Show notes
In today's podcast, I'd like to share with you the audio of the third video I did on the topic of Total Market Domination. In this session, I explained how to overcome obstacles so you can dominate your market. This podcast also mentions a free pdf mind-map you can follow along with. If you'd like to download a copy of that pdf and see the videos that go with this series, you can access all of that at topsecrets.com/tmd. That's topsecrets.com/tmd. Now here's the audio of video 3.
Hi, I’m David Blaise... welcome to Video 3 in our workshop series on how to create top of mind awareness and dominate your market.
If you've already taken the time to check out videos one and two in this series, and added your comments and questions, thank you! I really appreciate the input, and I'm excited to share this information with you today.
I LOVE hearing from people who say, "you know, I've never really thought about the idea of dominating my market before, but I can really see how it would be helpful to create more awareness and increase my market share." That's a beautiful thing!
After all, as we discussed in video one, there are leaders and followers in every market. And the leaders tend to dominate, while the followers are left fighting for the scraps! Besides that, if you're not leading your market, it means someone else is, and that is never going to be good for your business.
In video two, we identified twelve primary obstacles that keep business owners and salespeople from creating top of mind awareness and dominating their markets.
And today, with Video 3, I'd also like to share a mind-map that I put together for you, to show you what it will take to overcome each of those primary obstacles. So if you haven't done so already, be sure to click the button below this video and download a copy of your mind-map right now. If you print it out now, I will be happy to walk you through each of the steps in this video.
As you're doing that, I just want to let you know something. The reason this is so important, is that very often we think in terms of goals, objectives, and things we want to accomplish in our lives. But standing between us and every worthwhile goal, there are often significant obstacles, designed to slow us down or keep us from getting there at all. And no matter how attractive or desirable the goal we're after, if we can't overcome the obstacles, we're just not getting there!
Imagine you're driving along a road, on the way to somewhere you really want to go. The weather's beautiful, you're making great time, but all of a sudden, you look ahead and see two gigantic rocks blocking your path! At that point, it's not about your desire to get where you're going. It's not about your motivation to make it happen. That's not going to do it. It's not even about the potentially bad consequences if you don't get there. In that moment, it's no longer about the goal at all.
Your success depends entirely upon your ability to overcome the obstacle. Will you go over it? Will you go under it? Will you go around it? How are you going to do it? What if your secondary route is also blocked? What if the third route is blocked as well? That happens.
In fact business, sales and life seem DESIGNED to throw obstacles in our path, and if you can't overcome the obstacles, you can not reach your goals.
So, if you've downloaded your mind-map, let's get started with the 12 Biggest Obstacles to Creating Top of Mind Awareness, along with the recommended solutions to each one.
Okay, as you can see in the PDF, I've listed out each of the 12 obstacles, along with a recommended solution to each obstacle. Beyond that, I've also included what to do to implement the solution and why it's important to do that. I'll give you a brief overview of each one, so you'll have a crystal clear idea of what needs to happen if you want to create top of mind awareness and dominate your market. So let's zoom in and get started.
Obstacle One is that it never occurred to them. The solution to that is "decide to dominate."
Here's what you need to do. It's important to get grounded in the mindset. It's a daily thing. You don't dominate by accident and you don't dominate occasionally. You need to gear your brain toward the idea that everything you're doing is designed to create awareness among exactly the people that you need to reach in your market. You need to understand the necessity to maintain focus on that. Don't take your eye off the ball. It's easy to let life interfere, but if you want to dominate, you're going to have to make sure you maintain control and maintain focus on the activities we're about to discuss. You need to see the vision and know where you're going. It never happens in a vacuum.
So why is this important? Well, without a strong decision deciding that you're going to create top of mind awareness and dominate your market and without a reason for doing it, you're just not going to do it. You won't take action on it. The fact that it might never have occurred to you that you should even want to dominate your market, tells you it's never been a priority in the past. If you want it to be a priority going forward, it requires making that decision and thinking in terms of the reasons why it's going to be so important to you.
Without a vision you have absolutely nothing to pursue. That's why it's so important to maintain that vision, decide what you're going after and pursue it every day. Without a plan for domination, you will not dominate. As I mentioned in an earlier video, it doesn't happen by accident.
Obstacle Two: They don't know who they're after. The solution here is to identify and select your markets and sub markets.
So here are the specifics. You need to decide which market or markets you're going to approach initially. Now, this isn't something that you decide once and you have to live with forever. It's the kind of thing that will evolve. It will change over time, but right out of the gate, you need to decide who it is that you want to go after for this first round. You want to identify the specific businesses that you're going to target based on geography, industry interests, demographics, or whatever else you decide is going to be the most important criteria.
For example, I'm going to target businesses in my area with more than 100 employees. If you're going B to B. I'm going to target cosmetic dentists in the tri-state area. Whatever tri-state area might be around you. I'm going to target homeowners who live in three upscale local developments that I decide on. I'm going to target soccer moms within 100 miles. Obviously these are just examples, but you're making the decision upfront. Also, if soccer moms within 100 miles is too much, then maybe you say, "okay, I'm going to target soccer moms within 25 miles or 10 miles or five miles or one mile." You're establishing your sub markets based on what you can actually do. Why is this important? Because it forms the core of your domination plan. You have to know exactly who you're going to be going after, if you ever hope to reach them. And by breaking it down into small, manageable pieces... that makes it doable, even if you're operating on a limited budget. And ultimately everyone is operating on a limited budget
Obstacle Three: They fail to establish meaningful contact with the decision maker. The solution: You need to choose your targets.
Specifically, you're going to identify the exact people that you're going to initiate contact with next, and you're going to gather their contact information. It's that simple, but it's also ridiculously important. Why? Because you can't proceed without it.
If you don't know exactly who you're going to go after, you cannot create awareness with that person. And this is going to determine who you're actually going to sell to. Now, for some people, you're going to look at this and say "This is ridiculously obvious. Of course I have to know who it is I'm going after." While others might say, "Hey, this is something I've never done at all. I've only ever run advertising to see who's going to come through the door." And if you can do that, if you can run ads and you can have a steady stream of new people coming through the door, then essentially your targets are choosing you. That's great. But if that's not happening to the extent that you need it to, then it's going to be important for you to establish the targets you're going after. And even if you're running advertising, you're still going to need to decide who it is that you're going after. If I'm running Facebook ads, am I targeting a particular group of people based on their demographics? All of this is what allows us to establish meaningful contact with the decision maker.
Obstacle Four: Poor or ineffective communication. The solution is to craft your communication and your messaging.
Here's what you need to do. You need to determine first what you're going to say to your targeted prospects. What's the most important thing you could say to someone who is new to your business? You want to create bullet points for you, based on that information, and you want to make sure that's available to both you and your team. And as you're putting together your messages, you want to think in terms of gearing them toward their need.
In every sales situation, there are two sets of needs. There's the customers need (the reason they're buying from you in the first place,) and then there's the salesperson's need (the need to make the sale.) When you're messaging is geared toward making the sale, instead of getting the customer what they need, you always lose. That's why you have to make sure that your messages are geared toward their need and not just your need. Why is this important? Because many businesses go in unprepared. They just wing it and when you wing it, anything can come out. Terrible things can happen.