What business are you in?
Today, you, I, and everyone else is in the I.T.C.H. business!
- Information - to help make good choices and decisions.
- Transportation - to get people from point A to point B.
- Communication - to send clear messages that attract resources and relationships.
- Help - to serve, and improve the lives of others.
The more people who’s I.T.C.H. you scratch, the more success you’ll have. The more ways you scratch a buyer’s I.T.C.H., the more business you’ll get.
Information
Everyone needs sound information to make good decisions. In his terrific book, Creating a New Civilization, Alvin Toffler says, “development and distribution of information is the central productivity and power activity of the human race.”
We organize information into knowledge, and draw upon our experience and wisdom. All these weigh heavily in the choices and decisions we make.
You can provide useful information in many forms: Newsletters, special reports, bulletins, audio magazines, online E-zines, etc. If you don’t write or can’t create one of these in-house, joint venture with someone who does, provided it offers value your audience will appreciate. Your readers (customers, buyers, or prospects) don’t really care who writes the information. They care that it has value to them.
The three keys to communication are Impact, Frequency, and Medium.
- Send something that has impact and value, Information that gets attention has impact. It has value if it’s usable and can produce a result. I like to provide people with what I call three R’s: Resources, Relationships, and Results. Impact readers by providing value in one or more of these three areas, and you’ll be a welcome visitor.
- Maintain frequency of contact. Frequency builds familiarity. One contact is never enough. It takes from seven to 27 contacts for people to act on most information they get. You must stay in front of people on a regular basis, or you’ll fall hopelessly behind the pack. Communicate often, and be sure you have something of value to add.
- Use every medium you can - Mail, audio, video, fax, phone, radio, Internet, e-mail. People process information differently. If you deliver it in the medium they prefer, your information will get higher priority. Remember to ask the key question, “How do you prefer to get your information?”
When you become a trusted expert to your target audience, you’ll have little or no competition.
Transportation
During the 1980s, long before Microsoft spent billions on TV ads, our financial planning firm asked all of our clients, “Where do you want to go today, and where would you like to be tomorrow?”
When people asked me what I did for a living, I’d answer, “I’m in the transportation business. “They’d wonder if I were in trucking, or worked on railroads. They would ask, “Do you drive a bus or a cab?”
My reply: “I help transport people, financially, from point A to point B. Where do you want to go today, and where would you like to be, tomorrow?”
My business was financial planning, insurance, and investments. Those are vehicles for transportation. People want to go somewhere, and your product or service just might be the vehicle to transport them from point A to point B. An airplane is fastest, but the train is scenic and relaxing. Some people prefer to travel by car or RV. How do you like to travel?
Everybody wants to go somewhere! How do you help transport people?
Communication
This is a master life skill. Communic-ability is a most critical and highly valued Success-ability that will often determine your Market-ability, Profit-ability, and Value-ability.
Much of life involves communication. Happiness, satisfaction, success, and fulfillment result largely
from what we say to ourselves every day (at the silent rate of 500 to 1,000 words a minute), and what we say to others (as well as what they say back to us).
The person who sends the highest quality-driven messages most frequently wins hearts, minds - and pocketbooks.
Top copywriters earn $5,000 to $15,000 to write an ad, plus a percentage of the sales the ad pulls. Why? Because a copywriter’s ad can earn 10 times or 100 times the copywriter’s fee.
Professional speakers are highly paid people (I’m one of them). Celebrity speakers can earn $25,000 to $100,000 to speak for one hour (I’m not one of them - yet!). I’ve been paid $10,000 to speak for 45 minutes, and have earned $20,000 in a weekend. Companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for consulting and training their people. Why?
R-E-S-U-L-T-S!
A skill-building workshop, seminar, or competency-based training can generate or lead to hundreds of thousands in additional sales, revenues, and profit. Companies (and individuals) pay a lot because they get a lot more in return. Communic-ability is a highly valued and rewarded life skill.
Improve your Communic-ability. Send clear and compelling messages that people understand and can act upon. Ask people what they want, and listen with empathy. Communicate often with customers and your target audience.
Help
In an interdependent world, everyone needs help, advice, guidance, and counsel. Providing a source of Support-ability to others puts you on the side of the angels. There’s a new model of leadership-ability for this new millennium. The days of the authoritative patriarch as leader are gone: A 21st-century leader must a servant-leader.
In a business world where customer contact is often like a hit-and-run accident, it feels wonderful to have people supporting you when you need it. If you genuinely like to support and help others, they will help and support you in return. Reciprocity is one of the oldest, most primitive, and strongest of all human drives. In the 21st century world of virtual business, and The Virtual Entrepreneur™ your success will be proportional to your ability to help.
Provide support to others and watch people line up at your door.
Help people access the Three R’s: resources, relationships and results.
- What resources do you have to share?
- Which relationships can you offer?
- What results can you help people produce, or problems do you help solve?
Provide the Three R’s and you’ll forever be in people’s favor.
Build your Cred-ability with useful information and communication that helps prospects. When they’re ready to buy, you’ll stand out. Often you’ll stand alone, #1 in line.
Even if you don’t receive your reward directly, the world has a way of balancing things out. After all, what goes around, usually comes around.
Conclusion:
Scratch someone’s I.T.C.H every day by providing information, transportation, communication, and help – and watch people beat a path to your door.