...when I moved to Atlanta in 2002 I met a florist named Bob who played in my weekly poker game. I ran into Bob Yesterday at Trader Joe's. The dude is on anti-depressants. His business has gone from $650k+ a year to under $100k. In my opinion, Bob doesn't need psycho-pharmaceuticals, he needs marketing that works! Sometimes I feel like Cassandra, the Greek Goddess who had the gift of foresight yet was cursed with folks not believing her. I'm just sayin' Here's the story of Bob... People ask me marketing questions all the time... unfortunately the questions most people ask aren't what I can see as the most profitable for them to be focusing on. After a couple months of playing poker together...
Bob brought a yellow-pages phone book to our poker game. Bob was showing off his new Yellow Pages ad & asking everybody what they thought of his ad. Everybody except me was complimenting him on his ad in the new phone book (Remember this was 2002).Bob asked for my opinion of his Yellow-Pages ad...
I told him if he gave me $1 I would tell him. This upset Bob, what in poker is called going on tilt. I proceeded to win about $120 from Bob that night, and then he really wanted me to tell him what I thought of his ad, for free. I learned the hard-way that I will only give my professional advice when somebody pays me. The point of the $1 wasn't the buck, it was for the construct of Bob receiving professional advice. When Bob finally paid me $1 3-weeks later...
I told Bob his Yellow-Pages ad was irrelevant! The problem was actually that Bob had a business based Yellow-Page Marketing, a dying medium.I said... MEDIA & the ECONOMY have changed, right? You either join the social marketing revolution or you join the ranks of the Buggy Whip Manufacturers.
What Bob really needs... Proven Tools & Tricks, with hands-on LIVE examples of How to use Social Media for BU$INE$$ & make Bigger Profits Now.
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Several years ago a friend and I were hunting and while we were painting up our faces, he told me he was working on an invention that was going to solve the camouflage issue from the neck up. He called it the camouflage hat. Every time I ran into him in town and asked him how his new “hunter’s hat” was progressing, he would tell me all the details involved in the patent process and all the issues with manufacturing which were interesting but in reality, I wanted to know about the hat. Well about a year went by and I ran into him and asked him how the hunter hat was coming along and he pulled it out of the car back seat and said here, try it on, you’ll never have to paint up your face again or worry about sneezing because you just inhaled a mosquito. I put the camo hat on and said WOW.
On June 18th, Ben taught me about the inventor’s hat and the marketer’s hat and since then I’ve been saying WOW. My friend had been wearing his inventor’s hat every time I asked him how his project was coming along. When he finally turned to me and said here try it, it will change your hunting experience forever and I put it on, he was wearing his marketer’s hat. I didn’t know this until Ben showed me the difference. For 2 days I’ve been looking at marketing wearing my new hat.
I’ve spent the better part of the last year and a half wearing the inventor’s hat trying to get smokers to buy my product online. I’ve been explaining the importance of synergy in essential oils and how they work to produce relaxation and relief from anxiety and yet with all my wonderful articles on the power of aromatherapy, with the website presence and video production hours I put into telling the world about my great work, I simply wasn’t selling any SmokeScents online. I was building sales offline relatively easy but online, forget it. I now realize that online, I was wearing my inventor’s hat yet offline, I didn’t have time to explain all the shit I though was pertinent. I only had a minute to get my potential customer to try it, so I simply told them, “Hey this is going to help you when you can’t smoke, and it’s going to make you feel better.” I brought some into a casino in Las Vegas and told one of the casino managers it’ll relax your smoking employees when they’re to busy to light up and won’t make them so bitchy to your customers because they need a smoke and can’t light up. I didn’t realize then I was wearing my marketer’s hat. I didn’t have time to go over the bullshit they really didn’t want to hear any way. I only had time to tell them what they wanted and needed to hear.
I just saw the movie today again called “Thank you for smoking” and Ben was right, those tobacco boys were experts at wearing their marketer’s hat. I’m even looking at TV commercials in a different way. As I was watching “Thank you for smoking”, the commercial for the new AXE Dark Temptation had me jumping on the table like Tom Cruise on Oprah. The kid put on the AXE and he immediately turns into a walking chocolate robot and women are literally jumping on him to take a bite. It’s incredible and the MOTO? AXE Dark Temptation: ”As good as chocolate”!
I am really excited about the future of SmokeScents online, now that I’ve found my marketer’s hat. Thanks Ben.
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