Like this article? PLEASE +1 it! Evan Signature
Evan Carmichael Top Header about About Home Profiles articles Tools forums inspirational quotes About facebook Twitter YouTube Blog
Share for a Cause











What Gets Your Attention…?

Guest post by: Lola Kakes

Article Overview: Do you know why someone buys your product or service? If you aren't strong in marketing or sales, you may never have thought about why people buy. This is a layman's look at Marketing your product or service.

Free Download - Succession Planning By Lola Kakes
Name: Email:

What Gets Your Attention…?

The other day I was talking with my mentor and he asked an interesting (I thought) question. “What does EffortlessHR offer a CEO that would make them want to use your product?” I, of course, went through all the benefits and features of EffortlessHR (which I can also recite for you if you don’t know what they are), but it made me stop and think – what is it that the busy CEO/Owner of a company is looking for in any program or service? How do you get their attention and make them want to learn more? Let’s face it – there are a lot of products and services out there and more are available every day. So, how do we make ourselves stand out or above all the others? Is it timing? Is it luck? Is it marketing? It probably is a bit of each of these three issues. But, I think there are some other pieces to the answer. Solution – does my/your product provide a solution? According to the dictionary, a solution is the act of solving a problem or answering a question. I look at EffortlessHR and I believe that we do provide a solution. The problem may be too many spreadsheets, or personnel files disorganized or incorrectly filed. A question might be about what the laws or regulations are in a state regarding any number of subjects that impact a business and the employees of that business. So, if a busy CEO needed a solution to those problems, I think we could provide a Solution. Integration – does my/your product or service integrate with the workings of the busy CEO and his or her company? The definition of Integration is the act or process of making whole or entire; the process of fitting into a community. EffortlessHR is a standalone HR program that can fit a growing company’s HR needs. You can have a solution, but if it doesn’t fit the company values and infrastructure, integration may not happen. Ease of Use – is my/your product or service easy to implement and use? This step is defined as the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. EffortlessHR provides a basic platform that is easy to implement (within 30 minutes you can be up and running) and easy to navigate (Quick Starts and clean, clear functionality). Many products or services have so many moving parts and sections that the user gets tired of trying to use it effectively. Remember the “some assembly required”? Your Solution, in order to effectively Integrate, must be Easy to Use. Timely – is my/your product or service timely? Timely means that this is an opportune time to use it or has appeared at the right time and place. EffortlessHR is a timely product because there are over 6,000,000 small businesses in the USA that are looking for help in dealing with HR issues, employment laws and regulations, and the multitude of issues facing employers. Maybe you are looking at an audit by the Wage and Hour Division for how you have categorized your employees or about overtime pay so you are looking for answers. If all is going smoothly, you are not looking for my product, but at the timeliness of a different product or service. There probably are other answers. I am sure my Mentor asked the question to get me to think of those other answers – I will send him this and see what he says. In the meantime, I feel pretty good that I have come up with 4 things a busy CEO may look for in a product or service. Now, I have to make sure EffortlessHR can provide a Solution, that is Integrated in a Easy to Use methodology and is Timely to the client’s needs. Let me know, as a busy CEO, what gets your attention.

Related Articles
  The key to marketing messages – Capture Attention First
  You're boring
  We Live in a Headline World; Will Yours Do its Job?
  Motivation Means Presence Not Presents
  What Actions Aren’t You Taking to Increase Sales?
  How Do You Find the Right People to Increase Sales?
  Who Else Wants to Hear Your Sales Message?
  How to Know The Difference Between Intention and Attention?
  3.3 Conclusion: Economic Report on Africa 2007
  Turning Good Sales Presentations Into Great Ones
  Rule #14: Every Picture Demands a Caption
  How to get and leverage attention from the mass media
  \"Essential Ingredients For An Effective Ad\"
  Using Audio On Your Website
  I BELIEVE IN WHAT JOHN CAGE ONCE SAID. “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”
  Work From Home Internet Business - Grab Their Attention!
  Direct Mail that Gets Attention
  How Buyers Make Decisions (Part 3)
  Stakeholder Management - With Effectiveness Comes Efficiency
  How to Master Your Attention

Home > Human-Resources > Lola Kakes > What Gets Your Attention >
Article Tags: marketing, marketing your product

About the Author: Lola Kakes
RSS for Lola's articles - Visit Lola's website

Lola Kakes is the CEO and chief visionary of EffortlessHR.com, an Internet based human resource management system for small to mid-sized companies. Lola developed EffortlessHR.com as an affordable, comprehensive program to give entrepreneurs time to focus on their business while developing their employees.

Click here to visit Lola's website
Dashed Line

More from Lola Kakes
Dealing with Reality in an Economic Downturn
Succession Planning
Checking and Giving References Both Sides of the Coin
Employee Handbook Essentials
Training Employees in a Tight Economy


Related Forum Posts
Re: Attention Age Doctrine Re: Attention Age Doctrine - Hi Andy, So how did you find of "The Attention Age Doctrine" Part 1? And has following its guidelines yielded any positive results yet?
Advertisement that sales Advertisement that sales - Plan your marketing programme. It should include commitment to capital resources. If you run a small business, you aren't likely to have a generous enough advertising budget that will allow you to run costly branding or campaign ads. Every advertisement you run must convey to your prospect a solid offer and attractive reasons to act quickly, and result in increased sales and an enhanced image of your company. Good advertising always pays its own way through increased sales and profits, improved cost-effectiveness, reduced selling costs and shortened selling cycles. A useful formula that will help you increase the effectiveness of your advertising efforts is A-I-D-A, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. When creating an advertisement, always remind yourself that it should: (1) capture your prospects' Attention, (2) arouse their Interest in your offer, (3) create their Desire for your product or service, and (4) provide a powerful spur to Action, that is, turn your prospect into buyers. Remember, bad advertising is an unproductive expense, and good advertising is an investment in future profits!
Re: Character Design - using it effectively in marketing Re: Character Design - using it effectively in marketing - One thing about characters is that you can make them do things that real people can't do (such as fly). Depending on what you are selling, that can make it seem like if you use/buy their product, you'll have super powers. I know that sounds goofy, but flying is something we all wish we could do at one point in our life and the thought of it brings out the child in us, which makes us WANT. Also, kids are more apt to watch the commercial and say, "Hey, Mom, look at that......!) Attention getting, which is always good.
Re: Character Design - using it effectively in marketing Re: Character Design - using it effectively in marketing - [quote="mbrand2222":3jr8ndgd]One thing about characters is that you can make them do things that real people can't do (such as fly). Depending on what you are selling, that can make it seem like if you use/buy their product, you'll have super powers. I know that sounds goofy, but flying is something we all wish we could do at one point in our life and the thought of it brings out the child in us, which makes us WANT. Also, kids are more apt to watch the commercial and say, "Hey, Mom, look at that......!) Attention getting, which is always good.[/quote:3jr8ndgd] Hi Mary, I don't think it's goofy at all. Isn't this business is all about making wishes come true? That's what a good sales page do, so why not a flying character?
Focus Brings Long Term Results Focus Brings Long Term Results - Over the past 2 years of venturing out and running my own business and not working full-time in a job I have tried numerous business opportunities. I have tried businesses in providing student accommodation, share trading and options, renting and selling paddles to dragon boat clubs and selling toilet odour eliminator products online. This was opportunistic thinking and diminished my efforts as I got started by adding more work rather than focusing on one business. It was all very tempting to try and run them at the same time to see which one would take off. Unfortunately there was no focus and when times got tough I jumped across to work on the business that interested me more. Opportunistic Thinking Is Bad If you are like me and see that everything is possible and always keeping an open mind about business ideas, then you will find it irresistible to try new ideas. Trust me I’ve learnt the hard way. So how have I changed this? I’m a huge fan of Yaro Starak’s blog - entrepreneurs-journey.com and one day he wrote a post about his coach Rich Schefren who was launching a new coaching program. As usual most internet marketers have a system to launch their new products and give away a lot of free quality information that can be applied straight away. They do this so they can build rapport with you and show that their information is useful before they start their sales pitch on you. As I knew the information was free and they just wanted my email address, I downloaded Rich’s eBook, the “Internet Manifesto“. If you haven’t read it, I would recommend you get a copy of it immediately. The Change in Mindset After reading the “Internet Manifesto”, I had a profound moment that I would change the way I operate my business. My mindset went from “thinking opportunistic” to “thinking strategically” meaning if I wanted to build a long term business I would have to set up the right systems and hire staff to leverage my time. I realised that I couldn’t do everything myself. Rich’s famous flowchart accurately shows how most Solo Enterpreneurs run their Internet Businesseses today. (I’m one of them and have taken action to outsource a lot of my work since then) Rich Schefren's Internet Manifesto Since then I have taken action to sell my businesses that are not part of my goals and made a mental decision to not start new business opportunities. Focus Is Key Since I was compelled to find out more, I downloaded the rest of Rich’s series of books which are listed below: 1. Internet Manifesto 2. The Missing Chapter 3. The Final Chapter 4. Attention Age Doctrine Part 2 5. Maven Matrix Manifesto 6. The Entrepreneurial Emergency Through this series I learned that I needed to focus on one task at a time, not five at a time (today’s generation calls it multi-tasking). Making that shift helped me improve time efficiency and also get tasks completed that generated more money. Additionally, you need to use your strengths to focus on a task and learn to outsource the rest that you are not good at. This is the key to long-term success in any business. Tyrone Shum Focus Strategist


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.



Featured Article

Bottom Footer



Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Name:
Email:
Popular Articles

How To Become A Member of the Paparazzi

Winning Market Share in a Tough Economy

Environment and productivity at the office

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.