Epiphany Marketing's Strategic Marketing Blog

I gotta tell ya… it’s very exciting to me. We recently wrapped up a consulting project for Ziglar, Inc.  And I’m still pinching myself. I’ll never forget the first time I heard  Zig Ziglar’s distinctive voice… I was in middle school in Texas, and we got a 2-minute dose of “I’ll See You at the Top” every single day on the announcements. He had an impact on me way back then, and has continued to do so throughout my life. I’m grateful to the Assistant Principal of the school who made it a point to infuse every day with Zig’s positive, insightful, motivational wisdom.

Working with the Ziglar team, they tell me that everybody has a Ziglar story. Whether it happened through one of his famous live talks to audiences numbering in the tens of thousands, or through one of his best-selling books, or through one of his audio series, when someone contacts Ziglar, Inc. they have a story to tell about something that changed their life.  Many times the stories are quite dramatic.

Of course, there’s much more to the Ziglar organization than just Zig’s speaking and his books, CDs, training programs and audio downloads. They offer world-class corporate training solutions for just about any size business — and I do mean any size. And they’ve recently begun conducting webinars featuring both their top-flight in-house experts as well as outside experts.

I was thrilled to be invited to speak to their audience next week for an event entitled:

How to Attract Customers at Low Cost in this Tough Economy

Hosting the event will be CEO Tom Ziglar, who tags his blog posts, “Proud Son of Zig Ziglar.” Tom is now tasked with taking their business into the future and has quite the vision for the impact they — as a company — can have. He’s been handed the reigns of a multi-million-dollar business and handles himself without any of the awkward trappings that are typical of someone who has grown up in the shadow of a household name. It’s an honor to be associated with him and with the phenomenal team he leads.

In any case, if you’re looking to make the transition into how to thrive in the 21st-century… in any economy, then I hope you’ll join us. The 90-minute event will be jam-packed with practical information that you can put to use right away in your business.

Among the subjects we’ll be covering:

• The Top 5 Mistakes Businesses Make When the Economy Goes South… and how to avoid them!
• Why Things That Worked 10 Years Ago… 5 Years Ago… Even Last Year Don’t Work Anymore… and what you can do about it!
• How to Make Sure that the People Looking to Buy What You Sell Find You… Instead of Your Competition!
• and, of course… much, much, more!

Courtesy of Ziglar, Inc., this event is being made available absolutely free of charge.

Check out all the details… along with a quick video of Zig and Tom Ziglar right here!

Oh… and you’ll want to reserve your spot early, because the 2 time slots will fill up quickly!

Well 2009 is in full swing. My question for you is:

How does your pipeline look?

If you’re not satisfied with the number of new prospects or leads coming in to your business, it’s time to get serious about what you’re doing to bring them in. Here are 5 ways to gain new customers on a budget:

1. Get to the Top of the Search Engines
   In particular, pay attention to Google. Most strategies that help you get to the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) on Google will also work well with the others.  Don’t know how? Training is easy to come by these days, and you can do it yourself or put a member of your team on it. If you’re a salesperson, start blogging about your customers and their needs.
2. Make Use of Social Media
   Once the exclusive territory of geeks, social media is a now easier-to-use than ever before. Two important ones for connecting with people and creating exposure: Facebook and Twitter. The demographics will surprise you — chances are your customers, buyers, prospects, decision-makers, and champions are active. 2 tips: don’t commit these social media sins, and put a strategy in place to avoid the time suck.
3. Communicate Frequently With Customers (Past & Present) and Prospects
   Given the information overload we all deal with, it’s easy for the people you already have relationships with to forget about you. It’s not necessarily that they want to. They’re just as busy as you are. Obviously it’s possible to communicate too frequently, but chances are you’re to busy to do that anyway. Tip: make sure your communication has value.
4. Revisit Your Message
   How many aspects of your life can you count that haven’t changed substantially in the last 12-24 months? Chances are your customers’ businesses are the same way. Is your message out of date? Does it accurately reflect the way that your products and services serve your customers and prospects changing needs? Tip: the message you’re sending may not be what you think it is.
5. Ask Great Questions and Listen More
   Given the rapidly changing business landscape, you need to know — now more than ever — what your customers are thinking. Are they cutting budgets or changing spending patterns? What problems are they trying to solve? Take them out to lunch, out for coffee, or create reasons to get on the phone and find out what’s going on. What you learn will surprise you. It’s also a great time to ask for referrals — your lowest cost customers ever!

What strategies are you implementing right now to load up your pipeline with new business? Certainly, if you need help with these or other 21st-Century methods of keeping your pipeline full, we’d be happy to help. Our distance-learning hands-on training and coaching program is getting phenomenal results with our students.  Of course, consulting services are available as well. If you’re interested, drop me a comment.

By the way, we practice what we preach. I dare you to follow me on Twitter.

Today is actually the Feast of Epiphany, which gives me a great excuse to talk about why our company happens to share its name with the 12th Day of Christmas.  (If you, like the McKenzie Brothers, ever wondered, the 12 days run from Christmas Eve to Epiphany.)

First, a little background on the Greek word:

epiphaneia – lit. “upon appearing,” used to mean “manifestation”

We use it in English when we say, “I had an epiphany!” to mean, “the lights came on!”

In the early Eastern Church, they used the term to refer to the “manifestation” of the infant Jesus to the Magi when they visited from the Orient. He “appeared” to the Gentiles in that moment. Church tradition uses the word “epiphany” to refer to a manifestation or appearance of supernatural beings — in particular Jesus Himself.

From the start of this journey, I wanted to create “epiphanies” for people. Moments when the work that we do would cause information and circumstances to come together in just the right combination to cause people to suddenly “see” what they needed to see.

Have an Epiphany

This has dual meanings for us as it relates to what we do:

1. It is our mission to provide top-notch training and coaching to small businesses, to salespeople, and to anyone who needs to attract new customers and prospects. In that process, we want them to have moments where they suddenly “see” (sometimes for the first time) themselves and their businesses in the correct light. It’s a beautiful thing when this happens — it sparks life, creativity and energy. They get fired up about their own businesses in fresh ways… and they do a fantastic job of communicating once this happens. This results in their future customers and clients finding out about them! That is a thrill!
2. Secondarily, when we provide consulting services and do other strategic marketing work (such as corporate vision, strategy, onsite training, copywriting, web architecture, social media innovation, etc.), we want to produce work that creates “epiphanies” for the past, present and future customers of our clients. In other words, the work that we do should cause the lights to go on for the people that our clients are reaching out to…  so that they suddenly “see” and become raving lunatic evangelists for our clients.

Having been in this business for over 10 years now, I can tell you that there is absolutely nothing like watching somebody “get it.” It’s thrilling to be involved in helping to make it happen.

So… no matter what you’re celebrating today (I hope you’re celebrating something… after all, it’s a wonderful, brand-new day!), I hope you have an “epiphany” today.

And if you’re in business or in sales and you need to do a better job of attracting the people you want to do business with you, then keep your eyes on this space. It’s my mission in life to help you suddenly have that moment where you say, “Aha! That’s what I’ve been missing!”

P.S. If you’re starting a business or considering changing your name, I can’t recommend highly enough having a name that carries some personal significance to you. However… I can recommend that you name it something easy to spell!