Summary of Rapid Results Course

Introduction

  • There is a plethora of online and offline marketing strategies
  • Many are free or low-priced and easy to implement
  • Trying to learn and implement everything means you get overwhelmed and produce nothing
  • We’re taught that multitasking is a virtue
  • The ability to handle a variety of tasks at once is a valuable quality
  • The truth is that multitasking kills productivity
  • Multitasking kills productivity because:
    • It’s stressful and difficult to spread focus
    • Priorities get confused
    • Decisions take longer to make
    • Time is wasted switching between projects
    • It’s easy to lose focus
    • Work quality suffers
  • Trying to implement too many projects or strategies at once will increase:
    • Stress
    • Burn-out
    • Wasted resources
    • Lack of goal progress
    • Limited results
    • Demoralization
    • Health problems
  • In this course you’ll learn how to use the DISSC model to commit to once approach at a time
  • You’ll achieve dramatically faster results
  • DISSC stands for:
    • Define the foundation
    • Identify your #1 goal
    • Select your #1 strategy
    • Specify your action plan
    • Communicate the strategy throughout your team
  • Learning objectives include:
    • Recognize the importance of prioritization and the pitfalls of multitasking
    • Identify key steps in creating a plan to break through overwhelm
    • Define the essentials that form the foundation for your success
    • Identify your top-priority marketing goals for your business
    • Select a single marketing strategy to focus on
    • Specify the critical elements necessary for strategy implementation
    • Communicate the tops goal to members of your team

Define Your Foundation

  • The first step of the DISSC process is to Define
  • Define the essentials that will guide all of your marketing decisions
  • Develop a clear foundation that will keep you from distractions and on track
  • These essentials may change over time as your business grows
  • When changes call for it, you should return to this step
  • Re-define your goals since it’s the foundation for everything else

What Are Your Core Values?

  • Core values are principles or beliefs that are at the center of your organization
  • No matter what changes may occur, these core values remain the same
  • They clarify who you are and guide you in decision making
  • Core values are usually expressed as adjectives that describe some quality such as:
    • Dependability
    • Innovation
    • Original
    • Traditional
    • Worldwide

How to Define Your Core Values

  • It’s about discovering the values that are already there leading your decisions
  • Look for the values that truly lie behind your organization and what it does
  • Some questions to help you discover yours include:
    • What have been our greatest achievements?
    • What are common rules my organization follows?
    • What am I most proud of?
    • What makes you as a business owner most satisfied?
    • What do you want people to know about your organization?
    • What is most important to you?
  • The answers to these questions may be full sentences or scenarios
  • Pare them down to the simplest word or phrase

Redefining Your Core Values

  • A time may come when you have to redefine your core values
  • It might be useful to review them occasionally and see if they need an update
  • You may need to adjust to external or internal conditions
  • The process is best done as a group
  • Gather team members and ask for their feedback
  • Find out if original values are still relevant

Look at Your Products

  • Another way to define essentials is to look at your most products and services
  • Start with the range of products you offer
  • Look at which services are the most profitable to see where you should focus your future efforts

Identify Your Best Customers

  • Identify who your ‘best’ customers are and focus your business on them
  • Remember value isn’t determined solely by profit
  • Other things that could be considerations include:
    • Repeat, loyal customers
    • Customers who are easy or fun to work with
    • The satisfaction you get from helping them
    • Customers who are valuable to other organization members
    • Customers who promise future value or benefits
    • Good connections in your industry
  • Think about it as these are the customers you want to spend time and effort on
  • They make the hard work worthwhile

Why Do Your Customers Buy from You?

  • Ask yourself “Why do my customers buy from me and not a competitor?”
  • The specific reason is summarized in your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
  • The UVP helps businesses in all areas
  • Your UVP is one single phrase that sums up these unique values and benefits to customers
  • Your UVP is not a slogan or positioning statement
  • It’s purpose is to:
    • Explain how products or services solve problems
    • Tell customers what benefits to expect
    • Describe what sets you apart from competitors
  • It should do all of this while also being short and concise
  • It should be clear to understand within seconds
  • Be as specific as possible
  • Write in a tone that your customers use and understand
  • This will also set the tone for marketing materials and communications

Identify Your #1 Marketing Goal

  • It’s likely your business has a number of goals
  • You’re going to narrow it down to the most important
  • This is the highest priority and the one that’s going to bring the greatest benefit
  • There’s no need to focus on only one goal indefinitely
  • We’re going to focus on one as the clear guiding objective
  • One you’ve achieved it, you’re ready for the next

How to Choose Your Top Goal

  • Consider the biggest marketing challenge you’re facing right now
  • This is the most pressing problem for you
  • There are three main areas you can look at
  • Sales
    • Many marketing challenged are related directly to sales
    • Examples include:
      • Current customers are not aware of offerings
      • You’re not seeing as many repeat customers as you’d like
      • Prospects are not converting to customers at a desirable rate
  • Lead Generation
    • Challenges may revolve around lead generation and nurturing leads
    • Examples include:
      • You don’t have a steady flow of leads
      • Your income is unpredictable
      • You’re relying too much on one source for leads
  • Brand Awareness
    • The main challenge may by related to simply getting the word out
    • Examples include:
      • There isn’t enough traffic to your site
      • Your social media following is small
      • Your brand has little name recognition in your market
  • Start by brainstorming a list of marketing goals, then narrow it down
  • Put the most important one at the top
  • There may be a chronological aspect to your goals

Refining Your Marketing Goal

  • You need to make your goal specific, actionable and measureable
  • Use the SMART goal setting technique
    • Specific
    • Measureable
    • Attainable
    • Relevant
    • Time-Based
  • A good goal is well-defined and focused
  • You can only measure the success of your efforts if your goal is specifically defined
  • It needs to be realistic and achievable within a three-month period

Select Your #1 Marketing Strategy

  • There are many marketing strategies that are easy to implement at low cost
  • As a result, many small businesses try to do them all at once
  • Their efforts are spread out and they’re bogged down with distractions
  • Choose just one single marketing strategy that will get you to your goal
  • Focusing on one makes it easier, more efficient, and more successful
  • This is just for three months, so it won’t be the only one you ever do

Choosing Your Marketing Strategy

  • The first step is to consider costs
  • Consider your current earnings and decide on a percentage to spend on marketing
  • Make it a flat amount that you can afford to lose
  • Start by asking yourself questions such as:
    • What’s the easiest strategy you can implement right now that doesn’t require a great deal of extra resources, training, funding, or people?
    • What has worked best in the past to achieve the same or a similar goal?
    • Is there anything that you already know you need to do more of to achieve your goal?
    • What’s on your “most wanted” list of strategies?
    • What is the next step or next level of whatever you’re doing now that’s currently successful?
  • One key factor is the size of your audience
  • The right marketing strategy would be different for new and for established businesses

If you’re just starting out with few customers:

  • Reach out to others in your market who have a similar audience
  • Attend networking events and meetups to make contacts
  • Approach blogs whose readership might be interested
  • Create social media profiles and spend time interacting
  • Create a high-value piece of content and related lead magnet

If you already have a customer base

  • Facebook Ads
  • An email campaign for current customers with info about new products
  • Automated post purchase follow-ups
  • Coupons or special offers for customers
  • Surveys to gather feedback
  • Live product or service creation broadcast
  • Creation or streamlining of the customer onboarding process

If you already have an active social media or blog following

  • Blog 3 or 4 times a week and add content upgrades with related offers
  • Conduct a giveaway event
  • Run challenges that implement your products
  • Set up a newsfeed or alert to notify you of related trends
  • Pre-schedule posts and add time-sensitive news

If you already have a landing page or website that’s getting a great deal of traffic

  • Run a split test to optimize conversions
  • Identify main sources of traffic and look for ways to increase it
  • Add visuals and make other improvements to Calls to Action
  • Retarget traffic with related offers

If you have an email list (even a small one)

  • Run a re-engagement campaign
  • Send out a survey to find out subscribers needs
  • Review email campaign metrics
  • Segment your list for each product/service/category to make content more targeted
  • Create exclusive offers for different segments
  • Send coupons to loyal customers to say thanks
  • Create additional content with tips and high-value offers
  • Create or optimize your customer onboarding

If you already have a tactic that’s working well

  • Look for ways to expand or add to that tactic
  • Find ways to better optimize the results
  • Figure out ways to diversify
  • With your goal in mind, choose one strategy that you will use for the next three months
  • You can make it a big strategy that’ broken down into something smaller
  • Devise some way of measuring results
  • Brainstorm a number of options and narrow them down until you’ve found the best one
  • Before you start implementing it, review your foundations

Specify Your Action Plan

  • Refer to the Rapid Results Cheat Sheet
  • Confirm again the one marketing strategy you will focus on for the next three months

Track Your Progress

  • There are probably too many metrics available
  • This can lead to overwhelm and waste time
  • Instead, narrow it down to a small handful that will tell you if your strategy is working or not
  • Examples of metrics to track include:
    • Conversion of traffic to leads
    • Conversion of leads to customers
    • Revenue from new sales to current customers
    • Cost per conversion
    • Percentage increase in repeat buyers
    • Email open rates and link clicks in emails
    • Traffic from social media
    • Downloads of lead magnet and new email list subscribes
    • Engagement with email subscribers or social media followers
  • Brainstorm a list of metrics and narrow it down
  • Prioritize the list with the most relevant and important at the top
  • Choose only the top three
  • Create a plan to analyse metrics on a regular basis
  • Track metrics at least once a week
  • Choose a frequency that works for you

Specify the Resources You Need

  • Before you get started it’s important to identify the resources you’ll need to implement your strategy and measure results
  • Key resource areas include:
    • People
      • What staff do you need to carry out your plan?
    • Money
      • What expenses will you face along the way?
    • Tools
      • Will you need programs, physical tools, computers, etc?
    • Training
      • Are there new skills team members will need to learn?
    • Coaching
      • Will you need someone to advise you?
  • Brainstorm everything you might need along the way
  • Padding the number a little helps when estimating costs
  • After considering all of the above, figure out what you’re currently lacking

Outline Your Top Five Tasks

  • Refer to your cheat sheet to now create your high-level action plan
  • These are the key phases and specifics to get it done
  • Sometimes it helps to create action steps backwards
  • Envision the goal and ask yourself what needs to happen to reach it
  • Once you’ve finished the Rapid Results Marketing Cheat sheet, you’ll need a more detailed plan
    • The detailed task
    • A deadline for each
    • Who is responsible for completing it
    • Any additional resources you’ll need
  • Include team members or others who are involved in implementing your strategy in the detailed project planning
  • This requires a great deal of work and consideration
  • With everything planned and in-place, you’ll see how much more smoothly it goes

Communicate Team-Wide

  • Now everything is in place, you’ll need to ensure everyone is on the same page
  • They need to be setting the right priorities
  • They need to be on target with the number one goal, strategy and action plans

Create Guidelines

  • Aside from holding meetings you should also create documents
  • Explain everything clearly
  • They can refer to these whenever necessary
  • Guidelines should include:
    • The main goal you’re going to be working toward
    • The marketing strategy in detail
    • All of the action steps involved
    • All resources needed
    • How progress will be marked
    • Key responsibilities of each team member
  • You can give team members printed documents or digital files
  • Make it part of your project management software and collaborative
  • Ask for feedback from your team about what’s unclear, or for suggestions

Best Practices for Keeping Your Team Focused

  • Involve your team in its creation and implementation
  • If team members have a hand in creating and implementing action steps they’ll be more engaged and in tune
  • Try to be as concise as possible
    • Give team members all the details, but pare it down to absolute necessities
  • Maintain two-way communication
    • In addition to asking for feedback, keep in contact with them
  • Create and maintain strong relationships with your team members and between your team members.
    • People that know each other well work together well
  • Make sure you’ve delegated the right tasks to the right team member
    • If someone is bogged down by the wrong task they won’t stay focused
  • Standardize practices with solid protocols
    • Create business protocols for getting work done that are routine and consistent
  • Make sure you’re focused yourself
    • You set an example to your team so make sure you’re clear and focused on your goals and strategies
  • Organize your team with to-do lists
    • Offer a focused, prioritized list of specific actions that need to be done
  • Keep things efficient
    • Look for ways you can save time and work for team members
  • Create a schedule and rhythm
    • Create a work flow that is similar each day so team members know what to expect
  • Motivate your team
    • Give them regular reminders of the goals you’re working toward
  • Deal with conflicts immediately as they arise
    • Defuse and resolve conflicts in a way that all parties are satisfied
  • Let your team members blow off steam
    • Give team members plenty of opportunities to relax and unwind

Best Practices for Eliminating Distractions for Your Team

  • You’ll also keep your team focused if you eliminate distractions as much as possible
  • Some guidelines for doing that include:
    • Keep lines of communication work-focused
      • Make sure communications remain focused on the work at hand
    • Create an environment conducive to concentration
      • Remove anything that could be potentially distracting
    • Incentivize correctly
      • Use incentive programs to motivate, but don’t let them distract
    • Offer tips to team members on managing personal technology
      • Recommend social media apps are turned off while working
    • Make sure priorities are clear
      • Help them schedule work so they never have to do two things at once

Conclusion

  • You’re ready to implement your first three-month strategy using your Rapid Results Marketing Cheat Sheet and action plan
  • You’ve learned:
    • The importance of prioritizing and why it’s not a good idea to multitask
    • Key steps involved in creating a Rapid Results Marketing Plan
    • How to define the foundation for your project
    • How to identify the first and foremost priority for your business right now
    • The best way to choose the one marketing strategy that will overcome challenges
    • How to discover all of the critical elements you need to have in place to implement your strategy
    • Key tips and best practices for communicating to your team