Six "Honest Serving-Men" - You Can Employ For Nothing To Galvanise Your Business

Weaknesses:

Opportunities:

Threats:

Use these questions to get started. Remember, you are meant to be brainstorming - anything goes.

Your SWOT is only the starting point. Your real challenge is to use your SWOT to develop a strategy and plans that you can pursue to turn your weaknesses into strengths, your threats into opportunities, and to maximise on the opportunities that are presented.

SMART

More accurately SMART ought to be SMARRRT. There are at least three equally valid definitions for the R.

OK, the 10 second introduction to working smarter:

SPECIFIC: Be completely clear on the outcome expected of the goal, objective or task.

MEASURABLE: Phrase the statement of what is to be achieved so that the achievemen of that outcome can be clearly measured.

ACHIEVABLE: The idea is to clarify and motivate. There is nothing more demoralising than carefully constructed, but utterly impossible, goals.

REALISTIC: Given your current situation: is your goal realistic?

RELEVANT: Is this specific task, or goal relevant to the overall aims of the company or plan?

RESOURCED: Are the relevant time, people, facilities and equipment available to deliver the desired outcome?

TIME BOUND: Make sure there is a claim time limit on the completion of the activity.

Properly applied, SMART transforms your business.

WIIFM

To get to the me you must put yourself in your ideal customers position. Think like that customer. Try to walk a mile (or several) in their shoes.

Ask yourself :

Stay in your customers shoes.

Imagine someone is trying to sell you your own product or service. Ask yourself (repeatedly) - Whats In It For Me? How does it solve my problems? How does it make my life better? These are the benefits your product or service must deliver to your customer.

You should apply this simple principle to every piece of sales and marketing material you use. Does it call out to what your customers really want? Is it written in terms of your customers viewpoint? Does it promote the benefits?

In short does it tell me your customer - Whats In It For Them?

AIDA

AIDA has been in use in advertising for over 100 years. It is just as valid today for use on the web as it is for crafting sales letters, brochures, radio broadcasts, your elevator pitch....

In fact, just about any marketing pitch.

ATTENTION: If you are to sell anything you have first got to get peoples attention. The normal way of doing this is to use a benefit Driven Headline. Some famous, proven headlines include:

Eye movement studies show that 95% of the time people don't read advertisements. Even worse for marketers, of the 5% of readers who might read your advertisement - 95% never read beyond the headline.

You do use headlines in all your advertisements and marketing materials don't you?

INTEREST: You've got your readers attention. Now you must make them interested.

This is where all that work thinking like a customer comes into play.

Dont mess around. In the first sentence fire your biggest gun. Hit your readers with the biggest benefit that your product or service brings to them. Explain how you deliver that benefit and then hit them again with the next biggest gun you have. And keep on doing it.

Got more benefits? Good, keep them coming. Marketing copy cannot be too long only too boring. Keep it interesting, keep firing your benefits and your message will get read.

DESIRE: You've aroused interest. Now create desire. Make it impossible for your prospects not to buy. Make them an irresistible offer. Add some urgency:

Add a no quibbles, iron cast guarantee.

Add free bonuses (Free is the second most powerful word in the English language).

Use your imagination. Give people a great reason to want to buy now.

ACTION: You've done the hard work. Your customer is ready to buy. So make it really easy for them. Tell them exactly what they need to do right now to make an order:

Keep it simple. Make it clear and quick to do. The easier it is to do business with you the more sales you will make.

SWAT

You see, one of the biggest problems that even experienced copywriters and marketers fall into is being clear on what benefits their product or service actually delivers to their customers.

SWAT provides the solution.

Here is how it works:

e.g. I wear a cheap divers watch (ever since my younger son lost my much more expensive model). Some of the features of this watch are: waterproof to 50m, shockproof, tells the time in 2 different time zones and has dual analogue and digital displays.

Now I'll just take the first of there features (there are many more that I have not listed) and apply the SWAT approach.

First I have to think like a customer.

I don't dive but I am an active sort of guy. I want a watch that tells me the time and that I dont have to worry about looking after. So…

FEATURE

Waterproof to 50m

SWAT

As a potential customer some great benefits are already pretty clear: “Put it on and forget it, this watch will continue to tell you the time no matter what punishment you put it throught”

But we have not finished yet.

Do the same for every other feature in your list.

And then for every benefit.

And then do it again for every answer you have produced.

Keep asking 'So What' until the question no longer makes sense. When you reach that point you know you have reached the real benefits.

Typically you start off with maybe 20 features and benefits. Using SWAT you can easily end up with a list of 200 or more.

As you apply the technique you will inevitably start repeating yourself. This is just what you are looking for. The most often repeated answers to your SWAT are going to be the biggest benefits to your customers or prospects. These are the big guns to fire first.

SWAT is amazingly powerful. It works brilliantly in a brainstorming environment. But be warned, it is also quite threatening. Use with care.

KISS

Remember KISS. It's more fun that way.

Keith Longmire is the owner of JKL Business Growth Solutions. JKL specialises in bringing main stream business improvement and marketing solutions into the reach of smaller businesses. His website Business Growth Solutions has been designed to help owner-managers cut through the hype and produce innovative marketing plans that deliver results.

Copyright 2005 Keith Longmire.

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