Marketing, Inc.

Trust-based Strategic Marketing that builds businesses, careers, and lives of joy on & off line.

Why Trust is the Z-axis

503 694-5849 800 533-2893 Ninja@CenturyTel.net

A Different View of Marketing

Once, just before beginning a guest lecture at a University the professor asked me:

Could you define marketing before you start your planned comments?
Jerry Fletcher, Founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc.

I was taken aback. I took the time to walk to the podium to pull myself together. I took the carefully crafted notes for my planned talk from the folder, folded them in half and then ripped them in two.

A partial list of organizations that have profited from Jerry's experience:

ABC Investing S ADC Kentrox S ASTD S Alloy Red S Automobile Service Association S American It got very quiet in that lecture hall. Marketing Association S APS S Association of Accounting Marketing S Association of Home Businesses S Association of Legal Administrators S It was quieter still as I stepped out from behind the Bank of America S The Bentley Company S Biamp lectern, turned off my computer and then leaned back S Bravo! S Bronson, Leigh, Weeks S Business on a table at the front of the room and said: Printing S The Center for Estate Planning S Computer Consultants of Oregon S Conquent S Creative Media Development S Country GrainsS To Market anything successfully Digimarc S Duckadence S ESA S Estate Profiler S Executive Finance S Executive Officers Club S you have to: Financial Planning Association S Floating Point 1. Go where the money is. Systems S Froggletog S Geffen Mesher S Graphic Media S Hamers & Okawa S Hastings & Humble S 2. Sell what they want to buy. Hillsboro Area Chamber of Commerce S Hoffman, 3. Do it again. Stewart & Schmidt S Institute of Management Consultants S International Association of Career Management Professionals S Leo Law Offices S For the next three hours I elaborated on those basic Lewis & Associates S Massage Temps NW S principles. They apply whether you are a one person McGee Financial Group S Meetings Ahoy S Metro RV Dealers S Meeting Planners Intl S Nan Scott office or a Fortune 500 company. The standard X-Y Studio S National Association of Purchasing axis scorecard of time versus money can be used to Managers S National Association of Professional measure your success. Organizers S NW Coaches Association S NW Concrete Pipe Association S Opt Up S Northwest Airlines S Oregon Business Travel Association S Perkins & Co. P.C. S Pearson Financial S Pentax S BUT There is another axis in the equation. PGE S Portland Area Business Association S Portland Business Alliance S Portland Oregon It is the Z-axis. It is the reason for unexpected results. Visitors Association S Puppo Insurance S Realtor It is why one company takes off like a rocket and Commission Advances Now S Ron FreyS Sales another goes down in flames. I had to leave the & Marketing Executives International S Rosen Brown Direct S Seaberg Company S Selling Smart corporate world and struggle to build a consultancy to Sensible Coaching S Softboard S Sprint PCS S find out how important the Z-axis is and how it works. Sumner Financial Group S Tektronix S The Alternative Board S Three Cottage Lane S UniTrek S U.S. Bank S U. S. Department of Energy S Virtual The Z-axis is Trust. Every business transaction comes Aviation S Voice Stream S Wavefront S WBH down to it. Every business needs it for repeat sales. Financial Services S Wilsonville Chamber of Every business needs it for long term success. Commerce S Wing Ventures S Young & Roehr
Copyright 2009 Z-axisMarketing, Inc. All rights reserved.

Every business.

A Core of Trust and a Passel of Ps. No Budget for Brand.

You can brand anything. All it takes is time and money. Most small and medium size businesses dont have enough of either. Start ups, unless they have a very deep pocket shouldnt even think about it. So what do you do? 1. Start by being honest with yourself. What is the vision for this company? What makes it tick? Why does it exist? Do you really have a product or service that somebody wants? What matters most is not what you know or who you know or even who you trust. What really matters is who trusts you. 2. Get the Prospect Viewpoint. Way too often folks try to start a business or make changes to one that is successful or struggling without ever talking to a real live prospect. (A prospect is someone that has a problem you can solve, the money to pay you and is willing to talk to you.) 3. Make sure you have a Profitable Niche. Are there enough of those kind of people to make it profitable for you to start or change your business? Can you keep your costs reasonable in communicating with them? How about the cost to deliver your product or service? Can you afford to keep improving your product or service until you have figured out where the money is and you can sell what they want to buy? 4. Take a Position for your product or company or service in such a way that prospects say Thats for me! Vision Prospect Feedback Perception Performance Circle of Trust Promotion Persona Position That isnt easy. A start up must do it with facts and figures, hopes and dreams. A professional practice needs proof of competence, real knowledge and at least one partner that can sell. A company that wants to take it up a notch needs market, product or service leverage plus the time and resources to make the shift. Each needs to determine what makes them unique for a particular kind of prospect. Each needs to understand the telling need their product or service solves. Each needs to know how that client or customer uses the product or service.

Profitable Prospect Viewpoint Niche

Put your soul and heart in a Persona

Peeling the Onion From the Inside Out
The Financial Planning Association asked me to speak on Practice Management. What I told them applies to every professional practice, every start-up... every business. Your brand is established by all your strategic decisions from Core to Customer. You are your business, especially if you are a solo practice and even if you are part of an ensemble. A client sees you from the outside looking in but practices aren't built that way. Your business starts with you. Your hopes. Your dreams. Your way of looking at the world. You are it. There is nothing else. You pick a name and find an office, set up shop and start looking for business. You decide the strategies you will use to approach the market BUT prospects decide what your brand is. Whether you consciously planned all those things or not you made the decisions. You are perceived a certain way whether you have one client or a hundred. Are you sure that your decisions were the right ones?

Each company must understand what triggers the use of their offering. What occasion or event or happening is behind a purchaser mindset to buy now. In many cases you will find that the reasons you developed your product/service have no connection with how it is seen and used by your customers. 5. Develop a unique trust-based Persona. Everything you do has an impact on the people that become your clients or customers. Don't overlook the basics as you go to market. Your Persona is a Core of Trust wrapped round by Product, Price and Passage encased in your Name.

Persona
Product Price Passage
(Distribution)

Core of Trust Name Logotype Stationery Business Cards Packaging Signage

You Your Practice Your Product Strategy Your Operations Strategy Your Technology Strategy Your Financial Strategy Your Staffing Strategy Your Marketing Strategy Your Brand

Initially, the Core of Trust is you. If you operate solo it will always be. With a partner or an ensemble of partners you all have to subscribe to the same central beliefs about your business. In a corporation everyone needs to feel the same way and be driven by the same values. Because you cant fool customers for long. Customers see your company from the outside in. They rely on how your decisions impact them to make judgements about you.

Every company needs a soul. It is the core value, the binding force that is your reason for being. It is what drives the organization. You need to remain true to that vision that got you started. The heart of any concern is the operational strategies. Your product may change. Your pricing can differ over time. How you get your product or service to the customer may shift. Even your name may change. The heart of how you operate must fit with the central belief, the soul of your business. There is no way to be successful without that congruity. Can you handle all those marketing decisions alone? Dont even try. Get professional help. The earlier you get help the less it will cost you. 6. Spin up Promotion. No that doesnt mean advertise. It means start building trust, trust in you, trust in your product or service and trust in the way your firm does business. You need to build enough trust that people refer family, friends and colleagues to you without reservations.

Pay Attention to Details & Read the Fortune Cookie

Until youve built a company or part of a company from the ground up you dont really understand how all this stuff fits together.
I became a CEO because I was results oriented. I learned how to run a service business. I became a turn-around specialist, moving clients from dissatisfied to happy. And I learned how to bring in business. But I didnt really get it until I opened the doors to my own shop. It is a different world when there isnt a $7 Million bank line to work with, theres no staff and you have to do it all. I was lucky. I wasnt afraid to call people and ask for advice. I wasnt too proud to write a letter to 62 members of an industry golf group to tell them what I was doing. Six responded. Two gave me advice, two provided referrals and two became clients. That was in 1990 Since then Ive learned some hard lessons. The most important one came out of a fortune cookie: A wise man knows everything A shrewd one everyone... BUT I now add: What really matters is who trusts you. Getting to trust is the first step in making your company a success. You need to start with that core vision and expand from there.

Profit From My Experience & Just Do It

You spin up promotion by understanding The Promotional Whirl the different classifications of people in the world.

Classifying Contacts
Suspects Contacts Connections Prospects Clients

It took me a while to understand that there are five kinds of folks out there: Suspects--People who meet the demographic and psychographic profiles of potential buyers. Contacts--People that you have established communications with who are potential prospects or sources of information or referrals. Connections--People with whom you build a relationship whether they become prospects or not. Prospects--People that have a need, a problem which your product or service can solve, have the money to pay you and are willing to talk to you. Clients--Those wonderful people that buy. After a while you will sort them into groups based on how serving them impacts your business. Focus your time and money on sorting out the contacts. You need to always be on the lookout for Suspects. Every chance you get you should meet with new ones. Connect with them. Your objective should be to get to know them on or off-line as quickly as possible. They could be prospects or referral sources. If a contact isnt quite ready to purchase it is not a reason to abandon them. There will come a time when they are. You need maintain the connection to be sure that you are one of the choices (If not the only one) at that time.

Trust Tools
Teaching
Familiarity Expertise

Networking

Speaking

Understanding

Writing

Internet/Social Media

Spin Tools
Sales Materials
Direct Marketing Sales Trade Shows

Promo

Advertising
Edutorial

Public Relations

Internet

Develop a Contact Management System that works for you. Use a paper or software based system or a combination of the two. I used a paper system to help raise $500,000 in 17 days for a startup technology company. One of my current clients uses a personalized version of ACT! to keep track of 1000s of investors. The secret to contact management is to do just three things: 1. Note results of your meeting/phone call or other contact and determine your next step immediately. 2. Calendar that next step. 3. When the date/time arrives, do it.

Go Pearl Diving Before Advertising

You cant get to Trust without a relationship. Wade into meetings of all kinds. Walk the neighborhood introducing yourself. Teach a class. Write an article. Speak to the Rotary and any trade group where your customers might gather. Network. Show off your expertise and establish short and long term credibility. Use the Internet to help you build trust in you and your operation. A blog can help more people know about you. It can increase your credibility by displaying your expertise for all the world to see. Your web site can help you close new customers and provide valued services to your clients and referral sources. Keep it as up close and personal as you can for as long as possible. Step up to direct marketing, trade shows and edutorial next. These paid activities allow you to establish more personal touches than the media we all think of as the promotional whirl. Once youre established you can consider broad-based media. But even then you need to keep your eye firmly fixed on the vision you set. 7. Build ongoing relationships. Your companys performance in every area is subject to public scrutiny. Keep the vision. Maintain the trust. Keep the customers youve got. 8. Understand, acknowledge and accept customer perceptions. Your reputation will be what the customer and the public decide it will be. This is your true Brand. 9. Always listen to prospects and clients. 10. Acquire and maintain a circle of trusted advisors. Listen to them.

Step-by-Step
State your Corporate Vision Get the Prospect Viewpoint Find a Profitable Niche Take a Position Develop a trust-based Persona a corporate identity that includes: Name Logotype u } Stationery | Packaging z v { Signage y Product ~ Price x Passage (distribution) w (All incorporating the Core of Trust) 6. Spin up Promotion starting with Sales Promotion then go on to: Trade Shows Edutorial Direct Marketing Sales Materials Public Relations Advertising 7. Build ongoing Relationships through positive Performance 8. Understand, acknowledge and accept customer Perceptions (like it or not this is your Brand.) 9. Incorporate Prospect Feedback 10. Maintain your Circle of Trust 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Learn How to Make Rain, Get to Trust & Succeed.

This consultant to management is an expert at business development. He has raised over $500,000 in private funding for a start up in just 17 days, increased the first quarter sales of a consulting firm by over $1.2 Million with a single suggestion, doubled sales in a world class agency in a scant nine months and introduced over 207 new products and services... successfully. Jerry is CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. It is the firm he founded in 1990 after leaving his CEO slot in a Portland, OR ad agency. In addition, he has become a sought-after professional speaker, author of three books, ten audio and four video programs. His strategic marketing approach can help you take it up a notch. Jerry has made his mark birthing new high-tech companies in garages, counseling the mighty in their board-rooms, and working with successful companies of all sizes in conference rooms and kitchens to take it up another notch. He provides Start-ups, Professional Practices and Small to Mid-sized companies a unique skill set. His knowledge of contact management systems, referral based marketing and the complexities of internet marketing blended with years as the CEO of an ad agency and PR firm plus experience as the COO of a world class Direct Marketing firm make him one of a very few experts in both on and off-line marketing. His counsel grows the trust to build businesses, careers and lives of joy

Jerry Fletcher, The Networking Ninja

Marketing is:
1. Going where the money is 2. Selling what they want to buy. 3. Doing it again. Services Offered: Defining where the money is for you. Positioning for success. Structuring Persona and Products for profit. Mastering how to turn contacts into contracts. Guaranteed Repeat Business How to do it again.

Marketing, Inc.
32475 Armitage Road Wilsonville, Oregon 97070 Ninja@CenturyTel.net Toll Free: 800/533-2893 Phone: 503/694-5849 Fax: 503/694-5177