Are You Fighting The Wrong Battle?
Written by:
Steve Wilkinghoff
Article Overview: Are you fighting hard day in and day out in your business to get sales, get customers, and make money?
Your efforts are important, but it's even more important to make sure you aren't putting all those efforts into fighting the wrong battle.
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Free Download - Are YOU A Being A By Steve Wilkinghoff
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Are You Fighting The Wrong Battle?
Have you ever
watched the war movie Hamburger Hill?
It’s about an army unit’s fierce battle to take a particular hill
occupied by the enemy. The commanders
want the hill taken, and have made numerous attempts before. Each time they have been turned back.
Finally the unit in the movie successfully takes the hill. But only after taking brutal casualties.
The movie ends with a scroll of text that says that after the battle,
the hill was abandoned by the army a very short period of time afterwards.
The army commanders realized, after the fact, that they were fighting the
wrong battle. Although that hill was an
obvious landmark, it simply wasn’t something that added any strategic strength to
their plans.
Is your business like that?
Is it possible that you and your team are “fighting the wrong battle”?
You see, there are two types of “battles” when it comes to working with
your prospects and clients. The two
battles are the “battle of technology” and the “battle of motivation”.
The battle of technology is the battle where you and your team try to
impress customers and prospects by telling or showing them all the “technical”
stuff that makes up your product or service.
The motivation behind fighting this battle is that, as someone familiar
with your products and services, you and your team are impressed by those
technical things. By all the great
features your products and services have.
By all the great things that “go into” it behind the scenes to make it
so great.
But your customer isn’t really interested in that battle at all.
They just want a certain outcome.
And you show them how your business can help them get that outcome by
fighting the second battle. The battle
of motivation.
It is this battle that will actually make your customer aware of the
ways your products and services can help them get the outcome they want
(assuming your products and services really can, of course).
So don’t get caught up in the bells and whistles of your business. Motivate your customers by fighting the
battle of motivation.
Show them how your products and services can help them get the outcome
they want.
Pure and simple
Don’t just show them “what’s inside” your products and services.
That’s the wrong battle.
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About the Author: Steve Wilkinghoff
RSS for Steve's articles - Visit Steve's website
Steve is the author of the book, "Found Money - Simple Strategies for Uncovering the Hidden Profit and Cash Flow in Your Business", and the CEO of Biz-Dog Strategic Business Solutions Inc.
A Chartered Accountant by training, Steve has developed a worldwide reputation for his innovative and effective approach to helping business owners truly understand how their business makes money and how to proactively create the financial results they want by focusing on the proper activities, customers, and products and services.
Click here to visit Steve's website

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Related Forum Posts
Re: Why Franchises Fail
- [quote="Nana":307g5e63]Another reason franchises can fail is due to lack of effort on the franchisees part. If the franchisee does not give it their 110% and purely imitates rather than innovates they will increase their chance of failure.[/quote:307g5e63]
I agree. Sometimes franchisees rely too much on the franchisor. They think the franchisor will run their business. Wrong! The franchisee is responsible for manging day to day operations of his franchise location.
Your Intial Mistakes Business
- Hi,
When I started my business I had made a lot of mistakes initially. These helped me in learning the art of the trade and today when I look back, I feel that these mistakes were quite silly. I had made my learnings then and those
learnings have helped me time and again.
Some of the mistakes I made were -
i. Wrong Time Management
ii. Wasting money on glossy Brochures and Business cards
iii. Believing what they taught me at school was 100% correct
iv. Giving too much when it was not required......
I would like to find out what have been your faltering moments in Business when you had started and what/how did they help you grow.
Regards
Re: Burn all your bridges inorder to succeed??
- [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":x11o039o] Some people are very self motivated, while others are lazy and need to create a sense of urgency to get themselves moving toward their goal. For instance, I was just watching a television interview on a mixed martial arts fighter who admitted to being lazy and burned all of his bridges in order to succeed. He sold all of his possessions, got in his car and left his family and friends behind to pursue his dream until he eventually made it into the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships). When you have literally nothing to go home to, it can drive a person to do great things.
At times, burning all of your bridges is what it takes since "bonds" between you and others can actually be a distraction.[/quote:x11o039o]
As my fraternity brothers and I said in college, "there is nothing that motivates us so much as the imminence of failure."
For my personal fitness I definitely have to burn bridges; I need to be left alone for months in order to reach my fitness goals.
Top 19 Copywriting books
- 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley.
2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner.
3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill.
4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin.
7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books.
9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association.
11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books.
12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books.
13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books.
16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books.
17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall.
18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop.
19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley.
This should keep you busy for at least a year.
Enjoy!
Re: When do you make someone a partner?
- [quote="Kevin":i2xtlokm][quote="Alan Mater":i2xtlokm]Hi Kevin,
Yes, being able to get along and tolerate them is very important. If you constantly fight and bicker and can't come to a conclusion when it comes to making important decisions, then the partnership will most likely not work out.[/quote:i2xtlokm]
Well if you're always fighting with that employee, chances are you would have fired him/her long ago. However, people also tend to act differently when they're of a lower status as opposed to an equal. For instance, a small business owner may make a chef into a partner and love his personality... but then the change in power/status could reveal the chef's true colors (it's just like dating;)[/quote:i2xtlokm]
Not necessarily. You can fight with someone, but still tolerate them. It depends on what the situation is and the reason for fighting. In a lot of cases, yes, they'd probably be fired, but not all. Fighting isn't always a bad thing, either. If you're fighting over decisions, that can be bad, but if it's over opinions, then maybe not. The employee could still be a good candidate for a potential partner, but you would have to weigh the good and bad of him/her.
I agree, though, that when someone gains more power and respect, they tend to show their true colors. You can have two extremes, one who shows more initiative and cares a lot more about the company after being made a partner, and one who slacks off and becomes less responsible than before.
"With power comes great responsibility." A partner should make this their motto and stick to it, realizing that what they do now has an even bigger impact on the business.
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