Here’s an experiment for you.
Anyone can find differences in similar universes. Racism is all about that. She’s a human, but the skin color is different therefore the whole person is different. Nonsense. An intelligent person can see similarities in different universes. Tell me the similarities between a cat and a refrigerator. You’ll think of one or two but with some thought you’ll think of a score or more. It’s easier to find how things are different.
In the spirit of this principle, I’m going to tell you of my latest adventures and let you pull the similarities and lessons from this real-life situation and let you apply it to your circumstances. At the very least you might conclude that the guy teaching you marketing actually does what he preaches.
Before I published this blog, I asked my editor to look over this blog entry to see if I was making sense to singers (she's a talented musician). Here is her response:
“From the point of view of a singer that has read your book, your example has all sorts of applications to singers. However, I'm not sure if a singer who is not familiar with your book would see the natural connections. (Your book provides all sorts of non-singer examples, thus the reader becomes accustomed to gleaning singer-specific applications).”
That’s good enough for me. Thanks, Lisa.
No theory here, but execution based upon sound principles.
Principle-based marketing works. I’m not equating principle and morality, although both are good. By principles I mean general standards.
Everyone who deals with other human beings knows that if you treat people a certain way, they’ll usually react immediately in a predicted way. Smile at someone and they’ll immediately smile back. Yes, some people take a bit longer to smile back, but keep up the smile and sunny disposition and even Oscar the Grouch will crack.
So let me tell you my story the past few months and let you figure out the principles.
About three months ago our company faced two problems:
1) Our Universal Transmission (a vehicle transmission without a clutch or torque converter that is constantly engaged while shifting with metal gears between infinite ratios for a 30% or better fuel economy) was having major work done on it to finish our final design and a metal proof model by the end of August. We hired seven excellent and rather brilliant mechanical engineers which cost us a great deal. But we had to have them because major car and transmission makers had seen our preliminary designs and wanted some metal embodiments. Yet, where would we get the money to pay for all of this stuff we had to have done?
(A photo of our invention that will make all automatic, manual and CVT transmissions obsolete. Kind of ambitious.)
2) We had to raise more money by selling some of our units (shares) in our LLC, yet we had no metal model for investors to see and we didn’t have a contract from any of the 12 or more companies to whom we had already shown the Computer Aided Design models (CAD models). They loved the concept but needed more proof.
My job in the partnership is to do the marketing, PR and fund raising or professional business development.
My team went to work by doing the following:
1. We found a process that allows you to create a double image (like a hologram) on a single piece of material. The first image was a $100 bill with Franklin. Beneath that image was a picture of our transmission. When you tilted the bill just so, the transmission would show where Franklin’s picture had been. Our company slogan, “Race car performance with Hybrid efficiency” showed through as well. On the back of this bill-size paper were our key benefits and our contact information. We knew we were on to something when we showed it to our engineers and they loved fooling around with it.
2. We identified the trade shows where the leaders of the industry would likely be, and made arrangements to be there with them. I sent our most personable salesman and he managed to secure appointments with the heads of Ford, Chrysler, Magna, ZF and other huge companies. He had no qualms about sidling up to the grandest poobah and giving him our elevator pitch (that’s a summary of your product that will get someone’s attention in the time it takes for the elevator door to close, go up a floor and the door to open – if it’s good they’ll stay on the elevator and ask you more – sounds a bit like dating, and it is). He had worn a nice dress shirt and tie and had the $100 bills sticking out of his chest pocket. He asked them (VP of Ford, etal) if they’d like one of our $100 bills. All said yes and when they saw the dual images they’d laugh and say, “If your transmission is as clever as your marketing, it must be something.”
(My guy Mike Agrelius after he gave the Exec. VP of Ford our $100 bill.)
3. In the meantime, we asked all of the companies who had met with us to send us a Letter of Intent to do business with us. Keep in mind, this letter buys you nothing of hard goods; but because it simply says, on their letterhead, that they are intrigued by our product and would like to explore doing business with us, it buys us a huge amount of credibility. How do I know this? Read on …
4. We invited a professional business evaluator that I knew to come in and examine our books, our drawings, reviews and business plan, and to help establish our pre-sale business value. I showed him our detailed financial spread sheets. We’d created an interactive spreadsheet that was 155 pages long giving great deals on our estimations and projections. And, I showed him all of the Letters of Intent, comments from the 12 companies (including Hyundai and Kia and GM Daewoo) and our future marketing plans. His conclusion was that our business plan (which showed a 3rd-year profit of $288 million) was conservative, had logical assumptions, and the value of $106 million was grossly understated.
(Here's a photo of me meeting with a team of marketers to solve the problems. That's what marketers do -- solve problems so they can get what they want!)
5. We took the pictures we’d taken with the original 12 companies with whom we’d already shown our transmission CADs, added the Letters of Intent with real signatures and the latest drawings and animations of our transmission working, and put them into a Power Point presentation that told our story, showed why we wiped out the competition and made all other transmissions obsolete, and included the Letter of Valuation. This Power Point concluded by showing our assumptions, plans and conclusions for what an investor might expect to get as a return.
6. We then checked with our existing supporters, friends, family, employees and investors and asked them if they knew anyone who might be a good candidate as an investor. When someone said they did – and they were anxious to help an enterprise they believed in and supported – we asked that person to email or call their friend and tell them about us. They did and called us with the results. We then called and set up appointments for them to come in and see the CAD work being done and to meet us. We gave them the full demonstration and taught them what we were about.
7. We didn’t pester people or try sales tactics so commonly used to trick, bug or trap people into buying. In fact, we were very up front about the risks of our company, about how the technology might not work or no one might ever buy it. One investor laughed as he told another potential investor, “See, I told you that they’d try to talk you out of it.” As we finished the presentation I always said, “Decide if you feel comfortable in investing, and the amount you could lose without losing sleep, and then let us know. We won’t call you.”
By the end of July and during August we raised most of the money we needed (in total that is now in the millions), and had solid commitments for more funds. By the end of August we had finished the metal bench model of Proof-1 that proved absolutely our revolutionary transmission worked. We demonstrated it to many potential investors as well as those who invested. They loved it. So did we.
Now we are arranging to go back to all of the original 12 companies and the 18 more we’ve added to our “friends of VMT” list.
Will it all work? Yes. I’m sure of it. These are exciting times. But, notice how many marketing principles we used to arrive at this point. The process wasn’t easy, and it took hard work, risk and determination. And it took a great product. Please examine the story and tell me how this story could apply to you – and make no mistake, what we’ve done can be replicated in every business, every trade and with talented people as diverse as singers, story tellers, musicians, engineers or entrepreneurs.
Put your thoughts in the Comments box below. The person who finds the most principles with a minimum of five, will get a special prize. And I’ll brag about in the next post.
Best wishes in your endeavors. I want you to succeed.
