This guy has the answer to every challenge that you might face in running a business.
Mike Michalowicz is the author of various business and marketing books such as The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, The Pumpkin Plan, Fix This Next, Profit First, and a lot more.
On the latest episode of The Garlic Marketing Show, Mike took the time to share a wide range of tips and hacks that he discovered through his years of experience in running and marketing businesses.
All of which, by the way, he puts into practice and are proven effective.
As you read onward, you will:
- Understand the importance of Storytelling
- Discover an Interesting Marketing Hack That You Could Use For Conferences
- Learn the Best Way to Fix Your Business
- Find Out How You Could Make Your Employees Work Like You
I personally am excited to share with you Michael Michalowicz’s golden nuggets.
So keep reading, because I guarantee this is worth your time.
“NEVER TELL A STORY WITHOUT A MESSAGE,
AND NEVER GIVE A MESSAGE WITHOUT A STORY”
One way to be MEMORABLE is to tell a story.
Everyone forgets the features of a product, but never the story behind one.
The science behind this is simple.
Humans are hard-wired to tell and remember stories.
This is what kept us thriving as a species and now it is one of the most useful marketing methods to date.
“I always start off with a concept. I have to find stories that really make it so vivid and relatable that we feel the experience. I think hearing a third-party story is interesting, like watching a movie or something, but I think it’s even more relatable when we say, “Oh, that’s a reflection of me.” So I try always to make my stories so that, when a person is reading it or listening to it, they can see themselves living in that story.”
Stories build relatability with the audience. It helps them put themselves in the position of the main character by building experiences that they can resonate with.
WIFI CAN NOW BE A DIRECT MARKETING TOOL FOR YOUR BUSINESS
I need to be honest.
Mike is a man of strange methods when it comes to marketing.
He wouldn’t be afraid to test the most unorthodox methods just to see if his thoughts about it are correct.
For instance, while we talked, he explained how allowing people to access his WIFI got him to close more sales for his book.
“I’m bringing a wireless hotspot. When the wireless hotspot name says “BUY PROFIT FIRST, cause it’s on Amazon, that’s literally the hotspot name because what we noticed and we’ve been testing is when you go to a conference, everyone hops on their phone when they arrive in the morning or trying to hop on the wifi, which is the hotel’s wifi.
So what I do is I just bring my bag, I plop it down and say, ‘Hey, can I leave this for a day? I’m a speaker.’ They say, yes. There’s an activated wireless access point along with a battery to keep it charged. And we’ve done this before. I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘You wouldn’t believe this, this event is marketing your book.’”
It’s crazy how this works.
I wouldn’t have thought of this. But now, I might have to give this a try really soon.
WHY PEOPLE END UP BREAKING THEIR BUSINESS WHEN TRYING TO FIX IT
I believe all business owners want to successfully grow their business– that’s a no-brainer.
But sometimes, in the process of growing and fixing things in their business, that is when their business starts to crumble.
The sad part is a lot of these people do not know where they went wrong.
Apparently, according to Mike, this is where they failed:
“The mistake Ian, I would say: let’s just fix everything. Let’s make everything stronger. Or the one link which is marketing: Let’s just keep on ramping that up. That will make it stronger. It never does because the chain will continue to snap wherever the weakest link is. So the one way to strengthen the entire chain is not to fix all the links or focus on one first.
Identify what the weakest link is and the entire chain’s rigidity is improved. Now the next weakest link will present itself. You fix that one and everything improves. So it’s a little bit like that whack-a-mole game. You guys see what problems present itself most, identify, hit that one down, and a new one will present itself.
That’s the process.”
It’s tempting to fix everything all at once.
But you can only focus on a few things at once.
So in conclusion, focus on the weak links that present themselves. And once you get that down, another one will follow.
“WHY DO MY EMPLOYEES SUCK?”
Every day, Mike receives tons of emails from his readers.
Some of these emails mention questions that inspire him to write his next books.
“And the common phraseology was, ‘I wish employees would act like owners.’ I’m like, okay, well that’s a good title, ‘Employees Act Like Owners.’”
Through this question, he was inspired to write his next book that focused on hiring and keeping employees that perform just like how the Founder or CEO would.
But what are the few key points that he made to make employees PERFORM?
“What I found is there’s this concept called psychological ownership. The initial studies started back in the seventies, but it’s really never been deployed. And the best analogy I could use is when we feel we own something, the way we treat it holistically amplifies.”
Let’s take renting out a car and owning one as an example.
It’s a lot easier to mistreat and abuse a car that we don’t naturally own.
But when owning a car, a person would normally go the extra mile to keep the car in its best condition.
This is because it is in human nature to be deviant.
And when we are told to do something, we tend to defy it.
But when it is us creating the conditions to keep the integrity of an object or in this case, a company, we tend to follow it better.
Did you pick up a lot of value from this episode?
Watch the full episode now, and make sure to leave any questions or comments you have about the episode.
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