Sunday, April 26, 2009

Preempting Your Market, A Fundamental Marketing Strategy


How To Position Your Business For Exceptional Growth

By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. -Mark Victor Hansen


There is one basic element of marketing that if understood can propel any business to unbelievable success. This strategy acquired from one of my adopted mentors, Jay Abraham, he is one of the main primary reasons I’m still in marketing.

If you are unaware of Jay Abraham’s reputation he is universally accepted as one of the marketing geniuses of modern time. A quick google search should provide you with a complete background of his accomplishments. There are literally hundreds of web pages dedicated to him.

Let me confess that although I say he is my mentor, I really don’t know the man personally. I have been to one of his seminars, met him and own several boxes of his books, CDs and DVDs packed with marketing genius. One day, a few years ago, I realized that I had adopted his marketing style. But he is only one of the people I have chosen as a mentor. Although Mr. Abraham’s teaching was my primary influence I blended his concepts with other marketing experts like Jay Conrad Levinson, Dan Kennedy and John Calton.

One fundamental marketing philosophy of Mr. Abraham’s teachings resonated with me to such an extent that I now own it. It is a philosophy that incorporates ethical and spiritually enlightened concepts that recognizes the importance of everyone, the entrepreneurs, prospects and the market in general. In my opinion, as this marketing concept grew in the collective consciousness of mankind another marketer, Joe Vitale introduced a similar idea he called “spiritual marketing” . We are not going to delve into Mr. Vitale's philosophy today because that is a topic for another article. Today we want you to expound on the Jay Abraham philosophy. He called it...

The Strategy of Preeminence

This strategy is essentially a philosophical perspective that everyone in business should consider adopting. Mr. Abraham has made literally billions of dollars using it. For myself I cannot make such a bold claim but the value inherent in such an enlightened point of view cannot be measured with dollars. Personally, the satisfaction of starting from such a perspective ensures a foundation of self righteousness. It is a good feeling to know that any products and services offered can really benefit the recipient. It is the same feeling you have when someone accuses you of lying and you know what you are saying is the truth or what you believe to be the truth. But what exactly is the strategy of preeminence?

In a phrase it’s ”put your client's needs ahead of your own”. That is, in your business dealings, you do whatever is in the "best interests" of every individual prospect you encounter. You must believe that their lives is somehow enhanced, by saving them time, money or even just the convenience. It is an appreciation of the potential leverage that each transaction creates because each can be engineered to produce much more than just one purchase transaction. Effective marketing is philosophically positioning yourself and your business model to leverage this opportunity.

The strategy of preeminence is really initiated by your perception of the person with whom you are doing business. Do you see your prospects as an ignorant losers who you can easily be taken advantage of because they know very little of your business? Or, do you take the higher more enlightened perspective that everyone is in various stages of evolution and treat each prospect with the respect and integrity deserving of each human being? Fact is are they spending a dollar or ten thousand dollars? How long will you have to interact with them?

As an example of this, do you know why lawyers always consider their prospects clients and not customers? Or why most retail establishments prospects are customers and not clients? According to Mr. Abraham; it’s that professionals are charged with a duty to take long term care of all their “client’s” needs. In the case of a lawyer, their clients are under the long term continued care and protection of the lawyer and as such cannot be considered a customer. Take a look at the meaning of clients and customers in the dictionary they belong to two distinct categories.

On the other hand, most retail establishments operate from a perception that all transactions are isolated singular events. Although most know that to be untrue, retailers business model are usually not designed to leverage each transaction.

For example, someone is looking to purchase a music CD. What are they purchasing? They are not just looking to purchase a CD they are actually making a statement about the particular genre of music and that they are potentially a fan of the artist. If a singer or artist assume that they are selling CDs, they will always be relegated to be a peddler in the market place. This is not an enlightened strategic marketing position. The buyer may just hate the process of purchasing a CD.

They are really purchasing the many hours that they will spend listening and feeling however they feel when they listen to your music. They may not particularly like you or the packaging you think is so attractive on your CD. They are trying to enhance their experience, if your CD does it for them they will buy more. Unfortunately, if not they are not satisfied you can be guaranteed to use BAD word of mouth advertising. And that is the reason why the strategy of preeminence is so effective. So how do you preempt clients to sell your CDs?

You must put their best interests ahead of your own.

As a musician/singer, you can establish the strategy of preeminence by changing your mindset and thinking in the following ways:

You are not just selling music, you are selling quality listening/relaxing tool.
You must feel like they do when they listen to your music.
You must listen from your prospects perspective
You must have a unique appeal to and target a specific (client) taste in music.
Your business model and philosophical position must have been initiated by an in depth appreciation of your prospects needs.

As you can see, this strategy starts with you and your product or service. It maintains that your product or service must satisfy a client need in such a way that it’s not just the profit that you get from the transaction but from the fact that without your product the client is left wanting. You can differentiate yourself not only by the striking CD cover but you may want to take the next step of providing written lyrics so that your “clients” could follow along. Or, you could use the end of your CD to provide a short bio of yourself, provide information/ samples of other works. These are guerilla marketing strategies most other artists musician will not think about. You must differentiate.

An important aspect of this strategy is personal ethical standards. This is not for the individual out to make a quick dollar with very little conscious thought of the well being of others. It can only be adopted by people who know that they offer a superior product or service that will meet a specific need. As a business person or marketer using this strategy, you must sincerely believe that if the client does business with anyone else you will not be serving their “best interest”. At the same time, it means that if you realize that your product or service does not meet the needs of the prospect, you will be the first one to point it out to him/her. You may even go so far as to recommend a competitor.

Does that sound crazy? It’s not. It’s a unique perspective for sure but it is in line with what we have learned as children and what all the Good Books teaches. There is nothing as fundamental as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. It is a strategy that should be adopted by any business. In fact, it has been proven to be very effective for Mr. Abraham in earning billions from his marketing genius.

I know that I will never do justice to Mr. Abraham’s entire philosophy so I’m providing a link here so that you can get it straight from the horses mouth his original thoughts on the strategy of preeminence. Go Here to YouTube and view a Jay Abraham Video

As always be well and thank you for reading. DON'T FORGET TO DANCE


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