Happy Birthday from Walt Disney

In 2009 you can visit a DisneyWorld or DisneyLand free for the day as long as you can prove it’s your birthday. What a wonderful marketing tactic especially if you live in North America. Do I really need to explain the power of this tactic even if 99% of prospects never take you up? One word….goodwill.


Celebrate your customer’s birthday with them!
So how you could model this idea..?

What could you do on your client’s birthday? Send ‘em something!

What you could do on your personal birthday? Free digital product

On your business’s birthday a special bonus on all products and services.

By the way, my birthday is May 2nd which is a Saturday this year.
Don’t forget me!!

What do to when a prospect say no

One of the challenges you are going to have to deal with is when a prospect chooses someone else rather than you and your business. Now, this is OK early on in the marketing process, but it’s harder later on the cycle.

Last week, I lost a piece of business I thought I had won. It hurts financially. It hurts personally. It bruises your business ego. It’s like being dumped by a partner. I was not a happy Roddy! So what should you do?

Get over it! Nobody cares! We all make these decisions every day not to spend money with certain suppliers. We don’t obsess as buyers nor should we as suppliers.

Here are some simple tips:

1. Don’t get mad with the prospect. They have just made a decision that seems logical. They’ll hardly welcome you telling them they’re wrong.

2. Were you really as good as you thought you were. Did you offer enough value? Were you remarkable enough? Or just another supplier they could easily say no to.

3. If you want to continue a relationship with the prospect, keep your emotions out of any correspondence. “You told me I had the business” won’t go down too well.

Last week’s news was tough for me, but I took a lesson from it. I have to offer more value and be more remarkable.

Now, how do I do that?

Blogging on a Saturday

It’s 8.15 am on a dark damp Saturday morning in Ealing. I have just dropped my wife at the Airport she’s going with some friends to Amsterdam for the day. It’s a girls trip, no room for the boys. My teenage daughter is on a sleepover. It’s just me and the cat. All Baroque FM is playing on iTunes Radio. I have my filtered coffee and muffin. What better thing to do than blog?

So this is a blog about my blog. Pretty ego-centric eh?

According to my blog stats I have written 36 entries this year, 20 this month. So this is my first Saturday entry. By the way:

Thanks for reading this whatever way you are consuming it from my page or RSS. Thanks I appreciate your attention and time.

My commitment to myself is to blog every working day. Thanks to Graham Jones for encouraging me into that. Why do I it?

1. It’s permission. You don’t have to read this, I’m not forcing it down your throat in some interrupt spammy way. If you want it, you read it. Find it dull, then move on.

2. It forces me to think. I love the brevity of twitter where you just fire stuff off. I love watching JaythePal on 12 Seconds TV. But for something a little deeper and chance to mull over what’s happening a blog allows me to go deeper. Sloane goes deeper??

3. I receive a reaction. Some of my entries receive no response others get a comment attached. I welcome all responses. That’s just what they are responses. As JaythePal would say. "Go for it, yeah!"

If you haven’t started your blog yet or you only adding occasional entries then I encourage you to do more. Make a commitment to yourself. Who knows where it may lead. Hey, tell me what you think leave a comment.

Time to go to the local Farmers's Market to buy some pork and stilton sausages. Yeah!



Ask Jay ThePal Episode 7: Rod asks...advice for small businesses on 12seconds.tv

What can you say that no one else can say or…. dare say?

But your followers or constituency will repeat and admire you for saying it!

Muhammad Ali said it, Karl Marx said it, JFK said it, Gandhi said it and Jesus Christ said it especially.

Here are some tips of how you cannot think about building your message.
1. Not Marketing Hype…the best seminar ever

2. Not offensive

3. Not silly

4. One single sentence

5. If you have to explain it, it’s not good enough.

6. If I Google your words do you have competition.

7. Can it be printed on a t-shirt or cufflinks and would somebody wear them?

8. Does it have to be original? No, not if you make it yours. Was Ali the first to say “I am the greatest” No, but he was the first to say it to a TV audience with such confidence and conviction.

My friend Jeoff Haskins says “Right now, wherever you are, you have chosen.”
Here are some that I could say:

1. All marketing should be No-Bull marketing

2. Marketing? What marketing?

3. "Stuck? Ask what Rod Sloane would do, now?" OK a bit ego centric!!!

4. Pick up the phone, you wazzock!

5. You call this, marketing?

What can you say that no one else can say or…. dare say? Go on say it!

How to Market in a Recession

Snappy title for this blog. Eh?

Well, actually I borrowed it from John Quelch over at the Harvard Business Review. John wrote an article with the same title listing eight areas to focus on.

Now John is obviously a lot smarter than me. I would say eight are way too many. I would suggest that you just do one thing. One thing a lot better than you can presently imagine. Be the best you can be at it.

So if it’s networking, what results have you achieved from your networking in the last 6 months? Hard results, not soft stuff like greater exposure! Should you be spending more of your time, energy, money or creativity in this area?

How would you score yourself out of ten? If you’re a five how can you become a six? How are you educating you and your team to be better?

There are lots of actions you can take just to make one marketing tactic better.
Put all your efforts there, be the best you can be and monitor the results.

Your Permission Marketing just got Harder to Execute, a lot Harder!

For the last decade you’ve probably heard about how the best way to market was via the concept of permission marketing developed by Seth Godin. “Marketing centred around obtaining customer consent to receive information from a company.”

The important thing is that it’s not you who defines what is and isn’t permission; it’s your customer or client. And half of them don’t think that you have that much. The slide shows that at least 20% don’t believe that they have given you any permission to speak or even market to them. Which means you are shouting at them like some tacky 2nd hand mortgage sales man.

You spammer -- You’re just as low as a banker!
OK, maybe not that low.


But if you believe that permission is a good idea to have in marketing then you need to think about asking for it more and more often. Do you? Because clients don’t think that you do.

Keep asking for permission.

Are you worth talking about?

We live in a commodity based, reality TV, homogeneous world. Everything is the same, everyone looks the same. Crikey, even all the stand up comedians now wear smart suits. What stands out anymore? What is worth making a remark about? Are you worth making a remark about? Are you remarkable?

Are you worth talking about?

Is this blog worth talking about?

How can you tell?
Well, it’s not what you do; it’s the way that you do it! Hey, maybe there’s a song title in there somewhere.

I can ask a gazillion people to create a new website for me, the world is full of smart accountants and I can receive SEO tips anywhere, anytime and anyplace.

All that matters is :

1. How you do what you do---will I enjoy the experience

2. The results you get—every business is a results difference

Think “How am I different?” If you want to be talked about, that is?