When Swimmer Michael Phelps won the sixth race at the recent Olympic games in Beijing, it was by a hundredth of a second. But my question is, what was the name of the swimmer in second place?

If you have no idea, don’t feel bad – because I’m certain that 99% of the population could not answer that question.  (It was Miloard Cavic)

But my point is this.  The loser didn’t lose by much.  The winner didn’t win by much.  In point of fact, the loser in this instance was just a microsecond away from being the winner.

In any event, the coach of the loser certainly didn’t throw him off the team.  He just went back to the drawing board and worked on ways to shave that hundredth of a second off the final score.

Now let’s apply these same facts to the world of marketing. In 100% of the cases a marketing tactic either works or it doesn’t work.  And the way most clients judge the outcome is by seeing if the tactic makes money or loses money.  But there’s more here than meets the eye. The truth is the transaction – win or lose – didn’t do either in totality.  If it was a winner, it may have been a winner by only a few hundred dollars.  Or if it was loser, it may have been a loser by only a few hundred dollars.

But most people judge the tactic in totality.  It was either a winner or it was a loser.  And looking at tactics this way is absurd.

What if instead, we looked at only the difference.  What if instead of winning or losing, we were more concerned with managing that part of the transaction that made the difference.  Now instead of proclaiming victory or accepting defeat – we simply get to work making up the difference.   I like to call this “Managing the Middle” because it’s usually only five or ten percentage points here or there that determine the success or failure of any marketing tactic.

Here’s an example of what I mean.  I recently did a post card mailing for a client that failed to return a profit.  The client was despondent.  For him, it was just one reason to abandon marketing all together.  But a closer look revealed that the mailing only missed the profitability mark by three hundred and fifty dollars.  I convinced him that instead of going on to the next tactic (and the next), that we make the necessary adjustments and run the campaign again.

What did I do? I concentrated on ways to take the $350 out of the equation.  What this boiled down to was finding a printer who printed postcards for less, and having his staff do the mailing instead of depending on an expensive outside automation process.  Sure enough, the next mailing made a nice profit.  And now this particular client looks at postcard mailings as something that “works”.

And what about you?  Look over your last few marketing tactics and pay close attention to the “middle”.  What you’re likely to find is a bunch of “losers” that can be turned into winners.  And a bunch of winners that can be made into super stars.  Meanwhile, you develop a whole new mindset that doesn’t see everything in terms of black or white.

In late summer 1999, I was enjoying a wonderful lunch at a local pub when I overheard a conversation that was going on in the booth behind me.  A man was lamenting to his companion that he had lost a very large sum of money on a technology stock.

As he described the fiasco in graphic detail, it became more and more apparent that the situation was serious.  This man had not only gambled a huge sum of money on this particular speculation, he had apparently done so with funds that he could ill afford to lose.

As I listened to his ramblings, I wondered what stock he was talking about – determined never to go near that particular equity if I could help it.  It took a while, but he eventually named his nemesis and I remembered being shocked when I heard the pronouncement.

What surprised me about that stock was not so much the name as was the fact that I had just closed out a position on that particular offering myself.  But unlike my unfortunate friend in the adjoining booth – I had watched with great fascination and glee as that same stock had tripled in value from my original purchase price.

As I left the restaurant that summer afternoon, I began to reflect on the conversation I had been party to.  I also started to think about the contrast between the man’s story and my own.  Remember, we had both owned the same stock – and yet our feelings about this equity were polar opposites.

As I sat there in the parking lot, I was reminded of the opening paragraph of Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”.  What I did not realize, what I could not have known at that moment was that I was about to discover something profound in the haze of that surely accidental experience.  Something that would eventually lead me to a startling conclusion about the world of business.  Something that would start a chain of events that would ultimately change the direction and the focus of my entire business life.

This is not the appropriate forum to get into the totality of that life changing event.  But I can summarize my discovery with this statement.  All profit is made on the day you buy – not the day you sell.  This is true in investing.  And it’s also true in just about every phase of business.

Let me give you an example in the world of marketing.  I create an advertising campaign for a client.  We decide that the best way to advertise is to buy a radio schedule on a popular AM Talk Radio station.  If the schedule costs $5,000 and it generates $4,000 in sales, you lose money.  And the client proclaims the advertising to be a dismal failure.

If, on the other hand, I’m able to buy the same schedule for $2,500 and it generates the same $4,000 in sales, you make money.  And suddenly you’re an advertising genius.  Now think about it. In the one instance you’re an incompetent.  And in the other instance you’re a wizard.   But all that has really changed is the price of the schedule.  I remember some guru saying once, “It’s not creative unless it sells.”  I would like to change that to read “It’s not creative unless it sells at a profit”.

Common sense?  Yes. But the truth is that common sense is not all that common.

We’ve all heard of Merlin the Magician – the sorcerer who lived in King Arthur’s Court.  Legend has it that Merlin was born an old man – and actually lived his life backward.  So, when he was giving advice to the young King Arthur – he was not really predicting the future as many thought.  He was in fact reflecting on his own past.  For Arthur this was a tremendous advantage.  Can you imagine being able to sit down at a meeting and discuss with complete certainty the happenings of next week, next month, next year?  Wouldn’t that be sweet?

You and I have to do it a little bit differently.  But surprisingly enough, we can get close to sharing Merlin’s big advantage.  The answer is to imagine your business completed.  Then think about the very last step you took before you arrived at that perfect destination.  And then the step before that.  And the step before that – and so on.  Until finally, you arrive where you started – the present.  Then you simply turn around and head “back to the future”.  Completing each step in sequence.  But this time with a confidence born from really knowing.

In case you haven’t figured it out – it’s called a plan.  And if you don’t have one – you may become a part of someone else’s.

I was having a cup of coffee with my good friend Chuck Hertzog  the other day and he shared with me an idea that I simply can’t get out of my head.

Now I should tell you that Chuck is the GM of several radio stations and is responsible for a fairly large group of salespeople.  So he’s the kind of guy that you generally want to listen to.  Anyway, Chuck said that every time a salesperson and a prospect come together – a sale is always made.

He went on to explain his concept this way.  Either the salesperson sells the prospect on the idea that he or she should buy the product or service being offered.  Or the prospect sells the salesperson on the idea that his or her product or service doesn’t really fill the prospect’s needs.  Now I don’t know about you – but I think that’s a brilliant piece of deduction.

Think about it.  When you look at selling that way – i.e., with the idea that a sale is always made – it makes the whole process seem less dire, less dramatic, and certainly less contentious.  It also creates the realistic hope that the salesperson can still make a sale down the road – at that exact moment when he or she is able to deliver a product or service that is in the prospect’s best interest.  And that moment usually arrives when we are able to tailor what we’re selling to the prospects needs.  Interesting.

Radio personality and friend Todd Jeffers has passed away.  I knew Todd when he was part of the morning team at WRKZ (Z107) in Elizabethtown with Nancy Ryan and then later with Nancy at BOB in Harrisburg.

Todd was one of the funniest people I ever knew.  For close to 12 years, I was lucky enough to be part of his morning cast of characters with my Jo Bob Leroy (later Leonard G. Hogg) and Perford Fern contributions. I would write and record these comedy bits the night before they were due.  But I would always call Todd and read him the scripts before producing them.  I can still hear him laughing when I got to the punch lines – some of which were either highly controversial or borderline x-rated or both.    And then he would laugh again the following morning when he shared the bits with his adoring audience.

Often times he would tell me the night before that I had really gone too far with the bits.  But he would put them on the air anyway.  And that was that.

When my first daughter Jordan was born prematurely in Pittsburgh and I was driving back and forth from Harrisburg to the hospital in Pittsburgh each week, Todd would always call or visit me and do his best to keep my spirits up.  Underneath the jokes, and the crazy lifestyle, was a caring man who loved his family, loved his audience and loved his friends.

He was a light in the lives of everyone who really knew him and loved him.  And as long as we’re smiling – we’re holding him in our hearts.

I’ve been in the marketing business for over thirty years. And still, one of my favorite pastimes is a lively breakfast meeting with vendors – media reps, yellow page people, printers, etc. But it wasn’t always that way.

For the first ten years or so, the price of admission for these meetings was simply a phone call. A vendor would call, I would check my calendar, and a meeting was agreed to. But by the late 80’s, I began to realize that many if not most of these meetings were a waste of precious time – my time and theirs. So, after some careful consideration, I changed the rules.

Instead of simply taking a meeting and getting a pitch, I told the vendor that I expected “payment” for my time. And the payment came in the form of this simple little proposal:

During the course of our meeting, I agree to share with you at least one concept, tactic, or strategy that has made me money over the years. And in return, you will share one of your concepts, tactics, or strategies as well.

The idea was that if nothing else came of the meeting – neither of us would walk away empty-handed. To be honest, I didn’t expect too much to come from this bargain. But at least it made me feel better about investing my time and energy in what seemed to be an endless chain of meetings.

Boy was I ever wrong. Not only did the new concept make the meetings more interesting, it also produced a staggering amount of business changing strategies that continue to produce revenues to this day.

Here’s just one example.

One day, I met with a man who sold yellow pages and he told me about another man he knew who had sold the Encyclopedia Britannica door to door. Now, for anybody who has ever sold anything door to door, you know that the biggest challenge is setting appointments. Well this man was apparently very good at doing just that. The problem was people would do just about anything to get out of actually going through with the meeting.

But instead of being overwhelmed and disillusioned by this fact, this particular salesman took major advantage of the situation. Two days before each meeting was scheduled to take place, he would call the husband or wife and tell them that due to circumstances beyond his control he would have to reschedule their appointment for two weeks down the road.

His reasoning was simply this. If someone was willing to reschedule an appointment with a man selling expensive sets of encyclopedias – that person was most assuredly a “Grade A” prospect for the product.

If, on the other hand, the husband or wife seemed relieved to get out of the original appointment and, moreover, reluctant to schedule a new appointment in two weeks – he reasoned that he would have been wasting his time on that particular prospect anyway.

Yes, I know, he probably missed a few opportunities with this strategy over the years. But, as you might have guessed, this man had the highest closing ratio of any Encyclopedia Britannica salesperson in the entire organization. And when he did show up for the appointment – he brought a filled out sales order with him. He knew he was going to make the sale. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. And I might add that I’ve been using the “Delayed Appointment” strategy ever since.

So ask yourself these questions. Do you meet with vendors on a regular basis? Could you institute a “Price of Admission” strategy with your vendors? Will you?

I think you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to do. You’ll also be surprised and delighted at how hard your vendors will try to WOW you with their concepts, tactics, and strategies.

And guess what? Even if you end up with only one money making idea a year – how bad can that be? Besides, you’ve taken something that can be pretty routine or even boring – and turned it into something that is fun and thought provoking.