To follow up on my last post in a slightly oblique way, here’s an idea put forth by Seth Godin: 95% of the new ideas that don’t spread, even though their founders and fans believe they should is because they don’t market based on what human beings want.

He proposes that people want:

• totems and icons (status)
• meters (measurement)
• fashion (glamour)
• stories
• pictures

Let’s correlate this to the reasons people buy.

How can you use that in your marketing?

I was corresponding with one of my virtual mentors recently, bemoaning the fact that by business has not progressed the way I expected it to this year.

I wanted to know the key to experiencing more success in my online business.

…

The key.

Whenever I think about finding the key to a given situation I remember the years I used to drive into rural New York to take my sister to college. I started out with two or three maps and figured I was covered. No way I’d get lost.

But the first four times I went down there, I got lost. Missed the turn somewhere.

I knew I needed to take exit 54, even knew when it was to come up, but for the life of me I never saw the exit sign. And before I knew it I was heading east - away from my destination.

There was a key to why I was missing the right exit but for the life of me I didn’t know what it was.

Until the day I was chatting with someone from her school and explained that I kept missing exit 54 and couldn’t figure out why.

Then she told me - don’t look for exit 54 (on the side), look for Highway 400 (on the overhead sign).

Well, duh. The lightbulb went off! It was as simple as that. I never missed the turn again.

…

My mentor’s reply to my question was instant, direct and simple.

“Find people who badly want what you already have and give it to them.”

And that, my friend is the key to growing our businesses with the resources we already have.

Some of what you have you’ll need to give away - so that people can see a bit of what you can offer.

Once they see that you have the goods, then you can sell more of what you have - providing a valuable service / product and building your business at the same time.

So - what do you have in your hand or at your disposal that you can offer? Your skills, your connections, your ideas, your money?

Find the people who want what you have… and give it to them.

That is the key.

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