similar stuff. It makes sure that you get news from sources that you liked and engaged with.

Sounds great?… Here’s where the problem begins:

Edgerank turns something that was meant to be social-human into mathematics. Facebook turned community management into science. And science is not about people, it’s about numbers. It’s about what works. It’s about how many likes or shares can we get.

During this process we forget about one major, most important aspect of marketing → bringing value to customers, to other people in general. And this is where Facebook is failing miserably. It’s not about great content any more. It’s about what gets more likes and shares. And that doesn’t always guarantee a valuable content.

You could post a picture of your cat and still get likes and if it’s funny even some shares. Would it bring any value to your audience? No. Would you normally considered it as a spam? Of course, you would. And Edgerank would have favourited this kind of content over the more valuable one. Because it would get likes and shares. It’s a complete nonsense…

---

Is Facebook still a Social Media platform?

People are furious over the organic reach being lowered down by Facebook guys but that’s not really the main problem here. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that marketing on Facebook should be free. Facebook let us play in their backyard for a couple of years, completely free of charge. Now, they want something back, just a small amount for the reach they can give you. We shouldn’t complain so much, and we don’t really have a big choice here.

But I think this is the perfect moment to make this very important distinction that will change the way we think about Facebook:

the moment Facebook decided to turn community management into mathematics, make the organic reach close to zero and set to eliminate sponsored stories in April, was the exact moment they made a transition from Social Media into Media.

Facebook is not a Social Media company anymore. It’s a media company, and it’s becoming very similar to television. The question is simple: do you like television and the way they distribute content?

With sponsored stories being taken off in April, they made it clear what their goals are.

I recently asked one of my clients: what’s the main reason for you to be on Facebook? It didn’t take him a lot of time to whisper back: isn’t it what everybody else do?

My only hope is that you and your brand are not on Facebook just because everybody else hangout there. If that was the only strategy that you have, I wouldn’t predict a great marketing future for your brand. I hope you understand everything about Facebook, how it really works and what’s the potential.

With Facebook you have to stay vigilant, as the changes to algorithm are being made on a daily basis and if you’re not familiar with them, it may cost your business a lot.

I hope you found some value in this article. If you did, it would mean the world to me for you to scroll down and hit that recommend or tweet button!

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7 Steps for Crafting a Brand Story That Sells

I’ve never really believed in ready-to-use formulas and certain amount of steps that you need to take in order to find passion, be better at what you do, love more, be more, create more, etc.

I was the kind of a guy who followed the common rules and directions created by people who’ve made it businesswise. They were my heroes, I’ve put everything at stake, and was more than happy to take the risk as a business owner and entrepreneur. And it was until I’ve failed miserably.

In the early years of my career I’ve founded two companies and very soon, both of them went bankrupt. I didn’t know why. Everything seemed to be ok until I’ve met other business owners, with great visions, but very poor results. I’ve started listening to what they were saying.

It took me a couple of years to research more than 200 companies worldwide and see what is it that they’re struggling with the most. As you can imagine, working in so many diverse environments, with so many brilliant people has been a wonderful journey.

Watching their ups and downs, failures and successes, analyzing every piece of their marketing, products, customer service and social interactions was the beginning of a great discovery.

As soon as I thought I’ve learned enough to embark on a mission to help business owners and entrepreneurs with their companies I’ve hit another wall. That wall which i thought was an obstacle turned out to be a blessing for me and people that I’ve helped in the following years.

As soon as I hit the wall I went back to the drawing board. Again. And again. I was working 18 h/day to get everything right. To find this little thing that sabotaged not only me, but all of the fellow entrepreneurs I’ve spoken to during the “research days”.

My internal drive to solve this problem was extremely strong — I wanted people to realize what is it that gives their businesses the biggest boost, the passionate followers, and ultimately the results they were aiming at. Also I knew the other side of the story, because I’ve learned it the hard way, loosing two companies along the way in the early days of my career, and almost lost my family at that point, due to a massive financial issues.

With the drawing board in front of me, I knew it could have been my last chance or I had to move on. It took me another few months to figure it out, though. I’ve spoken to hundreds of people during this time, interviewed CEOs, watched every possible video, read books and articles related to this topic. But all of these actions didn’t add anything new to what I’ve already known.

It was until I’ve spoken to a friend. We were drinking coffe at the nearest Starbucks and I was telling him about my findings and the whole journey. I told him that I was unhappy, and that I knew something was missing.

At some point I’ve eavesdropped a conversation between two teenagers. They were so relaxed and passionate about the story they were sharing with each other. I couldn’t help myself but listen even more — it was humble, it was clear, it was captivating. The way they talked to each other made me so interested in the topic that I was ready to even pay them to continue.

This is how it all started. Instantly I’ve plugged in my laptop and started rewriting my friend’s brand story the way I’ve heard it from teenagers. Within the next 2 weeks he’s sold more of his products than he did for the last year.

I took this knowledge one step farther and helped another group of business owners. And all of them had an instant rise in engagement and the amount of orders for their products and services.

At that point I knew I’ve found a way to help business owners better communicate their business ideas, values and mission with their clients through the process that I’m about to share with you in a second.

Today you’re getting an exclusive access to the 7 steps formula I’ve created based on years of hard work and research. So if you ever needed to tell your brand story, write a speech or get a new client, you will know exactly how to organize it and use properly.

Remember to always keep the order the way it is outlined below. This is how you tell the story:

• The Mission — this is where you tell your audience why you do what you do, what was your call, what kind of experiences shaped you, what kind of observations made you think that way. What was that thing you wanted to solve so badly.
• The Pit — the pit is your first downfall, the first time you had doubts, or maybe your business partner left, or you weren’t sure if you are on the right track. You wanted to quit or maybe go back to your old job. This
  is the most important part that simply says — “I’m only a human, like you”.
• The Journey — this is where you tell your audience how your journey started, what was driving you, this is where you describe you passion and how your work began to change other people’s lifes. You were following certain direction but still you weren’t sure if it’s the right one.
• The Breakthrough — this is where you talk about the moment your efforts transformed into some sort of success. At this point you were completely sure that you’re on the right track. That you found a way to serve people and communicate your business idea, your values and your mission.
• The Suprising Results — at this point you write about the suprising results that your business idea created. You’ve tested it many times, and every time you’ve used your expertise the results were consistently great. Or your product was positively tested and proved it’s high value.
• The People’s Results — this is very important part for your customers. Talk about other people’s results. Highlight all the good things, what they said, what they felt. Use some testimonials. Heat it up!
• The Win — and finally celebrate success with your audience. Tell
  them how happy you are, and how wonderful it is to be able to help them, to save them time, money, stress and other things.

I’m happy to share this knowledge with you today. The best way to use it is to copy and paste these 7 steps into a word doc. and rewrite your brand story one step at a time.

This formula helped me connect with my audience on a completely new level. I encourage you to use it in your business to tell the best story you can and share it with your tribe/community. It will change your business and your career forever.

Enjoy the process!

I hope you found value in this article. If you did, it would mean the world to me for you to scroll down and hit that like, g+ or tweet button!

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A Question That Your Competition Will Never Ask, But You Should

Do you remember sweet craziness around Lego brand and their products? Kids playing with the bricks, adults having a simple choice while looking for a christmas gifts. Everything was perfect for Lego. But was it really?

In the early 2000s they faced the possibility of going bankrupt. They were going up against firm competition from Mattel and Hasbro and in 2004 had debts nearing $1 billion and saw sales slump 40% in just two years.

So what happened to Lego, that might be also happening to your business? What was the thing that almost destroyed this giant and may continually destroy any other businesses?

It was Over-Diversification!!! Their problem was obvious, they were doing too much. They had theme parks, video games division and clothing lines. They’ve lost their focus.

When the new CEO — Jorgen Vig Knudstorp came over to help Lego get back on their feet he asked himself and his team one of the most important questions in the history of this brand. What should we leave out?

This is the question you should ask yourself: what should you stop doing in your business?

In 2005 Lego sold Legoland theme parks, their game division and many more. They went back to profitability in a matter of months. In 2011 they have become the most profitable and fastest growing company in the toy industry.

What is it that you should leave out?

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Marrying Your Customers Is The Only Option There Is

This is one of the most important aspects of creating a great product or offering a life changing services. 

You have to ask yourself how do you think of your audience.

Do you think about them purely as customers, clients, or entities? If you do you're not only missing the point of doing business; you're wasting your precious time and you're missing a huge opportunity, to make your business blossom.

The products and services you want to sell will not succed in the market
if you don't address the emotional wants of those people.

Don't concentrate only on fulfilling their material needs. Engage their 
feelings, their emotions, let them explore your ideas, make your message
stick, create an opportunity for them to become a part of this story.

A lot of businesses these days want a long time relationships but they

behave like one-night standers. As you know the one night stand is a

single encounter with no implication of further relations between 

participants. 

You may grab their attention for a while, they may even buy your 

product, but that's it. 

The purpose of every interaction is not to sell your idea or your product,

it's to foster the next interaction and build trust.

And this is why I am a great fan of marrying your customers idea where

you treat every client as an object of a long relationship. Invest your time 

and your expertise, listen to them, spend time with them and build a currency

of trust.

This is what matters the most. Nothing else...

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How To Market Your Business Idea - Tell people what you're really selling!

She was both crying and smiling.

We’ve just crushed her old “world”.

We ripped out everything that was not hers.

She reconnected to her true purpose.

She could see how many unimportant things she was involved in.

Whenever I consult with a client we always come to the point of doubt, fear and confusion.

Where does it come from?

It comes from a place I call a “lack of honesty with yourself”. It’s a disease caused by social programming, low self esteem, and you, trying prove the whole universe wrong.

You came here with unique mission and unique voice, but you seem to forgotten that.

You see, if we ever had a chance to talk I wouldn’t let you waste your time anymore. I wouldn’t let you forgot your true mission.

And if you have a “marketing problem” it only means that you let your voice to be tamed. You don’t step in to your mission.

What you do currently is not giving you results because it doesn’t come from a place of integrity and self honesty.

Talk about what you’re really selling.

Do you sell food or sensations?

Does your bike shop sell bikes or freedom and good health?

Do you sell clothes or protection and style?

Do you sell shoes or the lifestyle?

Think about what you’re really selling and include it in your brand’s story.

Market your heart out and let your inner voice lead you. Be true to yourself about what you’re really selling and WHY you do what you do.

And don’t stop! Stay busy! Work your plan! Continue to do those things that you know that work for you. There are no magical fixes! It’s all up to you.

Ok, but it’s hard…

You’re telling me it’s hard? I grew up in a post soviet union country where everything was screwed up. Nothing was easy, but I made it, I am where I am now writing this article. When I decided to go worldwide it took me less than 2 years to learn english. This is the type of commitment I want from you. Don’t tell me it’s hard, nobody said it’s gonna be easy. But at the end you’ll know that you’ve made a great decision. You followed your gut. You’ve marketed your true purpose and mission.

Your “why” matters the most.

I really hope you found some value in this. If you did, it would mean the world to me for you to scroll down and hit that like, g+ or tweet button!

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Offering sessions is what makes you feel like a fraud.

Have you ever wondered why so many 
practitioners and business owners struggle
so much when it comes to marketing
their services.

Many of us attributed this to sub-concious programming and
worthlessness issues. While it still has something to do with
our subconcious mind it's not really about feeling worthy.

Have you ever felt like a fraud while offering your services or products?

You might have tried different approaches to battle this feeling, and you probably attributed this to your low self esteem and worthiness issues.

Today I may have an answer for that. And it's easier than you think. 

95% of therapists, practitioners, coaches and trainers use session system. While it seems to be a good idea to start with, this approach can get you nowhere but on a brink of bankruptcy.

Nine times out of ten, when I consult with clients their main complaint is not having enough clients and feeling like a fraud while marketing their services. 

Here's a simple explanation of this concept and the whole misconception around it:

Your subconcious is right. You should feel like a fraud... to yourself! By offering sessions only, you don't communicate your whole potential.

Imagine going with your car to a mechanic and making an appointment only for 1 hour, or even 3 hours.

Do you think that car repair should be limited this way? NO! Do you think people are different? 

We're not different and we need the whole repair package.

By offering sessions only you don't honour your clients, even if you think you do.

It's a subconcious thing and your clients can feel that every time they talk with you. People want to be honored, cheerished, listened to and taken care of. And you can do that by offering the whole package.

Coming off the session system has a magical effect of increasing number of your clients. 

People can feel that you will help them transform by offering all of your amazing gifts. Offering transformational packages is the only way to create a bond with your clients and become a well respected leader in your specific niche.

Let's talk about you. On a subconcious or even on a concious level you can feel that you're not offering all of your inspiring gifts and great abillities. You have a unique way of thinking and helping people but you can't go too far with that if you're selling sessions only. And this is why you feel like a fraud or can't do certain things in your practice. You procrastinate or (worst thing ever!!!) you lower your prices.

It's like giving someone just a small part of you. It may benefit your clients in some way, but it won't create a perfect transformation they are capable of doing.

People don't believe in sessions and quick fixes. They believe in transformation. Create this opportunity for them and make them special by creating Transformational Packages.


If you know someone who can benefit from this information please share this knowledge - send them a link.


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More from The Soul Marketing:

Do you know that it takes only 9 seconds to fascinate or scare them off:
First Impression - 9 seconds to success or failure

How to make people internally inspired -
Change how people think, not what they do

Visit us at  www.thesoulmarketing.com

Have a great day,

Konrad

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You Don't Have a Marketing Problem

Have you ever thought of yourself as a person with a marketing problem? Yep? I thought so. We all did at some point of our careers. But is it really a true statement?

The point I will try to make here is that you can’t be further from the truth.

Somewhere along the line you’ve convinced yourself that you might be a bad marketer. You didn’t achieve expected results in a specific time frame, or you didn’t get the right feedback you expected or you felt that your message is not understood well. It gets even more crazy when you think about it more.

But for now, please STOP. This wrong assumption is a by product of socialization process. You or people around you installed wrong software into your brain. And they’ve made you believe that you’re not smart enough, or that you’re not good enough. And BANG! The memory and certain emotions were born.

During this dreadful process you’ve convinced yourself you’ve got a marketing problem. I think, and I feel that it’s time to get really clear on this.

You don’t have a marketing problem. And here’s why!!!

Every day you do a wonderful job, you wake up in the morning, you do certain things during the day, things that need internal motivation and some kind of self-inspiration. You’re talking to your kids, teaching them different things, you go shopping, you talk to your wife or husband, you create transformational programs, or beautiful products, you post on your blog or you deliver excellent services. You’re great at recommending films to your friends and that new music album that you bought lately. You are a great marketer in any of those situations. Marketing is a way of communication between people.

And it’s not about selling. It’s a storytelling problem.

Marketing is about fascinating people, and inspiring them to take action. How often do you do that during the day? With your kids or in your relationship, with the postman or with the lady at the grocery shop or anywhere?

You connect, you smile, you talk, you listen, you create, you teach EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!

When you communicate your true self and you don’t sabotage yourself, magic happens. This is your natural state of being. This is you without the thought about having a marketing problem.

You don’t have a marketing problem and it’s highly likely that you’re a great marketer. It’s all about stories we share with our audience. So work on that part.

And since I know how hard it is to come up with a great story, I’ve decided to share with you a 7 Step Formula for crafting a powerful story for your business idea.

I use this process with my clients on a daily basis and it gets them wonderful results.

You can use it when creating content for your website, or making a juicy introduction to your youtube video or anywhere you want.

This is how it goes ——-> You should keep this order:

1. The Mission - this is where you tell your audience why you do what you do, what
                           was your call, what kind of experiences shaped you, what kind of
                           observations made you think that way. What was that thing you
                           wanted to solve so badly.
2. The Pit -    the pit is your first downfall, the first time you had doubts, or                                                          maybe your business partner left, or you weren't sure if you are on the                                      right track. You wanted to quit or maybe go back to your old job. This
                            is the most important part that simply says - "I'm only a human, like                                            you".
3. The Journey - this is where you tell your audience how your journey started,
                                 what was driving you, this is where you describe you passion
                                 and how your work began to change other people's lifes. You
                                 were following certain direction but still you weren't sure if it's
                                  the right one.
4. The Breakthrough - this is where you talk about the moment your efforts
                                             transformed into some sort of success. At this point you
                                             were completely sure that you're on the right track.
                                             That you found a way to serve people and
                                             communicate your business idea, your values
                                             and your mission.
5. The Suprising Results - at this point you write about the suprising results
                                                    that your business idea created. You've tested it
                                                    many times, and every time you've used your
                                                    expertise the results were consistently great. Or
                                                    your product was positively tested and proved it's
                                                    high value. 
   
6. The People's Results - this is very important part for your customers. Talk                                                                    about other people's results. Highlight all the
                                                 good things, what they said, what they felt. Use
                                                 some testimonials. Heat it up!
7. The Triumph - and finally celebrate success with your audience. Tell
                                         them how happy you are, and how wonderful it is to
                                         be able to help them, to save them time, money, stress                                                                         and other things. 

This is a formula that helped me connect with my audience on a completely new 
level. I encourage you to use this 7 Steps Formula in your business to tell the best
story you can and share it with your tribe/community. I assure you, it will change 
your business and your career forever. 

I really hope you found some value in this. If you did, it would mean the world to me for you to scroll down and hit that g+ button!.

How important it is to have a great story behind your brand?
Let  me know your thoughts.

Subscribe and make sure you won't miss my next post:
9 Seconds to Success... or Failure in your business

   

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Attention Span Secret - 9 Seconds To Success or Failure

Do you know how much time you have to capture people's attention? You're right. Only 9 seconds before their brain is busy with their internal chatter. Now get a stopwatch, and if you have a website, see how much you can capture in 9 seconds.

Would you buy from yourself?

How much information were you able to digest in
this time span? 

Now look at the content on your website - the first 9 seconds - is it good enough
to capture people's attention and keep them on your website for longer?

Latest research says that you have only 9 seconds when talking to your potential
customer, or existing customer, your employee, employer, or a person that you 
just met. After 9 seconds their attention is severely distracted by internal thinking 
process, ideas, memories, things to do, a phone call they have to make, things like 
what they are going to eat this evening, etc.

Your brain is a wonderful machine that quickly adapts and shorten
attention span.

Throughout the years our brains developed these strategies to keep only things 
that matter the most. If you can't present yourself or your product during this 9 
seconds, you won't be remembered.

So I want you to remember this next time you create your website content, or 
make an ad, or post something on your facebook timeline: you have only nine 
seconds to persuade your customer's brain on whether or not they gonna pay 
attention to what you're saying. 

I know it may sound scary, but it's better to know the truth and use it wisely 
than making the same mistake over and over again wondering what's wrong
with these people.

If you really care about your business and about building strong relationship
with your clients then please use this knowledge.

I challenge you to use a stopwatch and just check what is it that you communicate to your audience  during the first 9 seconds whether it's your website, introduction, presentation,
blog post,  tagline, business cards, phone call, etc. 

Only concentrate on the first 9 seconds. The rest doesn't matter to them. Their brain could be already busy with some other thoughts.


Don't miss a thing ---> Subscribe for the most up-to-date content (on the top right).

I really hope you found some value in this. If you did, it would mean the world to me for you to scroll down and hit that g+ button!

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