Selling The Invisible is packed with tips and insights on how to market your business services. Harry Beckwith claims that most marketing advice is based on a product marketing model, most of which doesn’t apply to service businesses.

He makes each point in just a few paragraphs, which makes this book easy to grab when you only have a few minutes for marketing inspiration.

His key points include:

• Before marketing your service, make it great.
• Don’t just create what the market needs or wants. Create what it would love.
• Survey people by phone.
• Don’t do focus groups.
• Marketing is not a department. It’s your business.
• Every act is a marketing act. Make every person a marketing person.
• If you’re selling a service, you’re selling a relationship.
• Your real competitor is often your customer (either they do it themself or they don’t believe anyone can do it).
• Marginal tactics executed passionately almost always will outperform brilliant tactics executed marginally.
• Think dumb. Smart people are experts at squashing good ideas.
• Take advantage of the Recency Effect. Follow up brilliantly.
• Forget looking like the superior choice. Make yourself an excellent choice. Then eliminate anything that might make you a bad choice.
• To broaden your appeal, narrow your position.
• Choose a position that will reposition your competitors; then move back toward the middle to cinch the sale.
• Generic names encourage generic business.
• Your first competitor is indifference.
• Saying many things usually communicates nothing.
• After you say one thing, repeat it again and again.

In Jonathan Salem Baskin’s book, Branding Only Works On Cattle, he takes firm aim at the practice of the marketing practice of branding. He defines branding as building consumer awareness with the goal of influencing their future behavior. Simply put, he believes that branding is useless.

Traditional marketing is focused on behavior: identifying prospective customers, their needs, and communicating how your business solves their problems. Behavior is measurable. Either someone takes action or they don’t. Split testing on messages can give statistically valuable information to improve your marketing campaign. You can optimize your marketing based on the response you do (or don’t) get.

Traditional branding is intangible. How can you measure the influence of someone’s future behavior? When it comes time to make a purchase decision, people don’t decide in a vacuum. They ask their community for input, do research, and then purchase. Impulse purchases aren’t made based on brand either; impulse happens on the spur-of-the-moment, and is based on the offering targeting the immediate need at the right price.

In the past, branding was possible because customers had few choices (besides their immediate community) – television (with just a few channels) and magazines. Larger corporations could spend money to control the messages of these limited media. The Internet has allowed people to easily search for information. Search, the author contends, is the enemy of brand. Search allows people to find information anywhere (not just in company-controlled locations). The end result is that companies are simply trying to scream louder to get their message heard about the din.

The author also believes that social online “communities” are a poor way to brand/market your company. Most of these communities aren’t really communities – people can be anonymous, there’s no shared responsibility, no trust, and no informal conversations.

Instead he suggests paying attention to the basic strategies of guerrilla marketing, which are focused on changing near-term behavior:

1. Support existing behaviors, don’t create them [piggyback on habit]
2. Show, don’t tell [by example]
3. Prompt behaviors, not ideas [cause action]
4. Talk to many, every time you talk [involvement by dialog]

As a marketing strategist, I’m always looking for information to help understand human psychology. Predictably Irrational (by Dan Ariely) is full of wonderful insights (based on original research) on the surprising differences between logical thought and emotional consumer action. It seems that the world does not operate according to standard economic theories.

Each chapter explores different forces that shape our behavior in ways we don’t truly understand (or underestimate) – what he calls “decision illusions”.

For example, Chapter 1 (The Truth About Relativity) explains that our choices are not based on absolute thinking, but on relative/local choices. For example, would you rather purchase an online subscription to the Economist magazine for $59/year or a print subscription for $125/year? What if there was a third choice: print+online for $125/year (the same price as print-only)? It turns out that high-priced items on menus and in catalogs serve as decoys: by having a high-priced item, you see the lower-priced items as a bargain and increase your spending to the next-highest priced item.

Chapter 2 (The Fallacy Of Suppy And Demand) describes a different phenomenon: we quickly anchor to a starting value of a product/service and color our perception through this anchor. That’s why in an ad you might see a price initially stated, but then the advertising copy goes on to increase the value and drop the price. It’s a deal that you don’t want to pass up. But the initial value of the offering was arbitrary, and you’ve anchored your mind around the relative price difference. To get out of this thinking, you need to evaluate the produce/service not only to its competition, but also its true value to you.

Chapter 3 (The Cost of Zero Cost) describes the psychological power of FREE. People will jump on free offers (even though a low-cost offer may be an amazing deal, FREE is an offer you can’t seemingly pass up). The author encourages policy strategists to use FREE to drive people’s actions (healthcare screenings, electric cars, etc.).

The book is an easy/fun read, and humbly shows you just how much we don’t really understand about our actions. If you want some additional FREE insights (including videos and research studies), go to Dan’s website.

One of the things I admire about Joseph Sugarman’s work is his studied focus on the effect of his marketing efforts, and continually improving his marketing message until it maximizes his results.

This book is about psychological triggers that influence someone to make a buying decision for your product. He illustrates each one of his points with a fun story.

Here are a summary of some of his triggers:

Trigger 1 Consistency: After you make a transaction, it’s easier to create an upsell. Therefore, your marketing goal is to sell your potential customer something (no matter how small), in order to create the possibility for a larger sale later.

Trigger 2 Product Nature: Before you can sell your product/services, you need to understand how your prospect relates to what you’re offering.

Trigger 3 Prospect Nature: Make sure you likewise understand who you’re selling to in creating an effective marketing strategy. Focus on the emotional needs your product will solve (especially for B2C). People buy for emotional reasons, but justify the purchased based on logic.

Trigger 4/5 Objection Raising/Resolving : Point out the flaws in your offering and then resolve them. You don’t need to overwhelm with negative points, just the obvious ones that your prospect will immediately notice.

Trigger 6 Involvement and Ownership: In your copy, paint the image of the prospect using your offering. The more you can have them visualize what you’re selling, the stronger the emotional connection you can create.

Trigger 10 Proof Of Value: If you have a low-price and a higher-priced offering, lead with the higher-priced offering in your copy. Your low-price offering will look less expensive in contrast, and create a strong buy motivation.

Trigger 13 Greed: The higher the price point, the more effort you generally need to spend to sell it. Dropping the price while showing tremendous value will trigger a greedy reaction.

Trigger 16 Linking: People naturally want to associate your offering with something else in their world view. Make it easier to do so  (e.g., “Vitamins for your car” or a “tune-up pill”).

Trigger 17 Desire To Belong: Match the group that your prospect desires to be in with your offering. The human need to “belong” is deeply imprinted.

Trigger 19 Sense of Urgency: When someone says, “Well, let me think about it first” — you’ve most likely lost the sale (since people will forget your presentation). Instead, you need to give them an incentive to buy now. Make the urgency sincere and appropriate for what you’re selling.

Trigger 21 Simplicity: Don’t overwhelm the prospect with choices. Too many choices will lead to indecision. One or two will allow them to focus. There’s always time later to upsell more choices after you’ve made your first sale.

Trigger 23 Specificity: Use actual numbers in your copy (“242 miles of blood vessels” instead of “miles of blood vessels”). If you make a specific numerical claim, your message is more credible.

Trigger 25 Patterning: By having your prospect to agree with your statements, you create a minor form of hypnotism, which will bond them to you, increasing your trustability.

Trigger 26 Hope: Besides greed, people are always hopeful for something better. Give them a reason to keep hoping that their life can be improved.

Trigger 27 Curiosity: Leave something to the imagination in your copy. The natural curiosity will cause your prospects into action.

Trigger 28 Harmonize: Instead of trying to sell something never-before-seen, sell something familiar that people are actually buying. It’s easier to sell than to educate.

Trigger 30 Honesty: If you make mistatements, your prospects will uncover them. The more truthful you are, the more responsive your customers.

Joseph Sugarman is probably best known for his BluBlocker™ sunglasses, which he sold in print, by infomercial, on QVC, and retail. Although this book is ten years old, his key insights are still relevant today.

The book is written autobiographically, sharing the lessons he learned by doing. On the way, he developed 21 theories for TV marketing. Many of these are also appropriate for print marketing as well:

Theory 1: An infomercial is simply a three-act screenplay whose purpose is to cause your prospects to exchange their hard-earned money for your product or service. He further names the acts (“Entertainment”, “Selling”, and “Closing”) and the play (“How May I Serve You?”). This is an abbreviated form for any sales system. First, you need to get your prospect’s attention. Then you need to tell them about your offering. Finally, you need to tell them how and why to get it now.

Theory 5: If you have a number of segments to present in an infomercial, present the humorous portions early in the show. Once people are entertained, they stick around, hoping for more entertainment. By leading with a tease, you get their attention.

Theory 9: The desire to belong and identify with a group of people who own a specific product is one of the most powerful factors in why people buy. This is true for B2C (when selling directly to consumers), but is rarely true when selling to other businesses (B2B) or government (B2G).

Theory 12: When you pick the show format, you also pick the demographics of your audience. Since everything in your marketing message causes reactions, ensure your marketing strategy is aligned with your marketing actions.

Theory 17: Every time you run your direct response commercial you are conducting a test. You are testing that commercial in a specific market at a specific time during specific financial conditions and during specific news events or political conditions at a specific place in time and space. The key to marketing success is paying attention to the whole feedback cycle. Be curious about everything in your marketing. Be willing to spend the necessary time to evolve your message, and be willing to change it over time as your audience changes.

The subtitle of this book (“How to succeed in every business and social encounter”) gives a clue about how much information Tonya Reiman has amassed. She states that as much as 93 percent of our interpersonal communication is nonverbal. The book is about both how to read others’ nonverbal messages and how to control your body to achieve your goals.

Her “five immutable truths of body language” explain her passion:

1. Body language is a constant.
2. Body language is always determined by context.
3. Body language can never be judged based on one single signal.
4. Body language reveals the discrepancies between what a person says and what a person truly believes.
5. Body language mastery allows you to tune in to “microexpressions,” the brief flashes or gestures that betray inner feelings.

Until reading the book, I had considered myself good at paying attention to body language. For example, the next time you’re in a group of people who are talking, look at the direction people’s feet are pointing. If a person’s feet are pointing away from the group, they are no longer engaged.

She has chapters on the language of: the face (including reading emotion, lip gestures, nose and chin expressions, etc.), the body (hands, torso, arms), of space and touch (the four zones of space and the 14 social touches), and sound (vocal cues). Additionally, she has a wealth of information on secret signals and first impressions. Each chapter also contains what the language means (“What to watch for”) and how to use it for your personal benefit (“What you should work on”). As she describes, the information can be used to both build rapport and/or manipulate people.

The book isn’t a casual read – it’s more like a study course. Read about a gesture or two, go into a social situation, and watch for it (in context). It’s another great skill to have in your social toolkit.

At the core of all great marketing strategies is to clearly identify who your target market is and what their problem is. This book is about the strategies for solving problems.

The core idea is to identify vital behaviors. A vital behavior is a “high-leverage” specific action that has measurable outcome. The author’s favorite example is Dr. Mimi Silbert, the President and Founder of Delancey Street. Since its inception in 1971, her organization has transformed 14,000 hardened criminals into professionals who earn degrees. Dr. Silbert’s vital behaviors are:

1. Everyone must take responsibility for someone else’s success.
2. Everyone must confront everyone else about every single violation.

These behaviors took years to develop, but her results are clear: 90% success rate. Too many behaviors, and no one can remember the rules. One or two of these “tipping-point” behaviors and you get results.

The authors believe that if you want to solve any problem, find the people who are studying best practices for that field. These researchers have already identified what works (and doesn’t). If you need to uncover your own best practices, look for places where your problem should exist but doesn’t. Then, uncover the unique behavior of the group that succeeds.

For example:

Best practices for teaching:

1. Reward positive (even moderately good) performance.
2. Alternate between teaching and questioning/testing.

Best practices for weight loss:

1. Exercise on home equipment.
2. Eat breakfast.
3. Weight yourself daily.

Best practices for Guinea worm disease eradication:

1. Strain water before drinking into clean vessels.
2. If your neighbor has been infected, tell the community.
3. Keep the infected person away from contaminating the water supply.

The second part of the book focuses on the six sources of influence (think of them as behavioral cues). These influences are needed in-concert to implement the vital behaviors.

1. Personal Motivation (“Make the undesirable desirable”): Why should someone care?
2. Personal Ability (“Surpass your limits”): How do they know it works?
3. Social Motivation (“Harness peer pressure”): Why should they trust?
4. Social Ability (“Find strength in numbers”): Why should
5. Structural Motivation (“Design rewards and demand accountability”)
6. Structural Ability (“Change the environment”)

I wished the authors had more lists of specific vital behaviors listed. Their website (www.VitalSmarts.com) has some additional surveys that they conducted. But I’d love to see a wiki of vital behaviors.

My engineering mindset always has me ask, “Is this the right solution for this problem?” In marketing most people give something a “good shot” and hope for the best. Doug Hall has done what I’ve been wanting to see for years: he’s done extensive research of what works in marketing, why, and how you can apply it to your business. His passion is Meaningful Marketing (as contrasted with Mindless Marketing).

The book begins with a 13 question multiple-choice test (the author reports that typically marketing professionals get 4 out of 13 correct!). Here are some of his questions:

• The smartest way to grow sales is: a) build loyalty or b) find new customers
• Most new products or services fail because of: a) poor execution of sales and marketing, b) poor product or service performance, or c) not being a very good idea in the first place.
• When selling to a customer it is best to: a) be blunt and direct about what you offer or b) use a softer, relationship-focused approach.

While the research is based mostly on corporate marketing, many of the points apply to small business as well. The chapters cover the following topics: marketing strategy, marketing message, Mindless Marketing, selling, leadership & teamwork, and Meaningful Marketing vs. Mindless Marketing.

The format of the book is deceptively simple. The left-hand page details a specific scientific advice, and the right-side gives practical ideas to help you implement the advice. Implementing any of the advice is hard work, and that’s where consultants (such as myself) can be a huge benefit to your company.

Here are the author’s secrets to success:

1. Be bold and brave.
2. Add uniqueness to innovation-decision metrics.
3. Seeking new markets is 10 times more successful than pursuing incremental innovations.
4. A future-focus strategy is 10 times more valuable than a “voice-of-the-consumer” approach.
5. Pioneering results in double the sales volume over being fourth to market.
6. The bottom line: If you offer the “same old stuff” (S.O.S.) you are “— out of luck” (S.O.L.)

Those who cannot learn from (marketing) history are doomed to repeat it. Don’t make your business a failed statistic.

What struck me about Stuart Skorman’s book (subtitled, “Why I Can’t Stop Starting Over”) is his creative need to start new businesses and his (growing) wisdom about business. Stuart’s better-known accomplishments are launching Reel.com (sold for $100M) and Elephant Pharmacy.

Stuart’s smarts, creativity, luck, risk-taking, and finances are well-described. The book is written in a conversational style – it’s as if you’re sitting down with him (or going for a walk) and he’s mentoring you on customer service and startup business logic. He not only describes his business life, but also his personal life (and the give-and-take he learned). The best part of the book is his hard-won pearls of wisdom that end each chapter:

• Why I rarely hire MBAs (they often don’t understand the needs for creativity, struggle, and sacrifice)
• Customers can be your best teachers (by intimately knowing your customers likes and dislikes you have a better chance for success)
• Decisions should be made by the person with the best resum?© (Hire well and entrust the right person make the right choices on your behalf)
• Three rules to winning in poker and business (Be aggressive, be conservative, be opportunistic)
• Do’s and don’ts for choosing a business (base it on logic, stick with the familiar, prioritize fun, start small, do something established, know your risk tolerance, and focus on short-term goals)
• Create a second bottom line for your idealism (calculate the cost of your idealism from your profitability)
• Avoid creativity at all costs (where possible, reuse existing well-tested solutions to your problems. Creativity is expensive (but attention-getting)).
• How to make the transition from a big company to a start-up (start small, do your homework, work for a startup first, understand your motivation, and be financially prepared).