Being braggadocious does not take you anywhere but a doubtful audience. In this second installment of the Ask Is Everything, Ken Courtright talks about why it is better for somebody to ask for your service and not you asking them if they want what you got. Hiring a third party to do some marketing and reaching out for you is necessary. Ken highlights the idea of situational awareness and the importance of paying awareness to it.
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Listen to the podcast here:
The Ask Is Everything Part 2
We are trying to hit every small aspect that leads to growth. We are in the middle of a series called The Ask Is Everything. I put out The Ask Is Everything Part 1. I listened to that episode again and I wasn’t clear on how to earn the right to ask for the order. I wanted to do a little bit of clarification before I jumped into The Ask Is Everything Part 2. When it comes to how to earn the right to ask for the order, and I compared it to the old days of direct selling with Thomas Watson to the days of selling products and services on the internet, when it comes to earning the right to ask for the order. I’ve been calling this the Right to Sell and it’s based on our website’s premise where we have what is called Right to Succeed Websites. If I can put a framework on a Right to Succeed Website, you’ll understand the Right to Sell landing page.
When it comes to a right to succeed, what gives you the right to succeed? The world now needs different things. What the world is crying for are trust factors. Because of the internet and its quick ability to be transparent, to find out fraudulent companies, expose bad salespeople and fraudulent claims, it is imperative that we give a potential customer exactly what they need from us to buy from us. When it comes to a website, it needs to have at the bottom core some form of third party endorsements to that product line, that founder or that founding family. They also need a series if not a ton of testimonials.
They need at least some local media, if not some national media and my preference, but it doesn’t have to be this way. If you are unsure of yourself as a website designer for how to sell your product or service, what seems to work well for those that are not skilled in a sales process is some form of a sketch video or a cartoon video that condenses maybe a 50 to 60-minute presentation on your product line into a 90-second or a 2-minute commercial. If you want to see a great example of this, we condensed a 90-minute talk I gave in our Income Store products into a four-minute sketch video. It’s the top left video when you go into IncomeStore.com.
Edifying yourself means bragging about yourself. Click To TweetLet’s go to the right to sell. It’s similar. If you’re sending somebody to a landing page or a 2 to a 3-page website, you’ve got to have the right to sell it. You’ve got to have maybe 6 to 8 trust trumping factors. You might want to have a tier-two Facebook page that tells the world that there’s a lot of people following and listening to you, a Twitter page with some following, a LinkedIn with some endorsements and maybe some quick testimonials, media and hitting endorsements. If you’ve got a thin website, you’ve got to give the people the quick right to trust you to pull the trigger with that credit card. I don’t want to go too deep into that previous episode number one but the ask is everything. I want to hit on a subtle topic. I’ve even put a subtitle to this called Situational Awareness. The title of this episode is The Ask Is Everything Part 2. Asking for leverage platforms is number one.
Asking for product reviews is number two. If I want to promote myself as a CEO, if I want to promote our company to large audiences, I have a lot of options. I could write books, I could speak on stage, I could get published in magazines, newspapers. In essence, in the old days, you might hire a PR firm to take your company to the next level. What does that mean? You’re going to hire a PR firm or a third-party agent because you need this third party agent or the PR firm to edify you. You cannot edify yourself. Edifying yourself means bragging about yourself. When you brag about yourself, the world looks down on you. When other people brag about you, they can lift you. If you brag about yourself, you can’t do it. It looks awful. However, when somebody else says, “You’re great.” The world takes what they say and lifts it up even more because it’s coming from a third party.
I’m going to walk you through a couple of instances. If I wanted to get on a public stage, the worst thing I can do is call that venue and say, “I’m awesome. You should consider me for your stage.” We hold annual events. I’ve had countless people call me and say, “Can you put me on your stage?” It’s uncomfortable. It feels wrong. It doesn’t make any sense. Every time somebody agent or publisher has called me and said, “You should consider so-and-so for your stage.” Instantly, I’m Googling that person and checking out their website. It’s a magnet for me. The reason is when the people call me, “You should put me on your stage.” It’s like, “If you’re that great, how come you don’t have an agent or a third party promoting you?” I’m hoping you guys catch that.
I remember in the early days. I wrote my first book, Online Income: Navigating the Internet Minefield. It’s a great book but poorly selling. I remember myself reaching out to Brian Tracy’s camp to see if he would endorse my book cover. He never did. It was a shocker. Months later, I get a call from Brian Tracy’s office asking if I would co-write a book with him. Isn’t that interesting? He still has yet to endorse my book. My point is I didn’t have a third party agent calling into Brian Tracy’s group to see if he would endorse. If you call into a magazine and say, “You should write an article on me,” it looks awful. You can’t edify yourself.
The title of this is The Ask Is Everything. There are a lot of tapes and a lot of books that tell you, “Ask and you shall receive.” I’m telling you, the Ask and how you go about that Ask is everything. You want to use what’s called situational awareness. When it comes to you going on stage, you getting a book cover endorsement or you getting to a magazine, please hire a third party. Even if you’ve got to pay him $100 or $200 for that one email, have a third party who do the asking for you so you get lifted and you look appropriate. Let me give you one simple example. When you as the CEO or President of your company should do the asking, where it would be awkward to have a third party do it.
One of the greatest ways to elevate or lift any product or any service is getting it reviewed. I remember I counseled a young gal. She had done $500,000 for her first year in business at 23 years old. It was the first year from zero to $500,000. I said to her, “How exactly did you get this beauty facial makeup cream, this beauty line anti-aging cream, which nobody in the world heard about. You’re a biochemist. You had no track record. You’d had no media endorsements, no nothing. How did you get this to a $500,000 from a dead stop?” She says, “What I did is I wrote an email and it said, ‘As the President and CEO, one of my roles as CEO is to ensure that every magazine or every news outlet with influence in our industry is aware of our new product line, skin care cream and anti-aging cream. We have sent a sample for your review. We look forward to your review.’”
She signed her name in the email. There are two magical things here. She starts the email, “As President and CEO of this company.” Understand that she was a one-person company. She was the President and CEO but she did hire a virtual assistant. She and her assistant sent the product or the assistant technically sent the product. When she says, “We have sent a sample of the product,” she sent it to 400 blogs, magazines, and YouTube reviewers. There are two points of magic to this podcast. Number one, there comes a time when you, the President and CEO, need to do the work yourself. This isn’t braggadocios. It would look a little strange if the assistant sent into these magazines and smaller YouTube channels.
These small YouTube channels, magazines, bloggers are small independent mommy bloggers. They are smaller companies. They then get this email from the President and CEO. They don’t realize it’s a one-person shop. They’re impressed and proud that somebody found their little magazine with a hundred readers or their little YouTube channel with 600 viewers. They’re proud that a President and CEO emailed them anything and they’re honored to do the review. Remember, the ask is everything. What I’m suggesting in this episode called The Ask is Everything Part 2 is we pay attention to what I call situational awareness. Before you ask somebody something, if it’s a major thing for your company, if it’s you going on stage, getting a book cover endorsement, and asking someone to review a product, say, “Before I ask this, am I the right person to ask for this in this situation? That’s situational awareness. “Would it be better if somebody asked for this on my behalf?” I’m hoping that helps. See you on the trail. Take care.
Important Links:
- The Ask Is Everything Part 1 – previous episode (Episode 57)
- IncomeStore.com
- Online Income: Navigating the Internet Minefield
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