Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Silent Marketing: Silence is golden – How to become a successful marketer

and sell more

“Speech is silver; silence is golden” is a good mantra for Silent Marketing. In this
short video, you will learn how to become a great marketer and sell more.

Want to sell more and at higher margins? Become a great interviewer. Learn to
ask insightful penetrating questions. Then listen to the answers with genuine care,
interest and rapt attention. In short become a Silent Marketer.

What do you think?

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Posted in Empathy, Listening, Marketing, Persuasion, Rapport

building, Sales, Selling, Silent Marketing, Success | 1 Comment »

Silent Marketing: Make business personal and fun

April 1, 2011

Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Silent Marketing: Make business personal and fun

One of the stupidest things I hear in business is “It’s not personal; it’s just
business.” It’s often used to excuse an impolite remark or behaviour.

If it’s business, then it is personal. I’ve never had a business relationship with a
non-person. Have you? Successful business is based on relationships between
people so it’s important to make business personal and fun.

Far too many people spend 5 out the 7 days in a week being miserable, doing jobs
that they don’t enjoy. That’s over 71% of a working life spent in misery. I think
you’ll agree that this is a terrible return on investment. If anyone offered you those
odds in a business transaction, you wouldn’t take it.

That’s why I’m never tired of repeating to my clients that they must enjoy what
they do. If you don’t enjoy what you do – if your heart is not in it – then find
something else you enjoy. Things you don’t enjoy are not worthy of your precious
time. After all you only have one life.
“Yes Funsho, this is all very interesting but what has it got to do with silent
marketing?” I hear you ask.

Well here is my point: if work isn’t fun for you, you won’t do your best. When you
truly enjoy your work, you’re not only happier, but you’re also more enthusiastic
and you perform much better.

What you do must be at the intersection of 4 critical factors: Does it fuel your
passion? Does it tap into your talents? Is there a need for it? Do you feel ethically
drawn to meet this need? This is your Personal Unique Magic Sweet Spot
(PUMSS). I will write more about this in a future blog, but for now:

Your Personal Unique Magic Sweet Spot (PUMSS) is where your passion, your
talents, a need, and your ethical desire to make a difference, are in harmony. (Click
link below for Diagram.)

Personal Unique Magic Sweet Spot

When you’re operating at this intersection, you’ll give your best performance. As
my mother used to say; “A contented hen lays the best eggs.” Humans obey the
same natural law.

Now how does this relate to silent marketing?

A contented person doing fun things at work with the goal of making a difference
in their customers’ lives will do whatever it takes to give the customers what they
need on their terms. That epitomizes effective marketing at its best – giving the
best possible value. That is silent marketing.

So make business personal and fun for all your stakeholders and your success will
be guaranteed.

What do you think?

Tags: business success, customer service, empathy, ethical

fulfilment, ethics, fun, Funsho Ajibade, market focus, market need, marketer.
listening, passion, personal unique magic sweet spot, silent marketing, sweet
spot, talent, unique magic sweet spot, unique sweet spot
Posted in Business, Communication, Creativity, Customer
Intimacy, Empathy, Ethical Fulfilment, fun, Influence, Innovation, Life of
Significance, Listening, Marketing, Passion, Persuasion, Problem
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Silent Marketing – How to Hit Your Target

February 14, 2011

Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Silent Marketing – How to Hit Your Target

Can you believe that we’re already in February? 12.33% of 2011 has already
gone! So how have you spent the first 12% of 2011? Are you on target to achieve
your marketing goals?

In fact today is February 14th – Valentine’s Day. It is the day for publicly
celebrating romantic love. But that’s another story. I always take this
opportunity to remind my clients to focus particularly on their marketing
relationships. Accomplishing your sales and profit goals require good
relationships with others – especially your prospects, customers and employees.

In February I urge my clients to re-establish their marketing relationships for

another good reason; to regain momentum. As we all know, the New Year usually
kicks off with new resolutions, high expectations and motivation but by early
February, we tend to lose momentum.

Achieving goals is not always easy. How many times have you set a goal and not
achieved it? Well, read on and hopefully this will help you hit the bullseye.

To achieve success with your sales and marketing goals, you need to answer the
following critical questions:

 Do you know what to do? – knowledge

 Do you know how to do it ? – skill
 Do you know why you want to do it? – motivation
The most important question, yet the least understood, is the last one. Why it
is important for you personally to achieve that specific goal. Until you can
answer this question, you will not be fully committed to your goal.

So, don’t forget…12.33% of the New Year has already been and gone. Isn’t it
time to re-visit your marketing, sales and profit goals?

Are they where they should be?

Tags: bullseye, business success, empathize, empathy, Funsho Ajibade, goal

achievement, goal setting, goals, great listener, listeners, marketer.
listening, marketing, New Year's Resolutions, profit
targets, questions, relationships, romantic love, sales, silent
marketing, strategy, targets, understanding, Valentine's Day, value
Posted in Business, Communication, Empathy, Important
Questions, Influence, Innovation, Listening, Market
Research, Marketing, Persuasion, Problem
Solving, Resources, Sales, Selling, Silent Marketing, Success | Leave a Comment »

Silent Marketing: Want to close more sales? Listen

more closely
December 14, 2010

Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Silent Marketing: Want to close more sales? Listen more closely

Great listening begets great service and great service begets great
profits. Listening is also an act of love. I once heard someone define listening as
“wanting to hear. You can’t deliver great service unless you really “want to
hear.” And you can’t do this without caring. So you see, listening and great
service go hand in hand.

It is impossible to offer the best value and deliver great service without listening
very attentively, actively and with care. And guess what? You can’t be a great
marketer without listening very attentively and actively. So when someone is
speaking to you, are you always disciplined to want to hear? Are you in love with
your customers? Well, you ought to be.

Silent marketing is about wanting to listen because you want to hear because you
want to know because you want to help because you care because you love your
customers.
The most difficult task in selling and the number one key to success is to get inside
the head and heart of your customer. And you certainly don’t do that by
talking. You can only understand your buyers’ situations, needs and wants by
listening. Then you can address their concerns appropriately. What do they value
most that only your company can give them?

Want to close more sales? Listen more closely. Listening is by far the most
important aspect of marketing and the selling process. It is also, sadly, the weakest
skill for many sales people. Want to learn to listen? Shut up. Start by asking
important questions and just listening to your prospect’s answers. Develop an
aversion for hearing your own voice. Start telling yourself, “Here I go again!”
whenever you find yourself talking more than you listen.

What do you think? Share your view and comments with the world.

Posted in Business, Communication, Customer Intimacy, Empathy, Important

Questions, Influence, Life of
Significance, Listening, Marketing, Persuasion, Problem
Solving, Sales, Selling, Silent Marketing, Success | Leave a Comment »

Silent Marketing: “Empathy” – How to prosper beyond

your expectations by walking in your customers’ shoes
December 10, 2010

Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Silent Marketing: “Empathy” – How to prosper beyond your expectations by

walking in your customers’ shoes

The more you and your organization can understand and empathize with your
customers’ key motivators, the more likely it is that you will have sustainable
success. Do you know what motivates your customers to buy? What is the
empathy level in your business? Do you and your organization really get your
customers? If I ask the key players in your market today, would their answer be
that you just don’t get them?

Empathy is the ability to step outside of yourself and see the world as other people
do. It is one of the most under-appreciated abilities in business. Empathy helps to
make good marketers into great silent marketers. Silent marketers see new
opportunities faster than their competitors. You must put aside your own issues
and put yourself in the other person’s shoes. This ability is a key ingredient to
eventual market success because it allows you to develop products or services
people really want.

When you use silent marketing to understand your customers’ needs as real human
beings better, and create high-profit innovations in both current and new markets,
the sky is the limit for you. When you learn to truly walk in your customers’ shoes
and see the world with new eyes, you leverage empathy for growth in an
unstoppable way. Ultimately it leads to better products, better profits, and happier
customers, employees and owners.

So stop worrying about your own problems and start caring about the world around
you – your customers’ world. In addition to its big economic benefits, silent
marketing with its increased empathy for your customers can have a personal
impact, as well. You have a better day at work. You and your employees will
look forward to going into work every day. Has your organization got a strong
sense of empathy? If so please let me know.

What do you think? Share your view and comments with the world.

Tags: business success, customer service, empathize, empathy, Funsho

Ajibade, great listener, interruption marketing, listeners, market focus, marketer.
listening, silent marketing, strategy, understanding, value
Posted in Business, Communication, Creativity, Customer Care, Customer
Intimacy, Customer Service, Empathy, Important
Questions, Influence, Innovation, Listening, Market
Research, Marketing, Mastery, Persuasion, Problem
Solving, Resources, Sales, Selling, Silent Marketing, Success, Wealth
Creation | Leave a Comment »

Silent Marketing: How to use empathy to become the

darling of your market
December 8, 2010

Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Silent Marketing: How to use empathy to become the darling of your market

You want to win your prospects’ trust and business? Show them that you
empathize with their circumstance and understand their “pain” better than anyone
else. Then let the quality and value of your product or service prove that you care
deeply about your market’s frustrations.

Empathy is the cornerstone of any effective marketing or business strategy. It is

about caring and turning your focus externally. With empathy, you see your
company or business from the customers’ perspective. You think like your ideal
customers and then do everything you can to become the supplier they would be
thrilled to buy from. Put simply, you have to fall in love with your customer.

Are you in love? If not now, have you ever fallen in love? Think about what it is
like when you’re in love. The object of your affection becomes the centre of your
universe. Everything else fades into insignificance. You live, breathe, and dream
for that one special someone.

Your relationship with your customer must be like that. Your job is to help them
engineer a better outcome from each transaction with you. You must make a
conscious decision to make their lives better off as a result of your
relationship. You can do this by demonstrating how much more than anyone else
you understand, respect, and empathize with their circumstance. Show that you
feel what they feel. Then let them see that you’d do anything and go anywhere for
them.

You have to care more about your customer than you do about your
business. Crazy? I don’t think so. It’s common sense – think about it. I’ve
noticed that most customers who come to me because of their mediocre sales and
profit levels start to prosper the moment they turn their focus externally. Stop
asking: “How can we cut costs? How can we survive? How can we do
better? How can we sell more?” Start asking: “How can we add more value for
our customers?”

To be empathetic:

1. You must love your customers.

2. You must care.

3. You must ask penetrating and insightful questions.

4. You must listen to their answers with your whole body – with care and
attention.

5. You must have a desire to learn.

6. You must want to help and make your customers’ lives better.

So instead of focusing internally, focus externally. Put yourself in your customers’

shoes. Let your product or service speak volumes of your empathy. That’s how
you gain their trust and become the darling of your market. And that, my friend, is
how you become their preferred supplier and the envy of your competitors. What
do you think? Share your view and comments with the world.
Tags: business success, customer service, empathy, Funsho Ajibade, great
listener, interruption marketing, listeners, market focus, marketer.
listening, marketing, silence is golden, silent marketers, silent
marketing, strategy, understanding, value
Posted in Business, Communication, Creativity, Customer Care, Customer
Intimacy, Customer Service, Important
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em Solving, Sales, Selling, Silent Marketing, Success, Wealth Creation | Leave a
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Silent Marketing: Your hiring drives your profits

December 6, 2010

Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Want huge profits? Hire the best people. If you’re making huge profits, thank
your employees for the way they serve your customers. If you’re only making
mediocre profits or losing money, pay attention to your hiring policy. You won’t
grow and make increasing profits without your employees. They’re a critical and
an indispensable part of your potent most silent marketing strategy.

Your hiring policy is one of your potent silent marketing tools. You can teach
almost anybody to do anything, but you can’t teach them personality. You
must find people who genuinely like working with other people and are going to
go the extra mile to make sure your customers are happy. These people will do
this, not because you tell them to, but because they want to. It’s just the way
they’re wired. This is why it is very important to invest whatever it takes to hire the
best people for your organization. Is he/she predisposed to helping people solve
their problems?

So if you want high profits, find and hire great people. What do you think? Share
your view and comments with the world.

Tags: business success, customer service, Funsho Ajibade, great listener, market
focus
Posted
in Business, Influence, Marketing, Persuasion, Sales, Selling, Uncategorized | Leav
e a Comment »

Silent Marketing: How to discover rich reward areas of

your market
December 1, 2010
Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Silent Marketing: How to discover rich reward areas of your market

Business success depends on your ability to discover “under-recognized” or

changing needs and fulfilling them with creativity, wisdom, empathy, and
understanding that no one else can demonstrate. You’ll occupy an enviable
position in your market if you can discover and solve problems people (prospects,
customers and competitors) may not even be able to articulate clearly.

Discover and solve the biggest, most important and impactful problems in your
marketplace and your reward will be limitless. How do you do this? A good
starting point to get clarity about what problems your marketplace is facing and
trying to solve is with your prospects and customers. Ask them questions that will
uncover the most important opportunities they need and want to exploit and
problems they need and want to solve. Then listen to them attentively with your
whole body, hanging on their every word.

To become a master at exploiting the opportunities and solving the problems,

interpret and internalize the answers provided by your prospects and
customers. Then use your organisation’s full arsenal of creativity, innovation and
resources to deliver the best solutions. Do this and rich rewards await you.

Can you identify an overlooked sector of your market that you can serve
profitably, better than anyone else? Can you identify an aspect of your
marketplace offerings where customers are being forced to compromise, to which
you can add unparalleled value? These are examples of rich reward and huge
wealth creation areas.

What do you think? Share your view and questions with the world.

Tags: clarity, competitors, customer service, empathize, Funsho Ajibade, great

listener, market
focus, master, mastery, prospects, questions, resources, rewards, rich, silent
marketing, solutions, understanding, value, wealth creation, wisdom
Posted in Creativity, Forced Compromises, Important
Questions, Innovation, Mastery, Problem Solving, Resources, Wealth
Creation | Leave a Comment »

Silent Marketing: How to get people to love buying

from you
December 1, 2010

Silent Marketing: How to get people to love buying from you

Want to grow your sales and profit? Listen!

Marketing, done right, is ridiculously simple – not necessarily easy. In its purest
and most effective form, it’s just about figuring out what people want and giving it
to them when and how they want it. Nobody does this better than silent marketers.

Is it possible for you to arrive at the right problem definition or provide the best
solution without significant input from your customer? I don’t think so.

You must satisfy and make your customers happy or very soon you would have no
business. Instead of focusing on making a profit, you must focus on creating value
that matters to your customers. What do they value? What are their needs, wants
and aspirations? What will make them richer, happier and their lives
easier? Identify these carefully and provide the best solutions for each and they
will love you. They will open their wallets and willingly spend their hard-earned
money with you. Moreover, they will bring their friends, family members and
colleagues to buy from you.

Don’t guess what you think would satisfy your customer. Experience shows that
these are usually way off the mark as they tend to be based on your wrong
assumptions. Don’t try to guess the answers, as tempting as it might be. Keep it
simple and do the simplest and most obvious thing – ask them. Then listen
attentively to everything they say and respond appropriately to your newly gained
marketplace insights.

How can you get close to and know your customers intimately? Listen to them
talk about themselves – their dreams, fear, opportunities, problems, etc. Instead of
telling them how wonderful you are, listen to them. They will, in effect, tell you
how you can help them buy effortlessly from you. Your own subsequent
communication, in response, would be right on target as a result. This is efficient
and effective. This is how you achieve excellence in marketing. Dare to be
different. Embrace and practice silent marketing.

As I said at the beginning, marketing is about figuring out what people want and
giving it to them when and how they want it. Silent marketers do this better than
anybody else. Be a silent marketer. What do you think? Share your comments or
questions with the world now.

Tags: buying, competitors, customer intimacy, customer

service, empathize, empathy, Funsho Ajibade, great listener, happy
customers, interruption marketing, interviewers, listeners, market focus, marketer.
listening, questions, silent marketer, silent marketing, understanding
Posted in Business, Communication, Customer Care, Customer
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Silent Marketing is the Wave of the Future

August 18, 2010

Introduction

You can change the world by thinking of others before you think of yourself.

I’m sure you’re familiar with traditional sales and marketing. They’re based on the
premise of the ‘gift of the gab,’ coercion, interruption, shouting, and
broadcasting. There’s lack of trust. This is, in my opinion, passé. Silent
marketing (listening) is the wave of the future.

How did we get to the mistrust?

In the business world, sales and marketing is justifiably perceived by many as

sleazy. As a result, by the time a prospect gets to your website or starts to interact
with you they’re already very weary and sceptical. Well, can you blame
them? It’s no wonder that prospects believe no one. They’ve experienced being
conned, yelled at, interrupted, bullied, tricked, deceived, manipulated, and sold
many times. And they’re tired.

What is (and why) Silent Marketing?

Silence is golden. Saying nothing is preferable when you’re trying to know and
understand your prospects and customers. Silent marketing is the perfect
answer. It focuses centrally on the interest of the customer. And it is not as dumb
as it might first appear, even though it is counterintuitive. It obeys perfectly our
capitalist market economy’s fundamental law. You will only get what you want if
you help others get what they want. Your first task is to ask great questions and
listen silently to your target market (prospects or customers) to find out what they
want. And then offer it to them, on their terms.

Listening is very important. When you listen, you understand. When you
understand, you can empathize. And when you empathize, you’ll discover the real
meaning of service. Silent marketing demands empathy. It is not about sleaze,
blowing your own trumpet, or the gift of the gab. It is about listening attentively
with care, understanding what the market needs and wants and giving it to them.

This is why Silent Marketers are great interviewers and listeners. You cannot be a
great marketer unless you’re a great listener. And you cannot be a great listener
until you learn to be silent. Learn to listen – really listen. And when you’re
listening, you’re silent. People love that. It shows that you care and respect them.
Well, don’t you?

My mother used to tell me from an early age, “Silence has the loudest voice. You
scream loudest when you’re silent. You must be silent to touch souls.” Sometimes
saying nothing says the most, and you learn at the same time. You don’t learn new
things while you’re talking.

The Insanity of “Shouting” Marketing

One form of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting a different result. I saw
a brilliant bumper sticker recently in America, which says “Honk if you hate noise
pollution.” I love the sticker because it sums up the lunacy going on in marketing
and advertising today. Marketers and advertisers know that we’re all fed up with
the marketing noise everywhere and want to avoid it. Rather than find a solution
to remove the noise altogether, many marketers are looking for ways to “out-
shout” their competitors. They want to shout the loudest. It is madness. You will
always find someone who can shout louder. The smart strategy is to do something
totally different. Why not do the opposite of what annoys people – i.e. shut up and
listen? I’ve only ever met one person who likes advertising and he’s an advertising
agent. Silent marketing brings sanity to business.

Let us (marketers) be silent so that we can hear the whispers of the market. It is
difficult to find your ideal customers amidst the current marketing
noise. Customers (that’s human beings, in case we’ve forgotten) prefer silence. I
love this quote from Ausonius, “He who does not know how to be silent will not
know how to speak.”

Here’s my take on it: Your speech will be right on target after you’ve carefully
listened attentively to everything the person has to say. If you’ve listened well,
you’ll know exactly where the person is coming from and what they really want.

Selfishness versus Market focus

Traditional marketing comes across as selfishness. Silent marketing is market

focused and puts the interests of the prospects and customers centre stage. Talking
is about meeting your needs – selfishness; listening is about meeting theirs –
market focus.

People (that’s you and me) hate being sold but they love to buy. If the heart buys,
the head will follow. But you can only engage the heart through empathy and
emotional bond. Silent marketing is your fastest route to developing strong
empathy and emotional bond with your market.

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