The Brain Eating Robot

There are TWO fabulous shows I always watch:

1.       The Profit

2.       I Hate My Buttocks Region

Wait, that second one was a very short-lived infomercial, and I only watched it to confirm the hate heaped upon their buttocks region.

So my real favorite other show is, “How It’s Made”.

If you’ve not ever seen this, it shows a product going from raw form to finished and ready for a new owner. Though you may skip the thrilling episode on mop-making, the more complex builds are absolutely incredible.

It tends to prove why hyper-efficient robots continue to get hired over an insolent, I-phone addicted workforce demanding a Starbucks in every lobby. The trade-off is that when robots have to go through the metal detectors, it does make them late for work.

I recently watched an episode that proved two things that GUARANTEE human beings cannot ever be fully replaced.

Done correctly, these 2 things can also guarantee that YOU are never replaced, even if your customers are faced with less expensive, eager competitors.

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The first one is: It took a human to design and build the robot.

Soon as robots can design and build themselves, I’m going to another planet (like Montana) where the robots can’t find me.

Yet as long as human beings study how machinery can maximize the build, installation, or service, you can be sure of this: When the human mistakes or inefficiencies are more costly than the robot, you can extract a human (or several thousand) from that process.

Since this efficiency quest will likely never cease, it shows the value of being a ‘systems thinker’ instead of a ‘task thinker’.

And though you’re in little danger of a robot taking your contracting job (but there’s always tomorrow!), much of your day is systemizable. From when/how often you check email to how you diagnose a ‘no service’ call, to how you hire/motivate a new staff member, it’s all a process.

If you treat all of these as events instead of processes, you'll be forced to repeat them, likely forget or stray from the way the process should work.  All this adds to costs, stress, and your eventual replacement… by a systems thinker.

The second one is: It takes people to help and train other people.

We all know what happens when machines try to intervene when a human would be welcomed. I want to meet the guy who invented the phone Auto Attendant, put vise grips on his armpit skin, then make him “Press or say ‘one’ for excruciating pain”. 

We may be able to train the people who program the robots, but never the other way around.

A recent episode of ‘How It’s Made’ showed the incredibly skilled workforce that builds the Bugatti Veyron, a now-completed run of $1.6m 250 mph supercars. Robots built and cast the engine pieces, did the aluminum welds, yet humans sifted through the leathers, assembled the engines, and performed the final tests.

Even with this much hand-building going on, one thing was very evident:

The workers had been trained, and trained, and re-trained by human beings. They worked together in choreographed perfection. If not, the process (or even the product) was ruined. They could do this at this level only because they’d been coached well and practiced it relentlessly.

Coaching for Consultants

I have often mentioned that I’m in three coaching programs. One for copywriting, another for ‘Information Marketing’ and another that focuses on different topics each few months. And I tend to wonder, “How can ANY consultant not be in constant learning mode outside of themselves?”

Maybe it’s my fear of becoming what has happened to those who don’t. One day, irrelevance moves in where competence had once resided. For 3 years, I ran a Coaching program just for Contractor Consultants to raise the standards across the board. 

Think of your experiences…

Could your children teach themselves? Your techs? How do YOU continue to grow beyond the incremental experience of the day? Are you getting better, or just ‘same ol’ same ol’?

It would take someone very arrogant to believe they’d ever learned enough about their work to quit learning. Heck, every NASCAR driver, professional golfer, and top CEO’s have coaches.

Coaching for Contractors

When our daily on-site consulting rates went to $7,800 (cheap by some standards) I realized that the contractors who needed marketing help the most weren’t getting it. Further, annual seminars are great but they’re a single-dose-by-fire-hose approach that carries little momentum.

That’s why we created The Mega-Marketer Coaching program, (and I’m about to show you how to take a no-cost test drive). It gives you the ‘seminar experience’ in our Monthly Coaching Call without travel. Plus members get regular, ongoing marketing training on:

1.       What’s working now

2.       How to systemize what’s working (put marketing on ‘auto-pilot’)

3.       What trends are ending (Get out before it costs you any more)

Just taking the time to read articles (like this) puts you ahead of most competitors, yet I’ve been wanting to find a way to give you a taste of real coaching… to see what it’s like to have someone “on your side” helping you through the marketing minefield.

Right now, we’d like to invite 10 new members to join us. To see if this is a ‘fit’ for both of us, you can take a zero cost test drive FIRST.

You get 1-to-1 support, feedback on marketing initiatives, advice on ‘What to use now’, plus the monthly call. All at no charge for a full month. So go here to check it out.

The main thing is that we all need a coach. We all need encouragement, experience, and training outside our four walls. Every person with a willingness to improve should try to access that improvement. And if you hate your buttocks region, I know a show you can watch.

Adams Hudson

We Clearly Struck a Nerve...

Recently, I asked contractors from across the industry to attend the “Ultimate HVAC Lead Generation Formula” Training Series. It truly was a great event, and it generated an EXTREME amount of feedback.

For once in my life, I was speechless at the number of marketing questions submitted before, during and after the event. Many were answered in the videos, several on the MasterMind Webinar, and the ones that weren't will be answered in a series of blog posts (like the one below).

We clearly hit a nerve with this event, and are happy to have helped hundreds of contractors get on the path to simplifying, unifying and multiplying leads, sales and profits.

For those contractors who do them right, maintenance agreements are the bread and butter of year-round cash flow and steady work in season and out. But what is the “right” way to do them? We had a few questions come in asking just that. 

     Q: I always worked from the world of mouth referrals. Now, I would like to expand my service maintenance contracts. So, I would like to learn the best strategy and what will work most efficiently. Hope you will teach me!!!!

Peter Zarovsky

Temperature Zone, Inc.

     A: This’ll be short and sweet: For every service or replacement call you get for the rest of your life, offer it! Do the “With and Without” price close. Follow up with a CSR. Then a letter. Then a newsletter 4x per year. With an email ‘bump,’ 12 times per year.

And in case I need to repeat, repeat, repeat myself: Do this on every service or replacement call for the rest of your life. It can ALL be automated. You WILL see Agreements go up.

To read more of the questions asked throughout the Training Series, click here. Or if you have a marketing question of your own, feel free to send them to coachingquestion@hudsonink.com and a marketing coach will be in touch.

5 Things the Super Successful Do Not Do

The hyperactive, hyper-achievers seem to relish differentiating behavior. Why? Market leaders, by definition, don’t copy and can’t wait on the crowd. However, they often sensibly “reformulate” based on proven criteria. Those stories, new successes and “breakthroughs” carry them into the future. They tend to see a wave coming and prepare to ride it ahead, while others frantically splash about. Which way are YOU going next?

The 5 Behaviors and “New” Habits of Successful Contractors are revealed below. Do not read this if you are unwilling to read some harshness.

1.  Accept the Norm. 

A few examples: If “normal” contractors spend over half their budgets in the Yellow Pages and perennially complain about the sorry results, the leaders shun same. Our top clients spend about 20% in the Yellow Pages – less if we can make a business case for it.  Likewise, the “normal” ad is a stupid, puffed up, ego-driven and ridiculously ineffective ad designed for “Free!” (featuring sweating penguins, starbursts and “for all your heating and cooling needs”) by the staff whose design criteria is to “not stand out too much.”  (They succeed – the ads in the heating and cooling section all blend together in a sea of sameness. Guess what? That’s bad.) Leaders advertise with customer-focused direct response ads that DO stand out.

Likewise, if the “crowd” is not having success with Maintenance Agreements, the leaders find a way to pile them on.  If the “crowd” is not getting publicity, the leaders focus on it. If the “crowd” doesn’t want to invest in customer retention, the leaders quietly amass legions of devoted fans by using it.

2.  Resist Outside Advice from Qualified Experts. 

The “fear of change” aspect again. Leaders typically hire specialists in finance, estate/succession planning, insurance, legal, marketing, sales, personnel and technical training. They see these as “investments;” the crowd sees them as “unnecessary costs.”  In time, the gap between the investor and the fearful non-spender widens. The “crowd” calls them lucky. The leaders would call the crowd names, but they have bigger things to focus upon.

SIDE NOTE: Our Coaching Clients typically say things like “just having someone on my side, giving advice and urging me forward is worth several times the fee.”  That was NOT a plug to join OUR Coaching 

Program, but to find someone, someplace, where you get a regular “sense of mission.” Looking at the same walls, the same employees’ blank faces, generally will not do it.

3.  Refuse to Look at the "Hole in the Bucket." 

If the website visits are going down, there’s a reason. If the response to direct mail has sunk, there’s a reason. If your ‘old’ customers aren’t calling you back, there’s a reason.  If you regularly hear people ‘not’ requesting a certain tech of yours, there’s a reason.  All are costing you.  Turning the other way doesn’t make it go away or get better.

Self Admission Time: Though our ‘renewal’ rate for newsletter clients had gone up, I still wondered about those who did NOT renew. So we launched a 3 part mail/email/call campaign to all who – for any reason at any time – didn’t renew.  It’s amazing.  Many new phone calls, old clients feeling “appreciated” and new orders came in.  The hole in the bucket is now smaller.

There are negative habits, practices, trends in your company NOW that are reversible. Take a hard look at them. Be the leader who a) Admits b) Takes corrective action c) Measures and repeats accordingly.

4.  Get 'Hurt' by Criticism. 

Sorry, but we’ve become wimpy, politically-correct, crybaby-prone fence sitters concerned about everyone’s self-esteem.  This is, to me, the ‘fear’ behind change.  We fear resistance, reluctance, ‘making a wrong move’ (so we make NONE) or offending.  Respectful leaders forge ahead without bullying but also without regard to slings and arrows of sideliners. Most critics do little other than criticize. So, if you have something you’ve “been thinking about doing” for awhile, there’s a God-given reason it won’t leave you alone. Apologies to Nike^©, but just do it.

5.  Expect New Results from Old Habits. 

The “old” model has died. The economy rupture of last year just gave it a not-so-respectful funeral.  Those who change are going to manifest their destinies accordingly.  Yet following the same marketing pattern, sales presentations, going to the same discussion boards and same industry events with the same speakers, are NOT going to bring change.

Best thing you could do is buy a plane ticket to visit a business you want to become and find out what they did. Ask whose advice they sought, what ‘systems’ they have. You’ll find that they were never afraid to change. Emulate that.

Watch for these 5 nasty habits in your business, and pick one thing you can change now.

Trends, Bends, and a Box of Depends

It seemed like a regular convention. Hordes of people with “My Name Is” badges, some festooned with ribbon, looking semi-lost, clutching formless bags emblazoned with a logo you’d not be caught dead sporting outside these walls.

There was also a ‘normal’ seeming trade show, filled with eager vendors and tables of wares, each promising salvation if you had a few minutes and a credit card.

And of course the incredible speakers (more about hot trends later) who did their best to wow the crowd of the unendowed. All 550 attendees had plunked down around $2k to be there, largely under the influence of a master marketeer named Dan Kennedy.

He created this direct marketing crowd, much of its nomenclature, and has presided over this kingdom for nearly 30 years, still sharp as ever. He is perhaps the highest paid copywriter on planet earth, fees beginning at $35k per page with a royalty off sales.

All was pretty normal until his personal assistant approached me, handing me her cell phone number and saying, “Dan wants to meet you in his suite at 5:20 for 20 minutes.”

“What did I do this time?”

I paced the hall at exactly 5:15 to make sure I was on time. I’d already taken 24 pages of notes from speakers. Assuming he was going to ask me some tough questions, I roughly “sketched” a snapshot of my business, revenue flow, a tiny history. His assistant appeared, said “Walk this way” and resisting the urge to mimic her walk a la Young Frankenstein, we soon tapped on the door to the massive suite.

Let me back up a sec. I lied. This was not a normal convention. This is the Information Marketing Summit. There’s nothing else like it out there. The speakers are not household names (except to nutballs in this crowd) yet they’re credited with marketing movements like the Video Sales Letter, or the Product Launch Formula, or how Alex Mandossian has 900,000 followers… but no email list. (He generates over $1m in sales with exactly one employee.) This stuff ain’t “normal.”

I’m a member of this group – just like you have your groups – for one thing: improvement. My unkind observation is “if you’re not actively improving, you’re becoming inactively irrelevant.”

My notes contain meaningful movements, changes, bends, and trends facing marketing as a whole. What’s working, what’s not, what’s coming next. At Hudson Ink, we “reinterpret” these things for you, putting what we learn into products, services, and marketing coaching. My investment of time and resources is intended to pay dividends to you. (See excerpts from my notes at end.)

The door to Dan Kennedy’s suite opens. He motions me to a couch about 28 feet long. His room is slightly nicer than mine in the same resort. I sit. I stare. Sensing a twinge of unintended awe, he breaks, “So, how’s your business, your work?” I say something meaningless. He follows, “Hey, no need for notes or math in here. This is purely a social call. You’ve been a member for a while and run a real marketing business… bricks, mortar, employees… and have grown nicely. Plus, you’ve written me some nice notes, and won that contest we had. I just wanted to spend a few minutes.”

Pressure relieved. Nothing to recite. No pretense. We just talked about the changes in copywriting, strategy, sales cycles, and a little “creation” Hudson Ink seems to have tripped over that contractors are embracing. “Keep me updated on that” said the master.

Soon enough, 20 minutes had elapsed, and as I walked back down the long hall, I reconsidered his previously turned-down invitation to join his top level Coaching Program.
This allows for several multi-day visits with his own MasterMind group, a font of knowledge at the ready. The price tag (slightly more than a new Honda Accord) and time investment gives me pause. I have profit sharing to consider, and prudency, and stewardship.

And you.

If I join this thing, I’m assured to bring back a different level of marketing, one that forges new, fertile ground. There’ll be implementation of technique, a faster way to better results, and a nearly “unfair advantage” that we can both create for you and coach you to use in your business.

The Big Question:

So with the promises above, do I join this ultimate Marketing MasterMind Group, limited to 20 participants world-wide? Vote please:

“YES, Adams. Join this thing. You won’t have this opportunity forever. Do something with your life. And once you get so much smarter, I promise to buy all kinds of stuff (*wink wink*) to help offset your concern.”

“NO, Adams, don’t join this thing. What are you supposed to learn that’ll help me? Plus, who really wants to go to Cleveland 3 times in a year? Are you goofy? (Nevermind.) We can barely do what you advise now, so just cool your jets and save the dough.

Votes will be shared next issue!

SOME OF MY OVER NOTES FROM THE INFO MARKETING SUMMIT

Trends, Bends, and… Depends?

• Sales Cycles now require more “acclimation” period. The one-call, one-hour sales call for contractors now have multiple steps, phases, over 80% of your calls check you out online first.
• Consumers self-educate faster which has eradicated former “importance” of years in business, old reputation.
• Most Important Sale Trends Now a) Clean updated, optimized website, b) Fully optimized Local Listing (which we’ve been telling you for over a year), c) Willingness to “advise” instead of “promote”, d) Reviews.

Side Note to Above: Social Media marketing has taken a “back seat” in this crowd for businesses except for entertainment and opportunity marketing. Doing social “right” is the coming wave. Stay tuned.

• Customer Retention Marketing has grown up to include automated email “nurturing” pre and post sale. Having an “inventory” of push-button emails, texts, social posts was lauded as THE #1 marketing trends for automating better business results.
• Your Target Audience has grown up since the “graying of America” (those 55 years plus) has 40% of the population but a staggering 80% of the wealth. They’re also more educated, read more, are more loyal, and refer more often than the young half-broke price shopping malcontents. Target these people with marketing that is sensitive to them. (34% still use Yellow Pages by the way.) You can depend on the Depends crowd! :-)
• Automation and “Pre Done” Content is seen as the fastest way to results. (Last year, they “taught” us HOW to do video. This year, they were vending videographers with script outlines and ready-made images.) The tone of these videos – which are watched 4-6 times more often than your sales letter is read – are advisory before promotional. This is another trend our coaching members have been hearing about from Hudson Ink for over a year.
• The Sales Letter Still Rocks since it is way faster and less costly to create. Plus, if you do add video, it is the “architecture” for the script. I was glad to see that copywriters still rule the roost of “must have skills” for marketing success.

Maybe I can keep my job after all.

Adams Hudson