Your Political Guru

This is a fairly long guest article, but he points out some very good tactical lessons from Rush Limbaugh’s success.  The author works in the sales and marketing of alternative medicine.

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

Peter F. Drucker

The Secret to Making a Billion Dollars Without Offering a Single Benefit
By Clayton Makepeace

Love him or hate him, you have to admit it. Rush Limbaugh is a phenomenon.

He doesn’t promise riches, better health, and social status, to ease your workload, or get you dates.

In fact, he never offers anyone one single benefit or presents a single “Reason Why” listening to him or reading him will improve your life in any way.

And yet, 20 million Americans religiously tune into his radio broadcasts. Hundreds of thousands subscribe to his newsletter. And masses rush to bookstores and snap up every book he writes.

In short, Limbaugh has broken every “rule” of effective marketing. And he’s become a billionaire (or darned close to it)!

How does he do it?

A year or so ago, he himself gave us the answer in his newsletter:

“The first year of my radio program callers would tell me how thrilled they were that there was finally somebody in the national media who expressed what they believed.

“For decades, conservatives had seen their values laughed at, impugned, run down. My radio program validated thinking that existed all over America….”

Put simply, Limbaugh makes millions because he offers his followers something they value more than money: Validation. And the emotional release it brings with it.

Until they discovered Mr. Limbaugh, his devotees were frustrated with politicians, the media, and the direction in which they felt our culture was headed.

But they had no voice. No power to change things. And, worst of all, no outlet for their frustration and anger.

The Astonishing Power of Powerlessness

Nearly all of us feel powerless at some time or another. That powerlessness causes frustration and even anger to well up. And unless we find an outlet for those negative emotions, they gnaw away at us.

Psychiatrists have long known that the feeling that we are not in control of things that directly impact our lives is a major cause of both aggressive behavior and depression.

And medical studies have even linked the frustration, anger, and rage that powerlessness causes with weakened immune response and frequent physical illness.

That’s where Limbaugh comes in. He understands that millions of conservative Americans disagree with and are worried about the direction our government and/or society are taking — and feel powerless to “make things right.”

And his magic is in providing a much-needed OUTLET for those pent-up negative feelings.

• By acknowledging his audience’s deepest and most intense emotions, he validates them.

• By expressing their feelings in ways that get heads nodding and listeners laughing, he gives his followers desperately needed emotional release.

• And his followers reward him handsomely by buying just about everything the man produces or plugs!

In short, like any good businessperson, Limbaugh provides a product that brings value to people’s lives and that they’re willing to pay for.

And although his product is both invisible and intangible, the emotional release he delivers is worth far more to his followers than the money they pay to get it!

Four Steps to Breakthrough Bliss

Creating a sales message that harnesses this powerful technique is as easy as 1-2-3-4.

1. Identify the enemy — and make it personal!

No matter what you sell, there’s somebody out there in the same, a similar, or a competing field who’s doing your prospect wrong.

In alternative health, it’s probably dimwitted mainstream doctors and drug company fat cats.

In the investment field, it could be greedy brokers, idiotic self-appointed experts, and “talking heads” on TV shows.

In the personal finance field, it could be money-hungry bankers, heartless tax collectors, and everyone else who assumes that your money is really their money.

What enemy is making YOUR prospects feel powerless, insulted, frustrated, and angry?

Whoever it is, personalize the enemy. It’s not half as much fun lampooning hospitals, drug companies, banks, and the IRS as it is skinning the jerks who run them!

2. Identify the things “the enemy” does that frustrate or anger your prospect, insult his intelligence, or render him powerless.

Does the enemy hide important information from your prospect? Does he lie to him outright? Does he treat your prospect as if he’s a dunce?

Is he arrogant and self-important — an authority figure just begging to be brought down a couple of pegs? Is he a sneak thief who nickels and dimes your prospect half to death?

List as many offenses as you possibly can.

3. Pinpoint how YOU feel about these kinds of people — and how you would feel if someone did these things to you.

Then express those feelings more articulately and with greater emotional power than your prospect possibly could.

4. Position your figurehead and his product as being the solution to the negative things the enemy does AND the balm that soothes the negative emotions your prospect has about them!

Make your author righteously indignant. And explain why he is absolutely livid about the way the prospect is being treated.

Say everything your prospect would just LOVE to tell the enemy. If you feel it’s appropriate, call him names.

In a promotion based on the Vioxx scandal, I had a sidebar with the headline: Modern-Day Murder-for-Hire Ring BUSTED!

Beneath that headline, I had pictures of the CEOs of Merck and Pfizer. Then the story (taken from The Wall Street Journal) about how they knew all along that Vioxx, Bextra, and Celebrex would kill people, but promoted them anyway just to make a fast buck.

Now I am NOT suggesting that you accuse your competitor of murder — or say anything else that might get you sued for libel.

But to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, “Extremism in the pursuit of your prospect’s well-being is no vice.”

You probably don’t Jeffery Gitomer from Adam’s house cat unless you are in sales.  He is one of the best sales trainers in the country.  I’ve been a fan of his for many years – hey what is politics and fundraising except sales and marketing.   He has a great weekly ezine (free at www.buygitomer.com).

I was on my way to Kansas City on South West and I look up and here comes Jeffery walking down the aisle looking for a seat.  So I make space and invite him to grab the middle seat on the exit row.

I had been talking to the other guy in the row (Kelly) who is in the beverage industry.  Kelly was on his way to Kansas to see his son who was getting deployed in a few days to Afghanistan.  He didn’t know Gitomer.  So when I made the introductions I lavished the praise on Gitomer as one of the premier sales guys.  Immediately Kelly’s “sales defense shields” went up.  Sure enough he was in charge of training his sales force and he didn’t want to spend his hour of flight time being “sold” by Jeffery.

Personally I wanted to ask Jeffery a ton of questions and possibly get some free consulting, but I quickly realized that Kelly could use Jeffery’s services, and I suspect Jeffery knew it too.  So I took the opportunity to watch Jeffery “sell.”

One of Jeffery’s maxims is “People love to buy, but they hate being sold.”  I was looking forward to seeing Jeffery do his “pitch.”  You would expect a sales trainer would try to start giving a long list of features and benefits of his company – let the prospect (Kelly) know how long he’s been in business, sales volume etc.

You would be wrong.  Jeffery played it cool.  He didn’t even appear to care about getting Kelly as a customer.  Instead he quickly built rapport by using Kelly’s accent to figure out where he was from, broke the ice by showing pictures of his granddaughter, and talked about sports.  When Kelly started dropping his defenses and asked about Jeffery’s company, Jeffery showed him some of his books, made a quick recommendation as to which one Kelly should get first and why (after Kelly asked).

No killer close, Jeffery switched topics to the Phillies and football.

Kelley started telling Jeffery about all of his experience in sales and about his start up company and the challenges facing him and his sales crew.  I would have thought that Jeffery would pounce on this and point out his company’s advantages, but again Jeffery played it cool.

By this time Kelly was dang near frustrated that he wasn’t being “sold.”  So he starts trying to get Jeffery to give him more information.  Jeffery has a very unique business card it is a minted coin with Jeffery’s head on it.  I absolutely wowed Kelly.  I was watching Kelly’s wheels turning and he was sold.  Now keep in mind that this was a guy who was very focused on see his son before the kid heads off to war.

So what can you learn from this?

1)       The most important part of sales and persuasion is building rapport – not puking facts and figures on people.  People want to know you and know you care about them before they will start listening to you and your ideas.

This is tougher than it might sound.  We want to share our information, the books we have read, why we need to audit the fed or tell them about your candidate.  The reality is that hitting them with all that information makes them put up their “anti-sales shields.”

If you just “puke” everything you know on a stranger you are wasting everyone’s time.  Much better to have them get to the point where they want and ask for more information.

2)      If they do get interested, be prepared to wow them.  That’s when quality, memorable materials come into play.  The Bible says “don’t throw you pearls before swine.”  Just giving printed brochures or business cards to people is a waste of money.  Invest in fewer higher quality materials that will “wow” them, and make you memorable.

I’m glad I had the sense to shut up and watch Jeffery in action.  I learned far more than asking a bunch of questions, I got to see him put his “sales” approach in action.

The Secret of Goal Achievement

(Hint – don’t keep it a secret)

I am too damn fat.

I’ve been too fat for a while, but I’ve been putting off dealing with it for way too long. No major health scares or anything – it’s just that I am really ready to change.

I’ve been looking at the tactics of weight loss and it comes down to – eat less, move more.

But the bigger picture is looking at how to achieve your goals. This has some serious tactical implications. Following up on your committed course of action is critical to your success.

Here are some of the tactics I’m putting into effect now:

1) Clear daily focus on the goal – “if you don’t know where you are going you will surly get there.” When I moved to Oklahoma to pass a Right to Work law – I actually bought a pen that I pictured the Governor using to sign it into law. If I started to feel off track, I’d pull it out and refocus on what my goal was. It took nine years to get it done, so I needed the focus.

2) Today – not tomorrow. I made the commitment today to start losing weight and already joined a 24 hour gym. Tomorrow will never come.

3) Make a plan – set an end date and write it down. The process of planning helps you see the possible obstacles and prepare for them. I believe in the power of “positive pessimism.” Murphy’s Law is just as true as the Power of Positive Thinking. When I fly I am an outcome optimist. I believe the plane will get me their safely. However I am equally sure that the airlines will lie to me about when we take off and arrive, there will be delays caused by TSA etc. It doesn’t stop me from flying; I just want to be prepared.

4) I know I probably slip, but that’s not a reason to quit. Missiles are off track 99% of the time – it is the little course corrections they make that cause them to hit the target.

5) Make commitment public – don’t keep it to yourself. (That’s why I’m writing today’s article.)

6) Celebrate the wins. Figure out what victory looks like and reward yourself.

I’ll let you know how I’m coming on my goal during the next five months. It is 3 pounds a week for the next 5 months. 60 pounds before pool season. It’s doable and safe weight loss. It’s not easy, it’s a stretch.

(If you’ve won the battle of the bulge, I’d appreciate your tips and encouragement).

Well I’m off to the kitchen – I’ve got some junk food to get rid of.