Romantic Comedy Marketing, The Us Factor

Romantic Comedy Marketing, The Us Factor

When you think of being amorous or humorous, where is the emphasis placed? This is not about the stress properly placed on a syllable, but identifying the personal satisfaction or goal that is involved with being amorous or humorous. I suspect most of us would logically put the emphasis on the amor/ love or the humor we desire or already have. But I want to suggest that the most powerful way to understand these two words is to put the accent on the “us.”

Surely love benefits me in a big way. Perhaps the best medicine for anyone is love they can taste, touch, see, smell or hear. For some of us, we can almost swim in it, be buoyed up by it and get lost in it. There is fabulous fulfillment therein. And while it obviously can be one-sided, it is ideally all about the “us” in amorous.

The same is true with humorous. We can laugh all alone, but isn’t the truest satisfaction in sharing laughter with others? You know how you come across a great piece of humor on the internet and you want to send the link to your list or print it and show it around? That is the “us” in humorous at work. (Pun intended.)

Now, what about the word “Prosperous?” You know where I am going. How can one person be “prosperous” and enjoy it without sharing it? One can hoard prosperity, but the odds are, they didn’t get there by their personal initiative alone. Others cooperated to make it possible. The prosperity belongs to some “us” and to truly enjoy it, it must be shared.

Last week, the topic was “Love Concentrate” a short treatise on “Focus.” While focus could be seen as a personal thing, I think the “us” is why we focus at Romantic Comedy Marketing. Just image what happens when the many, the “us,” focus on love, joy, commitment, sharing, supporting… It’s simply tremendous.

Please send someone you care about to our Romantic Comedy Marketing blog. www.romanticcomedymarketing.wordpress.com. It is free and it shows your principles of caring. Do it for yourself and for the “us” that makes your life harmonious.

copyright 2009 Rich Guy Miller

Romantic Comedy Marketing, Love Concentrate

Romantic Comedy Marketing, Love Concentrate 

Loving Greetings to Readers of Romantic Comedy Marketing,

Last week I indicated that I would be addressing the concept of focusing on love. Getting focus is vital to marketing success as we know, but maintaining it eludes us all too often.

Before I explain how to regain and maintain focus, I feel it is important to say a little about what we focus on in the Romantic Comedy Marketing approach. As heretical as it may sound, we do not focus on results, but on process. Not on what others are doing, but on what we are doing. Not on profits, but on relationships of the kind that improve our shared experience on multiple levels.

We focus on these relationships because they bring us together in love and laughter. They spread love and laughter. These are “feel-good–with-a-purpose relationships.” These are the currencies we treasure and profit most from. (I hope that feels as good to you as it does to me.)

Getting off focus is simple and repeatable. And other than telling you to repeat your affirmations and be with those that don’t conflict with your priorities, I can only add this:

Don’t give up.

Don’t give up noticing little things that distract or annoy or habitually divert your focus. Theron Q. Dumont in his classic “The Power of Concentration” tells us to start by noticing our breathing. Breathe slowly and deeply, he says. Listen instead of talking so much. He tells us that concentration builds also by paying attention to what our eyes, lips, tongue, fingers and feet are doing. As they twiddle and fidget, they waste the precious energy that should be going to concentration. Concentrate on your stride so that it is a steady, determined pace instead of a hasty, frenetic, energy-wasting rush toward somewhere you are not.

Start practicing these little steps and see your ability to focus on everything else improve. Your mind races less; worry is limited; you feel present to do that which is most important – to love, laugh and connect.

We know that Romantic Comedy works, not just in movies and plays. But let us remember that the movies and plays do have scripts. The script keeps the energy of the actors on target and focused forward. Focus is the only way to achieve the delights of Romantic Comedy over and over.

I encourage you to focus and spread the joys of this marketing angle. Subscribe to our blog for weekly updates and let others know where to find it. www.RomanticComedyMarketing.wordpress.com

Thank you.

Romantic Comedy Marketing, Focus on Commitment

Dear Readers,

Some of you are natural lovers and you “get” the concept. Some of you are just having your eyes opened to the principles of the Romantic Comedy style of marketing. And some of you are natural lovers that “get it” and have trouble applying the principles with consistency. Have you asked yourself which you one are?

Romantic Comedy, when seen as entertainment, as an entertaining way to view life, or as the purview of hopeless romantics, will not appear to have any real effect. It will seem more like a fantasy, and Romantic Comedy Marketing as castle building in the sky. To some degree, I accept some blame because I write about Romantic Comedy Marketing in this way, as an enticement, an alluring possibility to investigate.

But all too often, this method of marketing is not taken seriously simply because we think of Romantic Comedy as entertainment, not a way to live life, much less a way to run a business.

And to complicate it further, to be effective, in spite of all the romance and comedy we employ, Romantic Comedy Marketing is fairly futile if not applied with all due seriousness. Romance is a commitment and consistently good comedy, if you haven’t noticed, requires focus.

In the next few minutes I want to challenge you to decide if you are committed to love and laughter as an important path toward business that makes a difference. Think about whether you are just trying to make a name for your business and fill your bank account or if your truest desire is to reach out and add pleasure, satisfaction, connection and joy to the lives of your customers and prospects. Are you committed to writing thank you notes? Posting client photos? Listening for needs? Staying in touch? Creating new reasons to serve? Impressing upon your employees or associates the value of each client? Passing on helpful information that can affect others’ lives? Finding creative ways to avoid conflict? Is the love and fun kept for a select few?

The next issue of Romantic Comedy Marketing will be about getting and maintaining focus. If we are halfhearted about romancing or comedy, we can only expect mediocre results. If we settle for relationships that are focused on selfish ends, it is like a joke that has forgotten its punch line.

There may be debate about whether love makes the world go ‘round, but we all must recognize that love and laughter make the trip worthwhile.

copyright 2009 by Rich Guy Miller

Romantic Comedy, The Look of Love

The eyes are the windows to love, not windows that only poets peer through. It begins at birth with the look of our mother and later can be experienced in other ways when our eyes are attracted to the gaze of a flirt, friend or lover.

I’d like to share a secret with you about romancing and marketing. It is powerful and should be used only by those with high moral principles. It is one of those things that is so simple that we could easily doubt its effectiveness. It communicates confidence, vulnerability, trust and intense interest in the other, as it draws them under our influence. It is just this: a loving look, the eye-link.

I suggest you look into books or online for specifics of loving eye language. There are many theories, studies and even warnings of excessive eye contact. But you know what I mean when I talk about that look we get across the room that communicates interest or a desire to meet, or the wordless look between new lovers, or the look of longing waiting for a response.

We know that in one-on-one sales presentations, the ability to look into the prospect’s eyes radiates confidence and in a presentation to a group, a look into the eyes of each listener is a thank you, a powerful suggestion to continue listening as it opens the lines of communication.

But marketing is not always one-on-one. Often it is through a brochure, an advertisement, a direct mail letter or a website. How can that situation be a loving eye-link, a meaningful connection that creates desire for more?

Think of a love letter. Or think of a letter from home. Or a long distance family phone call. A well-received love letter or phone call is not just words. Those words create pictures in our minds of connecting…because the writer or caller knew us well enough to say things that concerned us. It was a way of looking into our eyes and our hearts.

Often we struggle when creating a website, an ad or promotional letter because we are trying to reach too many people. We want to say something that is interesting to all readers. In other words, we want to be more of a circus barker (Come One, Come All and See the Wonders Hidden Inside!) rather than the lover (Dearest, I have something I have been yearning to tell you, but I know the pressure you have been under lately…)

To use the principles of Romantic Comedy Marketing, get a clear idea of whom you are addressing. Remember “The List?” Put your arms around that and speak to him or her. You already know them from your research on your ideal clients. That is the person you write to.

You speak to

• The issues that bother them;
• About what keeps them from seeing you regularly;
• The ways can you add joy and pleasure to their lives;
• What they want more than anything else that your service or product offers;
• What can you save your beloved;
• How this partnership adds more to their life.

This look into their needs, wants and their very thoughts is what separates you from the other suitors, those that just take their time with their small offers of 10% off, those that have no commitment to their quality of life. It is this look that makes them devoted to you and inspired to write glowing testimonials and make allowances for your human failings. This is the look of love you would love to receive yourself, but you will first offer it to your chosen “one.”

Romantic Comedy Marketing is copyright 2009 by Rich Guy Miller

Romantic Comedy Marketing, Is it Fantasy or Reality?

Enchantment… I wonder what images to come your mind with that word. Perhaps it feels childish or ignorant. But for readers of Romantic Comedy Marketing, I think “enchantment” rings essentially true. We want a little enchantment if only for a quick read, a thirty-minute sitcom or a full-length movie with the family, or our lover. Because we believe in enchantment.

I am reading The Uses Of Enchantmentby Bruno Bettelheim, the great child psychologist. His study explores the meaning and importance of fairy tales as they lay a foundation for the dreams and values we take into adulthood. I see his point.

Fairy tales, he tells us, are often fraught with unspeakable evils such as being left abandoned by protectors and guides, obstacles that are beyond a child’s strength and great beauty hidden behind difficulties or ugly monsters. As loving parents, we would spare our children those things in real life, but our sense is that the stories allow our children to explore some harsh possibilities without fear of real danger.

The Romantic Comedy Marketing approach supplies a similar place to explore the difficulties of workaday stress and the sales environment without fear and with the assured happily-ever-after ending. This is not Pollyanna-ish thinking. It is using our imagination to creatively engage with the real world.

I have not finished Bettelheim’s book, but I get the drift…and if I get only this one thing, it has been worth my time…fairy tales form our values.  One of the values we need to know is that life is not as bewildering and scary at it appears at first glance. Fairy tales teach us at an early age that we can sometimes slay dragons with laughter, kiss frogs until we find the right one and avoid the seductions of the most wicked creature on the planet.

Life and business bring us challenges that are opportunities to think outside our experience while we stay young at heart. These challenges can help us identify with our clients’ needs and offer solutions that are not just fantasies. In business, we can take the role of the prince, the suitor or the granter of wishes. We can hear our prospects’ needs before they cry. We can bring relief when they thought no one noticed. We can provide the happily-ever-after. But we need to believe in enchantment first. Otherwise, our work is simply tiresome, repetitive, relentless, obfuscating, controlling, old-as-dust drudgery.

Please contact us at The Impress Group for more ideas to charm your prospects’ lives. Together, we will write your ultimate story.

Romantic Comedy Marketing is copyright 2009 by Rich Guy Miller

Romantic Comedy Marketing, An Encouraging Tip

Alfred, Lord Tennyson is the one who first wrote, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost, / Than never to have loved at all.” I try to imagine the courage that it took for Lord Tennyson to write and describe this after having lost someone dear.

Losing someone we do not care about is not the same thing at all. But losing someone that was dearly loved is like losing the key to our happiness. Where can you go when the key to happiness is missing? You are locked in, blinded by the darkness. You can hardly imagine that “it is better to have loved and lost.”

There is more to Tennyson’s perspective than putting loss in perspective. It is understanding the high stakes before we invest in the partnership. I believe that one who loves and enters the relationship does so while knowing that it could be lost and that the risk is an acceptable one.

Marketing and business are like courting a lover, as I have mentioned before many times. Entering into business, one that we care about in particular, we must also accept the possibility of losing everything, as in love.

I don’t say this to raise the stakes, or to get anyone stressed over the current economics. This is not to make our sales efforts hesitant because to lose the sale will be like losing our beloved.

This reality check is to confirm with you that

• These relationships in this economy matter, 
• This, your business, matters, and, 
•  Your time and effort matter, come what may.

On one hand, this business may not be who you are, but losing it matters to who you are.

And yet, it is equally true, that you know that it is better to have fully given all to your business and lost than not to have fully tried.

The romance of sales is in the air. We can smell it. The laughter precedes the tears. And every day, every effort to relate was worth it. Thank you, Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

 

Romantic Comedy Marketing is copyright 2009 by Rich Guy Miller

Romantic Comedy Marketing, The Comic Interlude

Welcome back to Romantic Comedy Marketing, an exclusive from The Impress Group. I hope you enjoy reading my unique angle on marketing and are able to use it to enhance your market position. In the case of Romantic Comedy Marketing, you may also use it to remind yourself of your inner romantic or inner comic.

Last week had its trials for me. I brought them on myself and I blame no one. I am even grateful for the rather unproductive mood I trudged through on Father’s Day, because I had time to reflect and reconsider the nature of those trials. On reflection, it wasn’t the trials that affected me as much as my reaction to them. The problems frustrated my forward movement and it ticked me off.

Enter the comic interlude.

Looking my frustrations in the face, I had to admit that the fun had disappeared right there. The challenges that are normal in the course of life had me stunned. Gone was the inspiration, the desire, the creative process… as well as the idea of what to do next.

Kind of like what happens with many businesses. When the economy goes sour or the accounts receivable are not getting paid or the roof starts leaking, it is panic time. Out goes the humor and inspiration that got us into business in the first place.

Now is the time, if you are still stuck, to open the door to the inner comic. Granted, if this persona had been cultivated over many years, we wouldn’t feel so negative now. But that doesn’t mean that it is too late. It is never too late for a sense of humor.

Do you recall that incredibly successful movie, “Life is Beautiful? It was based on true-life events. And my take on it was that it took over 50 years, almost 3 generations, for that story to be told. We were so horrified by the human suffering that we couldn’t see any reason to request some comic relief. We had already tried in “M.A.S.H.” and “Hogan’s Heroes.” But “Life is Beautiful” was based on real life and we breathed a huge, collective sigh of relief.

It is time for the Comic Interlude. For business health, personal health, and for everyone on the staff. Inject some humor, some lightheartedness, some balance…and let’s get on with the Romance of Marketing! It’s not too late.

Romantic Comedy Marketing is copyright 2009 by Rich Guy Miller

Romantic Comedy Marketing, The Grooming Issue

Romance and Comedy were traditional entertainments before William Shakespeare rolled into Olde London. There is something irresistible and deeply satisfying about love and laughter that defies our determination to resist. I propose that using the strengths of romance and comedy in marketing is pure genius.

Last week I wrote about making “The List” of desirable clients as if they were to be our life long companions. This week, we will spread the love and joy by attending to grooming.

First, let’s turn the table, so essential in target marketing, and ask “What does my next partner want from me and my business? You know, it doesn’t make any difference how beautiful or romantic we think we are. We must be beautiful, attractive and ready in our prospect’s eyes. For example, males of many species are known for their colorful feathers, plush fur, courting  tunes or healthy body parts designed to attract females.

For humans, being attractive requires getting rid of negatives and any perceived ugliness. For example, our dating prospects go up when we get rid of dental flaws or chewed up fingernails. No desirable prospect looks forward to bringing a negative into their lives.

Take a look at your business from your potential partner’s viewpoint. What about your business is less than attractive if not repellent? For instance, do you market aggressively? Is your place or procedure sloppy? Is your website disorganized or hard to understand? Do you berate the competition? Are you looking old and out of touch with your client base? Is your staff ignorant or unprepared for clients? Grooming is essential.

Once the flaws are eliminated, we want to enhance the romance. For this, it is important to know what will attract that ideal partner. When I got back into dating a few years ago, I discovered that a man with a nice shoe collection impresses women. It makes him stand out. So, I bought new shoes…and women noticed!

In place of shoes or cologne, what clues show your courting interest to your business prospects? What brilliant feathers differentiate your business from others? What delights does your website promise if they will respond to your mating call? How will your strengths protect them or your vulnerabilities draw them in? Can you think of more romantic metaphors to attract your ideal prospect?

Now that I asked those questions of myself, I must do some website updates in anticipation of some good-looking prospects.

 

Romantic Comedy Marketing is copyright 2009 by Rich Guy Miller

Romantic Comedy Marketing, Chapter 1

Last week, I introduced the subject of marketing using Romance and Comedy. I wrote, “My [marketing] style is wedded to romance and laughter.” Romance, I hope you have noticed, is more often intentional than accidental. The movies make romance, comedy and opportunity appear as mere happenstance, but leaders of all types know that the most desirable things must be planned and prepared for.

My father and mother will be celebrating 64 years of marriage in August. Asking him the reason for his success, he always goes back to the time he made a list of what he wanted in a partner. He was very clear about the qualities that would make her perfect for him.

This is where we are going to start our comparison of Romance with Effective Marketing. My dad’s plan was not to find a woman to romance, i.e, a client with money to spend. He first needed to figure out the kind of woman that would:

1. Match his quirks and interests so they would work well together;
2. Have qualities that would be attractive to him, and
3. Have skills he lacked but valued in others.

Once he found her, he knew there would be harmony and love with no reason to stray or give up.

What kind of people are your ideal partners/ clients/ customers/ patients? Have you written down the specific ways they

A. Match your quirks and interests?

B. Are attractive to your business or style of business?

C. Offer skills you lack but admire in them?

Without “The List,” your likelihood of finding ideal clients is slimmer than a hair in a haystack. I believe that my father was not just looking for a partner that would suit his needs, but a partner that would make him a better person.

Our ideal clients offer that to our business. That ideal isn’t just about getting loyal clients that buy our products and services and love to refer others; ideal clients make our business more than it could be all by itself. Their input is more precious than the money exchanged. This is love, mutual support and longevity. Romance starts with “The List.” That is where all success begins.

I encourage you to get out that list and restart in earnest finding your ideal clients to romance. The steps in romancing will begin in the next installment, next week.

Romantic Comedy Marketing is copyright 2009 by Rich Guy Miller

Romantic Comedy Marketing, The Foreward

The idea of Romantic Comedy Marketing may or may not entice you. You may prefer Thriller, Crime Drama or Science Fiction Marketing. In due course…perhaps. But recently it has been interesting for me to consider the similarities between marketing and romance (getting your prospects to love you and invite you into their world) as well as the similarities between marketing and comedy (getting your prospect’s ear and heart through the kind of bonding that naturally occurs when people laugh together). Sound far-fetched? Let me explain.

Romancing or courting a person into your life can start with just one look. But to keep it going, there is some follow-through required. After that look, that wink, or that shared moment, she or he will want to know more, see more, feel more. I am not talking here about the “hook” that attracts the person or possible client in the first place, but the steps of romance that extend the shared connection. From my perspective, this boils down to wooing her from the public spot into the car, through her doorway, eventually into the bedroom and a lifetime of mutual care. You maybe amazed at the corollaries with sales!

There are many formulas for marketing. What will work for you is what comes natural for you. Forget any formula that feels like you are sticking pins in your eye. My friend David Bareño at Elevated Printing lost his first company because he was avoiding a sales style that worked for him. Read his story in the North County Voice.

But for me, my style is wedded to romance and laughter. Romantic Comedy feels so natural to me that I look forward to a day of opportunities for romance and joy whether in business or personal matters. I hope to be your guide on the path to Romantic Comedy Marketing and I wish you love and laughter, as you look for the connections yourself in the next week.

Romantic Comedy Marketing is copyright 2009 by Rich Guy Miller