Simpleology Blog

Registration will open at exactly 8PM EST tonight:

http://www.simpleology.com/training/wordofmouth/

That's 5PM on the US west coast.

7PM in Texas.

Please check timeanddate.com for the exact time in your area.

Feel free to enjoy the webcast replay in the meantime:

http://www.instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=793830

P.S. The 7 lucky winners will be posted at the bottom of the registration page!

Posted by Mark Joyner at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

(If you haven't read Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4, scroll down and read them now. In fact, you really need to start with the post "What is the Single Most Powerful Force in Marketing?")

I hear you.

And that's what I'm about to do.

First, a re-cap of the salient points:

1. Word of Mouth is the most powerful force in marketing ...

2. ... because it can make someone bypass the sales process and go right to the order, and ...

3. ... this happens without having to pay for direct advertising, but ...

4. ... it doesn't come from Incentivized Word of Mouth or pseudo-viral gimmicks, it ...

5. ... must be Inspired Word of Mouth, and ...

6. ... that type of WOM can be controlled by you.

Now, two posts ago I told you about C-Rate and why it almost doesn't matter.

If you have the time and resources to measure it, it's a helpful idea, but when you learn what I'm about to show you about Inspired Word of Mouth, you'll soon see that it might not be the figure you should be watching.

See, inspired Word of Mouth is a natural process that only comes from making gradual and steady improvement to what I call "The 4 W.O.M.K.A.I.s"

That may sound technical, but it's not at all. When you hear it you'll get an instant "blinding flash of the obvious." Everything will start to make sense.

More about The 4 WOMKAIs in a moment.

First, let's talk about "gradual and steady."

Fast movement is a powerful weapon. Indeed, on today's military battlefield many theorize that speed is the ultimate weapon.

Think about it - if you can quickly get to your opponent with a great big stick, it won't matter if he has slow access to a nuclear warhead. He'll never have time to get to it.

But that only makes sense when we're talking about dispatching an enemy.

See - business, at it's best, is less about DEstruction than it is about CONstruction.

We're building - not destroying.

And building is about stability.

This is why the followers of the Japanese business theory of "Kaizen" talk about avoiding radical shifts in your business.

If you make radical shifts in your business you tend to shut down production in the process.

Radical changes to affect Word of Mouth could have the same effect. If you "re-invent" your marketing from the ground up, you could re-invent your way into the poor house.

The business battlefield is littered with the corpses created by consultants who go into a business and "change everything."

Every now and then a radical shift in someone's business hits - and hits big. Unfortunately, when we hear those stories we erroneously think "that's the way it's done."

But it's like people who make quick dividends in the stock market, or win the lottery. It sounds great, but what are the odds?

To make it worse, radical shifts in your business or in your marketing are painful.

So, what are we saying?

We slug it out through the painful changes in our business that the "experts" tell us are necessary for rapid growth and those very same changes actually end up killing off the business?

Sounds almost like a sick joke, and that is in fact the reality.

But here's the really good news.

The right changes - the healthy changes - don't take painful struggle.

What it takes is knowing what small gradual changes to make, how to change them, and getting on a clear steady plan to make them.

It's not rocket science, and it's not heavy weight lifting.

It's more like a simple pleasant bike ride through the woods.

There is a bit of effort there, but you're on a clear and pleasant path - knowing exactly where the road is taking you.

The only difference is, your "destination" is a booming healthy business.

Posted by Mark Joyner at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

As you'll recall from our post on the 11th, I said we will release a new Simpleology course very soon. Tomorrow, in fact.

Well, that's not exactly true ...

Yes, there is a new course there - two new courses actually - but we are not planning to release them to the general public at this point.

Instead, we are going to give access to them only to a select few people who choose to allow me to take their businesses on a 1 year journey (called "Word of Mouth Transformation!"). Those people will "self-select" on the 18th of September at 8PM EST.

Will that be you?

You'll find out in a minute.

First, let's talk about what this little journey is - and what it isn't.

"So, is this some kind of 'coaching program?"

Goodness no. Here's why.

Coaching can help, but there's a problem ...

Unless you get direct access to a real - truly qualified - coach yourself, you're not really getting coaching.

Heck, I've seen people charge clients $8,000 for a year of coaching only to find that the clients call in for their coaching session and the coach pushes the "play" button on a recording.

Yikes.

Sorry, that ain't coaching. It's training.

(And usually sub-standard training at that, unfortunately. Few companies take the time to perfect step-by-step [and fun!] training systems like we build at Simpleology. It costs a lot more to do what we do, but after reading this series I'm sure you're beginning to understand why we take the effort.)

Oh, here's another one you may have seen ...

You buy coaching and you do, in fact, get a real live coach.

But ...

Your coach ends up being an unqualified kid who really doesn't know what he's doing. Such a coach could really wreak havoc on your business by sending you careening down the wrong path.

Simpleology could have cashed in on the coaching business a long time ago, but we chose not to. Quality and value are more important to us.

The fact is, someone who really knows how to build a multi-million dollar business simply can't afford to spend time coaching you personally, unless you're willing to pay them outrageous sums.

(I used to ask $2,000 an hour for phone consultations myself, but I don't even do that anymore because my time is worth more than that.)

Think about it - if someone could build million dollar businesses, why would they charge you $8,000-$20,000 to train you personally for a year?

"Error. Does not compute."

That's why the coaching is usually performed by recording, or by someone under-qualified. It's the only way to make the economic model work.

I'm sure there are some programs out there that are pretty good, but unfortunately most of the ones I've seen are as described above.

Adrian!!

The next best thing to working directly with a live qualified coach is a "vicarious" experience.

That is, the chance to watch someone else's transformation.

We all remember watching Rocky go through his transformation.

Rocky started out as a "bum" nobody believed in. Everyone thought he was a joke.

And not just a joke - but a crazy self-deluded joke.

(Heck anyone trying to start up a million-dollar business while everyone around them is slugging away at a lousy day job knows how that feels. People can sure try to "bring you down" to their level sometimes when they see you launching into the stratosphere, huh? Anyway, I guess you have to choose to either spend your time entertaining their doubt or spend it building your empire ... )

But then "Mick" believed in him and took him through a transformation - all the way to the battle for the Heavyweight Championship of the World.

I don't know of anyone who wasn't crying when they saw him, faced beat up and dazed, calling out for "Adrian! Adrian!!!"

Watching Rocky is a "Transformational Experience." We watch it and our spirit is strengthened. We walk away with just a little more belief in ourselves.

That kind of experience changes lives.

But there is a little something lacking ...

It's not quite complete.

A transformation of spirit without a direction and a clear plan might bring you happiness for a while, but if that happiness is not reinforced by real change in the real world, it is always short lived.

You can trick your brain for a while, but not for long. You snap out of the spell and end up asking ...

"Someone Just Flippin' Show Me What To Do!"

What if, though, you combine a transformation of spirit with a plan?

Imagine instead of just watching Rocky and getting the elation of the feel good experience, you watch it along with a step-by-step plan to transform yourself as well?

What if you were able to peek inside the gym and see the exact training routines, the exact little "tweaks" Mick taught him? (The tweaks that only come from having worked with champions for years.)

What if you were *actually* transforming as he did in real time?

What then?

Keep reading ...

Posted by Mark Joyner at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

(If you haven't read Parts 1, 2, and 3, scroll down and read them now. In fact, you really need to start with the post "What is the Single Most Powerful Force in Marketing?")

In the last lesson, you learned about a way to measure Word of Mouth.

Now I'll show you why it almost doesn't matter.

First, here are some facts:

1. According to the U.S. Department of Labor 50% of All Business Startups Fail in the First 2 Years

2. For "MLM" companies, that figure jumps to 90-96% (depending on who you ask - MLM expert Richard Poe says 95%)

Hmmm ...

Isn't MLM all about leveraging Word of Mouth?

If Word of Mouth is so great, then why do 95% of these so-called "MLM" companies fail?

It has to do with the difference between what I call "Incentivized Word of Mouth" and "Inspired Word of Mouth."

(Not to be confused, by the way, with the excellent "Inspired Marketing" concepts by Joe Vitale and Craig Perrine coming soon ...)

MLM, affiliate marketing, bribed tell-a-friend forms, and the like are all "incentivized."

That's people telling people for the promise of some reward.

"Tell your friends about our new widget and we'll give you a shiny trinket for every one who buys."

"Inspired Word of Mouth" comes from a customer's spontaneous desire to tell someone about the product.

That's people telling people because they love the product so much they want others to know.

Incentivized Word of Mouth can, and should, be at least a part of our marketing arsenal.

Affiliate marketing, tell-a-friend forms (if intelligently used), contests ...

These are all great ways to give your business a boost.

The statistics above, however, would indicate that making it the centerpiece of your marketing plan is problematic.

That is, if the word "problematic" does justice to the staggering 95% failure rate of MLMs.

The trouble with Incentivized Word of Mouth is that the recipient knows what's going on.

He knows you're only telling him because of the bribe.

There are varying degrees of this, but to illustrate the worst of it, think back to a time when you were pitched on an MLM.

Someone invites you to a "friendly dinner" and suddenly you discover you're being sold something.

Ewwww.

Any mystery as to why most of these companies have to pack up and leave town?

(No offense meant to anyone here - I used to think it was the best thing since sliced bread - and even owned a few MLM companies. Since then I've wised up considerably.)

Contrast this with Inspired Word of Mouth ....

The conversations are natural.

They're not forced.

Because the recommendation is genuine, you want to hear it.

Not only do you want to hear it, but the message is received so powerfully that it can bypass all skepticism - and almost all other parts of the sales process - and send people right to the order.

OK, so is Inspired Word of Mouth something that a company can control?

It absolutely is, and that's what we'll talk about in the next few posts.

Posted by Mark Joyner at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)

(If you haven't read Parts 1and 2, scroll down and read them now. In fact, you really need to start with the post "What is the Single Most Powerful Force in Marketing?")

So far we've learned that Word of Mouth is in fact the most powerful force in marketing.

We've also learned that true Word of Mouth doesn't come from viral gimmicks, but from "something else."

We'll be learning what that "something else" is shortly. First, let's talk about what I call the C-Rate (short for "Copulation Rate").

This might get a bit heady, so read it 2 or 3 times until it sinks in. It's worth it.

Here we go ...

The C-Rate is the rate at which a Word of Mouth "virus" generates new "infectees."

A C-Rate of 1 would mean that 100 people "in" would generate 100 out.

Or 100 customers generate 100 new customers.

A C-Rate of 0.5 would generate half as much.

That is, 100 customers would generate 50 new customers.

Now, it's important to note that this figure is meaningless unless it is measured over time.

So, what we really need to talk about are 10 day C-Rates, 20 day C-Rates, and so on ...

Let's imagine a 10 day C-Rate of 1.1.

100 customers in, and 10 days later, they render 110 new customers.

Not bad at all.

In fact, any C-Rate over 1 is phenomenal and is something rarely achieved.

1.1 is astounding.

But when you get into rates like 1.3 and above, that's when you get into serious "Tipping Point" territory.

Here are two screen shots from my #1 best-selling book The Irresistible Offer (Wiley 2005) that illustrate this point.

Now, see how crazy it gets around 1.31?

But actually, 1.1 is pretty crazy, too.

See, at Day 10 - those are 10,100 new customers that came in passively.

None of the gimmicky viral marketing tools can generate anything close to these types of results.

Most companies have a C-Rate of 0.001 or maybe slightly better.

But here's the reality no one talks about: anything above zero is actually "good."

When you get into the 1+ range your company is growing and growing at a steady rate. The higher over 1 you are, the more rapidly you grow.

But what if you're at say ... 0.5?

Is that a failure?

Not by a long shot.

If you have a C-Rate of 0.5 it means that your advertising goes that much further. (Further than you think - do the math and you'll see that 10 days later it's 50 more customers, then at 20 days another 25, and at 30 days another 12.5, and so on ....)

Imagine you start an advertising campaign and you get a negative ROI.

You spend $100 on an ad, and you generate $95 in sales.

That's a negative ROI of $5.

But what if those new customers, through Word of Mouth, generate just a few more customers?

Well, even a modest C-Rate of 0.25 or less might be enough to tip you over the edge and give you a profitable campaign.

But, very few companies can ever make it over 0.25.

Those that do have a decided advantage - no matter what business they are in.

The sad thing is, attaining 0.25 and sustaining it is not that hard. You should be able to do much better than that if you know just a few simple things. (more on that later)

So, as you can see, companies don't just wave a magic wand of "buzzworthiness" over their business and watch the magical numbers start flying in.

Word of Mouth is something that must be built, cultivated, and improved over time.

The company I'm building right now, Simpleology, is at around 0.8 right now. This is a fete few companies ever achieve, but we will crank it up even higher. It's almost a mathematical certainty. (More about that coming up ...)

About 80% of our business comes purely through the Word of Mouth of the people who love our products. Without advertising, without affiliates (we have some great ones, but they only account for 15% of our sales), and certainly without viral marketing gimmicks.

So, how does one cultivate genuine Word of Mouth?

There are a lot of buzzwords out there that address this, and they sound good when a speaker says them from the stage, but they won't do much for your bottom line at the end of the day.

I mean, really. Of all you've read about viral marketing, word of mouth, buzz, etc ... How much of it have you actually been able to apply to your business?

What if there was an actual plan you could follow that would actually improve your Word of Mouth consistently and steadily - cranking your C-rate up and up?

Keep watching this space ...

Posted by Mark Joyner at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

(First, if you haven't read Part 1, scroll down and read it now. In fact, you really need to start with the post "What is the Single Most Powerful Force in Marketing?" Also - we'll be picking the winners here very soon :-)

OK, before we get into some real meat here, let's do a little exercise together.

Step 1: Find a website that is offering a viral marketing tool. Almost any will do.

My Prediction: The copy is probably promising that once you use the tool, you'll get a flood of visitors to your site that you can't shut off and that it will keep growing and growing and growing.

Step 2: Go to Alexa.com and type in that URL.

Alexa is a service that estimates web traffic to almost any site.

My Prediction: You will probably see a graph that looks like this. Either that, or you'll see no real traffic to speak of.

If the tool these guys are offering creates a steady stream of traffic that keeps growing and growing, then ...

A. Why aren't they using it themselves?

... and ...

B. If they are, why is their traffic not growing like they promise yours will?

The answer is easy: the real marketing secret of most Internet Marketing gurus is the product launch.

Launches work great. Heck back in the old "Aesop" days (my old company), we used these sames tactics all the time. (Since then guys like Jeff Walker, John Reese, Brad Fallon, Andy Jenkins, Frank Kern and Mike Long have taken these tactics to new levels. Truly impressive.)

The general idea is pretty simple:

Rally the forces of people who own large lists and get them to promote on the same day.

Poof!

Instant surge in traffic. Instant best-seller.

There's more to it (anticipation, proof, motivation, etc ...), but that's the general idea.

The problem is, launches will bring in a great surge in traffic, but if what is being launched is without substance, no real Word of Mouth will occur.

So, the business model of many IM experts (not the guys I mentioned above, by the way) looks something like this ...

They launch a pretty-good product.

The buzz dies down.

Move as many people as you can to your list in the process.

Lather.

Rinse.

Repeat.

No offense to these guys - many of them are close friends of mine and good people. Some of them are bona fide geniuses.

Now, you can make good money like this. Heck, millions even.

But with this model, it's like pushing a rock up hill. Every time you get to the top you have to push it back up again. (Known as "The Myth of Sisyphus." The king who was damned to an eternity of rock-up-a-hill pushing. Yikes!)

Who wants to push a rock up a hill at all? Let alone over and over again ...

Now, take a look at this graph here:

This is the growth of the stock price of Harley Davidson.

This only shows part of the picture as they were experiencing true Word of Mouth growth for years before they even went public.

Because their stock price is a pretty good reflection of the reality of their sales, they just keep growing.

And the bedrock key to their growth is, without question, genuine organic Word of Mouth Marketing.

What's the secret?

Well, a great product is part of it, but just that - a part of it.

Since we know there are a great many "amazingly great" products that have failed miserably, there must be something more to it.

There is. Stay tuned closely to this channel over the next few days.

Posted by Mark Joyner at 9:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow, as I write this, there are 1,176 comments on the last post. And that's not even counting the 200+ comments that were posted in the wrong place ...

There are some amazing marketing insights in those comments, so browsing through them will give you a great education in marketing.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I don't really believe there's a "right answer" to anything. Inflexible certainty is a dangerous state of mind - but it's also an amazingly useful one when it's applied to the right ideas.

Being certain that the earth is flat will probably cause you a lot of grief.

Being certain in your self-worth will probably make your voyage on planet earth a lot more pleasant.

Another thing I'd bank my certainty-chips on is the power of Word of Mouth Marketing.

There are many marketing truisms. Some of them I agree with - some I think are simply wrong.

"The single most powerful force in marketing is word of mouth" is one that just about every marketing expert I know agrees with. I do too, and here's why.

Let's compare it to some of the other answers given (which were almost all - by the way - quite insightful and well thought out).

Word of Mouth Vs. Great Ad Copy

Word of Mouth - the right kind of Word of Mouth (more on that later) - can bypass the copy and go right to the order.

If you and your beloved uncle have both been suffering from the same kind of back pain for the last 10 years and suddenly he is "cured" - I doubt you'll need to read much ad copy before trying whatever it was that cured him.

That's a gross simplification, but you get the idea.

Word of Mouth Vs. Selling to a Thirsty Crowd

Selling to a "thirsty crowd" is, in fact, an amazingly powerful way to generate sales. In fact, if you're paying for advertising, it's essential.

But to gain access to a thirsty crowd you will always have to invest something. Be it time, energy, or money (or all of the above), there is an investment there that you will have to keep paying over and over again. The burden on you is to make sure you get a "return" on that investment each and every time.

With Word of Mouth, your customers go out and find your Thirsty Crowd for you. You do have to make Word of Mouth investments (more about what they are later), but the payoff - when you do it right - will grow on itself.

Some people say "Word of Mouth is Free" but that's not really true. Yes, you don't have to pay for the referral, but there are other investments you must make in order to get that Word of Mouth referral.

When you find Thirsty Crowds you have a linear investment-to-payoff (or lack thereof) relationship.

When you let Word of Mouth find Thirsty Crowds for you, the investment keeps paying off again and again - sometimes "exponentially."

But let's be careful about using that word.

There are many gimmicky products out there that promise "exponential growth" but they don't really deliver that at all.

More about that - and what actually does deliver exponential growth - in the following posts.

Posted by Mark Joyner at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

If you can answer this question correctly, your name will be entered into a draw to win free access to our newest Simpleology course, coming out VERY soon.

No, this is not a trick question.

Yes, there most definitely is a right answer.

But even if you know it, I can almost guarantee most of what you've been taught about it is dead wrong - and I will prove it to you in full detail over the coming days.

Post your answer in the "comments" section below to enter the draw. We'll pick 7 of you, so you have a good chance to win.

More details forthcoming ...

Meanwhile, if you have not taken Simpleology 102, do yourself a favor and at least give it a rapid run through before you start this next one - it will give you a decided edge.

Posted by Mark Joyner at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1321) | TrackBacks (0)

You may have noticed the last "Simpleology News" was sent as a PDF attachment.

Do you prefer that to a text email?

What did you think?

Posted by Mark Joyner at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (71) | TrackBacks (0)

You wouldn't expect these habits to make you fat - but they do.

1. Staying Up Late

The opposite would seem to make sense: If you stay up late, you burn more calories. Burn more calories, burn more fat.

Right?

Unfortunately, staying up late can set off a multi-pronged attack on your body composition.

First, sleep is vital for recovery. If you don't get enough sleep, your body won't build as much muscle mass - no matter how much time you spend in the gym. Less muscle mass = less fat burning power.

Next, if you are sleep-deprived, you increase levels of the stress hormone "cortisol." The connection between stress/cortisol and obesity is well established, but it gets worse.

A recent study (Epel, Yale) shows that cortisol related fat storage tends to be around the vital organs - the worst possible place to store fat in your body.

If that's not enough, lack of sleep is linked with glucose intolerance (diabetes), lower Growth Hormone levels, a weakened immune system, low energy, and more ...

Get a full night's sleep (7 to 9 hours), but make sure your place of rest is peaceful and pitch dark. Your natural sleep hormone, melatonin, is suppressed when there is too much light.

2. Skipping Breakfast

Many people skip breakfast thinking it will help them to lose weight.

"Fewer calories in - more fat burned."

The reality is that skipping breakfast actually lowers your metabolism so that at your next meal you'll tend to overeat.

To make it worse, the food you eat on a lowered metabolism is more likely to be stored as fat.

3. Prescription Drugs

Many of the drugs you are prescribed increase appetite, cause edema, or slow our metabolism. That's a recipe for getting, and looking, fatter.

The most commonly used drugs that have these effects are oral contraceptives, many anti-depressants, and estrogen replacements.

Check with your doctor to see about finding suitable alternatives that won't make you fat.

Simpleology 103 owners can find a deluxe version of this article on the "Extras" tab. It includes 4 more habits that are making you fat, a few bonus tips, and the shocking connection between your sex life and body fat.
 

Posted by Mark Joyner at 5:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (32) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Mark Joyner at 2:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (165) | TrackBacks (0)