Graham McGregor: Three magic marketing words

The secret is - you have to ask. Photo / Thinkstock

There are three magic words that have been tremendously helpful to me in all my marketing and sales activities.

The words are 'ask for help' and I began using these words in one of my first sales jobs over 33 years ago.

I was selling an advertising service to local business owners and not doing that well.

(In fact I was lucky to make one sale a week.)

Now we had a salesperson in our company called Don who seemed to have no trouble making six sales every week.

So I asked Don if he could show me what he was doing to make all these sales.

Don was more than happy to explain his sales secret. It was two pieces of coloured card board. Don used his pieces of cardboard as simple visual aids to explain how our advertising service worked for a business. And in around 2 minutes a potential client could see exactly how the service worked. In my case I was taking around 20 minutes of talking to try and explain the service and I was actually confusing potential clients. I asked Don if I could use what he was doing and he was more than happy for me to use the same visual aids he was using. Within two weeks I had tripled my sales and within two months I was regularly making over six sales a week.

What I realised from my experience with Don was that there were a lot of people who could help me improve my results.

And a lot of the time all I had to do was ask for help.

So for many years now I've been asking people for help.

And it's worked out nicely for me.

A perfect example is my Herald column which you are reading right now.

I've now written over 170 weekly marketing columns for the Herald and it all started when I asked someone for help.

Way back in 2011 I read a number of columns in the Herald written by the owner of a local advertising agency. The articles were on how to do effective advertising and I found them very useful. So I emailed the owner of the agency and told him that I had enjoyed his articles. He thanked me for my comments. I then asked if I could invite him out to lunch and ask him a few questions about advertising.

We met a week or two later and had a most enjoyable conversation. I gave him an introduction to two of my clients that I thought he could be of assistance to. (He specialised in a number of areas of advertising that these clients could use and I was not an expert in.) I then asked how he got to write a number of columns in the Herald and he explained how it happened and the process involved.

I explained I had an idea for an article on marketing that I thought could be useful for readers of the Herald. I wondered if he could give me some help on approaching the right person at the newspaper.

He was delighted to help and a short time later I had my first marketing column in the Herald. And I've been writing them regularly for over three years now.

There are many ways you can improve your business results by asking for help.

For instance, you might like to be introduced to a particular type of business.

You could contact a number of your existing clients and business colleagues and ask if they could introduce you to that type of business.

I did this a few days ago myself.

I developed a brand new marketing programme that is designed to help digital printing firms to create thousands of dollars of brand new sales every month.

I wanted to be introduced to a number of digital printing firms so I could explain my concept to them. I contacted the subscribers to my email newsletter and asked if they could help. Within 48 hours I had introductions to dozens of digital printers and a number of these printers have decided to use my new programme.

My main message in this article is that if you ask people for help a lot of them are more than happy to give it.

The secret is you have to ask.

"Asking for help does not mean that we are weak or incompetent. It usually indicates an advanced level of honesty and intelligence."

Anne Wilson Schaef, author.

Action Exercise:
Who are three people that you could ask for help in the next month?

Make contact with at least one of these people in the next week.

Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing. You can download his 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage' Ebook at no charge from www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com