Seven Figure Selling (Part 4)

by J.B. Bernstein @JBBERNSTEIN

Part 4 in this series will cover the challenge of finding common ground with an Ultra-High Net Worth Individual or C-Level executive.

I always like to say that I am the poorest rich guy in the room.  By most standards I would be considered well off, but unfortunately for me, every client, every customer, basically everyone I know makes me look poor in comparison.

This is the case for most seven figure salespeople.  They make a great a living and if they are like me, they appreciate every penny.  I am so grateful to have this job, there is not a day that goes by that I don’t thank the employment gods for smiling down on me and blessing me with the opportunities I have.  That being said, the people we sell to and the circles we move around in order to make these sales is a whole other universe.

I mentioned in Part 1 of the series that a seven figures salesperson is in the unique position of not being able to afford the products or services they sell.   There is such a huge gap in income, lifestyle, resources, and power between the salesman and customer in this market that it is almost impossible to find common ground.

Think about how you establish relationships in your daily life.  You try to find experiences that you share in order to create bonds and build trust.  When you are sitting across from the CEO of a fortune 500 company like Exxon, where the guy makes around $125,000.00 an hour, you are going to be hard pressed to find experiences you both share.

The other factor working against you is that fact that these Ultra-High Net Worth individuals and corporate executives are constantly being solicited.  No matter where they are, no matter what they are doing, as soon as someone finds out who they are, they almost immediately barraged.

It is almost like an athlete going out in public.  A person sees Michael Jordan on the street, and they figure this is their one chance to get a signature from him.  It does not matter if MJ’s in a hurry, or with his kids…  most people will take their shot.

It is the same for these powerful businessmen.  You could be at your kid’s little league game talking to the guy next to you just as normal as can be.  Until you realize that it is the guy who started Twitter, or Charles Schwab’s grandson, and you immediately see this as your chance to get a break.  Pitch your idea.  Ask for investment.  Even ask for job.

So what happens, is that like celebrities, these captains of industry constantly have their guard up.   That coupled with the gap in lifestyle makes finding common ground the toughest thing a seven figure salesman has to do.

In my experience the only way to find common ground is through expertise.  Most Seven Figure buyers make a practice of surrounding themselves with experts, especially in the areas where they are not specialists.  The only thing I have of value from the perspective of one of these buyers is that I am in expert in sports business.  My common ground is that I can help them.

As an example, I think back to the historic deal we structured to monetize Emmitt Smith pursuit of the NFL’s all-time rushing record.  We had to craft a deal between four groups that all would qualify as extreme seven figure buyers.

1. The Cowboys & The Jones Family – One of the greatest sports franchises in the world run by a businessman whose success is astounding
2. The NFL – A $9,000,000,000.00+ industry, and clearly the most successful pro sports league in the USA
3. The NFL Players Association – A group that is responsible for safeguarding the interests of every pro football player.
4. Emmitt Smith – Statistically the most successful running back in NFL history both on and off the field

Four hugely successful and powerful entities.  All are used to being in control.  All are used to being able to maximize their businesses without any outside help.

Yet we were able to craft a deal that allowed Emmitt to take the lead on sponsorship and merchandising of this record, based solely on our expertise in milestone marketing.

That framework has served as the standard for these type of career player records ever since.

Making Your Future By Mining The Past

By J.B. Bernstein  @JBBERNSTEIN

I spend most of my days toiling in the details of executing deals and servicing clients, but in the rare moments I find myself free from that work, I want to spend that time creating new business.

There are literally 1000’s of ways to create deal opportunities for my clients, but I have outlined a few here that seem to be never ending fountains of idea generation.

1.                         What’s Old is New Again – I have had a lot of success looking back at campaigns that were successful for brands in the past.  You see this all time, with campaigns like the “Nothing But Net” ads that McDonalds ran in the 90’s with Michael Jordan and recreated this year with LeBron James.  What I like to do is go back through old ad and promotional campaigns that were critically acclaimed or considered to have had a big impact on their brands, and figure out ways to reintroduce those campaigns in the current market with my clients.  A great example of this was an ad campaign we did back when I was Upper Deck, called the “TRADE” campaign.  We put a billboard up in Chicago that simply said TRADE JORDAN at the height of his career.  The billboard was virtually demolished and it received worldwide media attention.  The next week we revealed the same billboard with a copy of his Upper Deck trading card, saying “We’ve been doing it for years”.

We did the same thing for Patrick Roy in Montreal and Wayne Gretzky in LA.  The campaign was a huge success on every level.  When Barry Bonds was getting ready to break the all-time MLB HR record, we did the same thing with him and his Topps card in SF right outside the stadium (http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/bonds-billboard-riles-san-francisco-19222).  It was an even bigger success for Bonds, as the internet helped spread the news faster and further than we had been able to do in the early 90s with the Upper Deck campaigns.

2.                     Relocation of Ideas – The internet is probably the best tool for a guy a like me and in this case it makes it possible for me to fill the hours each night I don’t sleep with reading.  I am not talking about Dan Brown or Stephen King, I am talking about the good stuff… Foreign Sports Business journals.  In inverse proportion to how boring they are, is how valuable they can be.  To see how sports leagues, teams, and athletes are monetizing their investments in sports and entertainment abroad can be directly applicable here in the USA.  One example is a special edition cup featuring a player that was distributed in stadium by a German soccer team where by tweeting a pic of your ticket stub you could win a signed jersey.  We are doing a similar program with the Lions and Barry Sanders this Thanksgiving.  There is no shame in taking something that has worked somewhere else and reengineering it for use where you operate.

3.                  Recycle This –  So many times we pass on or trash a concept that we think will fail.  Some ideas are just terrible and should never work, but for some, it is just not the right idea, the right time, or the right market.  Most times our gut call is probably right, but what we forget, is that times and markets change.  Market needs change, and some ideas that seemed destined for failure in the past might be just what you are looking for now.  This is why I am a bit of pack rat when it comes to ideas.  I have extensive files of many of the ideas I have had that were shot down.  When I find myself stuck on a current program, I often roll back through these old files and see if any of yesterday’s junk has ripened into today’s treasures.  The key is if you are going to do this is, make sure you categorize things in a way that you can easily go back and search your database.  If nothing else, I find the comedic relief of some of my old clunkers helps to keep me humble and reminds me that if you want to have a few good ideas to your name, be prepared to come up with a lot of bad ones.

4.                If it is not Broken, Don’t Fix It – In my business the companies that are most invested in the sport are the ones most likely to use players to activate their marketing campaigns.  In addition, most of those companies are huge corporate conglomerates and market leaders so they plan far in advance and really think through their campaign execution.  The worst thing you can do in pitching an athlete to one of these companies is to present an idea outside of their strategy.  Not only will it seem to the brand like it does not fit with their existing efforts, but it is also a huge insult!  As if somehow you know more than the 100 people at their company who spent a year working through how to market their product and who are privy to tons of market research and brand history you have no access to.   That is why I like to see what companies are doing and then find natural athlete driven extensions that augment what their efforts and are easy to buy into for the brand.  A great example of this was the Twitter giveaway we did with Barry Sanders and PepsiMAX where fans could send in there most creative picture of Barry interacting with the brand.  You can see below some of the contest winning entries and it is clear why this was a good extension of  their brand and the campaign that they were running with Barry this season.

These are just a few ways I use and I hope they are helpful to you in your efforts to come up with big ideas you can actually sell in.

If Your Research Is Not Turning Into More Business You Are Asking The Wrong Questions

by JB Bernstein  @JBBERNSTEIN

It recently struck me when I was saw the topline research results for the Million Dollar Arm™ movie, that market research may be one of the most undervalued tools available to us.

Granted, you can’t plan solely on research results, but trust me, if your research is not creating more business for you, then you are asking the wrong questions.

Research can serve a few ends, specifically:

1. Confirm your Gut Feeling – In the case of the Million Dollar Arm, the movie research served to confirm what we already thought…  That the movie is going to be well received, and that it is not really a sports movie.  It is a drama and love story where baseball is the backdrop, but as suspected, women ranked the movie slightly higher than men.  It actually tested almost 30 points above industry average, and although the general feeling at Disney was that the movie had great potential, it is always nice to have research come back confirming that gut feeling.

2. Avoid the Wreck – I remember a product that I was part of launching when I worked for the Upper Deck Company (UDC) back in the early 90’s.  The product was called Wall Stars.  What, you never heard of them?  That is because despite being a truly amazing product that should have been successful, its launch flopped miserably.  How do I know it should have succeeded?  Have you heard of Fat Heads.  of course you have.  Wall Stars are the same product (Restickable Posters) that UDC brought to market over a decade before Fat Heads.  The problem was that we did not do any market research at the time.  If we had, this is what it would have told us:

• Launching the product with the USA Basketball (the 92 Dream Team) license was a mistake.  It was too short a window and people did not want Michael Jordan posters in a #9 USA uniform
• It was hard to understand what the product was from the packaging – it was rolled up and sold inside a card box in the poster aisle
• Without understanding that the posters were restickable the $9.99 price point seemed high versus the regular price of posters

3. Don’t Discount the End User’s Ideas – It is not something that happens often, but every now and again, your customer will actually say something smart.  I remember focus groups that were conducted when the Downy brand was getting ready to introduce an Ultra formulation of its fabric softener.  During those groups, we got complaints from consumers that the new formulation was “making their towels waterproof”.  We figured out by watching the groups that people did not believe that the little cup of ultra-Downy could give them the same performance, so they were using a full cup instead of the recommended dosage.  Although this would be good for people blowing through their bottles quickly, it would not be good for repurchase.  What it led to was the geniuses over at P&G’s Brenton Woods Technical Center coming up with an automatic dispenser that we could shrink wrap with the product to assure proper usage.  The rest was history, but if we had not actually seen those customers misusing the product in focus groups, Ultra Downy probably would have been a big failure for the brand.

Research can’t be the only tool you use, but it is perfect for filling the gaps in your vision, and in many cases will help you maximize your success.