How To Sell Your Knowledge For Profit [3]

I’m about to pull the curtains apart and reveal the men and women whose mastery of marketing helped me to overcome the challenges of cash flow problems in my own business.

But before doing that, I’d like to make a few things clear. When I first started to study marketing,
made the mistake of buying any book that has the word ‘marketing’ written anywhere on its
cover jacket.

Why was this a mistake? Because, as later found out, not all marketing is marketing.

Now, that is not exactly how I mean to put it. So let me explain. You see, marketing, like so many other things in life, has more than one side to it.

There is, for example, marketing as taught at lvy League colleges and universities, say Lagos Business School in Nigeria. The marketing taught at these institutions, even though great, are too complex for a harried business owner like me who wants a quick solution to my pressing cash flow problem.

I mean, it’s either I get that solution quickly right now or my business is going to be history. Do you get the point?

Great! So all that Havard Business Review kind of stuff will greatly slow me down.

Now don’t get me wrong. The professors who write the stuff published in the Havard Business Review do their level best to make you understand and enjoy their books. I’ve benefited immensely from their work.

There are not a few brilliant marketing ideas that I’ve gleaned from books published by the Havard Business School Press that I found to be absolute life savers. [While we are at it, why don’t you surf to their website at www.hbspress.org and take a look at what they have?]

To give you an idea of how enormously indebted I’m to the great marketing minds in the lvy League community, one of their own, Michael E. Porter, authored the book that saved my skin from competitors. The title of the book is Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.

Together with its Companion title, Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, also authored by Michael Porter, I was able to fend off competitors in our publishing business at a time when we looked so frail and vulnerable.

Thank you, Mr. Porter!

Notwithstanding, there is, however, a simpler way to explain marketing. When discovered this approach, I totally fell in love with it. It was pure, unadulterated marketing brought to the layman’s level. I love it! And, trust me, you’ll love it, too.

Let me start my introduction of these marketing geniuses [my own opinion, mind you!], from Mark Joyner. Ever heard that name before?

Never mind. From now on, both of you will be inseparable.

Let Mark take you into his marketing world with his The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less and then follow it with The Great Formula: for Creating Maximum Profit with Minimal Effort.

With those two books for a start, you will have an idea of what l’m talking about. Next on my list is Jay Conrad Levinson. Do you remember that name? He’s the one who wrote the book, 555 Ways To Earn Extra Money, in which I discovered Entrepreneur Magazine which in turn opened my eyes to the wonderful world of marketing and what had been missing by not having the faintest idea about what it was.

Any of Jay Conrad Levinson’s book is a winner any day. But get hold of these ones when next you’re at a bookshop where good books are sold: Guerilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business and Guerrilla Marketing Weapons: 100 Affordable Marketing Methods.

While you are at that bookshop where good books are sold, grab any copy of Philip Kotler’s books that you see, especially the one titled, Kotler on Marketing: How to Create, Win, and Dominate Markets.

Now let’s move on to two men whose books always turn me on. I’m talking about Al Ries and Jack Trout. Their all-time best seller, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, is now a classic. You absolutely must have a copy of this book and read it. Great stuff!

Two other must-have titles by these co-authors are 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! and Marketing Warfare. Al Ries and Jack Trout’s contribution to my marketing knowledge is unquantifiable. But what can I say of Jay Abraham? Jay is considered to be one of the greatest marketing minds alive. But be warned: Jay is not cheap!

Jay has a reputation for charging his clients $5000 per hour as consultation fees. And he’s known to have charged $25,000 per person for a three-day seminar. Jay has written only two books. The first one is titled: Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got: 1 Way You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition while the second one, which he released earlier this year, is titled, The Sticking Point Solution: 9 Ways to Move Your Business from Stagnation to Stunning Growth In Tough Economic Times.

It doesn’t matter which of the two books you lay your hands on, you’ll get full value for your money. But I’ll recommend that you go for the two titles. And then go online and shop for Jay’s audio programs. They are powerful stuff.

Okay, this is where we shall stop in this edition. Join me next week as I introduce you to more master marketers whose insights are sure to make a difference in your life in 2010.