STRATEGY WITH GOOD APPLICATION IN MARKETING AND BUSINESS EXPANSION
Giving advice as a consultant during a Zen class
Question 10
Assuming one particular strategy is the answer to Dominic's question above, could I ask; what secondary (or other) strategy has good applications in marketing and business expansion?
Sifu Andy Cusick
Answer
In my answer to Dominic’s question, I have provided different strategies for different situations. But if I were to choose only one strategy for him, I would choose "Catch Bandits Catch Leader", which means marketing to rich clients instead of mediocre ones.
The time and effort for work are about the same, but the income is two or three times more, and complaints and clients’ fussiness are usually less. You must, of course, provide high quality work to justify for your high price.
I would also recommend the same strategy, "Catch Bandits Catch Leader", to you for your coaching or self-development business in your marketing and expansion. In other words, market to and expand amongst wealthy clients, not poor ones. For about the same amount of time and effort, you earn more money and has less complaints and clients’ fussiness.
Your work, of course, must be of high quality, but not quantity. In fact, because your work is of high quality, the time taken for you to give advice to your clients and for them to carry it out will be less. A mediocre adviser takes 3 hours to give advice, and his clients 6 months to carry it out, yet without success. A good adviser takes an hour to give advice, and the client takes 3 months to carry it out and have good result.
If you have the best strategy, why go for second best? If you can market to clients who pay you 500 pounds an hour, why market to those who pay you 50 pounds. Nevertheless, for academic interest, I shall still provide you with a secondary strategy.
You may use the strategy, "Hit Grass Startle Snake", which I took at random from the list for intellectual interest as a secondary strategy.
You can send letters to newspaper, articles to magazines, prepare pamphlets to be put in people’s mail boxes on the importance of seeking professional advise. This may startle the awareness of some clients to come to talk to you for 50 pounds an hour.
Although you didn’t ask this question, it would be beneficial to you and other readers to answer it. What advice should you give to your clients as a coaching counsellor or self-development adviser? Your advice should fulfil their need, not just talk about it.
Suppose a client comes to you and says he wants to get a wife.
You ask him to consider why he wants a wife, what qualities he looks for in a wife. You ask him to think over the answers carefully. Then you ask him what he thinks a wife would look for in a man, and whether he has these qualities.
Both of you talk for three hours, and he pays you 150 pounds for your advice, which is 50 pounds an hour. That is the last you see of him. That is also what many counsellors and advisers do.
Is your advice high-quality? No, your advice has not helped him fulfil his need. He came to ask you how to get a wife. He did not come to philosophize with you on a wife.
After attending some Zen and Strategies courses, you have become wiser. After some preliminaries which should take only a few minutes, you set out in steps to make things easy for your client what he should do, as follows.
- Join a dancing class.
- Secretly evaluate the background of the woman you would like to marry. For ethical reasons, she must be available, i.e. she is unmarried, at least at the time you meet her.
- If you are satisfied with her background, date her. Your job is to make every date memorable and enjoyable for her, not for you.
- After about 5 dates, ask her to marry you. In case she declines your marriage, repeat the same procedure with another woman in another dancing class.
You take less than an hour to give him this set of advice to fulfil his need. He pays you 500 pounds for your advice. If he follows your advice, getting a wife is a matter of time, usually sooner than expected.
As a matter of fact, he may or may not get a wife. If he joins a boxing class instead of a dancing class, for example, or intellectualizes on how and when he should ask the woman to marry him instead of actually asking, he is unlikely to get a wife.
That is his problem, not yours. Your problem, or opportunity for his improvement, is to give good advice. If he follows your advice, he may come to see you again with his wife to thank you, and you can compliment him for getting a beautiful wife – certainly beautiful to him.
A chi kung class with important business people
The question and answer are taken from the thread More Fun! 36 Strategies in the Shaolin Wahnam Institute Discussion Forum.