The Brain Audit
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b) It becomes the DNA of your company. Everything revolves around that uniqueness.
c) Your customers and the media start to see you as different, and hence newsworthy.
It ain’t enough to simply create the uniqueness. You have to make sure that everyone knows. And the best way to test whether you’ve done a good job is to ask your customer if they know why you’re different. And every customer should respond in a similar manner.
Before you go out into the great wide world propagating your uniqueness, you can test it. Swap your logo with another company’s logo. Does the uniqueness work for your competitor? If so, it’s time to go back to the drawing board and find a new uniqueness.
Creating a factor of uniqueness is hard work. Which is precisely why you should do the hard work. Because it’s so much hard work, your competition will keep procrastinating, and give you a massive head-start, and you may also attract the competition’s customers with your uniqueness.
Create your uniqueness using three steps:
Step 1: Make a big list of what makes your business unique;
Step 2: Weighted ranking will help you decide on the most important reason;
Step 3: Flesh out the uniqueness to create more clarity.
Qualify your uniqueness. Don’t just say ‘fresh’. What does ‘fresh’ mean?
If you remove all the bags from the conveyor belt, you can still lose your customers if you don’t bring out the uniqueness of your business/product/service. You don’t want to throw away all your hard work, so make sure you create your uniqueness. It’s important for you and your employees to know what makes you different. It gives the company/product/service a measure of pride and distinction. And a spotlight in an increasingly noisy market.
Checklist: The Problem
List all your customers’ problems.
Isolate the three main problems.
Isolate the biggest problem.
Checklist: The Solution
Isolate the solution that solves the biggest problem.
Is your ‘solution statement’ the mirror-image of the ‘problem statement’?
Have you audited your communication to check that the solution doesn’t pop up first? (It should come after the problem).
Checklist: The Target Profile
Who is your target audience? What is the demographic?
Now choose three people from that demographic as your target profiles.
Narrow it down to one person.
Speak to that person and get a list of problems (with regard to a product/service).
Choose one problem then expand it.
Use that very same person to get feedback (so be aware that what you hear and what they are saying may be different).
Checklist: The Trigger
List your target profile.
List the main problem.
List the main solution.
Now test the trigger. Do you get the response: ‘What do you mean by that?’ or ‘How do you do that?’
If you do not get the response, you need to rework your trigger. Start from the top again.
Checklist: Biggest Objection
Brainstorm all the possible objections to your product or service.
Now list all the answers to all the objections.
List the biggest objection and the answer.
Checklist: Testimonials
Step 1: Get the Testimonials
1) What was the obstacle that would have prevented you from buying this product/service?
2) What did you find as a result of buying this product/service?
3) What specific feature did you like most about this product/service?
4) What would be three other benefits about this product/service?
5) Would you recommend this product/service? If so, why?
6) Is there any thing you’d like to add?
Checklist: Testimonials
Step 2: Link the testimonials to each objection.
Objection 1:
Testimonial:
Objection 2:
Testimonial:
Objection 3:
Testimonial:
Objection 4:
Testimonial:
Checklist: Risk Reversal
Identify the obvious risk.
Identify the hidden risk.
Decide on your risk reversal.
Name the risk reversal for your product/service.
Product/Service 1:
Risk Reversal:
Product/Service 2:
Risk Reversal:
Product/Service 3:
Risk Reversal:
Checklist: Your Uniqueness
Write down what you want to do in your business that’s different from everyone else?
List all the factors that could make your business unique.
Use ‘Weighted Ranking’ to decide.
Now list only one factor that is going to be your point of uniqueness.
Flesh out the uniqueness to create more clarity.
Does your uniqueness solve a problem for a specific audience?
Test your uniqueness to see that it is really unique.
List how you are going to propagate your uniqueness.
Website:
Brochure:
Promotional Material:
Business Card:
Other:
Epilogue
Epilogue is a fancy word for ‘we’re coming to the end’.
Because there is a starting point.
You see I wasn’t always in marketing. In fact, I didn’t do much marketing at all for the first 15 years of my business.
And yet my business (yes, I was a professional cartoonist) did very well. So well in fact that instead of working from my parents’ house, I had an office. And I had staff. And I’d go for long lunches and to the bowling alley in the middle of the day.
So it’s quite possible to run a business with little or no marketing at all. But without marketing, there was no structure. And always a factor of uncertainty.
Some months I’d have tons of work.
Some months, I’d twiddle my thumbs.
And some months I’d decide to take a break and go on vacation.
But it was hard to enjoy the vacation, because it always meant that while I was away I wasn’t earning anything. And there was a pretty good chance that my clients were getting someone else to do their assignments. And that just meant more competition.
There seemed to be no way out of the trap.
If I didn’t go on vacation, I’d feel jaded and my work would suffer. If I did go on vacation, I’d lose revenue and bolster the competition.
What’s a cartoonist to do? The answer for me at least, lay in understanding marketing. And from that moment on, my world has never been the same. Suddenly I started to understand structure a lot better. I began to understand systems.
And even more structure.
And so I began to read more.
I started to literally read two books a week. Over a hundred books a year. I devoured every book on marketing, management, spiritualism, history and biographies (I often maxed out the library card taking home as many as thirty books at a time).
And from that mixed reading list came The Brain Audit.
You see the route to The Brain Audit was an interesting one.
As you already know The Brain Audit didn’t start out as a book. The Brain Audit was just a speech and some notes. And I’m not even sure it was called The Brain Audit back then.
But in my thirst for even more marketing knowledge, I got in touch with an internet marketer. And I asked for his products in exchange for cartoons.
Well, he was happy to barter.
And in our conversation, I mentioned about this book I’d written.
And I asked this internet marketer if he’d like to take a look at it. He agreed to take a look at the book.
And then he did something quite interesting.
He got a whole bunch of his friends to write up testim
onials about the book. And he told me that he was going to promote the book to his list. All I had to do was set up an affiliate program and get some sort of merchant account.
And he was giving me seven days to get it all done.
I was excited and horrified.
You see my wife Renuka and I had been doing our research on merchant accounts for a good two months prior to this discussion with this internet marketer. And there we were with a deadline of just seven days.
Amazingly, we did manage to find a service called Clickbank[15] that not only accepted payments, but also had a built in affiliate program.
Then we contacted the internet marketer and waited.
A month passed. And nothing happened.
I kept in touch. He said he was busy.
A second month passed.
And still nothing.
But then an amazing thing happened.
Someone wanted to buy The Brain Audit. Someone actually found our page on the website, and wanted to buy a copy.
Except she wanted to pay by Paypal.
Ugh!
So there we were scrambling again, to put another payment system together. But once it was done, she bought the first copy. And the internet marketer was still nowhere in sight.[16]
And without his direct help, we’d made our first sale.
So we did a jig around the room.
Actually Renuka did.
Every time we’d make a sale, she’d do the ‘Renuka dance’.
And so bolstered with this new-found success, I started speaking at small networking breakfasts. A friend mentioned that I should try and sell The Brain Audit at the events.
Of course, I wasn’t so sure selling The Brain Audit was a good idea. People were coming to the event to network and have a breakfast, not to hear a sales pitch.
But he convinced me otherwise.
He told me that people who liked what I had to say, would then be keen to read more. And the book provided more. Never mind that it was just an e-book in a PDF format.
So there we were at a meeting near Lake Taupo (about 280 km/175 miles from Auckland). And there were about 40 people in the room. I stood up, and spoke about The Brain Audit. And then asked people if they’d like to buy it. And thirty people bought it right away.
What’s fascinating is that they couldn’t see the book.
They were literally paying for a PDF file.
And because I wasn’t expecting to sell anything, I didn’t even have a printout of that PDF file. So in effect the audience was buying something they couldn’t see.
You have to remember this was the year 2002.
Not a lot of people were internet-savvy back then. A website was a reasonable novelty. Blogs were definitely on the fringe. At least five of the buyers of the e-book had no email address (we had to send them a CD later).
That one speaking engagement got us a chunky $900. But more importantly, it brought confidence. Suddenly I was feeling less and less like a fraud. And more and more like celebrating with a nice Cabernet Merlot.
So Renuka and I found a cozy restaurant. We ordered a nice bottle of wine. And we clinked our glasses to the start of yet another adventure.
An adventure that had started when we first moved to New Zealand.
We’d immigrated to New Zealand from Mumbai, India, in the year 2000.
We simply packed our bags and our thriving careers and started in a place where no one knew our names. In fact we’d never been to New Zealand before we first immigrated.
We’d been as far south as Australia, and people told us New Zealand was even more laid back than Australia. They told us it rained a lot. They told us there were too many sheep and too few people.
Oh goody! That sounded just fine to our ears.
Because New Zealand gave us time to catch our breath. To slow down.
Slowing down gave us time to think.
And thinking led to a change from cartoons to marketing.
And that’s why you’re reading this book today.
Warm regards from 4:12 am.
Sean D’Souza
P.S. Thanks for reading this book. And yes, we’ll be sure to meet again at some speaking event, workshop or just at our favourite Takapuna cafe.
Au revoir for now.
See you online at: www.psychotactics.com
The Next Step?
A System of Care, Protection and Guidance
As you head to the last page of this book, your brain will no doubt be abuzz with all the possibilities in marketing and business.
And you’ll wonder what the next step looks like.
You’ll wonder if there’s a system in place to help you in case you get stuck? Is there a system to help you move ahead confidently? What if you wanted to learn skills that went beyond ‘The Brain Audit’?
An education can’t be just an information dump. Instead it must be a system. And it must be layered so that one layer of learning builds on top of the previous layer. It must anticipate the needs of the client well in advance.
Look around you and you’ll see how disciplines such as karate and yoga are organised around a system. If you look back at school or university, you knew exactly how to move to the next step. And you knew all of this because the system was put in place—in advance. This allowed you to know that you could graduate from the very same school. Get your degree from the very same college. Become a black belt in karate under the very same teacher.
We call this system ‘Care, Protection and Guidance’
Look up Webster’s Dictionary and you’ll find the definition of the word ‘client’. It defines the word ‘client’ as someone you should care for; someone who comes under your protection; someone you should guide. Amazingly, the definition of ‘client’ is akin to the relationship between a parent and a child. As a doting parent, you care for your children; guide them in the right direction; protect them from the nutcases out there. And guess what? That’s what Webster’s Dictionary asks you to do: create a system of ‘Care, Protection and Guidance’.
That’s what we’ve done at Psychotactics.com
1) We’ve created a layered system that you can easily follow.
2) The centreline of the system has specific, predefined sequence.
3) The vertical lines of the system are add-on learning modules.
4) The system is based on ‘Care, Protection and Guidance.’
To see how we’ve helped you look far ahead in the future, take a look at the graphic below. You’ll see that the progression is not only logical, but enables you to absorb what you have learned before moving ahead. This absorption and implementation not only increases your confidence, but also your expertise factor.
To find out more about how you can learn in layers (and avoid information dumps) go to http://www.psychotactics.com/nextstep and judge for yourself.
The centreline boxes represent the sequential system that enables you to move from one logical step to another. The vertical boxes represent live courses, online courses or homestudy courses or products. These courses or products are additional learning modules, once you’ve read ‘The Brain Audit’.
Finally to get started in the crazy world of Psychotactics:
Step 1: Go to www.psychotactics.com and register for the free newsletter.
Step 2: Have a look at the sequence at www.psychotactics.com/nextstep
[1] If you’re reading this book for the first time, I’d recommend reading the entire book from end to end to get the essence of the concepts. Once you’ve finished reading the book at least twice (or thrice as recommended), make sure you return to this page, and then focus on the specific ‘What’s New’ sections mentioned above.
[2] Hungary, Australia, India, France, Italy, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Thailand…(You’re getting the idea, aren’t you?)
[3] You say ‘carousel’; I say ‘conveyor belt’. As long as we know what we’re talking about, we’re okay.
[4] When I speak at a 45-minute to one-hour
engagement, I often cover the first three bags of The Brain Audit. Invariably, someone in the audience—whose curiosity is aroused— will ask me to give them the entire list of seven bags. They dutifully jot down what I’ve said and they walk away content in the knowledge that they now know all the seven bags. But as you can tell, it’s not enough to just have a list of the bags. What’s really important is the specifics of each bag, and then how it ties together to form a complete message. But even as I write this, I know there are some audience members with a wonderful list of seven red bags, and with zero ability to implement the information into their marketing and sales. That’s why I wrote this book. So they can read about— and more importantly— implement the information by understanding the application of each of the bags in detail.
[5] Referenced from Psychology Today: 20 June 2003
[6] Called ‘timing belt’ or ‘timing chain’ in some parts of the world.