The Little Things Really Do That Matter
Robert McGarvey once shared an important story about L.A. Lakers Coach Pat Riley in an issue of Reader’s Digest that I want to start with today.
The story was called “Little Things Do Mean a Lot” and you need to have it in your mind as I take this last week to finally bring this series to a close.
Why is it important? Because it reveals why the “little things” really are so important in sports and business.
Listen to what McGarvey says…
Success is often reached through the little stuff.
When Pat Riley coached the Los Angeles Lakers from 1982 to 1990, the team won four NBA championships.
In taking over the New York Knicks in 1991, Riley inherited a team with a losing record.
But the Knicks seemed able to play above their abilities and even gave the eventual champions, the Chicago Bulls, their hardest competition in the playoffs.
How did Riley do it?
He says his talent lies in attention to detail. For example, every NBA team studies videotapes and compiles statistics to evaluate players’ game performances.
But Riley’s use of these tools is more comprehensive than that of his rivals.
“We measure areas of performance that are often ignored: jumping in pursuit of every rebound even if you don’t get it, swatting at every pass, diving for loose balls, letting someone smash into you in order to draw a foul.”
After each game, these “effort” statistics are punched into a computer.
“Effort,” Riley explains, “is what ultimately separates journeyman players from impact players. Knowing how well a player executes all these little things is the key to unlocking career-best performances.”
Robert McGarvey, Reader’s Digest
The little things matter.
But the problem with the little things is that they’re easy to ignore.
In many people’s minds, the fundamentals are the “little things.”
They’re the things that are easy to overlook or ignore as we search for the next hot fad or the latest marketing trend to implement in our business or company.
But I know the fundamentals are really the big things. They’re the real secret behind the success of the top businesses and companies.
And that’s why I’ve spent so much time focused on them in this series I’ve called The 12th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2022.
It’s also why, after much delay, I want to finish up this series with the final marketing fundamental on my list.
The Successes of 2022 Will Be Built on the Marketing Fundamentals of the Past (*Skip This If You’ve Read the Other Articles in This Series*)
In 2022, I believe that the biggest marketing breakthroughs will take place at the intersection where opportunity and the fundamentals meet.
The people and companies that will succeed the most this year are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then build their success on the strong foundation of the fundamentals.
What fundamentals? The marketing fundamentals that have existed for at least 100 years and that will probably exist for at least another 100 years.
How do I know this will be true? Because this has been true for a century, before and after the internet.
(I don’t have time to go into details here, but the success of Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other top companies are inextricably connected to the same marketing fundamentals that were used in 1922 and even earlier.)
For that reason, I’m going to finish up the series I began over a year ago at the beginning of 2021. (Important: I will be updating all of my previous articles to refer to 2022.)
The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2022
Today, I’m going to reveal the 12th marketing fundamental you need to succeed this year.
If you haven’t read the other articles in this series, then you should read the next section. It will help you to understand the importance of the marketing fundamentals I’m sharing with you.
Here are the first 11 of the marketing fundamentals you need to succeed this year…
The First 11 Marketing Fundamentals
Here are the eleven marketing fundamentals that I’ve revealed so far in this series:
- The first marketing fundamental is attention. Because without attention, there is no marketing.
- The second marketing fundamental is attraction. Without attraction, all the work you put into capturing their attention will be wasted.
- The third marketing fundamental is follow-up. Because two of the biggest mistakes many companies make are tied to follow-up. They don’t follow up at all. They don’t follow up enough.
- The fourth marketing fundamental is a unique selling proposition. Because if you’re ever going to get your prospects to choose your company, product, or service over your competition, then they have to know WHY and HOW your business is different and better than any of the other choices.
- The fifth marketing fundamental is your Who or what is commonly called your “target market.” If you don’t get this group of prospects right, then all of your marketing efforts will produce little results.
- The 6th marketing fundamental is your offer. If you don’t create a powerful offer, even the right “whos” won’t end up purchasing from you.
- The 7th marketing fundamental is your copy or the words you use. Once you have the right audience and the most powerful offer for that audience, then the next most important thing to focus on is the words you will use to communicate to that audience.
- The 8th marketing fundamental is upselling. All successful companies use upselling to increase their profit per customer.
- The 9th marketing fundamental is backend marketing. It isn’t the first sale with a customer that brings you the most profit. It’s all of the sales that you make with that customer for years to come.
- The 10th marketing fundamental is becoming more memorable. The real reason your company isn’t more successful could simply be that they don’t remember you.
- The 11th marketing fundamental is focused on remarketing. You need to continually reengage your lost or former customers.
Alright, you’re now ready to discover the 12th marketing fundamental.
Your Most Important Customers
Not all customers are created equal.
In fact, some of your customers are worth MUCH MORE to your business than others are.
Let me give you an example…
If you take a look at your customer records, you’ll probably discover that 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your revenue.
Another way to think of it is based on a theory that Kevin Kelly proposed back in 2008 that has since become known as the “1,000 True Fans Theory.”
“To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients, or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.”
Kevin Kelly, 1,000 True Fans
His concept has since gained popularity and has been applied to all kinds of businesses.
But the customers who are valuable to you aren’t just the ones who are fans.
They’re also the customers who tell everyone they know about your business, products, and services.
They’re what some would call your customer evangelists or your brand ambassadors.
(I’ll stick with the customer evangelist term from here on out.)
What I’m trying to get you to see is that this small group of your customers is your secret weapon.
They’re the untapped source of some of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal:
- Word of mouth
- Social proof via reviews
- Social proof via testimonials
- Social proof via case studies
- Customer-generated content
- Ability to attract presold prospects
You already have them.
You just need to identify their existence, quantify their impact, and then multiply their influence.
Then, once you know who they are, you should begin:
- Rewarding them
- Focusing specific marketing and sales towards them and for them
- Discovering how to better serve and sell more to them
Whether you look at these customers through an 80/20 lens, a true 1,000 fans lens, or even see them as customer evangelists, the conclusion is the same.
If a small percentage of your customers are behind a large percentage of your revenue and success, can you see why it’s so important to know who they are?
But most businesses have no clue who these customers are.
They just live in ignorant bliss of one of the largest sources of their success.
And I think that’s one of the most foolish and dangerous types of ignorance any business or company can have.
That’s why the 12th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2022 is this…
You need to uncover and empower your raving fans and customer evangelists.
If you stick with me for the last four articles of this series, I’m going to show you why and how you need to create, cultivate, coordinate, and celebrate your true fans and customer evangelists.
When you do that, combined with the other 11 fundamentals on my list, your business or company will have a chance to reach a level of success that you never could before.
