You Are Only as Good as You are Relevant!

Relevant: having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand.

In business, sometimes an entrepreneur is too far ahead of the game, thus, not being relevant, or too far behind the game, with the same disastrous effect.

As an example: my father, George, was quite the entrepreneur. He started, the year before I was born, a pharmaceutical company, which did perform very well financially. Unfortunately George, heady from his pharmaceutical success, quickly saw another venue and way to pitch another product apart from drugs- which was an athletic supply company; comparable to Nike and Adidas.

Where George went astray was; though the drug company took off like gang busters; he misdirected his profits and used those proceeds to start the athletic supply company, which, was 20 years, easily, ahead of its time. Alas, it was a belly-up undertaking.

What can we learn from George? What if George had taken some of his cash flow and rolled out a test market first, evaluated how that performed- and then and only then, decided to invest more cash?

Always figure out how relevant you are and do so by a test market, without investing EVERYTHING YOU HAVE into a new, unproven idea.

All the failed actors in Hollywood would probably pale in comparison to all the failed entrepreneurs, had they only understood and executed this strategy!

So, how relevant are you? Test the market just like you'd stick your big toe into the swimming pool to see what's going on.

Stay In Front of "Em Part Two~ Make an Offer!

When advertising, even all the best graphic design, color scheme, logos and branding will not add up to much without an offer.

If you do not make an offer, you might as well stuff your advertising dollars down one of these- as in the end, all will be for naught.

Why should you make an offer? Because when you make an offer, you've done three important things:

(1) Introduced your product or service at an introductory discount.

(2) By introducing your product or service at a discount, you've made yourself more compelling.

(3) Put a sense of urgency in the consumer by using your offer in a time sensitive manner- that will move that consumer to investigate you further.

Let me share an example from one of my companies.

When we advertise to a particular market that we'd like to hone in on- the reason why we do it is because my company knows that this particular consumer is primed and ready to buy.

We send a timely, awesome, (I think it is) unique mail piece to them, which is completely compelling in that there is a plain-to-see coupon in the back.

Why is a coupon important? I happen to know, that even though this is a business to business direct mail- the end user that will open my advertising is someone who, in their personal life, is a coupon clipper!

I have related to them deep where they live day to day. Also, the second thought that this customer of mine will have; 'Gee, and if I use them, I'd be saving the company money!"

Now, I'd love to tell you that quality is the only reason people buy from me; but I'm just not that stupid.

Is Mc Donald's the best hamburger you've ever had? Of course, not! But why did you go there? You had your reasons. Fast. Convenient. You only had a dollar. Ha.

People are loyal to one thing. ONE THING. Let's shout this point from the rooftops.

People are loyal to the dollar.

If your company is offering a way to save the consumer a dollar and still manages to do a superior job, you're in like syrup on a pancake! Pass da butter.