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Designed by Pauline Brown 由保琳·布朗设计
Set in 11 point Sabon 设置为 11 号 Sabon 字体
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ISBN-13: 978-1-59315-510-0
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CONTENTS 目录
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS … vii 致谢 … vii
Introduction: Bad Economy? Good News! … 1 引言：糟糕的经济？好消息！… 1
1 Is Your Business Stuck? … 11 1 你的生意停滞不前吗？ … 11
2 Are You Stuck Losing Out to the Competition? … 27 你是否陷入了输给竞争对手的困境？… 27
3 Are You Stuck Not Selling Enough? … 47 3 你是否因为销售不足而感到困惑？ … 47
4 Are You Stuck with Erratic Business Volume? … 79 4 你是否面临不稳定的业务量？ … 79
5 Are You Stuck Failing to Strategize? … 101 5 你是否陷入了无法制定战略的困境？… 101
6 Are You Stuck with Costs Eating Up All Your Profits? … 123 6 你是否被成本困扰，吞噬了所有利润？ … 123
7 Are You Stuck Still Doing What’s Not Working? … 141 你还在固执地做那些无效的事情吗？… 141
8 Are You Stuck Being Marginalized by the Marketplace? … 165 你是否被市场边缘化而感到困扰？ … 165
9 Are You Stuck with Mediocre Marketing? … 183 9 你被平庸的营销困住了吗？ … 183
10 Are You Stuck Still Saying “I Can Do It Myself”? … 213 10 你还在说“我可以自己做”吗？… 213
11 How to Get Going and Growing in a Crisis Economy … 241 11 如何在危机经济中启动和成长 … 241
CONCLUSION: CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’RE UNSTUCK! … 259 结论：恭喜！你解脱了！… 259
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 致谢
I’m just egotistical enough to tell you that this is the book that will make the difference for you between failure and success in this post-2008 crisis economy-and beyond. 我自负得足以告诉你，这是一本能让你在 2008 年后危机经济中以及未来成功与失败之间产生差异的书。
On the other hand, I’m not so egotistical as to suggest that every one of the hundreds of approaches, strategies, and tactics described herein were invented by the author. Instead, you’ll find in these pages the ideas (duly acknowledged, of course!) of some of the most brilliant business minds in the world today - men and women who are not just legendary figures in the worlds of marketing and sales but also my friends, colleagues, co-authors, and co-presenters, and current and past business strategic partners. First among equals is Rich Schefren, whose brilliance enlivens many of the chapters of this book, and without whom the book (and many successful online marketers) would be immeasurably poorer. 另一方面，我并不是那么自负，认为这里描述的数百种方法、策略和战术都是作者发明的。相反，您会在这些页面中找到一些当今世界上最杰出的商业头脑的想法（当然，已得到适当的承认！）——这些人不仅是营销和销售领域的传奇人物，也是我的朋友、同事、合著者和共同演讲者，以及现在和过去的商业战略合作伙伴。在平等者中，首屈一指的是 Rich Schefren，他的才华使本书的许多章节生动起来，没有他，这本书（以及许多成功的在线营销者）将会失去无可估量的价值。
You’ll also discover the ideas of Chet Holmes, with whom I have repeatedly shared the speaker’s platform and whose book, The Ultimate Sales Machine, I endorse heartily. 你还会发现切特·霍尔姆斯的理念，我曾多次与他分享演讲平台，他的书《终极销售机器》我非常推荐。
And the ideas of Andy Miller, a genius when it comes to consultative selling. 还有安迪·米勒的想法，他在咨询销售方面是个天才。
Thank you, Barbara Lowenstein, for agenting the deal and selling the book in so many foreign markets. 谢谢你，Barbara Lowenstein，感谢你促成这笔交易并在如此多的外国市场上销售这本书。
A special thank you also goes to Roger Cooper, the publisher, for his faith in this book and his willingness to roll up his sleeves and make it a success. 特别感谢出版商罗杰·库珀对本书的信任，以及他愿意亲力亲为使其成功。
To Ruth Mills, who ably copyedited the book, helping me to sound more organized and concise than is often the case in real life. To Michael Levin, who-though he takes life, and me, too seriously-gave my ideas a stronger, clearer voice. 致鲁思·米尔斯，她出色地编辑了本书，帮助我听起来比现实生活中更有条理和简洁。致迈克尔·莱文，尽管他对生活和我都太过认真，却赋予了我的想法更强烈、更清晰的声音。
To Christy, who has been after me for years to write another book. 致克里斯蒂，她多年来一直催我写另一本书。
And to all the wonderful people who have taken me under their wing over the last thirty years to counsel, mentor, teach, and train me in all their wisdom and knowledge. 感谢所有在过去三十年里把我纳入怀抱的优秀人士，给予我指导、辅导、教学和培训，传授他们的智慧和知识。
If I have failed to acknowledge anyone else in this book for their ideas and influence, it’s merely an unintentional oversight and for that, I duly apologize. 如果我在本书中未能承认其他任何人对他们的想法和影响的贡献，那只是一个无意的疏忽，为此我深表歉意。
This book is offered to business owners, entrepreneurs, professionals, start-ups, and managers alike, with the hope that it will help your respective enterprises keep going, growing, and thriving in this bad economy and beyond. 本书面向企业主、企业家、专业人士、初创公司和管理者，希望能帮助你们各自的企业在这糟糕的经济环境中持续发展、壮大和繁荣。
INTRODUCTION 介绍
BAD
ECONOMY?
GOOD NEWS! 糟糕的经济？好消息！
I love a bad economy. 我喜欢糟糕的经济。
So do my clients. 所以我的客户也是。
And after you read this book, so will you. 而在你读完这本书后，你也会如此。
For all the pain they cause, economic downturns-like the one we’re in today-allow us to discover that areas of growth are actually more plentiful in hard times than in boom times. And that’s why I appreciate such downturns. 尽管经济衰退带来了许多痛苦——就像我们今天所经历的那样——但它们让我们发现，在困难时期，增长的领域实际上比繁荣时期更为丰富。这就是我欣赏这种衰退的原因。
In a bad economy, you can walk all over your competition, lap the field, run circles-you pick the metaphor. The main thing is that you can win easily-if you know how to benefit from bad times. Everyone else is dropping out of the race, and you’re seeing the checkered flag. Everyone else is looking backward, and you’re looking forward. They’re terrified, and you’re making a fortune. Indeed, you’re seeing opportunities and overlooked markets, transactions, and areas of thinking that no one else saw in good times, so they certainly won’t see them in times of financial struggle. 在糟糕的经济环境中，你可以轻松超越竞争对手，领先全场，游刃有余——你可以选择任何比喻。关键是，如果你知道如何在困难时期获益，你就能轻松获胜。其他人都在退出比赛，而你却看到了方格旗。其他人都在回顾过去，而你在展望未来。他们感到恐惧，而你却在赚取巨额财富。事实上，你看到了机会和被忽视的市场、交易以及思维领域，而这些在经济好时没有人注意到，因此在财务困境时期他们肯定也不会看到。
The Sticking Point Solution makes a unique promise. Anyone can show you how to succeed when all the indicators are up. But I’m going to show you how to succeed as never beforewhen the national and global financial picture looks bleak. 《卡点解决方案》做出了独特的承诺。任何人都可以在所有指标上升时向你展示如何成功。但我将向你展示如何在国家和全球金融形势看起来黯淡时取得前所未有的成功。
As I was completing this book, the stock market’s gyrations reached an unprecedented level. On one day in particular, the market dropped more than 700 points. But during the same day, 100 stocks went up. Why is it that even when the news is at its worst, some companies are having their best year ever? 当我完成这本书时，股市的波动达到了前所未有的水平。在某一天，市场下跌了超过 700 点。但在同一天，有 100 只股票上涨。为什么即使在新闻最糟糕的时候，一些公司却迎来了它们有史以来最好的年份？
And why can’t you? 那你为什么不能呢？
You can, and in this book I will show you precisely how. 你可以，在这本书中我将准确地告诉你如何做到。
My starting point is to ask, with all due respect, whether your business or enterprise might be stuck. 我想问一下，恕我直言，您的业务或企业是否可能陷入困境。
A “stuck” business, whether it’s entrepreneurial in nature or a Fortune 500 company, is one that fails to grow predictably every year, every quarter, every day. If you’re being carried along by the marketplace, then the moment the marketplace dries up, your business is going to dry up, too, because you’re not in control of your destiny. In good times, stuck businesses don’t even realize they’re stuck! 一个“停滞不前”的企业，无论是创业性质的还是财富 500 强公司，都是指那些每年、每季度、每天都无法稳定增长的企业。如果你只是被市场牵着走，那么一旦市场萎缩，你的业务也会随之萎缩，因为你无法掌控自己的命运。在好的时候，停滞不前的企业甚至没有意识到自己已经停滞不前！
Imagine a business that made $100,000\$ 100,000 last year and $110,000\$ 110,000 this year. The CEO could argue that the business is growing, but in actuality it may have been the market that has grown-and without any proactive or strategic action on the CEO’s part. In such cases, when the market dries up, it takes stuck companies down with it. And the company that once made $110,000\$ 110,000 now makes only $70,000\$ 70,000. Or less. In the meantime, its competitor (applying the ideas you’ll find in this book) is doing $250,000\$ 250,000 worth of business. 想象一个去年赚了 $100,000\$ 100,000 ，今年赚了 $110,000\$ 110,000 的企业。首席执行官可能会争辩说企业在增长，但实际上可能是市场在增长——而首席执行官并没有采取任何主动或战略性的行动。在这种情况下，当市场萎缩时，停滞不前的公司也会随之下滑。而曾经赚了 $110,000\$ 110,000 的公司现在只赚 $70,000\$ 70,000 。或者更少。与此同时，它的竞争对手（运用你在本书中找到的理念）正在做 $250,000\$ 250,000 的生意。
Why do so many businesses get stuck and stay stuck? The top four reasons for stagnation, in my experience, are the following: 为什么这么多企业陷入停滞并且停滞不前？根据我的经验，停滞的四个主要原因如下：
not incorporating growth thinking into every aspect of the business; 未将增长思维融入业务的每个方面；
not measuring, monitoring, comparing, or quantifying results; 不测量、监控、比较或量化结果；
not having a detailed, strategic marketing plan with specific performance growth expectations; and 没有详细的战略营销计划和具体的业绩增长预期；并且
not knowing how to set appropriate, specific goals. 不知道如何设定适当的、具体的目标。
These problems are magnified in tough economic times. First, there’s the problem of lower revenue because the business climate is poor. And, second, the very concept of recession or hard times “freezes” people. They get scared. They don’t know what to do, so they tend to do nothing, or to do more of the things that weren’t working in the first place. 这些问题在经济困难时期被放大。首先，由于商业环境不佳，收入减少的问题出现。其次，衰退或困难时期的概念让人们“冻结”。他们感到害怕，不知道该做什么，因此往往选择无所作为，或者继续做那些本来就没有效果的事情。
The good news for you is that your competition probably isn’t reading The Sticking Point Solution. In fact, in difficult economic times like these, it’s very likely that your competitor is scurrying to stay afloat or is already out of business, leaving more of the market to you. 对你来说好消息是，你的竞争对手可能并没有在阅读《The Sticking Point Solution》。事实上，在像现在这样的经济困难时期，你的竞争对手很可能正在忙于维持生计，或者已经倒闭，这让更多的市场留给了你。
The purpose of this book is to show you how to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to you. In fact, I’ll go one step further and say that I want to teach you to embrace recessions and economic downturns, and to learn how to profit handsomely from your business challenges and adversities, and even from your competition’s missteps. One such misstep is to pack up and leave when the going gets tough. But if you know how to be strategic, how to direct your business or your department intelligently, how to grow and sustain high-profit clients, and how to capitalize on the shortcomings of your competitors, you’ll quickly find that you can enjoy even more success and make even more money than you would during so-called boom times. 本书的目的是向您展示如何确保同样的事情不会发生在您身上。事实上，我会更进一步，告诉您我想教您如何拥抱衰退和经济低迷，学习如何从您的商业挑战和逆境中获利丰厚，甚至从竞争对手的失误中获利。一个这样的失误是在困难时期打包离开。但如果您知道如何制定战略，如何智能地引导您的业务或部门，如何发展和维持高利润客户，以及如何利用竞争对手的短处，您会很快发现，您可以享受甚至比所谓的繁荣时期更大的成功和更多的财富。
If your business is stuck, I’ll get you unstuck. And by the time you finish The Sticking Point Solution, you’ll approach tough economic times the same way that many prosperous businesspeople do-by saying, Bring 'em on! You may not love the bad times more than the good ones, but you’ll have the confidence that comes with being able to profit, no matter 如果你的生意陷入困境，我会帮助你摆脱困境。当你完成《The Sticking Point Solution》时，你将以许多成功商人的方式来应对艰难的经济时期——说，来吧！你可能不会比好的时候更喜欢坏的时候，但你会拥有能够获利的信心，无论如何。
what the economy-or your competition-is doing. You’ll see options and opportunities that weren’t evident in the past. And you’ll have a highly specific action plan to reach stratospheric levels of growth. All of this while the commentators on the financial news networks are wringing their hands daily. 了解经济或竞争对手的动态。您将看到过去不明显的选项和机会。您将拥有一个高度具体的行动计划，以达到惊人的增长水平。所有这一切都在金融新闻网络的评论员们每天都在焦虑不安。
As a business owner or professional, you should be anything but fearful in a bad economy or recessionary period. In a good market, almost all anybody has to do is suit up and wait for business to arrive at the doorstep. The “jet stream” of prosperity carries all businesspeople forward. They don’t have to be good at doing business. They don’t have to be strategic. They don’t have to offer their clients unique advantages. They don’t even have to be growth-minded. They just get carried along, willy-nilly. Even those who are inept can grow along with the climbing economic trend. 作为企业主或专业人士，在经济不景气或衰退时期，你绝不应该感到恐惧。在良好的市场中，几乎所有人只需准备好，等待生意上门。“繁荣的气流”将所有商人向前推进。他们不必擅长做生意。他们不必具备战略眼光。他们不必为客户提供独特的优势。他们甚至不必有增长的心态。他们只是随波逐流。即使是那些无能的人也能随着经济上升的趋势而成长。
But in a bad economy, such people become paralyzed. The music stops, and they don’t know what to do. They retreat. They stagnate. They spend more time doing more of the same ineffectual things they were doing before, but their ineptitude is no longer disguised by the enormous force of the upward momentum of a positive economy. Such businesses are like hang gliders: Once they get moving, they can go for hours. But when they find themselves buffeted by changes in air pressure beyond their control, their crash landings are scary to watch. 但在糟糕的经济环境中，这些人变得瘫痪。音乐停止了，他们不知道该做什么。他们退缩。他们停滞不前。他们花更多时间做以前那些无效的事情，但他们的无能不再被积极经济的巨大向上势头所掩盖。这些企业就像滑翔伞：一旦开始移动，他们可以飞行几个小时。但当他们发现自己受到超出控制的气压变化的冲击时，他们的坠毁着陆让人看着很害怕。
A handful of businesses actually become strategic during hard times. By taking on a growth-minded strategy, these businesses capture the vast majority of new clients in the marketpeople who weren’t already buyers or who weren’t ready to move forward, or perhaps didn’t previously have the need for a given product or service. But even more important, strategically minded companies capture-or “steal” in an ethical manner, if you will- 15 to 20 percent of the best buyers from all of their competitors. 在困难时期，少数企业实际上会变得具有战略性。通过采取以增长为导向的战略，这些企业捕获了市场上绝大多数的新客户——那些之前不是买家或尚未准备好前进的人，或者可能之前对某种产品或服务没有需求的人。但更重要的是，具有战略思维的公司从所有竞争对手那里捕获或“以道德的方式窃取”，如果你愿意的话，15%到 20%的最佳买家。
So, if you’re attracting all the new buyers in your market and you’re appropriating, say, 15-20 percent of the best, most profitable, and most repetitive buyers from a half-dozen of your competitors, you’re doubling-believe it or not, doublingwhat you might have accomplished even in an upmarket. For that matter, even if the bottom has fallen out of the economy, or your industry in particular, you can still grow 60,80 , or 100 percent or more while everyone around you is stalling or even failing and collapsing. If you’re ready to get serious about understanding value propositions, irresistible offers, and the concept of preemptiveness, along with the other potent concepts I’ll share with you in this book, success can be yours in a most tangible, thrilling way. 所以，如果你在吸引市场上所有的新买家，并且你从半打竞争对手那里占据了 15-20%的最佳、最有利可图和最重复的买家，你就会实现翻倍——信不信由你，翻倍——即使在一个上升的市场中你可能也无法达到的成就。更重要的是，即使经济崩溃了，或者你的行业特别受到影响，你仍然可以在周围的人停滞不前甚至失败崩溃的情况下，实现 60%、80%或 100%甚至更多的增长。如果你准备认真理解价值主张、不可抗拒的优惠以及优先权的概念，以及我将在本书中与您分享的其他强大概念，成功就可以以一种最切实、令人兴奋的方式属于你。
In this connection, bear in mind that every business has at its disposal twenty to fifty or more highly “upside-leverageable” impact points-or (eX) factors. These (eX) factors can create exponential income if you recognize them and harness them. They increase the likelihood that people will call you or go to your website. They make it easier for you to close sales and deals. They turn one-time buyers into clients who buy every quarter, and they turn nonbuyers into people who buy something. These factors are the surprisingly, perhaps even embarrassingly, simple things you can do to bring in more prospects, more sales, more profit, more conversions, more markets, and more ways to start and sustain relationships. If your business has fifty (eX) factors going for it and you increase your effectiveness in, say, just ten of those leverage areas, you will be poised not just to survive in challenging economic times but to thrive as never before. W. Edwards Deming recognized these factors in the manufacturing world and used this knowledge to help develop corporate titans. I’ve taken the same approach and applied it to something far more important: the revenuegenerating process for your business. 在这方面，请记住，每个企业都有二十到五十个或更多高度“可杠杆化”的影响点——或称为（eX）因素。这些（eX）因素如果被识别并加以利用，可以创造指数级的收入。它们增加了人们拨打您电话或访问您网站的可能性。它们使您更容易达成销售和交易。它们将一次性购买者转变为每季度购买的客户，并将非购买者转变为购买某种产品的人。这些因素是您可以做的令人惊讶的，甚至可能是令人尴尬的简单事情，以吸引更多潜在客户、更多销售、更多利润、更多转化、更多市场，以及更多开始和维持关系的方式。如果您的企业有五十个（eX）因素在支持您，并且您在例如仅仅十个杠杆领域中提高了您的有效性，您将不仅能够在经济困难时期生存下来，还能像从未有过的那样蓬勃发展。W. Edwards Deming 在制造业中识别了这些因素，并利用这些知识帮助发展企业巨头。 我采用了相同的方法，并将其应用于更重要的事情：您业务的收入生成过程。
Again, despite the pain caused by recessions, highly successful, strategic, and totally proactive businesspeople embrace them because hard economic times cleanse the marketplace of marginal competitors who are just reaping the benefits of good times as opposed to being really good businesspeople. That’s why I feel comfortable saying that I’m going to teach you to love recessions. You can have your best years while those around you are facing disaster. You’ll come out of a downturn stronger, more prosperous, and poised to grow faster than you ever hoped, or even imagined. 尽管衰退带来了痛苦，但高度成功、具有战略眼光且完全主动的商人们却拥抱它们，因为艰难的经济时期会清洗市场上那些仅仅在享受好时光而不是成为真正优秀商人的边缘竞争者。这就是为什么我敢于说我将教你爱上衰退。在周围的人面临灾难时，你可以拥有最好的年份。你将从经济低迷中走出来，变得更强大、更繁荣，并准备以比你曾经希望或想象的更快的速度增长。
Business success really is as simple as finding what I call an “under-recognized” or changing need and filling it in with wisdom, empathy, and understanding that no one else can demonstrate or display. In short, you will be solving problems that other people may not even be able to articulate. There are three categories of problems: your own problems, your competitor’s problems, and your market’s problems. Since time immemorial, the people most skilled at solving the biggest, most important problems have been the best rewarded. That has always been so, and will continue to be. 商业成功确实就像找到我所称的“未被充分认识”或变化的需求，并用智慧、同理心和理解来填补这一需求，而这些是其他人无法展示或表现的。简而言之，你将解决其他人甚至可能无法清晰表达的问题。问题可以分为三类：你自己的问题、竞争对手的问题和市场的问题。自古以来，最擅长解决最大、最重要问题的人总是获得最好的回报。这一直如此，未来也将继续如此。
Chances are that in hard times, both you and your competitors don’t even recognize the problems you are struggling with. You might not be able to put these problems into words, let alone find solutions. But if you can get clarity about what problems you’re confronting and trying to solve, you can become a master at solving those problems for yourself and for your marketplace. And if you do, rich rewards await you. 在困难时期，你和你的竞争对手很可能甚至无法意识到你们所面临的问题。你可能无法用语言表达这些问题，更不用说找到解决方案了。但是，如果你能清楚地了解自己所面临和试图解决的问题，你就能成为解决这些问题的高手，无论是为自己还是为你的市场。如果你能做到，丰厚的回报在等待着你。
Every once in a while, an entrepreneur or company comes along that totally “gets it.” Take, for example, JetBlue, the airline that recognized that businesspeople traveling by jet are bored out of their minds. So it installed TVs for every seat on the plane. A simple idea, but a powerful one. Or consider financial adviser and author Howard Ruff, self-styled “champion” of middle-class investors. Having recognized that such 每隔一段时间，就会出现一个企业家或公司，完全“懂得”这一点。例如，捷蓝航空，这家航空公司意识到乘坐喷气式飞机的商人感到无聊。因此，它在飞机上的每个座位上安装了电视。这是一个简单的想法，但却是一个强大的想法。再考虑一下金融顾问和作家霍华德·拉夫，自称是中产阶级投资者的“冠军”。他意识到这样的
investors were being ignored by high-class wealth publications, he made a fortune providing advice to people who weren’t rich—yet. American Express also “gets it.” It studies peoples’ purchasing habits and tailors direct-mail offerings to their likeliest purchases. 投资者被高端财富出版物忽视，他通过为那些尚未富有的人提供建议而赚了一大笔钱。美国运通也“明白这一点”。它研究人们的消费习惯，并根据他们最可能的购买量身定制直邮产品。
One of the prevailing problems I’ve identified in the marketplace is what I call “ambivalent uncertainty,” whereby your client is not just undecided about whether to buy from you but unsure whether he should buy at all. He’s like the person who stands in front of a multiplex, looking at the names of all the movies, unmoved by any of them, unsure whether he really wants to see a movie in the first place. How do you get him to commit to buy a ticket to your movie-which then opens up the likelihood that he’ll buy popcorn and soda once he gets into the theater, and will buy your movie on DVD a few months later? 我在市场上识别出的一个普遍问题是我所称的“矛盾的不确定性”，即您的客户不仅对是否从您那里购买感到犹豫不决，还不确定他是否应该购买。他就像一个站在多厅影院前的人，看到所有电影的名字，却对任何一部都没有兴趣，不确定他是否真的想看电影。您如何让他决定购买您电影的票——这将增加他在进入影院后购买爆米花和汽水的可能性，并在几个月后购买您电影的 DVD？
Ambivalent uncertainty occurs when your prospects aren’t entirely sure that they need your product or service, or aren’t completely convinced that you are the right entity to solve their problems. If you can make the most of just these two (eX) factors in your business-by removing your prospects’ ambivalence and uncertainty about whether they need what you offer and whether they should choose you over all the restenormous success will be yours for the taking. 矛盾的不确定性发生在您的潜在客户并不完全确定他们是否需要您的产品或服务，或者并不完全相信您是解决他们问题的合适实体。如果您能充分利用这两个（eX）因素，通过消除潜在客户对他们是否需要您所提供的产品以及是否应该选择您而非其他所有竞争者的矛盾和不确定性，巨大的成功将唾手可得。
I’ll show you how. 我会告诉你怎么做。
So, if being “stuck” is the problem, what needs to happen to get your business unstuck? 那么，如果“卡住”是问题，您的业务需要发生什么才能摆脱困境？
You break down your numbers, not just month to month, year to date, and year to year, but also into categories like how many leads and how many new sales by product, average sale, and average product-source. Then, you analyze all of the 您将您的数据进行细分，不仅按月、年初至今和年对年进行分析，还按类别进行分析，例如每个产品的潜在客户数量和新销售数量、平均销售额和平均产品来源。然后，您分析所有这些数据。
correlations, implications, and anomalies that these data tell you about. 这些数据告诉你关于相关性、影响和异常的内容。
You have a systematic, strategic process in place that is designed in a predictable, sustainable, and continuous manner to bring in prospects and first-time buyers. You keep advancing and enhancing them forward to recurring purchases in a predictable enough manner that you can look at your numbers today and accurately predict what your business will be like in 90 days, 100 days, or some other time frame. You’re able to engineer specific, predictable growth, year after year, because you’re zigging while your competitors zag. They’re still using direct mail, while you are conducting Webinars and using social media, Internet 2.0, and LinkedIn-things that weren’t even on the radar a few years ago. They’re running ads that don’t pull, while you’re tying in with affinity groups who endorse and promote you to their members. And so on. 您有一个系统化、战略性的流程，旨在以可预测、可持续和持续的方式吸引潜在客户和首次购买者。您不断推进和增强他们的重复购买，以一种足够可预测的方式，使您能够查看今天的数字，并准确预测您的业务在 90 天、100 天或其他时间框架内的情况。您能够每年实现特定、可预测的增长，因为您在竞争对手的反向操作中前进。他们仍在使用直邮，而您则在进行网络研讨会并使用社交媒体、互联网 2.0 和 LinkedIn——这些几年前甚至还没有被关注。他们投放的广告效果不佳，而您则与支持和推广您的亲和团体建立联系。等等。
You are producing not just incremental gains but exponential gains year after year. You achieve this by harnessing the littleunderstood power of business generating to drive multiplied sales and profits. For example, Costco studied its numbers and realized it made more money by selling memberships than by selling goods in its stores! It now tailors its advertising and marketing to bring people back into the stores to buy things on a regular basis-so they will continue to keep their memberships in good standing. And The Biggest Loser TV series promotes The Biggest Loser Club, an online club to which dieters pay a yearly membership fee. More than a million people choose to do so each quarter. Now that’s real leverage! 你不仅在每年获得增量收益，而是获得指数级的收益。你通过利用商业生成的鲜为人知的力量来推动销售和利润的倍增。例如，Costco 研究了其数据，意识到通过销售会员资格赚的钱比在商店里销售商品赚得更多！它现在调整广告和营销，以吸引人们定期回到商店购买商品——这样他们就能保持会员资格的良好状态。而《最大赢家》电视系列节目则推广《最大赢家俱乐部》，这是一个在线俱乐部，减肥者需要支付年度会员费。每个季度有超过一百万人选择这样做。这才是真正的杠杆！
You have clarity about all of the challenges that affect your business, and you realize none of them are insurmountable. In fact, the vast majority can be improved upon. You now see the potential income in any business situation and how to make it work for you in a most enriching manner. For example, you find that you have one category of buyers who are ten times 您清楚影响您业务的所有挑战，并意识到它们没有一个是不可克服的。事实上，绝大多数都可以得到改善。您现在看到了任何商业情况下的潜在收入，以及如何以最有益的方式使其为您服务。例如，您发现您有一类买家是十倍于
more likely than others to purchase your goods, and if you approach them the right way, they are likely to buy seventeen times more goods than your average client. Or when ads no longer work, you know how to get free media. Or when consumers aren’t spending as much money as before, you know how to find alternative propositions to which they can’t say no. Or if marketing at corporate events or trade shows stops working for you, you develop a distribution channel none of your competitors know about. You’ve become Wayne Gretzky, skating to where you know the puck is going to be. 更有可能购买您的商品，如果您以正确的方式接触他们，他们可能会购买比您的平均客户多十七倍的商品。或者当广告不再有效时，您知道如何获得免费的媒体。或者当消费者的消费不如以前那么多时，您知道如何找到他们无法拒绝的替代提议。或者如果在企业活动或贸易展上进行营销不再有效，您会开发一个竞争对手不知道的分销渠道。您已经成为韦恩·格雷茨基，滑向您知道冰球将要到达的地方。
You understand your competitors’ appeal, advantage, and differentiation in the market-and you know how to preempt these variables, or to successfully position yourself against them. You learn why certain consumers buy from your competitors and not from you, and you know how to change that. 你了解竞争对手在市场上的吸引力、优势和差异化——你知道如何预先应对这些变量，或者成功地将自己与他们区分开来。你了解为什么某些消费者选择从竞争对手那里购买而不是从你这里购买，并且你知道如何改变这种情况。
You know about the alternative products and services that your prospects can buy in lieu of your products and services, including taking no action at all (like our moviegoing friend mentioned earlier). And you can prove to them that choosing you represents the most astute decision any buyer could make. You know how to motivate and persuade them to take action and make buying decisions. You enjoy not just what I call a “static awareness,” or a theoretical knowledge of your marketplace, but the ability to turn a cool profit through your prospects and clients. 你知道你的潜在客户可以购买的替代产品和服务，包括完全不采取行动（就像我们之前提到的看电影的朋友）。你可以向他们证明，选择你是任何买家可以做出的最明智的决定。你知道如何激励和说服他们采取行动并做出购买决策。你不仅享受我所称的“静态意识”或对市场的理论知识，还享受通过你的潜在客户和客户获得可观利润的能力。
You’re incorporating growth thinking into everything you do, every action you take, every investment you make, every contact you forge with your buyer or marketplace. Let’s take Kevin Trudeau as an example. Trudeau is famous for his books on memory and health cures. He is also a master of the infomercial. You want to know the secret to his success? Trudeau succeeds because he runs ads before he sets prices! He first determines how many inquiry calls per thousand viewers an infomercial has generated-and then sets his pricing 你将增长思维融入到你所做的一切中，每一个行动，每一项投资，每一个与你的买家或市场建立的联系。让我们以凯文·特鲁多为例。特鲁多因其关于记忆和健康疗法的书籍而闻名。他也是信息广告的高手。你想知道他成功的秘诀吗？特鲁多之所以成功，是因为他在定价之前就投放广告！他首先确定每千名观众产生了多少咨询电话，然后再设定价格。
accordingly to maximize his profits. That’s a brilliant approach. Most people just assume they know how much the market will pay for a product or service, but Trudeau takes the unusual-and highly compelling-step of listening to the market and seeing what it has to say. 因此最大化他的利润。这是一个聪明的方法。大多数人只是认为他们知道市场会为某个产品或服务支付多少，但特鲁多采取了不寻常且极具说服力的一步，倾听市场并看看市场有什么反馈。
These are just a few of the steps you can take to dislodge your business from an awful rut; many more are enumerated on the following pages. Once you know how to tap into the secret wealth of a bad economy, you’ll be back on track to superior success. And in this book, I’ll show you how. 这些只是你可以采取的一些步骤，以使你的业务摆脱糟糕的困境；更多的步骤将在接下来的页面中列出。一旦你知道如何利用糟糕经济的秘密财富，你就会重新走上成功的轨道。在这本书中，我会告诉你如何做到。
There’s one last question you may be asking yourself. Why should you listen to me? 你可能会问自己最后一个问题。你为什么要听我说？
The answer might sound brash—but facts are facts. As Gil Grissom says on CSI, “The evidence tells the story.” I have more than $7\$ 7 billion of wealth creation documented for my business clients. I have 12,500 success stories on record. I have something like 3,000 prominent authors and experts who quote me in their published work. My approach is not that of a “nouveau start-up” or “self-proclaimed guru” with an ideological theory that is unproven. On the contrary, I have engineered more successes for more businesses in more industries and in more countries, entrepreneurial or Fortune 500, than just about anyone else on the planet-even in bad times. I have done this for countless people who went from despair to soaring possibilities, and I want to do it for you. 答案可能听起来很唐突——但事实就是事实。正如吉尔·格里森在《犯罪现场调查》中所说，“证据讲述了故事。”我为我的商业客户记录了超过 $7\$ 7 亿的财富创造。我有 12,500 个成功案例在案。我有大约 3,000 位著名作者和专家在他们的出版作品中引用我。我的方法不是“新兴初创公司”或“自称的专家”，也没有未经验证的意识形态理论。相反，我为更多的企业、更多的行业和更多的国家创造了更多的成功，无论是创业公司还是财富 500 强，几乎没有人能与我相比——即使在困难时期。我为无数人做到了这一点，他们从绝望走向了蓬勃的可能性，我也想为你做到这一点。
I’m not asking you to pay me $25,000\$ 25,000 for a seminar. I’m not asking you to retain me for a six-figure fee and a share of the upside. I’m trying to help you get your business, yourself, your finances, and your life to a better place. 我不是让你为一个研讨会支付我 $25,000\$ 25,000 。我不是让你以六位数的费用和一部分收益来雇佣我。我是想帮助你让你的生意、你自己、你的财务和你的生活变得更好。
It’s the journey of a lifetime. So let’s begin. 这是一次终生难忘的旅程。让我们开始吧。
1
IS YOUR BUSINESS STUCK? 你的生意停滞不前吗？
I’m going to share an extraordinary statistic with you: According to my research, 95 percent of all small- and medium-sized businesses and start-ups do not reach their goals. A whopping 95 percent! 我将与您分享一个非凡的统计数据：根据我的研究，95%的所有中小型企业和初创公司未能实现他们的目标。高达 95%！
That’s an awful lot of failure stories. Why? Because most businesses do not have a plan firmly based on four essential factors: product, market, migration, and marketing. 这是一堆可怕的失败故事。为什么？因为大多数企业没有一个牢固基于四个基本因素的计划：产品、市场、迁移和营销。
Most businesses lack a concrete, clear picture of where the business is supposed to go. Most business owners simply fail to examine their current projections. They don’t ask the “What if?” kinds of questions that lead to staggering success. 大多数企业缺乏一个具体、清晰的方向。大多数企业主只是未能审视他们当前的预测。他们没有问那些“如果……会怎样？”的问题，这些问题会导致惊人的成功。
They also don’t have a copy of The Sticking Point Solution. Here’s the good news: You do. 他们也没有《The Sticking Point Solution》的副本。好消息是：你有。
My approach will help you avoid this rut. When your company incorporates my strategy, you’ll sit down annually to create an integrated, detailed growth plan for the year. Your plan will be broken down backward by product, by market, by marketing, by source, by type of buyer, by month, and sometimes even by week. You’ll create strategies that are ready to be invoked right away. You’ll monitor and measure the performance of each new strategy every two weeks, if not more often, 我的方法将帮助你避免这种困境。当你的公司采纳我的战略时，你将每年坐下来制定一个综合的、详细的年度增长计划。你的计划将按产品、市场、营销、来源、买家类型、月份，甚至有时按周进行倒推分解。你将制定可以立即实施的策略。你将每两周监测和评估每个新策略的表现，甚至更频繁。
and when you see deviation down or up, you’ll respond proactively and immediately, instead of waiting for things to get out of hand. 当你看到向下或向上的偏差时，你会主动并立即作出反应，而不是等事情失控。
You’ll learn where to get the biggest impact. You’ll know what to do, and how to execute on your strategies and tactics. You’ll maximize the profitability of your business by replacing unrewarding activities with new concepts you can test right away. 您将学习在哪里获得最大的影响。您将知道该做什么，以及如何执行您的策略和战术。通过用您可以立即测试的新概念替换无回报的活动，您将最大化您业务的盈利能力。
If the deviation is up, you’ll be ready to do more in that area. If it’s down, you’ll adjust by replacing activities, fine-tuning your approach, or adding new lines of attack. This book will give you the guidance you need to make this approach to planning a reality for your business. 如果偏差上升，你将准备在该领域做更多。如果偏差下降，你将通过更换活动、微调方法或增加新的攻击方向来进行调整。这本书将为你提供实现这种规划方法所需的指导。
What does it feel like to be stuck? It means you’re stressed. You’re uncertain. You’re frustrated. Days go by, and not much happens. You spend an enormous amount of time grappling with unpleasant issues like cash flow or meeting the payroll. It feels like you’re hanging from a cliff by your fingernails. You’d like to spend time working on “upside-leverageable” activities, but you aren’t sure what the most intelligent steps to take might be. Or if you have some ideas, you aren’t sure where to begin or how to execute those ideas. And even if you do know, there are so many daily crises demanding your attention that it’s almost impossible to divert energy to strategic projects that could take you to the next level, extricating you from the mental miasma you’re trapped in. Profits dry up. Ads don’t sell. Prospects don’t convert. Margins start dropping. The picture is bleak. 被困住是什么感觉？这意味着你感到压力。你感到不确定。你感到沮丧。日子一天天过去，没什么变化。你花费大量时间在处理像现金流或支付工资这样不愉快的问题上。感觉就像是用指甲悬挂在悬崖边缘。你希望花时间从事“可提升收益”的活动，但你不确定最聪明的步骤是什么。或者即使你有一些想法，你也不确定从哪里开始或如何执行这些想法。即使你知道，也有太多日常危机需要你关注，以至于几乎不可能将精力转向那些可以将你带到下一个层次的战略项目，从而将你从困扰你的心理迷雾中解脱出来。利润枯竭。广告不卖。潜在客户不转化。利润率开始下降。前景黯淡。
The adage “Grow or die” applies to everything-including the life force of businesses. A business must constantly grow. You can’t merely be content to survive; you must commit to thriving. In the following pages, I’ll show you what to do first, what to do second, and what to do after that-the how to, where to, and why to, so you don’t feel as though you’ve been “成长或死亡”的格言适用于一切——包括企业的生命力。企业必须不断成长。你不能仅仅满足于生存；你必须致力于繁荣。在接下来的页面中，我将向你展示首先要做什么，其次要做什么，以及之后要做什么——如何做、在哪里做以及为什么要做，这样你就不会觉得自己被困住了。
left stranded with “big-picture” ideas that don’t result in a specific plan of action. 被“宏观”想法所困扰，却没有形成具体的行动计划。
You often hear people say that a house is the ultimate investment that most individuals ever make. In reality, however, it is your business where you invest, commit, and spend as much as 80 percent of your waking hours. It is also where your emotions should be invested. It is where your passion should be channeled. It is where your wealth and asset value should be created and meaningfully multiplied. And yet, most entrepreneurs really don’t see it that way. 你常常听到人们说，房子是大多数人所做的终极投资。然而，实际上，投资、承诺和花费你大约 80%清醒时间的地方是你的事业。它也是你情感应该投入的地方。它是你热情应该倾注的地方。它是你的财富和资产价值应该创造并有意义地倍增的地方。然而，大多数企业家并不这样看待。
When you invest energy, time, and money in your business, you are creating not just income but real wealth. Why? Because you can sell your business for anywhere from five to fifteen times earnings, depending on your field. Nothing else can possibly touch that level of return. And by relieving yourself of all the stress you feel, you’ll be loved even more by your family, too! 当你在你的业务中投入精力、时间和金钱时，你不仅在创造收入，还在创造真正的财富。为什么？因为你可以根据你的领域将你的业务以五到十五倍的收益出售。没有其他任何事情能达到这样的回报水平。而且，通过减轻你所感受到的所有压力，你的家人也会更加爱你！
In my opinion, you not only deserve the maximum current and future payout from your business; you should expect it, in both tangible and intangible forms. You deserve more success, a constantly expanding income, total certainty, a high net worth, and all the perks of success. Yes, I’m referring to financial wealth here, but that brings with it satisfaction, gratification, lower stress, fulfillment, the lifestyle you desire, and connectivity with the people you love. 在我看来，你不仅应得来自你业务的最大当前和未来收益；你应该期待它，以有形和无形的形式。你应得更多的成功，不断扩大的收入，完全的确定性，高净值，以及成功的所有好处。是的，我在这里指的是财务财富，但这带来了满足感、愉悦感、较低的压力、成就感、你渴望的生活方式，以及与你所爱之人的联系。
One reason businesspeople become stuck is that they have no passion for what they’re doing and for whom they’re doing it. Whether they have lost their passion or never had it in the first place, they all too often focus on the wrong things. They have lost track of the game they are playing, or maybe they never understood the rules to begin with. They feel impotent-unable to change their business, or their lives. Turning on and turning up the passion leads to the kind of success described above. I’ll show you how. 商业人士陷入困境的一个原因是他们对自己所做的事情以及为谁而做缺乏热情。无论他们是失去了热情还是从未拥有过，他们往往会关注错误的事情。他们已经失去了对自己所参与的游戏的把握，或者可能从一开始就没有理解规则。他们感到无能为力——无法改变自己的业务或生活。激发和提升热情会带来上述所描述的成功。我会告诉你如何做到。
Most people in bad times cut corners in the most treacherous way imaginable-by downsizing human or intellectual capital, the real asset of most businesses today. That is a mistake. You can find no greater upside-leveraging tools than the energy, passion, intelligence, connections, and entrepreneurial spirit of the human beings you surround yourself with. As we’ll see in Chapter 10 of this book, the “I can do it myself!” mentality may work for your 6-year-old, but it doesn’t work in the “sticky” business world of the twenty-first century. 在困难时期，大多数人以最危险的方式削减开支——减少人力或智力资本，这是真正的商业资产。这是一个错误。你找不到比你周围人类的能量、热情、智慧、联系和创业精神更大的杠杆工具。正如我们在本书第 10 章中将看到的，“我可以自己做！”的心态可能适用于你的 6 岁孩子，但在 21 世纪“粘性”的商业世界中并不奏效。
Ironically, the more stuck people feel, the more attached they become to the status quo and the approaches they are currently taking, despite the lackluster results they are receiving from those efforts. But if ever there was an important time to test changes in the way you think about and do business right now, it’s during a tough economic downturn. You might safely and conservatively test one new approach to selling, marketing, or advertising, and then discover that a second approach makes things 20 percent better. But don’t stop there-the third approach might make things 40 percent better! 具有讽刺意味的是，人们感到越困惑，他们就越依赖现状和当前采取的方法，尽管这些努力的结果平平。但如果有一个重要的时刻来测试改变你思考和做生意的方式，那就是在经济衰退期间。你可以安全而保守地测试一种新的销售、营销或广告方法，然后发现第二种方法使情况改善了 20%。但不要止步于此——第三种方法可能会使情况改善 40%！
You could also stop at 40 percent, but why? If your industry is dropping 30 percent, you’d still be ahead-but why would you stop? You’re bucking the downward trend of your industry. You’re making more money, so why rest on your laurels? I’ve seen changes in a test approach increase business performance as much as twenty-one times-that’s 2,100 percent better! And yet, most businesses that are fortunate enough to achieve an additional level of success get stuck because they settle for that incremental growth. They think better is enough-but better is never enough. As long as you’re putting in the same amount of effort and time, as long as you’re facing the same opportunity costs, the same prospect walking in the door could be worth 333 percent more business. So why settle for just 33 percent? 你也可以停在 40%，但为什么呢？如果你的行业下降了 30%，你仍然会领先——但你为什么要停下来？你正在逆势而上。你赚得更多，那为什么要满足于现状呢？我见过测试方法的变化使业务表现提高多达 21 倍——那是 2100%的提升！然而，大多数幸运地实现额外成功的企业却停滞不前，因为他们满足于这种增量增长。他们认为更好就足够了——但更好从来都不够。只要你投入相同的努力和时间，只要你面临相同的机会成本，门口走进来的同样客户可能会带来 333%的更多业务。那么，为什么要满足于仅仅 33%呢？
This is where all that upside leverage I’ve been talking about comes into play. Even in a crisis economy where your 这就是我一直在谈论的所有上行杠杆发挥作用的地方。即使在危机经济中，您的
competitors are closing their doors, you can thrive. You’re still growing, despite all the doom and gloom in the financial news. How does that sound? 竞争对手正在关门，你却能蓬勃发展。尽管金融新闻中充满了悲观情绪，你仍在成长。听起来怎么样？
If it sounds good, read on. 如果听起来不错，请继续阅读。
THE NINE STICKING POINTS THAT ARE GETTING IN THE WAY OF YOUR SUCCESS 妨碍你成功的九个障碍点
This book was written to unstick your business. So to make my message more clear and digestible, I’ve broken it down into what I call “sticking points.” 这本书是为了帮助你的业务摆脱困境。因此，为了使我的信息更加清晰易懂，我将其分解为我所称的“卡点”。
I have identified for you the nine major areas in which businesses get stuck, in good times and bad, and to each of these subjects I’ve devoted a chapter in this book. Every chapter will show you what the common pitfalls, traps, and missteps are at that particular sticking point. More important, I’ll offer you specific solutions that you can implement today in your business so that you can achieve the enjoyable and even enviable growth that you deserve. I’ll then show you how to have a field day capitalizing on the negative environment in the business world that exists right now. I’ll show you how to implement everything you’ve learned. 我为您确定了企业在好时光和坏时光中遇到困境的九个主要领域，并在本书的每个主题上都专门撰写了一章。每一章将向您展示在特定的困境中常见的陷阱、障碍和失误。更重要的是，我将为您提供可以立即在您的业务中实施的具体解决方案，以便您能够实现您应得的愉快甚至令人羡慕的增长。然后，我将向您展示如何在当前商业世界中利用负面环境大展拳脚。我将向您展示如何实施您所学到的一切。
So let’s take a look at the nine sticking points. This is just an overview-you’ll get specific solutions and ideas in subsequent chapters. 那么让我们来看看九个难点。这只是一个概述——你将在后面的章节中获得具体的解决方案和想法。
Some Businesses Are Stuck Losing Out to the Competition 一些企业被困在输给竞争对手的境地
If your competition is making gains on you, it doesn’t necessarily mean they offer a better product or service. They’re probably simply taking a wiser approach to positioning, marketing, and selling. It may also mean that your approach isn’t working. 如果你的竞争对手在追赶你，这并不一定意味着他们提供了更好的产品或服务。他们可能只是采取了更明智的定位、营销和销售策略。这也可能意味着你的方法没有奏效。
Each of these domains requires constant innovation, and yet most businesses fail to engineer a continuous flow of breakthroughs in marketing, strategy, innovation, and management. 这些领域都需要不断创新，但大多数企业未能在营销、战略、创新和管理方面持续产生突破。
The result? In the famous words of Peter Drucker: “Since these business owners are not constantly working to obsolesce themselves, they can rest assured that their competitors are.” You can’t bring about these breakthroughs unless you understand and identify what your business is doing now in each of these categories. But innovating in your business is surprisingly easy, as we’ll see in Chapter 2. 结果是什么？用彼得·德鲁克的名言来说：“由于这些企业主并不总是在努力使自己过时，他们可以放心，他们的竞争对手正在这样做。” 除非你理解并识别出你的企业在这些类别中现在正在做什么，否则你无法带来这些突破。但在你的企业中进行创新出乎意料地简单，正如我们将在第二章中看到的。
In that chapter, we’ll consider what it means to innovate in a business and the many wonderful ways to do it that are available to you. We’ll explore the difference between optimization and innovation, and consider how few businesses engage in authentically innovative tactics. When business shifts either up or down, individuals and companies typically take one of two actions: They do either more of the same thing or less of the same thing. But their activities are all tied to doing the same thing, as opposed to doing something different or better, something more profitable, impactful, productive, expedient, and preemptive. 在这一章中，我们将考虑在商业中创新意味着什么，以及可供您选择的许多精彩方式。我们将探讨优化和创新之间的区别，并考虑有多少企业真正采用了创新的策略。当商业向上或向下转变时，个人和公司通常采取两种行动之一：要么做更多相同的事情，要么做更少相同的事情。但他们的活动都与做相同的事情有关，而不是做不同或更好的事情，做更有利可图、有影响力、高效、便捷和预防性的事情。
How do you engineer breakthroughs? How do you take controlled risks? How do you look outside your own industry for breakthroughs that can be applied to your business? When you’ve got answers to these questions, you’ll no longer be stuck losing out to the competition. At the end of Chapter 2, you’ll be on the path to going and growing, prospering and dominating. 你如何实现突破？你如何进行可控风险？你如何在自己的行业之外寻找可以应用于你业务的突破？当你对这些问题有了答案，你就不再会被竞争对手甩在身后。在第二章的结尾，你将走上前进和成长、繁荣和主导的道路。
Some Businesses Are Stuck Not Selling Enough 一些企业陷入了销售不足的困境
How do you change the game so that you’re selling to more people, selling more things more often, and closing more sales faster and more easily? In Chapter 3, I’ll introduce you to what I call the Indiana Jones School of Business-and you’ll see how. It’s all about changing the game, from one that cannot be won to a different game where you alone know how to win with consistency, ease, and great pleasure-in terms of both the process and the bottom-line results you achieve. 你如何改变游戏，以便你能向更多人销售，销售更多的商品，更频繁地成交，并且更快更轻松地完成销售？在第三章中，我将向你介绍我所称的印第安纳·琼斯商业学院——你将看到如何做到这一点。这一切都是关于改变游戏，从一个无法获胜的游戏转变为一个你独自知道如何以一致性、轻松和极大乐趣获胜的不同游戏——无论是在过程还是在你所取得的最终结果方面。
There are multiple elements of your business that can be changed for the better. First, we’ll talk about how to change the way your sales force sells, which involves training all your salespeople in consultative selling techniques. Then we’ll take a look at your advertising, which may be dry, tactical (rather than strategic), and ineffective. We’ll talk in detail about how changing something as seemingly simple as the headlines in your advertising can bring an avalanche of new business to your doorstep. 您的业务中有多个方面可以改善。首先，我们将讨论如何改变您的销售团队的销售方式，这涉及到对所有销售人员进行咨询式销售技巧的培训。然后，我们将看看您的广告，这可能是枯燥的、战术性的（而非战略性的）和无效的。我们将详细讨论如何改变您广告中看似简单的标题，可以为您带来大量的新业务。
We’ll also look at changing your online presence-ever important in today’s super-connected world. Do you have a website? Is it attracting the kind of business you want? If not, it’s time to change it. 我们还将关注改变您的在线形象——在当今这个超级互联的世界中，这一点尤为重要。您有网站吗？它是否吸引了您想要的业务？如果没有，是时候改变它了。
There are plenty of other areas in your business where change can be extremely healthy and beneficial-the way you leverage, for example, or your business’s overarching message. We’ll go over all of these, as well as the ways that innovation can help keep you far from deficits and cash-flow problems. 在您的业务中，还有许多其他领域的变革可以极为健康和有益，例如您如何利用资源，或您业务的整体信息。我们将讨论所有这些，以及创新如何帮助您远离赤字和现金流问题。
When you graduate from my Indiana Jones School of Business at the end of Chapter 3, you will have mastered preemptive selling, the unique selling proposition, the strategy of preeminence, and consultative selling-tools of the trade that will ensure you’ll never be stuck not selling enough again. Change the game, change your sales strategy and tactics-and guess what? Your results will change. Very, very quickly. 当你在第三章结束时从我的印第安纳·琼斯商学院毕业时，你将掌握预防性销售、独特的销售主张、卓越战略和咨询销售——这些行业工具将确保你再也不会陷入销售不足的困境。改变游戏，改变你的销售策略和战术——你猜怎么着？你的结果将会改变。非常非常快。
Some Businesses Are Stuck with Erratic Business Volume 一些企业面临不稳定的业务量
Erratic, unpredictable business volume occurs when a business fails to be strategic, systematic, and analytical. In Chapter 4, I’ll share with you the concept of creating a successful migration strategy for advancing and enhancing relationships with buyers, as well as referrers and endorsers. 不稳定、不可预测的业务量发生在企业未能采取战略性、系统性和分析性的方法时。在第四章中，我将与您分享创建成功迁移策略的概念，以促进和增强与买家、推荐人和支持者的关系。
Let’s define our terms. A migration strategy involves targeting the best quality and quantity of prospects, getting them 让我们定义我们的术语。迁移策略涉及针对最佳质量和数量的潜在客户，获取他们
interested in your proposition, making them a proposal they can’t refuse, selling them, and continuously reselling them. You are “migrating” them into, through, and up your sales system. The strategy begins with creating an integrated system to start relationships with buyers and/or visitors to your businessincluding such means as the phone, your website, your catalog, your showroom technical support, product information requests, or however else they are brought into your company. 对您的提议感兴趣，向他们提出一个无法拒绝的提案，销售他们，并不断地重新销售给他们。您正在“迁移”他们进入、通过和提升到您的销售系统。该策略始于创建一个综合系统，以开始与买家和/或访问您业务的访客建立关系，包括电话、您的网站、您的目录、您的展厅技术支持、产品信息请求或以其他方式将他们引入您的公司。
This system may include free samples, inexpensive products, complimentary education material, no-cost consults or assessments, and other means of forging a connection. It allows you to see not only who your best clients are and how to communicate with them, but also how to bring them “up and over” from the category of “just looking” (suspects) to the category of making small purchases (first-time sales), and finally to the ultimate category of making big-ticket purchases on a repeat basis (clients for life). I’ll share with you approaches that have worked for the businesses I consult with-in some cases, increasing their gross by a factor of 15 in a period of just eighteen months. This outcome occurs more frequently than you might imagine-and often the best climate for it is during an economic downturn. My strategy is simply to get businesses to demand maximum performance from anything they or their teams do. 该系统可能包括免费样品、廉价产品、赠送的教育材料、无成本的咨询或评估，以及其他建立联系的方式。它使您不仅能够看到谁是您最好的客户以及如何与他们沟通，还能够了解如何将他们从“仅仅浏览”（嫌疑人）这一类别提升到进行小额购买（首次销售）的类别，最终再提升到重复进行大额购买（终身客户）的最终类别。我将与您分享一些在我咨询的企业中有效的方法——在某些情况下，18 个月内其总收入增加了 15 倍。这种结果发生的频率比您想象的要高，而且通常在经济衰退期间是最佳时机。我的策略就是让企业对他们或他们的团队所做的任何事情都要求最大绩效。
Some Businesses Are Stuck Failing to Strategize 一些企业陷入困境，未能制定战略
If you were to keep a diary of all of your business activities for a month, you might discover that 80 percent of those activities are nonproductive and nonstrategic. Most entrepreneurs fail to focus on strategizing, managing, and working on higherperforming growth issues. They micro-manage but never macro-manage. They just keep on spending time, money, and human capital the way they have always spent them-with the same lackluster results. They’re putting out day-to-day tactical 如果你要记录一个月内所有的商业活动，你可能会发现这些活动中有 80%是非生产性和非战略性的。大多数企业家未能专注于战略规划、管理和处理更高效的增长问题。他们进行微观管理，却从不进行宏观管理。他们只是继续以往的方式花费时间、金钱和人力资本，结果依然平淡无奇。他们在处理日常战术。
fires-working harder and harder for the business, instead of getting the business to work harder and harder for them. 火灾——为业务更加努力地工作，而不是让业务为他们更加努力地工作。
In Chapter 5, I’ll help you take the term “strategy” from its lofty perch as a buzzword that everybody mentions but few entrepreneurs truly understand or implement. I’ll discuss such concepts as strategy versus tactics, effectiveness and efficiency, true time management for businesspeople, and the “highest and best use” theory. I’ll show you how to honestly, rapidly, and stunningly multiply your effectiveness by looking at the three to five most important and leverageable things your business is paying you to do. We’ll break those tasks down into five or six subprocesses and rank them in terms of proficiency, passion, and relevance to the ongoing and future success of the business. 在第五章中，我将帮助你将“战略”这个词从一个人人提及但很少有企业家真正理解或实施的流行词汇中解放出来。我将讨论战略与战术、有效性与效率、商业人士的真正时间管理以及“最高和最佳使用”理论等概念。我将向你展示如何通过关注你业务支付给你做的三到五个最重要和最具杠杆作用的事情，诚实、快速且惊人地提高你的效率。我们将把这些任务分解为五或六个子过程，并根据熟练程度、热情以及与业务的持续和未来成功的相关性对它们进行排名。
Some Businesses Are Stuck with Costs Eating Up All the Profits 一些企业被成本困住，吞噬了所有利润
Why do costs eat up profits for stagnating businesses? 为什么成本会吞噬停滞企业的利润？
First, most enterprises don’t measure the return on their marketing investment, and even if they did, they’d find that their current marketing strategy is a sinkhole. Second, they look at cutting back the investment they make on sales and marketing during tough times, just when they need to be bolstering those functions-provided they know how to make this added investment pay off. And, third, they need to adjust their measurement horizon in terms of their overall outlook in any activity that they do, because if the business is declining, they can’t operate. They need to switch to “triage” marketing, as I call it. They don’t have a clue about what motivates the firsttime buyer or prospect, so they’re spending either too much or too little. 首先，大多数企业并不衡量他们的营销投资回报，即使他们这样做了，他们会发现当前的营销策略是一个无底洞。其次，他们在困难时期考虑削减销售和营销的投资，恰恰是在他们需要加强这些职能的时候——前提是他们知道如何让这笔额外投资获得回报。第三，他们需要调整他们在任何活动中整体前景的衡量视野，因为如果业务在下滑，他们就无法运营。他们需要转向我所称的“急救”营销。他们对首次购买者或潜在客户的动机一无所知，因此他们的支出要么过多，要么过少。
When the economy starts to shift downward and businesses stagnate or decline, most business owners and executives put more money into marketing without measuring the return on investment of the marketing investment they currently have in 当经济开始下滑，企业停滞或衰退时，大多数企业主和高管会投入更多资金用于营销，而不衡量他们当前营销投资的投资回报率
place. If you aren’t maximizing, you’re minimizing. Obviously, doing more of what wasn’t working during good times won’t get you through a recession! In Chapter 6, I’ll show you how to analyze every activity you perform in terms of the basic, critical question: If you put $1in\$ 1 \mathrm{in}, what is it that you get in return? And how much future profit do you generate? Everything you do should be measured in terms of either an investment or a profit center, as opposed to just a cost expense. 地方。如果你没有最大化，你就是在最小化。显然，在经济繁荣时期做更多无效的事情不会让你度过衰退！在第六章中，我将向你展示如何从基本的关键问题来分析你所做的每一项活动：如果你投入 $1in\$ 1 \mathrm{in} ，你能得到什么回报？你能产生多少未来利润？你所做的一切都应该以投资或利润中心来衡量，而不仅仅是成本支出。
How do you shorten your company’s planning and operating horizons (what the company should do for you in the short, medium, and long terms) so that you ensure not just the growth but the very survivability of your business? How do you get out of the parity pricing predicament that bedevils businesses such as fast-food chains? How do you command the extra pricing premium that a Ritz-Carlton or a Tiffany’s can charge? How do you ally with bigger companies, add products from other companies, and develop access to products and technology without having to spend money and time, develop footholds in new and international markets, and have R&D performed for you for pennies on the dollar or for no cost at all? These are the types of pivotal questions I’ll answer in Chapter 6. 您如何缩短公司在短期、中期和长期内的规划和运营视野，以确保不仅是增长，还有您业务的生存能力？您如何摆脱困扰快餐连锁店等企业的平价定价困境？您如何获得像丽思卡尔顿或蒂芙尼可以收取的额外定价溢价？您如何与更大的公司结盟，添加其他公司的产品，并在不花费金钱和时间的情况下开发对产品和技术的访问，进入新的国际市场，并以极低的成本或完全免费进行研发？这些都是我将在第 6 章中回答的关键问题。
Some Businesses Are Stuck Still Doing What's Not Working 一些企业仍然停留在做无效的事情上
Some entrepreneurs, business owners, and executives simply can’t push themselves beyond the status quo. Most people in business, no matter what their industry, have a highly predictable tendency to transact their business from a revenuegenerating stance similar to that of everyone else in the industry. But it doesn’t have to be this way. 一些企业家、商主和高管根本无法超越现状。大多数商业人士，无论他们的行业是什么，都有一种高度可预测的倾向，从与行业内其他人相似的收入生成立场进行交易。但事情不必如此。
If you’re doing what everybody else is doing, you aren’t differentiating yourself from the competition. You’re marginalizing and commoditizing yourself. In Chapter 7, we’ll talk about how you can stop doing what’s not working, avoid sta- 如果你在做大家都在做的事情，你就无法与竞争对手区分开来。你正在边缘化和商品化自己。在第七章中，我们将讨论如何停止做那些无效的事情，避免陷入困境。
tus quo thinking, and get into the habit of testing, measuring, and examining higher- and better-performing options, activities, and approaches. I’ll prepare you to move forward with new, effective breakthrough solutions. These solutions, though potentially driving forces, may be completely unused in your field right now. 培养思维习惯，养成测试、测量和审视更高效、更优质的选项、活动和方法的习惯。我将为你准备好向前迈进，采用新的有效突破性解决方案。这些解决方案，尽管可能是推动力，但在你所在的领域现在可能完全未被使用。
Some Businesses Are Stuck Being Marginalized by the Marketplace 一些企业被市场边缘化
The starting point for success is your own vision and image of yourself and your business. If you think you’re a commodity, a generic product, or a service like any other, then that’s what you’ll be. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You’ll do what everyone else does: You’ll price the same way as everyone else, and you’ll sell, market, communicate, deal with people, and relate to clients the same way as everyone else. That’s akin to accepting your own death sentence. 成功的起点是你对自己和你业务的愿景和形象。如果你认为自己是商品、通用产品或与其他服务无异的服务，那么你就会成为那样。这是一个自我实现的预言。你会像其他人一样做：你会以与其他人相同的方式定价，你会以与其他人相同的方式销售、营销、沟通、与人打交道以及与客户建立关系。这就像是在接受自己的死刑。
If you sell the same thing at the same price and in the same way as everyone else, you must add value, or you will be marginalized by the marketplace. Value can take the form of more bonuses, more benefits, a better guarantee, more access, or more technical support. You’ve got to distinguish yourself, your product, your company, and your business model in ways that make you unlike anyone else-and, more specifically, in ways that associate you with highly distinctive and desirable value. If you do that, you will stand out favorably, and you’ll have removed yourself from the world of commoditized companies. 如果你以与其他人相同的价格和方式销售相同的产品，你必须增加价值，否则你将被市场边缘化。价值可以表现为更多的奖金、更多的福利、更好的保证、更多的访问权限或更多的技术支持。你必须以使自己、你的产品、你的公司和你的商业模式与众不同的方式来区分自己，具体来说，就是以将你与高度独特和令人渴望的价值联系起来的方式。如果你这样做，你将会脱颖而出，并且你将摆脱商品化公司的世界。
In Chapter 8, I’ll show you how to be seen as preeminent, preemptive, and proprietary. Every human being-including every prospect and buyer, and certainly every businesspersonhas a perpetual need to feel special. Well, the same is true of businesses: They need to appear special in the marketplace, or they risk being swept away, marginalized, and turned into commodities. Meeting this challenge involves making your buyers feel special, valued, and respected. I’ll show you how. 在第 8 章中，我将向你展示如何被视为卓越、先发制人和专有。每一个人——包括每一个潜在客户和买家，当然还有每一个商人——都有一种持续的需求，想要感到特别。好吧，企业也是如此：它们需要在市场上显得特别，否则就有被冲走、边缘化和变成商品的风险。应对这一挑战涉及让你的买家感到特别、被重视和受到尊重。我将向你展示如何做到这一点。
Some Businesses Are Stuck with Mediocre Marketing 一些企业被困在平庸的营销中
Most entrepreneurs fail to understand that the difference between mediocrity and making millions has more to do with effective marketing than with any other single factor. In Chapter 9 , we’ll talk about what can happen when you learn to capitalize on marketing’s geometric capability to explode your business upward. My definition of marketing is simple: It’s all about “teaching” the folks in a given marketplace that your particular business can solve their problems, fill their voids, or achieve opportunities, hopes, and goals the way no other business can. Your consumers and prospects may never even have verbalized these problems. Yet if your business can get the chance to powerfully communicate about its ability to do these things, it will experience outstanding growth. 大多数企业家未能理解，平庸与赚取百万之间的差异更多地与有效的营销有关，而不是与任何其他单一因素有关。在第 9 章中，我们将讨论当你学会利用营销的几何能力来推动你的业务向上发展时会发生什么。我的营销定义很简单：这完全是关于“教导”特定市场中的人们，你的业务如何能够解决他们的问题、填补他们的空白，或以其他任何业务无法做到的方式实现机会、希望和目标。你的消费者和潜在客户可能甚至从未明确表达过这些问题。然而，如果你的业务能够有机会强有力地传达其解决这些问题的能力，它将经历卓越的增长。
Marketing is the bedrock of virtually every enduring dominant business in every field. You must be a superior marketer. The good news is that great marketers are made, not born. Learning how to market efficiently, powerfully, and profitably is a simple and surprisingly logical process, despite all the complexity that many authors and so-called experts have brought to the table. 营销是几乎每个领域中每个持久主导企业的基石。你必须成为一名优秀的营销人员。好消息是，优秀的营销人员是培养出来的，而不是天生的。尽管许多作者和所谓的专家带来了许多复杂性，但学习如何高效、有力和盈利地进行营销是一个简单且令人惊讶的合乎逻辑的过程。
If you’re willing to shoot for the moon and the stars and trust me to guide you, we’ll get there. In Chapter 9, you’ll find out how to achieve a true 20/20 vision and a laser-like cuttingedge focus in marketing that will make your business skyrocket. Our emphasis in that chapter is on what you’ll do, not just on what you’ll understand. 如果你愿意追求月亮和星星，并相信我来引导你，我们就能到达那里。在第 9 章中，你将了解到如何实现真正的 20/20 视力和激光般的前沿营销焦点，这将使你的业务腾飞。我们在那一章中的重点是你将要做的，而不仅仅是你将要理解的。
Some Businesses Are Stuck Saying "I Can Do It Myself!" 一些企业陷入了“我可以自己做！”的状态
It’s appropriate for a child to say, “I can do it myself!” When tying their shoes, buckling a seat belt, or shooting a basket, children need to be encouraged to learn to fend for themselves. But in the business world, the notion of “I can do it myself!” leads far more often to heartache and failure than to success. 孩子说“我可以自己做！”是合适的。当他们系鞋带、扣安全带或投篮时，应该鼓励孩子们学会独立。然而在商业世界中，“我可以自己做！”的观念往往导致更多的心痛和失败，而不是成功。
In Chapter 10, I’ll show you how to create enormous new vistas of wealth and success for yourself and your business by letting go of the childlike mantra “I can do it myself!” This belief severely limits what you can do; it also limits your knowledge base, your skill level, and your earnings. You may think you can’t afford to delegate. But in fact, you can’t afford not to. 在第 10 章中，我将向你展示如何通过放下孩子气的口号“我可以自己做到！”为自己和你的业务创造巨大的财富和成功的新视野。这种信念严重限制了你能做的事情；它也限制了你的知识基础、技能水平和收入。你可能认为你无法承担委派的费用。但实际上，你无法不这样做。
What can you do through other people that you can’t do by yourself? At heart, entrepreneurism is all about leveraging people, skill sets, assets, capital, and efforts. In Chapter 10, I’ll teach you the art of leveraging the talents of others in such a way that your collaborative efforts will dwarf any success you might have achieved on your own, no matter how talented you may be. I’ll show you how to create your own board of advisors-what Napoleon Hill called the “Mastermind Group.” I’ll show you how to take advantage of OPE (other people’s efforts), OPI (other people’s ideas), OPS/K (other people’s skill and knowledge), and OPRR (other people’s resources and relationships). As a result, more of what used to be OPM-other people’s money-will be your money. 你可以通过其他人做什么，而你自己做不到？从本质上讲，企业家精神就是利用人、技能、资产、资本和努力。在第 10 章中，我将教你如何利用他人的才能，以便你的合作努力将超越你自己可能取得的任何成功，无论你多么有才华。我将向你展示如何创建自己的顾问委员会——拿破仑·希尔所称的“智囊团”。我将向你展示如何利用 OPE（他人的努力）、OPI（他人的想法）、OPS/K（他人的技能和知识）以及 OPRR（他人的资源和关系）。因此，过去的 OPM（他人的钱）将更多地成为你的钱。
TODAY'S JOURNEY TOWARD AN UNSTUCK TOMORROW 今天通往不再受阻的明天的旅程
What’s it like to be unstuck? What’s it like to be no longer plagued by the nine variations on the theme of stuckness that this book will confront? 不再被困住是什么感觉？不再受到本书将要面对的九种困境变体的困扰是什么感觉？
To answer that question, think about the most exhilarating experiences of your life-your wedding day, the days on which your children were born, the touchdown you scored for your high school or college team. That’s the level of excitement, joy, and exhilaration you can experience every working day. This sounds like a huge promise, so let me show you why I say that. 要回答这个问题，请想想你生命中最令人振奋的经历——你的婚礼日、你孩子出生的日子、你为高中或大学球队打入的达阵。这就是你每天工作时可以体验到的兴奋、快乐和激动的程度。这听起来像是一个巨大的承诺，所以让我来告诉你我为什么这么说。
First, you’ll be in total control of your destiny. You’ll avoid being snuffed out by a negative economy or by your competition. You’ll be ignited, because hard times are only more reason 首先，您将完全掌控自己的命运。您将避免被消极的经济或竞争对手所压垮。您将被点燃，因为艰难的时刻只是更多的理由。
for you to soar above everyone else. You’ll know with predictability what tomorrow will bring. Your business will be working harder for you than you’re working for it. You’ll have multiple activities strategically performing for you by sourcing new revenue, new buyers, and new prospects and migrating them through a systematic, sequential process forever. You’ll have systems in place, where applicable, that will bring in innumerable high-quality referrals as well as the highest purchasing and most profitable people your business could have. And, finally, you’ll be building your business in such a way that it becomes a prized asset sellable by anyone in the world, because it’s got systems in place, processes, predictability, profitability, and sustainability. 让你在所有人之上翱翔。你将能够预测明天会带来什么。你的业务将为你工作得比你为它工作得更努力。你将有多个活动在战略上为你运作，通过寻找新的收入、新的买家和新的潜在客户，并将他们通过一个系统的、顺序的过程不断转化。你将有适用的系统到位，这将带来无数高质量的推荐，以及你业务所能拥有的最高购买力和最有利可图的人。最后，你将以一种方式建立你的业务，使其成为任何人都可以在世界上出售的珍贵资产，因为它具备了系统、流程、可预测性、盈利能力和可持续性。
The iconic model of the entrepreneur in the twentieth century was the self-made man or woman going it alone. But success in the twenty-first-century business environment requires the ability to collaborate creatively with others. No one can know everything or have every single piece of the puzzle. Continuing to think that such things are possible is selfish, for three reasons. First, if you have a great product, service, or company, you’ve earned the right to be a contributor to your marketplace, and your success will only be a by-product of that contribution. Second, whether you are an entrepreneur or a corporate executive, your family is looking to you to make your business and your career as fulfilling, unstressful, and asset-accruing and -enriching as it can be for you and them. And, third, you owe it to your employees, investors, and other stakeholders to make your business as profitable, sustainable, and desirable a choice in the consumer’s mind as it can be. 二十世纪企业家的标志性模型是独自奋斗的白手起家者。但在二十一世纪的商业环境中，成功需要与他人创造性地合作的能力。没有人可以知道一切或拥有拼图的每一块。继续认为这样的事情是可能的自私，原因有三。首先，如果你拥有一个伟大的产品、服务或公司，你就有权成为市场的贡献者，而你的成功只会是这种贡献的副产品。其次，无论你是企业家还是公司高管，你的家人都希望你能让你的业务和职业对你和他们来说尽可能充实、无压力，并积累和丰富资产。第三，你有责任让你的员工、投资者和其他利益相关者的业务在消费者心中尽可能成为一个盈利、可持续和令人向往的选择。
Getting unstuck is about choosing the fastest and easiest ways to make a difference, so that you create more wins for yourself. Doing so will animate your spirit, your sense of possi-bility-and your treasury! 摆脱困境是选择最快和最简单的方法来产生影响，从而为自己创造更多的胜利。这样做会激发你的精神、你的可能性感和你的财富！
It is the certainty of knowing you have a systematic approach in place that is continuously attracting new people (whether prospects or buyers, depending on your business model), and turning them from first-time buyers into ongoing, recurring clients and clients for life, that allows you to constantly improve and expand your revenue and business model. You are operating out of your passion to an exponential degree. You are getting the most upside leverage performance and connectivity, now and in the future, out of everything you are doing. You are totally strategic. You know the exact impact, cost, and cause and effect of everything you are doing. You are wellhedged because you have multiple sources of income. You have built a massively strong edifice with an impervious and impenetrable foundation. You are constantly counter-programming everyone else, so that you are distinctive and differentiated. Within your niche market, you are seen as the only viable solution. You understand and articulate the market’s needs, hopes, dreams, and problems better than anyone else, and you offer clear-cut solutions that your market will prize and desire exclusively from you. You are in total control of what you are doing and where you are going. You have a specific plan of action you can diligently follow, master, and adjust-and you have an exit strategy, whether this entails selling the business, turning it over to the employees, or anything else. You have moved from uncertainty to absolute certainty, from confusion to exhilarating joy. 你知道自己有一个系统化的方法，这种方法不断吸引新客户（无论是潜在客户还是买家，取决于你的商业模式），并将他们从首次购买者转变为持续的、定期的客户和终身客户，这让你能够不断改善和扩展你的收入和商业模式。你在极大程度上出于激情在运作。你从你所做的一切中获得了最大的杠杆效应、表现和连接，无论是现在还是未来。你完全是战略性的。你清楚自己所做的一切的确切影响、成本以及因果关系。你有很好的风险对冲，因为你有多种收入来源。你建立了一个极其强大的建筑，拥有一个坚不可摧的基础。你不断地与其他人进行反向编程，使自己显得独特和与众不同。在你的细分市场中，你被视为唯一可行的解决方案。你比任何人都更好地理解和表达市场的需求、希望、梦想和问题，并提供明确的解决方案，市场将独家珍视和渴望来自于你。 你完全掌控自己正在做的事情和前进的方向。你有一个具体的行动计划，可以认真执行、掌握和调整——你还有一个退出策略，无论是出售业务、将其交给员工，还是其他任何事情。你已经从不确定走向绝对确定，从困惑走向令人振奋的快乐。
Remember the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz\mathrm{O} z ? A little bit of oil, applied judiciously in the right places, got him moving again. He didn’t have to go back to the shop in order to continue traveling down the yellow brick road-he just needed those few drops of oil, applied with care exactly where they were needed. 还记得《绿野仙踪》中的铁皮人吗？适当地在正确的位置涂抹一点油，就能让他再次活动起来。他不需要回到商店就能继续沿着黄砖路旅行——他只需要那些小小的油滴，精确地涂抹在需要的地方。
That’s what this book is about-showing you how to go, how to grow, and how to maximize the enjoyment and 这就是本书的内容——向你展示如何前进，如何成长，以及如何最大化享受和
profitability of the business upon which you have already lavished so much time, care, and attention. 您已经投入了如此多的时间、精力和关注的业务的盈利能力。
Each chapter offers dozens of proven ideas about how to get unstuck, and I candidly acknowledge that the wealth of concepts I’ll share with you can prove overwhelming. So in addition to chapter summaries reiterating the key points I’ve made, I’ll conclude each subsequent chapter with a specific action step to be taken right now-what I call an “Immediate Action Step.” 每一章提供了数十个经过验证的想法，关于如何摆脱困境，我坦诚地承认，我将与您分享的丰富概念可能会让人感到不知所措。因此，除了重申我所提出的关键点的章节总结外，我还将在每一章的结尾提供一个具体的行动步骤，您可以立即采取——我称之为“立即行动步骤”。
Ready for the nine sticking points? 准备好九个关键点了吗？
Prepare yourself to be unstuck. 准备好让自己摆脱困境。
2
ARE YOU STUCK LOSING OUT TO THE COMPETITION? 你是否因为竞争而陷入困境？
There’s no denying it: It’s a dog-eat-dog world. And the business world is no different-if anything, the canines there might be even more cannibalistic. So how do you come out on top? How do you ensure that your products and services beat out all the rest? 不可否认：这是一个弱肉强食的世界。而商业世界也不例外——如果有什么不同的话，那里的竞争可能更加激烈。那么你如何才能脱颖而出？你如何确保你的产品和服务胜过其他所有竞争者？
Peter Drucker-in my opinion, the greatest business thinker of the twentieth century-once said, “Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.” I would add a third income-generating activity to his statement: strategizing. 彼得·德鲁克——在我看来，二十世纪最伟大的商业思想家——曾说过：“市场营销和创新产生结果；其他的都是成本。”我想在他的陈述中增加第三个创收活动：战略规划。
And yet, despite the fact that marketing, innovation, and strategizing tower above anything else businesspeople could be doing for their businesses, most of them fail to engineer a continuous flow of breakthroughs in these three key areas. As a result, although they are not obsolescing themselves, they can rest assured that their competitors are. 然而，尽管市场营销、创新和战略规划在商人可以为其业务做的事情中占据了重要地位，但大多数人未能在这三个关键领域中持续产生突破。因此，尽管他们并没有使自己过时，但可以放心的是，他们的竞争对手正在这样做。
If you’re losing out to the competition, it’s time to do something different. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to launch your business forward so that your competitors are left standing in the dust, wondering what the hell happened. All it takes is a little innovation and a killer strategy. In other words, a different approach. Let’s look at an example. 如果你在竞争中落后，是时候做一些不同的事情了。在这一章中，你将学习如何推动你的业务向前发展，让你的竞争对手站在尘埃中，想知道到底发生了什么。所需的只是一些创新和一个绝妙的策略。换句话说，就是一种不同的方法。让我们来看一个例子。
A few years ago, I had two friends who each discovered the same business opportunity but approached it in radically different ways-one tactical and shortsighted, the other strategic and focused on the long term. 几年前，我有两个朋友，他们各自发现了同样的商业机会，但以截然不同的方式来处理——一个是战术性和短视的，另一个则是战略性和专注于长期的。
The first, Tom, was a gifted copywriter who saw potential in the overlooked market of simulated diamonds, or cubic zirconium. For $30,000\$ 30,000, he ran a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times announcing his new enterprise, the Beverly Hills Diamond Company, and its key product, a loose, one-karat stone that sold for $39\$ 39. The wonderfully crafted ad pulled in about $42,000\$ 42,000 worth of sales, which amounted to about $3,000\$ 3,000 profit after all expenses. Tom, who was used to making massive, front-end profits, didn’t see enough profit in the concept, so he folded his tent and left. 第一位，汤姆，是一位天才文案撰写人，他看到了被忽视的模拟钻石市场或立方氧化锆的潜力。为了 $30,000\$ 30,000 ，他在《洛杉矶时报》上刊登了一整版广告，宣布他的新企业——比佛利山庄钻石公司，以及其主要产品——一颗松散的一克拉石，售价为 $39\$ 39 。这则精心制作的广告带来了约 $42,000\$ 42,000 的销售额，扣除所有费用后，利润约为 $3,000\$ 3,000 。习惯于获得巨额前端利润的汤姆，并没有在这个概念中看到足够的利润，于是他收起帐篷离开了。
The second friend, Larry, didn’t possess Tom’s copywriting prowess, but he was a world-class strategist-and strategy will always trump copy. Larry soldiered into the very same marketplace, armed with a game plan for an identical product but a very different result. His ad wasn’t as well written, and so Van Pliss and Tissany (his take on Van Cleef & Arpel and Tiffany, which were hot brands at the time) pulled in only $28,000\$ 28,000 from his $30,000\$ 30,000 admeaning he’d lost $2,000\$ 2,000 before he’d even counted overhead. 第二个朋友拉里虽然没有汤姆的文案才能，但他是一位世界级的战略家——而战略总是胜过文案。拉里带着一套游戏计划进入了同样的市场，推出了一款相同的产品，但结果却截然不同。他的广告写得不够好，因此范·普利斯和蒂萨尼（他对范克里夫与阿佩尔和蒂芙尼的改编，当时这两个品牌非常热门）仅从他的 $30,000\$ 30,000 广告中获得了 $28,000\$ 28,000 ，这意味着在他甚至还没计算开销之前，他就已经损失了 $2,000\$ 2,000 。
But instead of getting frustrated, Larry continued with the next phase of his strategy. Whereas Tom had mailed his product in a chintzy cardboard box, Larry delivered his in a high-end jeweler’s case, which in turn was placed in a velvet bag - packaging that cost a pretty penny beyond what he’d already spent on the ad. Along with that, Larry included a letter: 但拉里没有感到沮丧，而是继续执行他策略的下一阶段。汤姆把他的产品装在一个廉价的纸箱里，而拉里则把他的产品放在一个高档珠宝盒中，珠宝盒又放在一个天鹅绒袋子里——这样的包装花费了他在广告上已经花费的相当一笔钱。除此之外，拉里还附上了一封信：
Thank you for purchasing your Van Pliss and Tissany one-karat gemstone. When you remove it from its beautiful jeweler’s case, you’ll immediately notice its fiery brilliance, which is even more beautiful than we promised. 感谢您购买您的 Van Pliss 和 Tissany 一克拉宝石。当您从美丽的珠宝盒中取出它时，您会立刻注意到它的火焰般的光辉，甚至比我们承诺的还要美丽。
You may also notice that the stone is smaller than you expected-but that’s the nature of the Van Pliss diamond. In order to achieve such extraordinary brilliance, our gem is denser, which makes it 25 percent smaller than most people expect. However, the brilliance of the diamond inspires many of our buyers to upgrade to larger five- and ten-karat stones, which they hope to then set. Be- 您可能还会注意到这颗钻石比您预期的要小，但这就是 Van Pliss 钻石的特性。为了实现如此非凡的光辉，我们的宝石更密集，这使得它比大多数人预期的小 25%。然而，钻石的光辉激励了许多买家升级到更大的五克拉和十克拉宝石，他们希望将其镶嵌。
cause we’ve experienced this so often, we’ve set some of our most magnificent five- and ten-karat stones in fourteen- and eighteen-k rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, which you can find in the accompanying catalog. And, more important, because we do such volume, we have manufactured these jewelry pieces ourselves, thus slashing the price by 50 percent of what you would pay for the same product from a jewelry store. 因为我们经历过这种情况很多次，我们将一些最华丽的五克拉和十克拉宝石镶嵌在十四克拉和十八克拉的戒指、项链、耳环和手链中，您可以在随附的目录中找到这些产品。而且，更重要的是，由于我们生产量大，我们自己制造了这些珠宝，因此将价格削减到您在珠宝店购买同样产品的 50%。
We would like to offer you the chance to upgrade: Not only have we included a pre-paid return carton and UPS form, but we are also extending you double credit. In addition, any purchase you make with us will not be considered binding on your part until you’ve had the set jewelry item in your possession for thirty days. If your family and friends don’t remark on how beautiful your new gem is, or if you find that buying the same piece from a jeweler would have saved you money, you may return your gemstone and setting, no questions asked. 我们想给您提供升级的机会：我们不仅提供了一个预付费的退货箱和 UPS 表格，还为您提供了双倍积分。此外，您与我们进行的任何购买在您拥有该套珠宝物品三十天之前都不会被视为对您有约束力。如果您的家人和朋友没有评论您的新宝石有多美，或者如果您发现从珠宝商那里购买同样的物品会为您节省钱，您可以退回您的宝石和镶嵌，毫无疑问。
What was the end difference between Tom’s tactics and Larry’s strategy? Whereas Tom made $3,000\$ 3,000 and promptly quit, Larry’s strategy lost $2,000\$ 2,000 up front, then netted him $25\$ 25 million in his first year of business alone. 汤姆的战术和拉里的策略之间的最终差异是什么？汤姆做了 $3,000\$ 3,000 并迅速退出，而拉里的策略在前期损失了 $2,000\$ 2,000 ，但在他第一年的业务中净赚了 $25\$ 25 百万。
That’s the difference. 这就是区别。
If you come up with a killer strategy and a dynamite approach, you can make a killing, too. 如果你想出一个绝妙的策略和一个出色的方法，你也可以大赚一笔。
OPTIMIZATION VERSUS INNOVATION: YOU NEED BOTH TO BRING YOUR BUSINESS TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL 优化与创新：你需要两者来将你的业务提升到一个全新的水平
Believe it or not, a very high percentage of businesspeople are Toms, not Larrys. Most businesspeople never take a deep breath and ask themselves this question: Is the approach I’m using to generate and sustain business anywhere close to the highest and best approach out there? 信不信由你，很多商界人士是汤姆，而不是拉里。大多数商界人士从未深呼吸并问自己这个问题：我用来产生和维持业务的方法是否接近最佳的方法？
The reason Larry made $25\$ 25 million while Tom made only a few grand is simple: Larry’s innovative strategy allowed him 拉里的收入达到 $25\$ 25 百万，而汤姆仅赚了几千的原因很简单：拉里的创新策略使他能够
to stand out from the competition. When it came to marketing and selling the gemstone, Larry had the guts to think outside the jewelry box. 脱颖而出于竞争之中。当涉及到营销和销售宝石时，拉里有勇气跳出珠宝盒的思维。
A lot of people confuse innovation with optimization, two popular buzzwords in business today. But each is a distinct concept. Optimization means taking an existing process and making it work to its optimum, where it generates the most income for the least amount of investment-whether that investment is in time, risk, or capital. To optimize, you first have to know how activities involved in your revenue system are performing. If an activity isn’t performing, you have to replace it or improve it. If it is performing, you have to maximize that performance. That’s optimization: taking what’s working and making it work to the nnth degree; or fixing or replacing what’s not working. 许多人将创新与优化混淆，这两个词在当今商业中非常流行。但这两个概念是不同的。优化意味着对现有流程进行改进，使其达到最佳状态，从而以最少的投资（无论是时间、风险还是资本）产生最多的收入。要进行优化，首先必须了解收入系统中涉及的活动的表现。如果某项活动表现不佳，就必须替换或改进它。如果表现良好，就必须最大化其表现。这就是优化：利用有效的部分，使其发挥到极致；或者修复或替换无效的部分。
Innovation, by contrast, is a messy, unpredictable proposition. A business must engineer breakthroughs, take controlled risks, and look outside the industry for new ideas. When approached correctly, innovation is gutsy and exciting, and will put a world of opportunity at your feet. I’ll teach you how to turn innovation into something more than just a buzzword or wistful hope. 创新则相对而言是一项混乱且不可预测的提议。企业必须创造突破，承担可控风险，并在行业外寻找新想法。当以正确的方式进行时，创新是大胆而令人兴奋的，并将为你带来无限的机会。我将教你如何将创新转变为不仅仅是一个流行词或渴望的希望。
Optimization and innovation are both crucial to your success, but the order is important. For just a little while, let’s go through Jay Abraham 101. If you called me in to work on your business, I’d start by breaking down my activities into two stages: optimization followed by innovation. Here’s how I’d do it. 优化和创新对你的成功都至关重要，但顺序很重要。让我们暂时来了解一下杰伊·亚伯拉罕 101。如果你让我来为你的业务工作，我会首先将我的活动分为两个阶段：优化，然后是创新。以下是我的做法。
In Stage 1 (optimization), I’d work on making the activities you’re currently performing even better-not because they necessarily represent the best and highest use, but because you don’t want to jeopardize your current business in your search for higher-performing alternatives. Every current revenuegenerating activity would undergo optimization until it became stabilized, at which point we’d enter Stage 2: innovation. 在第一阶段（优化）中，我会致力于使您当前正在进行的活动变得更好——并不是因为它们必然代表最佳和最高的使用，而是因为您不想在寻找更高效的替代方案时危及您当前的业务。每一项当前的创收活动都会经历优化，直到其稳定为止，此时我们将进入第二阶段：创新。
Here’s where we would use the increased funding generated by the optimization in Stage 1 to research new approaches to replace and sometimes complement less effective activities. Innovation basically involves making obsolete that which you did before. 在这里，我们将利用第一阶段优化所产生的增加资金来研究新的方法，以替代和有时补充那些效果较差的活动。创新基本上涉及淘汰你之前所做的事情。
At their core, innovation and optimization rest on fundamentally different principles. But integrating the two will bring your business to a whole new level. 从本质上讲，创新和优化基于根本不同的原则。但将两者结合起来将使您的业务达到一个全新的水平。
RECOGNIZING THE SIGNS OF WHAT'S WORKING AND WHAT'S NOT 识别有效和无效的迹象
As I pointed out in Chapter 1, when business shifts either up or down, companies do one of two things: either more of the same thing or less of the same thing. One way or another, their activities are all tied to doing the same thing, as opposed to doing something different or doing different combinations of things. Here’s where innovation comes in. 正如我在第一章中指出的，当商业向上或向下转变时，公司会采取两种行动之一：要么做更多相同的事情，要么做更少相同的事情。无论如何，他们的活动都与做相同的事情相关，而不是做不同的事情或做不同组合的事情。这就是创新的意义所在。
The key is being able to recognize the following: 关键在于能够识别以下内容：
■ What you’re doing isn’t the only way you could be doing it. ■ 你正在做的并不是你可以做的唯一方式。
■ If you start doing something different, you must compare it to what you were previously doing in order to best judge its impact. ■ 如果你开始做一些不同的事情，你必须将其与之前所做的事情进行比较，以便最好地判断其影响。
If you discover a better approach, it’s time to scale up; if not, it’s time to move on to something else. 如果你发现了更好的方法，是时候扩大规模；如果没有，是时候转向其他事情了。
Over the last thirty years, I’ve had the good fortune to see who has emerged successfully-through good times and badin many different industries. Without fail, the leaders of the pack are always those who engineer the maximum quantity, quality, and consistency in breakthroughs, whether in marketing, strategy, innovation, or management. 在过去的三十年里，我有幸见证了在许多不同的行业中，谁在好时光和坏时光中成功崭露头角。毫无例外，领头羊总是那些在市场营销、战略、创新或管理方面创造最大数量、质量和一致性突破的人。
I’ve dedicated my life to finding the highest-performing and safest ways to maximize business activities and performancewhat I like to call the “good kind of leverage.” It’s kind of like the two different kinds of cholesterol, one of which will clog your arteries and kill you, and the other, which can counteract the bad. 我将我的一生奉献给寻找最高效和最安全的方式来最大化商业活动和绩效，我称之为“良好的杠杆”。这有点像两种不同类型的胆固醇，其中一种会堵塞你的动脉并致命，而另一种则可以抵消有害的胆固醇。
Same goes for leverage. Bad leverage has brought ruination to the mortgage field, which is crumbling to its foundation even as I write this book. You’ll also see bad leverage when a business invests in an asset-equipment, employees, or other overhead-that increases its long-term, fixed obligation with no certainty that the investment will produce a return exceeding its cost, let alone appreciate. That’s quite a risk. Sure, if it works out, you’re in the clear. But if it doesn’t-well, let’s just say that you could end up losing more than your derriere. 杠杆也是如此。糟糕的杠杆已经给抵押贷款领域带来了毁灭，尽管我在写这本书时，它仍在崩溃的边缘。你还会看到糟糕的杠杆，当一个企业投资于资产——设备、员工或其他开销——这增加了其长期的固定义务，而没有任何保证投资会产生超过其成本的回报，更不用说增值了。这是相当大的风险。当然，如果一切顺利，你就没事了。但如果不顺利——好吧，姑且说你可能会失去的不止是你的屁股。
I don’t deal in dangerous leverage. I deal in new approaches that dramatically multiply results-but I work with a net, one really big safety net that makes risk practically nonexistent. I look for changes that improve your results the moment you implement them. Innovation has no value unless it brings a greater and more perceptible advantage to the marketplacean advantage that hopefully comes exclusively from you. 我不涉及危险的杠杆。我专注于新的方法，这些方法能显著倍增结果——但我有一个安全网，一个真正巨大的安全网，使风险几乎不存在。我寻找那些在你实施的瞬间就能改善你结果的变化。创新没有价值，除非它为市场带来更大且更明显的优势，而这种优势希望仅来自于你。
THE POWER OF MARKETING—WHICH MOST PEOPLE IGNORE 营销的力量——大多数人忽视的内容
So what kind of innovative strategies will help you achieve good leverage? And how do you use this leverage to jump ahead of your competitors in the marketplace? The answer is actually right in front of you, a part of the word “marketplace” itself: marketing. 那么，什么样的创新策略可以帮助你实现良好的杠杆效应？你如何利用这种杠杆效应在市场上超越竞争对手？答案其实就在你面前，正是“marketplace”这个词的一部分：营销。
Most small- and medium-sized company owners don’t market at all. And the few who do-well, they tend to market very traditionally, which is a euphemistic way of saying “ineffectually.” They neither monitor performance nor strive to improve 大多数小型和中型企业的老板根本不进行市场营销。而少数进行市场营销的老板，他们往往采用非常传统的方式，这是一种委婉的说法，意思是“无效”。他们既不监测绩效，也不努力改进。
marketing variables that could give them this geometric boost. (Marketing variables are factors that can cause huge swings in results.) They generally aren’t even aware that their marketing has that kind of capability. It’s as if they’d purchased a twelvecylinder Jaguar, but only six cylinders are firing: They have enough power to drive, but if they just cleaned out the clog and applied some lube, they could have twice the power far more efficiently and economically. 可能给他们带来这种几何提升的营销变量。（营销变量是可能导致结果巨大波动的因素。）他们通常甚至没有意识到他们的营销具有这种能力。就好像他们购买了一辆十二缸的捷豹，但只有六个气缸在工作：他们有足够的动力来行驶，但如果他们清理一下堵塞并加点润滑油，他们就可以以更高效和经济的方式获得两倍的动力。
When you change your marketing, you change your results. Even small changes add up. I’ve seen minor changes to advertisements-rewording the business proposition, say, or removing the client’s perceived risk in a transaction-yield as much as a 21 percent improvement. For instance, instead of saying just “Buy my widget,” I changed a client’s message to “Buy my widget now because. . . .” The result was not only a 30 to 40 percent sales increase but an immediate one. 当你改变你的营销时，你就改变了你的结果。即使是小的变化也会累积起来。我见过对广告的小改动——比如重新措辞商业提案，或者消除客户在交易中的感知风险——带来高达 21%的改善。例如，我将一个客户的信息从“买我的小工具”改为“现在就买我的小工具，因为……”。结果不仅是销售额立即增加了 30%到 40%。
That’s just one application. I’ve seen sales quadruple as a consequence of changes in the medium by which business owners reach the marketplace. I’ve seen a simple tweak in copy on a tradeshow sign triple the traffic and quadruple the quality of the traffic, meaning the ultimate profitability of the prospects. I’ve seen a single follow-up effort after an unsuccessful sales call bring 35 percent of prospects back to buy. I’ve seen other follow-up calls produce 50 percent more sales with previous clients. Bottom line: Change your marketing, change your results. 这只是一个应用。我看到销售额因商业主接触市场的媒介变化而增加了四倍。我看到展会标牌上的简单文案调整使流量增加了三倍，流量质量提高了四倍，这意味着潜在客户的最终盈利能力。我看到在一次不成功的销售电话后进行一次跟进努力使 35%的潜在客户回购。我看到其他的跟进电话使之前的客户销售额增加了 50%。底线是：改变你的营销，改变你的结果。
Most owners of small-to medium-sized businesses don’t have a clue as to how many leverage points are available to them. In every business, there are many areas in any given revenue-generating activity. Let’s say you own a company that’s just placed an ad in the Yellow Pages. One leverage point could be as simple as changing the body copy (meaning the words that follow the headline). You could also change the placement of the ad on the page (going from horizontal to vertical or 大多数小型和中型企业的老板对可用的杠杆点一无所知。在每个企业中，任何给定的创收活动都有许多领域。假设你拥有一家刚在黄页上投放广告的公司。一个杠杆点可能简单到只需更改正文（即标题后面的文字）。你还可以更改广告在页面上的位置（从横向改为纵向或
from left to right). And, finally, you could shift the location of each of the ad elements within the ad itself. That’s three leverage points right there-and you’ve racked them up even before getting to the call from the client! 从左到右）。最后，您可以在广告本身内移动每个广告元素的位置。这就有三个杠杆点，而您在接到客户的电话之前就已经积累了这些杠杆点！
Ads are designed to generate calls, visits, and e-mails, and there are multiple leverage points to be found once you reach the call response stage. What you say or do at the point of contact can increase the odds of a purchase by as much as 75 percent. 广告旨在产生电话、访问和电子邮件，一旦达到电话响应阶段，就会发现多个杠杆点。在接触时你所说或所做的可以将购买的概率提高多达 75%。
Marketing is further discussed in Chapters 8 and 9, but right now I’ll share with you fifteen points that I developed with my friend and partner, the brilliant Internet marketer Rich Schefren.* These points are personality building blocks that will help you position yourself, your company, and/or your product as a preeminent persona in your marketplacepoised to stand head and shoulders above the competition. Think of them as grist for the mill. 市场营销在第 8 章和第 9 章中有进一步讨论，但现在我将与您分享我与我的朋友和合作伙伴、杰出的互联网营销专家 Rich Schefren 共同开发的十五个要点。这些要点是塑造个性的基石，将帮助您将自己、您的公司和/或您的产品定位为市场中卓越的人物，能够在竞争中脱颖而出。把它们看作是磨坊的原料。
Fifteen Ways to Position Yourself, Your Product, or Your Company as Preeminent in Your Marketplace 在市场中将自己、产品或公司定位为卓越的十五种方法
Attach the suffix “In your service” to everything you do for your clients. You are their trusted advisor for life. 将“为您服务”这个后缀附加到您为客户所做的一切上。您是他们终生信任的顾问。
Don’t be afraid to say what your competition won’t. In any transaction, tell your client, “Here’s what you’re not being told.” 不要害怕说出你的竞争对手不会说的话。在任何交易中，告诉你的客户：“这是你没有被告知的。”
Don’t hesitate to extol your own achievements and value - but do it in the context of the benefit it brings to the client. Practice 不要犹豫去赞美自己的成就和价值——但要在它给客户带来的好处的背景下进行。实践
at it, do it with humility and humanity, and make it heartfelt and graceful, not overbearing. 以谦逊和人性去做这件事，让它真诚而优雅，而不是傲慢。
4. List your flaws. Your clients are human, and so are you. So acknowledge it. Doing so makes you real and honest in their eyes. 4. 列出你的缺点。你的客户是人，你也是人。所以要承认这一点。这样做会让你在他们眼中显得真实和诚实。
5. Cultivate the habit of looking at each relationship as a long-term investment you’re making in the marketplace. It’s not a onenight stand. It’s a total attitude shift. 5. 培养将每段关系视为你在市场上进行的长期投资的习惯。这不是一夜情。这是一个完全的态度转变。
6. Know your strengths and weaknesses, and play to the former. The task is simple, but most people don’t do it; they get caught up trying to improve their weaknesses. No leverage there. 6. 了解自己的优点和缺点，并发挥优点。这个任务很简单，但大多数人不这样做；他们陷入了试图改善自己的缺点。没有杠杆作用。
7. Control your risk. But always point out the overlooked risks and dangers your marketplace is exposed to, and help your clients reduce or eliminate them. 7. 控制你的风险。但始终指出你的市场所面临的被忽视的风险和危险，并帮助你的客户减少或消除这些风险。
8. Use as much research and data as you can to make your point, prove your advantage, and demonstrate your performance. Just be sure to summarize, compare, interpret, and analyze this information so that people can appreciate and act on it. 8. 尽可能多地使用研究和数据来支持你的观点，证明你的优势，并展示你的表现。只需确保总结、比较、解释和分析这些信息，以便人们能够理解并采取行动。
9. Challenge status quo thinking with a sharper, fresher perspective, a better strategy, or a clearer game plan for your market to follow. 9. 以更敏锐、更清新的视角、更好的策略或更清晰的市场游戏计划挑战现状思维。
10. Continually add to your brand equity by doing more, caring more, contributing more. 10. 通过更多的行动、更多的关心、更多的贡献，不断增加你的品牌价值。
11. Form alliances and advisory boards. (We’ll talk about nurturing strategic relationships in Chapter 10.) 11. 形成联盟和顾问委员会。（我们将在第 10 章讨论培养战略关系。）
12. Use endorsements and testimonials properly and often. You can garner these from buyers, community influences, and press articles. 12. 正确且频繁地使用推荐和证言。您可以从买家、社区影响者和新闻文章中获取这些。
13. Hire the best. Pay them richly. But pay them mostly on performance. 13. 雇佣最优秀的人。给予他们丰厚的报酬。但主要根据表现来支付他们。
14. If you’re invisible, you can’t become the go-to source. Make yourself, your product, or your company known. Do it impactfully. Do it with the right people. Make the impact worth the effort. 14. 如果你是隐形的，就无法成为首选来源。让自己、你的产品或你的公司被人知晓。要有影响力。与合适的人一起做。让影响值得付出努力。
15. Learn to project the image of true success-long before you’ve fully achieved it. It’s only a matter of time before it will occur. 15. 学会在你完全实现之前就展现真正成功的形象。这只是时间问题，它终将发生。
These fifteen points serve as the ideal reminder that you have to view changes in the granular sense. “Change”-that all-encompassing, poetic, sweeping notion-is not going to cut it. You need tangible, actionable steps to follow. So instead of focusing on change, focus on changes. 这十五个要点理想地提醒你必须从细微的角度看待变化。“变化”——这个包罗万象、富有诗意、广泛的概念——是无法满足的。你需要可触及、可操作的步骤来跟进。因此，与其关注变化，不如关注变化的细节。
An added benefit of changes (in the plural) is that they will increase your business’s success with speed and efficacy. As an analogy, let’s say you decide to improve the performance of your car by adding a turbo charger and changing the wheels, which you assume will give you more power and more speed, respectively. In actuality, however, the combined benefit of both improvements would be exponential, because faster tires combined with more power equals even more speed. Implementing multiple enhancements is how I’ve helped businesses achieve such great results so rapidly. 变化的一个额外好处是，它们将提高您业务的成功速度和效率。作为类比，假设您决定通过添加涡轮增压器和更换轮胎来提高汽车的性能，您认为这将分别给您带来更多的动力和更快的速度。然而，实际上，这两项改进的综合效益将是指数级的，因为更快的轮胎结合更多的动力等于更快的速度。实施多项增强措施就是我帮助企业如此迅速取得巨大成果的方法。
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW TO MAKE YOUR BUSINESS MORE SUCCESSFUL 提出正确的问题以使您的业务更成功
After reading the previous list, you may be thinking, “Whoa, fifteen actionable points is a lot. Where do I begin?” Well, the truth is, even if you did only three of those things, or two, or even just one, you’d still be leaps and bounds beyond your 在阅读完之前的列表后，你可能会想：“哇，十五个可操作的要点真多。我该从哪里开始？”其实，真相是，即使你只做其中的三件、两件，甚至仅仅一件，你也会远远超越你的
competitors. Why? Because most people aren’t asking the right questions. 竞争对手。为什么？因为大多数人没有问对的问题。
Instead of projecting ahead and thinking of ways to change the way they do things, most businesspeople are consumed with self-doubt. They’re struggling with the wrong questions. They continually ask themselves, “Am I worthy of this business?” That translates into many more complicated questions, such as the following: 大多数商人并没有展望未来，思考改变他们做事方式的方法，而是被自我怀疑所困扰。他们在与错误的问题作斗争。他们不断问自己：“我值得拥有这个生意吗？”这转化为许多更复杂的问题，例如：
■ “Can I really sustain this business?” ■ “我真的能维持这个生意吗？”
■ “Can I compete with all these bigger competitors?” ■ “我能与这些更大的竞争对手竞争吗？”
■ “Can I really make enough money to retire in comfort, put my kids through college, and take a twoweek vacation each year?” ■ “我真的能赚到足够的钱来舒适退休，让我的孩子上大学，并每年休两周的假吗？”
■ “Can I really keep this business viable?” ■ “我真的能让这个生意保持活力吗？”
Don’t ask, “Am I worthy of this business?” Instead you should be asking yourself if this business is worthy of you. 不要问：“我值得拥有这个事业吗？”相反，你应该问自己这个事业是否值得你。
I’m going to give you the answer to the first question right now: You are. So start acting like it! 我现在就要给你第一个问题的答案：你就是。所以开始表现得像这样！
Once you realize how much more is possible from your time and efforts, you’ll see that your business is the greatest wealth-creating vehicle you’ll ever have. Why not give it all you’ve got? 一旦你意识到你的时间和努力可以创造更多的可能性，你会发现你的生意是你所拥有的最伟大的财富创造工具。为什么不全力以赴呢？
For starters, that means marketing. Marketing is the key to launching your business far beyond the status quo of the average Joe. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking of marketing as an expenditure. Marketing is an investment. With the right marketing, you can increase the profit of your business by as much as 200 percent every year. And anytime you increase profit, you’re increasing your business’s value at least five times that. 首先，这意味着营销。营销是将您的业务推向远超普通人现状的关键。不要陷入将营销视为支出的陷阱。营销是一项投资。通过正确的营销，您可以每年将业务利润提高多达 200%。而每当您增加利润时，您实际上是在将业务的价值提高至少五倍。
In order to increase your profit, you need to remember this mantra: 为了增加你的利润，你需要记住这个口号：
Change your strategy, change your results. 改变你的策略，改变你的结果。
Unfortunately, most owners of small- to medium-sized businesses have no strategy at all. They’re tactical, rather than strategic. All they do is struggle through the end of the month, only to start over again at the top of the next calendar page, hoping they’ll make it through again. They’re like Tom from the story at the beginning of this chapter: only looking at the here and now, and missing out on all the long-term potential. 不幸的是，大多数小型和中型企业的老板根本没有任何战略。他们是战术性的，而不是战略性的。他们所做的只是挣扎着度过这个月的最后一天，然后在下一个日历页的顶部重新开始，希望他们能再次熬过去。他们就像本章开头故事中的汤姆：只关注眼前，而错过了所有的长期潜力。
As an entrepreneur, you need a long-term strategy that drives every activity in your business-from tracking prospects, to closing the sale, to reselling them something worthwhile again and again. All your activities should be designed to deploy, maintain, and advance that strategy. Success doesn’t come from saying “I have to make money this week.” It comes from having, knowing, and following your long-term, endgame strategy. 作为一名企业家，您需要一个长期战略来推动您业务中的每一项活动——从跟踪潜在客户，到完成销售，再到一次又一次地向他们重新销售有价值的东西。您所有的活动都应该旨在实施、维护和推进该战略。成功并不是来自于说“我这周必须赚钱。”而是来自于拥有、了解并遵循您的长期终局战略。
If you’re a dentist, for example, your strategy might be “We’re going to source prospects from the dental industry and migrate them through a pipeline that keeps reselling at a higher quantity and thus a higher revenue level. From there, we’ll induce referrals, consciously and systematically. We know exactly what the progression steps and actions will be, and we’re going to control them proactively. Everything we do will drive that systematic, progressive outcome.” That’s being strategic. 例如，如果你是一名牙医，你的策略可能是“我们将从牙科行业寻找潜在客户，并通过一个管道将他们迁移，以便以更高的数量进行再销售，从而实现更高的收入水平。然后，我们将有意识和系统地引导推荐。我们确切知道进展步骤和行动将是什么，我们将主动控制它们。我们所做的一切都将推动这种系统的、渐进的结果。”这就是战略思维。
Most businesspeople don’t realize that strategy is allimportant. As Stephen Covey put it in his bestselling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Begin with the end in mind.” Being without a strategy is like deciding to build a house with no idea about how many bathrooms it will have or where you’ll put the kitchen. You can’t just bang some nails into wood and hope the outcome resembles a habitable 大多数商界人士没有意识到战略是至关重要的。正如斯蒂芬·柯维在他的畅销书《高效能人士的七个习惯》中所说：“以终为始。”没有战略就像决定建造一座房子却不知道会有多少个浴室或厨房放在哪里。你不能仅仅把一些钉子钉进木头里，然后希望结果看起来像一个适合居住的地方。
dwelling. But that’s similar to what businesses do every day. Let’s look at another real-world example. 居住。但这与企业每天所做的类似。让我们看另一个现实世界的例子。
Many years ago, one of my clients was a brokerage firm that sold gold and silver. The owners were very tactical, bringing in clients episodically, selling them once, and then seeking new ones. I eliminated that static thinking and replaced it with a master strategy. 许多年前，我的一个客户是一家销售黄金和白银的经纪公司。老板们非常有策略，偶尔吸引客户，卖给他们一次，然后寻找新的客户。我消除了这种静态思维，取而代之的是一个总体战略。
In the first stage, we sought the most qualified prospects in the most consistent and cost-effective way possible. We led them through a process in which we educated them about the product, and then sold them a modest amount of the safest and most appealing initial investment. We wanted our clients to be comfortable, which we told them going in. That builds trust. 在第一阶段，我们以最一致和最具成本效益的方式寻找最合格的潜在客户。我们引导他们经历一个过程，在这个过程中我们向他们介绍产品，然后向他们销售一小部分最安全和最具吸引力的初始投资。我们希望我们的客户感到舒适，这也是我们在开始时告诉他们的。这建立了信任。
Then, we moved them to a second transaction of greater quantity and quality, as part of the next step in our long-term relationship. Based on the strategy underlying this relationship, we started them with gold, then moved them to silver, then rare coins, then gold stocks, and then other collectibles if they were appropriate. We had a systematic approach. Our first stage was not designed to hit and run. It was designed to sell and set up an ethical process for a sequential, long-term relationship future. 然后，我们将他们转移到第二笔数量和质量更高的交易中，作为我们长期关系的下一步。基于这种关系的战略，我们首先让他们投资黄金，然后转向白银，再到稀有硬币，然后是黄金股票，最后是其他合适的收藏品。我们有一个系统的方法。我们的第一阶段并不是为了快速获利，而是为了销售并建立一个道德的流程，以便为未来的顺序、长期关系奠定基础。
As another part of this stage, we accessed every newsletter out there. We offered investment seminars. This was at a time before Krugerrands had been outlawed, and the minter of the Krugerrands was brimming with wealth. We saw an opportunity and leveraged it, getting the Krugerrand minter to pay 100 percent of our advertising costs in the Wall Street Journal and all our marketing costs for millions of pieces of direct mail. At any one time, we had in motion no fewer than twenty different activities - all nontraditional methods of credibly and impactfully reaching the most desirable category of buyer. 作为这个阶段的另一个部分，我们访问了所有的通讯。我们提供了投资研讨会。这是在克鲁格兰德被禁止之前，那时克鲁格兰德的铸造商正充满财富。我们看到了机会并加以利用，让克鲁格兰德的铸造商支付我们在《华尔街日报》上的 100%广告费用以及我们数百万份直邮的所有营销费用。在任何时候，我们都有不少于二十种不同的活动在进行中——所有这些都是非传统的方法，以可信和有影响力的方式接触最理想的买家类别。
Once our strategy was under way, there was no stopping us. While our next-closest competitor was pulling in $50\$ 50 million in revenues, we were doing $500\$ 500 million. Strategy was the key to winning the race, ten times over. 一旦我们的战略开始实施，就没有人能阻止我们。虽然我们下一个最接近的竞争对手的收入为 $50\$ 50 百万，而我们的收入为 $500\$ 500 百万。战略是赢得比赛的关键，十倍于此。
THE STRATEGY OF PREEMINENCE: MAKE YOURSELF KNOWN 卓越战略：让自己被人知晓
Do you honestly believe that Dr. Phil is the best, most highly trained psychologist in America? He may not be the best, but 你真的相信菲尔博士是美国最优秀、训练最有素的心理学家吗？他可能不是最好的，但
he is certainly the best paid-earning 20, 50, even 100 times more than others in his field. But the difference between Dr. Phil and the average neighborhood shrink has nothing to do with his knowledge or credentials. It has to do with his positioning, his superior personal branding, and his willingness to tell his own story. In short: It comes from his visibility in the marketplace. There are literally thousands of ordinary businesspeople, once virtual “nobodies” in their markets, who have become preeminent and now enjoy success far beyond anything they could have imagined possible. The good news is: Preeminent businesspeople are made, not born. 他无疑是收入最高的，收入是他所在领域其他人的 20 倍、50 倍甚至 100 倍。但菲尔博士与普通心理医生之间的差异与他的知识或资历无关。与他的定位、他卓越的个人品牌以及他愿意讲述自己的故事有关。简而言之：这源于他在市场上的可见度。实际上，有成千上万的普通商人，曾经在他们的市场中几乎是“无名小卒”，如今已成为杰出人物，享受着远超他们曾经想象的成功。好消息是：杰出的商人是造就的，而不是天生的。
An important part of beating out your competition is employing a strategy of preeminence, which means making your business resonate at a perceived higher value in the mind of your market. You want to stand out and above the rest of the marketplace by creating an aura of superiority that decisively differentiates your brand from all the other run-of-the-mill competitors. Superiority, however, is critically different from arrogance. Look at the most prized and valued advisors in any field. They’re usually the highest paid and the most sought after, because they rank quantum times higher in terms of the respect they inspire. 击败竞争对手的重要部分是采用卓越战略，这意味着让您的业务在市场的心目中产生更高的价值感。您希望通过创造一种优越感，使您的品牌在市场上脱颖而出，明确区分于其他普通竞争对手。然而，优越感与傲慢是截然不同的。看看任何领域中最受重视和珍视的顾问。他们通常是薪酬最高、需求最旺盛的，因为他们在所激发的尊重方面的排名远远高于其他人。
Let’s use my own business as an example. I’ve established myself as an authoritative marketing consultant, one who can command well above the standard industry rate. Part of this perception on the part of the client is psychological, and I make certain that this view is maintained by differentiating my relationship, conduct, and ongoing level of contribution from that of my competitors. I have control of the relationship, and that comes with the certainty of knowing what I’m steering that relationship toward. Most people have no control over their selling relationships, and so they’re forced to be reactive. 让我们以我自己的业务为例。我已经确立了自己作为权威营销顾问的地位，能够收取远高于行业标准的费用。客户对我的这种看法部分是心理因素，我确保通过将我的关系、行为和持续贡献与竞争对手区分开来，来维持这种看法。我掌控着这段关系，这让我能够清楚地知道我在引导这段关系走向何方。大多数人对他们的销售关系没有控制权，因此他们被迫采取反应式的方式。
The first step you have to take is to view your business as the market’s most trusted, valued, and prized provider, advisor, 您必须采取的第一步是将您的业务视为市场上最受信任、最有价值和最受珍视的提供者和顾问
and source. Your perception and persona immediately transform the relationship with the client. From today forward, you have to change the way you view and run your business and interact with your clients so that you see yourself as their most trusted confidante in your field, the definitive expert source, the true market “maven.” 和来源。你的感知和个性立即改变了与客户的关系。从今天起，你必须改变看待和经营业务以及与客户互动的方式，以便将自己视为他们在你领域中最值得信赖的知己，权威的专家来源，真正的市场“权威”。
At the heart of it all, you also have to believe that what you’re doing is for a greater good, that you’re truly being selfless in your business goal to serve the prospects/clients better and more fully than any other competitor does. Sure, you’re getting paid in return (it’s the reward for doing more for them), but that’s nothing compared to the quality of service you’re providing your clients, who become your business’s center of attention. Your goal cannot be to get rich. Your goal must be to make the clients’ life or business richer, more protected, and more fulfilled so that they get more out of the process of doing business, or out of life itself. 在这一切的核心，你还必须相信你所做的事情是为了更大的利益，你在商业目标上真正是无私的，目的是为了更好、更全面地服务于潜在客户/客户，超过任何其他竞争对手。当然，你会得到报酬（这是为他们做更多事情的回报），但这与您为客户提供的服务质量相比微不足道，客户成为您业务的关注中心。你的目标不能是致富。你的目标必须是让客户的生活或业务更加丰富、更有保障和更充实，以便他们在做生意的过程中或在生活本身中获得更多。
A colleague of mine and an internationally admired expert in sales training, Chet Holmes, came up with an ingenious and powerfully effective method for establishing business preeminence: Simply tell the consumer what the buying criteria should be for purchasing products or services from your own marketplace. Then make absolutely certain that your company’s product or service is the only one that fully and consistently satisfies (or over-satisfies) those criteria. 我的一位同事，国际上备受推崇的销售培训专家 Chet Holmes，想出了一个巧妙且极为有效的方法来建立商业卓越性：简单地告诉消费者在从你自己的市场购买产品或服务时，购买标准应该是什么。然后确保你公司的产品或服务是唯一一个完全且始终满足（或超出满足）这些标准的。
Many famous brands have employed this tactic. Think of Dr. Pepper’s “23 Flavors” campaign. Before you knew that Dr. Pepper used a blend of twenty-three flavors to create its distinctive taste, did it matter to you how many chemicals were involved? Is a beverage with only one flavor something you wouldn’t have considered drinking? Probably not. In fact, many other beverage companies also use a blend of flavors in the double-digits, but when the Dr. Pepper commercials and packaging began emphasizing " 23 Flavors," what they were 许多著名品牌采用了这种策略。想想 Dr. Pepper 的“23 种口味”广告活动。在你知道 Dr. Pepper 使用二十三种口味来创造其独特的味道之前，涉及多少种化学成分对你来说重要吗？只有一种口味的饮料是你不会考虑喝的吗？可能不会。事实上，许多其他饮料公司也使用十几种口味的混合，但当 Dr. Pepper 的广告和包装开始强调“23 种口味”时，他们所做的就是
implying was that other flavoring methods were inferior. Dr. Pepper’s beverage alone met the criterion of being prepared in the most creative manner possible-as defined by Dr. Pepper. 暗示其他调味方法较差。只有 Dr. Pepper 的饮料符合以 Dr. Pepper 定义的以最具创意的方式准备的标准。
If you can’t be the only business to satisfy certain criteria, then be the first to tell the marketplace what those criteria are and that you satisfy them, before your competitors do. Advertise what you do, how you do it, why you do it, and what doing it means to the betterment of the buyer. In preemptive marketing, a company details the business process-from the moment the idea was born to the delivery of the product to the consumer’s doorstep-as a means of setting it dimensionally and incomparably apart from the competition, even if the process is identical to that of its competitors. By being the first to publicly define, describe, and revere the process, your business gains full credit. Everyone else looks like a clone, and you achieve proprietary preeminence and preemptive status. Here’s another example. 如果你不能成为唯一满足某些标准的企业，那么就要第一个告诉市场这些标准是什么，以及你如何满足这些标准，先于你的竞争对手。宣传你所做的事情，你是如何做的，为什么要这样做，以及这样做对买家的改善意味着什么。在预防性营销中，一家公司详细描述了业务流程——从创意诞生的那一刻到产品送达消费者家门的过程——作为将其在维度上和不可比拟地与竞争对手区分开来的手段，即使这个过程与竞争对手的相同。通过第一个公开定义、描述和尊重这个过程，你的企业获得了全部的信誉。其他人看起来像是克隆，而你实现了专有的卓越和预防性地位。这是另一个例子。
Years ago, I represented a high-end women’s clothier and shoe store that netted several million dollars annually. To justify the $500\$ 500 price tag on a pair of stilettos, we made a point of explaining how those shoes were different. We explained how the manufacturer scrutinized more than 100 skins to find a single matching set. Dyes were five times more expensive than standard market rate. The grade of silk threads was so lustrous that they cost ten times more than other shoes. 多年前，我代表一家高端女性服装和鞋店，该店每年净赚数百万美元。为了证明一双高跟鞋的 $500\$ 500 价格标签，我们特别强调了这些鞋子的不同之处。我们解释了制造商如何仔细检查超过 100 块皮革，以找到一套匹配的材料。染料的价格是标准市场价格的五倍。丝线的等级光泽度如此之高，以至于其价格是其他鞋子的十倍。
But that’s how all expensive shoes are made. The difference was that we were the only ones to reveal and revere this procedure (then explain and teach it to the consumer), and that made us more distinctive and desirableindeed, preeminent in our clients’ eyes. 但这就是所有昂贵鞋子的制作方式。不同之处在于我们是唯一揭示并尊重这一过程的人（然后向消费者解释和教授它），这使我们在客户眼中更加独特和令人向往，确实在他们眼中处于领先地位。
I then went a step further. I described the process the store’s buyers went through to source the merchandise in the stores. I got out the word that they traveled 500,000 miles every year, with multiple flights to Europe, Asia, and North America (especially Chicago and New York). In the process, the buying team walked up and down a combined 10,000 flights of stairs, and re- 我接着更进一步。我描述了商店的采购人员为采购商店商品所经历的过程。我得知他们每年旅行 50 万英里，往返于欧洲、亚洲和北美（尤其是芝加哥和纽约），并进行了多次航班。在这个过程中，采购团队上下走了总共 1 万层楼梯，并重新
viewed, interviewed, and painstakingly evaluated 80,000 different vendors in order to choose the mere 112 unique and distinctive items that would eventually make it to their stores. 查看、面试并仔细评估了 80,000 个不同的供应商，以选择最终将进入他们商店的仅 112 个独特而独特的商品。
The numbers were impressive, even though virtually any clothier could have tallied the same sums. But we stood out, predominantly and preemptively, because nobody else had ever laid out the details for the client. 这些数字令人印象深刻，尽管几乎任何服装商都可以计算出相同的总额。但我们脱颖而出，主要是因为没有其他人曾经为客户详细列出过这些细节。
We’ve barely scraped the surface of preeminence, so we’ll explore it in more depth in Chapter 8. For now, though, start brainstorming ways to position yourself as the preeminent provider of your product or services in your corner of the marketplace. You won’t be sorry you did. 我们刚刚触及卓越的表面，因此我们将在第 8 章中更深入地探讨它。不过，现在请开始头脑风暴，想想如何在市场的某个角落将自己定位为您产品或服务的卓越提供者。您不会后悔这样做的。
DON'T BE JUST A SHEEP 不要只是一个羊
Most entrepreneurs are sheep. They run business by applying whatever actions they’ve observed in the industry-not because it’s the optimal way but because that’s all they know. As an example, consider this story. 大多数企业家都是盲从者。他们通过应用在行业中观察到的各种行为来经营业务——不是因为这是最佳方式，而是因为这就是他们所知道的全部。作为一个例子，考虑这个故事。
A few years ago, I had a client who was in the software business, with a company that was losing out on a lot of business to a competitor. The other company had better salespeople, but its software was full of bugs. Still, the other company was getting all the business. So the first company came to me and explained its problem. “We know our software is superior,” the owners told me, “but we’re obviously doing something wrong. What should we do differently?” 几年前，我有一个客户，他们在软件行业，公司的业务正在被竞争对手抢走。另一家公司有更优秀的销售人员，但他们的软件充满了漏洞。尽管如此，另一家公司还是获得了所有的业务。因此，第一家公司找到了我，向我解释了他们的问题。“我们知道我们的软件更优秀，”老板们告诉我，“但我们显然做错了什么。我们应该做些什么不同的事情？”
I love hearing that question. As soon as you open your mind to doing things differently, the doors of opportunity practically fly off their hinges. I worked with these guys to develop a long-term strategy whereby we went to people who had bought the inferior software from the other company, and we gave them full credit for what they’d already paid. We awarded that credit for the other company’s software against ours if they wanted to trade in and even advanced the cost of converting over. The response was huge: People 我喜欢听到这个问题。只要你开始开放思维，尝试不同的做法，机会的大门几乎会飞开。我与这些人合作，制定了一项长期战略，我们去找那些从其他公司购买了劣质软件的人，并给予他们已经支付的全额信用。如果他们想要换成我们的软件，我们会将其他公司的软件的信用抵扣在我们的软件上，甚至提前支付转换的费用。反响非常热烈：人们
saw that we were strategically long term. The company won back all kinds of business as a result, and the competition was left wondering what hit them. 看到我们在战略上是长期的。公司因此赢回了各种业务，竞争对手则对发生了什么感到困惑。
In a rough economy, it’s more important than ever to play good defense. You can’t afford to lose valuable business to your competitors. But here’s the good news: All you have to do to regain your competitive edge is to get creative about doing things differently-just as Larry did when he packaged cubic zirconium in a lavish velvet bag, accompanied by an elegant letter. Of course, people tend not to be very good at imagining an alternative course of action when they’re high on the hog, but this is exactly why I say today’s bad economy has a silver lining: It’s a wonderful opportunity to shift your thinking. 在经济不景气的情况下，做好防守比以往任何时候都重要。你不能承受将宝贵的业务拱手让给竞争对手的代价。但好消息是：你所需要做的就是在做事方式上发挥创造力，重新获得竞争优势——就像拉里一样，他将立方氧化锆包装在奢华的天鹅绒袋中，并附上优雅的信件。当然，当人们过得很好的时候，他们往往不太擅长想象替代的行动方案，但这正是我说今天糟糕的经济有好的一面：这是一个转变思维的绝佳机会。
It may sound unbelievable, but over the years I’ve had the good fortune of serving clients in 465 different industries, either directly or through consulting work; worked with or spoken to over 500,000 businesspeople in group settings; and guided more than 300 industry leaders and increased the fortunes of over 1,000 private clients. Throughout my career, I have kept careful track of each project and contact, so that I can learn from each one. This means I’ve seen more business strategies in action, whether delightfully successful or desperately unavailing, than just about any other human being on the planet. 这听起来可能难以置信，但多年来我有幸为 465 个不同的行业的客户提供服务，无论是直接还是通过咨询工作；在小组环境中与超过 500,000 名商界人士合作或交谈；指导了 300 多位行业领袖，并增加了超过 1,000 名私人客户的财富。在我的职业生涯中，我仔细记录了每个项目和联系，以便从中学习。这意味着我见证了更多的商业策略在实践中，无论是令人愉快的成功还是绝望的无效，几乎比地球上任何其他人都要多。
Unfortunately, many businesspeople have spent the majority of their careers in the cocoon or bell jar of their own industry, never seeing the wealth of more powerful, profitable ideas swirling in the economy around them. I’d like to be more than just a breath of fresh air-more like a torrent of cleansing clarity! 不幸的是，许多商界人士在自己行业的茧或钟罩中度过了大部分职业生涯，从未看到周围经济中涌动的更强大、更有利可图的想法。我希望不仅仅是清新的空气，更像是一股净化的洪流！
In all probability, what you’ve been doing has been marginal at best and, at worst, detrimental. So change it. Pull yourself out of the sheep pen-you’re not going to get anywhere with the wool over your eyes. Optimize and fix what isn’t working. Innovate and try new things. Develop a long-term strategy. Begin a passionate love affair with marketing. And always remember: Your business is worth it. The moment is yours. 很可能，你所做的事情充其量只是边缘化，最糟糕的情况是有害的。所以改变它。把自己从羊圈里拉出来——你不会在眼前蒙着羊毛的情况下有所作为。优化并修复那些不奏效的东西。创新并尝试新事物。制定长期战略。开始与营销的热情恋爱。并始终记住：你的生意是值得的。时刻属于你。
Now it’s time to introduce you to that little-known guru of the business world: Indiana Jones. 现在是时候向你介绍那位鲜为人知的商业界大师：印第安纳·琼斯。
The Bottom Line 底线
Marketing, innovation, and strategizing produce results; all the rest are costs. 营销、创新和战略规划产生结果；其他的都是成本。
Stage 1 , finding the highest and best use, is optimization: taking what’s working and making it work to the nth degree; or, fixing or replacing what’s not working. 第一阶段，寻找最高效的使用，是优化：利用现有的有效方法并将其发挥到极致；或者，修复或更换那些无效的方法。
Stage 2 is innovation: engineering breakthroughs, taking controlled risks, and looking outside the industry for new ideas. 阶段二是创新：工程突破、承担可控风险，以及在行业外寻找新想法。
Instead of focusing on change, focus on changes. 不要专注于变化，而要专注于变化的内容。
■ Ask the right questions: not “Am I worthy of this goal?” but “Is this goal worthy of me?” ■ 提出正确的问题：不是“我值得这个目标吗？”而是“这个目标值得我吗？”
View your business as the market’s most trusted, valued, and prized provider, advisor, and source: What you do is for a greater good, and you’re truly being selfless in your business goal to serve the client better and more fully than any other competitor does. 将您的业务视为市场上最受信任、最有价值和最珍贵的提供者、顾问和来源：您所做的一切都是为了更大的利益，您在商业目标上真正是无私的，旨在比任何其他竞争对手更好、更全面地服务客户。
Change your strategy, change your results. 改变你的策略，改变你的结果。
Immediate Action Step After reviewing the list of “Fifteen Ways to Position Yourself, Your Product, or Your Company as Preeminent in Your Marketplace,” choose one thing on that list—and do it now. 立即行动步骤 在查看“使自己、您的产品或您的公司在市场上处于领先地位的十五种方法”列表后，选择列表中的一项——并立即执行。
3
ARE YOU STUCK NOT SELLING ENOUGH? 你是否因为销售不足而感到困扰？
Remember the original Raiders of the Lost Ark? If you do, you’ll no doubt recall the following scene. 还记得《夺宝奇兵》吗？如果你记得的话，肯定会想起以下场景。
Indiana Jones, our hero, is being chased through an Egyptian bazaar by a bunch of scary-looking bad guys in turbans. Trying to escape, he slips down a side street that turns out to be a blind alley. He gets to the end of the alley and there’s a seven-foot-tall giant, spinning two massive Moroccan scimitars. For one tense moment, the audience thinks that Indiana is a goner. 印第安纳·琼斯，我们的英雄，正被一群看起来很可怕的坏家伙追赶，他们戴着头巾。为了逃脱，他滑入了一条侧街，结果发现那是一条死胡同。他走到胡同的尽头，那里有一个七英尺高的巨人，正在旋转两把巨大的摩洛哥弯刀。在一个紧张的时刻，观众认为印第安纳要完了。
Until Indy draws his gun and shoots him. 直到印第拿拔出手枪并射击他。
Now that’s what I call changing the game. 现在这才是我所说的改变游戏规则。
When it comes to being stuck not selling enough, it’s all about changing the game. I call this the Indiana Jones School of Business. In this chapter, I’ll teach you how to shoot with guns instead of hopelessly defending yourself from seven-foot giants wielding knives. 当面临销售不足的困境时，关键在于改变游戏规则。我称之为印第安纳·琼斯商学院。在本章中，我将教你如何用枪射击，而不是无助地防御那些挥舞着刀子的七英尺高的巨人。
At least metaphorically speaking. When it comes to reallife duels with swashbuckling cretins, you’re on your own. 至少可以说是比喻上。当涉及到与挥舞剑的愚蠢家伙进行现实生活中的决斗时，你就得靠自己了。
Indy’s tactic is precisely the concept that needs to be employed in business: You can change the game you play in an instant. Most people are stuck not selling enough because they Indy 的策略正是商业中需要采用的概念：你可以瞬间改变你所玩的游戏。大多数人之所以无法销售足够，是因为他们
don’t know how to sell products or services effectively. But there are a lot of ways to sell effectively! Depending on what you sell (whether it’s a product or a service), to whom you sell it, and how you currently sell it, you must evaluate whether or not yours is the most efficient and productive way to reach, motivate, and persuade the market to buy from you, the first time and then each time thereafter. When it comes to selling more, change is the name of the game. Or, rather, changes. 不知道如何有效地销售产品或服务。但有很多有效的销售方式！根据你销售的是什么（无论是产品还是服务）、你销售给谁，以及你目前的销售方式，你必须评估你是否是最有效和最具生产力的方式来接触、激励和说服市场第一次购买你的产品，然后每次都购买。当涉及到更多销售时，变化就是游戏的名称。或者，更确切地说，是变化。
While your competitors are stuck fighting each other with swords, you can blast them all away with some basic changes to the most important aspects of any twenty-first-century business. 当你的竞争对手还在用剑互相争斗时，你可以通过对任何二十一世纪企业最重要的方面进行一些基本的改变，将他们全部击败。
Who knew that a professor of archaeology with a penchant for adventure could teach us a thing or two about business, too? 谁知道一位热爱冒险的考古学教授也能教我们一些商业知识呢？
CHANGE THE WAY YOUR SALES FORCE SELLS 改变您的销售团队的销售方式
Let’s start with the most obvious point: If you’re stuck not selling enough, change the way your sales force sells. Whether you sell computer software or own a lumber company, whether you head up a marketing firm or a temp agency, your salespeople are responsible for selling your product or service-and selling it well. 让我们从最明显的一点开始：如果你在销售上遇到瓶颈，改变你的销售团队的销售方式。无论你是销售计算机软件还是拥有一家木材公司，无论你是领导一家营销公司还是一家临时机构，你的销售人员都负责销售你的产品或服务，并且要销售得很好。
Most businesses follow the basic model of maintaining a sales team. This team can be onsite or off, working via phone or in person; it can even be a third party, made up of distributors, manufacturers, and reps. 大多数企业遵循维护销售团队的基本模式。该团队可以在现场或远程工作，通过电话或面对面交流；它甚至可以是由分销商、制造商和代表组成的第三方。
If you use salespeople of any sort-and chances are you do-the first thing you have to do is get them trained in consultative selling. Most people’s idea of training salespeople is to introduce them to the territory and the product catalogue. I’ve got news for you: That’s not sales training. 如果你使用任何类型的销售人员——你很可能会这样做——你首先要做的就是让他们接受咨询式销售的培训。大多数人对培训销售人员的想法是让他们熟悉区域和产品目录。我有个消息告诉你：那不是销售培训。
Consultative selling, also known as consultative advisory selling, takes sales to the next level-and beyond. It emphasizes client needs and how your product or service can not only 咨询式销售，也称为咨询顾问销售，将销售提升到一个新的层次，甚至更高。它强调客户需求，以及您的产品或服务如何不仅可以
meet those needs but actually provide more value to the client than just the face value of what they purchased. With this dynamic method, your salespeople are no longer pushing a product or service that may or may not meet the client’s need; instead, they are working as consultants who first determine the client’s need, then provide the solution. Suddenly, in the client’s mind, you’re no longer just another business like all the rest-you’re the most trusted advisor. 满足这些需求，但实际上为客户提供的价值超出了他们所购买的表面价值。通过这种动态方法，您的销售人员不再推销可能满足或不满足客户需求的产品或服务；相反，他们作为顾问，首先确定客户的需求，然后提供解决方案。突然间，在客户的心中，您不再是像其他所有企业那样的普通企业——您是最值得信赖的顾问。
The difference between consultative sales training and oldschool technique-driven sales training is like that between night and day. With the simple shift to consultative sales, you can triple, quadruple, or even quintuple your sales. No matter what form your sales force takes-whether onsite handling walk-ins or offsite making cold calls, whether salaried or working on commission-your first step is to get your sales team trained in consultative selling. 咨询式销售培训与传统技术驱动的销售培训之间的区别就像昼夜之间的差异。通过简单地转向咨询式销售，您可以将销售额提高三倍、四倍，甚至五倍。无论您的销售团队采取何种形式——无论是在现场处理顾客还是在外打冷电话，无论是固定薪资还是按佣金工作——您的第一步是让销售团队接受咨询式销售培训。
But don’t stop there. Every other team member who has public contact must be trained in consultative sales, too. This includes your receptionist, your service people, your client service representatives, your employees in accounts receivableand the list goes on. The fact is that they are all strategic extensions of your business’s voice, determining the positioning and preeminence you create for yourself in the public eye of your marketplace. 但不要止步于此。每个与公众接触的团队成员也必须接受咨询销售培训。这包括你的接待员、服务人员、客户服务代表、应收账款员工，等等。事实上，他们都是你业务声音的战略延伸，决定了你在市场公众眼中所创造的定位和卓越性。
You might be worried that training a consultative sales force will be a drain on your resources, but-as all of my clients have been surprised to discover-the actual expense is modest. In fact, it’s far less than the typical profit increase your new sales approach can stimulate in only the first month or two during which you apply it. It rarely costs more than a few hundred dollars, at most a few thousand, and that one-time investment can translate into hundreds of thousands-even millions-of dollars more for your business. 您可能担心培训咨询式销售团队会消耗您的资源，但正如我所有的客户惊讶地发现的那样，实际费用是适度的。事实上，这远低于您新的销售方法在应用的前一两个月内可以刺激的典型利润增长。它通常不会超过几百美元，最多几千美元，而这笔一次性投资可以为您的业务带来数十万甚至数百万美元的回报。
Remember: Your salespeople are the first line of offense. Having salespeople and contact staff untrained in consultative 请记住：您的销售人员是第一道防线。让销售人员和联系员工没有接受咨询式培训。
sales is like running an airline with pilots who’ve never cracked open a flight manual. 销售就像经营一家航空公司，飞行员从未打开过飞行手册。
A lot of businesspeople get intimidated by sales because they believe it’s an art form, something intangible, and a person either “has it” or doesn’t. Lucky for us, they’re wrong. Consultative sales is a science, and it can be systematically learned and implemented by anyone. Also, it’s based on a fundamental, human emotion we all possess: empathy. 许多商界人士对销售感到畏惧，因为他们认为这是一种艺术形式，是一些无形的东西，一个人要么“有这种能力”，要么就没有。幸运的是，他们错了。咨询式销售是一门科学，任何人都可以系统地学习和实施。此外，它基于我们所有人都具备的一种基本人类情感：同理心。
Although I’ve seen its astronomical rates of success again and again in every imaginable industry, I don’t consider myself an expert in consultative sales. So, what follows is a paraphrasing of the advice of my good friend Andy Miller, who has one of the most brilliant sales minds in business. When Andy was 27, he bought the rights to a Dutch software company, grew it to $24\$ 24 million, and sold it. He has sat on the advisory boards of four different groups, which gave him access to universities that teach sales in the United States-a subject that wasn’t taught at all until only fifteen years ago. 尽管我在各个行业中多次看到其惊人的成功率，但我并不认为自己是咨询销售方面的专家。因此，接下来是我好朋友安迪·米勒的建议的改述，他是商业中最杰出的销售头脑之一。当安迪 27 岁时，他购买了一家荷兰软件公司的版权，将其发展到 $24\$ 24 百万，并将其出售。他曾在四个不同团体的顾问委员会任职，这使他能够接触到教授销售的美国大学——这个主题在十五年前还根本没有教授。
People who teach sales have to research it, and since sales has become part of university curricula, we’re beginning to find out what’s truth and what’s myth. Through his university network, Andy has access to all of this research and has developed his approach accordingly. If you take his system to heart and act on his simple instructions, you’ll very quickly see that the concept of consultative sales is a whole new ballgame, dramatically different from the old one-and dramatically more effective. 教授销售的人必须进行研究，随着销售成为大学课程的一部分，我们开始发现什么是真相，什么是神话。通过他的大学网络，安迪可以获取所有这些研究，并相应地发展了他的方法。如果你认真对待他的系统并按照他的简单指示行动，你会很快发现咨询式销售的概念是一个全新的游戏，与旧的方式截然不同，并且效果显著更好。
Consultative advisory sales can be applied to any business in any industry in any country. It fits no matter where you are. You’ll find, however, that two aspects will vary, depending on your country and culture: 咨询顾问销售可以应用于任何国家的任何行业的任何业务。无论你身处何地，它都适用。然而，你会发现有两个方面会因你的国家和文化而有所不同：
How you build relationships 你如何建立关系
■ How you make decisions ■ 你如何做决定
In some cultures, a business is a micro-dictatorship with an absolute leader; in others, the boss works for the employees. Either way, you can apply consultative sales to the way you do business. 在一些文化中，企业是一个拥有绝对领导者的微型独裁政权；在其他文化中，老板为员工服务。无论哪种方式，您都可以将咨询式销售应用于您的商业方式。
To begin, let’s take a look at your current marketing strategy. How you market is a crucial component of your business philosophy, especially when you’re stuck not selling enough. Do you market by having people come to you (“pull marketing”) or by reaching out to the market and educating them about your product/service (“push marketing”)? Note that with either technique, marketing is one-to-many. The single business, with its single purpose and single need, interacts with the multiple and diverse needs of the often innumerable buyers who comprise the marketplace. 首先，让我们看看您当前的营销策略。您的营销方式是您商业理念的一个关键组成部分，尤其是在您面临销售不足的困境时。您是通过让人们主动来找您（“拉式营销”）还是通过主动接触市场并教育他们关于您的产品/服务（“推式营销”）来进行营销？请注意，无论哪种技术，营销都是一对多的。单一的企业，拥有单一的目标和需求，与构成市场的众多且多样化的买家的需求进行互动。
Sales, on the other hand, is one-to-one. It is the salesperson’s job to translate the broad appeal of marketing into the specific message for the individual buyer. Whether you use “drip (or nurture) marketing” in an effort to target specific audiences and build credibility or “wave marketing,” whereby you’re flooding prospects for a while (but not constantly), you’ll need consultative sales to turn your marketing into transactions. This is the only approach that will shorten your sales cycle, increase your closing rate, eliminate discounting, and result in better cash flow and higher profit margins. 销售则是单对单的。销售人员的工作是将市场营销的广泛吸引力转化为针对个别买家的具体信息。无论你是使用“滴灌（或培育）营销”来针对特定受众并建立信誉，还是“波浪营销”，即在一段时间内大量接触潜在客户（但不是持续不断），你都需要咨询式销售将你的营销转化为交易。这是唯一能缩短销售周期、提高成交率、消除折扣并带来更好现金流和更高利润率的方法。
There are four steps in the purchase process your prospects go through: 潜在客户在购买过程中经历四个步骤：
The prospects recognize they have a need. 前景认识到他们有需求。
They decide whether to do something about it or not. (Your biggest competitor is the status quo-not taking action at all.) 他们决定是否对此采取行动。（你最大的竞争对手是现状——根本不采取行动。）
They evaluate their options. 他们评估他们的选择。
4. They select a vendor. 4. 他们选择一个供应商。
If your business sells to other businesses, however, your purchase hierarchy will be different: 然而，如果您的业务是向其他企业销售，则您的采购层级将会有所不同：
The prospects go to their current trusted provider. 前景转向他们当前信任的供应商。
They ask their network. 他们询问他们的网络。
They contact a recognized brand. 他们联系一个知名品牌。
They shop around. 他们四处购物。
Either way is fine-as long as you familiarize yourself with the process of your buyers. You’ve got to know their process backward and forward. Once you understand that your buyers are going through a specific process, you have to match your sales cycle to their buying cycle. If you fail to recognize where they are in the process, your next step will be out of sync, with potentially disastrous results. Let me show you what I mean. 无论哪种方式都可以——只要你熟悉买家的流程。你必须了解他们的流程。 一旦你明白你的买家正在经历一个特定的流程，你就必须将你的销售周期与他们的购买周期相匹配。如果你未能识别他们在流程中的位置，你的下一步将会不同步，可能会导致灾难性的结果。让我给你举个例子。
A former client ran a great catalog business in editorial training, sending out thousands of catalogs every month. After perusing the catalog, prospects called in to a salesperson who would take them through what would otherwise be a good consultative process. However, these buyers were ready to buy and didn’t need a consultation. They only needed someone to answer their questions and to sign them up. 一位前客户在编辑培训方面经营着一个很棒的目录业务，每个月发送数千份目录。在浏览完目录后，潜在客户会拨打电话给销售人员，销售人员会带他们进行本应是一个良好的咨询过程。然而，这些买家已经准备好购买，不需要咨询。他们只需要有人回答他们的问题并为他们注册。
So we took the salespeople off the phone and had administration simply complete the transaction - and sales tripled. The salespeople had been getting in the way of the sale. 所以我们让销售人员不再接电话，让行政人员简单地完成交易——销售额翻了三倍。销售人员一直在妨碍销售。
In short, if you’re trying to recognize a buyer’s process toward purchasing, you have to understand the psychology of 简而言之，如果你想要识别买家的购买过程，你必须理解心理学
what causes people to take action: Do people have a compelling reason to make a change? Does it spring from pain, fear, or pleasure? The brain is literally hardwired such that its tendency to avoid pain is 100 times greater than its tendency to seek out pleasure. That makes pain the easier sell. Likewise, if you’re offering security, legal services, or insurance, you have to acknowledge that fear is what motivates your buyer. 是什么导致人们采取行动：人们是否有强烈的理由去改变？这种改变是源于痛苦、恐惧还是快乐？大脑的确是被硬性连接的，其避免痛苦的倾向是寻求快乐的倾向的 100 倍。这使得痛苦更容易被接受。同样，如果你提供安全、法律服务或保险，你必须承认恐惧是驱动买家的动机。
On the other hand, you can think of pleasure as the buyer’s vision. Plenty of people are visionaries, and want to be seen as being on the cutting edge. They have a motivation to buy as well. As a skillful salesperson, you need to discover what they want. (Remember, people buy for their reasons-not yours.) 另一方面，你可以将快乐视为买家的愿景。很多人都是有远见的人，想要被视为走在前沿。他们也有购买的动机。作为一个熟练的销售人员，你需要发现他们想要什么。（记住，人们是为了他们的理由而购买，而不是你的。）
Have you ever talked to a company, realized it has a problem, and wondered why the company isn’t fixing it? It’s often a matter of avoidance. Here’s an example. You rarely treat paper cuts or minor scrapes. If you have a second-degree burn, you might apply ice or aloe vera. But if you have a broken bone, you have it set at the hospital emergency room. How many people would do a Yellow Pages analysis of healthcare facilities before they go to the emergency room? Very few, because pain compels most of them to take action. They do whatever is needed to fix the problem. 你是否曾与一家公司交谈，意识到它有问题，并想知道为什么公司不解决这个问题？这通常是回避的问题。这里有一个例子。你很少处理纸割伤或轻微擦伤。如果你有二度烧伤，你可能会涂抹冰块或芦荟。但如果你有骨折，你会去医院急诊室进行治疗。在去急诊室之前，有多少人会对医疗设施进行黄页分析？很少，因为疼痛迫使他们采取行动。他们会做任何需要的事情来解决问题。
Whether it’s a broken bone or a busted merger, you’ve got to recognize that pain, fear, or pleasure (in that order) gets people to take action, and their level of action will be proportionate to their level of pain, fear, or pleasure. Remember the videos from science class showing the amoeba moving toward the sugar and away from the vinegar? This concept is true even on a cellular level. 无论是骨折还是破裂的合并，你都必须认识到，痛苦、恐惧或快乐（按此顺序）促使人们采取行动，而他们的行动程度将与他们的痛苦、恐惧或快乐程度成正比。还记得科学课上展示的变形虫朝向糖分移动而远离醋的那些视频吗？这个概念在细胞层面上也是成立的。
Selling is about relationships, so whoever builds the strongest relationship will get the deal because of trust. People buy from those whom they trust, and who are most like themselves. This dynamic actually works in your favor, because it 销售是关于关系的，因此建立最强关系的人将因为信任而获得交易。人们从他们信任的人那里购买，并且这些人与他们最相似。这种动态实际上对你有利，因为它
makes it easy to tell who is a serious buyer and who is shopping around, trying to get a free education about the product and the market. If you actually have a shot at the sale, your buyers will be seeking to confide in you. But if they’re only looking for information, they won’t be willing to reveal anything about themselves and what they’re looking for-they’ll be keeping you at arm’s length. 使人们容易分辨谁是认真的买家，谁是在四处逛逛，试图免费获取关于产品和市场的知识。如果你真的有机会达成交易，买家会寻求向你倾诉。但如果他们只是想获取信息，他们就不会愿意透露任何关于自己和他们所寻找的东西——他们会与你保持距离。
I learned this from my grandfather, who kept sheep and pigs. Sheep experience only one birth a year, and sometimes have twins. If twins are born, the mother will choose one and reject the other. My grandfather bottle-fed these rejected lambs, and he always gave them a name; one was called Lamby. When it was time to go to slaughter, he couldn’t let Lamby go. In selling, when there’s a relationship, your buyer is open, honest, knows your name, and you have a shot. If not, you’re going to the slaughterhouse-you just don’t know it yet. 我从我的祖父那里学到了这一点，他养羊和猪。羊每年只生一次小羊，有时会生双胞胎。如果生了双胞胎，母羊会选择一个，拒绝另一个。我的祖父给这些被拒绝的小羊喂奶，他总是给它们起名字；其中一个叫做 Lamby。当要去屠宰的时候，他无法让 Lamby 离开。在销售中，当有关系时，你的买家是开放、诚实的，知道你的名字，你就有机会。如果没有，你就要去屠宰场——你只是不知道而已。
Negative stereotypes about salespeople have to be resisted. When you’re sick and go to the doctor, do you play a “poker game,” making your doctor guess what’s wrong? Of course not-you expect your doctor’s questions to be personal and discovery-oriented. You then determine what you’re willing to do to be cured. 对销售人员的负面刻板印象必须抵制。当你生病去看医生时，你会玩“扑克游戏”，让医生猜测你有什么问题吗？当然不会——你希望医生的问题是个人化和探索性的。然后你决定愿意做些什么来治愈自己。
That’s exactly what consultative selling is: helping prospects get what they want, facilitating the cure. I think of myself as a doctor, seeking how I can help my client. But if the client is mistrustful of me as a smarmy salesperson, he will withhold the information that I need in order to help him and provide him with the best solution for his problem. Here’s an example. 这正是咨询式销售的本质：帮助潜在客户获得他们想要的，促进解决方案。我把自己看作一名医生，寻求如何帮助我的客户。但如果客户对我这个油腔滑调的销售员心存不信任，他将会隐瞒我所需的信息，以便帮助他并为他提供最佳解决方案。这里有一个例子。
I was in a sales call recently where a significant amount of business was at stake. A potential client had called us hoping that we could offer her advice on going head-to-head with a large competitor that was threatening to push her out of the market. A lot was on the line for all of us: Without our help, the client was likely to go under, but if we were able to pull through for her, she’d 我最近参加了一次销售电话会议，涉及到大量的业务。一位潜在客户打电话给我们，希望我们能为她提供建议，以便与一个威胁要将她挤出市场的大竞争对手正面交锋。对我们所有人来说，风险很大：如果没有我们的帮助，客户可能会破产，但如果我们能帮助她，她将会
be able to hold on to major clients that the competitor was courting, and we’d be compensated in kind. 能够留住竞争对手正在争取的主要客户，我们将以相应的方式获得补偿。
So, I got on the line and asked, “Can you start by telling me about your business and what you know about your competitor?” 所以，我打电话问：“你能先告诉我关于你的业务和你对竞争对手的了解吗？”
The prospect was hesitant. She gave us a taste of the situation but was clearly reluctant to divulge too much. I tried a few other questions. “How much do you know about the service your competitor is offering? What kinds of marketing have you seen it doing? What about what you’re doing?” 前景显得犹豫。她给了我们一些情况的概述，但显然不愿意透露太多。我试着问了几个其他问题。“你对竞争对手提供的服务了解多少？你看到他们做了什么样的营销？那你们的情况呢？”
Still, I was getting only half-answers. Slowly it began to dawn on me that the prospect was withholding crucial information because she thought she’d lose power in the relationship by letting on too much. But I had no way of offering her a solution without knowing the full scope of her problem. I said, “Listen. I understand your hesitation, but I can’t help your business if I don’t understand it. There’s nothing at stake in your honesty but whether or not I can be of service to you.” 尽管如此，我得到的仍然只是半个答案。慢慢地，我开始意识到，前景在隐瞒关键信息，因为她认为如果透露太多，她在关系中的权力会受到影响。但我无法在不知道她问题的全部范围的情况下为她提供解决方案。我说：“听着。我理解你的犹豫，但如果我不了解你的业务，我就无法帮助你。你诚实与否没有什么风险，只有我是否能为你提供服务。”
With that simple reassurance, everything changed, and the client opened up. We found out that her situation was an area in which we could offer expertise, and we entered into a contract that was a win-win for both parties. 在那简单的安慰下，一切都改变了，客户开始敞开心扉。我们发现她的情况是我们可以提供专业知识的领域，于是我们签订了一份对双方都有利的合同。
It may seem too trite a story to include in a business book. Yet I share it with you because it reinforces the image that I would like you to create for yourself: In effect, you’re a physician, ministering to the needs of your patients/clients, who look to you with certainty that you are the right provider of services or goods and that they can feel safe, comfortable, and protected in your able care. But just as a doctor cannot make an accurate diagnosis without all the facts, so we businesspeople must have the courage to ask the hard questions of our clients. What’s really going on? Where does it hurt? How can I help? 这可能看起来是一个过于陈腐的故事，不适合放在商业书籍中。然而，我与您分享这个故事，因为它强化了我希望您为自己创造的形象：实际上，您是一位医生，照顾着您的患者/客户的需求，他们确信您是提供服务或商品的合适人选，并且在您的精心照料下，他们可以感到安全、舒适和受到保护。但正如医生在没有所有事实的情况下无法做出准确的诊断一样，我们商界人士也必须有勇气向客户提出艰难的问题。到底发生了什么？哪里疼？我该如何帮助？
As a salesperson, you have to know the real story, because otherwise misunderstandings happen, and you’ll make an improper diagnosis, write a premature prescription, commit malpractice. If clients are pushing you to give a recommendation without complete information, ultimately they’re only preventing themselves from obtaining the best possible outcome in the 作为销售人员，您必须了解真实情况，因为否则会发生误解，您会做出不恰当的诊断，写出过早的处方，甚至犯下医疗失误。如果客户在没有完整信息的情况下逼迫您给出建议，最终他们只是在阻止自己获得最佳的结果。
transaction. They won’t get the proper solution for their particular problem, and they’ll be left unfulfilled. 交易。他们无法获得针对其特定问题的适当解决方案，因此会感到不满足。
There are three components to consultative selling: presenting, qualifying, and closing (not necessarily in that order). Let me illustrate how these components, when combined, are infinitely more powerful than any other sales approach. 咨询式销售有三个组成部分：展示、资格审查和成交（不一定按这个顺序）。让我来说明这些组成部分结合在一起时，比任何其他销售方法都强大得多。
Imagine there are three companies: 想象有三家公司：
Company #1 has a four-month sales cycle and a 90 percent close rate. 公司#1 的销售周期为四个月，成交率为 90%。
Company #2 has an eight-month sales cycle and a 60 percent close rate. 公司#2 的销售周期为八个月，成交率为 60%。
Company #3 has a fourteen-month sales cycle and a 2 percent close rate. 公司#3 的销售周期为十四个月，成交率为 2%。
What does Company #1 know that the other two are missing out on? 公司#1 知道其他两个公司错过了什么？
Company #1 is employing the “Quid Pro Quo” approach to selling. It uses consultative sales by first qualifying the parameters of the transaction: What is the problem that needs to be solved by making this purchase? What does the client hope to accomplish with this purchase? Then, Company #1 pre-closes the sale, by eliciting an assurance that the client will purchase from Company #1 if it is able to deliver everything discussed in the qualifying phase. Finally, Company #1 presents the product/service solution. 公司#1 采用“以物易物”的销售方式。它通过咨询式销售首先确定交易的参数：需要通过这次购买解决什么问题？客户希望通过这次购买实现什么目标？然后，公司#1 通过引导客户保证如果能够交付在资格阶段讨论的所有内容，就会从公司#1 购买，来预先达成交易。最后，公司#1 提出产品/服务解决方案。
Company #2, on the other hand, is stuck in the traditional approach, in which it qualifies, presents, then closes. It’s simply not as effective. 另一方面，第二家公司仍然停留在传统的方法中，即先资格审查、再展示，然后再成交。这显然没有那么有效。
And Company #3 presents, then qualifies, then closes - which is a very shaky tactic. And Company #3 先展示，然后资格审查，最后成交 - 这是一种非常不稳定的策略。
Consultative sales allows you to impress on your clients the value of the product/service for them specifically. If you don’t do this, you have no way of differentiating what you’re offering from anything else on the market. You’re 咨询式销售使您能够向客户展示产品/服务对他们的具体价值。如果您不这样做，就无法将您所提供的与市场上其他任何产品区分开来。您是
left with price as the differentiating factor, and soon you’ll find yourself discounting. The drawbacks of discounting are worse than you might expect. 将价格作为差异化因素，很快你会发现自己在打折。打折的缺点比你想象的要严重。
As you can see from this example of three hypothetical companies, the Quid Pro Quo model offers obvious benefits for you and your average client. It’s ideal for large enterprises as well. Most professional buyers prefer this method because it eliminates negotiating and discounting, and it doesn’t waste their time. 正如您从这三个假设公司的例子中看到的，互惠互利模型为您和您的普通客户提供了明显的好处。它也非常适合大型企业。大多数专业买家更喜欢这种方法，因为它消除了谈判和折扣，并且不会浪费他们的时间。
There are several requirements for successfully executing the Quid Pro Quo method. First, you must always remember that, at the core, it’s about an effective sales process; there is no one-size-fits-all. It’s not about pre-set steps, but about how successfully your salespeople sell. You also need to be able to walk away if necessary. And don’t be afraid to ask tough questions. If you ask thought-provoking questions, your clients will likely need time to think about their answers before responding. Although most people are extremely uncomfortable with silence, it can actually be a very good thing. 成功执行 Quid Pro Quo 方法有几个要求。首先，您必须始终记住，核心是有效的销售流程；没有一种适合所有人的方法。这不是关于预设步骤，而是关于您的销售人员销售的成功程度。您还需要能够在必要时选择离开。并且不要害怕提出尖锐的问题。如果您提出发人深省的问题，您的客户可能需要时间来思考他们的回答，然后再做出回应。尽管大多数人对沉默感到极为不适，但这实际上可能是件非常好的事情。
The Quid Pro Quo approach gives you an additional opportunity to cultivate an understanding of personality types. The length of the process will differ according to the personality of your client, and thus you must learn to adapt. The questions you ask will be predicated on the type of person you’re selling to. Always follow the Platinum Rule: 互惠互利的方法为您提供了一个额外的机会来培养对个性类型的理解。这个过程的长度将根据您客户的个性而有所不同，因此您必须学会适应。您提出的问题将基于您所销售对象的类型。始终遵循铂金法则：
Treat others in the way they want to be treated. 以他们希望的方式对待他人。
Seek the truth of your client’s needs, though you may not like what you hear. And always be prepared to say when you cannot meet a client’s particular need. It’s your ethical responsibility to be honest with your client about what you can and cannot do-and, moreover, to be honest with yourself. 寻求客户需求的真相，尽管你可能不喜欢你所听到的。并且始终准备好在无法满足客户特定需求时说出来。对客户诚实地说明你能做和不能做的事情是你的道德责任——而且，更重要的是，对自己也要诚实。
I like to sum up the premise of consultative sales in a few easy, powerful points. 我喜欢用几个简单而有力的要点来总结咨询式销售的前提。
Key Points to Remember When Doing Consultative Sales 进行咨询销售时需要记住的要点
■ You are a professional facilitator, not a salesperson. ■ 你是一个专业的促进者，而不是销售人员。
■ Work like a doctor, winning confidence by displaying confidence in your abilities, making a thorough diagnosis of the problem, and offering your prescription without hesitation or fear of rejection. ■ 像医生一样工作，通过展示对自己能力的信心来赢得信任，全面诊断问题，并毫不犹豫地提供你的处方，不必担心被拒绝。
Focus on the client, not on the order. 关注客户，而不是订单。
Not getting the deal is okay. 没能达成交易也没关系。
Insist on an open and honest conversation. Both you and the customer must get all your ducks in a row. 坚持进行开放和诚实的对话。你和客户都必须把一切安排妥当。
You and the customer must have equal business stature. 你和客户必须具有平等的商业地位。
■ Play fair, or not at all. ■ 公平竞争，或者干脆不玩。
Don’t do bad deals. 不要做坏交易。
They sell you-you don’t sell them. 他们卖给你——你不卖给他们。
Believe in mutual degrees of commitment. (In other words, don’t go through the process unless you know that if you lead the clients to water, they’ll drink.) 相信相互承诺的程度。（换句话说，除非你知道如果你引导客户到水边，他们会喝，否则不要进行这个过程。）
Remembering these simple precepts can revolutionize your entire philosophy of sales. Soon you’ll be well on your way to changing the way your sales team sells. 记住这些简单的原则可以彻底改变你整个销售哲学。很快你就会在改变你的销售团队销售方式的路上走得很远。
CHANGE THE WAY YOU ADVERTISE 改变你的广告方式
Let’s assume you’ve retrained your sales force to focus on consultative selling. Great! But that’s only the beginning. When you’re stuck not selling enough, more change is required of you. Much more. 假设你已经重新培训了销售团队，专注于咨询式销售。很好！但这仅仅是开始。当你面临销售不足的困境时，你需要做出更多的改变。更多的改变。
After sales, the next most important factor for the majority of businesses is advertising, which is simply another method of generating prospects or sales. Most of the time, though, the advertising methods that business owners rely on are completely ineffectual-and they fail to realize this because they don’t have a way of measuring the success of their ad campaigns. 在销售之后，对大多数企业来说，最重要的因素是广告，这只是产生潜在客户或销售的另一种方法。然而，大多数时候，企业主依赖的广告方法完全无效——他们未能意识到这一点，因为他们没有办法衡量广告活动的成功。
Advertising has to focus on the audience, offering them a desired benefit in return for contacting you. By shifting the fundamentals of advertising and guiding your audience to immediate, direct, desirable action, you can boost sales by 30 to 50 percent or more, very quickly and with zero increase in your advertising expenditure. I like to think of effective advertising as a kind of hidden dynamite; it’s a potent variable that very few businesses capitalize on. So when you do, you’ll unleash an explosive power that can exponentially increase your sales. 广告必须关注受众，向他们提供期望的利益，以换取与您的联系。通过改变广告的基本原则，引导您的受众采取立即、直接、可取的行动，您可以在不增加广告支出的情况下，迅速将销售额提高 30%至 50%或更多。我喜欢将有效的广告视为一种隐形炸药；它是一种很少有企业利用的强大变量。因此，当您这样做时，您将释放出一种爆炸性的力量，可以成倍增加您的销售额。
If advertising is currently your main driver of sales, you can make surprisingly minor and easy changes in your existing advertising that will produce major results-and you won’t have to spend a dime. There are seven leverage factors at your immediate disposal, each of which can increase sales 20 to 500 percent: 如果广告目前是您销售的主要驱动力，您可以对现有广告进行令人惊讶的微小和简单的更改，这将产生重大效果——而且您无需花费一分钱。您手头有七个杠杆因素，每个因素都可以将销售额提高 20%到 500%：
Seven Ways to Leverage Your Advertising 利用广告的七种方法
Write Great Headlines. No matter how good the rest of your ad is, your audience won’t ever see it if they don’t get past the headline. Your headline must instantly telegraph to your prospects the biggest, most appealing specific benefit or payoff they can expect to receive from contacting your company or availing themselves of your product. It must be catchy, and it must contain key words or phrases that will pop up from the page. Because your headline is so crucial, l’ll go over ten examples of unbeatable headlines in a moment; but first, let’s look at the remaining six tools at your disposal. 写出精彩的标题。无论你的广告其他部分多么出色，如果观众无法看到标题，他们就永远不会看到它。你的标题必须立即向潜在客户传达他们可以从联系你的公司或使用你的产品中获得的最大、最吸引人的具体好处或回报。它必须引人注目，并且必须包含能够从页面中突出显示的关键词或短语。由于你的标题至关重要，我稍后会介绍十个无与伦比的标题示例；但首先，让我们看看你可以使用的其余六个工具。
Set Yourself Apart. Distinguish your business from every other competitor by addressing an obvious void in the marketplace that you alone can honestly fill. Set your prospects’ buying criteria for them, so that only you, your business, or your product can clear the bar. Focus on one specific, relevant niche that is most sorely lacking in the marketplace and make it your own. 让自己与众不同。通过填补市场上一个显而易见的空白，使您的业务与其他竞争对手区分开来，这个空白只有您能够诚实地填补。为您的潜在客户设定购买标准，以便只有您、您的业务或您的产品能够达到这个标准。专注于市场上最缺乏的一个特定相关细分领域，并将其变为您的专属。
Offer Proof to Build Your Credibility. Provide substantiation for your claims, including client testimonials, quotes from experts, and excerpts of media articles about your product. Contrast your performance, construction, or support with the competition’s. 提供证据以建立您的信誉。为您的主张提供证据，包括客户推荐、专家引用和关于您产品的媒体文章摘录。将您的表现、构建或支持与竞争对手进行对比。
Reverse Your Customers’ Risk. Put the onus on yourself. Tell your clients that you’ll offer a full refund if they’re not satisfied. If this isn’t practical, guarantee some element of the transaction or purchase. Taking the burden of risk and uncertainty off a client will result in higher (and quicker) sales, even when you factor in the low percentage of clients who will take advantage 逆转客户的风险。将责任放在自己身上。告诉客户，如果他们不满意，你将提供全额退款。如果这不切实际，可以保证交易或购买的某个元素。将风险和不确定性的负担从客户身上移除，将导致更高（更快）的销售，即使考虑到会利用这一点的客户比例较低。
of the return privilege or test-drive period. I’ve seen companies boost their sales by more than 500 percent just by adding an incomparable, powerful, and irresistible risk reversal to the selling proposition. Most of your competition isn’t addressing the marketplace’s apprehension and inhibitions about buying, so you’ll have the proprietary, preemptive advantage if you do. 关于退货特权或试驾期。我见过一些公司仅通过在销售主张中添加一种无与伦比、强大且不可抗拒的风险逆转，销售额提升超过 500%。你的大多数竞争对手并没有解决市场对购买的顾虑和顾忌，因此如果你这样做，你将拥有独特的、先发的优势。
Include a Call to Action. Now that those in your audience have read your ad or visited your website, what’s next? Don’t make their next step ambiguous. Your marketplace is virtually begging to be led by a trusted advisor, so take the helm and be specific. Tell them exactly what to do, why to do it, what benefits they can expect from taking action-and what dangers or penalties will result from delay. “Call now!” “Visit our store!” “Order immediately!” “Schedule a consultation!” Such phrases may sound oldschool, but they’re still in use for a reason. 包含一个行动号召。现在你的受众已经阅读了你的广告或访问了你的网站，接下来是什么？不要让他们的下一步变得模糊。你的市场几乎在乞求一个值得信赖的顾问来引导，所以请掌舵并具体说明。告诉他们确切该做什么，为什么要这样做，他们可以期待什么好处，以及延迟会导致什么危险或惩罚。“立即拨打电话！”“访问我们的商店！”“立即下单！”“安排咨询！”这样的短语可能听起来有些老套，但它们仍然被使用是有原因的。
Offer a Bonus. Whether it’s a coupon, a discount, an extended warranty, an additional product or service piled on top of the basic purchase, or the promise of preferential treatment for fast-actors (“Be one of the first five callers and receive a free companion book!” “Be a charter VIP/Platinum member with priority attention guaranteed for life!”), a bonus on top of your already fabulous product or service proposition can only further entice and multiply sales. 提供奖励。无论是优惠券、折扣、延长保修、额外的产品或服务，还是对快速行动者的优待承诺（“成为前五位拨打电话的客户，获得一本免费伴侣书！”“成为特许 VIP/铂金会员，终身保证优先关注！”），在您已经出色的产品或服务提议上增加奖励，只会进一步吸引并增加销售。
Summarize Your Offer. By summarizing your offer at the end of your ad, you are seizing the moment to “bring it home”: Reiterate the problem you are able to solve, the benefits your buyers will gain, and the upside with no downside. Then tell them again how to act now. 总结您的提议。在广告的最后总结您的提议，您正在抓住机会“将其带回家”：重申您能够解决的问题、买家将获得的好处，以及没有风险的潜在收益。然后再次告诉他们如何立即行动。
CHANGE YOUR ADVERTISING HEADLINES 更改您的广告标题
If you’ve ever been to a rock concert, you know that the opening act is just a warm-up for the main event. But you’re there for one reason only: to see the headliner. 如果你曾经去过摇滚音乐会，你就知道开场表演只是主活动的热身。但你去那里只有一个原因：就是为了看主唱。
The headlines of your advertising are equally important. The right headline will make the crowd go wild. 你的广告标题同样重要。一个合适的标题会让人群疯狂。
When you sit down to write your headline, or when you review the headline submitted to you by your copywriter, it will help to have in mind some highly successful examples that have yielded results for other businesses. Here are ten of my favorites, drawn with permission from Victor O. Schwab’s vital book, How to Write a Good Advertisement.* 当你坐下来写标题，或者当你审查你的文案撰写者提交的标题时，心中有一些为其他企业带来成功的优秀例子会有所帮助。以下是我最喜欢的十个例子，摘自维克托·O·施瓦布的经典著作《如何写好广告》。
Ten Terrific Advertising Headlines That Delivered Great Business Results 十个出色的广告标题，带来了卓越的商业成果
“How to Win Friends and Influence People.” This headline helped to sell millions of copies of the now-famous book by the same title. It has strong, obvious appeal: We all want to win friends and influence people. But without the words “How to,” the headline would have become simply a trite wall motto. 《如何赢得朋友并影响他人》。这个标题帮助销售了数百万本同名的著作。它具有强烈而明显的吸引力：我们都想赢得朋友并影响他人。但如果没有“如何”这几个字，标题就会变成一个陈腐的墙壁座右铭。
“A Little Mistake That Cost a Farmer $3,000\$ \mathbf{3 , 0 0 0} a Year.” A sizable appropriation was successfully spent on placing this ad in farm magazines. Sometimes the negative idea of offsetting, reducing, or eliminating the “risk of loss” is even more attractive to the reader than the “prospect of gain.” As railroad executive (back “一点小错误让一位农民损失了 $3,000\$ \mathbf{3 , 0 0 0} 一年。”一笔可观的拨款成功用于在农刊上投放这则广告。有时，抵消、减少或消除“损失风险”的负面观念对读者的吸引力甚至超过了“获得收益的前景”。作为铁路高管（回
when that meant something!) and U.S Senator Chauncey Depew once said, “I would not stay up all of one night to make $100\$ 100; but I would stay up all of seven nights to keep from losing it.” 当那意味着什么时！）美国参议员查恩西·德皮尤曾说过：“我不会为了获得 $100\$ 100 而熬夜一整晚；但我会熬夜七整晚以防失去它。”
And as Walter Norvath notes in Six Successful Selling Techniques, “People will fight much harder to avoid losing something they already own than to gain something of greater value that they do not own.” It’s also true that most people feel it’s easier to retrieve losses and waste than to gain new profits. Capitalize on this. 正如沃尔特·诺瓦斯在《六种成功的销售技巧》中所指出的，“人们会更加努力地去避免失去他们已经拥有的东西，而不是去获得他们没有的更有价值的东西。” 事实上，大多数人觉得追回损失和浪费比获得新的利润要容易。利用这一点。
3. “Are You Ever Tongue-Tied at a Party?” This headline pinpoints the myriad self-conscious wallflowers out there, people who will read it and say, “This is talking to me!” You’ll also notice that it’s interrogative. It asks a question - and people will want to read the answer. It excites curiosity and interest in the body matter that follows, and it hits home, cutting through verbose indirectness. 3. “你在聚会上会感到无话可说吗？”这个标题准确地指出了那些自我意识强烈的墙花们，他们会读到这句话并说：“这在说我！”你还会注意到它是一个疑问句。它提出了一个问题——人们会想要阅读答案。它激发了对后续内容的好奇心和兴趣，并且直击要点，切中要害。
The best interrogative headlines are challenges that are difficult to ignore, cannot be dismissed with a quick no or yes, and - even without further reading-are immediately pertinent and relevant to the reader. 最好的疑问标题是那些难以忽视的挑战，不能通过简单的“是”或“否”来轻易否定，并且——即使不进一步阅读——也立即与读者相关。
4. “Do You Make These Mistakes in English?” Again, a direct challenge. Now read the headline again, eliminating the vital word “These.” This word is the hook that almost forces you into the copy. “What are these particular mistakes?” the prospect thinks. “Do I make them?” Also notice that this headline promises to provide helpful personal information in its own context, not merely as “advertising talk.” This is what I call the “attraction of the specific.” You see how magnetically it helps to draw the reader into the body matter of an advertisement. 4. “你在英语中犯这些错误吗？”再次，这是一个直接的挑战。现在再读一遍标题，去掉关键字“这些”。这个词是几乎迫使你进入正文的钩子。“这些特定的错误是什么？”潜在客户想。“我会犯这些错误吗？”还要注意，这个标题承诺在其自身的语境中提供有用的个人信息，而不仅仅是“广告话术”。这就是我所说的“具体的吸引力”。你会看到它是如何磁性地帮助吸引读者进入广告的正文部分。
Many of the best headlines contain specific words or phrases that make a promise to tell you one or all of the following: how, 许多最佳标题包含特定的词语或短语，承诺告诉你以下一项或多项内容：如何，
here’s, these, which, which of these, who, who else, where, when, what, why. Also enormously catching is the use of specific amounts: the number of days, evenings, hours, minutes, dollars, ways, types of. 这里是，这些，哪个，这些中的哪个，谁，还有谁，哪里，什么时候，什么，为什么。还有，具体数量的使用也非常引人注目：天数、晚上、小时、分钟、美元、方式、类型的数量。
This “attraction of the specific” is worth your special attention, not only with respect to words and phrases but also concerning headline ideas themselves. For example, compare the appeal of “We’ll Help You Make More Money” with “We’ll Help You Pay the Rent.” 这种“特定的吸引力”值得你特别关注，不仅涉及词语和短语，还包括标题思想本身。例如，比较“我们将帮助你赚更多的钱”和“我们将帮助你支付房租”的吸引力。
5. “When Doctors ‘Feel Rotten,’ This Is What They Do.” What’s the secret of the success of this well-known ad? First, there’s the suggestion of paradox, because we seldom think of doctors as being in poor health themselves. And when they are, what they do about it is information right from the horse’s mouth; it carries a note of authority and greater assurance of a reward for reading the ad. Note the positive promise of reward in “This Is What They Do.” 5. “当医生感到糟糕时，他们会这样做。” 这则知名广告成功的秘密是什么？首先，这里有一种悖论的暗示，因为我们很少认为医生自己身体不好。而当他们确实如此时，他们所采取的措施是来自第一手的信息；这带有权威性，并且更能保证阅读广告的回报。注意到“这就是他们所做的”中积极的回报承诺。
Second, the use of the unabashed colloquialism “Feel Rotten” gets attention; it sounds human, natural. It also has surprise value, because advertising pages ordinarily have a certain stilted quality. Many headlines fail to stop readers because their vocabulary is so hackneyed; their words, expressions, and ideas are merely those in common use. Indeed, this ad pulled only half the number of responses when a test was made that changed “When Doctors ‘Feel Rotten’” to “When Doctors Don’t Feel Up to Par.” 其次，使用毫不掩饰的口语“Feel Rotten”引起了注意；它听起来人性化、自然。它也具有惊喜的价值，因为广告页面通常有一种生硬的特质。许多标题未能吸引读者，因为它们的词汇过于陈腐；它们的词语、表达和想法仅仅是常用的。事实上，当进行测试将“When Doctors ‘Feel Rotten’”改为“When Doctors Don’t Feel Up to Par.”时，这则广告的回应数量仅为一半。
Since the idea of using “unexpected” headline words is worth such serious consideration, let’s look at a few more examples. 由于使用“意外”的标题词的想法值得认真考虑，让我们再看几个例子。
■ For a book on scientific weight control: the word “pot-belly.” Not very elegant, but it proved an effective stopper. ■ 关于一本科学体重控制的书：词语“啤酒肚”。虽然不太优雅，但它确实是一个有效的阻止词。
For a dictionary: a single word (“onion,” “hog,” “shad,” “pelican,” “skunk,” “kangaroo,” etc.) as the boldface headline of each in a series of small-space advertisements. You couldn’t miss it on the page, and you wanted to know what it was all about. The copy followed through by illustrating how simple and clear the definitions in that particular dictionary were. 对于一本字典：一个单词（“洋葱”、“猪”、“鲱鱼”、“鹈鹕”、“臭鼬”、“袋鼠”等）作为一系列小空间广告的粗体标题。你在页面上无法错过它，并且你想知道这到底是怎么回事。文案通过说明该字典中的定义是多么简单明了来进一步阐述。
For a book on golf instruction: “Don’t Bellyache About Your Golf This Year!” 关于高尔夫教学的书籍：“今年别抱怨你的高尔夫！”
“Guaranteed to Go Through Ice, Mud, or Snow-Or We Pay the Tow!” If you offer a powerful guarantee with your product, play it up strongly and quickly in the headline. Don’t relegate it to minor display. Many products are actually backed up by dramatic guarantees - but their advertising does not make the most of them. And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that this ad rhymes. “保证能穿越冰、泥或雪——否则我们支付拖车费！”如果您的产品提供强有力的保证，请在标题中强烈而迅速地强调这一点。不要将其 relegated 到次要展示中。许多产品实际上都有戏剧性的保证支持——但它们的广告并没有充分利用这些保证。当然，这则广告押韵也无妨。
“Is the Life of a Child Worth $1\mathbf{\$ 1} to You?” This trenchant headline was used by a brake-relining service. It has strong emotional appeal, prompting people to think about how the life of a little child could be snuffed out by an accident caused by their ineffective brakes. “一个孩子的生命对你来说值 $1\mathbf{\$ 1} 吗？”这个尖锐的标题被一家刹车衬垫服务使用。它具有强烈的情感吸引力，促使人们思考一个小孩的生命是如何可能因他们无效的刹车而被意外扼杀的。
“Six Types of Investors-Which Group Are You In?” This ad produced inquiries in large quantities. Investors reviewed the characteristics of each of the six groups described in the ad, then inquired about a program designed to meet the investment purposes of their own group. “六种投资者-你属于哪个群体？” 这则广告产生了大量的咨询。投资者们审视了广告中描述的六个群体的特征，然后询问了一个旨在满足他们自己群体投资目的的项目。
This headline also illustrates “the primary viewpoint,” or the “point of you.” Many highly engaging headlines contain one of the following words-“you,” “your,” or “yourself.” Even when the pronoun is first-person singular (for example, "How I 这个标题也说明了“主要观点”或“你的观点”。许多引人入胜的标题包含以下单词之一——“你”、“你的”或“你自己”。即使代词是第一人称单数（例如，“我如何”）。
Improved My Memory in One Evening"), the reward promised is so universally desired that, in effect, it is saying, “You can do it, too!” “在一个晚上改善我的记忆”，所承诺的奖励是如此普遍渴望，以至于实际上是在说：“你也可以做到！”
Here’s a statistic that proves the power of the “point of you”: In a study during which 500 women were given a fountain pen, 96 percent wrote their own names; and when shown a map of the United States, 447 men out of 500 looked first for the location of their home towns! Howard Barnes, of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association, really got it right when he said: “To call up an image of the reader, all you need to do is pin up a target. Then, starting at the outside, you can label his interests in this order: the world, the United States, his home state, his home town, and we’ll lump together in the black center his family and himself . . . me. Myself. I come first. I am the bull’s eye.” 这里有一个统计数据证明了“你的视角”的力量：在一项研究中，500 名女性被给予了一支钢笔，96%的人写下了自己的名字；而在看到一张美国地图时，500 名男性中有 447 人首先寻找自己家乡的位置！美国报纸出版商协会的霍华德·巴恩斯说得非常正确：“要唤起读者的形象，你只需要贴上一个靶子。然后，从外部开始，你可以按以下顺序标记他的兴趣：世界、美国、他的家州、他的家乡，我们将他的家庭和他自己归为黑色中心……我。自己。我是第一位。我是靶心。”
9. “For the Woman Who Is Older Than She Looks.” This headline was a stopper for thousands of women-and proved more successful than the subtly different “For the Woman Who Looks Younger Than She Is.” 9. “对于看起来比实际年龄大的女性。”这个标题吸引了成千上万的女性，并且比稍微不同的“对于看起来比实际年龄年轻的女性”更成功。
10. “Announcing . . . The New Edition of the Encyclopedia That Makes It Fun to Learn Things.” The announcement type of headline (when bringing out a new product) wins attention because people are interested in new things. Look for phrases like “new kind of,” “new discovery,” “new way to,” and so on. Americans love the new or novel; for them, the mere factor of newness seems to be prima facie evidence of “betterness.” 10. “宣布……让学习变得有趣的百科全书新版本。” 这种公告类型的标题（在推出新产品时）能够吸引注意力，因为人们对新事物感兴趣。寻找诸如“新型的”、“新发现”、“新方法”等短语。美国人喜欢新颖的事物；对他们来说，单纯的新颖性似乎就是“更好”的初步证据。
Undeviating affection for the old and proven may be strong in other countries; in ours, the desire to try the new is stronger. The great achievements of our inventors and enterprising manufacturers have trained us to believe that if it’s new, it’s likely to be better. However, the word “new” in a headline should be 对旧的和经过验证的事物的坚定热爱在其他国家可能很强；在我们国家，尝试新事物的愿望更强烈。我们发明家和有进取心的制造商的伟大成就使我们相信，如果它是新的，它很可能更好。然而，标题中的“新”这个词应该是
backed up by copy pointing out the merits of something really new and advantageous, not merely different. 由复制支持，指出某些真正新颖和有利的事物的优点，而不仅仅是不同。
Headlines pack a lot of power in their punch. Just a few well-chosen words can launch your business far beyond the doldrums of not selling enough into a world where calls from clients just won’t stop. The right headline can only underline your business’s success. 标题蕴含着强大的力量。仅仅几个精心挑选的词语就能将您的业务从销售不足的低谷推向一个客户来电不断的世界。正确的标题只会强调您业务的成功。
CHANGE YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE 改变你的在线形象
In this day and age, it’s imperative that you have an online presence. If you don’t already have a website, you might as well open a stall at Indy’s Egyptian bazaar. 在这个时代，拥有在线存在是至关重要的。如果你还没有网站，那你不如在印第安纳的埃及集市开个摊位。
In 2006, a little-known U.S. senator launched a campaign for the presidency. As a fundamental part of his campaign, the senator utilized the Internet to a degree greater than that of any other candidate in the general election for president of the United States. The official campaign website offered an array of special features, including the option to make financial contributions online. His campaign also utilized viral marketing and networking, sending out frequent mass e-mails and even posting videos on YouTube. 在 2006 年，一位鲜为人知的美国参议员发起了总统竞选。作为他竞选的一个基本部分，这位参议员在互联网的利用程度上超过了其他任何候选人，成为美国总统大选中的一大亮点。官方竞选网站提供了一系列特殊功能，包括在线捐款的选项。他的竞选还利用了病毒营销和网络传播，频繁发送群发电子邮件，甚至在 YouTube 上发布视频。
The result? Senator Barack Obama became the forty-fourth president of the United States. 结果？参议员巴拉克·奥巴马成为美国第四十四任总统。
The power of the World Wide Web should not be underestimated. Almost every company with an online presence is generating revenue from it, or at least some strategic, profitable advantage. If you don’t have an online presence, get one. Although I can’t make any promises regarding a presidential bid, I can guarantee that your business is better off online than offline. 全球互联网的力量不容小觑。几乎每个有在线存在的公司都在从中获得收入，或者至少获得一些战略性、盈利的优势。如果你没有在线存在，赶快去建立一个。虽然我不能对总统竞选做出任何承诺，但我可以保证你的生意在线上比线下更好。
Here are some general guidelines you can use as a launching pad for your site—but keep in mind that building a website is a tall order and goes far beyond the scope of this book. The next few paragraphs will give you a handle on the most important aspects to be aware of, as well as the areas where you could run into common pitfalls. 以下是一些您可以用作网站起点的一般指南——但请记住，建立一个网站是一项艰巨的任务，远远超出了本书的范围。接下来的几段将让您了解需要注意的最重要方面，以及您可能会遇到的常见陷阱。
If you already have a website or some other form of web presence (like a marketplace on eBay), the first step you have to take is to do the research to find out how your clients are finding you. Are they coming across your site via search engines? Or are you getting hits from paid searches? If clients are finding you through keywords or paid advertising, make certain that your current ads and propositions consist of benefit-based headlines or phrases that telegraph the biggest, most desirable, and specific payoff(s) the client can get from visiting your website. 如果您已经有一个网站或其他形式的网络存在（比如在 eBay 上的市场），您需要采取的第一步是进行研究，以找出您的客户是如何找到您的。客户是通过搜索引擎找到您的网站吗？还是您从付费搜索中获得访问量？如果客户是通过关键词或付费广告找到您的，请确保您当前的广告和提议包含基于利益的标题或短语，传达客户访问您网站所能获得的最大、最理想和具体的收益。
Next, take a hard look at your actual website-as if you were the prospect or visitor. Be sure that your homepage introduces your business benefit up front. Web users visit websites out of self-interest, so you need to make certain that your homepage’s headline communicates the biggest payoff they’ll get from staying there and going deeper. Beyond that, the payoff you communicate has to be better and more desirable than what they can get from visiting other, similar sites-or from finding another means of addressing their business problem. 接下来，认真审视一下你的网站——就像潜在客户或访客一样。确保你的主页一开始就介绍了你的商业利益。网络用户访问网站是出于自我利益，因此你需要确保主页的标题传达了他们在这里停留和深入了解所能获得的最大回报。除此之外，你所传达的回报必须比他们访问其他类似网站或找到其他解决商业问题的方法所能获得的更好、更具吸引力。
You want to design your website in a very simple but lucid manner. The moment visitors arrive, they must make an immediate connection to your product or service, or to your company in general. They need to be captivated, drawn in, and motivated to stay there. They need to see right from the start the wonderful benefit of what you’re selling and what it will do for them or their business: how it will address their needs, wants, problems, challenges, and frustrations, and give them a better tomorrow. 您希望以非常简单但清晰的方式设计您的网站。访客一到达，就必须立即与您的产品或服务，或与您的公司建立联系。他们需要被吸引、引导，并激励他们留下来。他们需要从一开始就看到您所销售的产品的美好好处，以及它将为他们或他们的业务做什么：如何满足他们的需求、愿望、问题、挑战和挫折，并为他们带来更美好的明天。
The next step is to lead them through an obvious progression of the information they’ll be viewing-an overview, client testimonials, and other added value such as risk reversal or bonuses-before they take the ultimate step in making a purchase. Because certain visitors will need more or less information than others, your design needs to be pragmatic, sequential, progressive, and logical. At any point along this progression, the website visitor should be able to skip the rest of the information and proceed directly to the purchase, or select the option to request more information, or schedule a call/consultation appointment. This means you should have, on every page of your site, a direct-to-purchase link. 下一步是引导他们通过一个明显的信息进程——概述、客户推荐以及其他附加价值，如风险逆转或奖金——在他们做出最终购买决定之前。因为某些访客需要的信息可能比其他人多或少，所以你的设计需要务实、顺序、渐进和逻辑。在这个进程的任何时刻，网站访客都应该能够跳过其余信息，直接进行购买，或者选择请求更多信息，或安排电话/咨询预约。这意味着你应该在网站的每一页上都有一个直接购买的链接。
Remember: We live in the era of convenience. The easier you make it for your clients, the more likely they are to buy. 记住：我们生活在便利的时代。你为客户提供的便利越多，他们购买的可能性就越大。
CHANGE HOW YOU LEVERAGE 改变你利用的方式
In Chapter 2, we talked about how to beat out the competition. But other businesses and businesspeople aren’t always the opposition. If you have the right perspective, you’ll see how they can actually help you sell more. Employing the collaborative help of others is crucial to your success. In fact, it’s so crucial that I devote an entire chapter to it later in the book (Chapter 10: Are You Stuck Still Saying “I Can Do It Myself”?). But for the time being, let’s take a brief look at what it means to leverage the resources of other people-and how this can help you increase sales specifically. 在第二章中，我们讨论了如何击败竞争对手。但其他企业和商人并不总是对手。如果你有正确的视角，你会看到他们实际上可以帮助你卖得更多。利用他人的协作帮助对你的成功至关重要。事实上，这一点如此重要，以至于我在书后面专门为此撰写了整整一章（第十章：你是否仍然停留在“我可以自己做到”？）。但目前，让我们简要看看利用他人资源意味着什么，以及这如何具体帮助你增加销售。
Some businesspeople want to do it all themselves. I can tell you that this will rarely, if ever, achieve the optimal result. It might have been the old ideal, and you might have gotten used to thinking of it as noble, but it’s ineffective. It costs you productivity, profitability, and positioning. Leveraging, on the other hand, is effective. 一些商人想要自己完成所有事情。我可以告诉你，这样做很少能达到最佳效果，甚至从未达到过。这可能是过去的理想，你可能习惯于将其视为高尚，但这并没有效果。它会损害你的生产力、盈利能力和市场定位。另一方面，利用他人资源是有效的。
People often don’t know how to masterfully leverage themselves through other people. Keep in mind that it is rare for one business to be completely self-sufficient. Never have I seen a business that possesses, on its own, all the skills needed for optimal functioning. It just doesn’t happen. 人们常常不知道如何通过他人巧妙地利用自己。请记住，完全自给自足的企业是很少见的。我从未见过一个企业能够独自拥有所有实现最佳运作所需的技能。这根本不可能发生。
Executive coach Robert Hargrove once said that the defining trait of the greatest entrepreneur in the twenty-first century will be his or her ability to creatively collaborate with other people. You will never acquire all of the necessary skills yourself. So long as there are only twenty-four hours in a day, it simply isn’t possible-not in our new, fast-paced world with its rapidly evolving knowledge base. (Our body of knowledge supposedly doubles every six months.) 执行教练罗伯特·哈格罗夫曾说，二十一世纪最伟大的企业家的决定性特征将是他或她与他人创造性合作的能力。你永远无法自己掌握所有必要的技能。只要一天只有二十四小时，这在我们这个快速发展的世界中是不可能的——在这个知识基础迅速发展的世界里。（我们的知识量据说每六个月就会翻一番。）
Here are what I think of as the ABCs of the myriad resources other people can provide you with: advertisements, advice, agencies, assets, associates, associations, back-end products, beliefs, bonuses, buying power, cash, collateral, connections, credibility, data, databases, enthusiasm, equity, goodwill, hard assets, human resources, ideas, imagination, influence, intangible assets, investments, knowledge, leads, lists, management, markets, mastermind groups, money, opportunities, patents, people, products, promotions, R&D\mathrm{R} \& \mathrm{D}, relationships, relative strengths, sales force, skills, systems, testimonials, values, wholesalersand the list goes on. It’s limited only by your vision. Tap into the leverage that can be found in creative collaboration by finding others who offer pieces of the knowledge, skill, influence, access, or relationship puzzle that you are missing. 以下是我认为其他人可以为您提供的各种资源的基础：广告、建议、机构、资产、合伙人、协会、后端产品、信念、奖金、购买力、现金、抵押品、联系、信誉、数据、数据库、热情、股权、善意、硬资产、人力资源、想法、想象力、影响力、无形资产、投资、知识、线索、名单、管理、市场、智囊团、资金、机会、专利、人员、产品、促销、 R&D\mathrm{R} \& \mathrm{D} 、关系、相对优势、销售团队、技能、系统、推荐、价值、批发商，等等。它仅受限于您的视野。通过寻找提供您缺失的知识、技能、影响力、访问或关系拼图的其他人，利用可以在创造性合作中找到的杠杆。
The best way to achieve extraordinary greatness, then, is to leverage yourself and your assets off the assets and access of others. If you can give them what they want, they will, in turn, richly reward you with whatever it is you want, as long as you’re clear on precisely what this is. 因此，实现非凡伟大的最佳方法是利用自己和你的资产，借助他人的资产和资源。如果你能给他们想要的，他们将会丰厚地回报你所想要的任何东西，只要你清楚这究竟是什么。
Leveraging requires that you be the first and, optimally, only person who enables the people you leverage through seeing 利用要求你成为第一个，并且最好是唯一一个通过观察使你所利用的人获得能力的人
what they truly want but haven’t gotten, why they want it, and how they can get it-with your help. Sometimes it’s acknowledgment. At other times it’s intellectual stimulation. For some, it’s purely the idea of mining themselves. For others, it’s compensation tied to how their contribution performs. 他们真正想要但还没有得到的是什么，为什么他们想要它，以及他们如何能在你的帮助下获得它。有时是认可。有时是智力上的刺激。对一些人来说，纯粹是挖掘自我的想法。对另一些人来说，是与他们的贡献表现相关的报酬。
It is truly possible to build an empire by leveraging yourself through others. I have seen it done many times. Here’s just one example. 通过利用他人，确实可以建立一个帝国。我见过很多次。这里仅举一个例子。
My friend Marc Goldman once shared with me a fantastic, inventive tale of joint venturing. He had a podiatrist who didn’t realize his practice was leveraging a joint venture. The podiatrist had been renting office space, and when his lease expired, he had bills to pay just like the rest of us, and he couldn’t afford to move to the nicer space that he wanted. 我的朋友马克·戈德曼曾与我分享过一个关于合资企业的奇妙而富有创意的故事。他有一个足病医生，没意识到他的诊所正在利用合资企业。这个足病医生一直在租用办公空间，当他的租约到期时，他和我们其他人一样有账单要支付，他负担不起他想要的更好的空间。
But he happened to find a sleep clinic in a fantastic part of town that was open only from 6:00 in the evening until 6:00 in the morning, and he negotiated the use of the property when the clinicians weren’t there. From 7:00 in the morning until about 5:00 in the evening, he had the space. He worked out a deal whereby he agreed to pay half the rent and half the utilities, and he got the place for less than half of what he was originally going to pay for a renewal of his old lease. 但他恰好在城里一个很棒的地方找到了一家睡眠诊所，该诊所仅在晚上 6 点到早上 6 点之间开放，他在临床医生不在的时候谈妥了使用该物业的事宜。从早上 7 点到下午 5 点左右，他拥有了这个空间。他达成了一项协议，同意支付一半的租金和一半的水电费，而他得到的地方的费用不到他原本打算续租旧租约的一半。
Do you need a sales force? Find somebody who’s got a sales force that isn’t being fully utilized in your field and isn’t directly competitive, and do a joint venture with this person and share profits. Need a warehouse? Find somebody who’s got excess storage space or delivery capability and do a joint venture for a share of the growth you’ll both experience. You can only stand to gain when you engineer performance- and result-based partnering deals like these. 你需要销售团队吗？找一个在你的领域中拥有未被充分利用的销售团队且不直接竞争的人，与这个人进行合资并分享利润。需要仓库吗？找一个拥有多余存储空间或配送能力的人，进行合资以分享你们双方将经历的增长。通过这样的基于绩效和结果的合作协议，你只会获得收益。
Each of us is limited-by time, by ability, by resources, by access. However, when you leverage yourself through others, you’re limited only by your vision and ability to harness the incredible force you’ve created. You can do anything. If you’re 我们每个人都受到时间、能力、资源和获取途径的限制。然而，当你通过他人来提升自己时，你的限制仅在于你的愿景和利用你所创造的巨大力量的能力。你可以做任何事情。如果你是
willing to structure inventive new relationships and associations, you can leverage yourself to access enormous market potential by finding other businesses or individuals who already enjoy direct, trusted access to the resources you need. You can leverage for technological growth. You can leverage for capital or its equivalent. Figure out what you’d do with the capital if you had it, and then joint-venture with somebody who’s already got it and has an excess capacity, or somebody who’s already got the big product for which you need capital to purchase. 愿意构建创新的新关系和协会，您可以通过寻找其他已经享有您所需资源的直接、可信访问的企业或个人，来利用自己获取巨大的市场潜力。您可以利用技术增长。您可以利用资本或其等价物。想想如果您拥有资本会怎么做，然后与已经拥有资本并且有过剩产能的人合作，或者与已经拥有您需要资本购买的大产品的人合作。
You can even leverage to overcome your fear of spending money. The good news is you don’t have to spend a dime. You can leverage off other people’s expenditures. There is always, in any situation, somebody else who’s got a problem that you’re the solution for. 你甚至可以利用它来克服你花钱的恐惧。好消息是你不需要花一分钱。你可以利用其他人的支出。在任何情况下，总会有其他人有问题，而你正是解决方案。
A common misperception is that you have to spend lots of cash to inject new life into your existing business. Let me be the first to tell you: It simply isn’t true. What you have to do is learn how to harness and access other people’s efforts and assets. What is it you want? Whatever you want, somebody else has it in excess capacity, right now. Look at commonalities. Here’s an example. 一个常见的误解是，你必须花很多钱才能为现有业务注入新活力。让我第一个告诉你：这根本不是真的。你需要做的是学习如何利用和获取他人的努力和资产。你想要什么？无论你想要什么，别人现在都有过剩的能力。看看共同点。这是一个例子。
Years ago when I was in the collectibles business, the first thing we did was find people who collected coins so we could find out what else they collected. As it turned out, about 70 percent of them also collected guns and wildlife art. We were able to approach companies in those markets with joint ventures to access not just hundreds but 250,000 new clients from that one inquiry. And the best part: We paid these sources only out of the results. We never paid for speculative advertising. 多年前，当我在收藏品行业时，我们做的第一件事就是找到那些收藏硬币的人，以便了解他们还收藏了什么。结果发现，约 70%的人还收藏枪支和野生动物艺术。我们能够与这些市场的公司进行合资，以便不仅接触到数百个客户，而是从这一项询问中获得 250,000 个新客户。而最好的部分是：我们只根据结果支付这些来源的费用。我们从未为投机性广告付费。
A client from China who attended one of our seminars wanted to go international but, in order to do so, needed to improve his skill set, management prowess, and capital. He was a reasonably successful businessman in motorcycle manufacturing, so he went to Indonesia and Malaysia and found people in similar areas of manufacturing who had successful distribution networks and manufacturing capability. He joint-ventured with them and built a 来自中国的一位客户参加了我们的研讨会，他希望走向国际，但为了做到这一点，需要提升自己的技能、管理能力和资本。他在摩托车制造业是一位相当成功的商人，因此他前往印度尼西亚和马来西亚，找到了在类似制造领域拥有成功分销网络和制造能力的人。他与他们合资建立了一个 $10\$ 10 million motorcycle business in one year - with no manufacturing, no employees, nothing more than the assets he already possessed. $10\$ 10 百万摩托车业务在一年内 - 没有制造，没有员工，仅仅是他已经拥有的资产。
Could this businessman have accomplished the same goal on his own? Not likely. Even if this were possible, it certainly would have taken him a lot longer. Indiana Jones may have been able to save himself from certain dismemberment with nothing but his trusty pistol, but in the real world, things work a little differently. If you can harness the power of leveraging and use it to its maximum potential, you’ll learn how to beat the seven-foot giants without so much as breaking a sweat. 这个商人能否独自完成同样的目标？不太可能。即使这可能，他肯定会花费更长的时间。印第安纳·琼斯可能仅凭他可靠的手枪就能拯救自己免于被肢解，但在现实世界中，事情运作得有些不同。如果你能利用杠杆的力量并将其发挥到最大潜力，你将学会如何在不费吹灰之力的情况下击败七英尺高的巨人。
CHANGE YOUR MESSAGE: MAKE WHATEVER YOU OFFER IRRESISTIBLE TO PROSPECTIVE CLIENTS 更改您的信息：让您提供的任何东西对潜在客户不可抗拒
So you’ve changed your sales methodology to consultative sales, you’ve revitalized your advertising, you’ve got a killer new headline, and your website is getting several hundred hits a day. And yet, when you checked your metrics from the last quarter, you were stunned to see that you’re still stuck not selling enough. What’s the deal? 所以你已经将销售方法改为咨询式销售，重新振兴了广告，拥有了一个吸引眼球的新标题，并且你的网站每天有几百次访问。然而，当你查看上个季度的指标时，你惊讶地发现自己仍然没有卖出足够的产品。这是怎么回事？
Let’s first consider your Internet presence. To increase your online sales, you have to convert more of your current-site visitors into buyers. I can tell you from experience that the reason most businesses don’t enjoy this outcome is that their message isn’t compelling. Their value isn’t unique and distinctive, and so their offer is resistible. You want your offer to be irresistible. 首先让我们考虑一下您的互联网存在。为了增加您的在线销售，您必须将更多当前网站的访客转化为买家。根据我的经验，大多数企业未能实现这一结果的原因在于他们的信息缺乏吸引力。他们的价值不独特且不具辨识度，因此他们的提议是可以拒绝的。您希望您的提议是不可抗拒的。
Your business’s message is the overarching umbrella under which all the other components-your advertising, your sales approach, your headlines-reside. It’s the intangible quality that lingers with your potential clients after they meet you, or after they walk away from your booth at a trade show, or after your well-crafted advertisement first catches their eye in the local paper. Your message is also what makes leveraging possible: 您业务的信息是所有其他组成部分——您的广告、您的销售方式、您的标题——所依附的总体框架。它是那种在潜在客户与您见面后，或在他们离开您在贸易展上的展位后，或在您的精心制作的广告首次吸引他们在当地报纸上的目光后，依然萦绕在他们心头的无形品质。您的信息也是使杠杆作用成为可能的关键所在：
It’s what attracts potential partners and collaborators to your cause. 这吸引了潜在的合作伙伴和合作者关注你的事业。
As noted above, your offer needs to be irresistible. Your message has to spring directly from what you want to accomplish. What do you want to deliver to your market? And what are you really capable of delivering? Determine the answers to these questions and, from there, make your offer captivating, poignant, and logical—because the vast majority of prospects you reach will be logical themselves. 如上所述，您的提议需要具有不可抗拒的吸引力。您的信息必须直接源于您想要实现的目标。您想要向市场传递什么？您真正能够提供什么？确定这些问题的答案，然后从那里使您的提议引人入胜、深刻且合乎逻辑——因为您接触到的大多数潜在客户本身也会是合乎逻辑的。
Logical people will throw what I call the “So what?” curveball into your game. They will listen, watch, read, and then experience your sales proposition and dynamic. Your website has to break things down clearly, concisely, and directly, or those people are going to say “So what?” and leave. 理性的人会在你的游戏中抛出我所称的“那又怎样？”的曲线球。他们会倾听、观察、阅读，然后体验你的销售主张和动态。你的网站必须清晰、简洁、直接地分解内容，否则那些人会说“那又怎样？”然后离开。
You need to make sure your message leaves no room for that phrase even to cross any potential client’s mind. Show your prospects that you appreciate, understand, respect, and empathize with their situation, problems, or desires; that’s how you create a strong, lasting rapport. Every element of your message must resonate with their mindset, so that they feel you understand them better than any of your competitors do. 你需要确保你的信息不会让任何潜在客户想到那个短语。向你的潜在客户展示你欣赏、理解、尊重并同情他们的处境、问题或愿望；这就是你建立强大、持久关系的方式。你信息的每个元素都必须与他们的心态产生共鸣，以便他们感受到你比任何竞争对手更了解他们。
If you’re planning to host a booth at a trade show, identify the people you want to reach and send them a pre-invitation. As always, focus on the payoff of visiting you: You’ve got to promise them something really valuable that will stick in their mind (whether it’s a benefit, a bit of exclusive information, or a superior product) so they won’t forget to visit your booth. 如果您计划在贸易展上设立展位，请确定您想要接触的人并向他们发送预邀请。和往常一样，关注拜访您的好处：您必须向他们承诺一些真正有价值的东西，以便在他们的脑海中留下深刻印象（无论是好处、一点独家信息，还是优质产品），这样他们就不会忘记拜访您的展位。
Most people blow opportunities at trade shows by having ineffective signs. The sign is like your headline. Change it, and you can exponentially increase the quantity and quality of traffic at your booth. Your prospects need to be able to easily and quickly see who you are, what services or products you provide, what benefits you have to offer-and why they should choose you above the competition. 大多数人在贸易展上错失机会是因为他们的标志无效。标志就像你的标题。改变它，你可以成倍增加你展位的流量数量和质量。你的潜在客户需要能够轻松快速地看到你是谁、你提供什么服务或产品、你有什么好处，以及为什么他们应该选择你而不是竞争对手。
For example, if your banner says “Production Management Tools That Increase Profitability by 30 Percent or More, Guaranteed,” you will certainly draw desirable attention. No one can say “So what?” to that. It is important to capitalize on every situation and every process that you identify. But by telegraphing the right promise to exactly the right prospect, you are promoting a logical mentality-one that mirrors your buyer’s. Try walking in his or her shoes (and I’ll tell more about how to do this in Chapter 8). 例如，如果您的横幅上写着“保证提高 30%或更多的盈利能力的生产管理工具”，您肯定会引起人们的关注。没有人会对这句话说“那又怎么样？”重要的是要利用您识别的每一个情况和每一个过程。但通过向确切的合适潜在客户传达正确的承诺，您正在促进一种逻辑思维方式——这种思维方式与您的买家相呼应。试着站在他或她的角度（我将在第 8 章中详细讲述如何做到这一点）。
Signage is the headline for the benefits you’re offering; it’s the ultimate reason people will visit your booth. Then, when your prospects actually arrive, you have thirty seconds to nail your point home. When the stakes are high and the moment is now, you’ve got to be able to convey to your potential client why she should give you another five or ten minutes, especially when there are 2,000 other booths all vying for her time and attention. You’ve got to understand the game you’re playingthe brutal, competitive, clawing game of selling products and services. You can always win-and even dominate-in this littleunderstood arena if you take such advice to heart. 标识是您所提供的好处的标题；这是人们访问您展位的最终原因。然后，当您的潜在客户真正到达时，您有三十秒钟的时间来传达您的要点。当风险很高而时机就在眼前时，您必须能够向您的潜在客户传达她为什么应该再给您五到十分钟的时间，尤其是在有 2000 个其他展位都在争夺她的时间和注意力时。您必须理解您所参与的游戏——这个残酷、竞争激烈、拼命争夺的产品和服务销售游戏。如果您能铭记这样的建议，您总是可以在这个鲜为人知的领域中获胜，甚至主导。
Your game requires a higher level of brinksmanship and strategic mastery than the old-school notion of the product pusher-the door-to-door, “schmoozing” salesperson with a canned spiel. It’s about adding more real value and demonstrating clear understanding of what’s important to your buyer. It’s also about respecting and empathically grasping the mind of your client and the needs of the market, so that you’re the only really viable provider. You have to understand the problems that people are having, create a brilliant solution, and express both in well-defined, dimensional ways. That’s the message you need to send. 您的游戏需要比传统的产品推销员——那种逐门逐户、用老套话术“闲聊”的销售人员——更高水平的边缘策略和战略掌控。这是关于增加更多真实价值，并清晰地理解买家所重视的内容。这也涉及到尊重并同情地把握客户的思维和市场的需求，以便您成为唯一真正可行的供应商。您必须理解人们所面临的问题，创造出卓越的解决方案，并以明确、立体的方式表达这两者。这就是您需要传达的信息。
It all boils down to the strategy of preeminence, which I introduced in Chapter 2 and will discuss further in Chapter 8. The idea of having a unique selling proposition (i.e., something 这一切归结为卓越战略，我在第二章中介绍过，并将在第八章中进一步讨论。拥有独特销售主张的想法（即，某种东西
you project to your prospects that favorably differentiates you from all the other direct and indirect competition) gives way to a more elevated and preemptive concept: being the only viable solution and the most trusted advisor to the market or market segment you serve. Today, finding a unique niche requires more than being seen as the only viable solution. Having a unique selling proposition can be very powerful, but being unique isn’t enough. You also have to be trustworthy. 你向潜在客户展示的项目，使你与所有其他直接和间接竞争对手有利地区分开来，转变为一个更高层次和前瞻性的概念：成为你所服务的市场或市场细分中唯一可行的解决方案和最值得信赖的顾问。如今，找到一个独特的细分市场不仅仅需要被视为唯一可行的解决方案。拥有独特的销售主张可以非常强大，但仅仅独特是不够的。你还必须值得信赖。
You can achieve this by first setting your market’s buying criteria and, second, by demonstrating that your product, service, or business can better fulfill your market’s goal or desire than that of anyone else your prospects could turn to. Find out what your market really wants and needs, then show them why you are the only practical, logical, viable option for fulfillment. 您可以通过首先设定市场的购买标准，其次展示您的产品、服务或业务如何比潜在客户可能转向的其他任何人更好地满足市场的目标或需求来实现这一点。找出您的市场真正想要和需要的，然后向他们展示您为何是唯一实际、合乎逻辑、可行的满足选择。
Consider your own wants and needs. Of course you want to be different, but, more important, you want to be needed as a person and as a business. To bring this about, you have to clearly articulate what is otherwise ambiguous and unclear to the buyer-that you are the only path to fulfillment for your market. Make that your message, and the sales will start piling in. 考虑你自己的需求和愿望。当然，你想要与众不同，但更重要的是，你希望作为一个人和一个企业被需要。为了实现这一点，你必须清楚地表达出对买家来说模糊不清的内容——你是满足市场需求的唯一途径。把这个作为你的信息，销售就会开始源源不断。
CHANGE IS THE NAME OF THE GAME 变化是游戏的名称
Did you know that, in a bad market, you can take 15 to 20 percent of the business away from many of your top competitors, obtain 20 to 30 percent of all the new business coming in, and achieve 30 to 40 percent more sales conversions from the people who are coming to you? I’m not pulling these numbers out of thin air; I’ve seen them in action time and again. You do the math-the growth is geometrical. That’s change you can believe in. 你知道吗，在一个糟糕的市场中，你可以从许多顶级竞争对手那里夺走 15%到 20%的业务，获得 20%到 30%的新业务，并从来找你的客户那里实现 30%到 40%的销售转化率？我不是凭空说这些数字；我一次又一次地见证了它们的实际效果。你算算，这种增长是几何级数的。这是你可以相信的变化。
Stuck not selling enough? Time to dust off your pistol and change the game. Because as Bruce Barton, the advertising leg- 卡住了，卖得不够？是时候拿起你的手枪，改变游戏规则了。因为正如布鲁斯·巴顿所说，广告界的传奇——
end who created Betty Crocker, said: “When you are through changing, you are through.” 结束谁创造了贝蒂·克洛克，说：“当你停止改变时，你就结束了。”
Let’s hope you’re never “through.” But when it comes to dealing with the changing nature of an erratic business volumethat’s the time to put up a fight. And in the next chapter, I’ll show you how. 希望你永远不要“结束”。但当面对不稳定的业务量的变化时，就是要奋起反抗的时候。在下一章中，我会告诉你如何做到。
The Bottom Line 底线
Change the way your salespeople sell by training them in consultative selling. 通过培训销售人员进行咨询式销售，改变他们的销售方式。
People buy because they place their trust in their relationship with you. Consultative sales cultivates that trust. 人们购买是因为他们信任与您的关系。咨询式销售培养这种信任。
The basis of consultative sales is the Quid Pro Quo approach. First qualify the parameters of the transaction, then pre-close the sale by ensuring that your customer will buy if you can deliver, and finally present your product or service. 咨询销售的基础是互惠互利的方法。首先确定交易的参数，然后通过确保客户在你能够交付的情况下会购买来预先达成交易，最后展示你的产品或服务。
Shift your advertising so that it focuses on the audience. 将您的广告调整为以受众为中心。
■ In your ads: Write great headlines, set yourself apart, build your credibility, reverse your customer’s risk, include a call to action, offer a bonus, and then summarize your offer. ■ 在您的广告中：写出精彩的标题，突出自己的特色，建立信誉，降低客户的风险，包含行动号召，提供奖励，然后总结您的优惠。
If you don’t have an online presence, get one. If you do, optimize it. 如果你没有在线存在，赶快建立一个。如果你有，优化它。
Your website must be pragmatic: Make it easy for your clients to buy. 您的网站必须务实：让您的客户轻松购买。
Sell more through inventive relationships and associations. If you’re lacking resources, joint-venture with those who aren’t. 通过创新的关系和合作销售更多。如果你缺乏资源，与那些没有资源的人进行合资。
■ Make your offer irresistible by leaving no room for your customer to say “So what?” ■ 通过不留任何空间让客户说“那又怎么样？”来让你的报价不可抗拒
As always, change your approach-that’s the only way to change your results. 一如既往，改变你的方法——这是改变你结果的唯一途径。
Immediate Action Step Stop being afraid of your clients and prospects. Recognize the power inherent in asking them questions. Your M.D. isn’t afraid to ask you questions about your health - and, for that matter, would be unable to diagnose you properly without the full picture. So shift your mindset from supplicant to physician and askrespectfully and thoughtfully-every question you need to ask in order to understand your client’s situation. Your client will respect you for it! 立即行动步骤：停止害怕你的客户和潜在客户。认识到向他们提问所固有的力量。你的医生不会害怕问你关于你健康的问题——而且，实际上，如果没有完整的情况，他将无法正确诊断你。因此，将你的心态从乞求者转变为医生，尊重而深思熟虑地提出你需要问的每一个问题，以便理解你客户的情况。你的客户会因此尊重你！
4
ARE YOU STUCK WITH ERRATIC BUSINESS VOLUME? 您是否面临不稳定的业务量？
Years ago, Colonial Penn Life Insurance started as an insurance company focused on selling group programs through affinity markets. Back in the 1950s, the executives at Colonial Penn sat in the boardroom racking their brains over how to attract new affinity groups. (And before your eyes glaze over with a story that seems six decades old, bear with me: Discovering how Colonial Penn solved this problem is worth waiting for.) The company’s execs were seeking alumni associations and other large organizations with a common purpose, but they just weren’t having any luck. The field was very competitive, and they were having a lot of trouble persuading organizations to buy their insurance. Some people expressed an interest; others didn’t. In the flux of the market, the company was edging precariously along, never sure if it was going to make a sale. 多年前，Colonial Penn Life Insurance 作为一家专注于通过亲和市场销售团体计划的保险公司成立。在 1950 年代，Colonial Penn 的高管们在会议室里绞尽脑汁，思考如何吸引新的亲和团体。（在你对这个似乎已有六十年历史的故事感到无聊之前，请耐心听我说：发现 Colonial Penn 是如何解决这个问题的，值得等待。）公司的高管们在寻找校友协会和其他有共同目标的大型组织，但他们就是没有运气。这个领域竞争非常激烈，他们在说服组织购买他们的保险方面遇到了很多困难。有些人表示了兴趣；而其他人则没有。在市场的变动中，公司小心翼翼地前行，从未确定是否会达成销售。
So what did the Colonial Penn execs do? They came up with a brilliant idea. They said, “Okay, let’s start our own organization, so we can become our own captive clients.” The time commitment and cost expenditures were relatively small, and this new organization would allow the company to better target the senior population. 那么，Colonial Penn 的高管们做了什么呢？他们想出了一个绝妙的主意。他们说：“好吧，让我们成立自己的组织，这样我们就可以成为自己的专属客户。”时间投入和成本支出相对较小，这个新组织将使公司能够更好地针对老年人群体。
To many people at the time, it seemed like a crazy idea. But that crazy idea would make Colonial Penn one of the most profitable companies in the United States, according to Forbes magazine. Fast-forward a few years: Today they’re doing billions in business, and other organizations are now seeking them out to create plans. 对当时的许多人来说，这似乎是个疯狂的主意。但根据《福布斯》杂志，这个疯狂的主意使得 Colonial Penn 成为美国最盈利的公司之一。快进几年：今天他们的业务达到了数十亿，其他组织现在也在寻求他们来制定计划。
What the Colonial Penn execs did was establish a method for counteracting the erratic business volume they were experiencing. They essentially devised a plan of counterattack. They shifted their strategy away from the old paradigm of trying to win business away from other companies that already had programs in place. Before, they were stuck frantically playing defense against a fluctuating marketplace. Now, they had switched to playing offense, creating their own captive, loyal, long-term mega-client that generated billions of dollars of premium income for Colonial Penn-with no competition. 殖民地宾夕法尼亚的高管们所做的是建立了一种方法，以对抗他们所经历的不稳定业务量。他们本质上制定了一项反击计划。他们将战略从试图从已经有项目的其他公司那里争取业务的旧范式转变为创造自己的专属、忠诚的长期超级客户，这为殖民地宾夕法尼亚带来了数十亿美元的保费收入——没有竞争。
In this chapter, I’ll teach you how to unstick yourself from a cycle of erratic business volume. It’s all about developing a successful migration strategy for advancing and enhancing relationships with buyers, as well as referrers and endorsers. That’s exactly what the Colonial Penn executives did when they created their own organization. 在本章中，我将教你如何摆脱不稳定的业务量循环。这完全是关于制定成功的迁移策略，以促进和增强与买家、推荐人和支持者的关系。这正是殖民地宾夕法尼亚的高管们在创建自己的组织时所做的。
That organization, by the way, was the American Association of Retired People (AARP). Ever heard of it? 顺便说一下，该组织是美国退休人员协会（AARP）。听说过吗？
STRATEGIZE, ANALYZE, AND SYSTEMIZE YOUR BUSINESS 制定战略、分析和系统化您的业务
In the last chapter, we talked about how to change your tactics when you’re not selling enough. But what if sometimes you are selling enough, and sometimes you aren’t? What if there seems to be no way to predict how much business you bring in on a regular basis? 在最后一章中，我们讨论了当你销售不足时如何改变策略。但如果有时你销售足够，有时又不够呢？如果似乎没有办法预测你定期带来多少业务呢？
A lot of businesses are asking these questions, especially as the economy itself is in a state of flux. A number of companies find themselves at the mercy of an unpredictable volume of sales. But that doesn’t mean you have to be. 许多企业正在问这些问题，尤其是在经济本身处于动荡状态时。一些公司发现自己受到不可预测的销售量的影响。但这并不意味着你也必须如此。
The biggest problem for small- to medium-sized businesses can be summed up in three sentences: 中小型企业面临的最大问题可以用三句话来概括：
They’re not strategic. 他们不是战略性的。
They’re not analytical. 他们不具备分析能力。
They’re not systematic. 它们不是系统性的。
Businesses should take only those actions that always-not sometimes, but always-advance and enhance the long-term, well-reasoned game plan of attracting prospects, converting them to clients, and creating a lasting, repeat-buying relationship with them. Anything that impedes this logical progression is a chink in your business’s armor. 企业应仅采取那些始终（而非有时，而是始终）推进和增强吸引潜在客户、将其转化为客户以及与他们建立持久、重复购买关系的长期、合理的计划的行动。任何阻碍这一逻辑进程的行为都是你企业盔甲上的一个缺口。
Let’s say you’re a farmer who grows a single crop. You wouldn’t grow corn this year and decide on a different crop the following year-not as long as corn is still a viable, profitable, economically desirable commodity. And you certainly wouldn’t assume that, the following year, you could stop watering and fertilizing your corn and just let it grow on its own since-heck-it did fine the previous year. 假设你是一位只种植单一作物的农民。你不会今年种玉米，明年决定种不同的作物——只要玉米仍然是一种可行的、盈利的、经济上可取的商品。而且你当然不会假设，明年你可以停止给玉米浇水和施肥，让它自己生长，因为——天哪——它去年长得很好。
The same is true with your client base. The mere fact that your client has made one purchase doesn’t mean he should now be left alone, on the assumption that he’ll make a second purchase and all future re-purchases on his own, with no help, guidance, direction, or instruction from you or your sales force. Now that you have a strong, valuable asset in this client, you must strategically and systematically nurture the relationship. 你的客户群体也是如此。仅仅因为你的客户进行了一次购买，并不意味着他现在应该被单独放置，假设他会自己进行第二次购买以及所有未来的重复购买，而不需要你或你的销售团队的帮助、指导、方向或指示。既然你在这个客户身上拥有了一个强大而有价值的资产，你必须有策略地和系统地培养这种关系。
Allow it to grow and flourish under your direction so that it can aid in sustaining and enriching your business. 在您的指导下，让它成长和繁荣，以便能够帮助维持和丰富您的业务。
Strategizing, analyzing, and systemizing: These are the three keys to busting the erratic business volume blues. It’s that simple-as easy as one, two, three. 战略规划、分析和系统化：这三者是打破不稳定业务量低迷的关键。就是这么简单——就像一、二、三一样容易。
Now let’s break them down even further. 现在让我们进一步细分它们。
KNOW YOUR BUSINESS STRATEGY FOR BRINGING IN PROSPECTS OR CLIENTS 了解您的业务策略以吸引潜在客户或客户
If you’re not strategic, then each month you’ll be putting out the same fires. Usually those fires are related to finances and cash flow. If you’re like most businesses without a workable strategy, you’ll find yourself rehashing the same problem time after time: how to get through that month and pay the rent. Every thirty days, you start over, interminably pushing that same boulder up the same slippery hillside. 如果你没有战略，那么每个月你都会在扑灭同样的火灾。通常这些火灾与财务和现金流有关。如果你像大多数没有可行战略的企业一样，你会发现自己一次又一次地重提同样的问题：如何度过这个月并支付租金。每三十天，你重新开始，无休止地将那块同样的巨石推上同样滑腻的山坡。
However, if you’re strategic, every month sees your business bringing in clients and prospects at a predictable rate from the best performing sources you’ve identified as the most viable. You have an unshakable system in place that progressively and sequentially moves your prospects down an evolutionary line: A lead or prospect gets converted to a first-time buyer (ideally a multi-product or -service buyer in the first transaction), then he becomes a repeat buyer, then he evolves into a more advanced buyer, and so on. And along the way, he stimulates referrals, who then get moved along the same evolutionary line. Each new referral grows in his or her purchasing capacity and helps you attract new clients. Before you know it, your business is expanding prosperously in all directions at once. 然而，如果你有策略，每个月你的业务都会以可预测的速度从你识别出的最佳表现来源吸引客户和潜在客户。你有一个牢不可破的系统，逐步且顺序地将你的潜在客户推进一个进化的轨道：一个潜在客户被转化为首次购买者（理想情况下在第一次交易中是多产品或多服务的购买者），然后他成为重复购买者，接着他进化为更高级的购买者，依此类推。在这个过程中，他会刺激推荐，推荐者也会沿着同样的进化轨道前进。每一个新的推荐者都在其购买能力上增长，并帮助你吸引新客户。没过多久，你的业务就会在各个方向上繁荣扩展。
We’ll take a closer look at strategizing in Chapter 5, but for now let’s go over a few key points. When it comes to how to create your initial strategy, we’ll start at the very beginning. The first question you have to ask yourself is this: 我们将在第五章更详细地讨论战略制定，但现在让我们回顾几个关键点。关于如何制定初始战略，我们将从最开始开始。你必须问自己的第一个问题是：
What kind of people or businesses do you want your business to attract, and why? 你希望你的业务吸引什么样的人或企业，为什么？
Your strategy will change according to your target audience; clearly, you’ll need to strategize differently to reach different kinds of clients. For example, online models tend to attract new prospects in droves, but these new prospects are usually generic, indefinable masses-promiscuous buyers, perhaps, but indiscriminate and disloyal ones as well. Are you better off attracting waves of unknowns? Or will it behoove you to have fewer but far better-defined and more motivated prospects, people who are eager to embark on a relationship based on the strategically formulated buying criteria you’ve clearly established? If you can’t or don’t paint a clear portrait for yourself of whom you’re trying to attract and why, you’re not going to get them as buyers. 您的策略将根据目标受众而变化；显然，您需要以不同的方式制定策略以接触不同类型的客户。例如，在线模式往往会吸引大量新客户，但这些新客户通常是泛泛而谈、难以界定的群体——或许是好色的买家，但也是不加选择和不忠诚的买家。吸引一波波未知的客户对您来说更好？还是说，拥有更少但定义更清晰、动机更强的潜在客户更有利，这些人渴望基于您明确建立的战略性购买标准建立关系？如果您无法或不愿为自己描绘出一个清晰的画像，说明您想吸引谁以及为什么，您将无法将他们转化为买家。
So how do you go about defining and understanding your marketplace? The short answer is that you’ll have to do some basic marketplace research-the springboard for any effective business strategy. It doesn’t have to be a complex process, nor does it need to be costly. It can be as simple and as easy as surveying a cross-section of your consumers (a focus group) to get their opinions about the product or service you offer, or conducting a telephone or mail survey. The disadvantage of using the telephone or mail survey method is, of course, that the individuals you contact may not be interested in responding to a survey. Therefore, I suggest getting creative: Offer a coupon or bonus in exchange for a completed survey, or save the survey for the end of a successful sales call, when your satisfied client might be more than happy to offer her thoughts in return for a positive sales experience. 那么，您如何定义和理解您的市场呢？简而言之，您需要进行一些基本的市场研究——这是任何有效商业战略的跳板。这不必是一个复杂的过程，也不需要花费很多成本。它可以像对您的消费者（一个焦点小组）进行调查，以获取他们对您提供的产品或服务的意见，或者进行电话或邮件调查一样简单和容易。使用电话或邮件调查方法的缺点当然是，您联系的个人可能对回答调查不感兴趣。因此，我建议发挥创造力：提供优惠券或奖励以换取完成的调查，或者将调查留到成功销售电话的结束时，当您的满意客户可能更乐意在积极的销售体验中分享她的想法。
As you lay the groundwork for your strategy, your primary focus should be on gathering enough information to find out the following: 在制定策略的基础时，您的主要关注点应是收集足够的信息以找出以下内容：
■ Who are your best potential clients? ■ 你最好的潜在客户是谁？
■ What do they need, want, and expect? ■ 他们需要、想要和期望什么？
Is there a demand for your product or service? 您的产品或服务有需求吗？
Who are your competitors, and how well are they doing? 你的竞争对手是谁，他们的表现如何？
You should strive to answer these basic questions specifically and in detail. 你应该努力具体而详细地回答这些基本问题。
For example, if you’re in real estate, you want to know how many houses are sold each year in your market and how much money is spent in your area. Or, if you’re selling luxury watches, investigate the comparable watches on the market, and look at the numbers to see how well they’re selling. Examine the demographics of your target audience so that you know what they need; then position yourself as the best person to fulfill that need. 例如，如果您从事房地产行业，您想知道每年在您的市场上售出多少房屋，以及在您所在地区花费了多少钱。或者，如果您在销售奢侈手表，请调查市场上类似的手表，并查看销售数据以了解它们的销售情况。研究您的目标受众的人口统计信息，以便您知道他们的需求；然后将自己定位为满足该需求的最佳人选。
For any industry, you want to find out how many units are sold or how much is spent; this helps you gauge your performance success against the competition and enables you to set specific goals. You also want to know how these numbers have changed over the last few decades. Have there been any major trends? Most trade journals that cover a particular industry do an “annual wrap-up” on the industry, which can be invaluable. 对于任何行业，您都想了解销售了多少单位或花费了多少；这有助于您评估自己在竞争中的表现成功，并使您能够设定具体目标。您还想知道这些数字在过去几十年中是如何变化的。是否出现了任何重大趋势？大多数涵盖特定行业的贸易期刊都会对该行业进行“年度总结”，这可能是非常宝贵的。
Although market research may appear to be a tedious, time-consuming process, it is necessary if you want to be successful. Think of it as simply a method of finding out what catches clients’ attention-specifically, by observing their actions and drawing conclusions from what you see. It’s an organized way of finding objective answers to questions every business owner and manager must answer in order to succeed. 尽管市场调研看起来可能是一个乏味且耗时的过程，但如果你想要成功，这是必要的。把它看作是一种简单的方法，找出什么能吸引客户的注意——具体来说，通过观察他们的行为并从你所看到的得出结论。这是一种有组织的方式，寻找每个企业主和管理者必须回答的问题的客观答案，以便取得成功。
After you’ve identified the people in your target market, it’s time to take the next step in your strategy: Define exactly 在您确定了目标市场中的人群后，是时候在您的策略中迈出下一步：明确界定
what problem your product or service solves for those particular people. This is where you turn inward to look for commonalities in your existing client base that represent the most desirable and profitable buyers you have. Your goal is to replicate, multiply, and perpetuate a constant flow of this market segment-above and beyond all other categories you could attract. I’ve boiled this down to a simple example, which admittedly might be a bit more obvious than what you’re likely to run into in your industry, but it’ll help you see the idea clearly. 您的产品或服务为这些特定人群解决了什么问题。这是您向内寻找您现有客户群中代表最理想和最有利可图的买家的共同点的地方。您的目标是复制、增加并持续不断地吸引这一市场细分，超越您可能吸引的所有其他类别。我将这一点简化为一个简单的例子，虽然这可能比您在行业中可能遇到的情况更明显，但它将帮助您清晰地理解这个想法。
Suppose you sell bicycles, and you’ve analyzed your active and inactive client base for your business and found that, lo and behold, among your 3,000 clients from every demographic and marketing source, 350 have the word “Doctor” in front of their names on the data listing. Not something you were expecting: None of your marketing materials were aimed at doctors, yet somehow that’s who your business has heavily attracted. 假设你销售自行车，并且你分析了你的活跃和非活跃客户群，发现令人惊讶的是，在你 3000 名来自各个群体和营销来源的客户中，有 350 名在数据列表中名字前面带有“Doctor”这个词。这并不是你所预期的：你的营销材料并没有针对医生，但不知怎么的，你的业务却吸引了大量这样的客户。
So, in your next round of targeted marketing, you now target doctors, knowing that they have a higher motivation and predisposition toward buying bicycles and buying them from your business, and therefore should be easier to convert. You’ve figured out both what you’re offering and to whom your offering has maximum appeal. 因此，在你下一轮的目标营销中，你现在将目标定为医生，因为你知道他们对购买自行车以及从你的商店购买自行车有更高的动机和倾向，因此应该更容易转化。你已经弄清楚了你所提供的产品以及你的产品对谁具有最大的吸引力。
Strategic businesses have ongoing systems that are constantly converting clients. They have carefully analyzed their sales data to find quantitative data connecting the correlations between different types of prospects or buyers and different origins. They know where the big vein of profit exists, and they dig there first and foremost. Analyzing data allows a business to say, for example, that if a prospect comes in through an ad in the Los Angeles Times and buys a $50\$ 50 widget, the statistical probability is that she will buy four or more $100\$ 100 items within the next year, and four more the following year. 战略型企业拥有持续的系统，不断地转化客户。他们仔细分析了销售数据，以找到不同类型的潜在客户或买家与不同来源之间的定量数据关联。他们知道利润的主要来源在哪里，并优先在那里进行挖掘。数据分析使企业能够说，例如，如果一个潜在客户通过《洛杉矶时报》的广告进入并购买了一个 $50\$ 50 小工具，那么统计概率是她在接下来的一年内会购买四个或更多的 $100\$ 100 商品，第二年再购买四个。
The sad truth is that few businesses actually do this. Whether it’s because they’re not aware that they should, don’t know the 悲伤的事实是，实际上很少有企业这样做。无论是因为他们不知道应该这样做，还是不知道如何去做，
process to use, or are simply lazy, most business owners never put into place a highly targeted, prime-prospect lead generation and conversion strategy based on analyzing the empirical (i.e., historical) data they’ve already experienced that allows them to project their growth. Here’s another story, from the era when Krugerrands were still legal for Americans to purchase. 由于缺乏使用的流程，或者只是懒惰，大多数企业主从未建立起一个高度针对性的、以优质潜在客户为基础的线索生成和转化策略，这一策略是基于他们已经经历过的经验性（即历史）数据分析，能够让他们预测自己的增长。这里还有另一个故事，来自克鲁格兰德仍然合法供美国人购买的时代。
I used to work in the gold bullion business, where we sold gold bars, platinum, and silver ingots and coins. We knew with a high degree of certainty that one out of every four leads emanating from certain financial newsletters would convert in approximately sixty days-if we did a sequence of strategically formulated follow-up activities: generally a call, followed by a letter, followed by a call. 我曾在黄金条业务工作，我们销售金条、铂金和银锭及硬币。我们非常确定，从某些金融通讯中产生的每四个潜在客户中就有一个会在大约六十天内转化——前提是我们进行一系列战略性制定的后续活动：通常是一次电话，接着是一封信，再接着是一次电话。
We also knew that the first sale would, at worst, still result in a certain predictable, minimum amount of profit, and that out of every ten of those first-time buyers, six would buy again within a few months at a much higher level, thus producing a much richer subsequent profit for our business. The projections were conservative, but they allowed us to take certain steps that we otherwise would not have felt comfortable taking, such as hiring more employees, investing in the redesign of the educational newsletters that brought clients in, or generating more newsletter-originated prospects to put through our conversion pipeline system. 我们也知道，第一次销售在最坏的情况下仍会带来一定可预测的最低利润，并且在每十个首次购买者中，有六个会在几个月内再次购买，且购买金额会大幅增加，从而为我们的业务带来更丰厚的后续利润。这些预测是保守的，但它们使我们能够采取一些我们原本不敢采取的措施，比如雇佣更多员工，投资于重新设计吸引客户的教育通讯，或生成更多来自通讯的潜在客户，以便通过我们的转化管道系统。
The other thing we knew was that if we had very, very good months, we could go deeper into future profit expectation (thus allowing us to spend more, now knowing it would come back later). We had other, slower-gestating but longer-yielding promotions that we could call on when we had months of extraordinarily good cash flow, and we could set even more future profit flow in motion for the future. 我们知道的另一件事是，如果我们有非常非常好的月份，我们可以更深入地预期未来的利润（从而允许我们现在花费更多，因为我们知道它会在以后回来）。我们还有其他一些反应较慢但收益更长的促销活动，当我们有异常良好的现金流月份时，可以调用这些促销活动，并且我们可以为未来启动更多的未来利润流。
In short, we knew an awful lot. And that kind of knowledge allowed us to streamline our strategy to eliminate the elements of uncertainty with which so many businesses contend. 总之，我们知道了很多。这种知识使我们能够简化我们的战略，以消除许多企业所面临的不确定性因素。
An effective business strategy never goes stale. Instead, it continues to progress and evolve alongside your business. Part 有效的商业策略永远不会过时。相反，它会随着您的业务不断进步和发展。部分
of strategizing is projecting ahead and planning for the next phase of success. That way, your ship continues to sail smoothly, regardless of the gales and tempests plaguing your competitor’s fleet. Let’s go back to our bicycle example. 战略规划的关键在于前瞻性地预测并为下一个成功阶段进行规划。这样，无论竞争对手的舰队遭遇怎样的狂风暴雨，你的船都能继续顺利航行。让我们回到自行车的例子。
Suppose you’ve already sold 10,000 bikes this year, 5,000 of them to doctors. But don’t stop there. Would the next logical progression be to sell these doctors another hobby or recreation, or perhaps something in the realm of health, fitness, or nutrition? This first question paves the way for a second one: What other products or services does that category of influence logically buy? If your clients are primarily in the medical profession, they most likely buy upscale items, such as art, prestige travel packages, sports cars, or custom-designed furniture. 假设你今年已经卖出了 10,000 辆自行车，其中 5,000 辆卖给了医生。但不要止步于此。下一个合乎逻辑的进展是向这些医生销售另一个爱好或休闲活动，或者可能是一些与健康、健身或营养相关的东西吗？这个第一个问题为第二个问题铺平了道路：该影响类别的其他产品或服务逻辑上会购买什么？如果你的客户主要在医疗行业，他们很可能会购买高档商品，例如艺术品、豪华旅行套餐、跑车或定制家具。
By asking yourself these two questions, you can identify which other companies have (and sell) those kinds of products or services. Are you better off passing the business on to them in the form of an endorsement or referral, perhaps in exchange for a generous percentage of revenue and reciprocal referrals? Or is it better to keep the relationship you’ve worked so hard to maintain and to make the direct offer yourself? 通过问自己这两个问题，您可以识别出哪些其他公司拥有（并销售）这些类型的产品或服务。将业务以推荐或介绍的形式转交给他们，或许可以换取丰厚的收入百分比和互相推荐，您是否更好？还是说保持您辛苦维护的关系，自己直接提出报价更好？
Neither answer is right or wrong. It depends entirely on the specific factors of your business situation and the technical elements of any product/service offering you’re thinking of adding. Your biggest challenge is to make a decision. But isn’t that a great challenge to have for the opportunity of maybe doubling, even re-doubling your profit potential every year? Now that’s the beauty of a winning strategy! 没有哪个答案是对的或错的。这完全取决于您商业情况的具体因素以及您考虑添加的任何产品/服务提供的技术要素。您最大的挑战是做出决定。但这不是一个很好的挑战吗？也许每年都有机会使您的利润潜力翻倍，甚至再翻倍？这就是成功战略的魅力所在！
KNOW HOW TO ANALYZE WAYS OF GETTING BUSINESS 知道如何分析获取业务的方法
After strategizing, the second thing you have to do to combat erratic business volume is to analyze the life of your business. Most business owners don’t have a clue about the long-term meaning of “business life.” They don’t analyze the value of leads or sales that come from the various sources they are using, such as ads, sales letters, or search engines. But this kind 在制定战略后，您必须做的第二件事是分析您业务的生命周期。大多数企业主对“业务生命周期”的长期意义一无所知。他们没有分析来自各种来源（如广告、销售信或搜索引擎）的潜在客户或销售的价值。但这种类型的
of analysis is critical to getting your business unstuck. You’re never going to move forward and upward unless you take the time to analyze what has or hasn’t moved the dial in the past. Let’s look at a real-world example. 分析对于让你的业务摆脱困境至关重要。除非你花时间分析过去哪些因素推动了进展，哪些没有，否则你永远无法向前和向上发展。让我们看一个现实世界的例子。
I once had a client group consisting of clinicians whose business was bioidentical hormones, the supplemental use of synthetic hormones for such purposes as wellness and perceived youthfulness. They frequently ran ads in the Los Angeles Times, then pulled the ads once they stopped seeing an up-front profit. When I was called in to review the business and analyze their numbers and metrics, I asked their reason for stopping when they broke even. The excuse I received was “If we spend $6,000\$ 6,000 on the ad, and we get only $6,000\$ 6,000 in new clients, we’ve lost money.” 我曾经有一个客户群体，由从事生物相同激素的临床医生组成，他们的业务是补充使用合成激素，以实现健康和感知的年轻化。他们经常在《洛杉矶时报》上投放广告，但一旦停止看到前期利润就会撤回广告。当我被请来审查业务并分析他们的数字和指标时，我问他们在盈亏平衡时停止的原因。我得到的借口是：“如果我们在广告上花费 $6,000\$ 6,000 ，而只获得 $6,000\$ 6,000 的新客户，我们就亏了。”
So I crunched the numbers, made real projections based on past patient-treatment history, and asked them what their strategy was based on. When they said they just wanted patients, I told them that was an inefficient strategy, that they should instead have a strategy based on their different kinds of treatment programs. It turns out they never looked at their advertising that way. 所以我分析了数据，基于过去的患者治疗历史做了真实的预测，并问他们他们的策略是什么。当他们说他们只想要患者时，我告诉他们这是一种低效的策略，他们应该基于不同类型的治疗项目制定策略。结果发现他们从未以那种方式看待他们的广告。
They had three fundamental treatment programs, one requiring visits every month; another, every quarter; and a third, every six months. These three treatments were worth, per client, $10,000,$5,000\$ 10,000, \$ 5,000, and $3,000\$ 3,000 a year, respectively. First-time consultations were $300\$ 300. When the clinicians ran a $6,000ad\$ 6,000 \mathrm{ad}, they considered it breaking even to bring in twenty new, firsttime clients/patients. 他们有三个基本的治疗项目，一个要求每月就诊；另一个每季度就诊；第三个每六个月就诊。这三种治疗每位客户的价值分别为 $10,000,$5,000\$ 10,000, \$ 5,000 和 $3,000\$ 3,000 每年。首次咨询的费用为 $300\$ 300 。当临床医生进行 {{3 }} 时，他们认为引入二十名新的首次客户/患者是持平的。
However, after analyzing their data, I came back with a different view. If we broke down the twenty new consultations into the three areas of treatment, roughly six would be worth $10,000\$ 10,000 a year, for at least one year and possibly two. That adds up to $60,000\$ 60,000 in Year 1 alone - and that’s 100 percent profit on just one-third of the new patients alone, because the clinic has already broken even on the ad with the initial consultation. Another six new patients will come in for Treatment 2 for $5,000\$ 5,000 a year, which means an additional $30,000\$ 30,000, bringing us up to $90,000\$ 90,000. The final six new patients will be worth-at least- $3,000\$ 3,000 each, for a total of $18,000\$ 18,000. Let’s say half of 然而，在分析了他们的数据后，我得出了不同的看法。如果我们将这二十个新的咨询分解为三个治疗领域，大约六个每年价值 $10,000\$ 10,000 ，至少一年，可能是两年。这在第一年就达到了 $60,000\$ 60,000 ——而这仅仅是新患者的三分之一就实现了 100%的利润，因为诊所已经通过初次咨询收回了广告成本。另有六个新患者将接受治疗 2，每年价值 $5,000\$ 5,000 ，这意味着额外的 $30,000\$ 30,000 ，使我们总计达到 $90,000\$ 90,000 。最后六个新患者的价值至少为 $3,000\$ 3,000 每人，总计 $18,000\$ 18,000 。假设一半的
them will return for a second year, bringing the total profit for Treatment 3 up to $45,000\$ 45,000. 他们将返回第二年，使治疗 3 的总利润达到 $45,000\$ 45,000 。
In total, what the clinicians thought was just a “break-even ad” was actually bringing in roughly $135,000\$ 135,000 of pure profit annually. 总的来说，临床医生认为只是一个“收支平衡的广告”，实际上每年带来了大约 $135,000\$ 135,000 的纯利润。
They now viewed their little L.A. Times ad in a whole new light. I showed them that they could run it as long as the ad was attracting the right quality and category of treatment-based patient. It would continue to keep the money flowing in for years to come. And that’s just one ad! 他们现在以全新的视角看待他们的小洛杉矶时报广告。我向他们展示，只要广告吸引到合适质量和类别的治疗型患者，他们就可以继续投放广告。这将使资金在未来几年内持续流入。而这仅仅是一个广告！
This sort of “quantification analysis” applies not only to ads but also to where you sell, what you sell, and the subsequent products offered (and purchased) after you convert a client. Unless you analyze what you don’t realize that you already know, you won’t know where to make the best invest-ment-not to spend money but to invest it. In short, everything you’re doing should be a strategic investment in the future, made with the optimal long-term, financial, and strategic business returns in mind. 这种“量化分析”不仅适用于广告，还适用于你销售的地点、销售的产品以及在你转化客户后提供（和购买）的后续产品。除非你分析那些你未意识到但实际上已经知道的内容，否则你将不知道在哪里进行最佳投资——不是花钱，而是投资。简而言之，你所做的一切都应该是对未来的战略投资，考虑到最佳的长期、财务和战略业务回报。
So, how can you know where your salespeople should concentrate their time? If you’re looking at just the present moment, you’re going to see only how much money they can put in the bank for you today. That’s a case of leaving a whole pile of future profits on the table-or what I like to call a “positive iceberg.” 那么，您如何知道您的销售人员应该将时间集中在哪里呢？如果您只关注当前时刻，您将只看到他们今天能为您带来多少收入。这就像是把一整堆未来的利润留在桌子上——或者我喜欢称之为“积极的冰山”。
If I instead said “negative iceberg,” you might already have some sense of what I mean. Picture in your mind the shipmate on the Titanic who spotted the peak of the iceberg too late. A positive iceberg is just as easy to imagine, when you take the time to think about its potency. It’s when you see a pointed, immediate problem but don’t realize that, by nurturing or harnessing it in a more long-term, strategic way, you can develop it into massive regenerative profits that can continually flow from the original source. In my example above, $6,000\$ 6,000 was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the clinic was pulling in 如果我说“负冰山”，你可能已经对我所指的有了一些概念。想象一下你脑海中那位在泰坦尼克号上晚了才发现冰山顶端的船员。当你花时间思考其潜力时，积极的冰山同样容易想象。它是指你看到一个尖锐、直接的问题，但没有意识到，通过以更长期、战略性的方式去培育或利用它，你可以将其发展成源源不断的巨额再生利润。在我上面的例子中， $6,000\$ 6,000 只是诊所收入的冰山一角。
as profit from one ad—and my client group might have stopped running that ad altogether had they not been shown the mammoth iceberg lying just below the surface. When I calculated their return on investment, or ROI (which we’ll discuss in more depth in Chapter 6), that ad was delivering 2,000 percent annual return on their modest $6,000\$ 6,000 investment. 作为一则广告的利润——如果没有向他们展示潜藏在表面下的巨大冰山，我的客户群可能会完全停止投放该广告。当我计算他们的投资回报率，或称 ROI（我们将在第 6 章中更深入地讨论），那则广告为他们的 modest $6,000\$ 6,000 投资带来了 2000%的年回报。
Businesses can’t avail themselves of this type of information if they don’t clearly and carefully analyze their data. It’s not hard. Yet, almost no small- to medium-sized business does this. Here’s another example. 如果企业不清晰且仔细地分析他们的数据，就无法利用这种类型的信息。这并不难。然而，几乎没有小型到中型企业这样做。这里还有另一个例子。
I had a smaller client with an arcade below the boardwalk in a local California tourist hangout comprising several dozen funky little retail shops. Some quick data analysis revealed that each person who visited the arcade spent roughly $5\$ 5. This means that a family of four would drop $20\$ 20 a visit. 我有一个较小的客户，在加利福尼亚当地的旅游聚集地的海滨长廊下有一个游戏厅，那里有几十家风格独特的小零售店。一些快速的数据分析显示，每位访问游戏厅的人大约花费 $5\$ 5 。这意味着一个四口之家每次访问会花费 $20\$ 20 。
With that knowledge in mind, the client and I headed upstairs to the boardwalk to employ a disarmingly simple leverage strategy, giving each retailer certificates worth 50$ of free play that they could gift to anyone who made a purchase in their store, whether for a hot dog, balloon, kite, or pretzel on a stick. The retailers loved it, because it enticed customers to make a purchase at their business as well, and it didn’t cost them a dime. 考虑到这些知识，客户和我上楼到步道，采用一种令人意想不到的简单杠杆策略，给每个零售商发放价值 50 美元的免费游戏券，可以赠送给任何在他们商店购买商品的人，无论是热狗、气球、风筝还是棒上的椒盐卷饼。零售商们非常喜欢这个，因为它吸引顾客在他们的商店消费，而且他们不需要花费一分钱。
We limited the certificates to one per person, assuming that the statistical probability of a family using it was very high. At one certificate per person, with an average family spending $20\$ 20, we estimated that we’d be attracting $18\$ 18 worth of net business on every four we gave away. And that’s exactly what we pulled in! 我们将证书限制为每人一个，假设一个家庭使用它的统计概率非常高。每人一个证书，平均家庭消费 $20\$ 20 ，我们估计每赠送四个证书就能吸引到价值 $18\$ 18 的净业务。这正是我们所获得的！
The data speak. They will tell you almost anything you want to know, but you have to know how to ask. The data will tell you where to put your money for long-term growth, or what sources are best if you need cash flow right now. They will also tell you how to strategically balance your activities both for the moment and for the future-but only if you analyze them. 数据会说话。它们几乎会告诉你任何你想知道的事情，但你必须知道如何提问。数据会告诉你在哪里投资以实现长期增长，或者如果你现在需要现金流，哪些来源是最好的。它们还会告诉你如何在当前和未来之间战略性地平衡你的活动——但前提是你要进行分析。
KNOW YOUR BUSINESS'S SYSTEM, SO YOU CAN CONVERT AND MAINTAIN CLIENTS 了解您业务的系统，以便您能够转化和维护客户
We’ve talked about strategizing and analyzing; that leaves us with the final way to counteract unpredictable sales volume. None of this is possible unless you get your hands around what you’re doing. And what you’re doing means knowing what game you’re playing long term. In other words, you need to know your system. 我们已经讨论了战略规划和分析；这让我们剩下最后一种应对不可预测销售量的方法。所有这些都不可能，除非你掌握你正在做的事情。而你正在做的事情意味着要了解你长期在玩什么游戏。换句话说，你需要了解你的系统。
For most businesses, the long-term game should be targeting access to the best-quality clientele, which in turns leads to making the easiest proposition to get them to start a relationship with you right away. It can be a compensative relationship in which a transaction is made, or it can be a courting relationship whereby the prospect receives initial information or free goods, all geared to prep her for the imminent first sale. 对于大多数企业来说，长期目标应该是争取获得最佳质量的客户，这反过来又使得与他们建立关系的提议变得更加容易。这可以是一个互惠的关系，其中进行了一笔交易，或者可以是一个交往关系，在这种关系中，潜在客户会收到初步信息或免费商品，所有这些都是为了为即将到来的首次销售做好准备。
Your goal is then to convert that to the first-time sale. Usually, but not always, your first-time sale (or smaller-sized initial transaction) might be priced less because it’s easier to move first-time buyers up over time-to more significant products or product-services combinations-down the road, once you’ve established a bonded/trusted relationship. Once you’ve moved them forward and upward, you want to keep doing it over and over again. 你的目标是将其转化为首次销售。通常，但并不总是，你的首次销售（或较小规模的初始交易）可能定价较低，因为随着时间的推移，更容易将首次购买者转移到更重要的产品或产品服务组合上，一旦你建立了信任关系。一旦你将他们向前和向上推进，你就想不断重复这个过程。
Keep in mind that the hardest part of client relationships is bringing in buyers for the first time. It’s far easier to sell to them a second time than it was at first, if you have strategic control of the selling situation. Either it controls you, or you control it. Unfortunately, in 95 percent of the cases, the latter occurs. Don’t let that happen to your business! 请记住，客户关系中最困难的部分是首次吸引买家。与第一次相比，第二次销售要容易得多，前提是你对销售情况有战略控制。要么它控制你，要么你控制它。不幸的是，在 95%的情况下，后者发生了。不要让这种情况发生在你的业务上！
You need a dynamic system to convert and maintain clients, and your old one probably won’t do. The secondbiggest mistake made by small- to medium-sized businessesafter failing to be strategic, analytical, and systemic-is to 您需要一个动态系统来转换和维护客户，而您旧的系统可能无法做到。小型和中型企业在未能具备战略性、分析性和系统性之后犯的第二大错误是
apply a one-size-fits-all approach to their client base and economic business growth model. 对他们的客户群和经济业务增长模型采取一刀切的方法。
You can’t afford to make that mistake. Some prospects merit less time or attention than others. The Pareto Principle (sometimes also referred to as the 80-20 Rule or the Rule of the Vital Few) states that 20 percent of your client base will be worth 80 percent of your profits, and 20 percent of your client base will be the cause of 80 percent of your headaches. Clearly, the 20 percent of your clients who are worth 80 percent of your profits deserve far more time and attention (and financial investment) than the flagging 80 percent of your clients who produce only 20 percent of your profits. 你不能犯那个错误。有些潜在客户比其他客户更值得花费时间或关注。帕累托原则（有时也称为 80-20 法则或重要少数法则）指出，20%的客户群将带来 80%的利润，而 20%的客户群将导致 80%的麻烦。显然，那 20%带来 80%利润的客户比那 80%仅产生 20%利润的客户更值得花费更多的时间和关注（以及财务投资）。
But you can’t focus on your best 20 percent if you don’t know who they are. And you won’t find them if you don’t know how to analyze and correlate what the data are showing. Analyzing and systemizing go hand in hand; you can’t have one without the other. 但如果你不知道谁是你最优秀的 20%，你就无法专注于他们。如果你不知道如何分析和关联数据所显示的内容，你就找不到他们。分析和系统化是密不可分的；你不能只拥有其中一个。
There are a lot of procedures that can help you with data analysis, but to start, look at your buyer base. Locate your prospect base. Ask yourself what you know about the cost of a prospect based on its source. Because rarely are two different prospects worth the same amount. A referral, for example, is the result of an established relationship with one of your best current clients, and therefore will likely be far more valuable than a prospect who comes in blind from the Yellow Pages or a newspaper ad. However, that can vary based on the company and business you’re in. It’s up to you to analyze your data, discover the cost and worth of each of your different prospects and clients, and then engineer a system that maximizes the long-term value of whatever you’ve learned. 有很多程序可以帮助你进行数据分析，但首先要看看你的买家基础。定位你的潜在客户基础。问问自己，你对潜在客户的成本了解多少，基于其来源。因为很少有两个不同的潜在客户价值相同。例如，推荐是与您最好的现有客户之一建立关系的结果，因此可能比从黄页或报纸广告中盲目获得的潜在客户更有价值。然而，这可能会根据您所在的公司和行业而有所不同。分析您的数据，发现每个不同潜在客户和客户的成本和价值，然后设计一个系统，以最大化您所学到的长期价值，这完全取决于您。
Ask yourself what you know about categories of leads, how they convert, and what different products/services they convert for. Usually there will be a predictable correlation to 问问自己你对潜在客户的类别、他们如何转化以及他们为哪些不同的产品/服务转化了解多少。通常会有一个可预测的相关性。
the lion’s share of transactions and profits. Try to retroactively analyze the origin of your clients, then project conservatively 大部分交易和利润。尝试追溯性地分析客户的来源，然后保守地进行预测。
■ what specifically they will most likely buy in the future, ■ 他们未来最有可能购买的具体内容，
how often they will buy, 他们会多频繁购买，
and how long they will continue to buy. 他们会继续购买多久。
Knowing those three details will help you analyze each client’s short- and long-term worth to you, and, by extension, which categories are worth more than others. Let’s look at an example. 了解这三个细节将帮助您分析每个客户对您的短期和长期价值，以及由此推断出哪些类别比其他类别更有价值。让我们看一个例子。
Suppose you have a mail-order company, and your tool buyers tend to be repeat buyers, whereas buyers of faddish yet more expensive electronics tend to be one-time shoppers. 假设你有一家邮购公司，而你的工具买家往往是回头客，而购买时尚但更昂贵电子产品的买家则往往是一次性购物者。
Even though the electronic fad buyer is worth more initially, the tool buyer is more profitable to you over time. That’s not to say that you want to drop the former; it might be good to have some of these fad buyers in your strategy to momentarily stimulate positive, short-term cash flow while you’re building the other long-term, back-end categories of business-the predictable repeat buyers. 尽管电子潮流买家最初的价值更高，但工具买家在长期内对你更有利可图。这并不是说你想放弃前者；在你建立其他长期的、后端的业务类别——可预测的重复买家时，拥有一些这些潮流买家可能会对短期内刺激积极的现金流有好处。
Similarly, when I was in the subscription-based newsletter and magazine business, my associates and I had formulas that could predict with reasonable accuracy (based on the people who came in from a different type of promotion) what our cash flow would be for the next two years if we kept up the same performance dynamic. There was a historic knowledge of what renewals and ancillary products/sales were worth and for how long. We had been doing the same business for so long that the connected dots were easy to see and project out. I call this “making the money connection.” 同样，当我在基于订阅的新闻通讯和杂志业务时，我的同事和我有一些公式，可以合理准确地预测（基于来自不同类型促销的人）如果我们保持相同的业绩动态，未来两年的现金流会是多少。我们对续订和附加产品/销售的价值及其持续时间有着历史性的了解。我们已经做了这么长时间的生意，以至于连接的点很容易看出并进行预测。我称之为“建立金钱联系”。
Sometimes that first sale will open up a host of new opportunities in ways much different than you imagined. It might even forge a relationship that can be used for leveraging. Here’s another example. 有时候，第一次销售会以你想象的截然不同的方式开启一系列新的机会。它甚至可能建立一种可以用于杠杆的关系。这里还有另一个例子。
A few years ago, one of my clients published a magazine that was Number 3 in the travel market. The magazine sold ad space for $10,000\$ 10,000 a pop, and that space cost the magazine only $1,000\$ 1,000. But because nobody was buying the ads, the magazine was struggling. I went in to analyze my client’s data and to look at the available options. Not surprisingly, the magazine was suffering because it didn’t have a long-term strategy; it hadn’t come up with a systemic way of dealing with the unpredictable nature of selling ads. 几年前，我的一位客户出版了一本在旅游市场上排名第三的杂志。该杂志的广告位售价为 $10,000\$ 10,000 ，而这些广告位的成本仅为 $1,000\$ 1,000 。但由于没有人购买广告，该杂志面临困境。我介入分析了我客户的数据，并查看了可用的选项。不出所料，这本杂志之所以遭遇困境，是因为它没有长期战略；它没有找到一种系统的方法来应对广告销售的不可预测性。
As it turned out, several people had offered to barter for ad space. But the magazine’s execs didn’t know what to do with barters, so they never took trades - or, rather, never took trades until I got there. By creating a system that would allow for barter, my associates and I were able to convert those ads to cash at 50$50 \$ on the dollar, which was five times what their cost was. It was a nonlinear way to turn the ad pages into a monster profit center. (Chapter 6 covers bartering in more detail.) 事实证明，几个人曾提出以物易物来交换广告位。但杂志的高管们不知道如何处理以物易物，因此他们从未进行交易——或者说，直到我到达之前，他们从未进行交易。通过创建一个允许以物易物的系统，我和我的同事们能够以每美元 50$50 \$ 的价格将这些广告转换为现金，这比它们的成本高出五倍。这是一种非线性的方法，将广告页面转变为一个巨大的利润中心。（第六章更详细地讨论了以物易物。）
Think of linear as the status quo. For example, if I’m in the advertising business and I sell advertising and get paid for it, that’s what I call linear. This magazine had been doing things linearly, but it wasn’t selling enough ads and its selling was highly erratic. So we looked at a nonlinear solution, which in this case happened to be bartering. And suddenly, the magazine was able to trade ad space for goods or services worth $10,000\$ 10,000 a page. We had no trouble finding individuals and companies who were happy to pay 50‡50 \ddagger on the dollar-after all, this was the Number 3 magazine in the travel market. Meanwhile, the ad page cost the company only $1\$ 1 on the dollar. Previously, it wasn’t selling many ads at $10\$ 10 on the dollar and was going negative. Yet now it was getting $5,000\$ 5,000 cash for $10,000\$ 10,000 pages, all day long. 把线性视为现状。例如，如果我在广告行业，出售广告并因此获得报酬，这就是我所称的线性。这本杂志一直在以线性方式运作，但广告销售不足，销售情况非常不稳定。因此，我们考虑了一个非线性解决方案，在这种情况下恰好是以物易物。突然间，这本杂志能够以价值 $10,000\$ 10,000 的商品或服务交换广告位。我们很容易找到愿意以 50‡50 \ddagger 的价格支付的个人和公司——毕竟，这是旅游市场的第三大杂志。与此同时，广告页面对公司来说只花费 $1\$ 1 。之前，它以 $10\$ 10 的价格销售广告不多，且处于亏损状态。然而现在，它每天都能为 $10,000\$ 10,000 页获得 $5,000\$ 5,000 现金。
Also, this magazine happened to be a quarterly. This meant that when and if it did sell advertising, the client would buy it, wait until it came out three months later, and then typically wait another sixty days to pay for it. So when 此外，这本杂志恰好是季刊。这意味着当它确实出售广告时，客户会购买它，等到三个月后出版，然后通常再等六十天才付款。所以当
the magazine started trading for ad space, it would get cash for the ad five months earlier. It was a win-win situation all around-and all it took was a little systematic thinking. 杂志开始出售广告位时，可以提前五个月获得广告费用。这是一个双赢的局面——而这一切只需要一点系统性的思考。
IT'S ALL IN THE NUMBERS:
KNOW WHERE YOUR HIGHEST REVENUE COMES FROM 一切都在数字中：了解您的最高收入来自哪里
If you truly want to get unstuck and improve not just a little but exponentially, you can’t do it just with luck. The easiest way to ensure positive, profitable forward movement amidst an uncertain environment is to let the power of science and mathematics work together to your advantage. It’s all in the numbers. Strategy and quantification will help you develop theories from your data. And testing involves taking these interpretive assumptions and trying them out empirically in the marketplace. Here’s an example. 如果你真的想要摆脱困境，并不仅仅是稍微改善，而是指数级地提升，你不能仅靠运气。确保在不确定环境中实现积极、盈利的前进的最简单方法是让科学和数学的力量共同为你服务。这一切都在于数字。战略和量化将帮助你从数据中发展理论。而测试则涉及将这些解释性假设在市场中进行实证尝试。这里有一个例子。
A few years ago, I worked with a small company in Texas that provided heating/air conditioning services. The owners and I did a thorough analysis of its metrics and determined that the majority of its business was driven by people who hired the company to come out and simply check up on their equipment. Out of every 100 furnaces or air conditioning units, it turned out that 80 needed work done-a solid 80 percent. 几年前，我与一家位于德克萨斯州的小公司合作，该公司提供供暖/空调服务。业主和我对其指标进行了彻底分析，确定大多数业务是由雇佣该公司来检查设备的人推动的。在每 100 台炉子或空调中，结果显示有 80 台需要维修——高达 80%。
This company, however, had never assessed its numbers in a strategic way. Once the owners consciously confronted the statistics, they recognized a gold mine of opportunity. I worked with them to create a new service that we called a “tune-up and seasonal readiness package” and offered it twice yearly, once in winter and once in summer, for only $19. The company lost $10\$ 10 to $15\$ 15 on that deal because it paid the technician $30\$ 30, but on the backend it made an average of $800\$ 800 per call. 然而，这家公司从未以战略性的方式评估过其数字。一旦业主们有意识地面对这些统计数据，他们意识到这是一个机会的金矿。我与他们合作创建了一项新服务，我们称之为“调试和季节准备套餐”，每年提供两次，一次在冬季，一次在夏季，仅需 19 美元。由于支付给技术人员 $30\$ 30 ，公司在这笔交易中损失了 $10\$ 10 到 $15\$ 15 ，但在后端每次电话平均赚取 $800\$ 800 。
With this new strategy in place, the company offered its seasonal package twice a year, and that package spawned almost all of the company’s business. This company had moved from the realm of guesswork and uncertainty 在实施这一新策略后，公司每年提供两次季节性套餐，而该套餐几乎产生了公司所有的业务。该公司已经从猜测和不确定的领域转变。
to a strategic position where it was making lucrative sales on a regular basis - all because we’d taken time to go over the numbers. 到一个战略位置，在那里它定期进行有利可图的销售——这一切都是因为我们花时间仔细研究了数据。
There’s another valid lesson in this story: Sometimes you have to start small and move up. The $19\$ 19 readiness package described above was a great idea; the company owners found that it was much easier to initially pitch a $19\$ 19 tune-up than $800\$ 800 worth of repair work that would need to be done down the road. Here’s how that lesson applies to another businessthe bicycle business I mentioned earlier, which discovered that it was selling lots of bikes to doctors. 这个故事中还有一个有效的教训：有时候你必须从小做起，然后逐步提升。上面描述的 $19\$ 19 准备包是个好主意；公司老板发现，最初推销 $19\$ 19 调整比将来需要进行的 $800\$ 800 修理工作要容易得多。这个教训如何适用于另一个业务——我之前提到的自行车业务，它发现自己向医生销售了很多自行车。
Suppose you’re the owner of this bicycle business, and you want to target doctors for your new super-ergonomic racing bicycles, because a large number of doctors have already purchased a large percentage of your stock. The ergonomic bike sells for $6,000\$ 6,000. It’s possible that trying to sell that bike out of the gate is too high a sales hurdle, even when you’re selling to doctors. So you decide to start off with a promotion for a lesser-priced, yet still hip, bike that’s congruent with the ergonomic theme, then try to move the buyers up once the bikes are in the store, using the strategy of preeminence we explored in Chapter 2. 假设您是这家自行车公司的老板，您想针对医生推广您的新超级人体工学赛车自行车，因为大量医生已经购买了您库存的大部分。人体工学自行车的售价为 $6,000\$ 6,000 。即使您是向医生销售，直接销售这款自行车的销售门槛可能也太高。因此，您决定先推出一款价格较低但仍然时尚的自行车，这款自行车与人体工学主题相符，然后在自行车到店后，利用我们在第二章中探讨的卓越策略，尝试将买家引导到更高价位的产品。
As the doctor stands eyeing the lesser-priced model, you say: “You’re obviously a serious road-bike aficionado. And this is a great bike for most people, but frankly, I think you should look at our super-colossal ergonomic model, because we sell more of those to doctors such as yourself than to anyone else in town. Take a test-ride around the block and see the difference for yourself. Oh, and we have a great financing package.” 当医生盯着价格较低的型号时，你说：“你显然是一个认真对待公路自行车的爱好者。这对大多数人来说是一辆很棒的自行车，但坦率地说，我认为你应该看看我们的超级巨型人体工程学型号，因为我们卖给像你这样的医生的数量比城里其他人都要多。绕着街区试骑一下，亲自感受一下差异。哦，我们还有一个很好的融资方案。”
In reality, you should test both strategies - both marketing the high-end bicycles up front and starting with the lower-end model to graduate the sale, because there’s no way of knowing for certain what the market will best respond to. Either it’ll work or it won’t. Or perhaps it will work better than the way you’ve been doing it, or work less well. Very rarely will these two options have the same effect. If it works less well, then you’re most likely wrong in your assumptions. If it works better, it means you should probably replace 实际上，您应该测试这两种策略——既要前期营销高端自行车，也要从低端型号开始逐步销售，因为没有办法确切知道市场会对哪种方式反应最好。要么有效，要么无效。或者它可能比您一直以来的做法更有效，或者效果更差。这两种选择很少会产生相同的效果。如果效果较差，那么您很可能在假设上是错误的。如果效果更好，这意味着您可能应该替换。
your old process with the newly tested one. Either way, you’ll know quickly and definitively which action to take for maximum results. 将您旧的流程与新测试的流程进行比较。无论哪种方式，您都将迅速而明确地知道采取哪种行动以获得最佳结果。
But if that happens, don’t stop there. Your goal is to keep testing, then uncovering bigger and better performing systems and strategies based on “following the evidence” (or data, in this case), as Gil Grissom says on CSI. 但如果发生那种情况，不要止步于此。你的目标是继续测试，然后根据“遵循证据”（在这种情况下是数据）发现更大更好的系统和策略，正如吉尔·格里森在《犯罪现场调查》中所说。
That’s what I mean by being strategic. It means moving from the attitude of “getting through the month” and then having to start all over again, from zero, on the first of the next month. There’s already enough uncertainty in the surrounding world-it doesn’t have to define your business volume as well. Be proactive about finding ways to garner steady sales, even when times are tenuous. Recall our earlier examples: Colonial Penn creating AARP to exponentially increase its sales; the travel magazine figuring out how to barter for ad space; the initiative launched to sell ergonomic bicycles to doctors who just love to ride. The recommendation implicit in all three is that you should move toward an approach that smooths out your erratic business volume and instead gives you long-term certainty about the profitability of your business-while also building the confidence you need to take your business to the next level and beyond. With a predictable, sustainable revenuegenerating system in place, you can be certain that profits and clients will flow to your business for years to come. 这就是我所说的战略性。这意味着要从“熬过这个月”的心态转变过来，然后在下个月的第一天重新开始，从零开始。周围的世界已经有足够的不确定性——这不必也定义你的业务量。要主动寻找方法来获得稳定的销售，即使在艰难时期。回想我们之前的例子：Colonial Penn 创建 AARP 以指数级增加其销售；旅行杂志想出如何以物易物来换取广告空间；发起的倡议是向热爱骑行的医生销售符合人体工程学的自行车。这三者隐含的建议是，你应该朝着一种平滑不稳定业务量的方法前进，而不是让它影响你对业务盈利能力的长期确定性——同时也建立你所需的信心，以将你的业务提升到下一个层次及更高。通过建立一个可预测、可持续的收入生成系统，你可以确信，利润和客户将在未来几年流入你的业务。
Now it’s time to take our discussion on strategizing to the next level, too. 现在是时候将我们的战略讨论提升到一个新的水平了。
The Bottom Line 底线
To smooth out your erratic business volume, you have to start acting strategically, analytically, and systematically. 为了平滑不稳定的业务量，您必须开始采取战略性、分析性和系统性的行动。
Take only those actions that always advance and enhance your long-term strategy of attracting prospects, converting them to clients, and creating a lasting, repeat-buying relationship with them. 仅采取那些始终推进和增强您长期战略的行动，以吸引潜在客户，将他们转化为客户，并与他们建立持久的重复购买关系。
The most important step in strategizing is to ask yourself: What kind of people or businesses do you want your business to attract, and why? Do marketplace research to answer this question. 制定战略中最重要的一步是问自己：你希望你的业务吸引什么样的人或企业，为什么？进行市场调研以回答这个问题。
Analyze your past and current actions. Quantification analysis is the only way to determine how to invest with the optimal longterm, financial, and strategic business return in mind. 分析你过去和现在的行动。量化分析是确定如何以最佳的长期、财务和战略业务回报进行投资的唯一方法。
Twenty percent of your clients are worth 80 percent of your profits. Find out who they are and what they want-then give it to them. 你客户的 20%带来了 80%的利润。找出他们是谁以及他们想要什么，然后满足他们。
Create a system for converting and maintaining clients. Constantly return to analyzing so as to test and perfect your system. 创建一个客户转换和维护的系统。不断回到分析，以测试和完善你的系统。
Immediate Action Step Take out a sheet of paper and define your ideal client or prospect by answering these questions: 立即行动步骤 拿出一张纸，通过回答以下问题来定义您的理想客户或潜在客户：
What problem does your ideal client have that you can solve effectively and profitably? 您的理想客户面临什么问题是您可以有效且有利可图地解决的？
What kind of individual or company is your ideal client? Where is it located, how big is it, and why do you enjoy serving it? 您理想的客户是什么样的个人或公司？它位于哪里，规模有多大，您为什么喜欢为其服务？
It’s a little like making a list of the characteristics you seek in a spouse or partner! By committing these thoughts to paper, you attract (to use the buzzword of the day) 这有点像列出你在配偶或伴侣身上寻找的特征清单！通过将这些想法写下来，你吸引（用今天的流行词来说）
these people or companies to you-and you stop chasing revenue sources that don’t make your business stronger (such as people who will nickel-and-dime you, but you go after them anyway because they’re waving a credit card at you). 这些人或公司对你来说——你停止追逐那些不会让你的业务更强大的收入来源（例如那些会让你斤斤计较的人，但你还是去追求他们，因为他们在向你挥舞信用卡）。
Keep this definition of your ideal client where everyone in your organization can see it every day. 将您理想客户的定义放在您组织中每个人每天都能看到的地方。
5
ARE YOU STUCK FAILING TO STRATEGIZE? 你是否陷入了无法制定战略的困境？
If the typical businessperson were to keep a diary for one month of all her business activities, she would likely discover up to 80 percent of those activities to be nonproductive and diversionary. Most businesspeople fail to focus on managing, strategizing, and working on higher-performing, constantgrowth issues. They just keep on spending time, money, and human capital the way they’ve always spent it, and they achieve the expected plateau-causing results. But other businesspeople are strategic; here’s an example. 如果典型的商人记录一个月的所有商业活动，她可能会发现多达 80%的活动是无效和分散注意力的。大多数商人未能专注于管理、制定战略和处理更高效、持续增长的问题。他们只是继续以往的方式花费时间、金钱和人力资本，最终得到预期的停滞不前的结果。但其他商人是有战略眼光的；这里有一个例子。
One of my former clients, “Sam,” owned a medical delivery service, and each morning, Sam’s deliverymen would rush to pick up blood and vital organs for transplants, then hurry their precious cargo to doctors in various medical labs and hospitals around the city. Because they were delivering blood and other perishable items, time was of the essence. On the way back from these deliveries, however, the trucks were deadheaded: Half the time the vehicles were on the road, they were empty, and they weren’t making any profit. As a result, the business overall was only marginally profitable. 我以前的一个客户“山姆”拥有一家医疗配送服务，每天早上，山姆的送货员会急忙去取血液和重要器官进行移植，然后将这些珍贵的货物迅速送到城市各个医疗实验室和医院的医生手中。由于他们配送的是血液和其他易腐物品，时间至关重要。然而，在这些配送的回程中，卡车是空驶的：车辆在路上的一半时间是空的，根本没有盈利。因此，整体业务的利润仅微乎其微。
Until one day when all that changed. Why? Because Sam started strategizing. 直到有一天，一切都改变了。为什么？因为萨姆开始制定战略。
Sam came up with a brilliant plan: He realized that he could pick up deliveries that were not time-critical on the way back from deliveries that were. Because this strategy required leveraging, Sam approached other people to launch his plan into action. One of the businesses he approached was a small-package delivery service that was struggling to pay staff and processing fees. 萨姆想出了一个绝妙的计划：他意识到他可以在从时间紧迫的送货回来的路上顺便取走那些不那么紧急的送货。因为这个策略需要利用资源，萨姆找其他人合作以启动他的计划。他接触的其中一个企业是一家正在努力支付员工和处理费用的小包裹快递服务。
Sam made the owner of this business a simple proposition. “What if I give you the opportunity to eliminate all of your staff and processing fees,” he said, “and split revenue with me instead? Your deliveries will be guaranteed in four hours-probably much less.” Not surprisingly, the business owner, who dealt in noncritical deliveries, jumped at the deal. 萨姆给这家企业的老板提出了一个简单的提议。“如果我给你机会消除所有员工和处理费用，”他说，“然后和我分成呢？你的交付将在四小时内保证——可能更少。”毫不奇怪，处理非关键交付的企业老板立刻接受了这个交易。
With this new strategy in place, all of the deliveries Sam’s employees made on the journey back earned a profit. Thus he was able to double his profits with no further investment, turning his marginal delivery service into a lucrative business. And he helped out the other company, too. 在实施这一新策略后，Sam 的员工在回程中所做的所有交付都获得了利润。因此，他能够在没有进一步投资的情况下将利润翻倍，将他的边际快递服务转变为一个盈利的业务。他也帮助了其他公司。
If you’re failing to strategize, you’re probably using your time in the wrong ways. Just as Sam’s delivery trucks were empty and deadheaded half the time, you, too, may be harnessing your time and resources ineffectively 50 or more percent of the time. In this chapter, I’ll show you the secret to managing your time and talents. It begins with what I like to call the “highest and best use” concept, a theory of true time management. 如果你未能制定战略，你可能在错误的方式上浪费时间。正如萨姆的送货卡车一半时间都是空车返回一样，你也可能在 50%以上的时间里低效地利用你的时间和资源。在本章中，我将向你展示管理时间和才能的秘密。它始于我所称的“最高和最佳利用”概念，这是一种真正的时间管理理论。
Most businesspeople fail to view time expenditure the same way they view all other expenditures in their lives-even though time is one of the three most precious, intangible assets they possess. (The other two are energy and opportunity costs.) Indeed, they waste time on unimportant things when they could be investing it in their strategy. As a result, they miss out on valuable opportunities to grow and expand their business. Most people just don’t make the highest and best use of what they’ve got. Fortunately, you no longer have to count yourself among their ranks. 大多数商界人士未能以与生活中其他支出相同的方式看待时间支出——尽管时间是他们拥有的三种最珍贵、无形资产之一。（另外两种是精力和机会成本。）事实上，他们在不重要的事情上浪费时间，而本可以将其投资于他们的战略。因此，他们错过了宝贵的机会来发展和扩展他们的业务。大多数人只是没有充分利用他们所拥有的。幸运的是，你不再需要把自己算作他们中的一员。
Everybody knows at least one highly productive person, someone for whom there seems to be more than twenty-four hours in a day. This person is ten times more productive than her competitor because she understands the concept of highest and best use. It’s a rather simple-yet inarguable-concept: Use your time to produce the greatest strategic, long-term payoff. It’s that simple. 每个人至少都认识一个高效能的人，这个人似乎一天有超过二十四小时。这个人的生产力是她竞争对手的十倍，因为她理解最高效用的概念。这是一个相当简单但无可争辩的概念：利用你的时间来产生最大的战略性、长期收益。就是这么简单。
So, let’s talk about how to optimize the highest and best use not just of your time but also of your relationships, opportunities, activities, and expenses. 那么，让我们来谈谈如何优化你时间、关系、机会、活动和开支的最高和最佳利用。
THE SECRET OF THE HIGHEST AND BEST USE OF YOUR TIME AND TALENTS 你时间和才能的最高和最佳利用的秘密
The concept of highest and best use is deceptively easy. Just use your time and your talents to the maximum potential-simple, right? 最高和最佳使用的概念看似简单。只需将你的时间和才能发挥到最大潜力——简单，对吧？
And yet, most of the business world fails to do it. If you’re not practicing the concept of highest and best use, you’re sacrificing your potential, your profits, and your future. For starters, most people don’t have a clue as to which items on their to-do list actually qualify as “highest” and “best.” If you’re thinking to yourself, “Hmmm. I’m not sure I do, either,” you might be working at a third or less of your capacity, because you’re spending time on tasks that are far less important or result in much smaller payoff than those you could be doing. That’s a lot of efficiency you can’t stand to lose! 然而，大多数商业界的人都没有做到这一点。如果你不实践最高和最佳使用的概念，你就牺牲了你的潜力、利润和未来。首先，大多数人对他们的待办事项清单上哪些项目实际上符合“最高”和“最佳”没有任何头绪。如果你心里想：“嗯，我也不确定我是否知道，”你可能只在以三分之一或更少的能力工作，因为你花时间在那些远不如你可以做的任务上，这些任务的重要性要小得多，回报也要小得多。这是你无法承受失去的效率！
Let’s try an exercise right now that will help you identify your “highest” and “best.” Start by writing down the three most critical tasks you’re paid by your business to do. Then break those three tasks down into sub-tasks, for which there are usually as many as seven. Finally, give each of those subtasks three different values based on their relevancy, your competency, and your true passion for doing them. 现在让我们进行一个练习，帮助你识别你的“最高”和“最佳”。首先写下你所在的企业支付你做的三项最关键的任务。然后将这三项任务分解为子任务，通常可以有多达七个。最后，根据相关性、你的能力和你对完成这些任务的真正热情，为每个子任务赋予三个不同的价值。
Now it’s time to review what you’ve come up with. If the task is not relevant but you’re competent at it, it’s a waste of your time. If your competency in a particular task is less than average, then you’re not the most efficient person for the job, which means it’s a huge expenditure of energy and, again, a waste of your time. For example, why should you review every employee’s time card if doing so eats up half your day? My point is not that the time cards shouldn’t be reviewed but, rather, that you shouldn’t be the one reviewing them. Get someone else to do this task, then spot-check or audit his or her work. 现在是时候回顾你所想出的内容了。如果这个任务与你无关，但你对此很有能力，那就是在浪费你的时间。如果你在某个特定任务上的能力低于平均水平，那么你就不是这个工作的最高效人选，这意味着这会消耗大量精力，再次浪费你的时间。例如，如果审查每个员工的时间卡占用了你一整天的一半，为什么你还要去做呢？我的意思不是说时间卡不应该被审查，而是你不应该是审查它们的人。让其他人来做这个任务，然后对他或她的工作进行抽查或审计。
What this exercise will help you do is determine which tasks you should permanently remove from your to-do list, so that you can put yourself into the power position that brings the greatest yield. Whatever your tasks and subtasks may be, it’s imperative that you work on the tasks that are most important for you. Here’s the bottom line: 这个练习将帮助你确定哪些任务应该从你的待办事项列表中永久删除，以便你能够将自己置于带来最大收益的权力位置。无论你的任务和子任务是什么，专注于对你最重要的任务是至关重要的。底线是：
Anything that isn't relevant, that you're not competent in, or that you're not completely passionate about should be delegated to somebody else. 任何不相关的、你不擅长的或你不完全热衷的事情都应该委托给其他人。
This is true even if it means you need ten people doing the same job 80 percent as well as you. That still amounts to eight times greater efficiency and results than would be the case if you did 100 percent of the job yourself. It frees you up to focus your most precious assets-your time, energy, and opportunity costs-on the things that matter most and that deliver the most meaningful ongoing results. 即使这意味着你需要十个人以 80%的效率完成与你相同的工作，这也是事实。这样仍然比你自己 100%完成工作的情况效率和结果高出八倍。它让你能够将你最宝贵的资产——时间、精力和机会成本，集中在最重要的事情上，并带来最有意义的持续结果。
The Fine Art of Delegation 委派的艺术
So let’s assume you’ve come up with a list of tasks, a few of which could easily stand to be nixed from your to-do list. But they have to be done by someone, right? That brings us to our next point of discussion: delegation. 所以我们假设你已经列出了一份任务清单，其中有一些任务可以轻松地从你的待办事项中删除。但这些任务必须由某人来完成，对吧？这就引出了我们下一个讨论点：委派。
The best way to delegate is to give what you consider work to people who think it’s play. A task that makes you cringe may be just the sort of job someone else looks forward to most. It sounds crazy, I know-but it works. Let’s look at an example. 最佳的委派方式是将你认为是工作的事情交给那些认为这是游戏的人。让你感到不适的任务可能正是别人最期待的工作。我知道这听起来很疯狂，但它有效。让我们来看一个例子。
Suppose one of your least favorite activities is talking on the phone. Cold-calling prospects is a dreaded task for you, but one that nonetheless needs to be completed. What do you do? You find someone who has no problem talking to strangers and who spends so much time on the phone, you’d think it was glued to his ear. To him, there are much worse tasks he could be given than picking up the phone and chatting up someone new. He loves the challenge! So while your new salesperson is busy knocking names off his prospect list, you can focus on a job for which you have true competency, relevancy, and passion. 假设你最不喜欢的活动之一是打电话。对你来说，冷拨潜在客户是一项令人畏惧的任务，但这项任务仍然需要完成。你会怎么做？你找到一个与陌生人交谈毫无问题的人，他花在电话上的时间多到让你觉得电话是粘在他耳朵上的。对他来说，还有比接电话和与新朋友聊天更糟糕的任务。他喜欢这个挑战！所以，当你新的销售人员忙着从他的潜在客户名单上划掉名字时，你可以专注于你真正擅长、相关并充满热情的工作。
In my own business, I have an intern-we pay him, but he’s not as expensive as a full-time employee - who handles the trivial tasks that would otherwise devour my time. He waits in line to purchase my iPhone, then he sets it up. He researches the best hands-free earpiece and then buys it. And he actually enjoys these tasks. If I were to do them myself, they’d eat up three hours of my day-three hours away from my time spent focusing on highest and best use, which is making people like you a lot more money. Ask yourself: What is your time currently worth? What do you want it to be worth? 在我自己的生意中，我有一个实习生——我们给他付钱，但他的费用没有全职员工那么高——他处理那些如果由我来做会占用我大量时间的琐事。他排队购买我的 iPhone，然后设置它。他研究最好的免提耳机，然后购买它。而且他实际上很享受这些任务。如果我自己去做这些事情，它们会占用我一天三个小时——这三个小时让我无法专注于最高效和最有价值的工作，也就是让像你这样的人赚更多的钱。问问自己：你现在的时间值多少钱？你希望它值多少钱？
Here’s another example: 这是另一个例子：
A few years back, I was in the United Kingdom at a conference attended by some of the most prominent members of the business community, including one businessman who was in The Guinness Book of World Records for selling the most merchandise per square foot in Europe. Upon learning that every executive on this businessman’s staff was chauffeured around in luxury automobiles, one of the other attendees accused him of being arrogant and materialistic for indulging in such an extravagance. 几年前，我在英国参加一个会议，会议上有一些商界最杰出的人士，包括一位因在欧洲每平方英尺销售最多商品而入选《吉尼斯世界纪录》的商人。当得知这位商人的每位高管都乘坐豪华汽车时，其他与会者之一指责他沉迷于这种奢侈，显得傲慢和物质主义。
The businessman didn’t flinch. “Is your time,” he asked the man, “worth more than seven pounds an hour? I know that for me, my commute time is 这位商人没有退缩。“你的时间，”他问那个人，“值不值得每小时七英镑？我知道对我来说，我的通勤时间是
better spent focusing and strategizing rather than concentrating on traffic lights and avoiding pedestrians. I’m not really paying seven pounds to be driven to work. I’m paying seven pounds to claim two priceless hours of my life back, two hours each day, which l’ll use to expand my business many times over. I don’t see those seven pounds as an expense; I see them as an investment, paying Herculean returns. It’s impossible to fathom their value.” 更好地花时间专注和制定战略，而不是集中注意力在红绿灯和避开行人上。我并不是真的花七镑让人送我上班。我花七镑是为了找回我生命中两小时的无价时光，每天两小时，我将用来多次扩展我的业务。我并不把这七镑视为开支；我把它们视为投资，带来巨大的回报。很难想象它们的价值。
When I make this argument to my own clients, many of them tell me, “But, Jay, I can’t afford to do that.” To which I reply, “Wrong. You can’t afford not to.” 当我向自己的客户提出这个观点时，许多人告诉我：“但是，杰伊，我负担不起这样做。”对此我回答：“错了。你负担不起不这样做。”
If you don’t have the money to hire assistants the traditional way, you can employ the concept of leveraging that we explored briefly in Chapter 3 and will look at in depth in Chapter 10. When you bring leveraging into the equation, you create exponential options and opportunities. Let’s consider the example of an administrative assistant. 如果你没有钱以传统方式雇佣助手，你可以运用我们在第三章简要探讨过的杠杆概念，并将在第十章深入研究。当你将杠杆引入方程时，你会创造出指数级的选择和机会。让我们考虑一个行政助理的例子。
Every major city in the world is brimming with underutilized administrative assistants-those on maternity leave, those who have retired, and, of course, those who aren’t working full-time or at all at the moment. Even if you can’t pay them with a traditional paycheck, you have many options. You can compensate them through a deferred salary that is quantifiable based on the company’s productivity that they helped you achieve. For example, as the company makes 10 percent more in profits, each of these employees receives a defined percentage of that amount or a pre-set bonus. 世界上每个主要城市都充满了未充分利用的行政助理——那些正在休产假的、那些已经退休的，当然，还有那些目前没有全职工作或根本没有工作的。即使你无法通过传统的薪水支付他们，你也有很多选择。你可以通过一种基于他们帮助你实现的公司生产力的可量化的递延薪水来补偿他们。例如，随着公司利润增加 10%，每位员工将获得该金额的一定百分比或预设奖金。
Alternatively, you can offer to pay them only after the business makes a specified minimum benchmark amount more, at which point they receive a regular salary, plus a bonus. Yet another way is to tie their compensation to a quantifiable measurement such as a reduction in overhead expenses or an increase in sales. Or do it the old-fashioned way: by bartering or trading. The number of ways you can compensate these administrative assistants when your business doesn’t have the 另外，您可以提议在业务达到指定的最低基准金额后再支付他们，这时他们将获得固定工资和奖金。还有另一种方法是将他们的薪酬与可量化的指标挂钩，例如减少间接费用或增加销售额。或者采用传统的方式：以物易物或交易。当您的业务没有足够的资金时，您可以补偿这些行政助理的方式有很多。
cash to pay them a traditional wage is limited only by your imagination. 支付他们传统工资的现金仅受你的想象力限制。
Usually when people claim to have “tried it all,” they haven’t. They’re stuck thinking within the same old mindset. And I’ve seen this revealed-firsthand. 通常，当人们声称“尝试过一切”时，他们并没有。他们仍然停留在旧有的思维模式中。我亲眼见证了这一点。
At a Tony Robbins seminar I once attended, a man came up on stage, in front of thousands of people, and asked for advice. “Tony, l’ve tried everything to make more money. I can’t do it.” 在我曾参加的一个托尼·罗宾斯研讨会上，一个男人走上舞台，在成千上万的人面前请求建议。“托尼，我已经尝试了一切来赚更多的钱。我做不到。”
Tony was skeptical. “Name the last twenty-five to thirty new tactics you’ve tried in the last six or seven months and describe how each performed.” 托尼持怀疑态度。“说出你在过去六七个月里尝试的最后二十五到三十种新战术，并描述每种战术的表现。”
The man was speechless. He couldn’t name a single one. Tony didn’t give up. “Okay, name just ten.” The man could only mutter unintelligibly before Tony finally drove the point home: “Just what have you done?” 那个人无言以对。他一个也说不出来。托尼没有放弃。“好吧，至少说出十个。”那个人只能含糊不清地嘟囔，直到托尼终于直截了当地问：“你到底做了什么？”
The man’s response shocked me: “l’ve looked in the want ads, and I’ve gone to a few franchise shows.” Those two attempts hardly amounted to the “everything” he claimed to have tried. With his creative process stuck, the man was simply unable to see beyond the traditional methods he knew. 这个男人的回答让我震惊：“我看过招聘广告，也去过几场特许经营展。”这两次尝试根本不算是他所声称的“所有”尝试。由于他的创作过程停滞不前，这个男人根本无法超越他所知道的传统方法。
Are there times when you say you can’t do something? If so, list the various methods you’ve already tried. Then see if you can list the spectrum of alternative options, opportunities, and possibilities you haven’t even targeted. In doing so, you’ll not only discover just how few methods you’ve actually attempted, but you may also see a pattern that helps you come up with a new angle to better your business philosophy. 你是否有过说自己无法做某事的时候？如果有，请列出你已经尝试过的各种方法。然后看看你是否能列出你尚未考虑的各种替代选项、机会和可能性。在这样做的过程中，你不仅会发现自己实际上尝试过的方法是多么少，而且你可能还会看到一个模式，帮助你找到一个新的角度来改善你的商业哲学。
The old axiom is true. There are indeed three kinds of people in the business world: 老话是对的。商业世界中确实有三种人：
■ People who make things happen. ■ 让事情发生的人。
People who watch things happen. 观察事物发生的人。
And people to whom things always seem to happen. 而那些总是感觉事情发生在他们身上的人。
I honestly believe that people are where they are in life because that’s ultimately where they want to be. Because if you didn’t want to be there, you’d find an alternative. It isn’t that hard. You just have to be willing to work at opening your mind to higher and better practices and pathways to pursue. 我真心相信，人们在生活中的位置是因为他们最终想要在那里。因为如果你不想在那里，你会找到其他选择。这并不难。你只需要愿意努力去开放你的思维，追求更高更好的实践和道路。
Schedule All E-Mails, Phone Calls, and MeetingsSo You Choose When to Handle Them 安排所有电子邮件、电话和会议，以便您选择何时处理它们
I may not make any friends with the following statement, but I’ll stand by it: What most people view as one of the most efficient technological breakthroughs in the history of business is actually one of the biggest wastes of time. E-mail may seem to be a blessing, but it’s a curse when it comes to time management. The very feature that most people believe is so revolutionary-e-mail’s immediacy-is what makes it so downright insidious: Nobody schedules time for it. 我可能会因为以下陈述而失去朋友，但我会坚持这一点：大多数人认为是商业历史上最有效的技术突破之一的东西，实际上是最大的时间浪费之一。电子邮件看似是一个福音，但在时间管理方面却是一种诅咒。大多数人认为非常革命性的特性——电子邮件的即时性——正是它如此阴险的原因：没有人会为它安排时间。
Replying to e-mail is a task, and as with any other task, you should schedule time for completing it. But most people e-mail continuously throughout the day. It doesn’t matter if they’re in the middle of a critical project or if an incoming message has little or no relevancy. All they need to hear is that delicate ping from their inbox, and they drop what they’re doing to heed the call. What so many people view as instantaneous and constant access is actually instantaneous and constant diversion and distraction. It is time wastage-the lowest and worst use of your time. 回复电子邮件是一项任务，和其他任何任务一样，你应该安排时间来完成它。但大多数人整天都在不断地发送电子邮件。无论他们是在进行一个关键项目，还是收到的消息几乎没有相关性，这都无关紧要。他们只需要听到收件箱中那微妙的提示音，就会放下手头的工作去回应这个呼唤。许多人认为的即时和持续的访问实际上是即时和持续的分心和干扰。这是时间浪费——你时间的最低和最糟糕的使用。
I look at my e-mail only two times a day-and when I do so, it’s already been sorted and prioritized for me. If a particular message is urgent, my assistant will interrupt me and let me know. Rather than being tied to the computer, I’m free to concentrate on the highest and best use of my time, thereby ensuring that I’m performing at my optimum. 我一天只查看两次电子邮件——而且当我查看时，它已经为我进行了分类和优先排序。如果某条消息很紧急，我的助手会打断我并告诉我。与其被束缚在电脑前，我更自由地专注于我时间的最高和最佳利用，从而确保我在最佳状态下工作。
There’s an unrealistic expectation that as soon as an e-mail is received, the recipient will respond. There’s no law 有一种不切实际的期望，即一旦收到电子邮件，收件人就会立即回复。没有法律
that says you have to respond to e-mail—ever. You will not be arrested. The message will not self-destruct-you’re not living out a scene from Mission Impossible. As I pointed out in Chapter 4, some prospects merit less time or attention than others; the same is true of communications. If I had to guess, I’d say that 80 percent of business e-mails are of low priority. Yet most people tend to treat e-mails with equal importance, as if these messages are bestowed with great significance simply by virtue of having been delivered electronically. It just isn’t so. 这意味着你必须回应电子邮件——永远不会。你不会被逮捕。信息不会自毁——你并不是在演绎《碟中谍》中的场景。正如我在第四章中指出的，有些潜在客户比其他客户更值得花费时间或关注；沟通也是如此。如果我必须猜测，我会说 80%的商业电子邮件优先级较低。然而，大多数人往往以同等的重要性对待电子邮件，仿佛这些信息仅仅因为以电子方式发送就具有重大意义。事实并非如此。
Much of this reaction can be attributed to fear-fear that we might miss an important message or deal. It’s as if people are caught up in a Pavlovian reaction initiated by the sound of new messages arriving: When they hear the ping, they’re propelled into action, as if by the start of a race gun. But instantaneous reaction is not the highest and best use of their time. Thinking and reflecting would allow for a much more conscientious and astute response-something lacking in electronic communication in the vast majority of cases. 这种反应很大程度上可以归因于恐惧——害怕我们可能会错过重要的信息或交易。人们似乎被新消息到达的声音引发的巴甫洛夫反应所困扰：当他们听到“叮”的声音时，他们就像在比赛开始的枪声下被推动着行动。然而，瞬间反应并不是他们时间的最高和最佳利用。思考和反思将允许更有意识和敏锐的回应——这是电子通信在绝大多数情况下所缺乏的。
Today, it’s also very easy to misjudge or to be misjudged in e-mail communications because the medium doesn’t allow for tone, inflection, and emotional pitch. But that can be avoided if you allow for reflection. Take your time-both in reading and responding to your e-mail. After all, you’re not Batman responding to the Bat Signal to save Gotham City! 今天，在电子邮件交流中，很容易误判或被误判，因为这种媒介不允许语气、语调和情感的表达。但如果你允许自己反思，这种情况是可以避免的。花时间阅读和回复你的电子邮件。毕竟，你不是在回应蝙蝠信号拯救哥谭市的蝙蝠侠！
The businesspeople I admire most are those who schedule specific times for phone calls and meetings. The rest of their day is spent focusing on productive growth-generating activities. In some instances, even those who work for someone else manage to incorporate this time-saving strategy into their workplace. The most productive people of all also require that every meeting have an agenda, which includes a summary of what the meeting’s about, the expected outcome, the topics of discussion and how much time is allotted to each, and the 我最钦佩的商界人士是那些为电话和会议安排特定时间的人。他们一天中的其他时间则专注于富有成效的增长活动。在某些情况下，即使是为他人工作的人也能将这种节省时间的策略融入他们的工作场所。所有最具生产力的人也要求每次会议都有议程，其中包括会议内容的摘要、预期结果、讨论主题以及每个主题分配的时间。
priorities involved. In short, they, like any winning team, have a game plan-and they follow it. 涉及的优先事项。简而言之，他们和任何获胜的团队一样，有一个游戏计划——并且他们遵循它。
If you work for someone else, suggest that office meetings have agendas, or take the lead and create the agendas yourself. The time you spend doing so will be repaid many times over with more productive, efficient meetings. Once the others in your office get hooked on these meeting agendas and come to expect them, delegate the task to someone else. In today’s ultra-competitive world, it’s important to be as efficient as possible. Moreover, if you can be diplomatic in making your suggestion or in setting an example, both your manager and your co-workers will appreciate the organization you bring to the process. Organization turns chaos into structure. And structure breeds strategy. 如果你为别人工作，建议办公室会议有议程，或者主动创建议程。你花在这上的时间将会在更高效、更有成效的会议中得到多倍回报。一旦你办公室的其他人习惯了这些会议议程并开始期待它们，就可以将这个任务委托给其他人。在今天这个竞争激烈的世界中，尽可能高效是很重要的。此外，如果你能在提出建议或树立榜样时表现得很有外交手腕，你的经理和同事都会欣赏你为这个过程带来的组织性。组织将混乱转变为结构，而结构则孕育战略。
Work on Your Business, Not in Your Business 在您的业务上工作，而不是在您的业务中工作
Why should you work on your business instead of in it? That’s easy: because you want your business working harder for you than you work for it. 你为什么应该在你的业务上工作，而不是在业务中工作？这很简单：因为你希望你的业务为你工作得比你为它工作得更努力。
It’s amazing what a difference a preposition can make. The significance of working in your business versus working on your business is enormous. Working in the business means you’re just managing to accomplish the bare-minimum tasks that will get your rent paid and keep your company around to see the next day. You’re answering e-mails, scrambling for clients, and making sure your office electricity bill is paid for the month so that you’re not making cold-calls in the dark. 介词的不同可以带来惊人的变化。在你的业务中工作与在你的业务上工作之间的意义是巨大的。在业务中工作意味着你只是勉强完成那些能支付租金并让你的公司活到第二天的最低限度任务。你在回复电子邮件，争取客户，并确保你的办公室电费在这个月支付，以免你在黑暗中打冷电话。
Working on the business, by contrast, means being strategic enough that you’re involved in activities that will not only maintain but also grow your business-for tomorrow and beyond. Generating such a strategy requires very deep, concentrated thinking, which deserves more of your time, attention, and even respect than any other activity. When you work on the business, you must break it down into its key functions- 与此相反，专注于业务意味着要有足够的战略眼光，参与那些不仅能维持业务，还能为明天及未来发展业务的活动。制定这样的战略需要非常深入、集中的思考，这比任何其他活动都更值得你投入时间、注意力，甚至尊重。当你专注于业务时，必须将其分解为关键职能——
strategy, marketing, innovation, management, and so onwhich you then allocate as the highest and best use of time, either yours or another employee’s. In short, your job is to work on the biggest moneymakers, not on the biggest time-, energy-, and opportunity-drainers. 战略、营销、创新、管理等，然后将其分配为时间的最高和最佳使用，无论是你自己的还是其他员工的。简而言之，你的工作是专注于最大的盈利项目，而不是最大的时间、精力和机会的消耗者。
To help you identify the biggest moneymakers, I’ve provided below a list of eleven strategic pillars that any business truly implementing highest-and-best-use principles rests upon and grows from. These are the keys to working on your business. They aren’t steps you’ll implement one time and move forward from; rather, they’re tools that you’ll continuously utilize to ensure that your business is always working for you. 为了帮助您识别最大的盈利来源，我在下面提供了一份包含十一项战略支柱的清单，任何真正实施最高和最佳使用原则的企业都依赖于这些支柱并从中成长。这些是您在业务中工作的关键。它们不是您一次性实施并向前推进的步骤；相反，它们是您将持续利用的工具，以确保您的业务始终为您服务。
Eleven Keys to Working on Your Business 经营您的业务的十一把钥匙
Continue to identify and discover hidden assets in your business. 继续识别和发现您业务中的隐藏资产。
Mine cash windfalls out of your business each and every month. 每个月从你的业务中挖掘现金意外之财。
Engineer success into every action you take or decision you make. 将成功融入你所采取的每一个行动或做出的每一个决定中。
Build your business on a foundation of multiple profit sources instead of depending on a single revenue source. 在多个利润来源的基础上建立您的业务，而不是依赖单一的收入来源。
Be different, unique, and advantageous in the eyes of your clients. 在客户眼中，要与众不同、独特，并具有优势。
For maximum loyalty and results, create real value for your clients and employees. 为了最大限度地提高忠诚度和成果，为您的客户和员工创造真正的价值。
Gain the maximum personal leverage from every action, investment, and time or energy commitment you ever make. 从你所做的每一个行动、投资以及时间或精力的投入中获得最大的个人杠杆效应。
Network/mastermind/brainstorm with like-minded, success-driven people who share real-life experiences with you. 与志同道合、追求成功的人进行网络交流、头脑风暴，他们会与你分享真实的生活经验。
Turn yourself into an idea-generator and recognized innovator within your industry or market. 将自己变成一个创意生成者和您所在行业或市场的公认创新者。
Make “growth-thinking” a natural part of your everyday business philosophy. 让“成长思维”成为你日常商业哲学的自然组成部分。
Reverse the risk both for yourself and for your clients in everything you do (so the downside is almost zero, and the upside potential nearly infinite). 在你所做的一切中，为自己和客户逆转风险（这样下行几乎为零，上行潜力几乎无限）。
If there are items on your personal task list that don’t correspond to one or more of these eleven keys, take them off-or, if really necessary to your business, delegate them. But devote yourself to the highest and best principles, without dilution or distraction. This will ensure the maximum potency when it comes to your ability to strategize. Here’s a great example. 如果您的个人任务列表中有与这十一条原则不对应的项目，请将它们删除——或者，如果对您的业务确实必要，可以委派给他人。但要全心投入到最高和最佳的原则中，避免稀释或分心。这将确保您在制定战略时的最大效力。这里有一个很好的例子。
One of my former clients was a man named Patrick Flanagan who sold telephone systems. He got most of his business through cold-calling, which was an ineffective (not to mention frustrating) method. There wasn’t much of a strategy underlying Patrick’s actions. 我以前的一位客户是一个名叫帕特里克·弗拉纳根的男人，他销售电话系统。他的大部分生意都是通过冷拨电话获得的，这是一种无效（更不用说令人沮丧）的方式。帕特里克的行为背后并没有太多策略。
Patrick sold systems for a major firm whose clients fell into two distinct groups: corporate clients and small-business clients. Patrick, though, had the right to sell only to the small businesses. On the other hand, he didn’t have territorial restrictions, and as he plotted out how to implement his new strategy, he used that fact to full advantage. 帕特里克为一家大型公司的系统销售，客户分为两类：企业客户和小型企业客户。然而，帕特里克只能向小型企业销售。另一方面，他没有地域限制，在规划如何实施新策略时，他充分利用了这一点。
Patrick’s plan was simple: He would go to all of his manufacturers - the large-firm ones - and ask to buy all their rejects (i.e., the phone systems that were too small for them). Then he’d sell those to his client base (the small businesses) and give the large manufacturers a share of the profits. 帕特里克的计划很简单：他会去所有的制造商——那些大公司——并请求购买他们所有的废品（即，对他们来说太小的电话系统）。然后，他会将这些卖给他的客户群（小型企业），并将大制造商的利润分成一部分。
Did it work? You bet it worked. Patrick Flanagan built a multimillion-dollar company simply by changing his strategy. By focusing on the things that mattered, he experienced an unprecedented level of success. 它有效吗？当然有效。帕特里克·弗拉纳根通过改变他的策略建立了一家价值数百万美元的公司。通过专注于重要的事情，他经历了前所未有的成功。
Don't Be Afraid of Change 不要害怕改变
Sometimes creating a brilliant strategy requires that you change the way you do things. Again, it’s a lesson from the Indiana Jones School of Business: 有时候，制定一个出色的战略需要你改变做事的方式。再一次，这是来自印第安纳琼斯商学院的教训：
When things aren't working, change your tactics. 当事情不顺利时，改变你的策略。
Let’s say that you’ve now mastered time management. You’ve hired an assistant to manage your e-mails and are focusing on the twelve strategic tools needed to take your business in a new direction. You’ve laid all the groundwork. There’s only one last thing you need before launching a worldclass strategy: a reality check. 假设你现在已经掌握了时间管理。你雇佣了一名助理来管理你的电子邮件，并专注于将业务带入新方向所需的十二个战略工具。你已经打下了所有基础。在推出世界级战略之前，你只需要最后一件事：现实检查。
People are suffering right now. Whether or not you’re paying them the same salary or hourly rate as before, your employees are hurting. They’re struggling with the economy and rising costs, just as you are. Your buyers are hurting as well, either because their businesses, employers, or incomes are down or because there have been cutbacks at their own offices. 人们现在正在受苦。无论你是否给他们支付与之前相同的薪水或时薪，你的员工都在受苦。他们和你一样，正在与经济和不断上涨的成本作斗争。你的买家也在受苦，要么是因为他们的企业、雇主或收入下降，要么是因为他们自己办公室的裁员。
Here’s a sobering fact: In today’s volatile market, 80 percent of businesses are struggling, and the small ones are not growing. In fact, most of them are regressing. Employees are psychologically debilitated by the daily-grind factors, like watching their 401(k)401(\mathrm{k}) s disappear or seeing their benefits cut and their salaries reduced (or, at best, capped). 这是一个令人警醒的事实：在当今动荡的市场中，80%的企业正在挣扎，而小企业并没有增长。事实上，它们中的大多数正在退步。员工们因日常压力因素而在心理上受到削弱，比如看到他们的 401(k)401(\mathrm{k}) 消失，或者看到福利被削减和薪水减少（或者，充其量，被限制）。
You can see all of this turmoil at your own place of business. Know, too, that it is happening at other businesses, most likely the ones where your clients and prospects work. Having a respectful appreciation of this situation and a heartfelt desire 您可以在自己的工作场所看到所有这些动荡。也要知道，这种情况正在其他企业发生，很可能是您的客户和潜在客户工作的地方。对这种情况有一种尊重的理解和真诚的愿望
to make your clients’ lives better, richer, easier, and safer can actually improve your own bottom line. In such a brutal climate, your decision to stand out can make the difference in your business’s survival. Why? Because you invest more in the buying and post-purchase experiences of your clients. You focus more attention on the issues most critically important to them, you address and fulfill more of the value that they appreciate, and you channel empathy into all interactions. 使您的客户的生活更好、更丰富、更轻松和更安全，实际上可以改善您自己的利润。在如此严酷的环境中，您选择脱颖而出的决定可能会影响您业务的生存。为什么？因为您在客户的购买和购买后体验上投入更多。您更加关注对他们至关重要的问题，您解决并满足他们所欣赏的更多价值，并将同理心融入所有互动中。
The starting point for empathy is to always remain positive and pleasant when interacting with a client or prospect. That may seem almost offensively obvious, but it’s hard to maintain confidence, certainty, and enthusiasm for the buyer’s outcome when your business is struggling and you are stressing. Empathy is the cornerstone of any effective business strategy. Put simply, you have to fall in love with the client. 同理心的起点是在与客户或潜在客户互动时始终保持积极和愉快。这看起来可能显得过于明显，但当你的生意陷入困境而你感到压力时，很难对买家的结果保持信心、确定性和热情。同理心是任何有效商业策略的基石。简单来说，你必须爱上客户。
What’s it like when you’re in love? The object of your affection basically becomes the center of your whole world. Everything else fades into the distance, and you live, breathe, and dream for that one special somebody. 当你恋爱时是什么感觉？你所爱的对象基本上成为你整个世界的中心。其他一切都渐渐淡去，你为那个特别的人而生活、呼吸和梦想。
Your relationship with your clients has to be similar to this. They become your almost all-consuming focus. That makes it easy for you to be exceedingly hopeful and encouraging in their behalf, because your job will be to help them engineer a better outcome from each transaction with you. You must make a conscious decision to make their lives better off as a result of your interchange. 您与客户的关系必须类似于此。他们几乎成为您所有精力的焦点。这使得您能够在他们的利益上表现得极为乐观和鼓励，因为您的工作是帮助他们从与您的每一次交易中获得更好的结果。您必须有意识地决定通过您的交流使他们的生活变得更好。
You can do this by demonstrating how much more you understand, respect, are invested in, and empathize with their circumstances. Repeat back to them what you hear the clients expressing; put their problems and feelings into words so that you can be sure you understand the specific needs you’ve been called on to address. It’s the first lesson in Empathy 101: 你可以通过展示你对他们的处境理解得多么深入、尊重得多么真诚、投入得多么认真以及多么同情来做到这一点。将客户表达的内容重复给他们听；把他们的问题和感受用语言表达出来，以确保你理解你被要求解决的具体需求。这是同理心 101 的第一课：
Don’t worry: You don’t need to enroll in acting courses to do this. If you recognize that your success and the client’s are one and the same, empathetically engaging will occur so effortlessly that you’ll forget it’s a component of your business strategy. It will simply become second nature-part of who you are as a person, not just as a businessperson. 别担心：你不需要报名参加表演课程来做到这一点。如果你意识到你的成功和客户的成功是同一个，那么同理心的参与将会如此轻松，以至于你会忘记这是一项商业策略的组成部分。它将自然而然地成为你的一部分，成为你作为一个人的一部分，而不仅仅是作为一个商人。
This shift in personality, focus, and interest matters now for two reasons: 这种性格、关注和兴趣的转变现在有两个原因很重要：
■ First, people need to feel valued and appreciatedand to genuinely be valued and appreciated. 首先，人们需要感到被重视和被欣赏，并且确实被重视和欣赏。
Second, all your competitors are struggling, so they’re going to cut corners, get more irritable, and become internally focused on their own survival. As a result, they will compromise on sensitivity and their connectivity to the market. You must not do the same. 其次，所有竞争对手都在挣扎，因此他们会采取捷径，变得更加易怒，并专注于自身的生存。因此，他们会在敏感性和与市场的连接上妥协。你绝不能这样做。
You have to be a source of stability in times of instability. Yes, your business has to make changes, too; it must evolve and grow. But in the meantime you have to provide the stability that people in need can turn to, trust in, and come back to again and again. Here’s an example. 在不稳定时期，你必须成为稳定的来源。是的，你的业务也必须进行改变；它必须发展和成长。但与此同时，你必须提供人们在需要时可以依赖、信任并一次又一次回归的稳定性。这里有一个例子。
There was a builder in Australia who specialized in first-time home buyers. He was spending $10,000\$ 10,000 to $15,000\$ 15,000 per sale to attract buyers. Atter attending one of my long programs, he realized that the major pool of first-time buyers was made up of people currently living in apartment buildings. So, he went to apartment-building owners and got them to offer their renters his homes as a logical next step forward in their lives. 在澳大利亚有一位专门为首次购房者服务的建筑商。他每笔销售花费 $10,000\$ 10,000 到 $15,000\$ 15,000 来吸引买家。在参加了我的一个长期项目后，他意识到首次购房者的主要群体是目前居住在公寓楼中的人。因此，他去找公寓楼的业主，让他们向租户推荐他的房子，作为他们生活中一个合乎逻辑的下一步。
Obviously, the apartments weren’t going to offer up perfectly good clients if they didn’t stand to gain something, too. So the builder rewarded the apartment building owners for sending clients his way: Anyone who moved out of his or her apartment and into one of his homes earned the 显然，如果公寓没有什么好处，他们是不会提供完好的客户的。因此，建筑商奖励公寓楼的业主将客户介绍给他：任何从自己的公寓搬到他的一处房屋的人都能获得
owner $5,000\$ 5,000. And my builder went a step further: He agreed to underwrite, for up to a year, any unrented apartment vacated by someone buying his homes. At about $500\$ 500 a month for the apartments he was targeting, that amounted to $6,000 a year. His maximum investment in each sale, then, was $11,000-$4,000\$ 11,000-\$ 4,000 less than he was spending before. 业主 $5,000\$ 5,000 。我的建筑商更进一步：他同意为购买他房屋的人腾出的任何未出租公寓提供最多一年的担保。针对他所瞄准的公寓，每月大约 $500\$ 500 ，这相当于每年$6,000。因此，他在每笔销售中的最大投资比之前少了 $11,000-$4,000\$ 11,000-\$ 4,000 。
What happened? He not only sold millions and millions of dollars’ worth of homes but did so in a way that helped first-time home buyers make that big, scary first step, eliminated the risk of leaving their apartments behind, and netted the apartment building owners a handsome profit on the deal. He turned his selling strategy from a self-focused campaign that was only draining his coffers to a client-focused, problem-solving campaign. That made him millions. 发生了什么？他不仅卖出了价值数百万美元的房屋，而且以一种帮助首次购房者迈出那一步、消除离开公寓风险的方式进行销售，同时让公寓大楼的业主在交易中获得可观的利润。他将自己的销售策略从一个只是在耗尽自己资金的自我中心活动转变为一个以客户为中心、解决问题的活动。这让他赚了数百万。
When you have the courage to change your sales strategy and tactics, three important things will happen: 当你有勇气改变你的销售策略和战术时，会发生三件重要的事情：
You’ll close a lot more prospects than you used to, and you’ll increase productivity and transaction size-which in turn translate into profitabilityfrom the same time and effort. 你将比以前关闭更多的潜在客户，并且你将提高生产力和交易规模——这反过来又会转化为同样的时间和精力带来的盈利。
You’ll influence a large number of people (and usually the best people, because they’ll have a higherlevel appreciation for what you’re doing) as a result of having created a discernible distance between yourself and your competitors. 通过在自己和竞争对手之间创造明显的距离，你将影响大量人群（通常是最优秀的人，因为他们会更高层次地欣赏你所做的事情）。
You’ll get the lion’s share of new people coming into the market because you’ll stand out as the most appealing choice anyone could possibly make. 你将获得市场上大部分新客户，因为你将成为任何人可能做出的最吸引人的选择。
These three things will happen almost spontaneously if you just get yourself in philosophical alignment. It’s always about them, your buyers or your prospects. It’s never about 这三件事几乎会自发发生，只要你让自己与哲学保持一致。始终关注他们，你的买家或潜在客户。永远不是关于
you, the seller. Keep that in mind, and your strategy will start to crystallize. 你，卖家。记住这一点，你的策略将开始明确。
THE POWER OF THE THREE P'S: YOUR BUSINESS'S PURPOSE, POSSIBILITY, AND PASSION 三 P 的力量：您业务的目的、可能性和热情
Earlier in the chapter, I mentioned that you should grade your tasks based on three criteria: relevancy, competency, and passion. The success of your business itself is based on three similar factors: purpose, possibility, and, again, passion. These three P’s should form the crux of your business strategy. 在本章早些时候，我提到过你应该根据三个标准来评估你的任务：相关性、能力和热情。你业务的成功本身也基于三个类似的因素：目标、可能性，以及再次提到的热情。这三个 P 应该构成你商业战略的核心。
The Power of Purpose 目标的力量
Purpose refers not just to the market niche your product or service fills but to the greater good you bring to that marketplace. For instance, your widget factory may be active not just in the business world but also in the community, by sponsoring a Little League team, say, or adopting a highway. Of course, a business can run-even thrive-without a philanthropic purpose. But the benefits from working for a larger cause stretch far beyond improved community reputation, ultimately encompassing improvements in morale, both your own and your staff’s. When your business has a higher purpose, you never have to question why you go to work each day. The evidence stares you right in the face. 目的不仅指的是您的产品或服务所填补的市场细分，还指您为该市场带来的更大益处。例如，您的小部件工厂可能不仅在商业领域活跃，还通过赞助一个小联盟球队或认养一条公路参与社区。当然，一家企业可以在没有慈善目的的情况下运营甚至繁荣。但为更大事业而工作的好处远远超出改善社区声誉，最终还包括您自己和员工士气的提升。当您的企业有更高的目标时，您永远不必质疑自己每天上班的原因。证据就在眼前。
Frankly, the greatest causal purpose your business could ever strive for is to contribute more value, benefits, advantages, and worth to your buyers with respect to what you sell and how that product or service performs for them. If you want to discover your purpose-in terms of both your market niche and a higher cause-you have to identify what your business does (or can start doing) better than anyone else. After all, when someone buys from you, they’re choosing to do so over three other options: 坦率地说，您企业所能追求的最大因果目的就是在您所销售的产品或服务对买家所带来的价值、利益、优势和价值方面，给予他们更多的贡献。如果您想要发现您的目标——无论是市场细分还是更高的目标——您必须确定您的企业在做什么（或可以开始做什么）方面比其他任何人做得更好。毕竟，当有人选择从您这里购买时，他们是在选择三种其他选项之外的选择：
They’re buying from you instead of buying from your competition. 他们从你这里购买，而不是从你的竞争对手那里购买。
They’re buying from you instead of choosing an alternative form of solving their problem or fulfilling their opportunity (e.g., using a hand-cranking can opener rather than buying your electric one). 他们选择从你这里购买，而不是选择其他解决问题或满足机会的方式（例如，使用手动开罐器而不是购买你的电动开罐器）。
They’re buying from you instead of doing absolutely nothing. 他们选择向你购买，而不是完全不做任何事情。
Whichever option applies to a given situation, it’s imperative that you acknowledge the real reason why clients should buy from you. Ultimately, that reason has to be a benefit for them, not for your bank account. 无论哪种选择适用于特定情况，您都必须承认客户为什么应该从您那里购买的真正原因。最终，这个原因必须对他们有利，而不是对您的银行账户有利。
The Power of Possibility 可能性的力量
The second ingredient for a thriving business is possibility. Without possibility, you have no potential, no vision. And without vision, there is no innovation, which is the key to all growth. Exercising your possibility is much like going to the gym. If you perform the same exercises all the time, eventually you’ll stop seeing results. You have to innovate and find fresh ways to challenge your muscles so they’ll continue to develop. It’s no different with your business. 繁荣企业的第二个要素是可能性。没有可能性，就没有潜力，没有愿景。而没有愿景，就没有创新，而创新是所有增长的关键。发挥你的可能性就像去健身房。如果你总是做相同的锻炼，最终你会停止看到效果。你必须创新，找到新的方法来挑战你的肌肉，以便它们能够继续发展。你的企业也没有什么不同。
Start thinking about possibility multi-dimensionally. For example, consider the following four angles from which to launch yourself into a world of potential: 开始从多维度思考可能性。例如，考虑以下四个角度，从中将自己投身于潜力的世界：
■ You could envision bigger possibility in terms of what you can add to the client’s buying experience. ■ 你可以设想在客户购买体验中可以增加更大的可能性。
■ Or you might visualize ways to broaden possibility with respect to what your business can grow to be- ■ 或者你可以想象如何拓宽可能性，以便你的业务能够成长为更多的东西——
come, where your business can extend its relationships, and how many more ways it can sell and market. 来吧，您的业务可以在哪里扩展其关系，以及它可以通过多少种方式进行销售和营销。
■ You could create plans for longer-reaching possibility in all the meaningful things you and your business can do with a portion of your increased profits. ■ 你可以为你和你的企业在所有有意义的事情上制定更长远的计划，利用你增加的利润的一部分。
And don’t forget the element of time: Plan out the future and think of ways your business can impact the world yet to come. 并且不要忘记时间的因素：规划未来，思考你的业务如何能够影响即将到来的世界。
The Power of Passion 激情的力量
The third vital ingredient for your business is passion. Passion is the fuel that drives all achievement, whether in art, technology, or marriage. You can’t underestimate its power as the driving force behind your business. Your passion has to be a love not just for the business itself but for the marketplace your business affects. I’m referring here not just to the industry you’re in but also to the purpose your business serves in the community and to the enrichment of the lives of the people you work with. Find your passion, and possibility and purpose won’t be far behind. 您业务的第三个重要成分是激情。激情是推动所有成就的动力，无论是在艺术、技术还是婚姻中。您不能低估它作为您业务背后驱动力的力量。您的激情不仅要对业务本身有热爱，还要对您的业务所影响的市场有热爱。我在这里指的不仅是您所处的行业，还有您的业务在社区中所服务的目的，以及对您所合作的人的生活的丰富。找到您的激情，可能性和目标就不会远离。
Think of the 3 P’s as the wheels to your business strategy: They set your dreams in motion. And as for the “highest and best use” of time and resource management: Think of these as your pre-trip checklist and the highway gas stations where you check in along the way. Put them all together and, just like Sam’s medical delivery service, which I described at the beginning of this chapter, you’re on the road to a prosperous future in the land of milk and profit. 将 3 个 P 视为您商业战略的轮子：它们使您的梦想得以实现。至于时间和资源管理的“最高和最佳利用”：将其视为您的旅行前清单和沿途检查的高速公路加油站。将它们结合在一起，就像我在本章开头描述的 Sam 的医疗配送服务一样，您正走在通往丰盈未来的道路上。
Now it’s time to face the next challenge: what to do when insidious costs linger like ravenous wolves, threatening to encroach on your blissful profit paradise. 现在是面对下一个挑战的时候了：当潜在的成本像贪婪的狼一样徘徊，威胁着侵占你幸福的利润乐园时，该怎么办。
The Bottom Line 底线
Strategizing begins with true time management-putting everything you do to the “highest and best use” test. 战略规划始于真正的时间管理——将你所做的一切都放在“最高和最佳使用”测试中。
Time, energy, and opportunity costs are the three most valuable intangible assets you have. Don’t waste any of these when you could be investing them in your strategy. 时间、精力和机会成本是你拥有的三项最有价值的无形资产。不要浪费这些，当你可以将它们投资于你的战略时。
■ Evaluate all of your tasks. Anything that isn’t relevant, that you’re not competent in, or that you’re not completely passionate about should be delegated to somebody else. ■ 评估你所有的任务。任何不相关的、你不擅长的，或者你不完全热衷的事情都应该委托给其他人。
Delegation means giving what you consider work to people who think it’s play. 委派意味着将你认为是工作的事情交给那些认为这是游戏的人。
If you can’t afford to pay assistants and employees in the traditional ways, find creative ways to compensate them. 如果你无法以传统方式支付助理和员工的工资，寻找创造性的方式来补偿他们。
Schedule specific and limited time for e-mails, phone calls, and meetings. Don’t let them take over your calendar. 为电子邮件、电话和会议安排特定且有限的时间。不要让它们占据你的日程。
Create agendas for office meetings and stick to them. 为办公室会议制定议程并遵守。
Take action on the “Eleven Keys to Working on Your Business”; don’t be a hamster on a wheel, working in your business. 对“经营业务的十一把钥匙”采取行动；不要像在轮子上的仓鼠一样，只是在你的业务中工作。
Your success and the success of your clients are one and the same. Show them that you feel what they feel. 你的成功和你客户的成功是一回事。让他们看到你感受到他们的感受。
Know your purpose. What is the greater good that you bring to the marketplace? 了解你的目标。你为市场带来的更大利益是什么？
Think of possibility multi-dimensionally. How can you create bigger, broader, longer-reaching, and longer-lasting possibility? 从多维度思考可能性。你如何能创造更大、更广、更远和更持久的可能性？
Love your business, and the marketplace it affects, with a passion. 热爱你的事业，以及它所影响的市场，充满激情。
Immediate Action Step Stop being your own administrative assistant. Develop the discipline to delegate, and start by having someone else read your e-mail for you. Clients aren’t paying you to read your own e-mail. They’re paying you to solve problems, so devote more of your time to the actions that actually generate revenue. Your time is too valuable to squander on anything else. 立即行动步骤：停止做自己的行政助理。培养委派的纪律，首先让其他人帮你阅读电子邮件。客户支付你不是为了让你阅读自己的电子邮件。他们支付你是为了让你解决问题，因此要将更多时间投入到实际产生收入的行动中。你的时间太宝贵，不能浪费在其他事情上。
ARE YOU STUCK WITH COSTS EATING UP ALL YOUR PROFITS? 你是否被成本困扰，吞噬了你所有的利润？
When I was growing up, I loved to eavesdrop on the conversations my mother had with her friends. They’d sit on our back porch, sipping lemonade and chatting about their kids. Some-times-and always when she was talking about me, it seemed-my mother would press her lips together, shake her head, and say, “I declare, anything you tell that boy goes in one ear and out the other.” 当我长大时，我喜欢偷听我母亲和她朋友们的谈话。她们会坐在我们后面的门廊上，喝着柠檬水，聊着她们的孩子。有时——而且总是在她谈论我的时候——我母亲会紧闭双唇，摇摇头，说：“我发誓，你告诉那个男孩的任何事情都进了一只耳朵，出了一只耳朵。”
It’s the perfect metaphor for what happens to so many businesses today. Except it’s not words going in one way and out the other; it’s cash flow. And whereas my leaky eardrums usually only got me scolded or sent to my room, the consequences of a leaky wallet can be disastrous for your business. 这正是今天许多企业所面临的完美隐喻。不同的是，这不是单纯的言语进出，而是现金流。而且，虽然我漏水的耳膜通常只会让我受到责骂或被送回房间，但漏水的钱包对你的企业来说可能会带来灾难性的后果。
A good many stagnating businesses don’t have a problem getting money to flow in-they just have a hard time preventing it from flowing right back out. It’s as though the owners have holes in their pockets: Every penny they make seems to be gone before they know it. Overhead costs such as salaries, equipment, and infrastructure sap up the profits like a thirsty sponge. 许多停滞不前的企业并不难获得资金流入——他们只是很难阻止资金立即流出。就好像老板的口袋里有洞：他们赚的每一分钱似乎在他们意识到之前就已经消失了。工资、设备和基础设施等间接成本像一个口渴的海绵一样吸走了利润。
If this sounds like your company, one of your main cashflow sinkholes is probably that you haven’t been measuring the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing. The second most important step is to adjust your measurement horizon in terms of your overall outlook, because if your business is declining rapidly, you can’t operate as you did before. Finally, no matter how tempted you are to cut back on sales and marketing in times of strain, the opposite is actually what will save your skin. 如果这听起来像你的公司，你的主要现金流漏洞之一可能是你没有衡量你的营销投资回报率（ROI）。第二个最重要的步骤是根据你的整体前景调整你的测量范围，因为如果你的业务正在迅速下滑，你就不能像以前那样运作。最后，无论你在压力时期多么想削减销售和营销，实际上相反的做法才会拯救你。
In this chapter, we’ll talk about all your cash-flow problems. I’ll show you what to do if you have too much overhead; if you don’t have enough overhead; if you don’t have enough money to do the right things; and if you’re not demanding the right performance from your investments. We’ll examine all of these components in one chapter because they all relate to the problem of excess expenses cutting into your profits. 在本章中，我们将讨论您所有的现金流问题。我将向您展示如果您有过多的开支该怎么办；如果您没有足够的开支该怎么办；如果您没有足够的钱去做正确的事情该怎么办；以及如果您没有对您的投资要求正确的表现该怎么办。我们将在一章中审视所有这些组成部分，因为它们都与过多开支侵蚀您利润的问题有关。
At some point in my personal development, I realized I should probably work on plugging up the leak between my ears that my mother had so keenly identified. I’m happy to say I did: I began listening to (and retaining) the messages that other people delivered. In other words, I grew up. 在我个人发展的某个时刻，我意识到我应该努力堵住我母亲如此敏锐地指出的我耳朵之间的漏洞。我很高兴地说我做到了：我开始倾听（并记住）其他人传达的信息。换句话说，我长大了。
It’s time for your business to grow up, too-in the sense that, if you break your bad cash-flow habits, you’ll see a revolutionized profit margin in no time. 是时候让你的业务成长起来了——也就是说，如果你打破不良的现金流习惯，你会很快看到利润率的革命性变化。
So let’s get started plugging up those financial leaks. 那么让我们开始堵住那些财务漏洞吧。
RETURNING TO ROI: MEASURE EVERYTHING YOU DO 回归投资回报率：衡量你所做的一切
When the market starts to decline, the knee-jerk reaction of many businesspeople is to reduce their marketing budgets. But what they’re really doing is reducing their investment in growing their business, so their cutbacks become a self-perpetuating downward spiral. Unfortunately, I see this time and again in stagnating businesses. 当市场开始下滑时，许多商人的本能反应是减少他们的营销预算。但他们真正做的其实是在减少对业务增长的投资，因此他们的削减变成了一个自我延续的 downward spiral。不幸的是，我在停滞不前的企业中一次又一次地看到这种情况。
The vast majority of the time, I’ve found that my clients blindly put their faith in “revenue-generating activities” that barely—if at all—earn back their initial cost. But this fact often remains buried beneath piles of bills because so few people bother to measure the performance of their marketing activities. Each process must be broken down and analyzed for its effectiveness, a subject we touched upon in Chapter 4. 绝大多数情况下，我发现我的客户盲目地相信“创收活动”，这些活动几乎没有——如果有的话——赚回他们的初始成本。但这个事实常常被账单堆积掩盖，因为很少有人愿意去衡量他们的营销活动的表现。每个过程都必须被分解并分析其有效性，这是我们在第四章中提到的主题。
Any business that sells anybody anything has to first target the audience who will be the most responsive. You have to reach the audience, or motivate the audience to come to you. You then have to close the audience either on the transaction that brought them in or on a starter transaction that initiates a sustaining, recurring relationship that will continue to yield returns for both sides. 任何销售任何东西的企业首先必须确定最能响应的受众。你必须接触到受众，或者激励受众来找你。然后，你必须在吸引他们的交易上，或者在启动一项持续的、定期的关系的初始交易上，促成与受众的成交，这种关系将继续为双方带来回报。
Each of the processes I just mentioned is a sub-element of generating and sustaining business. However, most companies don’t measure the performance of these individual processes and so continue to spend money in nonperforming or underperforming areas. Remember the story in Chapter 4 about the client whose business was in bioidentical hormones? That company’s managers almost stopped running highly profitable ads because they gravely miscalculated their ROI. 我刚提到的每个过程都是生成和维持业务的一个子元素。然而，大多数公司并不衡量这些单独过程的绩效，因此继续在表现不佳或低效的领域花费资金。还记得第 4 章中关于客户的故事吗？那个客户的业务是生物相同激素？该公司的管理者几乎停止了运行高利润的广告，因为他们严重错误地计算了投资回报率。
There are other return factors to consider when it comes to targeting your audience, like utilization of assets and utilization of workforce. You might be paying salaries to salespeople who aren’t selling or aren’t selling enough to justify your investment in them. Or you’re running ads that aren’t capturing viewers’ attention or response. Or perhaps you’re generating referrals that aren’t being converted to sales. If the members of your sales team are making presentations and you’re not monitoring how many they’ve made, what their closing rate is, what the average unit of sale is, what the profit on that sale is, and how much future profit results from those first-time buyers, then you’re wasting a lot of money. No matter what the 在针对目标受众时，还有其他回报因素需要考虑，比如资产利用率和劳动力利用率。你可能在支付销售人员的薪水，但他们并没有销售或销售额不足以证明你对他们的投资是合理的。或者你在投放广告，但没有吸引到观众的注意或反应。又或者你在生成推荐，但这些推荐并没有转化为销售。如果你的销售团队成员在进行演示，而你没有监控他们进行了多少次演示、他们的成交率是多少、平均销售额是多少、该销售的利润是多少，以及这些首次购买者带来的未来利润是多少，那么你就浪费了很多钱。无论如何，
activity, if you’re not quantifying its performance, you’re not realizing its fullest potential. 活动，如果你没有量化其表现，你就无法充分发挥其潜力。
Whereas some businesspeople shy away from marketing expenditures when they see the economy start to shift downward, others start frantically dumping more money into old practices, even though they’ve never measured the ROI of these activities. Obviously, doing more of what wasn’t working during good times won’t get you through an economically challenging period. When businesses are stuck or declining, it’s even more important to analyze every activity in terms of how much you get back for every dollar you put in. 一些商界人士在看到经济开始下滑时会避开市场营销支出，而另一些人则开始疯狂地投入更多资金到旧的做法中，即使他们从未衡量过这些活动的投资回报率。显然，在经济繁荣时期没有奏效的做法，在经济困难时期也不会帮助你渡过难关。当企业陷入困境或下滑时，更重要的是分析每一项活动，以了解你投入的每一美元能带来多少回报。
Everything you do should be measured in terms of either an investment or a profit center, as opposed to just a cost expense. If you continue to evaluate every activity with the goal of growing and sustaining your business in mind, you’ll have the ability to utilize assets you’ve already invested in instead of having to downsize or outsource. These just might become leverageable assets you can use for joint ventures, which we’ll talk about in the next section of this chapter. 您所做的一切都应该以投资或利润中心来衡量，而不仅仅是成本支出。如果您继续以发展和维持业务为目标来评估每项活动，您将能够利用您已经投资的资产，而不必裁员或外包。这些资产可能会成为您可以用于合资企业的杠杆资产，我们将在本章的下一部分讨论。
Business owners who really want to get unstuck need to get excited. And there’s nothing more exciting than realizing that whereas the ROI for the money and work you put into a stock may be 10 or 15 percent, the ROI for the money and work you put into improving a marketing technique could be 10 or 15 hundred percent. And what’s more, the ROI you can get from forging strategic partnerships (“power partnerships,” as I call them) could be incalculable, because your out-of-pocket expense is very low-maybe even zero-even though you’re getting the value of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars through other people’s facilities, equipment, goodwill, infrastructure, and intellectual capital. Now that’s what I call a bargain. 真正想要摆脱困境的企业主需要感到兴奋。而没有什么比意识到你投入到股票中的资金和工作回报率可能是 10%或 15%，而你投入到改善营销技巧中的资金和工作回报率可能是 10%或 15%百更令人兴奋的了。更重要的是，你通过建立战略合作伙伴关系（我称之为“强力合作伙伴关系”）所能获得的回报可能是无法计算的，因为你的自付费用非常低——甚至可能为零——尽管你通过其他人的设施、设备、信誉、基础设施和知识资本获得了数十万甚至数百万美元的价值。这才是我所说的便宜货。
THE BETTER BUSINESS BARTERS: TRADE WHAT YOU HAVE FOR WHATEVER YOU NEED 更好的商业交换：用你拥有的东西换取你需要的任何东西
One of the most dynamic means of achieving a greater ROI is through bartering. I could talk about the beauty of bartering all day long. Bartering allows for that ever-elusive combination of positive elements where all parties walk away happy: You benefit, your partner benefits, and your client benefits, too. There’s really no loss to anyone involved. And with the way our economy is going, I am more convinced than ever that bartering is fundamentally important to the future of business. 实现更高投资回报率的最动态手段之一就是以物易物。我可以整天谈论以物易物的美好。以物易物允许所有参与方都能获得快乐的积极元素的那种难得的组合：你受益，你的合作伙伴受益，你的客户也受益。参与者没有任何损失。随着我们经济的发展，我比以往任何时候都更相信以物易物对商业未来的重要性。
Remember the top travel magazine from Chapter 4 that revolutionized the way it did business by accepting barters for its ad space? Now you can experience the same degree of explosive success. 记得第 4 章中那本通过接受以物易物的方式来彻底改变其商业模式的顶级旅游杂志吗？现在你也可以体验到同样程度的爆炸性成功。
Following are seven bartering strategies that you and your business could implement immediately. 以下是您和您的企业可以立即实施的七种以物易物策略。
Save cash on capital expenditures. Say you’re buying a computer. After you’ve negotiated the lowest price you can get, agree to it only if the seller will take a portion of that negotiated price in your product or service-ideally, 25 or 50 percent. What does that accomplish? It lowers the true cost to you of the computer by up to one-third, depending on what your margins are, and it buys you time on the bartered portion of the purchase because most people won’t use your products or services right away, even though they’re welcome to. You, on the other hand, get access to the computer right away, so you’ve actually deferred payment interest free at a discount for that period of time. 在资本支出上节省现金。假设你要购买一台电脑。在你谈判到最低价格后，只有在卖方同意将谈判价格的一部分以你的产品或服务支付时才同意——理想情况下，25%或 50%。这样有什么好处？这将根据你的利润率，降低你购买电脑的实际成本，最多可达三分之一，并且它为你购买的以物易物部分争取了时间，因为大多数人不会立即使用你的产品或服务，尽管他们可以。另一方面，你可以立即获得电脑，因此你实际上是在这段时间内以折扣的方式无息延期付款。
You can even trade a lesser dollar value of your more desirable goods, and for a higher markup. If you don’t think this is feasible, here’s a real-world example that may change your mind. 您甚至可以以较低的美元价值交易您更受欢迎的商品，并获得更高的利润。如果您认为这不可行，这里有一个可能会改变您想法的现实例子。
I’ve seen car dealers trade cars for two or three times their value in “soft dollar” services, which I explain below. Let’s say a service provider wants to do the window cleaning for them-or anything, really, because car dealers spend tens of millions of dollars on services and on products. Why shouldn’t they leverage that need to their advantage? 我见过汽车经销商以“软美元”服务的两到三倍价值进行汽车交易，我将在下面解释。假设一个服务提供商想为他们做窗户清洁——或者任何事情，实际上，因为汽车经销商在服务和产品上花费数千万美元。他们为什么不利用这种需求来获得优势呢？
So let’s say you want to get in on this dynamic. If a car dealer is willing to trade to you initially, you can get a car. Let’s say your product is marked up five times. The car dealer marks his up twice. You get the car for twice, and sell it for less than the car dealer would. You get a profit on your services, and you get access to the car dealer as a client when the trade runs out. 所以假设你想参与这个动态。如果汽车经销商愿意最初和你交易，你就可以得到一辆车。假设你的产品加价五倍。汽车经销商加价两倍。你以两倍的价格获得汽车，并以低于汽车经销商的价格出售。你从你的服务中获得利润，并在交易结束时获得汽车经销商作为客户。
Alternatively, you can pay your operating expenditures, even payroll, by converting them to a variable or soft contract with “soft dollars.” This means that you could be low on cash, or even out of cash, and still continue to operate and prosper, and continue to employ critically needed personnel or service providers using barter as your means of commerce. 另外，您可以通过将运营支出（甚至工资）转换为“软美元”的可变或软合同来支付这些费用。这意味着您可能现金不足，甚至没有现金，但仍然可以继续运营和繁荣，并继续雇用关键所需的人员或服务提供商，使用以物易物作为您的商业手段。
I’ve gotten lots of stuff done for me in this way. For three or four years, all of my decorating, furniture-purchasing, and house-painting goals were accomplished through barter. I’d give somebody my services at $5,000\$ 5,000 an hour, and he would give me his. My wife has a Porsche convertible. It cost me a day and a half of my time in trade, brand new. 我通过这种方式完成了很多事情。在过去的三四年里，我所有的装饰、家具购买和房屋粉刷的目标都是通过以物易物实现的。我会以每小时 $5,000\$ 5,000 的价格提供我的服务，而他则会提供他的服务。我的妻子有一辆保时捷敞篷车。它是全新的，花了我一天半的时间作为交换。
2. Print your own currency or scrip, usable only at your place of business. Your imagination is the only limit to the advantages that having your own legal tender can provide to your business. Here’s just one thing to think about: Say there’s something your company really needs or wants to acquire, but you can’t afford it on a cash bank basis. Using your own currency, whereby the cost is based on the cost of supply in goods and services, and where you take delivery now but pay for it much, much later, you can afford to acquire all kinds of things. 2. 打印您自己的货币或代币，仅在您的营业场所使用。您拥有自己的法定货币所能带来的优势，只有您的想象力是限制。这里有一个值得思考的事情：假设您的公司真的需要或想要获得某样东西，但您无法以现金银行的方式负担得起。使用您自己的货币，其成本基于商品和服务的供应成本，您现在可以交付，但可以在很久很久以后再付款，您就可以负担得起各种各样的东西。
There are times when you have to triangulate. You may not have something that is wanted by the business you’re try- 有时你需要进行三角测量。你可能没有业务所需的东西。
ing to hook, but you may be able to trade your product or service to a third company or individual who’s got that hook; then you triangulate it. Here’s how it works. 要钩住，但你可能能够将你的产品或服务交易给拥有那个钩子的第三家公司或个人；然后你就可以进行三角交易。它是这样运作的。
Say you issue a $5,000\$ 5,000 credit to a printer. She gives you $5,000\$ 5,000 worth of printing and delivers it immediately. You pay with your barter scrip or credits, and you allow the printer one to two years to use those credits with you. Until the printer actually uses those credits, you haven’t paid out a thing, and because she probably will use only a portion of the credit with you at a time, its cost will easily be handled a little at a time incrementally. But a dollar paid in two years costs you a lot less than a dollar paid today. 假设你给一台打印机发放了一个 $5,000\$ 5,000 信用。她给你 $5,000\$ 5,000 的打印服务，并立即交付。你用你的物物交换凭证或信用支付，并允许打印机在一到两年内使用这些信用。在打印机实际使用这些信用之前，你并没有支付任何费用，而且因为她可能一次只会使用部分信用，所以其成本可以逐步轻松处理。但是，两年后支付的一美元成本远低于今天支付的一美元。
3. Keep in mind that your bartering partner may never cash in. This point is not meant to be manipulative or unethical. It’s just a truism reflecting “breakage,” which represents the barter certificates that are never used. A certain percentage of all barter credits issued, if they have an expiration date (which I recommend), will not be used. Here’s an example. 3. 请记住，您的交易伙伴可能永远不会兑现。这一点并不是为了操控或不道德。这只是一个反映“损耗”的真理，代表着从未使用的交易凭证。所有发行的交易积分中，若有有效期（我建议这样做），将有一定比例不会被使用。以下是一个例子。
A major New Orleans hotel traded $125,000\$ 125,000 worth of radio and TV time, and issued barter scrip in that amount, for use of the hotel’s services, with a oneyear expiration date. Right up front, the hotel got $125,000 in advertising at regular cash rates. This was advertising for which the hotel had been paying $125,000\$ 125,000 in real cash in the past. 一家位于新奥尔良的主要酒店以价值 $125,000\$ 125,000 的广播和电视时间进行交易，并发行了相应金额的以物易物券，用于酒店的服务，有效期为一年。酒店立即获得了价值 125,000 美元的按正常现金价格计算的广告。这是酒店过去曾以 $125,000\$ 125,000 的真实现金支付的广告。
At the end of twelve months, an audit revealed that the TV and radio stations had redeemed only $35,000\$ 35,000 worth of the barter scrip within the time limit. The hotel was ready to make good on its barter scrip-it was willing and able to. But the rest of the credits expired unused, so the cash cost of the hotel delivering $35,000\$ 35,000 worth of rooms was only $5,000\$ 5,000. The hotel had leveraged up $125,000 in advertising for $5,000 in hard dollars. 在十二个月结束时，审计显示电视和广播电台在时间限制内仅兑换了价值 $35,000\$ 35,000 的以物易物券。酒店准备兑现其以物易物券——它愿意并且能够这样做。但其余的信用未被使用而过期，因此酒店交付价值 $35,000\$ 35,000 的房间的现金成本仅为 $5,000\$ 5,000 。酒店利用了 125,000 美元的广告换取 5,000 美元的现金。
Note that this calculation doesn’t take into consideration two other factors that, although often overlooked, are extremely significant: 请注意，这个计算没有考虑另外两个因素，尽管常常被忽视，但却极其重要：
■ Statistically, $35,000\$ 35,000 in room trade produced $17,500\$ 17,500 in cash, food, beverage, and miscellaneous real sales, with gross profits ■ 从统计上看， $35,000\$ 35,000 的房间交易产生了 $17,500\$ 17,500 的现金、食品、饮料和其他实际销售，毛利润为
in excess of $8,000\$ 8,000 for the hotel. So the hotel actually got paid $3,000\$ 3,000 net after all expenses were entered into the transaction. 酒店的费用超过 $8,000\$ 8,000 。因此，酒店在所有费用计入交易后实际获得了 $3,000\$ 3,000 的净收入。
All $35,000 worth of rooms were not used at one time. The room reservations were spread out over twelve months, meaning that the hotel got to pay the $5,000\$ 5,000 over twelve months totally interest free. In essence, the hotel received $125,000 worth of advertising up front, and got paid to use it. 所有价值 35,000 美元的房间并不是一次性使用的。房间预订分布在十二个月内，这意味着酒店可以在总共十二个月内完全免息地支付 $5,000\$ 5,000 。本质上，酒店提前获得了价值 125,000 美元的广告，并且得到了使用它的报酬。
In light of the evidence, I think we can safely say that this barter was one of the best decisions the hotel ever made. 根据证据，我认为我们可以安全地说，这笔以物易物是酒店做出的最佳决策之一。
4. Convert your bartered items into cash. Many barter items can be sold or converted to cash at a fee well above the cost of acquiring them. And this happens not only with small businesses but with Fortune 500 companies, too. Here’s just one example. 4. 将你的易货物品转换为现金。许多易货物品可以以高于获取成本的费用出售或转换为现金。这不仅发生在小型企业中，也发生在财富 500 强公司中。这里仅举一个例子。
A few years back, a Spanish television network traded with Chrysler Corporation for 192 cars. The seven-station chain sold the cars to its employees at a 30 percent discount over what the cars normally stickered for. The employees were overjoyed because the most the dealer would have discounted them was 15 percent. The average value of each car was $10,000\$ 10,000, and ultimately, the television network received from the sale more than $1,920,000\$ 1,920,000 in real cash for unused airtime that cost it nothing. This was expiring time the stations weren’t using - -ime that probably would have gone unused and, thus, would have produced zero revenue unless it was traded. 几年前，一家西班牙电视网络与克莱斯勒公司交易了 192 辆汽车。这家七个电台的连锁店以比汽车正常标价低 30%的折扣将汽车出售给员工。员工们非常高兴，因为经销商最多只会给他们 15%的折扣。每辆车的平均价值为 $10,000\$ 10,000 ，最终，电视网络通过销售获得了超过 $1,920,000\$ 1,920,000 的现金，这些现金是用于未使用的广告时间，而这些广告时间对它来说是没有成本的。这是电台未使用的过期时间——这些时间可能会被闲置，因此如果不进行交易，就不会产生任何收入。
But the deal gets even better: The radio station traded 45 of these Chrysler cars to a television transmitter manufacturer, in exchange for a halfmillion dollars’ worth of transmitter equipment, which permitted the radio station to open up a new full-power UHF station in San Francisco without using any cash. The ability to trade for this equipment sped up the timetable to get the San Francisco station on the air by more than one full year; it also enabled the station to operate in the beginning without draining all its limited 但交易变得更好：这家广播电台将 45 辆克莱斯勒汽车交易给了一家电视发射器制造商，以换取价值 50 万美元的发射器设备，这使得广播电台能够在不使用任何现金的情况下在旧金山开设一个新的全功率 UHF 电台。以这种方式交换设备的能力使得旧金山电台的开播时间提前了超过一年；这也使得电台在初期能够运营而不耗尽其有限的资金。
cash. That radio station became a runaway success before any other Spanish station ever penetrated San Francisco. And the station was subsequently sold for $400\$ 400 million-really, $400\$ 400 million-even though, by itself, it was probably worth only $50\$ 50 million. 现金。那家电台在任何其他西班牙电台进入旧金山之前就取得了巨大的成功。随后，该电台以 $400\$ 400 百万的价格出售——实际上是 $400\$ 400 百万——尽管单凭它，可能只值 $50\$ 50 百万。
5. Create a barter profit center. Some salespeople who are not effective in cash selling are extremely successful in bartering. So you might have a sleeper salesperson working for you whose sales will skyrocket and give you huge bonus margins on the products or services once he or she starts bartering. You trade your products or services at full rate, then turn right around and sell the merchandise for services you acquire to the open market, at a discount, under the going rate for the merchandise. Here’s a cool example. 5. 创建一个以物易物的利润中心。一些在现金销售中不太有效的销售人员在以物易物方面却非常成功。因此，你可能有一个潜力巨大的销售人员在为你工作，一旦他或她开始以物易物，销售额将会飙升，并为你带来巨额的产品或服务奖金利润。你以全价交易你的产品或服务，然后立即转身以折扣价将商品出售给开放市场，低于商品的市场价。这里有一个很酷的例子。
The Home Shopping Network, which is now a billion-dollar business, was actually conceived and started by the owner of a small-time radio station in Florida who was having difficulty making payroll. The owner traded 1,400 electric can openers (really!) with a hardware store and then cash-converted them over the air. Lo and behold, his company was saved. He basically held an auction, and then began trading and auctioning goods and services over the radio to the listening audience. Within sixty days, the small station was back in the black. 家庭购物网络现在是一个十亿美元的企业，实际上是由佛罗里达州一家小型广播电台的老板构思并创办的，他当时在支付工资方面遇到了困难。老板用 1400 个电动开罐器（真的！）与一家五金店进行交易，然后通过广播将其现金转换。果然，他的公司得救了。他基本上举行了一场拍卖，然后开始在广播中向听众交易和拍卖商品和服务。在六十天内，这家小电台重新盈利。
Then the owner bought some cable time. When this also proved successful, investors backed the concept into satellite link, then went national. The stock went up; it grew bigger than Xerox. The company sales now exceed $1\$ 1 billion, and it all started with 1,400 can openers in trade. 然后，老板购买了一些电缆时间。当这也证明成功时，投资者支持将这个概念转向卫星链接，然后走向全国。股票上涨；它的规模超过了施乐。公司的销售额现在超过 $1\$ 1 十亿，一切都始于 1,400 个开罐器的交易。
6. Finance rapid growth without cash. You don’t necessarily have to wait years to amass enough capital to go into business. If you’re innovative, you can get started with virtually nothing, and the capital will come to you. Here’s what I mean: 6. 在没有现金的情况下快速增长财务。你不一定要等上几年才能积累足够的资本来创业。如果你有创新精神，你几乎可以从零开始，资本会自然而然地到来。我的意思是：
Carnival Cruise started out as a Florida-based cruise line. It now has the largest cruise line in the world. But it started with only one ship and no real 嘉年华邮轮最初是一家位于佛罗里达的邮轮公司。现在它拥有世界上最大的邮轮公司。但它最初只有一艘船，没有真正的
capital. It was totally uncapitalized. In the beginning, the lone ship the company had wasn’t even painted on one side. (I know this because I’m friends with Carnival’s marketing and advertising guy.) The company had to park it on the painted side so people wouldn’t know the other side was unpainted. 资本。它完全没有资本化。起初，公司唯一的船只甚至一侧都没有涂漆。（我知道这一点是因为我和嘉年华的市场营销和广告人员是朋友。）公司不得不将船停在涂漆的一侧，以免人们知道另一侧没有涂漆。
So what Carnival did was trade otherwise-empty cabins for radio, television, and newspaper advertising in 100 cities over a ten-year period. The cost of an empty cabin once the ship sails is minimal, plus the passengers would spend considerable cash in the bar, casino, and gift shop. When the advertiser or other recipients booked the cruise, Carnival would charge them a processing fee of about $90\$ 90. That $90\$ 90 paid for all the food plus the incremental cost of towels, toilet paper, and electricity. So Carnival was out nothing, and it got the advertising it needed. 所以嘉年华所做的是用原本空置的舱房换取在 100 个城市进行为期十年的广播、电视和报纸广告。船只启航后，空舱的成本几乎为零，而且乘客会在酒吧、赌场和礼品店花费相当可观的现金。当广告商或其他接收者预订邮轮时，嘉年华会向他们收取大约 $90\$ 90 的处理费。那 $90\$ 90 支付了所有的食物费用以及毛巾、卫生纸和电力的增量成本。因此，嘉年华没有损失，并且获得了所需的广告。
The payoff for Carnival was pretty substantial: The company used this technique to become the largest cruise line in the world, continuously advertising in 100 cities for more than ten years without spending a penny of hard cash. A conservative estimate of the amount of sales generated numbers in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The owner became a billionaire and was on the top of the Forbes Richest Men list-all with this one bartering strategy. 嘉年华的回报相当可观：该公司利用这一技术成为全球最大的邮轮公司，连续在 100 个城市进行广告宣传超过十年而没有花费一分钱的现金。保守估计，产生的销售额达数亿美元。业主成为亿万富翁，并登上《福布斯》富豪榜的榜首——这一切都得益于这一种以物易物的策略。
7. Recycle dollars right back into your own pocket. Barter certificates can be used as a type of currency that circulates only within your business. What you pay out comes right back in: 7. 将回收的美元直接放回自己的口袋。以物易物证书可以作为一种仅在您的业务内流通的货币。您支付的费用会直接回流：
Remember our discussion of the New Orleans hotel? It extended the barter scrip approach beyond that one $125,000\$ 125,000 deal. Now it issues its own barter certificates to the tune of $7\$ 7 million a year. The certificates over the years have become extremely popular. The hotel is able to trade for advertising on nearly any radio or TV station in the country because it’s so desirable. It saves an estimated $10\$ 10 million a year in cash through this process because it gets incremental business and, in any case, honors the certificates only when they’re unsold. In short, this way of doing business costs the hotel almost nothing. 还记得我们讨论的新奥尔良酒店吗？它将以物易物的代币方法扩展到了那一笔 $125,000\$ 125,000 交易之外。现在它每年发行自己的以物易物证书，金额达到 $7\$ 7 百万。这些证书多年来变得极为受欢迎。由于其需求量大，酒店能够在全国几乎任何一家广播电台或电视台进行广告交易。通过这个过程，它每年节省了估计 $10\$ 10 百万现金，因为它获得了额外的业务，并且在任何情况下，只有在证书未售出时才会兑现。简而言之，这种商业方式几乎不花酒店任何成本。
Here’s another example: 这是另一个例子：
The City of Palm Springs orders advertising for its tourist bureau. In order for the media-the radio stations and the TV stations around the country-to be paid for the advertising they run, the tourist bureau requires that the media travel to Palm Springs and spend the vouchers in the city itself. In other words, the money gets recycled. Let’s say the tourist bureau execs spend $100,000\$ 100,000 on TV in New York. They don’t pay it with cash. Instead, they pay it in vouchers good for any merchant of the tourist bureau in Palm Springs; but it’s got to be repaid there, so it all comes back. 棕榈泉市为其旅游局订购广告。为了让全国的媒体——广播电台和电视台——获得他们播放的广告费用，旅游局要求媒体前往棕榈泉并在城市内使用代金券。换句话说，资金得以循环利用。假设旅游局的高管在纽约的电视上花费了 $100,000\$ 100,000 。他们不是用现金支付，而是用在棕榈泉的旅游局任何商家都可以使用的代金券支付；但必须在那儿偿还，所以所有的钱都会回到那里。
One other thing I recommend that businesses do is to leverage stockholder benefits. Many companies issue employee or stockholder benefits, like bonuses, vacations, and so on, in barter. They do it all in barter, and it costs them almost nothing. And it’s not just about accumulating perks to pass out to employees. It’s about creating revenue that flows direct to the bottom line. 我还建议企业利用股东福利。许多公司以物易物的方式发放员工或股东福利，比如奖金、假期等等。他们都是以物易物的方式进行，这几乎不花费他们任何成本。而这不仅仅是为了积累福利分发给员工。它是关于创造直接流向底线的收入。
This strategy isn’t just for companies working with limited capital. Here are a few of the companies that trade: During the oil shock of the 1970s, Chrysler, stuck with big gasguzzlers that suddenly no one wanted, traded 900 Imperials in six weeks for radio and TV advertising that helped the company stay alive. Yamaha traded 16,000 guitars for advertising. Mazda traded 350 cars for advertising credits. These companies, too, have successfully made use of bartering: Best Western, Sheraton, Outrigger, the former Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Carnival Cruise, Aero Mexico, KLM, Continental, RCA, Citizen’s Watch, Turner Broadcasting System, NBC, Budget Rent-a-Car, Avis, Hawaiian Tropic, Conrad Cruise, Mexicana Airlines, Air France, Curtis Publishing, TWA, Samsung, Carl’s Junior restaurants, Levitz Furniture, and Coty Perfume. 这种策略不仅适用于资本有限的公司。以下是一些进行交易的公司：在 1970 年代的石油危机期间，克莱斯勒公司被困于突然无人问津的大排量汽车，在六周内用 900 辆帝国汽车换取了帮助公司生存的广播和电视广告。雅马哈用 16,000 把吉他换取广告。马自达用 350 辆汽车换取广告信用。这些公司也成功地利用了以物易物：最佳西方酒店、喜来登、Outrigger、前比佛利威尔希尔酒店、嘉年华邮轮、墨西哥航空、荷兰皇家航空、大陆航空、RCA、公民手表、特纳广播公司、NBC、Budget 租车、Avis、夏威夷热带、康拉德邮轮、墨西哥航空、法国航空、柯蒂斯出版、TWA、三星、Carl’s Junior 餐厅、Levitz 家具和 Coty 香水。
All of these companies have traded in the past. I project many more will barter in this crisis economy. One of those should probably be yours. 所有这些公司在过去都有过交易。我预计在这个危机经济中会有更多的公司进行以物易物。其中一个可能应该是你的。
STRIKING THE RIGHT BALANCE BETWEEN PAYING TOO MUCH AND PAYING TOO LITTLE 在支付过多和支付过少之间找到正确的平衡
When your business is struggling, it’s often possible to narrow down the problem to either paying too much or paying too little. When you’re paying too much, it’s usually because you have too much fixed overhead that’s not earning its keep, which in turn is a result of not measuring and imposing performance expectations on your ROI or not knowing how to maximize performance as revenue streams. When you’re paying too little, your employees probably aren’t doing their best work. 当您的业务陷入困境时，通常可以将问题归结为支付过多或支付过少。当您支付过多时，通常是因为您有过多的固定开销没有带来收益，这反过来又是因为没有对投资回报率进行衡量和施加绩效期望，或者不知道如何将绩效最大化为收入来源。当您支付过少时，您的员工可能没有发挥出最佳工作表现。
Here’s how you can solve both issues. On the profit-center side, you could use the information you learned in Chapter 4 to change the way your employees are compensated, so that their success is tied more directly to the success (and profitability) of your business. That is, if the business improves, so does their compensation; if profits drop, so does some portion of their compensation. 以下是您可以解决这两个问题的方法。在利润中心方面，您可以利用在第四章中学到的信息来改变员工的薪酬方式，使他们的成功与您业务的成功（和盈利能力）更直接相关。也就是说，如果业务改善，他们的薪酬也会增加；如果利润下降，他们的部分薪酬也会减少。
It basically works like this: Instead of paying a salesman $3,000\$ 3,000 per month, you could pay him $2,000\$ 2,000 plus a variable, such as a percentage of his total sales or a bonus for each client service call over the daily quota. Of course, your offer has to be fair as well as empathetic to the needs of the salesman; otherwise you won’t produce the positive motivation you’re after but, rather, will stimulate fear and uncertainty and paralysis, which always negatively impact performance. So make sure that your offer provides a positive incentive and is structured in a way that reflects your support. 它基本上是这样的：你可以支付给销售员 $2,000\$ 2,000 加上一个可变部分，比如他总销售额的百分比或每天配额以上的每个客户服务电话的奖金，而不是每月支付给他 $3,000\$ 3,000 。当然，你的提议必须公平，并且要考虑到销售员的需求；否则，你不会产生你所期望的积极动机，而是会激发恐惧、不确定性和瘫痪，这总是会对表现产生负面影响。因此，确保你的提议提供积极的激励，并以反映你支持的方式进行结构设计。
With an incentive package, all of a sudden your expense drops. Yet the more you pay, the more you’re selling, which in turn means more profits pulled in. Bottom line: Don’t just pay for salaries; pay for results. 通过激励方案，您的开支一下子就减少了。然而，您支付得越多，销售得也越多，这反过来意味着获得更多的利润。底线是：不要仅仅支付薪水；要为结果付费。
Some specific examples come to mind: Gem dealers give rare gems to top salespeople for their spouses or for themselves; car dealers offer the use of a luxury car like a Mercedes 550SL for the top salesperson of the quarter; and airlines offer employees the benefit of free or reduced travel. These prizes/ incentives are appealing to the recipients, who gravitated toward these industries because they liked gemstones, fine cars, or travel to begin with. 一些具体的例子浮现在脑海中：宝石商将稀有宝石赠送给顶尖销售人员的配偶或自己；汽车经销商为季度最佳销售人员提供使用豪华车，如梅赛德斯 550SL；航空公司为员工提供免费或减价旅行的福利。这些奖品/激励措施对接受者具有吸引力，他们之所以进入这些行业，是因为他们本身就喜欢宝石、豪华汽车或旅行。
To solve the problem of overhead, you can employ the concept of joint venturing and power partnering, which we touched on in Chapter 3 and will explore further in Chapter 10. Remember the podiatrist who rented out space in a sleep clinic and the businessman who went to Indonesia and Malaysia to team up with motorcycle manufacturers? These examples are only a small sampling of the numerous other ways to turn costs from expenses into sales. 为了解决开销问题，您可以采用合资和强强联合的概念，我们在第三章中提到过，并将在第十章中进一步探讨。还记得那位在睡眠诊所租用空间的足病医生和那位前往印度尼西亚和马来西亚与摩托车制造商合作的商人吗？这些例子只是将成本从支出转变为销售的众多其他方式中的一小部分。
By forming strategic alliances-a strategy I like to refer to as “Partner or Perish”-you’re putting a twist on the old-fashioned concept of partnering by dramatically expanding and enhancing your business potential. This isn’t just a trend. It’s a whole new way of doing business, and it’s here to stay. To give you an idea of the popularity of strategic alliances, here are a couple of facts: 通过形成战略联盟——我喜欢称之为“合作或灭亡”的策略——您正在对传统的合作概念进行创新，显著扩展和增强您的商业潜力。这不仅仅是一种趋势。这是一种全新的商业方式，并且将持续存在。为了让您了解战略联盟的受欢迎程度，这里有几个事实：
■ More than 20 percent of all the revenue generated from the top 2,000 U.S. and European companies now comes from alliances. ■ 目前来自美国和欧洲前 2000 家公司产生的所有收入中，超过 20%来自于联盟。
The number of alliances is growing by 20 percent a year, with an estimated 10,000 new big-business alliances being reported in a single year alone. 联盟数量每年增长 20%，预计仅在一年内就有 10,000 个新的大企业联盟被报告。
We see examples of strategic alliances every day: Think of the bank located within your grocery store, the fast-food 我们每天都能看到战略联盟的例子：想想位于你杂货店内的银行，快餐店
restaurants inside retailers such as Home Depot, the Pringles ads encouraging us to wash down their chips with an icy-cold Coke. In each of these cases, both parties are reaping enormous benefits from increased exposure to decreased advertising costs. 零售商内部的餐厅，如家得宝，普林格尔的广告鼓励我们用冰冷的可乐来搭配他们的薯片。在这些情况下，双方都从增加的曝光和降低的广告成本中获得了巨大的好处。
The best thing about such alliances is that you can capitalize on them with no money down, and with no risk, either-if you do it properly. There’s no better way to keep costs from eating up your profits than to simply eliminate the need for initial investments. Let me show you what I mean. 这种联盟最好的地方在于，你可以在没有任何资金投入和风险的情况下利用它们——前提是你做得正确。没有比简单地消除初始投资的需求更好的方法来防止成本侵蚀你的利润。让我来给你举个例子。
A chiropractor came to one of my programs, really absorbed everything I was offering, and left with the drive and confidence to act on the knowledge he had gained. His home was situated near a big national forest, and every year the rangers at that national forest had to pay people to haul away the pine needles that fell from the trees. The chiropractor learned that if you turn pine needles into mulch, it makes just about the best fertilizer imaginable. Luckily for him, he was the first in the area to make that connection-or, more important, the first to do something about it. 一位脊椎按摩师参加了我的一个项目，真正吸收了我所提供的一切，并带着行动的动力和信心离开，运用他所获得的知识。他的家位于一个大国家森林附近，每年那个国家森林的护林员都不得不支付人们来清理从树上掉落的松针。脊椎按摩师了解到，如果将松针转化为覆盖物，它几乎可以成为最好的肥料。幸运的是，他是该地区第一个意识到这一点的人——更重要的是，第一个采取行动的人。
He found a trucking firm that passed the national forest on its delivery route. So, he offered the truckers a deal whereby they would pick up the pine needles and deliver them to him for no up-front fee, but for a percentage of revenue he would eventually earn. He also found a big used-car lot that was unoccupied and made a deal with the owner, who let him access the space, again, for no up-front fee - just a promise of a share in the profits. 他找到了一家在送货路线经过国家森林的货运公司。因此，他向卡车司机提供了一项交易，允许他们收集松针并将其送到他那里，不收取前期费用，而是按他最终获得的收入的百分比支付。他还找到了一块空置的大型二手车场，并与业主达成协议，业主让他使用这个空间，同样不收取前期费用——只是承诺分享利润。
Then the chiropractor went to the national forest service and underbid what any of the other hauling companies were asking to take the pine needles away. In fact, he underbid by 50 percent, got the deal, had the trucking company haul the pine needles and the car lot store the pine needles, turned them into mulch - and made $300,000\$ 300,000 in the first year from the ingenious joint-venture triumvirate he engineered. And he did all of this without making a risky initial investment in his partners. That’s the beauty of partnership in action. 然后，脊椎按摩师去国家森林服务局，出价低于其他任何搬运公司的报价，以清理松针。事实上，他的报价低了 50%，获得了合同，让卡车公司运走松针，让汽车销售商储存松针，将其转化为 mulch - 并在他设计的巧妙合资三方中，在第一年赚取了 $300,000\$ 300,000 。他在没有对合作伙伴进行风险投资的情况下完成了这一切。这就是合作的魅力所在。
HARNESS THE POWER OF PACKAGING TO INCREASE YOUR PROFITS 利用包装的力量来增加您的利润
There’s another strategy I recommend for ensuring that costs don’t eat up your profits: the power of packaging. I never sell just a commodity. Rather, I always try to add elements, whether tangible or intangible, to make the product proprietaryincomparable to anything else out there. By packaging a product as proprietary, a business increases its perceived value, maximizing the strategy of preeminence (discussed in Chapter 2). 我推荐另一种确保成本不会吞噬利润的策略：包装的力量。我从不单独销售商品。相反，我总是尝试添加元素，无论是有形的还是无形的，以使产品具有专有性，与市场上其他任何产品不可比拟。通过将产品包装为专有产品，企业提高了其感知价值，最大化了卓越战略（在第二章中讨论）。
Most businesses are stuck in “parity pricing,” meaning that they have to charge what their competitors are chargingno more, no less-or they won’t get the business. But if everyone’s pricing is the same, a business owner’s success can come only from cutting the price. Unless you have such a presence in the market that you are by far the dominant player, you can’t squash everybody around you. And you can’t compete on price forever because somebody else will eventually do what you’re doing better, faster, or cheaper. 大多数企业陷入了“平价定价”的困境，这意味着他们必须收取与竞争对手相同的价格——不多也不少——否则就无法获得业务。但如果每个人的定价都相同，企业主的成功只能来自于降价。除非你在市场上有如此强大的影响力，以至于你是绝对的主导者，否则你无法压制周围的所有人。而且你不能永远以价格竞争，因为总会有人最终会以更好、更快或更便宜的方式做你正在做的事情。
So how can you unstick your business from the paritypricing predicament? One way is to change the game you’re playing by making your offer so different from everyone else’s that clients want to buy only from you. Here’s an example. 那么，您如何能将您的业务从平价定价的困境中解脱出来呢？一种方法是通过使您的产品与其他人的产品截然不同，从而改变您所处的竞争环境，让客户只想从您这里购买。以下是一个例子。
Let’s say that everyone is selling a computer for $1,995\$ 1,995, with a profit of $200\$ 200. You’re moving very few units because everyone is selling at the same price. If you could take $50\$ 50 of the $200\$ 200 of profit and use it to buy accessories - software, music downloads, optic mouses, and so on in bulk, at modest distributor pricing (but which the consumer values as substantial)you can package these high-perceived-value items with the computer as “no-cost” bonus items. 假设每个人都以 $1,995\$ 1,995 的价格出售一台电脑，利润为 $200\$ 200 。由于每个人都以相同的价格出售，您的销量非常少。如果您可以将 $50\$ 50 的 $200\$ 200 利润用于批量购买配件——软件、音乐下载、光学鼠标等，以适中的分销商价格（但消费者认为这些是实质性的），您可以将这些高感知价值的物品与电脑打包作为“无成本”赠品。
Now you’ve changed the game. You’re no longer selling a commodity. Instead, you’re selling a proprietary package—full of valuable additions that 现在你已经改变了游戏。你不再是在销售商品。相反，你是在销售一个专有的套餐——充满了有价值的附加内容。
no one else has thought of. Anyone in their right mind would buy from you over the competition, all other factors being equal. Then you get all the profits from future repeat purchases, too. 没有人想到过。任何理智的人都会在其他因素相等的情况下选择从你那里购买，而不是竞争对手那里。然后你还会获得未来重复购买的所有利润。
EXPAND (OR CONTRACT) YOUR TIME HORIZONS TO STABILIZE AND IMPROVE YOUR CASH FLOW 扩展（或缩短）您的时间范围，以稳定和改善您的现金流
Foresight can be crucial in planning your company’s future. But running a business with an operating horizon set too far in the future is like planning to kayak around the globe in a week. Sometimes you have to take small steps first. 前瞻性在规划公司未来时可能至关重要。但将业务的运营视野设定得过于遥远，就像计划在一周内划独木舟环游全球。有时你必须先迈出小步伐。
When I used to do turnarounds with corporations, I made sure to look at the rate of cash growth. I asked the CEOs, “At what point does this business reach a critical point of no return?” Every decision and every activity had to have a return on investment with a foreseeable horizon. After all, it didn’t matter if something was a great investment if the company was going to survive only six months, whereas the result of the investment wouldn’t show for eighteen months! Here’s an example of how this problem typically surfaces. 当我曾与公司进行转型时，我确保关注现金增长率。我问首席执行官：“这个业务在什么时刻达到不可逆转的临界点？”每个决策和每项活动都必须有可预见的投资回报。毕竟，如果公司只能存活六个月，而投资的结果要等到十八个月后才会显现，那么即使某项投资很棒也没有意义！以下是这个问题通常出现的一个例子。
I once helped a company that was in the middle of a software installation that wouldn’t be completed for twelve months and wouldn’t show a return on investment for thirty-six months. Typically, getting an ROI in twelve to eighteen months is considered a very good outcome. This company, however, had only six months’ worth of cash. By the time it started realizing the benefits of that investment, it would be out of business. 我曾经帮助过一家正在进行软件安装的公司，这个安装需要十二个月才能完成，并且在三十六个月内不会显示投资回报。通常，在十二到十八个月内获得投资回报被认为是非常好的结果。然而，这家公司只有六个月的现金流。在它开始实现投资收益时，它将已经倒闭。
I determined the point at which the company would reach a critically low level of cash and then moved back the ROI horizon by 20 to 40 percent, so that every decision being made had an almost immediate return. As the company started to succeed and the cash situation improved, I gradually moved the horizon further out, so as to avoid becoming too crisis-managementoriented. 我确定了公司达到现金 critically low level 的点，然后将 ROI horizon 向后移动了 20% 到 40%，以便每个决策几乎都有立即的回报。随着公司开始成功，现金状况改善，我逐渐将 horizon 向外移动，以避免过于以危机管理为导向。
When it comes to unsticking your business from the “in one way, out the other” trap, it’s all about controlling your cash flow so that the right amounts are coming in and out each month. This means plugging up the leaks and taking a long hard look at your ROI; it also means investigating bartering arrangements and packaging options. Get creative, and have fun with this. Because only after you’ve mastered your cash flow can the real fun begin. 当谈到将您的业务从“进一出二”的陷阱中解脱出来时，关键在于控制您的现金流，以确保每个月进出正确的金额。这意味着要堵住漏洞，并认真审视您的投资回报率；这也意味着要调查以物易物的安排和打包选项。发挥创意，享受这个过程。因为只有在您掌握了现金流之后，真正的乐趣才能开始。
Working itself can be part of the fun-unless you’re stuck doing what isn’t working at all. Now, that’s a whole other story. 工作本身可以是乐趣的一部分——除非你被困在做一些根本不起作用的事情上。现在，这就是另一个故事了。
The Bottom Line 底线
You must measure the return on investment of your marketing. If you’re not measuring, you’re throwing your money in a sinkhole. 您必须衡量您的营销投资回报。如果您不进行测量，您就是在把钱扔进无底洞。
Measure the performance of each sub-element of generating and sustaining your business: identifying your audience, reaching that audience or enticing them to come to you, and closing the audience on transactions that motivate them to return. 衡量生成和维持您业务的每个子元素的表现：识别您的受众、接触该受众或吸引他们来找您，以及促使受众进行交易以激励他们回归。
Adjust your measurement horizon in terms of your overall outlook. If your business is declining, you have to change how you operate. 根据您的整体前景调整测量范围。如果您的业务正在下滑，您必须改变您的运营方式。
Measure everything you do in terms of either an investment or a profit center, as opposed to just a cost expense. 将您所做的每件事都视为投资或利润中心，而不仅仅是成本支出。
Achieve a greater return on investment through bartering: Save cash on capital expenditures, print your own scrip, remember 通过以物易物实现更高的投资回报：节省资本支出现金，打印自己的代币，记住
that your bartering partner might not cash in, convert your bartered items for cash, create a barter profit center, finance rapid growth without cash, and recycle dollars back to yourself. 你的交易伙伴可能不会兑现，将你的易货物品转换为现金，创建一个易货利润中心，在没有现金的情况下融资快速增长，并将美元回收给自己。
Recognize when you’re paying too much-and when you’re paying too little. 识别何时你支付过多，以及何时你支付过少。
Package your product as proprietary. 将您的产品打包为专有产品。
Though it’s tempting to cut back on marketing in tough times, grit your teeth and do the opposite. 虽然在困难时期削减营销开支很有诱惑，但咬紧牙关，做相反的事情。
Immediate Action Step Take a manageable, low-risk step into the world of bartering by asking yourself what you could offer in a barter relationship right now. Get on the phone and close your first barter deal. 立即行动步骤 通过问自己现在可以在以物易物关系中提供什么，采取一个可管理的、低风险的步骤进入以物易物的世界。打电话，达成你的第一笔以物易物交易。
7
ARE YOU STUCK STILL DOING WHAT'S NOT WORKING? 你还在固执地做那些无效的事情吗？
How many unsolicited newsletter promotions would you say you get with your mail every month? I’d be willing to bet a good number. They come in all shapes and sizes, and they represent industries as far-reaching as real estate, finances, health, and fitness. 你每个月收到多少未经请求的新闻通讯促销？我敢打赌数量不少。它们形态各异，涵盖的行业广泛，包括房地产、金融、健康和健身。
Maybe you drop these newsletters straight into your trash can-or your recycling bin, if you’re feeling conscientious-on your way back from the mailbox. But did you know that newsletters are a billion-dollar-a-year business? They also provide one of the most fabulous case studies in businesses that keep doing the same ol’ same ol’-long after it’s stopped working. 也许你在从邮箱回来时直接把这些通讯扔进垃圾桶——如果你有良心的话，就扔进回收箱。但你知道吗，通讯是一个每年价值十亿美元的行业？它们还提供了一个关于那些在停止有效后仍然继续做老一套的企业的绝佳案例研究。
For years and years, businesses sent out conventional sales letters. They stuck them in standard white #10 envelopes with screaming teasers and mailed them out by the thousands. Eventually, they stopped working. But instead of changing their strategy, businesses sent more and more of them. 多年来，企业发送传统的销售信件。他们将其放入标准的白色#10 信封中，附上引人注目的标题，并成千上万地邮寄出去。最终，这些信件不再有效。但企业并没有改变他们的策略，而是发送了越来越多的信件。
Then, a few years ago, a man named Lee Euler got the idea to turn the traditional sales letter into a small book. He created a “bookalog”-a little one-hundred-page pocket-book that’s actually a sales promotion-and he owned the market. Then everyone started doing bookalogs and they stopped working. 几年前，一个名叫李欧拉的人想到了将传统的销售信转变为一本小书。他创造了一本“书册”——一本实际上是销售推广的小型一百页口袋书，并且他占据了市场。然后每个人都开始做书册，结果它们不再有效。
But instead of changing their strategy, businesses sent more and more of them. 但企业并没有改变他们的策略，而是发送了越来越多的他们。
A few years after that, a man by the name of Jim Rutz, followed by a marketing master named Gary Bencivenga, got the idea to turn the bookalog into a magalog, a hybrid of magazine and newsletter. The magalog looked liked a magazine with stories, color photos, and articles to pique clients’ interest, but underneath all the gloss, it packaged the same message as an old-school sales letter. The difference? It was a whole lot more effective. Magalogs penetrated the market with greater curiosity, interest, and credibility. 几年后，一个名叫 Jim Rutz 的人，以及一位名叫 Gary Bencivenga 的营销大师，想出了将书籍广告转变为杂志广告的主意，这是一种杂志和通讯的混合体。杂志广告看起来像一本杂志，里面有故事、彩色照片和文章来引起客户的兴趣，但在所有光鲜的外表下，它传递的信息与传统的销售信相同。不同之处在于？它的效果要好得多。杂志广告以更大的好奇心、兴趣和可信度渗透市场。
This was the evolution of the newsletter. But what’s most remarkable about the story, in my opinion, is the fact that, when the old way of doing things stopped working, the vast majority of businesses didn’t change their tactics. They just tried to do more of the same thing, only more aggressively. They stuck more screaming bullets on the outside of their newsletters, they added more people to their mailing lists, they put more pages in their mailings to try to overwhelm their prospects-all instead of shifting the mechanism to cause more impact. 这就是新闻通讯的发展。但在我看来，这个故事最值得注意的地方在于，当旧的做事方式不再有效时，绝大多数企业并没有改变他们的策略。他们只是试图更积极地做同样的事情。他们在新闻通讯的外面贴上更多的尖叫子弹，增加了邮件列表中的人数，增加了邮件中的页面，以试图压倒他们的潜在客户——而不是转变机制以产生更大的影响。
As we’ve seen throughout this book, too many executives and entrepreneurs “follow the herd.” Even when they’re stuck, they don’t think there’s anything different to do. Most businesspeople tend to run their companies from the same revenuegenerating stance as everyone else in their industry. That simply won’t work. If you’re doing what everybody else is doing, you aren’t differentiating yourself from the competition. 正如我们在本书中所看到的，太多的高管和企业家“随大流”。即使他们陷入困境，他们也认为没有其他不同的做法。大多数商人倾向于以与行业内其他人相同的创收立场来经营他们的公司。这显然是行不通的。如果你在做别人正在做的事情，你就无法与竞争对手区分开来。
This chapter deals with how to escape “status quo thinking.” We’ll look at what’s working, and at what’s not working as well as it could. We’ll focus on the importance of examining your processes and the benefits of measuring and testing to achieve higher and better performance. When we’re through, 本章讨论如何摆脱“现状思维”。我们将关注哪些方面运作良好，以及哪些方面未能达到最佳效果。我们将重点关注审视流程的重要性，以及测量和测试以实现更高更好绩效的好处。当我们完成时，
you’ll be able to spend your time working on the things that are actually going to work for you. 你将能够花时间专注于那些真正对你有用的事情。
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW 旧的不去，新的不来
If you use the same methods everyone else in your industry uses, you’ll be lucky if you surpass anyone. You might even do worse. Everyone is buying and selling, marketing, attending trade shows, and making cold calls the same way-saying the same things, making the same propositions. So how can you expect to do any better when you’re doing the same? 如果你使用你所在行业中每个人都在使用的相同方法，你能超越任何人就算幸运了。你甚至可能做得更糟。每个人都在以相同的方式买卖、营销、参加贸易展和进行冷电话——说着相同的话，提出相同的建议。那么，当你做着相同的事情时，你怎么能期望做得更好呢？
To start thinking creatively, you have to get clear on your current practices so that you can expand on what’s working and move beyond what isn’t. Think about the following questions. They may seem simple, but you’d be surprised how many businesspeople don’t consider them when they think about a marketing strategy. 要开始进行创造性思考，您必须清楚自己当前的做法，以便能够扩展有效的部分并超越无效的部分。考虑以下问题。它们看起来很简单，但您会惊讶于有多少商界人士在考虑营销策略时并没有考虑这些问题。
Ten Questions to Ask Yourself to Make Sure You Know What's Working in Your Businessand What Isn't 确保你了解自己业务中有效和无效的十个问题
What business are you currently in? 你目前从事什么行业？
What’s the market you currently address/serve? 您目前服务的市场是什么？
How are you reaching that market? 你如何进入那个市场？
How many additional practical ways can you expand, contact, or access that market? 你可以通过多少额外的实际方式来扩展、联系或接触那个市场？
What product(s) and/or service(s) can you sell? 您可以销售哪些产品和/或服务？
What additional products/services can you add/offer? 您可以添加/提供哪些额外的产品/服务？
How many can you create? 你能创建多少个？
Where would you turn to find outside out-sourced producers? 你会去哪里寻找外部外包生产商？
Who else has access to the same or related prospective buyers as you? 谁还有机会接触到与您相同或相关的潜在买家？
What is the marginal net worth/lifetime value of the initial product or service you sell? (If you’re not sure, consult Chapters 9 and 10 , where we’ll discuss these concepts in detail.) Of the next transaction? Of your total years of revenue? 您销售的初始产品或服务的边际净值/生命周期价值是多少？（如果您不确定，请参考第 9 章和第 10 章，我们将在那里详细讨论这些概念。）下一笔交易呢？您总的收入年限呢？
Let’s take a quick inventory. Grab a pen and write out all of your assets and resources. Then, note the skills and abilities at your disposal (your own and those of your team members). List your other assets, too, such as your sales force and your strategic relationships. End by listing your available resources, such as equipment, space, and underutilized skilled labor. 让我们快速盘点一下。拿起一支笔，写下你所有的资产和资源。然后，记录你可以利用的技能和能力（你自己的以及团队成员的）。也列出你的其他资产，比如销售团队和战略关系。最后列出你可用的资源，如设备、空间和未充分利用的熟练劳动力。
Okay. Now you know your starting point. How do you take it further? Most people’s knowledge consists only of what they’ve learned through observation or training. If you spend the majority of your career in one industry, you’re limited to the machinations of that one industry, because you’ve never been exposed to anything else. It’s a conundrum: On the one hand, you’re extremely knowledgeable in your industry; on the other, you’re extremely knowledgeable only in your industry. You may know the best practices for marketing in toy manufacturing, but if the marketing practices of shoe manufacturing are even better, how would you know? 好的。现在你知道你的起点了。你如何进一步发展？大多数人的知识仅仅是他们通过观察或培训所学到的。如果你在一个行业中度过了大部分职业生涯，你就会局限于那个行业的运作，因为你从未接触过其他行业。这是一个难题：一方面，你在你的行业中非常有知识；另一方面，你只在你的行业中非常有知识。你可能知道玩具制造业的最佳营销实践，但如果鞋类制造业的营销实践更好，你又怎么会知道呢？
I’ve had the good fortune of traveling around the world more than forty times, consulting with industries in nearly as many countries. More important, I’ve traveled the business world, where I’ve been involved with 465 different industriesnot companies but different industries. 我有幸环游世界超过四十次，咨询了近乎同样多的国家的行业。更重要的是，我游历了商业世界，参与了 465 个不同的行业——不是公司，而是不同的行业。
Such exposure has allowed me to see myriad ways of thinking and transacting business. I’ve analyzed almost every method out there, and certain ones always seem to float to the top. 这样的经历让我看到了无数种思维方式和商业交易方式。我几乎分析了所有的方法，而某些方法总是似乎脱颖而出。
Let’s start with a little something I like to call “Funnel Versus Tunnel Vision.” 让我们从我喜欢称之为“漏斗与隧道视野”的小东西开始。
DEVELOP FUNNEL VISION INSTEAD OF TUNNEL VISION— AND MOVE FAR BEYOND BEST PRACTICES 发展漏斗视野而不是隧道视野——并远远超越最佳实践
An approach in one industry that is as common as dirt can have a positive effect when introduced in another industry. But you can begin trying new approaches only by first acknowledging that what you’re currently doing is highly unlikely to be anywhere close to the most effective, and therefore the most profitable, method available. You need to make a point of exposing yourself to other industries as well as to other strategic ways of thinking, acting, and transacting business so that you can gather new concepts that you can adapt for your own use. 在一个行业中普遍存在的方法在引入另一个行业时可能会产生积极的效果。但你只能在首先承认你目前所做的事情极不可能是最有效的，因此也是最有利可图的方法的情况下，开始尝试新的方法。你需要主动接触其他行业，以及其他战略思维、行动和商业交易方式，以便收集可以为自己所用的新概念。
Anyone who’s reading this book already has the first ingredient necessary for success in this investigative process: curiosity. Use your innate curiosity to become what I like to call an “investigative marketer” or a “cross-industry marketing detective.” Start looking at the processes other industries use to generate and sustain business. Then analyze those processes and break them down into components. 任何正在阅读这本书的人都已经具备了成功进行这一调查过程所需的第一要素：好奇心。利用你与生俱来的好奇心，成为我所称之的“调查营销者”或“跨行业营销侦探”。开始关注其他行业用来产生和维持业务的流程。然后分析这些流程，并将其分解为组成部分。
One of the easiest methods of investigative marketing is to ask your clients about their own businesses. If they’re reluctant to share, offer to provide the same information about your 进行市场调查的最简单方法之一就是询问客户关于他们自己业务的信息。如果他们不愿意分享，可以主动提供关于你自己的相同信息。
business in return. Some of the questions you can start with are as follows. 以此作为回报的业务。您可以从以下问题开始。
Ask Other Companies
How They Do Businessand Learn from Them! 询问其他公司如何开展业务并向他们学习！
■ How does your business sell and market? ■ 你的业务是如何销售和营销的？
What business strategy, model, and revenue approach do you use? 你使用什么商业策略、模型和收入方法？
What/who do you target demographically? 你们的目标人群是哪些人？
What selling system and mechanism do you use (e.g., mailings, cold calls)? 您使用什么销售系统和机制（例如，邮件、冷电话）？
■ What processes are part of that mechanism? ■ 哪些过程是该机制的一部分？
Are any of those processes an industry norm? 这些过程中的任何一个是行业标准吗？
What have you tried in the past versus recently? 你过去尝试过什么与最近尝试过的有什么不同？
Once you’ve asked these questions, you’ll receive answers that will spur a whole new set of questions. Try to get some metrics while you’re at it. Then ask your friends and business associates to do the same with their clients or prospects, and compare notes. You’ll all benefit from this exercise. 一旦你问了这些问题，你将会得到一些答案，这些答案会引发一系列全新的问题。趁此机会获取一些指标。然后请你的朋友和商业伙伴也对他们的客户或潜在客户做同样的事情，并进行比较。你们都将从这个练习中受益。
Alternatively, you can try a more homespun method of investigative marketing. On the way home (only if you take the 另外，你可以尝试一种更为朴实的调查营销方法。在回家的路上（只有在你乘坐的情况下）
train-don’t do this while driving!) or while you’re eating lunch, scan the 700 or so different industries in the Yellow Pages and pick out one that looks the most interesting. Then call up a business within that industry, introduce yourself, and ask to pick the executives’ brains. Offer to answer the same questions for them. Exchange information and record what you’ve learned. Or simply walk into a business and try to get sold. Examine the tactics used on you. Suppress the urge to hang up on the next telemarketer and instead listen to his spiel, then dissect how he’s trying to sell you. In all these cases, focus on the process, the sequence, the elements. Ask yourself which parts you find most effective and if you can adapt them to your business. Here’s an example of how this can work. 在开车时不要这样做！）或者在你吃午餐的时候，浏览《黄页》中大约 700 个不同的行业，挑选一个看起来最有趣的。然后给该行业内的一家公司打电话，自我介绍，并请教高管们的想法。也可以主动提出回答他们同样的问题。交换信息并记录你所学到的东西。或者直接走进一家企业，尝试被推销。观察对你使用的策略。抑制住挂掉下一个电话推销员的冲动，反而听听他的推销，然后分析他是如何试图推销给你的。在所有这些情况下，关注过程、顺序和要素。问问自己哪些部分你觉得最有效，是否可以将其应用到你的业务中。这里有一个例子说明这可以如何运作。
I once took a page from the timeshare industry’s marketing practices. Highend timeshares, as many of us know, will offer all sorts of perks just to get you on their property-free meals, free hotel nights, and sometimes, for highly qualified prospects, flights to view the property. Timeshares know that if you’re willing to accept the offer and they do a good presentation, then they’ve got a good chance of converting you from prospect to buyer. 我曾经借鉴过分时度假行业的营销实践。正如我们许多人所知，高端分时度假会提供各种优惠，只为让你到他们的物业——免费餐饮、免费酒店住宿，有时对于高素质的潜在客户，还会提供前往查看物业的航班。分时度假知道，如果你愿意接受这个优惠，并且他们做了一个好的展示，那么他们就有很大的机会将你从潜在客户转变为买家。
I had a client in Pittsburgh who won Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in his category and who sells technology to the chiropractic field. Using the timeshare method of wooing prospects, we invited qualified prospects to Pittsburgh for a weekend at our expense. We put them up, fed them, and paid for their flights. All they had to do was meet with doctors who already owned the equipment and allow us to make a presentation, at which point they could decide if they thought the product was for them or not. The plan was far more successful than just cold calling or sending a DVD: My client’s business more than tripled by the end of the year. 我在匹兹堡有一个客户，他在自己的类别中获得了安永的年度企业家奖，并向脊椎按摩领域销售技术。我们使用分时租赁的方法来吸引潜在客户，邀请合格的潜在客户到匹兹堡度过一个周末，费用由我们承担。我们为他们提供住宿、餐饮，并支付他们的机票。所有他们需要做的就是与已经拥有设备的医生会面，并让我们进行演示，届时他们可以决定是否认为该产品适合他们。这个计划的成功远远超过了冷拨电话或发送 DVD：到年底，我客户的业务增长了三倍以上。
BUCK THE TREND 逆势而行
A common practice in sales, it seems, is to hire salespeople on commission, put them in charge of a territory, and turn 'em 在销售中，一种常见的做法似乎是按佣金雇佣销售人员，让他们负责一个区域，然后让他们去做
loose. But the mere fact that this is the common way of doing things doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Here’s why. 松散。但仅仅因为这是常见的做法并不意味着它是最好的方式。原因如下。
A company that sold Yellow Pages had always hired salespeople on commission and then simply sent out its new reps to start selling. But the company was experiencing incredibly high turnover and hiring costs. The sales department spent an inordinate amount of time seeking out job candidates, hiring, and training, only to see many of the salespeople walk away from the job after only a few months. What’s more, the company was entrusting a potentially lucrative segment of the marketplace to salespeople who weren’t fully mining it. 一家销售黄页的公司一直以来都是按佣金雇佣销售人员，然后简单地让新代表开始销售。但该公司正经历着极高的员工流失率和招聘成本。销售部门花费了大量时间寻找求职者、招聘和培训，但许多销售人员在仅仅几个月后就离开了工作。更重要的是，该公司将一个潜在的利润丰厚的市场细分交给了没有充分开发它的销售人员。
I came aboard to help their salespeople become more profitably and productively mobilized each and every working day. We created a lead-generating process in which we made rock-solid appointments before we ever went on to present. This allowed salespeople to spend their quality, concentrated time not making cold calls door to door but, rather, talking to prospects who’d already been targeted as having the highest potential to buy. Sure, this meant bringing in another level of sales support-the team making phone calls to set appointments and the team creating the direct-mail campaigns-but the sales reps could then focus on what they did best: closing a sale. Even that part of the process became easier, because prospects already understood the product’s foundational benefit and so required less education. 我加入是为了帮助他们的销售人员在每个工作日都能更有利可图和更高效地开展工作。我们创建了一个潜在客户生成流程，在我们进行演示之前就安排了稳固的约会。这使得销售人员能够将他们的优质、集中时间用于与那些已经被确定为具有最高购买潜力的潜在客户交谈，而不是逐户进行冷电话推销。当然，这意味着需要引入另一个层次的销售支持——负责打电话安排约会的团队和负责创建直邮活动的团队——但销售代表可以专注于他们最擅长的事情：达成销售。即使这个过程的这一部分也变得更容易，因为潜在客户已经理解了产品的基本好处，因此需要的教育也更少。
So instead of employing an old-school sales force, consider upgrading to a highly specialized assembly line, matching people with the roles that best complement their strengths; then fine-tune each role for maximum output. Let’s say you have an electronics store that just purchased a newspaper advertisement. You’ve broken down this particular project into four areas-creating the ad, converting calls, converting prospects to buyers, and upselling the buyer. You’ve identified which of your employees (or outside resources) best fits each task, which has already increased productivity in each of those areas. 因此，与其雇佣一支老派的销售团队，不如考虑升级为一条高度专业化的流水线，将人们与最能发挥其优势的角色匹配；然后为每个角色进行微调，以实现最大产出。假设你有一家电子商店刚刚购买了一则报纸广告。你将这个特定项目分解为四个领域——创建广告、转化电话、将潜在客户转化为买家，以及对买家进行追加销售。你已经确定了哪些员工（或外部资源）最适合每个任务，这已经提高了这些领域的生产力。
Your next step is to maximize the process in each role: 您下一步是最大化每个角色中的流程：
What can you do to convert more callers into face-toface prospects? You need to optimize the initial contact. 你可以做些什么来将更多的来电者转化为面对面的潜在客户？你需要优化初次联系。
■ Now that you have the prospects in front of you, how can you convince more of them to buy? You need to refine your sales pitch. ■ 现在你面前有了潜在客户，你如何能说服更多的人购买？你需要完善你的销售推介。
■ Lastly, how can you upsell now or convince them to buy again later? ■ 最后，你如何现在进行追加销售或说服他们稍后再次购买？
If you continue to ask yourself-and your employeesthese questions each step along the way, you’ll be able to develop ways of breaking the same old mold that you (and, most likely, the rest of your industry) have been using since the dawn of time. In fact, one of my favorite case histories comes from my own family. 如果你在每一步都继续问自己和你的员工这些问题，你将能够找到打破你（以及很可能是你所在行业的其他人）自古以来一直使用的老旧模式的方法。事实上，我最喜欢的案例之一来自我自己的家庭。
My son was stuck earning $35,000\$ 35,000 a year based on sixty hours a week of selling office equipment. Together, we determined the industries that could be predicted to have the highest probability of buying such products. We organized prospects geographically, and he called in advance to set appointments, rather than just showing up on cold calls. 我儿子每年赚 $35,000\$ 35,000 ，是基于每周六十小时销售办公设备的工作。我们一起确定了最有可能购买这些产品的行业。我们按地理位置组织潜在客户，他提前打电话预约，而不是仅仅进行冷电话拜访。
Next, we started testing different methods of contact, by phone and by mail, to establish which pitch worked best to land an appointment. My son then hit each geographic area with his pre-scheduled appointments. His prospects were already prepped, due to his pre-appointment calls and mailings, so his job when he arrived was faster and easier. 接下来，我们开始测试不同的联系方式，通过电话和邮件，确定哪种推销方式最有效以获得预约。然后，我的儿子在每个地理区域进行了预先安排的预约。由于他的预先预约电话和邮件，他的潜在客户已经做好了准备，因此他到达时的工作更快更轻松。
By compressing his schedule in this manner, he was able to accelerate and maximize the process of selling. In his first year with this new approach, my son more than doubled his earnings, bringing in $75,000\$ 75,000. Oh yes, and he cut his work hours almost in half. 通过以这种方式压缩他的日程安排，他能够加快并最大化销售过程。在采用这种新方法的第一年，我的儿子收入翻了一番，达到了 $75,000\$ 75,000 。哦，对了，他几乎将工作时间减半。
ELIMINATE THE CONSTRAINTS THAT ARE HOLDING YOU BACK 消除束缚你的限制
My farsighted friend Rich Schefren, whom you’ve heard me praise throughout this book, is a big believer in identifying the constraints that keep a business stuck. He has helped countless businesspeople break down barriers and launch their enterprises into a realm of success they never before imagined by showing them that their businesses’ success is not limited by abstractions like talent. What Schefren teaches is groundbreaking and will truly revolutionize the way you think about your business: Only the potential of your business is determined by your talents, knowledge, commitment, and the amount of time and effort you spend trying to grow it. The actual success of your business is determined by your constraints-and whether or not you break free from them. 我远见卓识的朋友 Rich Schefren，您在本书中听到我对他的赞美，是一个坚定的信仰者，认为识别使企业停滞不前的限制是至关重要的。他帮助无数商人打破障碍，将他们的企业推向他们从未想象过的成功领域，向他们展示企业的成功并不受才能等抽象概念的限制。Schefren 所教授的内容是开创性的，真正会彻底改变您对自己企业的思考方式：只有您企业的潜力是由您的才能、知识、承诺以及您为其成长所投入的时间和精力来决定的。您企业的实际成功则取决于您的限制，以及您是否能够摆脱这些限制。
Most entrepreneurs are slaving away, sacrificing their lives with little to show for it. Why? Because almost all the work they’re doing is increasing their potential and not their success. In essence, they’re spending their time on false efficiencies. Unless the entrepreneurs can clearly define their current, biggest, and most immediate constraint and what they’re doing to eliminate it, the odds are overwhelming that all the work they are doing is merely increasing their potential and little else. The only way to ensure that your actual success will equal your current potential for success is to eliminate the constraints that are holding you back. 大多数企业家都在辛苦工作，牺牲自己的生活，却收获甚微。为什么？因为他们所做的几乎所有工作都是在提升他们的潜力，而不是他们的成功。实质上，他们在浪费时间在虚假的效率上。除非企业家能够清楚地定义他们当前、最大和最紧迫的限制，以及他们正在做什么来消除这些限制，否则他们所做的所有工作很可能只是增加了他们的潜力，而没有其他效果。确保你的实际成功等于你当前成功潜力的唯一方法是消除那些阻碍你的限制。
The problems you think are holding you back are most likely merely symptoms of underlying hidden constraints in your business. That’s why you so frequently feel as though you’re spinning your wheels, solving the same problem over and over again. Your most debilitating constraint is often invisible because the pain it causes is felt in multiple places in your business. These constraints explain every frustration and failure you’ve ever had, why your business isn’t growing as quickly as it should, and why less talented entrepreneurs who work far 你认为阻碍你的问题很可能只是你业务中潜在隐性约束的症状。这就是为什么你常常感觉自己在原地踏步，一次又一次地解决同样的问题。你最致命的约束往往是看不见的，因为它造成的痛苦在你业务的多个地方都能感受到。这些约束解释了你曾经经历的每一次挫折和失败，为什么你的业务没有像应该的那样快速增长，以及为什么那些才华不如你的企业家却能取得更大的成功。
fewer hours than you are getting ahead faster than you are. They also force you to work harder than you need to and to sacrifice important things in life, like spending time with your family and friends and enjoying the fruits of your labor. 比你获得的时间更少，你的进步也比你快。他们还迫使你比必要的更努力工作，并牺牲生活中重要的事情，比如与家人和朋友共度时光，以及享受你劳动的成果。
You may be only one constraint away from a million-dollar payday. Identifying and eliminating these restraints is like bursting a dam; once they’re gone, all the time, energy, and money you’ve invested in your business will unleash a flood of growth, sales, and profits that will dwarf anything you’ve experienced before. So, let’s now consider six common constraints taken straight from Schefren’s playbook-along with what Rich calls the “hammers” you need to break each one of them down. 你可能只差一个约束就能获得百万美元的收入。识别并消除这些约束就像是冲破大坝；一旦它们消失，你在业务中投入的所有时间、精力和金钱将会释放出一股增长、销售和利润的洪流，这将远远超过你之前的任何经历。那么，现在让我们考虑六个直接来自 Schefren 的手册的常见约束，以及 Rich 所称的“锤子”，你需要用来打破每一个约束。
Constraint #1: The Idea That Mistakes Should Be Avoided at All Costs 约束 #1：避免错误的观念不惜一切代价
Hammer: Screw up every once in a while! If it means you’re trying out new solutions and ideas, it’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay. 锤子：偶尔搞砸一次！如果这意味着你在尝试新的解决方案和想法，那没关系。实际上，这不仅没关系，甚至更好。
If you’re living in constant fear of screwing up, don’t be. As long as you move fast but safely, you’re taking action, and action creates forward momentum and direction in your business-even if your progress isn’t perfect 100 percent of the time. 如果你总是害怕犯错，不必如此。只要你快速但安全地行动，你就在采取行动，而行动会在你的业务中创造前进的动力和方向——即使你的进展并不总是完美的。
One reason it doesn’t make sense to beat yourself up about a certain course of action is that everything is relative. One advertising guru recommends always using Tacoma font for your ads, and the next guy says Helvetica is the font of the future. One guy advises you to offer a money-back guarantee and a redeemable certificate to unsatisfied clients; the other guy says you should offer just the guarantee. How do you know who’s right, who’s wrong, and, most important, what will work best for you? 一个原因是，过于自责于某种行动并没有意义，因为一切都是相对的。一位广告大师建议在广告中始终使用 Tacoma 字体，而另一位则说 Helvetica 是未来的字体。一位建议你向不满意的客户提供退款保证和可兑换的证书；另一位则说你只需提供保证。你怎么知道谁是对的，谁是错的，最重要的是，什么对你来说效果最好？
There’s really only one way: Try out each option. Take safe but definitive action to test the new ideas conservatively. Once you’ve learned your lesson about what works and what 唯一的方法就是：尝试每个选项。采取安全但明确的行动，以保守的方式测试新想法。一旦你学会了什么有效，什么无效。
doesn’t, make your decision to move either toward it or away from it, depending on your results. And if it’s a total disaster? Fine; at least now you know, and you won’t waste time on it again. Only action creates clarity in today’s world. 不要根据你的结果来决定是朝着它移动还是远离它。如果结果完全是灾难？没关系；至少现在你知道了，你不会再浪费时间在它上面。只有行动才能在今天的世界中创造清晰。
Constraint #2: Flying Blind (Until It's Too Late) 约束 #2：盲目飞行（直到为时已晚）
Hammer: Gather intelligence fast and frequently. 锤子：快速而频繁地收集情报。
Without key metrics that allow you to constantly improve your business, you’re basically flying blind. But if you develop a system of fast and frequent intelligence, this constraint is vaporized. 没有关键指标让你不断改善业务，你基本上是在盲目飞行。但如果你建立一个快速和频繁的信息系统，这个限制就会消失。
As I’ve mentioned time and again throughout this book, businesses are seriously constrained when they fail to gather information about how prospects and clients are responding to their products, sales copy, offers, and more. I already told you that 80 percent of new businesses fail within five years, but did you know that the 20 percent that succeed almost always end up taking a route other than the one intended? 正如我在本书中反复提到的，当企业未能收集有关潜在客户和客户对其产品、销售文案、优惠等的反馈信息时，业务会受到严重限制。我已经告诉过你，80%的新企业在五年内失败，但你知道那 20%成功的企业几乎总是走上与原计划不同的道路吗？
For example, almost every large online company todaysuch as PayPal, Excite, Flickr, and so on-changed the business model it originally started with. Stuck businesses make mistakes about metrics, such as hoping for a higher conversion rate, when they should be striving for more conversions. Successful online businesses, for example, understand their visitors’ purpose. The same obviously goes for offline businesses. Good marketing today is about bridging the gap between your prospects’ purpose and your business’s purpose. The key to doing this is knowing your buyer’s buying process. 例如，几乎每个大型在线公司，如 PayPal、Excite、Flickr 等，都改变了最初的商业模式。停滞不前的企业在指标上犯错误，比如希望提高转化率，而实际上他们应该努力实现更多的转化。成功的在线企业，例如，了解访客的目的。离线企业同样如此。今天好的营销是关于弥合潜在客户的目的与企业目的之间的差距。做到这一点的关键是了解买家的购买过程。
Constraint #3: Linear Thinking 约束 #3：线性思维
Hammer: Learn to view your business as a single large system with lots of legs and branches, rather than as a static straight line. 锤子：学会将您的业务视为一个拥有许多支腿和分支的大系统，而不是一个静态的直线。
Linear thinking-treating the painful symptoms that your constraints cause but not the constraints themselves-can cost you a mountain of time and money. Viewing your business as one large interconnected system will eliminate the cause of 99 percent of your business problems and challenges. When I see a company that seems to be trying to solve the same old problems over and over again, it’s a safe bet that the constraint is linear thinking. Learning to view your business systemically will knock that constraint flat. Think systems, not symptoms. 线性思维——只处理约束所造成的痛苦症状，而不解决约束本身——可能会让你耗费大量时间和金钱。将你的业务视为一个大型互联系统将消除 99%的业务问题和挑战的根源。当我看到一家公司似乎在一次又一次地尝试解决同样的老问题时，可以肯定地说，约束就是线性思维。学习从系统的角度看待你的业务将彻底打破这种约束。思考系统，而不是症状。
Here’s a simple process to push your thinking out of the linear trap. 这是一个简单的过程，可以帮助你摆脱线性思维的陷阱。
■ First, identify a problem in your business. ■ 首先，识别您业务中的问题。
■ Then reframe it as a system problem. In other words, move your focus from the “who” to the “what.” ■ 然后将其重新框定为一个系统问题。换句话说，将你的关注点从“谁”转移到“什么”。
■ Probe and quantify to get at the root of the problem. You’ve got to be clear and specific about the problem, and equally clear and specific about the outcome you want. ■ 探查并量化以找出问题的根源。你必须对问题有清晰和具体的描述，同时对你想要的结果也要同样清晰和具体。
Next, finish this sentence: “The solution is to install a system that will qquad\qquad .” (Insert the outcome that you want.) 接下来，完成这个句子：“解决方案是安装一个将会 qquad\qquad 的系统。”（插入你想要的结果。）
After that, define the specific system solution and assign someone the task of creating it. 之后，定义具体的系统解决方案，并指派某人负责创建它。
■ Finally, implement the solution. And voila! Problem solved. ■ 最后，实施解决方案。瞧！问题解决了。
Constraint #4: An Inefficient Work Style
Severely Limits Your Productivity 约束 #4：低效的工作风格严重限制了你的生产力
Hammer: Implement time-savers to quickly maximize your output and profits. 锤子：实施节省时间的措施，以快速最大化您的产出和利润。
Remember those time-saving strategies we talked about in Chapter 5? They’re not just clever ideas-they’re ways of willing productivity and profit-wise work for you. Put them in place now! You haven’t a second to lose. 还记得我们在第五章讨论的那些节省时间的策略吗？它们不仅仅是聪明的想法——它们是让生产力和利润为你服务的方法。现在就实施它们吧！你没有时间可以浪费。
Here’s a challenge: Unplug your computer from the Internet for one twenty-four-hour period. See what it’s like without the constant ball-and-chain of e-mail. I guarantee you, you’ll be at least 150 percent more productive. And the feeling of freedom will be intoxicating. 这是一个挑战：在一个二十四小时的时间段内将你的电脑从互联网断开。看看没有电子邮件这个不断束缚的感觉是什么样的。我保证，你的工作效率至少会提高 150%。而那种自由的感觉将会令人陶醉。
Constraint #5: Being Alone and
Lost in a Networked World 约束 #5：在网络世界中孤独和迷失
Hammer: Create a worldwide personal network of quality business players (i.e., a mastermind group, a board of advisors, or a private group of mentors-call it whatever you want to) who will help you solve any problem your business encounters-and fast, because they’ve already faced and overcome such problems themselves. 锤子：创建一个全球性的高质量商业参与者个人网络（即，一个智囊团、顾问委员会或私人导师小组——随你怎么称呼都可以），他们将帮助你快速解决你业务遇到的任何问题，因为他们自己已经面对并克服了这些问题。
Let me be clear here: When I say you must have a strong personal network today, I’m talking about people you can call on anytime to help you solve a business problem or seize an emerging opportunity-and to do it faster and better than your competitors. At the very least in today’s wired world, you need three types of people in your network: 让我在这里明确一点：当我说你今天必须拥有一个强大的人际网络时，我指的是那些你可以随时求助的人，以帮助你解决商业问题或抓住新兴机会——并且比你的竞争对手更快、更好地做到这一点。在当今这个联网的世界里，你的网络中至少需要三种类型的人：
People who either have the answers you need or can connect you to the ones who do 能够提供你所需答案的人，或者能够将你与能够提供答案的人联系起来的人
People who have the resources you need 拥有你所需资源的人
3. People who can perform specialized tasks far better than you-or anyone on your staff 3. 能够比你或你团队中的任何人更好地执行专业任务的人
We’ll cover this topic in much greater detail in Chapter 8. 我们将在第 8 章中更详细地讨论这个主题。
Constraint #6: Customer Bottlenecks in Your Sales Process 约束 #6：客户在您的销售流程中的瓶颈
Hammer: Rip the lid off your customer’s constraints and develop a continuous forward pressure that advances and maximizes all sales potential. Hammer: 撕开客户的限制，形成持续的向前推动力，推进并最大化所有销售潜力。
The same factors that have increased the power of the customer have also made the purchase decision more difficult. In Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz shares a study that perfectly illustrates this elongation of the buying process. A group of shoppers was offered the opportunity to sample a selection of premium jams. Half were offered six samples, and the other half were offered twenty-four. Whereas 30 percent of the shoppers in the six-sample group went on to buy some jam, only 3 percent ( 90 percent fewer) of the people in the twenty-foursample group bought anything! As they say, the key to happiness is having fewer choices. 增加了顾客权力的同样因素也使得购买决策变得更加困难。在《选择的悖论》中，巴里·施瓦茨分享了一项完美说明购买过程延长的研究。一组购物者被提供了品尝一系列优质果酱的机会。半数人被提供六种样品，另一半则被提供二十四种样品。在六种样品组中，有 30%的购物者最终购买了一些果酱，而在二十四种样品组中，只有 3%（减少了 90%）的人购买了任何东西！正如他们所说，幸福的关键在于选择更少。
The good news is that, like everything else in our businesses, the buying process is a system. And as with all systems, its constraints can be quickly eliminated once you surface them. That’s crucial when it comes to shortening the length of the buying process among your clients. The increase in buying speed leads to buyer momentum and that reduces buyer’s remorse-which in turn leads to lower refund rates. 好消息是，和我们业务中的其他一切一样，购买过程也是一个系统。与所有系统一样，一旦你将其约束显现出来，就可以迅速消除这些约束。这在缩短客户购买过程的时间上至关重要。购买速度的提高会导致买家的动能，从而减少买家的后悔——这反过来又会导致更低的退款率。
So what benefits will you get from removing these six constraints? First and foremost, you and your business will attain success much more quickly and with less effort. You’ll reclaim your personal life and family life once again, and you’ll enjoy it more because you’ll have more energy (because you are working 那么，去除这六个限制会给你带来什么好处呢？首先，你和你的企业将更快地取得成功，且付出的努力更少。你将重新找回个人生活和家庭生活，并且会更加享受，因为你会有更多的精力（因为你正在工作）。
less) and fewer worries (because you are earning more). You’ll achieve optimal positioning in the market, and you’ll do it fast. 更少的担忧（因为你赚得更多）。你将在市场中实现最佳定位，并且会很快做到这一点。
MANAGE YOUR SALES FORCE 管理您的销售团队
In my many years of working with businesses in those 465 industries, I’ve noticed that most salespeople aren’t trained in the art of persuading, motivating, and influencing people-and those, of course, are the key elements of consultative selling, which we explored in Chapter 3. We’ve talked about changing the way your sales force sells. Now let’s talk about specific ways to ensure that your sales force runs as well as (or better than) a smoothly oiled machine. 在我与这 465 个行业的企业合作的多年中，我注意到大多数销售人员并没有接受说服、激励和影响他人的艺术培训——而这些，当然是咨询销售的关键要素，我们在第三章中探讨过。我们谈到了改变你的销售团队的销售方式。现在让我们讨论确保你的销售团队运作得像一台顺畅运转的机器一样好（或更好）的具体方法。
When reinvigorating a sales force, I always start by being pragmatic. I break down the process into two stages: 在重振销售团队时，我总是从务实出发。我将这个过程分为两个阶段：
Stage 1 is about maximizing what you’re already doing. Optimization before innovation, remember? I say this not because what you’re doing is a best practice or because it’s entrenched in your system, but because you might as well make it pay off more than it already is. This way, you can use the increased profit to fund the development and, eventually, the installation of the replacement methods that you then implement in the later part of Stage 2. 第一阶段是关于最大化你已经在做的事情。记住，优化在创新之前。我这样说不是因为你正在做的事情是最佳实践，或者因为它已经根深蒂固在你的系统中，而是因为你可以让它的回报比现在更高。这样，你可以利用增加的利润来资助开发，最终安装你在第二阶段后期实施的替代方法。
■ Stage 2 is where you look at the data, which open the door for innovation. Zero in on the different subprocesses of sales and identify the best salespeople for each. Who opens the most accounts? Who’s better at selling different kinds of products? Who’s better at selling one particular product? Who’s better at reselling? Who’s better at maintaining accounts? ■ 第二阶段是你查看数据的地方，这为创新打开了大门。专注于销售的不同子过程，并确定每个子过程中的最佳销售人员。谁开设了最多的账户？谁更擅长销售不同种类的产品？谁更擅长销售某一特定产品？谁更擅长转售？谁更擅长维护账户？
Once you’ve identified who, identify why: Why do those individuals dramatically outperform their peers in that category? If you can recognize those elements of success, you then ask yourself, Can I teach that skill to everybody? If not, am I better off having this individual own that subprocess and perform this function exclusively (or at least primarily for my business)? 一旦你确定了是谁，就要确定为什么：为什么那些人在该类别中表现得远远超过他们的同龄人？如果你能识别出成功的那些要素，那么你就要问自己，我能否将这种技能教给每个人？如果不能，我是否更好让这个人独自负责这个子过程，并专门（或至少主要）为我的业务执行这个功能？
Let’s say you have six salespeople, and that your analysis showed you that Todd was ten times better than anyone else at opening new accounts but not so great at maintaining. You also found out that Laura was five times better at selling your product to car dealers and that Leah was four times better at maintaining accounts. You’re now faced with two choices. 假设你有六名销售人员，你的分析显示托德在开设新账户方面比其他人强十倍，但在维护方面表现不佳。你还发现劳拉在向汽车经销商销售你的产品方面强五倍，而莉亚在维护账户方面强四倍。你现在面临两个选择。
Choice 1 is to teach your salespeople’s individual methods to everyone to improve each of those areas by 10 to 20 percent. This would result in an overall sales improvement of perhaps 300 percent. 选择 1 是将你销售人员的个人方法教给每个人，以提高每个领域 10%到 20%。这将导致整体销售提升约 300%。
Your other choice is to have Todd be in charge of opening new accounts, which he then turns over to Leah to maintain. After all, that’s more pragmatic than asking Todd to maintain accounts, given that Leah is better at it. But you can’t know the answer if you don’t ask the question to begin with, which is why analysis of your processes is so vitally important. Let’s look at a real-life example. 你的另一个选择是让 Todd 负责开设新账户，然后再交给 Leah 来维护。毕竟，这比让 Todd 来维护账户更务实，因为 Leah 更擅长这项工作。但如果你不先提出问题，就无法知道答案，这就是为什么分析你的流程如此重要。让我们看一个现实生活中的例子。
I recently met with an advertising company that employed 400 salespeople. This company had the same model as all its competitors: It would provide new hires with four weeks of a token salary, and from there, the new hires worked purely on commission. The sales force spent all of its time knocking on doors, pitching services, and getting deals. 我最近与一家雇佣了 400 名销售人员的广告公司会面。该公司的模式与所有竞争对手相同：它会为新员工提供四周的象征性薪水，从那时起，新员工完全靠佣金工作。销售团队花费所有时间敲门、推销服务和达成交易。
On the surface, the approach looked cost effective, especially because it’s how things have always been done in that industry. The company was actually enjoying growth, albeit moderate growth, so the top managers didn’t believe they had a problem. 表面上，这种方法看起来具有成本效益，特别是因为这一直是该行业的做法。公司实际上正在享受增长，尽管增长幅度适中，因此高层管理人员并不认为他们有问题。
However, I saw their approach to sales as completely opportunity-cost ineffective. I showed them that they were spending a fortune on advertising and training, with almost nothing to show for it. I told the managers that their company would be better off utilizing high-quality, prospect space ads, direct mail, and seminars to target only the highest-probability future clients and clients. Then, creating set appointments with those clients would ensure that the company’s income-generators (my term for “salespeople”) would spend all of their time in the field, talking to highly valuable prospects who were already predisposed toward buying, instead of wasting most of their time looking for the chance to “pitch” to just anybody. 然而，我认为他们的销售方法完全是机会成本无效的。我向他们展示了他们在广告和培训上花费了巨额资金，却几乎没有任何回报。我告诉管理层，他们公司最好利用高质量的潜在客户空间广告、直邮和研讨会，只针对最高概率的未来客户。然后，与这些客户预约将确保公司的收入创造者（我对“销售人员”的称呼）将把所有时间花在外面，与那些已经倾向于购买的高价值潜在客户交谈，而不是浪费大部分时间寻找“推销”给任何人的机会。
The result? This approach led to an immediate and dramatic increase in sales by a factor of 5 within the first six months. That’s geometric growth. 结果呢？这种方法在前六个月内导致销售额立即和显著地增加了 5 倍。这就是几何增长。
DON’T LET THESE THINGS HAPPEN TO YOU 不要让这些事情发生在你身上
I see so many business owners continuing to repeat the same blunders time and again. What’s worse is that many of them know they’re making mistakes, but they continue to do so for lack of a better idea. We’ve talked about some of the ways businesses get stuck with strategies and practices that just aren’t working. Now I want to share the other most common mistakes I see repeated by businesses across industries. 我看到许多企业主不断重复同样的错误。更糟糕的是，他们中的许多人知道自己在犯错误，但由于缺乏更好的想法而继续这样做。我们已经讨论了一些企业在策略和做法上陷入困境的方式。现在我想分享我在各个行业中看到的其他最常见的错误。
Failing to Follow Through and Follow Up 未能跟进和追踪
I can’t tell you how often I see businesses failing to follow through. Following through is imperative in all areas of business, but nowhere more so than in sales. Following throughand its counterpart, following up-reactivates clients, reminding them that you exist and keeping your product in their heads so that they repurchase or even refer you to others. A simple call can cause a chain reaction of benefits. 我无法告诉你我看到有多少企业未能坚持到底。坚持到底在商业的各个领域都是至关重要的，但在销售中尤为重要。坚持到底及其对应的跟进可以重新激活客户，提醒他们你仍然存在，并让他们记住你的产品，以便他们再次购买或甚至推荐给他人。一个简单的电话可以引发一连串的好处。
Never Trying Something New 永远不尝试新事物
Another blunder is never trying on new words, phrases, or proposition positionings for size. There’s always a different 另一个错误是从不尝试新单词、短语或提议的定位。总会有不同的
way to get your point across. I once had a very large furniture company try thirty-three different ways of greeting people at the front door. We discovered that one approach alone produced triple the number of sales. All we had to do was come up with a few new words-a very inexpensive investment for a threefold sales increase. 传达你观点的方式。我曾经有一家非常大的家具公司尝试了三十三种不同的迎接顾客的方式。我们发现只有一种方法使销售额增加了三倍。我们所需要做的就是想出几个新词——对于三倍的销售增长来说，这是一项非常便宜的投资。
Not Testing and Analyzing Your Approach to Your Business 不测试和分析您对业务的处理方式
Then there’s testing and analysis, which we looked at in Chapter 5. I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. I once worked with one of the largest multivariable testing organizations in the world, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that this company tested billions of dollars’ worth of variableseverything from changes in manufacturing through output, to what happens if you move different products around in retail stores. Changing signage, coming up with different combinations of integrated communications, modifying various elements in the sales contact and follow-up processes-you name it, this company has tested it. And the piece of information I found most intriguing? Sometimes one change will cause marginal movement, and a second change will do likewise-but the two together could produce a seismic shift up to thirty times greater. 然后是测试和分析，我们在第五章中讨论过。我无法过分强调这有多重要。我曾与世界上最大的多变量测试组织之一合作，我并不是在夸大其词，这家公司测试了价值数十亿美元的变量，从制造过程中的变化到零售店中不同产品的摆放变化。更改标识、提出不同的综合传播组合、修改销售接触和跟进过程中的各种元素——你能想到的，这家公司都进行了测试。而我发现最有趣的信息是什么呢？有时一个变化会导致边际变化，第二个变化也会如此——但这两个变化结合在一起可能会产生高达三十倍的巨大变化。
All of these are examples of optimization-using what you’ve got to work with, and making it work differently. Innovation, as earlier defined, is the decision to try something entirely new. If you’re still stuck doing what’s not working, chances are you’re missing the buck when it comes to innovation. Why is this problem so prevalent? 所有这些都是优化的例子——利用你所拥有的资源，并使其以不同的方式运作。创新，如前所述，是尝试一些全新事物的决定。如果你仍然停留在无效的做法上，那么在创新方面你很可能错失了机会。为什么这个问题如此普遍？
Being Afraid to Try Something New 害怕尝试新事物
Fear of the unknown often holds the blame. Sure, uncertainty can be scary. The key to eliminating fear is to give yourself permission to fail, because you’re probably going to do so a few times-maybe even more than a few. Remember Constraint 对未知的恐惧往往是罪魁祸首。确实，不确定性可能令人害怕。消除恐惧的关键是允许自己失败，因为你可能会失败几次——甚至可能不止几次。记住约束。
#1? Not every action is going to be successful. But if you don’t try something new, you’ll never achieve success. #1? 不是每个行动都会成功。但如果你不尝试一些新事物，你永远无法取得成功。
As an analogy, think of someone you know who’s been gaining weight and putting off dieting. He spends all day on the couch eating Cheetos and watching SportsCenter. If he doesn’t change his ways, he’ll just continue increasing his waistline and compounding the misery in his life. 作为类比，想想你认识的一个人，他一直在增重并推迟节食。他整天坐在沙发上吃 Cheetos，看 SportsCenter。如果他不改变自己的方式，他只会继续增加腰围，并加重自己生活中的痛苦。
Or, he could review his options. He could realize that he needs to burn more calories and consume less food. He could eat more nutritious food-not necessarily fewer calories, but different calories. Each of those options holds the potential to get to a better place, but he’ll never get there if he doesn’t first ask the right questions and then opt for the easiest, most nonthreatening first step. 或者，他可以审视自己的选择。他可以意识到自己需要消耗更多的卡路里并减少食物摄入。他可以吃更多营养丰富的食物——不一定是减少卡路里，而是不同的卡路里。每一个选择都有可能让他达到更好的状态，但如果他不先问对的问题，然后选择最简单、最不具威胁性的第一步，他永远也无法到达那里。
An innovation is nothing more than the recombination of old elements and facts that you already knew. Your capacity to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on your ability to see relationships. To some, each fact is a separate bit of information, while to others it’s a link in the chain of knowledge. Indeed, from my own perspective, each fact is an illustration of a general law. 创新无非是将你已经知道的旧元素和事实重新组合。将旧元素带入新组合的能力在很大程度上取决于你看待关系的能力。对某些人来说，每个事实都是一条独立的信息，而对另一些人来说，它是知识链中的一个环节。实际上，从我自己的角度来看，每个事实都是一个一般法则的例证。
FIVE EASY STEPS TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU DO BUSINESS 改变您做生意方式的五个简单步骤
Once you have identified a specific question, problem, or challenge for your business (or your life) that you want to address, you can consult this list of five steps for creating the new relationships between elements that will lead to a solution: 一旦您确定了要解决的特定问题、挑战或难题（无论是针对您的业务还是生活），您可以参考以下五个步骤，以建立元素之间的新关系，从而找到解决方案：
Gather raw material-specific information about your business and industry as well as general information that you observe about the world, human beings, the way things work, and so on. Don’t look 收集有关您的业务和行业的原材料特定信息，以及您观察到的关于世界、人类、事物运作方式等的一般信息。不要看
to heaven for inspiration. Work systematically. Write down whatever strikes you as useful or relevant, or just plain interesting. Use 3-by-5 cards for easy access. 向天堂寻求灵感。系统地工作。写下任何你认为有用、相关或仅仅有趣的东西。使用 3x5 卡片以便于查阅。
Allow things to gestate. This step happens in your head, but as creative bursts about specific building blocks come forth, write them down. Use those 3-by- 5 cards again. 允许事物酝酿。这一步发生在你的脑海中，但当关于特定构建块的创意灵感涌现时，记下来。再次使用那些 3x5 卡片。
Forget about it all for a while. Put the challenge out of your mind. Turn it over to your subconscious mind. 暂时忘掉这一切。把挑战抛在脑后。交给你的潜意识。
Even though you’re not actively thinking about new ideas, write them down as they occur to you. A surprisingly good idea will miraculously appear, seemingly out of nowhere, when you are least expecting it. Write it down immediately; capture it on paper forever. 即使你没有积极思考新想法，也要在它们出现时把它们写下来。当你最不期待的时候，一个出乎意料的好主意会奇迹般地出现，似乎来自无处。立即把它写下来；永远把它记录在纸上。
Finally, in the cold, gray sobriety of morning, examine it for review and revising. A good idea will expand and evolve-so be willing to make adjustments, ask for input, and keep refining, improving, and perfecting it. 最后，在寒冷、灰暗的清晨，审视它以进行回顾和修订。一个好的想法会扩展和发展——因此要愿意进行调整，寻求反馈，并不断完善、改进和完善它。
Unfortunately many company owners, when their businesses get stuck, don’t think there’s anything different to do. They’re blinded by their failure and often find themselves in a state of paralysis: They just can’t see a way out. 不幸的是，许多公司老板在他们的业务陷入困境时，认为没有其他选择可做。他们被自己的失败所蒙蔽，常常陷入一种瘫痪状态：他们就是看不到出路。
This doesn’t have to describe you any longer. Don’t be like the thousands of business owners who continue to mail out 这不必再描述你了。不要像成千上万的企业主一样继续邮寄。
tired, clichéd newsletters to people who don’t read them. Instead, think ahead to the bookalog stage, or start a revolution with magalog-level success. In short, find a more powerful, more credible, more meaningful way to impact the market. 疲惫、陈词滥调的新闻通讯发给那些不阅读它们的人。相反，考虑一下书籍目录阶段，或者以杂志级别的成功发起一场革命。简而言之，找到一种更强大、更可信、更有意义的方式来影响市场。
And if the market repays you by relegating you to the margins? Well, I’ve got the solution for that, too. 如果市场通过将你 relegating 到边缘来回报你呢？好吧，我也有解决方案。
The Bottom Line 底线
If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, you aren’t differentiating yourself from the competition-and you’re probably stuck. 如果你在做别人都在做的事情，你就无法与竞争对手区分开来——你可能会陷入困境。
Ask yourself the ten basic questions l’ve outlined to make sure you know what is and isn’t working in your business strategy. 问问自己我列出的十个基本问题，以确保你知道你的商业战略中什么有效，什么无效。
Think outside the industry box. Look at the processes other industries use to generate business, then break them down into components. Can you adapt them to your business? 跳出行业框框。看看其他行业用来产生业务的流程，然后将它们分解成组件。你能将它们适应到你的业务中吗？
Turn your sales force into a highly specialized assembly line. Be pragmatic; optimize strengths and eliminate weaknesses. 将您的销售团队转变为一个高度专业化的流水线。务实一些；优化优势，消除劣势。
Identify the constraints in your business that are holding you back-and take a hammer to them. 识别出制约你业务的因素，并对其进行打击。
Reinvigorate your sales force through optimization and innovation. 通过优化和创新重振您的销售团队。
Don’t get stuck failing to follow through and follow up, failing to try something new, failing to analyze and test your approach, or being afraid of change. 不要因为未能坚持执行和跟进、未能尝试新事物、未能分析和测试你的方法，或害怕改变而陷入困境。
When you need to get creative, take these five easy steps: Gather raw material, allow things to gestate, forget about it for awhile, write down every new idea, and finally, review and revise. 当你需要发挥创造力时，采取以下五个简单步骤：收集原材料，允许事物孕育，暂时忘记它，写下每一个新想法，最后，回顾和修订。
Immediate Action Step Call a client right now and have a conversation about his or her marketing strategy. Once you have even one such conversation, you will quickly develop an appetite for more! 立即行动步骤 立即拨打客户电话，与他或她讨论营销策略。一旦你进行了一次这样的对话，你会很快渴望更多！
8
ARE YOU STUCK BEING MARGINALIZED BY THE MARKETPLACE? 你是否被市场边缘化而感到困扰？
The starting point for success is your vision of yourself. If you believe you’re a commodity, then you’re a self-fulfilling prophecy. And worse yet, if you behave just like everyone else, then you’ve already accepted your business’s death sentence: allowing it to be marginalized by the marketplace. 成功的起点是你对自己的愿景。如果你相信自己是一个商品，那么你就是在自我实现的预言。而更糟糕的是，如果你和其他人一样行事，那么你已经接受了你业务的死刑：让它在市场中被边缘化。
A few years ago, I had client named Greg who owned a financial service business that sold guaranteed return annuities. Unfortunately for Greg, he wasn’t the only one selling guaranteed return annuities. He was knocking on doors and running ads in the Wall Street Journal, but he had done nothing to distinguish himself from his competitors. As a result, his business was marginalized; his prospects saw no difference between his services and all the comparable offerings on the market. 几年前，我有一个客户叫格雷格，他拥有一家销售保证回报年金的金融服务公司。不幸的是，格雷格并不是唯一一家销售保证回报年金的公司。他在挨家挨户推销，并在《华尔街日报》上投放广告，但他没有做任何事情来使自己与竞争对手区分开来。因此，他的生意被边缘化；他的潜在客户看不出他的服务与市场上所有类似产品之间的区别。
It didn’t look good for the future of Greg’s business. That is, until the day he got the wild idea of finding someone - me - to endorse him as the “guaranteed return annuity provider” for twenty different newsletters. (In other words, invest your money with him, and you’ll make more - guaranteed.) 格雷格的生意前景看起来不妙。直到有一天，他突发奇想，找到一个人——我——来为他担任二十份不同通讯的“保证回报年金提供者”。（换句话说，把你的钱投资给他，你将获得更多的回报——有保证。）
It was a brilliant way of setting himself and his business apart. Within the first six months of having my endorsement, Greg did $60\$ 60 million exclusively. And because he had direct access to cream-of-the-crop investors from the newsletters, he rapidly became the only game in town. Greg went 这是一种出色的方式，让他和他的生意与众不同。在获得我的 endorsement 的前六个月，Greg 独自做了 $60\$ 60 百万。由于他直接接触到来自新闻通讯的顶尖投资者，他迅速成为了城里唯一的选择。Greg 继续
from struggling and selling a few million dollars to selling $60\$ 60 million-and all by simply setting himself apart from his competition. 从挣扎和销售几百万美元到销售 $60\$ 60 百万——这一切都是通过简单地将自己与竞争对手区分开来实现的。
In this chapter, we’ll talk about how to avoid the pitfalls of marginalization and commoditization-the twin demons that keep most businesses from attaining geometric growth. The world wants to marginalize and commoditize businesses; I want to show you how to strike back. 在本章中，我们将讨论如何避免边缘化和商品化的陷阱——这两个恶魔使大多数企业无法实现几何增长。世界想要边缘化和商品化企业；我想向你展示如何反击。
It’s all about knowing how to distinguish yourself, your business, and your product/service in ways nobody else does. Do that, and you’ll have succeeded in making yourself stand out. Soon you’ll vanish from the world of commoditized companies without a trace. 这完全是关于如何以别人无法做到的方式区分自己、你的业务和你的产品/服务。做到这一点，你就成功地让自己脱颖而出。很快，你将无声无息地从商品化公司的世界中消失。
The secret is yet another set of three P’s: Be preeminent, be preemptive, and be proprietary. 秘密又是另一组三个 P：要卓越，要先发制人，和要专有。
BE PREEMINENT IN YOUR FIELD 在你的领域中卓越
Preeminence is a matter of “surpassing all others.” You should be striving for greatness-not greatness in yourself, but in your impact and contribution to the marketplace. But that’s not possible if you don’t start with a vision of the superior value and difference that you bring to the transaction. (You must clearly recognize what your marketplace most specifically serves, too.) Unless you already have an established brand with an unprecedented value of its own, you don’t have anything different physically. But you can have something profoundly different in terms of the way you integrate and render it. 卓越是“超越所有其他”的问题。你应该追求伟大——不是你自己的伟大，而是你对市场的影响和贡献。但如果你不从你在交易中所带来的卓越价值和差异的愿景开始，这就不可能。（你还必须清楚地认识到你的市场最具体地服务于什么。）除非你已经拥有一个具有前所未有价值的成熟品牌，否则你在物理上没有任何不同之处。但在你整合和呈现的方式上，你可以有一些深刻的不同。
The difference starts with an intentional factor that precedes the transaction itself: your mindset and attitude. From there, it’s only a matter of time before the people you want to impact most-namely, your most coveted prospects-will do business with you. 差异始于一个在交易本身之前的有意因素：你的心态和态度。从那里开始，想要影响的对象——即你最渴望的潜在客户——与您做生意只是时间问题。
Why? Because you care more, do more, serve better, provide a better outcome. Bottom line? You’re a better investment than anyone else out there. 为什么？因为你更关心，做得更多，服务更好，提供更好的结果。底线？你比外面任何人都是更好的投资。
With that in mind, why wait for money to change hands to make a difference? When you adopt this mindset, your prospects will soon become your clients, all because your way of relating to them is totally different from that of your competitors. 考虑到这一点，为什么要等到金钱交换才能产生影响呢？当你采用这种心态时，你的潜在客户很快就会成为你的客户，这一切都是因为你与他们的关系方式与竞争对手完全不同。
And that’s when you’ll receive your well-earned compensation. The sooner you start improving your clients’ lives, the sooner they’ll recognize the different value you bring compared to your generic competitors. So don’t waste any time! 这就是你将获得应得的补偿的时刻。你越早开始改善客户的生活，他们就越早会意识到你与普通竞争对手相比所带来的不同价值。所以不要浪费任何时间！
Simply adopting a preeminent mindset overrides all else. You then evolve that mindset into an understanding that when you interact, either directly or indirectly, your goal is to make your prospects look toward that golden tomorrow from the very start, and to make them understand that you’re the only one who can deliver it to them. 简单地采用一种卓越的心态胜过一切。然后，你将这种心态发展为一种理解，即当你直接或间接互动时，你的目标是让你的潜在客户从一开始就展望那个美好的明天，并让他们明白，只有你能将其带给他们。
In your mind, you no longer even have competitors. As former NFL quarterback Steve Young put it, “The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” You’re now competing against yourself to see how much more value you can bring to the transaction-even before it’s transacted. 在你心中，你甚至不再有竞争对手。正如前 NFL 四分卫史蒂夫·杨所说：“原则是与自己竞争。这是关于自我提升，关于比昨天的自己更好。” 你现在是在与自己竞争，看看在交易发生之前你能为交易带来多少更多的价值。
Your next step is to see how much additional certainty and clarity you can bring to your clients’ lives in each and every contact, all the while maintaining a clear vision of how much better off your clients will be-not just because of your product or service alone but also because of all the support that comes with it. You’re not thinking this out of arrogance; you’re thinking it because you know how much more committed you are to achieving a greater outcome for them. You have to honestly want to provide your client with the best future possible through your problem-solving. 您接下来的步骤是看看您在每一次接触中能为客户的生活带来多少额外的确定性和清晰度，同时保持清晰的愿景，了解您的客户将会有多么更好——不仅仅是因为您的产品或服务本身，还因为随之而来的所有支持。您并不是出于傲慢而这样想；您这样想是因为您知道自己对实现更好的结果有多么投入。您必须真心希望通过解决问题为您的客户提供最佳的未来。
Once you’ve accomplished that step, it’s time to move up to that rarefied level of ethos, integrity, and service that most businesspeople don’t even realize is possible: becoming your clients’ most trusted advisor. You provide them with a keen assessment of what you would do if you were in their shoes, knowing what you know. You balance that confidence with humility, which means that when approaching unknown territory, you take the time to get the lay of the land and educate yourself before proceeding. You admit when you lack knowledge on a subject, then you seek out the answers to inform both yourself and the client. Clients love dealing with real people who care deeply about their hopes, dreams, fears, and desires. 一旦你完成了那一步，就该迈向大多数商人甚至没有意识到可能实现的那种高尚的道德、诚信和服务水平：成为客户最信任的顾问。你为他们提供一个敏锐的评估，告诉他们如果你处在他们的境地，你会怎么做，基于你所知道的。你将这种自信与谦逊相平衡，这意味着在面对未知领域时，你会花时间了解情况并自我教育，然后再继续前进。你承认自己在某个主题上缺乏知识，然后寻求答案，以便为自己和客户提供信息。客户喜欢与真正关心他们的希望、梦想、恐惧和愿望的人打交道。
You have to feel deep down in your heart that, in your niche, you are the absolute best outcome for the transaction your prospect is being asked to make. Because if you’re not dealing in full integrity, you can’t in good conscience justify proceeding with the transaction. 你必须在内心深处感受到，在你的领域中，你是潜在客户所面临交易的最佳结果。因为如果你没有完全诚信，你就无法良心上合理化继续进行这笔交易。
Developing this confidence may sound intimidating, but confidence is simply a function of certainty in behalf of your client’s best interests. Consider the three options your clients have aside from you, which I discussed in Chapter 5: 培养这种信心可能听起来令人生畏，但信心只是代表您客户最佳利益的确定性的一个函数。考虑一下您的客户除了您之外的三个选择，我在第五章中讨论过：
■ They can buy from you instead of buying from your competition. ■ 他们可以从你这里购买，而不是从你的竞争对手那里购买。
■ They can buy from you instead of choosing an alternative form of solving their problem or fulfilling their opportunity. ■ 他们可以从你这里购买，而不是选择其他解决问题或满足机会的方式。
■ They can buy from you instead of doing absolutely nothing. ■ 他们可以从你那里购买，而不是完全什么都不做。
Your job is to evaluate the pros and the cons of each and figure out how you can excel beyond any of those options so that you can justify your confidence. 你的工作是评估每个选项的优缺点，并找出你如何能够超越这些选项，以便证明你的自信。
In reaching for preeminence-in effect, striving to “surpass all others”-you’re seeking to make the most money and squash your competitors. But while that is the final goal, you must first surpass the others in providing added value and empathic connection. These sources of comfort are ultimately what will compel people to pay a premium for your product instead of your competitor’s. You can’t ask for a premium if you’re actually a subpar provider or have nothing unique or valuable to offer. 在追求卓越的过程中——实际上是努力“超越所有其他人”——你是在寻求赚取最多的钱并击败竞争对手。但虽然这是最终目标，你必须首先在提供附加价值和同理心连接方面超越其他人。这些舒适的来源最终将促使人们愿意为你的产品支付溢价，而不是你的竞争对手的产品。如果你实际上是一个劣质提供者，或者没有独特或有价值的东西可提供，你就不能要求溢价。
With the thought of “surpassing all others” playing in your mind, you can approach the transaction from the standpoint of your clients. Most of your competitors do not know how their clients live their lives. And most do not understand transactions from their clients’ perspective. That’s why you start there. You then see how many different ways you can add dimension to value-value that is appreciated not by you but by them. 在你脑海中萦绕着“超越所有人”的想法时，你可以从客户的角度来处理交易。大多数竞争对手并不知道他们的客户是如何生活的。而且大多数人并不理解客户的交易视角。这就是你从这里开始的原因。然后你会看到有多少种不同的方式可以为价值增添维度——这种价值不是你所欣赏的，而是他们所欣赏的。
Sometimes it’s simply a matter of making the final connection for your client. For example, you might say, “We’ve perfected the art of production, which has led to less variation.” “So what?” says the client. So, you make that final connection for them. You can answer confidently, “My perfectly produced product with less variation performs ten times longer-with one-tenth the failure rate.” Knowing that, the client can see your product’s advantage over the others. You just have to explain it from his perspective. 有时候，这只是为你的客户建立最后的联系。例如，你可能会说：“我们已经完善了生产艺术，这导致了更少的变异。”客户会问：“那又怎样？”于是，你为他们建立了最后的联系。你可以自信地回答：“我完美生产的产品，变异更少，使用寿命是其他产品的十倍，故障率只有十分之一。”知道这一点，客户就能看到你的产品相对于其他产品的优势。你只需要从他的角度来解释。
As with cars and baseball players, those businesspeople who surpass all others are the ones most coveted. But you can’t attain that status if you don’t have a systematic, strategic, sustaining plan to get there and stay there. Remember: Because preeminence is judged on the basis of achievement or contribution, 与汽车和棒球运动员一样，那些超越其他所有人的商界人士是最受追捧的。但如果没有一个系统的、战略性的、可持续的计划来达到并保持那个地位，你是无法获得这种地位的。记住：因为卓越是基于成就或贡献来评判的，
your plan must be externally focused, meaning that your client’s benefits-not your own-are what you’re working toward, always. Here’s an example from my own career. 你的计划必须以外部为中心，这意味着你所追求的是客户的利益，而不是你自己的利益，始终如此。以下是我自己职业生涯中的一个例子。
When I started on my career path, I had no money or clients. I did, however, have significant experience and knowledge gained from starting my own business and working for other companies, as well as the innate ability to motivate people to take action. That ability was a value-added quality that I believed could translate into untold profits for my clients-while also promising less effort, stress, and risk than they were already facing. 当我开始我的职业生涯时，我没有钱也没有客户。然而，我确实拥有从创办自己的公司和为其他公司工作中获得的丰富经验和知识，以及激励人们采取行动的天赋。这种能力是一种增值特质，我相信它可以为我的客户带来无尽的利润，同时承诺比他们已经面临的更少的努力、压力和风险。
So, from the very beginning I asked a premium price for my services, because I believed I could offer something to my clients that my competitors in marketing consulting could not: action. It wasn’t arrogance that led me to this conclusion but, rather, the heartfelt belief that I would be helping people in a way and at a level of impact that no one else was capable of. I felt that, left to their own devices, most businesspeople might learn the concepts I was trying to teach them, but never use them due to lack of motivation. My knowledge wasn’t the distinguishing factor-everyone had basic knowledge, more or less. What I brought was the extra catalytic element: the ability to make things happen very profitably for the people I helped. 所以，从一开始我就为我的服务要价很高，因为我相信我可以为客户提供一些我的竞争对手在市场咨询中无法提供的东西：行动。这并不是傲慢导致我得出这个结论，而是发自内心的信念，我将以一种别人无法做到的方式和影响力来帮助人们。我觉得，如果让大多数商人自行其是，他们可能会学习我试图教给他们的概念，但由于缺乏动力而从不使用它们。我的知识并不是区分因素——每个人或多或少都有基本知识。我所带来的额外催化元素是：能够为我帮助的人创造非常有利可图的结果。
I started my rates at $2,000\$ 2,000 per hour for consulting and $5,000\$ 5,000 for seminars, at a time when the average marketing consultant charged $100\$ 100 per hour and the average seminar cost $495\$ 495. Over the years, my hourly rate has risen to $5,000\$ 5,000 and my seminars are now in the $15,000-$25,000\$ 15,000-\$ 25,000 range, which is still premium. 我将我的咨询费定为每小时 $2,000\$ 2,000 ，研讨会费用为 $5,000\$ 5,000 ，当时平均市场营销顾问的收费为每小时 $100\$ 100 ，平均研讨会费用为 $495\$ 495 。多年来，我的每小时费用已上升至 $5,000\$ 5,000 ，我的研讨会现在在 $15,000-$25,000\$ 15,000-\$ 25,000 范围内，仍然属于高端。
My point is not to brag. Instead, I want to share how I started out above the rest because of my unique and intangible value. 我的观点不是炫耀。相反，我想分享我如何因为我独特而无形的价值而在其他人之上起步。
Here’s some news that may shock and surprise you: Every businessperson wants to feel special, unique, and valuable. 这里有一些可能会让你感到震惊和惊讶的消息：每个商人都希望感到特别、独特和有价值。
Here’s some more shocking news: That’s okay. 这里还有一些令人震惊的消息：没关系。
Wanting to feel unique and valuable is natural and human, whether you’re in business or not. Yet most people don’t know 想要感到独特和有价值是自然和人性的，无论你是否在商业中。然而，大多数人并不知道
how to escape their current situation and fast-track their way to greatness. Let me share another example of the power of the strategy of preeminence-and how I used it to teach an obscure postal clerk with a meager government paycheck to turn himself into the number-one maven in his market, with $500\$ 500 million in sales-that’s a half-billion dollars. 如何逃离他们当前的境况，并快速通往伟大。让我分享另一个关于卓越战略力量的例子——以及我如何用它来教导一位默默无闻的邮政职员，他的政府薪水微薄，如何将自己变成市场上的第一专家，销售额达到 $500\$ 500 百万——也就是五亿美元。
A few years back, Jim Cook was a postal clerk, sorting mail in a small Minnesota town. But like you-like any of us - he had big dreams. Jim was fed up with his dead-end job and struggling every month to make ends meet. He wanted something more, something better, for himself and for his family. He dreamed about being his own boss, starting a wildly successful company, building a family fortune, and never having to worry about money again. So one day, Jim summoned the courage to walk into his supervisor’s office and quit. 几年前，吉姆·库克是一名邮政职员，在明尼苏达州一个小镇上分拣邮件。但就像你——像我们任何人一样——他有着远大的梦想。吉姆厌倦了这份无前途的工作，每个月都在为生计而苦苦挣扎。他想要更多，想要更好的生活，为自己和家人。他梦想着成为自己的老板，创办一家极其成功的公司，建立家庭财富，再也不必担心钱的问题。于是有一天，吉姆鼓起勇气走进他的主管办公室，辞去了工作。
It was the 1970 s, a time when gold and silver prices were soaring and rare gold and silver coins were skyrocketing in value. So Jim founded a small rare-coin dealership, hung out his shingle, and waited for the money to begin rolling in. 那是 1970 年代，黄金和白银价格飙升，稀有的金币和银币的价值也在飞涨。因此，吉姆创办了一家小型稀有硬币经销商，挂上了招牌，等待着钱开始涌入。
But it didn’t. 但它没有。
Jim was at a loss. He did the best thing he could think of - he decided to begin doing all the same things he saw his larger, more successful competitors doing. He rented mailing lists and mailed thousands of postcards offering his product. He bought expensive ads in financial publications. He even paid big bucks to have an exhibit booth at investment conference and trade shows. But with all that expense and risk - not to mention years of grueling work- lim’s tiny company was still bringing in only about $300,000\$ 300,000 a year. 吉姆感到无从下手。他做了他能想到的最好的事情——他决定开始做他看到的那些更大、更成功的竞争对手所做的所有事情。他租用了邮寄名单，寄出了数千张宣传他产品的明信片。他在金融出版物上购买了昂贵的广告。他甚至花了大价钱在投资会议和贸易展上设立展位。但尽管花费和风险如此之大——更不用说多年的艰苦工作——吉姆的小公司每年的收入仍然只有大约 $300,000\$ 300,000 。
In many respects, Jim was facing the same challenges many businesspeople are dealing with today. He had thousands of competitors, most of whom dwarfed his small company, and some had massive advertising budgets and sold hundreds of times more coins than he did. And to top it off, Jim felt he wasn’t born with a natural gift for marketing. Nor did he have an encyclopedic knowledge of his industry. He wasn’t better looking or more charismatic or more outgoing or a better public speaker than the folks running the 在许多方面，吉姆面临着许多商界人士今天所面临的相同挑战。他有成千上万的竞争对手，其中大多数都远远超过了他的小公司，有些甚至拥有巨额的广告预算，销售的硬币数量是他的数百倍。而且，吉姆还觉得自己并没有天生的营销天赋。他对自己所在行业的知识也不是百科全书式的。他的外貌并不比那些经营着的人的更好，也没有更具魅力、更外向或更擅长公众演讲。
show for his larger competitors. And he certainly didn’t have the money to fund a national marketing campaign. Jim was getting marginalized in a big and painful way. 他在更大竞争对手面前显得微不足道。而且他当然没有资金来支持全国性的营销活动。吉姆正以一种大而痛苦的方式被边缘化。
I accepted Jim as a client because I saw three crucial qualities in him: a driving, palpable desire to succeed; a fierce desire to contribute far more to his clients; and a willingness to try something new-something more innovative than anyone else in his industry was doing - to light the fuse on explosive sales growth. 我接受吉姆作为客户，因为我在他身上看到了三个关键品质：一种强烈而明显的成功欲望；一种强烈的愿望，想要为客户贡献更多；以及一种愿意尝试新事物的态度——比他所在行业的其他人更具创新性——以点燃爆炸性的销售增长。
My vision for Jim was a simple one-to lift him head and shoulders above his thousands of competitors. Not by spending what little money he had on direct mail or print ads or duplicating the hyperbolic and highpressure sales tactics his largest competitors used-but by establishing Jim as America’s leading precious-metals authority, the trusted voice on rare and precious-metals investing. 我对吉姆的愿景很简单——让他在成千上万的竞争对手中脱颖而出。不是通过花费他那微薄的资金在直邮或印刷广告上，也不是通过复制他最大的竞争对手所使用的夸张和高压销售策略，而是通过将吉姆确立为美国领先的贵金属权威，成为稀有和贵金属投资的可信声音。
Instead of writing ads and spending a fortune on media, we went to work creating content-rich, educational articles and special reports to help investors profit. And instead of selling that content, we gave it all away free to a handful of influential people who published large-circulation investment newsletters. Within weeks, those publishers began running Jim’s articles in their newsletters and offering Jim’s special reports to their readers. And soon, the local and then national media began calling Jim to get his views on the explosion in precious metals and coin prices. 我们没有花费巨资在媒体上投放广告，而是开始创作内容丰富的教育文章和特别报告，以帮助投资者获利。我们没有出售这些内容，而是将其免费赠送给一些有影响力的人，他们出版了大量发行的投资通讯。几周内，这些出版商开始在他们的通讯中刊登吉姆的文章，并向他们的读者提供吉姆的特别报告。很快，当地媒体然后是全国媒体开始联系吉姆，询问他对贵金属和硬币价格暴涨的看法。
Almost before you could say “Rare Coin Maven,” millions of people knew who Jim was: the voice of authority in his market. And Jim began fielding thousands of calls and visits from people who wanted to buy rare coins and bullion from him. Suddenly, Jim’s tiny $300,000-a-year coin business exploded. And Jim Cook and his company, Investment Rarities, were raking in $500\$ 500 million a year in gross sales - a half-billion dollars - in just 11//211 / 2 years. That’s a staggering 16,667 percent sales explosion! And he achieved that success not by outworking the competition. Not by outspending them. Not even with redhot sales copy. But simply by allowing me to establish him as the preeminent figure of educational contribution in his industry. 几乎在你说“稀有硬币专家”之前，数百万人就知道吉姆是谁：他是市场上的权威声音。吉姆开始接到成千上万的电话和拜访，来自那些想要向他购买稀有硬币和金条的人。突然间，吉姆那家年收入 30 万美元的小硬币生意爆炸性增长。吉姆·库克和他的公司投资稀有物品每年获得 $500\$ 500 百万的总销售额——五亿美元——仅仅在 11//211 / 2 年内。这是一个惊人的 16667%的销售增长！而他取得这一成功并不是通过超越竞争对手的努力，不是通过超支，也不是通过火热的销售文案，而是通过让我将他确立为他所在行业教育贡献的杰出人物。
I think this example raises a very interesting question. If Jim did it, why can’t you? Greg, the financial-services provider 我认为这个例子提出了一个非常有趣的问题。如果吉姆能做到，为什么你就不能呢？格雷格，金融服务提供商
I described at the beginning of this chapter, employed a similar strategy, and it worked wonders for him. Certainly, going from $300,000\$ 300,000 to $500\$ 500 million isn’t going to happen for everyone. But there’s no reason you can’t multiply your sales and magnify your profit picture markedly. 我在本章开头描述过，采用了类似的策略，这对他效果显著。当然，从 $300,000\$ 300,000 到 $500\$ 500 百万并不是每个人都能做到的。但没有理由你不能显著增加你的销售额和利润。
Think about it: Do people want to work with the one who surpasses all others in their knowledge or contribution, or do they want to deal with the average Joe? I think you know the answer to that one: 想想看：人们是想和在知识或贡献上超越所有人的人合作，还是想和普通人打交道？我想你知道这个问题的答案：
Be the one who surpasses all others. Strive for preeminence in all you do. 成为超越所有人的那一个。在你所做的一切中追求卓越。
BE PREEMPTIVE: KNOW WHY YOUR PROSPECTS AND CLIENTS MAY HESITATE TO BUY FROM YOU 主动出击：了解您的潜在客户和客户为何可能犹豫购买您的产品
Being preemptive means dealing in advance with all the factors that keep a client from moving forward or making a choice. In short, you need to prove how you’ve overcome numerous obstacles that your competitors haven’t even acknowledged. Here’s an example. 前瞻性意味着提前处理所有阻碍客户前进或做出选择的因素。简而言之，你需要证明你是如何克服许多竞争对手甚至没有意识到的障碍的。这里有一个例子。
A friend of mine named Bradley enjoys a successful career training investors in how to make money in real estate. The marketplace is flooded with competitors in his role. However, when prospects ask him how he differs from a well-known competitor in his niche, Bradley replies, “I’m better at what I do for you. My competitor is very good at what she does. But I approach your fate and financial path with a much greater commitment to getting you there quickly, easily, safely, enjoyably, and more predictably than any of my competitors do. I protect your downside better, multiply your upside more, and show you more ethical short-cuts, quick fixes, and fast-track strategies that you can use.” By describing himself in this way, Bradley is preempting everyone else. 我有一个朋友，名叫布拉德利，他在培训投资者如何在房地产中赚钱方面拥有成功的职业生涯。市场上充斥着与他角色相同的竞争者。然而，当潜在客户问他与他所在领域的知名竞争者有何不同时，布拉德利回答：“我在为你做的事情上更出色。我的竞争对手在她的工作上非常出色。但我对你的命运和财务道路的承诺远远超过我的任何竞争对手，能够更快、更轻松、更安全、更愉快和更可预测地带你到达目的地。我更好地保护你的下行风险，更多地放大你的上行潜力，并向你展示更多道德的捷径、快速解决方案和快速通道策略，你可以使用。”通过这样描述自己，布拉德利在抢先一步。
One of the best preemptive methods is to work candidly with your prospect to compile a pros-and-cons list. Have your 最好的预防方法之一是与您的潜在客户坦诚合作，编制一个利弊清单。让您
prospective client draw up a list with the name of your product or service placed alongside two alternative options that he or she is considering. The rest is easy: Show how you’re the optimal choice. After following the steps to preeminence we just considered, you can handle this task with confidence and clarity, because you know you’re the best option. Business is a science and, as such, works much like the biomechanics of athletic performance: If something’s not working, it’s usually due to a functional problem that can be corrected. But you’ll never even get a shot at correcting it if you allow your competitors to preempt you. 潜在客户列出一份清单，清单上写着你的产品或服务的名称，以及他或她正在考虑的两个替代选项。其余的就简单了：展示你是最佳选择。在我们刚刚考虑的卓越步骤之后，你可以自信而清晰地处理这个任务，因为你知道你是最好的选择。商业是一门科学，因此，它的运作方式与运动表现的生物力学非常相似：如果某些东西不起作用，通常是由于可以纠正的功能问题。但如果你让竞争对手抢先，你将永远没有机会去纠正它。
So, how do you preempt your competition? You can accomplish this by taking the following steps: 那么，您如何预先应对竞争对手？您可以通过采取以下步骤来实现这一点：
First, preempt any concern that’s holding back your client by acknowledging that concern and overcoming it. Think about Bradley, the real-estate investor I just mentioned. He starts by acknowledging the distinctions between him and his main competitor. Then he explains exactly what he can do that she can’t. 首先，通过承认并克服客户的顾虑，预先消除任何阻碍客户的担忧。想想我刚提到的房地产投资者布拉德利。他首先承认自己与主要竞争对手之间的区别。然后，他详细解释了自己能做的事情，而对方做不到。
Second, preempt your client’s lack of confidence in the outcome by clearly stating your certainty in the plan and describing what the steps and results will be like and how you will deliver a better desired outcome for your client. In much the same way, Bradley puts an emphasis on the predictability of his approach and describes for his clients his process for protecting their downside. 其次，通过清楚地表明你对计划的信心，并描述步骤和结果将会是什么样子，以及你将如何为客户提供更好的期望结果，来预先消除客户对结果的信心不足。以类似的方式，Bradley 强调了他的方法的可预测性，并向客户描述了他保护他们下行风险的过程。
Third, if your client does not perceive the advantages inherent in working with you, preempt this 第三，如果您的客户没有意识到与您合作的优势，请提前解决这个问题
tendency by helping him establish specific buying criteria, including value-added follow-up or transactional additions such as products or services. This is the clincher, as Bradley has demonstrated. After eliminating risk for his client, he goes on to describe the benefits he provides. What he offers is not a simple transaction but a value-added transaction. 通过帮助他建立具体的购买标准，包括增值的后续服务或交易附加项，如产品或服务，从而影响趋势。这是关键，正如布拉德利所展示的。在为客户消除风险后，他继续描述他所提供的好处。他所提供的不是简单的交易，而是增值交易。
Once you’ve mastered the strategy of preemption, it’s time to grasp the third and final P: Be proprietary. 一旦你掌握了先发制人的策略，就该理解第三个也是最后一个 P：要有专有性。
BE PROPRIETARY: OWN YOUR MARKETPLACE 保持专有：拥有你的市场
If you follow the first two steps in this chapter-be preeminent and be preemptive-you’re already well on your way to the third. 如果你遵循本章的前两步——卓越和主动——你已经在通往第三步的路上走得很好。
If you look up “proprietary” in the dictionary, you’ll find it defined as “of or relating to an ownership.” With the first two steps accomplished, you have the ownership of the marketplace’s top-mind awareness, because you stand out as decisively different. Even though you’re public in your actions, others can’t compete because they don’t understand the elements and thus cannot integrate them. 如果你在字典中查找“专有”，你会发现它被定义为“与所有权有关”。完成前两步后，你拥有了市场的顶尖意识，因为你显得截然不同。尽管你的行为是公开的，但其他人无法竞争，因为他们不理解这些要素，因此无法将其整合。
I mentioned earlier in this chapter that there are two serious threats facing businesses today; being commoditized is one of them. Commoditization means that the products or services you offer are rendered widely available and interchangeable with those provided by another company. In other words, you’re no longer special or unique. And that’s no good. 我在本章前面提到过，今天企业面临两个严重威胁；被商品化就是其中之一。商品化意味着你提供的产品或服务被广泛提供，并且可以与另一家公司提供的产品或服务互换。换句话说，你不再特别或独特。这是不好的一件事。
Shifting from commodity to proprietary is almost a no-brainer-and yet few entrepreneurs understand that. As an example, let’s say that everybody is selling the same widget at roughly the same price. You must act quickly to claim 从商品转向专有几乎是显而易见的——然而很少有企业家理解这一点。举个例子，假设每个人都在以大致相同的价格销售相同的小工具。你必须迅速行动以占领市场。
ownership of the superior product on the market. One idea is to build value add-ons, such as complementary products and/or services, into the sale for the same basic purchase price-anything that makes you incomparable. 在市场上拥有优质产品的所有权。一个想法是将增值附加产品和/或服务纳入销售中，以相同的基本购买价格——任何使你无可比拟的东西。
Let’s say you’re selling a widget that goes for $100\$ 100, with a full margin of 40 percent. The market climate is so aggressive, though, that most competitors are getting only $22\$ 22, at best, off each sale. However, you have read this book, so you decide to put into action all that you’ve learned about getting unstuck. Most people would focus on the competition of selling the widget when the real opportunity lies in starting a sustainable relationship that will repeat multiple times per year, making you $2,200\$ 2,200 in the long run. 假设你正在销售一个售价为 $100\$ 100 的产品，毛利率为 40%。然而，市场竞争非常激烈，大多数竞争对手每次销售最多只能获得 $22\$ 22 。不过，你读过这本书，因此你决定将所学的关于如何摆脱困境的知识付诸实践。大多数人会专注于销售小工具的竞争，而真正的机会在于建立一个可持续的关系，这种关系每年会重复多次，从而在长期内让你获得 $2,200\$ 2,200 。
That means that your job is to appeal much more irresistibly to the market to make your product proprietary, a process we explored at the end of Chapter 6. Using what you learned in that chapter, you know that you can take your small margin and use it to purchase an additional product or service that will increase the newly packaged product beyond its $100\$ 100 market value. Because you’re still asking for the same price, however, your offer is seen as being considerably more desirable than anything else out there, and thus proprietary, while your competitor’s offer is generic-indistinguishable from that of anyone else in the marketplace. 这意味着你的工作是以更具吸引力的方式向市场推销，使你的产品具有专有性，这是我们在第六章末尾探讨的过程。利用你在那一章中学到的知识，你知道可以利用你的小利润购买额外的产品或服务，从而使新包装的产品超出其 $100\$ 100 市场价值。然而，由于你仍然要求相同的价格，你的报价被视为比市场上其他任何产品都更具吸引力，因此具有专有性，而你竞争对手的报价则是通用的——与市场上其他任何产品没有区别。
Believe it or not, the latest research in neuroscience actually works in your favor when it comes to establishing yourself as proprietary. There’s a part of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS). It’s believed to be the center of arousal and motivation in all animals and humans. But the RAS has another function-and for business owners, that function is what makes the RAS the most important part of clients’ and prospects’ brains. Before I explain this crucial function, let me ask: Have you experienced either of the following situations? 信不信由你，最新的神经科学研究实际上对你建立专有身份是有利的。大脑中有一个叫做网状激活系统（RAS）的部分。人们认为它是所有动物和人类的唤醒和动机中心。但 RAS 还有另一个功能——对于企业主来说，这个功能使得 RAS 成为客户和潜在客户大脑中最重要的部分。在我解释这个关键功能之前，让我问你：你是否经历过以下任一情况？
Situation #1. You just bought a new car, or became interested in a particular car-and all of a sudden, you start seeing that car all over the place. Obviously they’ve always been there, but you didn’t notice them before. Now you do. 情况 #1。你刚买了一辆新车，或者对某辆特定的车产生了兴趣——突然间，你开始到处看到那辆车。显然，它们一直都在，但你之前没有注意到。现在你注意到了。
Situation #2. You’re at a party, and you’re deeply engrossed in a conversation with another person. Of course, lots of other people are talking as well, and you hear a murmur of all these other conversations. You’re not really making out what the other people are saying because you’re paying attention to the conversation that you’re engaged in. But then-your full name is mentioned in one of those peripheral conversations. In an instant, your attention shifts to the person who just mentioned your name. 情况 #2。你在一个聚会上，正与另一个人深入交谈。当然，很多其他人也在交谈，你听到周围所有这些谈话的低语。你并没有真正听清其他人说了什么，因为你专注于自己正在进行的对话。但就在那时，你的全名在其中一个边缘谈话中被提到。瞬间，你的注意力转向了刚刚提到你名字的人。
So, what’s going on here? Your brain is continuously taking in millions of details, but because your conscious mind could never handle them all at once, a filter is necessary to keep you sane. That’s where the RAS comes in. It’s the part of your brain that decides whether you notice or not. It makes the decision in a fraction of a millisecond based on what you already have in your memory. That’s why you distinctly hear your name despite the din at a party or notice that new car everywhere you look. 那么，这里发生了什么呢？你的大脑不断地接收数百万个细节，但因为你的意识无法一次性处理所有这些信息，所以需要一个过滤器来保持你的理智。这就是 RAS 的作用。它是你大脑中决定你是否注意到某事的部分。它根据你已经记住的内容在毫秒的一小部分时间内做出决定。这就是为什么尽管在聚会上喧闹，你仍然能清晰地听到自己的名字，或者在你看向的每个地方都能注意到那辆新车的原因。
Imagine what you could accomplish if you were able to leverage the RAS as a marketing tool. Wouldn’t it be amazing to stake a permanent claim inside the minds of your prospects and your clients? Their RAS would always notice you as im-portant-so your messages would always be read first, your offers would get preferential consideration, your reputation would be defended in every nook and cranny of the Internet 想象一下，如果你能够将 RAS 作为营销工具，你能取得什么成就。能够在潜在客户和客户的心中永久占据一席之地，难道不是很令人惊叹吗？他们的 RAS 会始终将你视为重要，因此你的信息总是会被优先阅读，你的报价会得到优先考虑，你的声誉会在互联网上的每个角落得到维护。
and the media world, multiplying your earnings immediately and dramatically. 以及媒体世界，立即并显著地增加你的收入。
The RAS isn’t the only component of human neuropsychology that can work to your benefit. As Seth Godin recently wrote in a blog post, “Why do some ideas have more currency than others? Because we believe they should. When Chris Anderson or Malcolm Gladwell writes about something, it’s a better idea because they wrote about it.” This phenomenon is called the placebo effect. If you establish yourself as proprietary, your clients will get better results, your prospects will have a higher regard for your products and information, and your reputation will actually be extended by your market. RAS 并不是人类神经心理学中唯一可以为您带来好处的组成部分。正如塞斯·戈丁最近在一篇博客文章中所写的：“为什么有些想法比其他想法更有价值？因为我们相信它们应该如此。当克里斯·安德森或马尔科姆·格拉德威尔写某件事时，这个想法就更好，因为他们写了它。”这种现象被称为安慰剂效应。如果您确立自己为专有，您的客户将获得更好的结果，您的潜在客户将对您的产品和信息有更高的评价，而您的声誉实际上会被市场所延续。
WALK IN YOUR CLIENT'S SHOES 站在客户的角度思考
In today’s economy, consumers are marginalizing sellers because of the marginalization they’re experiencing in their own lives. They’re feeling increasingly stressed, unappreciated, and unfulfilled, due to all the pressures they experience on a daily basis, whether financial, work-related, or family-based. Every day, these symptoms manifest themselves in road rage, hypertension, divorce-and the list goes on. 在今天的经济中，消费者正在边缘化卖家，因为他们在自己的生活中经历着边缘化。他们感到越来越有压力、不被重视和不满足，这都是由于他们每天面临的各种压力，无论是财务、工作还是家庭方面。每天，这些症状表现为路怒症、高血压、离婚——而且这个列表还在继续。
Just the other day, I found myself blowing up at an American Express agent who was assisting me with a credit-card challenge. I’d already had four similar confrontations that day-except that I was on the receiving end of the anger-and I in turn took it out on this hapless agent who had the misfortune of answering my call. Afterward I felt really awful about it, but of course that didn’t change the fact that it happened and that similar scenarios occur every second in every corner of the world. 就在前几天，我发现自己对一位正在帮助我解决信用卡问题的美国运通代理人大发雷霆。那天我已经经历了四次类似的冲突——只是我当时是愤怒的接受者——而我又把这些情绪发泄到了这位不幸接听我电话的代理人身上。事后我感到非常糟糕，但当然这并没有改变事情发生的事实，以及类似的场景在世界每个角落每秒钟都在上演。
We take out our frustrations on unsuspecting strangers every day, never stopping to acknowledge that these people 我们每天都把我们的挫折发泄在毫无防备的陌生人身上，从不停止去承认这些人
have hopes and dreams just like we do. We don’t stop to think about their problems, whether they’re worried about putting their kid through school or just trying to make it home in time for dinner. It doesn’t seem to faze us that we could be compounding an already lousy day, or ruining what might be the best day of their life. 他们和我们一样有希望和梦想。我们并没有停下来思考他们的问题，无论是担心让孩子上学，还是只是想准时回家吃晚饭。我们似乎并不在意我们可能会让他们本已糟糕的一天更加糟糕，或者毁掉他们可能是生命中最美好的一天。
All of those factors are real. As a businessperson-and as a human being-you can better the lives of your clients by appreciating who they are and what they do, by letting them know that you’re here to assist them and that your product or service will help them with at least one of their conundrums. But you’ve got to clearly see the connection between who they are and what you’re selling. If your product is a word processor, you have to envision your clients as being able to write letters more easily and professionally. If it’s insurance, you need to reassure them that they’ll be covered should an accident befall them. You see your job in a whole new context. And because you see it with excitement, you transfer that excitement to them, which improves their experience with the transaction. They feel special, because they feel special to you. 所有这些因素都是现实的。作为一个商人——也是一个人——通过欣赏客户是谁以及他们在做什么，你可以改善他们的生活，让他们知道你在这里帮助他们，并且你的产品或服务将帮助他们解决至少一个难题。但你必须清楚地看到他们是谁与您所销售的产品之间的联系。如果你的产品是一个文字处理器，你必须设想你的客户能够更轻松、更专业地写信。如果是保险，你需要向他们保证，如果发生意外，他们将得到保障。你以全新的视角看待你的工作。因为你充满激情地看待它，你将这种激情传递给他们，从而改善他们的交易体验。他们感到特别，因为他们在你心中是特别的。
I learned early on in my career that everybody-present company included-wants to be respected, appreciated, and loved. And the easiest way to be loved is to love in return. As I mentioned earlier, you need to fall in love with your clients-as well as with your staff and vendors-and genuinely seek to make their lives better through the work you do for them and the acknowledgement, respect, and appreciation you give them. 我在职业生涯早期就了解到，每个人——包括在场的公司——都希望得到尊重、欣赏和爱。而获得爱的最简单方法就是回报爱。正如我之前提到的，你需要爱上你的客户——以及你的员工和供应商——并真心实意地寻求通过你为他们所做的工作以及你给予他们的认可、尊重和欣赏来改善他们的生活。
How do you make people feel special? By being mindful of their needs. It can be as simple as saying hello when you pass a staff member in the hall, or taking the time to chat with a repeat client about his family. It’s sending greetings to clients on their birthdays, or remembering who is earning her MBA at night school and who just retired after forty years with the 你如何让人们感到特别？通过关注他们的需求。这可以简单到在走过走廊时向工作人员打招呼，或者花时间与一位老客户聊聊他的家庭。给客户发送生日祝福，或者记住谁在夜校攻读 MBA，谁在工作四十年后刚刚退休。
same firm. I smile at people and engage them even if I don’t know them, and especially if others have grown accustomed to overlooking them, as in the case of custodians or doormen. 同一家公司。我对人们微笑，与他们交流，即使我不认识他们，尤其是当其他人习惯于忽视他们时，比如清洁工或门卫。
All of the individuals you interact with each day have their own stories and are important to their own families and jobs. And acknowledging this fact as a part of your everyday thinking is fundamental to improving your client relations. If you honor this principle in your dealings with everyone you meet, it will follow you into your business practices, and your clients will notice. 你每天接触的所有人都有自己的故事，对他们的家庭和工作都很重要。承认这一事实并将其作为你日常思考的一部分，对于改善客户关系至关重要。如果你在与每一个人交往时都尊重这一原则，它将会影响你的商业实践，你的客户会注意到这一点。
You might be surprised to find ideas about empathy and human understanding in a book on business. Perhaps you’re even a bit shocked to learn that you have to care more about the client than you do about your business. Most clients who come to me with a concern about their business turn the focus internally: How can we cut costs? How can we survive? How can we do better? But the right question to ask is this: 你可能会惊讶地发现，在一本关于商业的书中有关于同理心和人类理解的观点。也许你甚至会有些震惊地得知，你必须比关心自己的业务更关心客户。大多数来找我咨询业务问题的客户将焦点转向内部：我们如何削减成本？我们如何生存？我们如何做得更好？但正确的问题是：
How can I add more value for our clients? 我如何能为我们的客户增加更多价值？
That’s where the huge leverage lies. 这就是巨大的杠杆所在。
I find this concept quite liberating, which is why I have so much fun with my work. My sphere of interaction is worlds apart from the thankless, browbeating methods most businesspeople use when they’re burdened by a fruitless paradigm. The principles in this chapter are ones that most businesspeople, and most laypeople, don’t take the time to work on. And, frankly, it’s why they end up being marginalized, stressed, and stuck. That doesn’t have to be your future. 我发现这个概念非常解放，这就是为什么我在工作中如此快乐。我的互动领域与大多数商人当他们被无果的范式所困扰时所使用的无情、压迫的方法截然不同。本章中的原则是大多数商人和普通人都没有花时间去研究的。坦率地说，这就是他们最终被边缘化、感到压力和陷入困境的原因。这不必是你的未来。
Consider yourself off the margins and back on the page. You are preeminent, preemptive, and proprietary. You’ve got the product or service that everyone is dying to have. 把自己从边缘上移回页面。你是卓越的、先发制人的和专有的。你拥有每个人都渴望的产品或服务。
Now it’s time to turn our attention to making sure everyone else knows they’re dying to have it, too. 现在是时候让其他人知道他们也渴望拥有它了。
The Bottom Line 底线
If you believe you’re a commodity, then you’ll become a selffuffiling prophecy. 如果你相信自己是一个商品，那么你就会成为自我实现的预言。
Marginalization and commoditization are the twin demons that are holding your business back from the geometric growth you could attain. 边缘化和商品化是阻碍您的业务实现几何增长的双重恶魔。
Be preeminent in the marketplace: prove that you’re a better investment than anyone else out there. 在市场上处于领先地位：证明你比其他任何投资都更具价值。
You can be your client’s most trusted advisor. Operate from a position of integrity and service. 您可以成为客户最值得信赖的顾问。以诚信和服务的立场运作。
Being preeminent means that you surpass all others in added value and empathetic connection. 卓越意味着你在附加价值和同理心连接方面超越所有其他人。
Being preemptive means that you anticipate the reasons that your clients hesitate to buy from you and assuage those fears. 前瞻性意味着你预见到客户犹豫购买的原因，并缓解这些担忧。
There are three steps to preemption: Preempt the concerns that hold your client back, preempt your client’s fears about the outcome, and preempt your client’s inability to see the advantage of choosing you. 预防有三个步骤：预防客户的顾虑，预防客户对结果的恐惧，以及预防客户无法看到选择你的优势。
Be proprietary by owning the marketplace. You can’t be a commodity if the market is your market. 通过拥有市场来保持专有性。如果市场是你的市场，你就不能成为商品。
Leverage the neurological concept of the reticular activating system (RAS) as a marketing tool. Make sure your message is 利用神经学概念的网状激活系统（RAS）作为营销工具。确保你的信息是
the one that’s read first, that your offers get preferential consideration, and that your reputation is being defended and upheld. 首先被阅读的那个，你的提议得到优先考虑，你的声誉正在被维护和捍卫。
Leverage the placebo effect: If your clients expect you to be proprietary, you will be. 利用安慰剂效应：如果你的客户期望你是专有的，你就会是。
Fall in love with your clients, your staff, and your vendors. 爱上你的客户、员工和供应商。
Keep the focus external: How can you add more value for your clients? 保持外部关注：你如何为客户增加更多价值？
Immediate Action Step List the three to five most common objections your prospects have about you or about what you offer. (Part of President Obama’s campaign strategy was to acknowledge that he “doesn’t look like any of the presidents on the dollar bills”!) Ask yourself how you can address them in advance every time, and thus get them off the table. 立即行动步骤 列出您潜在客户对您或您所提供的服务最常见的三到五个反对意见。（奥巴马总统的竞选策略之一是承认他“看起来与美元上的任何总统都不一样”！）问问自己如何每次都能提前解决这些问题，从而将其排除在外。
9
ARE YOU STUCK WITH MEDIOCRE MARKETING? 你是否被平庸的营销困住了？
Most entrepreneurs fail to understand that the difference between mediocrity and making millions has more to do with marketing than with any other single business factor. Marketing has a geometric capability to propel a business upward. And yet, it’s often at the bottom of a business’s priority list. 大多数企业家未能理解，平庸与赚取百万之间的差异更多地与营销有关，而不是与其他任何单一的商业因素有关。营销具有几何级数的能力来推动业务向上发展。然而，它往往位于企业优先事项列表的底部。
My definition of marketing is simple-it’s all about educating the marketplace that your business can solve problems, fill voids, or achieve opportunities and goals the way no other business can. These are problems, voids, opportunities, and goals that consumers and business prospects might not have been able to verbalize before, making it all the more important that you can. A business that can clearly and powerfully convey its ability to address these concerns for the prospect will experience outstanding growth-certainly in good times, but in bad times as well. 我对市场营销的定义很简单——这就是教育市场，让他们知道你的业务可以以其他任何业务无法做到的方式解决问题、填补空白或实现机会和目标。这些是消费者和商业潜在客户可能之前无法明确表达的问题、空白、机会和目标，因此你能够做到这一点显得尤为重要。能够清晰而有力地传达其解决这些问题能力的企业，将会经历卓越的增长——在好时光中，当然，在坏时光中也是如此。
Marketing is the bedrock of virtually every enduring business, which makes being a superior marketer crucial to your business’ success. The good news is that great marketers are made, not born. Marketing efficiently is actually quite simple, despite all the complexity that many authors and so-called experts have brought to the table. Because 99.9 percent of a 营销几乎是每个持久企业的基石，这使得成为一名优秀的营销人员对您的业务成功至关重要。好消息是，优秀的营销人员是培养出来的，而不是天生的。尽管许多作者和所谓的专家给营销带来了很多复杂性，但高效营销实际上是相当简单的。因为 99.9%的一个
business’s competitors couldn’t market their way out of a paper bag, a business that can market even slightly more effectively will be the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. If you really take marketing’s power seriously, you can own your marketplace. 商业的竞争对手连纸袋都无法营销出去，而一个能够稍微更有效地进行营销的企业将是盲人国度里的独眼人。如果你真的认真对待营销的力量，你就可以主宰你的市场。
In this chapter, I’ll show you how to achieve true 20/20 marketing vision. You’ll see your business grow exponentially as a result. 在本章中，我将向您展示如何实现真正的 20/20 营销视野。您的业务将因此呈指数级增长。
MARKETING'S ROLE IN YOUR BUSINESS 营销在您的业务中的作用
Although I see myself as a business-growth strategist, I’ve been categorized as a “marketing guru” or “marketing wizard” for much of my professional career, mainly because I honor marketing’s Midas-like role with more understanding than most people. I know without a doubt that for small- to mediumsized businesses, the difference between mediocrity and prosperity can be found mainly in marketing, with strategizing a close second. 虽然我把自己视为商业增长战略家，但在我的职业生涯中，我被归类为“营销大师”或“营销奇才”，主要是因为我对营销的米达斯般的角色有比大多数人更深的理解。我毫不怀疑，对于中小型企业而言，平庸与繁荣之间的差距主要体现在营销上，而战略规划则紧随其后。
Knowing that, I’m shocked to find that the vast majority of businesspeople don’t market. At all. They merely hope and dream. The few who do some form of marketing do so intermittently and erratically, with very little strategy driving their actions, activities, or decisions. Marketing can be the most highly leveraged investment a business can ever make, but you can’t do it if you don’t understand marketing’s multifaceted role: 知道这一点，我很震惊地发现绝大多数商人根本不进行营销。他们只是希望和梦想。少数进行某种形式营销的人则是间歇性和不规律地进行，几乎没有任何策略来驱动他们的行动、活动或决策。营销可以是企业所能进行的最具杠杆效应的投资，但如果你不理解营销多方面的角色，就无法做到这一点：
■ To identify, connect with, and attract the best quality and quantity of desirable prospects ■ 识别、联系并吸引最佳质量和数量的理想潜在客户
To convert these prospects into first-time buyers, upgrade them to multiple-product buyers, and compel 将这些潜在客户转化为首次购买者，升级为多产品购买者，并促使
them to return as often as they find it necessary (and desirable) to receive the absolute maximum outcome 他们可以根据需要（和愿望）尽可能频繁地返回，以获得绝对的最大结果
To ethically mine them for alternative or ancillary revenue streams that will improve the quality of your relationship and enhance, enrich, or protect the results in their line of business 为了以道德的方式挖掘它们以获取替代或附属收入来源，从而改善您与他们的关系，并增强、丰富或保护他们业务线的结果
When you compare my definition of marketing with what most small-businesspeople call “marketing,” you can see why I refer to my version as “strategic marketing,” because there’s a very specific plan in place to move prospects down a highly integrated progressive-growth path. Strategic marketing is designed to address the above-mentioned sequence of steps, which need to transpire in any business situation. 当你将我对营销的定义与大多数小企业主所称的“营销”进行比较时，你会明白我为什么将我的版本称为“战略营销”，因为有一个非常具体的计划来引导潜在客户沿着高度集成的渐进增长路径前进。战略营销旨在解决上述提到的步骤序列，这些步骤需要在任何商业情况下发生。
The marketing plans I develop are always done as profit centers. Most businesspeople believe that they can’t afford to spend money on marketing. My response: If you spend money on marketing, it’s not marketing. Marketing is the greatest return-on-investment activity a business can ever do. 我制定的营销计划总是作为利润中心进行。大多数商人认为他们无法在营销上花钱。我的回应是：如果你在营销上花钱，那就不是营销。营销是企业能够进行的投资回报率最高的活动。
Let me give you an example. Most businesspeople have a modest to extensive understanding of investing, whether it’s in real estate, stocks and bonds, or options. The concept of investing is to have capital at work, earning roughly 12 to 20 percent in a good market or 5 to 7 percent (if you’re lucky) in a bad market. Certainly, you never want to lose capital. If an entrepreneur could make an investment that was virtually guaranteed to return 10 to 15 percent, wouldn’t that be a wise move? 让我给你一个例子。大多数商界人士对投资有一定到广泛的理解，无论是房地产、股票和债券，还是期权。投资的概念是让资本运作，在良好的市场中赚取大约 12%到 20%的收益，或者在不好的市场中（如果你幸运的话）赚取 5%到 7%的收益。当然，你绝对不想失去资本。如果一个企业家能够进行一项几乎保证回报 10%到 15%的投资，那难道不是一个明智的举动吗？
Marketing is so powerful that, if done correctly, it can provide an ROI of more than 100 percent on a consistent basis, and sometimes even multiples of 100 percent or higher. Now, that’s a wise investment! 营销是如此强大，如果做得正确，它可以在持续的基础上提供超过 100%的投资回报率，有时甚至是 100%或更高的倍数。现在，这是一项明智的投资！
Most people don’t realize it, but almost every activity a business engages in is an investment with the hopes of ROI. Businesses invest in people, facilities, equipment, inventory, and training, but only because they hope that they’ll turn a profit, which may come in many forms, including cost reduction and increased sales. 大多数人没有意识到，但几乎每个企业参与的活动都是一种投资，期望获得投资回报。企业投资于人员、设施、设备、库存和培训，但仅仅是因为他们希望能够盈利，这种盈利可能以多种形式出现，包括成本降低和销售增加。
Let’s say you have a warehouse that you then expand. The increase in square footage is meant to be a profit center; otherwise, you wouldn’t have spent the extra money. The same goes for a piece of equipment. You wouldn’t drop a ton of money on a new widget that you didn’t think would bring you back a profit, whether it’s through increased output or decreased time expenditure, less capital tied up, or whatnot. 假设你有一个仓库，然后你扩展了它。增加的平方英尺是为了成为一个利润中心；否则，你就不会花额外的钱。设备也是如此。你不会在一个新设备上花费大量资金，如果你认为它不会给你带来利润，无论是通过增加产出、减少时间支出、减少占用的资本，还是其他原因。
Marketing has the capacity to bestow hundreds of percent in ROI-if you do it right. And doing it right means understanding marketing’s role, then integrating it to produce a specifically desired outcome. 营销有能力带来数百倍的投资回报率——如果你做对了。做对的意思是理解营销的角色，然后将其整合以产生特定的预期结果。
MARKETING AS PART OF YOUR STRATEGIC PLAN 将营销作为您战略计划的一部分
Now that you know what marketing is and does, you need to integrate it into your overall plan. First, ask yourself this question: What is it I want to accomplish? 现在你知道市场营销是什么以及它的作用，你需要将其整合到你的整体计划中。首先，问自己这个问题：我想要达成什么？
At one of my seminars, my guest speaker was a former senior instructor for the Navy SEALS. His methodology was impressive in its utter simplicity. All actions were reduced to three elements: targets, weapons, and movement. He said you couldn’t be successful in an interaction if you didn’t know your target, and if you had a lot of targets, you had to prioritize them. With your first target in mind, you had to choose the right weapon for maximum impact, then decide the right movement to get in range with that weapon. 在我举办的一个研讨会上，我的嘉宾演讲者是一位前海豹突击队的高级教官。他的方法论在其绝对简单性上令人印象深刻。所有行动都被简化为三个要素：目标、武器和移动。他说，如果你不知道你的目标，就无法在互动中取得成功，如果你有很多目标，就必须对它们进行优先排序。心中有了第一个目标后，你必须选择合适的武器以获得最大影响，然后决定合适的移动以接近该武器的射程。
The same goes for marketing. Marketing is used to target the best source of prospects and then to access them in the 营销也是如此。营销用于定位最佳潜在客户来源，然后接触他们。
most cost-effective manner, which varies depending on your industry but will always involve one of the same three basic structures of business growth. I cover this topic more deeply in my first book, Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got, but the abbreviated version is that there are only three ways to grow any business: 最具成本效益的方式，这取决于您的行业，但始终涉及三种基本的商业增长结构之一。我在我的第一本书《充分利用你所拥有的一切》中更深入地探讨了这个主题，但简要版本是，任何企业只有三种增长方式：
Increase your client/base. 增加您的客户/基础。
Increase the amount of each transaction. 增加每笔交易的金额。
Increase the frequency of transactions. 增加交易频率。
Let’s say you’re a business owner making $100,000\$ 100,000 a year and that your goal is to make $1\$ 1 million. If you maintain the same business model you’re currently using, the only way to reach your goal is to do ten times the business. But that’s a difficult proposition because it requires much more capital, personnel, and infrastructure, and perhaps a different management skill set than you alone currently have. 假设你是一位年收入 $100,000\$ 100,000 的企业主，你的目标是赚取 $1\$ 1 百万。如果你维持目前使用的商业模式，达到目标的唯一方法就是将业务量提高十倍。但这是一项困难的提议，因为这需要更多的资本、人员和基础设施，可能还需要不同于你目前所拥有的管理技能。
So, after you set your goal, you identify the more expedient, leverageable, alternative ways to get there. For example, you might make the same transactions twice as profitable, which would mean you’d need only five times your current number of transactions to hit your goals. You could work on getting your clients to return more often, or introduce a new product that adds ten times the profit (or many times more ongoing purchases), which would accomplish your goal in one fell swoop. 所以，在设定目标后，您需要确定更有效、可利用的替代方法来实现目标。例如，您可能会使相同的交易利润翻倍，这意味着您只需将当前交易数量增加五倍即可达到目标。您可以努力让客户更频繁地回头，或者推出一种新产品，带来十倍的利润（或更多的持续购买），这样就能一举实现目标。
The point is, there are a lot of different ways to do it, but it’s not actually doable until you first clearly define the goal and know why you want to reach it. If you identify the higher, better-performing, alternative methods available, you’ll get there faster and stay there longer. 关键是，有很多不同的方法可以做到这一点，但在你首先清楚地定义目标并知道为什么想要达到它之前，实际上是无法做到的。如果你识别出更高效、更优越的替代方法，你将更快地到达目标并更长时间地保持在那里。
And what’s the key to doing this? Marketing, of course. 那么做到这一点的关键是什么呢？当然是营销。
HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN: FOLLOW THE MAVEN MATRIX 如何制定您的战略营销计划：遵循 Maven 矩阵
Because strategic marketing is so important, my friend and collaborator Rich Schefren and I came up with the Maven Matrix to help spell out the secrets for success. Below are nine steps that will teach you how to market like a millionaire. And if you follow these steps, you just might become one. 因为战略营销非常重要，我的朋友和合作者 Rich Schefren 和我想出了 Maven Matrix，以帮助阐明成功的秘诀。以下是九个步骤，将教你如何像百万富翁一样进行营销。如果你遵循这些步骤，你可能真的会成为其中之一。
Step #1: Gain Your Market's Trust 步骤 #1：赢得市场的信任
We are now living in a copycat world where, in the wake of the voracious demons of marginalizing and commoditizing, most products and services all look alike. The marketing matches the décor-almost everyone’s conventional marketing messages seem exactly the same. No one stands out as really being the supreme choice. Your prospects and clients can’t tell who is really competent, who has their best interests at heart, and who they can and should trust with their purchasing decisions and all future purchases. 我们现在生活在一个模仿的世界里，在边缘化和商品化的贪婪恶魔的影响下，大多数产品和服务看起来都很相似。营销与装饰相匹配——几乎每个人的传统营销信息似乎都完全相同。没有人真正脱颖而出，成为最佳选择。你的潜在客户和客户无法判断谁是真正有能力的，谁关心他们的最佳利益，以及谁可以信任他们的购买决策和未来的所有购买。
As a result, they rely on expert advisers, friends, and what’s already familiar to guide them in their purchasing decisions. But this blurring of differentiation, this replicating of one mundane marketing message after another, is actually an enormous opportunity. It’s an opportunity because it allows you the chance-ignored by 99.9 percent of other people in your field-to assume the preeminent role in your market. 因此，他们依赖专家顾问、朋友以及已经熟悉的事物来指导他们的购买决策。但这种差异化的模糊化，这种一个又一个平凡的营销信息的复制，实际上是一个巨大的机会。这是一个机会，因为它让你有机会——被你所在领域 99.9%的人忽视——在你的市场中扮演主导角色。
You can almost instantly install yourself as your market’s dominant go-to source by doing one simple thing: caring more. If you can show your prospects what they should be doing differently to solve their problems, fill their needs, or achieve their goals, you’ve just begun the process of winning their trust. And if they trust you, they will look to you for advice and purchasing solutions for their problems. Again, it all starts with empathy. 通过做一件简单的事情：更加关心，你几乎可以立即将自己安装为市场的主导资源。如果你能向潜在客户展示他们应该如何不同地做事以解决问题、满足需求或实现目标，你就刚刚开始赢得他们的信任。如果他们信任你，他们会向你寻求建议和购买解决方案。再次强调，一切都始于同理心。
We talked about empathy in Chapter 5, but not specifically about how it pertains to marketing. Empathy is one of your most valuable tools when the time comes to market your products or services, because it allows you to persuade your clients with the maximum impact and efficiency. 我们在第五章中谈到了同理心，但没有具体讨论它与营销的关系。同理心是你在营销产品或服务时最有价值的工具之一，因为它使你能够以最大的影响力和效率来说服客户。
If you don’t know your market’s “pain point,” you’re probably marginalizing your results. So employ the market research techniques we explored in Chapter 4, and once you’ve got a list of pain points, synthesize them into a blanket statement. Even better, weave them into a personal story of your own that illustrates your understanding of the market’s frustrations. When your target audience can see themselves in your story, you’ve just secured their attention. More on that later. 如果你不知道市场的“痛点”，你可能会使你的结果边缘化。因此，运用我们在第四章中探讨的市场研究技术，一旦你列出了痛点，就将它们综合成一个总括性陈述。更好的是，将它们编织成你自己的个人故事，说明你对市场挫折的理解。当你的目标受众能够在你的故事中看到自己时，你就赢得了他们的注意。稍后会详细讨论这一点。
For now, let’s break the process down step by step. First, describe the biggest problems confronting the people in your market, and the frustrations that come along with them. Then, put your list of problems and frustrations into chronological order. Determine which problem usually comes first (or is most important to the majority), what problem usually follows that, and so on until your list is sequenced from first problem to last. 现在，让我们一步一步地分解这个过程。首先，描述一下你市场中人们面临的最大问题，以及随之而来的挫折感。然后，将你的问题和挫折感列表按时间顺序排列。确定通常哪个问题是第一个（或对大多数人来说最重要），哪个问题通常紧随其后，依此类推，直到你的列表从第一个问题排列到最后一个问题。
Next, come up with at least three ways to articulate these problems better than your prospects have been able to. It’s not as hard as it might sound; nobody else is making the effort to come up with better ways to describe problems, so taking the time to think about such things will give you a huge advantage here. Why? Because it telegraphs to your prospects that you acknowledge what they are dealing with. 接下来，想出至少三种比你的潜在客户更好地表达这些问题的方法。这并不像听起来那么难；没有其他人努力提出更好的问题描述方式，因此花时间思考这些事情会给你带来巨大的优势。为什么？因为这向你的潜在客户传达了你承认他们所面临的挑战。
With the prospects’ problems laid out clearly in front of you, you are now free to craft the best way to solve them. If you feel stuck getting started, here’s an example to give you a better perspective. 在潜在客户的问题清晰地摆在你面前后，你现在可以自由地制定解决这些问题的最佳方法。如果你在开始时感到困惑，这里有一个例子可以给你更好的视角。
Remember Jim Cook, the “Rare Coin Maven” from Chapter 8? Here’s how he empathizes with his marketplace: 还记得第 8 章中的“稀有硬币专家”吉姆·库克吗？这是他如何与他的市场产生共鸣的：
“It’s smart for investors to be worried about rampant inflation and to be concerned about now knowing how to invest in hard money, like gold and silver coins. But you need to be careful because practically every other gold and silver coin dealer out there uses high-pressure sales tactics and tries to get you to make big commitments right up front because their plan is to churn your account. I’d rather you start small, and get comfortable first.” “投资者担心猖獗的通货膨胀，并对如何投资硬通货（如黄金和白银币）感到困惑，这是明智的。但你需要小心，因为几乎所有其他的黄金和白银币经销商都使用高压销售策略，并试图让你立即做出大额承诺，因为他们的计划是频繁交易你的账户。我更希望你从小额开始，先让自己感到舒适。”
Identifying a prospect’s pain is about being specific, detailed, and straightforward with your client base. That’s how you gain the trust of your market. 识别潜在客户的痛点是关于对客户群体具体、详细和直接。这就是你赢得市场信任的方式。
Step #2: Establish Your Preeminent, Proprietary Maven Persona 步骤 #2：建立您卓越的、专有的 Maven 角色
We talked about the three P’s in Chapter 8; now’s the time to translate them into action. 我们在第八章讨论了三个 P；现在是将它们付诸行动的时候。
Translation is actually a good metaphor, because we’re about to get a little literary. In his book Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, Harvard professor Howard Gardner wrote, “Leaders achieve effectiveness largely through the stories they relate. Stories must in some way help audience/team members to think through who they are and frame future opinions.” We’ll talk more about writing your own story in a moment. For now, let’s focus on another novelistic aspect of marketing: character. 翻译实际上是一个很好的隐喻，因为我们即将变得有些文学化。在他的书《领导者的思维：领导力的解剖》中，哈佛教授霍华德·加德纳写道：“领导者的有效性在很大程度上通过他们所讲述的故事来实现。故事必须以某种方式帮助听众/团队成员思考他们是谁，并构建未来的观点。”我们稍后会更多地讨论如何写自己的故事。现在，让我们关注市场营销的另一个小说化方面：角色。
Preeminent businesspeople are market leaders who are trusted—at least in part because they have secured their piece of mental “real estate” in the market. In other words, their targeted prospects and clients feel as though they know them. The question for you, then, is this: How do thousands of people whom you never met get to know you? How do they come to at least feel as if they know you personally? This is where the secrets, methods, strategies, and techniques of personal branding come into play. In a marketing context, people can get to know you only through the consistent character role or persona that you project through your communications. 杰出的商界领袖是市场领导者，他们受到信任——至少部分原因是他们在市场中占据了自己的心理“房地产”。换句话说，他们的目标客户和潜在客户感觉好像认识他们。那么，问题来了：成千上万你从未见过的人是如何了解你的？他们是如何至少感觉好像个人上认识你？这就是个人品牌的秘密、方法、策略和技巧发挥作用的地方。在营销的背景下，人们只能通过你在沟通中展现的一致性角色或形象来了解你。
Unfortunately, most businesspeople project absolutely no character persona to the market. Change that one element alone, and your positive marketing impact will skyrocket. 不幸的是，大多数商人对市场几乎没有展现出任何个性特征。仅仅改变这一元素，你的积极营销影响就会飙升。
A persona isn’t a fabrication. Rather, it’s a distillation-a public presentation, so to speak-that allows you to communicate your essential beliefs, values, and standards in an efficient way. An effective maven character persona combines the elements of your own personality (your own strengths and, sometimes, even weaknesses) with those traits that resonate most effectively with your market. 角色并不是一种虚构。相反，它是一种提炼——可以说是一种公共展示——使你能够以高效的方式传达你的基本信念、价值观和标准。一个有效的专家角色结合了你自己个性的元素（你自己的优点，有时甚至是缺点）与那些在你的市场中最有效共鸣的特质。
Some TV shows, movies, and novels become blockbusters, whereas others simply bomb, for reasons having largely to do with the characters involved. Think Columbo, House, Gill Grissom on CSI, Rocky, Rambo, Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones, or Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. In the entertainment world, it’s common knowledge that if the market doesn’t connect with the characters in a TV show, film, or novel, they will never sell well. In fact, if audiences like the characters, they will often tolerate a lot of negatives, like poor plots or substandard special effects. Think about this the next time you see a movie or read a novel. What types of characters are you attracted to, and why? At the same time, think about what types of characters your clients and prospects like and most positively relate to. 一些电视节目、电影和小说成为了热门作品，而另一些则完全失败，这在很大程度上与所涉及的角色有关。想想 Columbo、House、CSI 中的 Gill Grissom、Rocky、Rambo、印第安纳·琼斯中的哈里森·福特，或者马特·达蒙饰演的杰森·伯恩。在娱乐界，众所周知，如果市场无法与电视节目、电影或小说中的角色产生共鸣，它们就永远不会畅销。事实上，如果观众喜欢这些角色，他们往往会容忍许多负面因素，比如情节糟糕或特效不达标。下次你看电影或读小说时，想想这一点。你被什么类型的角色吸引，为什么？同时，考虑一下你的客户和潜在客户喜欢什么类型的角色，并与之产生最积极的联系。
Few entrepreneurs have any clue about this. But whether people are sitting in a dark movie theater with a bag of popcorn or looking to invest in a multimillion-dollar corporation, they are attracted to certain kinds of characters. It follows logically that you have to create a character for your business that people will like and trust. You have to reveal aspects of your personality and share with the public who you are. The more successfully you do this, the likelier it will be that people feel they know and trust you-and the faster your business will grow. 很少有企业家对此有任何头绪。但无论人们是在黑暗的电影院里吃着爆米花，还是想要投资一家数百万美元的公司，他们都被某些类型的角色所吸引。因此，逻辑上你必须为你的业务创造一个人们会喜欢和信任的角色。你必须揭示你个性的一些方面，并与公众分享你是谁。你越成功地做到这一点，人们就越可能感到他们认识并信任你——你的业务也会发展得越快。
I’m not advocating phoniness. Quite the opposite. But the truth is, a human being is a complex reality with many facets that can’t easily be communicated in e-mails, newspaper ads, or brief online videos. Accordingly, you have to select those character traits and stances that most accurately reflect who you are and what you are attempting to achieve in your market. 我并不是在提倡虚假。恰恰相反。但事实是，人类是一个复杂的现实，具有许多方面，这些方面无法轻易通过电子邮件、报纸广告或简短的在线视频进行传达。因此，您必须选择那些最准确反映您是谁以及您在市场上试图实现什么的性格特征和立场。
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that you send your clients and prospects an e-mail or letter containing your complete bio. Rather, my point is that you must make yourself known the same way an author makes a character known: through your behavior. And, indeed, the best way to get clients, prospects, and the overall market to feel as though they know you is by sharing stories that portray you as behaving congruently with the persona you’ve chosen and defined. In a similar vein, writing instructors advise: “Show, don’t tell.” A character description describes what kind of person your character is. But the story must also demonstrate what kind of person he or she is. 为了明确，我并不是建议你给客户和潜在客户发送包含你完整个人简介的电子邮件或信件。我的观点是，你必须以作者让角色为人所知的方式让自己被人知晓：通过你的行为。实际上，让客户、潜在客户和整个市场感到他们了解你最好的方法是分享故事，展示你与所选择和定义的人物形象一致的行为。类似地，写作指导老师建议：“展示，而不是讲述。”角色描述描述了你的角色是什么样的人。但故事也必须展示他或她是什么样的人。
One final note from the world of fiction: You’ll be more believable if you’re not perfect. A useful flaw in your character makes you more interesting and gives you a hook so that you penetrate deeply into the minds of your marketplace. The marketplace then sees you as human and real. 来自虚构世界的最后一点提示：如果你不完美，你会更可信。角色中的一个有用缺陷使你更有趣，并为你提供一个切入点，让你深入了解市场的心理。市场因此将你视为人类和真实的存在。
By researching our respective client files, Rich and I identified more than twenty-four common character types. These categories can be found in almost any market or niche. I’ve included some of the main ones on the next couple pages. Don’t think of this as a definitive list; the truth is, there are as many preeminent personas as there are unique individuals-an infinite number. If one of these types resonates with you, use it; but you can also create your own or mix and match different personas to come up with a unique hybrid. This process is like being at the buffet table of business success: You simply pick the parts that are right for you and your market. 通过研究我们各自的客户档案，Rich 和我识别出了超过二十四种常见角色类型。这些类别几乎可以在任何市场或细分领域找到。我在接下来的几页中列出了一些主要的类型。不要把这看作一个权威的列表；事实上，杰出的人物类型与独特的个体一样多——数量是无限的。如果其中一种类型与你产生共鸣，使用它；但你也可以创建自己的角色，或者混合搭配不同的角色，来形成一个独特的混合体。这个过程就像是在商业成功的自助餐桌上：你只需选择适合你和你的市场的部分。
Typical Character Types: Which One Are You? 典型性格类型：你是哪一种？
■ The Confident Tycoon or Big-Business Builder. Often a workaholic, this character is always looking for the next big deal. He’s a visionary but sometimes runs the risk of coming across as conceited or arrogant. We all know the type-it’s Donald Trump. ■ 自信的巨头或大企业建设者。这个角色通常是个工作狂，总是在寻找下一个大交易。他是个有远见的人，但有时会冒着显得自负或傲慢的风险。我们都知道这种类型——就是唐纳德·特朗普。
The Puppeteer Behind the Scenes-or Henry Kissinger, in a nutshell. Calculated and mysterious, this character works in the shadows. Everyone knows the Puppeteer is powerful (or rich, or smart, or any other trait), but no one is exactly sure how he or she actually operates. 幕后操控者——亨利·基辛格，简而言之。这个角色深思熟虑且神秘，潜伏在阴影中。每个人都知道操控者是强大的（或富有，或聪明，或其他任何特质），但没有人确切知道他或她是如何运作的。
The Researcher. This character is curious and hard-working, and often an impulsive finder of truth. Steve Wozniak of Apple Computers, who is known for his introversion, embodies the core characteristics of this type. 研究者。这个角色好奇且勤奋，常常是一个冲动的真相发现者。苹果电脑的史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克，以其内向著称，体现了这一类型的核心特征。
The Well-Placed Intelligence Source. The Source is the one who shows you what’s happening behind the scenes. People of this type are confrontational and demanding, with very high standards. They are typically determined and forceful, organized and disciplined. Bill O’Reilly is the prime example. 良好的情报来源。来源是向你展示幕后发生的事情的人。这类人具有对抗性和要求高的特点，标准非常高。他们通常果断而有力，组织有序且自律。比尔·奥莱利是最典型的例子。
The “Self-Made” Man or Woman. This is someone like the billionaire Carl Icahn or Meg Whitman of eBay. Determined and persistent, Self-Made characters are very proud of their accomplishments. They generally have high expectations of others; they’re the corporate raider or takeover type. “自我造就”的男人或女人。这是像亿万富翁卡尔·伊坎或 eBay 的梅格·惠特曼这样的人。坚定而执着，自我造就的人物对自己的成就感到非常自豪。他们通常对他人有很高的期望；他们是企业掠夺者或收购型的人。
The Contrarian. When I imagine a Contrarian personality type, I think of Sam Zell, who sold all his real estate and bought the 逆向思维者。当我想象一个逆向思维者的人格类型时，我想到的是萨姆·泽尔，他卖掉了所有的房地产并购买了
Tribune editorial empire (which publishes the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times newspapers). People of this type are distrustful of any big system (whether governmental or corporate). They often believe in conspiracies, and although they’re generally well-read, they may be a little on the fringe. 论坛编辑帝国（出版《芝加哥论坛报》和《洛杉矶时报》）。这种人对任何大型系统（无论是政府还是企业）都持怀疑态度。他们常常相信阴谋论，尽管他们通常博览群书，但可能有些边缘化。
The Eccentric. These characters make their own rules, and they hate to be lumped in with the rest of the group and value their uniqueness above all else. The Eccentric can be counted on to be generous, animated, unconventional, and adventurousRichard Branson of Virgin Airlines comes to mind. 古怪的人。这些角色制定自己的规则，他们讨厌与其他人混为一谈，并将自己的独特性视为最重要的。古怪的人可以被认为是慷慨、活泼、非传统和冒险的，理查德·布兰森（Richard Branson）和维珍航空（Virgin Airlines）让人想起。
The Iconoclast is not concerned with tradition. Like John G. Sperling, founder of the University of Phoenix, the Iconoclast has little respect for authority unless such respect is well-deserved. These characters are defined by their willingness to take risks. 破坏者不关心传统。像凤凰大学的创始人约翰·G·斯佩林一样，破坏者对权威几乎没有尊重，除非这种尊重是当之无愧的。这些角色的特征在于他们愿意冒险。
The Angry Man. We all know someone like this: the red-faced character, like Jim Cramer of Mad Money. Argumentative and self-righteous, the Angry Man is an excitable and sometimes amusing insider. 愤怒的人。我们都认识这样的人：脸红的角色，就像《疯狂金钱》的吉姆·克莱默。好争论且自以为是，愤怒的人是一个激动且有时令人发笑的内部人士。
The Prodigy/Genius. Introverted and super-intelligent, the Prodigy is confident and aggressive. These characters are sometimes condescending and frequently socially inept. Can you say “Bill Gates”? 天才/天赋者。内向且超智能，天才自信且具有攻击性。这些角色有时表现出居高临下的态度，并且常常在社交上笨拙。你能说“比尔·盖茨”吗？
The Fun Guy. This person is the life of the party: Terry Bradshaw and Charles Barkley are the obvious examples here. Such characters are optimistic and happy; they see the good in situations. They’re good at raising people’s spirits, and their enthusiasm is contagious. 有趣的人。这个人是聚会的灵魂：特里·布拉德肖和查尔斯·巴克利显然就是这样的例子。这种性格的人乐观而快乐；他们在各种情况下都能看到美好。他们擅长提升人们的士气，他们的热情是有感染力的。
You probably get the idea by now. So, as an exercise, list some personality traits for each of the remaining types: 你可能现在已经明白了。因此，作为一个练习，列出其余类型的一些个性特征：
The Synthesizer (Tony Robbins) 合成器（托尼·罗宾斯）
The Outcast (Jeff Katzenberg of SKG) 被放逐者（SKG 的杰夫·卡岑伯格）
The Common Man (Howard Stern) 普通人（霍华德·斯特恩）
The Intellect (Newt Gingrich) 智者 (纽特·金里奇)
The Advocate (Paul Newman) 辩护人（保罗·纽曼）
The Mad Scientist (Jeong Kim of Bell Labs) 疯狂科学家（贝尔实验室的郑金）
The Supreme Possibility-Optimist (Zig Ziglar) 至高可能性乐观主义者（齐格·齐格拉）
The Futurist (John Nasbit, Faith Popcorn) 未来主义者（约翰·纳斯比特，费斯·波普康）
The Absent-Minded Professor (Albert Einstein) 心不在焉的教授（阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦）
The Wizard (Steve Jobs) 巫师（史蒂夫·乔布斯）
The Family Man (John Chambers of Cisco) 家庭男人（思科的约翰·钱伯斯）
Okay, at this point it’s time to think about your own preeminent persona. Ask yourself how that persona could be improved, dimensionalized, refined, or redefined. Imagine a famous Hollywood actor playing you in a big-budget movie. Which actor would get the job? How would he or she act? What would the story be about? How would viewers describe the character? Now think about what type of characters/ personas would score high in your market. Which personality 好的，现在是时候考虑你自己卓越的形象了。问问自己这个形象如何可以改进、立体化、精炼或重新定义。想象一下一个著名的好莱坞演员在一部大制作电影中扮演你。哪个演员会得到这个角色？他或她会如何表演？故事会讲述什么？观众会如何描述这个角色？现在想想在你的市场中，哪种类型的角色/形象会得分高。哪种个性
types are they attracted to? Which types do they find easy to like? Which character persona “voids” are waiting to be filled? 他们被哪些类型吸引？他们觉得哪些类型容易喜欢？哪些角色人格的“空缺”在等待被填补？
Remember, establishing your character persona affords the opportunity to have a little fun. Highlight the best parts of yourself, and bring other optimal parts to the surface. This is your chance to be who you’ve always wanted to be. As Isabel Allende said, “You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not.” 记住，建立你的角色个性提供了一个享受乐趣的机会。突出你最好的部分，并将其他最佳部分展现出来。这是你成为自己一直想成为的人的机会。正如伊莎贝尔·阿连德所说：“你是自己生活的讲述者，你可以创造自己的传奇，也可以不创造。”
Step #3: Develop a Vision for Your Marketplace 步骤 #3：为您的市场制定愿景
Once you’ve created a preeminent persona that both matches your personal strengths and resonates with your market, the next step is to develop and clearly state the elements of your market vision-the core beliefs that will guide your service to your market. Here are just three examples; many more could be listed. 一旦你创建了一个既符合个人优势又能与市场产生共鸣的卓越形象，下一步就是发展并清晰地陈述你的市场愿景的要素——将指导你为市场提供服务的核心信念。以下仅举三个例子；还有许多其他例子可以列出。
Fred Smith of Federal Express developed his vision of reliable overnight document delivery anywhere in America. His slogan is known far and wide: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” 联邦快递的弗雷德·史密斯发展了他对美国任何地方可靠的隔夜文件递送的愿景。他的口号广为人知：“当它绝对、肯定必须在隔夜送达时。”
■ Tom Monahan developed his vision of the way pizza delivery should be and turned it into a slogan and a promise: “Hot pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free.” ■ 汤姆·莫纳汉发展了他对披萨外送方式的愿景，并将其转化为一个口号和承诺：“30 分钟内送达热披萨，否则免费。”
Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed their vision of a search engine for the Internet that could quickly retrieve the most relevant web pages and started their company in a friend’s garage in 1998. Within a decade of its launch, Google was worth an estimated $23\$ 23 billion. 拉里·佩奇和谢尔盖·布林在 1998 年在朋友的车库里创办了他们的公司，开发了一个能够快速检索最相关网页的互联网搜索引擎的愿景。在推出的十年内，谷歌的估值达到了约 $23\$ 23 十亿。
Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs focus not on a vision for their market but, instead, on their businesses. They fall in 不幸的是，许多企业家关注的不是他们市场的愿景，而是他们的业务。他们陷入
love with their own products, with their service, or with the notion of being the fastest-growing company in the field. However, as I’ve said before, the key to rapid success as a preeminent business is to fall in love with your clients. If you can really live for the benefit, the advantage, the enrichment, the protection, and the interaction you create in their lives, you’ll achieve preeminence quickly. 爱自己的产品、服务，或是成为该领域增长最快公司的概念。然而，正如我之前所说，作为一家杰出企业，快速成功的关键是爱你的客户。如果你真的能为他们的利益、优势、丰富、保护和互动而活，你将迅速实现卓越。
So dig down deep, and find a real and purposeful reason for your company to exist. 所以深入挖掘，找到你公司存在的真实而有意义的理由。
Step #4: Tell Your Creation Myth 步骤 #4：讲述你的创世神话
Writer and researcher of group dynamics Christina Baldwin once said, “Words are how we think, story is how we link.” Preeminent businesspeople have a story, a personal history, and a track record with their market. Their success depends upon how well they communicate it. You have to tell the world why you’re in the market you’re in. You have to reveal your hopes and dreams, your current frustrations, your personal failures, what you’ve achieved so far, and what you’re still struggling to achieve. Do that, with honesty and passion, and you’ll achieve success beyond anything you could ever expect. Fail to do that-become just one among hundreds of also-ran, “me-too” businesses-and you’ll become a commodity, forever cutting your prices. 群体动力学的作家和研究者克里斯蒂娜·鲍德温曾说过：“语言是我们思考的方式，故事是我们联系的方式。”杰出的商界人士都有一个故事，一个个人历史，以及与市场的业绩记录。他们的成功取决于他们沟通的能力。你必须告诉世界你为什么在这个市场上。你必须揭示你的希望和梦想，你当前的挫折，你的个人失败，你迄今为止取得的成就，以及你仍在努力实现的目标。做到这一点，诚实而充满激情，你将获得超出你所能想象的成功。如果做不到这一点——成为数百个“跟风”企业中的一个——你将变成一种商品，永远削减你的价格。
Author and international keynote speaker Tom Peters puts it this way: “He who has the best story, wins.” It’s that simple. Think about the classic maven stories we’ve all heard. There’s the one about Bill Gates, who shrewdly purchased an operating system ( 86-86- DOS) from a Seattle software company and then licensed it to IBM as the operating system for its new PC. Or the one about Phil Knight, the University of Oregon track star who began experimenting with a waffle iron to make his own running shoes. The company he founded, Nike, ended up bequeathing him a personal fortune of $9\$ 9 billion. And by now, 国际演讲者汤姆·彼得斯这样说：“故事讲得最好的人，赢。” 就这么简单。想想我们都听过的经典故事。有一个关于比尔·盖茨的故事，他聪明地从一家西雅图软件公司购买了一个操作系统（ 86-86- DOS），然后将其授权给 IBM 作为其新 PC 的操作系统。还有一个关于菲尔·奈特的故事，他是俄勒冈大学的田径明星，开始用华夫饼机实验制作自己的跑鞋。他创立的公司耐克，最终给他留下了 $9\$ 9 亿的个人财富。到现在为止，
of course, everyone knows the story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who, in a Menlo Park garage, put together a personal computer that became the Apple. 当然，大家都知道史蒂夫·乔布斯和史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克的故事，他们在门洛帕克的一个车库里组装了一台成为苹果的个人电脑。
Companies thrive on the basis of the stories they tell. How do we know the stories about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs-or Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Robin Chase of Zipcar? Because they have told them over and over again. Mavens, above all else, tell stories. These personal narratives provide explanations of why they do what they do-which, in turn, indicate why their clients and prospects should trust them. 公司基于他们讲述的故事而蓬勃发展。我们如何知道关于比尔·盖茨、史蒂夫·乔布斯，或者 Facebook 的马克·扎克伯格和 Zipcar 的罗宾·蔡斯的故事？因为他们一次又一次地讲述这些故事。专家，最重要的是，讲述故事。这些个人叙述提供了他们为什么做他们所做事情的解释——这反过来又表明了他们的客户和潜在客户为什么应该信任他们。
When I use the term “creation myth,” I don’t mean “myth” in the sense that something is being made up. Rather, my intent is to evoke the lovely, lyrical notion of a tale as old as time; a story of origin, history, and purpose. Think back to how you found your way into your market in the first place. What drew you to it? If you just stumbled into it, what kept you there? What do you like about your market? What do you dislike? Go even deeper. Think about your greatest achievements in this market. Then think about your greatest failures. Use this process as a way to be honest. A truthful “I feel your pain” story can be an incredibly effective tool for connecting with your market. The more honest you are, the more you will gain your market’s trust-and the more trust you have, the more you can ethically advise prospects on what they should buy. 当我使用“创世神话”这个词时，我并不是指“神话”意味着某些东西是被编造的。相反，我的意图是唤起一个古老的、优美的故事概念；一个关于起源、历史和目的的故事。回想一下你是如何进入你的市场的。是什么吸引了你？如果你只是偶然进入的，是什么让你留在那里？你喜欢你的市场什么？你不喜欢什么？更深入地思考一下。想想你在这个市场上取得的最大成就。然后想想你最大的失败。将这个过程作为一种诚实的方式。一个真实的“我感受到你的痛苦”的故事可以成为与市场建立联系的一个非常有效的工具。你越诚实，你就越能赢得市场的信任——而你拥有的信任越多，你就越能在道德上建议潜在客户应该购买什么。
Step #5: Become a Polarizing Figure 步骤 #5：成为一个极具争议的人物
Adlai Stevenson is said to have once unfavorably compared his own oratory to President Kennedy’s by saying “In classical times, when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, ‘How well he spoke.’ But when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, ‘Let us march.’” 据说阿德莱·史蒂文森曾不利地将自己的演讲与肯尼迪总统的演讲进行比较，他说：“在古典时代，当西塞罗演讲结束时，人们说，‘他讲得真好。’但当德摩斯梯尼演讲结束时，他们说，‘让我们出发。’”
Part of standing for something is standing against something else. Successful mavens are often polarizing: They an- 站在某个立场的一部分就是反对另一个立场。成功的专家往往是两极分化的：他们会
nounce to the world that clients should not tolerate certain low standards of service, shoddy products, misleading advertising, and the people and businesses that practice them. In other words, successful mavens usually have a strong point of view. 向世界宣布，客户不应容忍某些低标准的服务、劣质产品、误导性广告，以及那些从事这些行为的人和企业。换句话说，成功的专家通常有强烈的观点。
After all, people flock to them to hear their opinions of the market niche they are in-and the more direct and passionate those opinions are, the more they resonate with the market. Such pronouncements needn’t be negative; mavens don’t have to “name names” in order to be heard. But they should definitely defend the interests of their clients and prospects by denouncing what needs to be denounced. Here’s an example. 毕竟，人们蜂拥而至，听取他们对所处市场细分的看法——这些看法越直接和热情，就越能引起市场的共鸣。这些声明不一定是负面的；专家们不必“点名”才能被听到。但他们确实应该通过谴责需要被谴责的事物来捍卫客户和潜在客户的利益。这里有一个例子。
Chase Revell was a hard-nosed businessman who went from project to project. I discovered that Chase had spent his whole adult life studying business trends that became huge moneymakers. He was also opinionated. He called things like he saw them. He praised some companies and denounced others. So I used this polarizing quality to help position Chase as preeminent. Together, we created a report titled “Who’s Making a Bundle?” The report highlighted Chase as a no-nonsense guy who didn’t waste a moment of his time on anything less than the absolute highest payoff for the least amount of time; it also revealed that he had done the research and had a toughbusinessman perspective unlike that of anyone else. 切斯·雷维尔是一位强硬的商人，他从一个项目转到另一个项目。我发现切斯在他整个成年生活中一直在研究那些成为巨大赚钱机器的商业趋势。他也很有主见。他直言不讳地表达自己的看法。他赞扬一些公司，谴责其他公司。因此，我利用这种两极分化的特质来帮助切斯树立卓越的形象。我们一起创建了一份名为《谁在赚钱？》的报告。报告突出了切斯作为一个不讲废话的人，他不会浪费一刻钟的时间在任何收益低于最高回报的事情上；它还揭示了他进行了研究，并拥有与众不同的强硬商人视角。
That preeminent positioning, combined with skilled marketing techniques, catapulted Chase’s business into the stratosphere. The name of his business is Entrepreneur magazine - now an international publishing conglomerate with hundreds of millions in sales. When done right, taking strong, polarizing opinions will win you followers (as well as enemies) and create monster levels of financial success. 这种卓越的定位，加上熟练的营销技巧，使得 Chase 的业务飞速发展。他的公司名为 Entrepreneur magazine——现在是一个拥有数亿销售额的国际出版集团。当做得正确时，持有强烈的、两极化的观点将为你赢得追随者（以及敌人），并创造巨大的财务成功。
So think of yourself as a reformer. If you were a client in your market, what would you change? How would you improve things? What’s wrong? What’s needed? What’s missing? If you could address a professional association in your market, what would you say? What would you demand? With your 所以把自己想象成一个改革者。如果你是你所在市场的客户，你会改变什么？你会如何改善？有什么问题？需要什么？缺少什么？如果你可以对你所在市场的一个专业协会发表讲话，你会说什么？你会要求什么？
superior knowledge of your market, how would you advise inexperienced prospects? Launch a consumer crusade. 对您市场的深入了解，您会如何建议没有经验的潜在客户？发起一场消费者运动。
Step #6: Develop Your Own Phraseology 步骤 #6：发展你自己的用语
When you’re preeminent, people feel as though they know who you are. And part of knowing someone is being able to anticipate certain traits. That’s why successful mavens develop what are known as “rituals” or predictable behaviors that clients come to expect and even look forward to. 当你处于领先地位时，人们会觉得他们知道你是谁。而了解某个人的一部分就是能够预见某些特征。这就是为什么成功的专家会发展出被称为“仪式”或可预测行为的东西，客户会期待甚至期待这些行为。
One way to do this is to develop a unique style of communicating. Charles Dickens used this technique more than a century ago. When creating his characters, Dickens gave each one a unique verbal tic-a special phrase or accent or way of beginning a sentence-so that readers could instantly figure out who was speaking. Of course, Dickens wasn’t the first to do this, and he was by no means the last. Here are two contemporary examples. 一种方法是发展独特的沟通风格。查尔斯·狄更斯在一个多世纪前就使用了这种技巧。在创造他的角色时，狄更斯给每个角色赋予了独特的语言习惯——一个特殊的短语、口音或句子开头的方式——以便读者能够立即识别出谁在说话。当然，狄更斯并不是第一个这样做的人，他也绝不是最后一个。这里有两个当代的例子。
Internet marketer Matt Furey sells wrestling and health products on www .mattfurey.com. Furey’s e-mails are filled with odd spellings (e.g., “nekkid”), which, along with his trademark ending, “Kick Butt-Take Names,” play up his sassy point of view. In a different vein, Warren Buffett’s annual reports are anticipated and read by more people than actually own BerkshireHathaway stock. 互联网营销人员马特·富瑞在 www.mattfurey.com 上销售摔跤和健康产品。富瑞的电子邮件中充满了奇怪的拼写（例如，“nekkid”），这与他标志性的结尾“Kick Butt-Take Names”一起，突显了他的大胆观点。在另一个方面，沃伦·巴菲特的年度报告被比实际拥有伯克希尔·哈撒韦股票的人更多的人期待和阅读。
My point is that to solidify your relationship with your market, you, too, should develop certain ritualistic behaviors that your clients and prospects can predict. These will allow them to feel as though they know you. And the more predictable you are, the more people will come to trust you. 我的观点是，为了巩固你与市场的关系，你也应该培养一些客户和潜在客户可以预测的仪式性行为。这将使他们感觉好像了解你。而你越可预测，越多的人会开始信任你。
Mavens are market leaders, experts, and authorities in their fields. As such, they define the terms of the debate, set the standards, and engineer the solutions. In your own capacity as a 专家是市场领导者、专家和他们领域的权威。因此，他们定义了辩论的条款，设定了标准，并设计了解决方案。作为你自己身份的一个部分，
maven, you would develop your own “technology,” your unique phraseology and ways of presenting your understanding. maven，你会发展自己的“技术”，你独特的措辞和表达理解的方式。
It’s a simple concept: Take certain words and make them yours. Tony Robbins is a classic example of this. 这是一个简单的概念：把某些词汇变成你的。托尼·罗宾斯就是一个经典的例子。
Tony Robbins was trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). He modified some of the conditions slightly and renamed it Neuro-Associated Conditioning (NAC). He took another concept and called it the “Dickens Pattern.” And based on an additional quality concept from Ed Deming, he created his own, proprietary acronym, which was CANI (Constant and Never-Ending Improvement). 托尼·罗宾斯接受了神经语言程序学（NLP）的培训。他稍微修改了一些条件，并将其重新命名为神经关联条件（NAC）。他采用了另一个概念，并称之为“狄更斯模式”。基于爱德华·戴明的一个额外质量概念，他创建了自己的专有缩写，即 CANI（持续不断的改进）。
Rich Schefren has done something similar. He used the term “manifesto” when writing his foundational business report, and to this day, if you speak to anyone in Internet marketing circles and you say, “l’m looking for the Manifesto,” people will naturally assume you’re talking about Rich. Another phrase that he coined for a whole series of reports was “doctrine.” His last report was called The Attention Age Doctrine. “Doctrine” sounds crucially important, as if it is the only text on a given subject - so important that no client in his right mind would want to miss it. Rich Schefren 做过类似的事情。他在撰写他的基础商业报告时使用了“宣言”这个词，直到今天，如果你和任何互联网营销圈子的人交谈，并且你说：“我在寻找宣言”，人们自然会认为你在谈论 Rich。他为一系列报告创造的另一个短语是“教义”。他的最后一份报告叫做《注意力时代教义》。 “教义”听起来至关重要，仿佛它是某个特定主题上唯一的文本——如此重要，以至于没有一个理智的客户会想错过它。
The truth is, you can take any phrase or term and make it your own. The Attention Age Doctrine was also known for its initial use of the phrase “Attention Age.” Rich emphasized that attention has become a scarce commodity, although he wasn’t the first person to talk about this; a Nobel Prize-winning scientist mentioned it in 1971 (the year Rich was born). But Rich created the term “Attention Age” and made it his own. Today, if you check on Google, there’s something like 100,000 web pages that talk about our being in the Attention Age - and the majority of those pages cite Rich as the maven who coined the term. 事实是，你可以将任何短语或术语变成自己的。注意力时代学说也因最初使用“注意力时代”这一短语而闻名。里奇强调，注意力已成为一种稀缺商品，尽管他并不是第一个谈论这个问题的人；一位诺贝尔奖得主在 1971 年提到过这个问题（那年里奇出生）。但里奇创造了“注意力时代”这个术语，并使其成为自己的。今天，如果你在谷歌上搜索，会发现大约有 100,000 个网页讨论我们处于注意力时代——而这些网页中的大多数都引用了里奇作为创造这个术语的专家。
So, pretend for a moment that you’re not merely the preeminent authority in your market but an actual pioneer, a scientist, an explorer. You’ve been given the task of explaining the intricacies of your market to beginners-of telling them what 所以，暂时假装你不仅是你市场的权威，而且还是一个真正的开拓者、科学家、探险家。你被赋予了向初学者解释你市场的复杂性——告诉他们什么
they need to know and why. Now pretend that you actually have to create your own system to explain the market. Develop your own terminology, your own system, your own explanatory hypothesis. Imagine that you’re writing a book or an e-book on your market. What would you say? Could you find new words, new phrases, to describe different aspects of the products or services in your market? Could you organize your market better than it’s now organized? Could you prioritize better? Value things better? 他们需要知道以及原因。现在假装你实际上需要创建自己的系统来解释市场。发展你自己的术语、你自己的系统、你自己的解释假设。想象一下你正在为你的市场写一本书或电子书。你会怎么说？你能找到新的词汇、新的短语来描述你市场中产品或服务的不同方面吗？你能比现在更好地组织你的市场吗？你能更好地优先排序吗？更好地评估事物的价值吗？
Step #7: Use a Signature Communications Channel 步骤 #7：使用签名通信通道
Part of developing rituals in your business is to use a signature communication channel, a special way of communicating with your marketplace that is unique to you, whether it’s a Mondaymorning e-mail, a blog, a video podcast, or a monthly newsletter. Here’s an example. 在您的业务中发展仪式的一部分是使用一个独特的沟通渠道，这是一种与您的市场沟通的特殊方式，独一无二，无论是周一早上的电子邮件、博客、视频播客还是每月通讯。以下是一个例子。
Gary Vaynerchuk uses an inexpensive, low-tech video blog to communicate with his followers. He does daily five- to fifteen-minute videos about wine enjoyment for the average Joe. He’s a perfect example of an “ordinary” businessman using the power of preeminence to get exponential results-and very quickly. 加里·维纳查克使用一种廉价、低技术的视频博客与他的追随者沟通。他每天制作五到十五分钟的关于普通人享受葡萄酒的视频。他是一个“普通”商人利用卓越的力量迅速获得指数级成果的完美例子。
Gary is about as regular a guy as you’ll ever meet. He grew up in New Jersey and helped out in the family business, a modest liquor store. But Gary saw an opportunity to become a maven in a particular niche of his market. He saw that a lot of his clients were interested in and wanted to buy more expensive wines, but they didn’t know much about wine. Fine wine, they felt, was for snobs. 加里是你见过的最普通的人之一。他在新泽西长大，帮助家里的生意，一个普通的酒类商店。但加里看到了一个机会，可以在他市场的一个特定细分领域中成为专家。他发现很多客户对更昂贵的葡萄酒感兴趣，并想购买，但他们对葡萄酒了解不多。他们觉得优质葡萄酒是给势利小人的。
So what did Gary do? He launched his very inexpensive video blog, www.winelibrarytv.com, which features his outrageous, sometimes profane but always-hilarious commentaries on wine. By catering to and championing this underserved market (ordinary wine drinkers as opposed to wine connoisseurs), Gary has transformed his family’s once-small neighborhood liquor store into a $50\$ 50 million company using this mechanism. 那么加里做了什么？他推出了自己非常便宜的视频博客，www.winelibrarytv.com，里面有他对葡萄酒的荒唐、有时粗俗但总是搞笑的评论。通过迎合并支持这个被忽视的市场（普通葡萄酒饮用者而不是葡萄酒鉴赏家），加里利用这一机制将他家曾经小型的社区酒类商店转变为一家 $50\$ 50 百万的公司。
Gary is now a maven. He’s “the” expert on wine for the average person. He’s been on The Conan O’Brien show, The Ellen DeGeneres show, and many others. In fact, he’s gotten so much attention recently, he now has an agent. He has already received offers from TV networks and major cable stations that want him to host his own show. If you ever hear someone say that being preeminent isn’t for “ordinary businesses,” tell them about Gary Vaynerchuk. 加里现在是一位专家。他是普通人眼中的“酒”专家。他曾出现在《康纳·奥布莱恩秀》、《艾伦·德杰尼勒斯秀》和许多其他节目中。事实上，他最近获得了如此多的关注，以至于他现在有了一个经纪人。他已经收到了来自电视网络和主要有线电视台的邀请，希望他主持自己的节目。如果你听到有人说卓越不适合“普通企业”，就告诉他们关于加里·维纳查克的事。
Step #8: Create a Velvet Rope Community 步骤 #8：创建一个天鹅绒绳社区
William James said, “The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.” Becoming preeminent means being seen as the servant-leader of a community. Mavens deliberately create communities by providing their clients and prospects with value-laden information, opinions, and advice. Rather than wasting precious resources on mass advertising that clients deliberately avoid at all costs, savvy mavens use sophisticated strategies to engage consumers in active conversations about a given marketplace. Conventional advertising is nothing more than a monologue-and frequently a rude and rather loud one at that. Preeminent marketing, in contrast, is a dialogue. 威廉·詹姆斯说：“人类最深切的需求是被欣赏的需求。” 成为卓越意味着被视为一个社区的服务型领导者。专家们通过为客户和潜在客户提供有价值的信息、意见和建议，故意创造社区。聪明的专家们并不浪费宝贵的资源在客户竭力避免的群体广告上，而是使用复杂的策略与消费者进行关于特定市场的积极对话。传统广告无非是一场独白——而且往往是粗鲁且相当吵闹的独白。相比之下，卓越的营销是一种对话。
By serving your market and putting the needs of your clients above your own profit, you can demonstrate to the marketplace that they can and should be treated like VIPsthat they should get what I call the “velvet rope” treatment. Cultivate the unique habit of treating people like relevant, important people, not mere clients. That is the psychology behind the velvet rope. 通过服务于您的市场并将客户的需求置于自身利润之上，您可以向市场展示他们可以并且应该像 VIP 一样被对待，他们应该得到我所称之为“天鹅绒绳索”待遇。培养将人们视为相关的重要人物而非仅仅是客户的独特习惯。这就是天鹅绒绳索背后的心理。
Anyone who has ever gone clubbing knows, or can imagine, what it’s like to receive VIP treatment. Other people stand in line for hours, hoping to be allowed into the club and allowed to pay the large cover charge. But imagine if you could just step up to the velvet rope, be instantly recognized as a celebrity or VIP, and then get whisked past the lines of ordinary people into the elite inner sanctum of the club. You’d feel like a million bucks, right? 任何曾经去过夜店的人都知道，或者可以想象，接受 VIP 待遇是什么样的。其他人排队等候几个小时，希望能被允许进入夜店并支付高额的入场费。但想象一下，如果你可以直接走到天鹅绒绳索前，立刻被认作名人或 VIP，然后被迅速带入普通人排队的队伍之外，进入夜店的精英内部圣殿。你会感觉自己像是价值百万美元，对吧？
That is what it should feel like to be a client of a preeminent company. It treats its clients like VIPs, inviting them to higher and higher levels of service, special treatment, and quality. Here’s a great example of that type of service. 这就是作为一家杰出公司的客户应该感受到的。它将客户视为 VIP，邀请他们享受越来越高水平的服务、特别待遇和质量。这里有一个很好的例子来说明这种服务。
Brian owned a tiny health company selling an arthritis product called Icy-Hot. When I first started working with Brian, company sales were tiny-about $20,000\$ 20,000 in sales revenues from that product. But by repositioning Brian as the champion of the arthritis-inflicted masses, we helped him create a trusting, caring relationship with his clients that attracted more than 500,000 people to buy from him. 布赖恩拥有一家小型健康公司，销售一种名为 Icy-Hot 的关节炎产品。当我第一次与布赖恩合作时，公司销售额微乎其微——来自该产品的销售收入约为 $20,000\$ 20,000 。但通过将布赖恩重新定位为关节炎患者的代言人，我们帮助他与客户建立了信任和关怀的关系，吸引了超过 500,000 人向他购买。
The preeminent strategy I implemented was based on building unbreakable client loyalty. It worked because 80 percent of first-time Icy-Hot buyers repurchased twelve times or more a year. The result: Brian went from $20,000\$ 20,000 in sales to $13\$ 13 million in a single year. He then sold his company for 8 figures - that’s right, for more than a billion dollars!-to a large pharmaceutical conglomerate. 我实施的首要策略是建立牢不可破的客户忠诚度。这一策略奏效，因为 80%的首次购买 Icy-Hot 的客户每年重复购买十二次或更多。结果：布莱恩的销售额从 $20,000\$ 20,000 增长到 $13\$ 13 百万，短短一年内。他随后以 8 位数的价格将公司出售给了一家大型制药集团——没错，超过十亿美元！
I used the little-known techniques of preeminent branding to help create a business persona for Brian. The truth is, Brian was a very fit 40 -year-old man. But when I created ads for him, I used a stock photo of a 70 -year-old, somewhat cherub-faced fellow, so readers could identify with someone having sensitivity and understanding for sufferers of arthritis. The ads and letters had headlines that read “I want you to have blessed relief.” They painted the picture of a maven who had studied all the treatments - presumably for his own relief-and found one that was as old as could be. 我使用了鲜为人知的顶尖品牌技术，帮助布莱恩创建了一个商业形象。事实是，布莱恩是一个非常健康的 40 岁男人。但当我为他制作广告时，我使用了一张 70 岁、面容有些天真的老人的库存照片，这样读者可以与一个对关节炎患者有敏感和理解的人产生共鸣。广告和信件的标题是“我希望你能获得祝福般的缓解。”它们描绘了一个专家的形象，他研究了所有的治疗方法——大概是为了自己的缓解——并找到了一个古老的治疗方法。
Brian created so much empathetic connection with people that clients actually wrote loving, appreciative fan letters. They felt understood, valued, just like VIP members of a private club- except that, in this case, the club was made up of people who had arthritis. Brian became not just a successful health-product salesman but a champion of arthritis sufferers worldwide - their hero. His clients were not merely clients. Instead, they became lifelong, loyal friends. 布赖恩与人们建立了如此多的同理心联系，以至于客户们实际上写了充满爱意和感激的粉丝信。他们感到被理解、被重视，就像私人俱乐部的 VIP 会员一样——只不过在这种情况下，俱乐部是由关节炎患者组成的。布赖恩不仅成为了一名成功的健康产品销售员，还成为了全球关节炎患者的冠军——他们的英雄。他的客户不仅仅是客户，而是终身的忠实朋友。
Take a moment to imagine your ideal client. Picture him or her in your mind. Someone who raves about your products 花一点时间想象一下你理想的客户。想象他或她在你脑海中。一个对你的产品赞不绝口的人。
or services. Someone who repurchases from you over and over again. Now, think about what you would do for such a client. How would you treat him or her? If you knew your dream client would make you XX amount of money each year, how much of that money would you be willing to spend to keep him or her happy? 或服务。一个不断从你那里重复购买的人。现在，想想你会为这样的客户做些什么。你会如何对待他或她？如果你知道你的梦想客户每年会给你带来 XX 的收入，你愿意花多少钱来让他或她开心？
This is what I call the lifetime value of a client. Once you know what individual clients are worth to you over the long term, you know how much to spend or “invest” to acquire them-and how much to spend to keep them deliriously happy. Your sales will explode-and you will develop an enormous following of clients who will remain loyal for life. 这就是我所说的客户的终身价值。一旦你知道个别客户在长期内对你的价值，你就知道该花多少钱或“投资”来获取他们，以及该花多少钱来让他们感到非常满意。你的销售将会爆炸式增长——你将培养出一大批终身忠诚的客户。
Once you’ve successfully created a velvet rope community, you should have no trouble transforming your loyal clients into client evangelists. Research shows that consumers today make most of their important decisions by seeking the advice of an expert or of a trusted friend. Word of mouth is growing in importance. When people tune out conventional marketing, they turn to social networks for purchasing advice; in fact, the best indicator of future sales growth is the number of “client-evangelists” a business has. So, the more people who recommend your products or services, the more likely your sales will grow. 一旦成功创建了天鹅绒绳社区，您应该能够轻松地将忠实客户转变为客户传播者。研究表明，如今消费者在做出大多数重要决策时，都会寻求专家或可信朋友的建议。口碑的重要性正在增长。当人们对传统营销失去兴趣时，他们会转向社交网络寻求购买建议；事实上，未来销售增长的最佳指标是企业拥有的“客户传播者”数量。因此，推荐您产品或服务的人越多，您的销售增长的可能性就越大。
With modern life becoming increasingly advanced and complex, many people assume it simply takes too long to make the right decision all by themselves. That’s why prospects put so much trust in people willing to help them solve their problems. Mavens take ethical advantage of this reality and leverage it for enormous success. By raising the bar of quality, service, or care far above what anyone can legitimately expect, they create a natural “wow” factor that itself builds buzz. 随着现代生活变得越来越先进和复杂，许多人认为自己单独做出正确决策所需的时间实在太长。这就是为什么潜在客户如此信任愿意帮助他们解决问题的人。专家们在这一现实中以道德方式获利，并将其利用于巨大的成功。通过将质量、服务或关怀的标准提高到任何人都无法合理期待的水平，他们创造了一种自然的“惊艳”因素，这本身就能引发热议。
Think of ways you can help, not merely your current clients or prospects, but their clients or prospects, their friends, their relatives-anyone they come into contact with. Think up promotions, giveaways, free reports, and advice hotlines- 考虑你可以帮助的方式，不仅仅是你当前的客户或潜在客户，还有他们的客户或潜在客户，他们的朋友，他们的亲戚——任何与他们接触的人。想出促销活动、赠品、免费报告和咨询热线——
anything your clients can use to help the people they know. Think “virally”: How can you turn your happy clients into evangelists for your products and services, for your cause, for your vision? 任何您的客户可以用来帮助他们认识的人。考虑“病毒式传播”：您如何能将满意的客户转变为您产品和服务、您的事业、您的愿景的传播者？
Step #9: Accelerate the Process with Mentors 步骤 #9：通过导师加速过程
Many people have stumbled upon the secret of “mavenship” through trial and error. But by completing the Maven Matrix provided in this chapter, you already have an enormous advantage over most businesses. You have a blueprint that can guide you going forward. Of course it’s not going to work overnight. With the insights you’ve gained into yourself and your business, you could spend the next several years experimenting and trying to apply the principles and steps I’ve described. 许多人通过反复试验发现了“专家身份”的秘密。但通过完成本章提供的 Maven Matrix，你已经比大多数企业拥有了巨大的优势。你有一个可以指导你前进的蓝图。当然，这不会一夜之间见效。凭借你对自己和业务的洞察，你可以在接下来的几年里进行实验，尝试应用我所描述的原则和步骤。
Fortunately, though, there’s an easier, faster, result-certain way. That is to use trusted mentors and advisors, those who have already laid the foundations for hundreds of preeminent companies themselves, to help you implement each of these steps. Experienced mentors will be able to draw on your own deepest inspirations, your greatest personal strengths, and the tasks you instinctively enjoy doing to help you achieve preeminence quickly. 幸运的是，有一种更简单、更快速、结果确定的方法。那就是利用值得信赖的导师和顾问，他们已经为数百家杰出公司奠定了基础，来帮助你实施每一个步骤。经验丰富的导师能够挖掘你内心最深处的灵感、你最大的个人优势，以及你本能喜欢做的任务，帮助你迅速实现卓越。
Whatever your field or industry, there are undoubtedly celebrities within it-big-name companies or professionals. Now, imagine you can approach these celebrities and partner with them to promote products or services in your niche. Think of the status you would instantly achieve if you could be aligned with them-whether for advice, direction, fast-tracking of your results, or endorsement. Assuming they have agreed to align themselves with your business, what would you do to create a project they would participate in with you? What resources would you need to make this happen? 无论你的领域或行业是什么，里面无疑都有名人——大牌公司或专业人士。现在，想象一下你可以接触这些名人，并与他们合作推广你所在领域的产品或服务。如果你能够与他们保持一致，无论是为了建议、方向、加速你的成果，还是代言，你将立即获得怎样的地位。假设他们已经同意与您的业务保持一致，你会做些什么来创建一个他们愿意与你合作的项目？你需要什么资源来实现这一目标？
The most successful people have all had mentors. Bob Dylan was mentored by Woody Guthrie. Richard Branson of Vir- 最成功的人都有导师。鲍勃·迪伦得到了伍迪·古斯里（Woody Guthrie）的指导。理查德·布兰森（Richard Branson）来自维珍（Vir-）
gin Airlines was mentored by Freddie Laker, who founded Laker Airways, the first low-cost airline to fly between London and New York. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was mentored by David Shaw, founder of a hedge fund that Fortune described as “the most intriguing and mysterious force on Wall Street.” Warren Buffett was mentored by economist Benjamin Graham, the author of the investment classic Security Analysis. And there’s no reason you shouldn’t have one, too. 金航空公司得到了弗雷迪·莱克的指导，他创立了莱克航空公司，这是第一家在伦敦和纽约之间飞行的低成本航空公司。亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝索斯得到了对冲基金创始人大卫·肖的指导，《财富》杂志将其描述为“华尔街上最引人入胜和神秘的力量”。沃伦·巴菲特得到了经济学家本杰明·格雷厄姆的指导，他是投资经典《证券分析》的作者。你也完全可以拥有一个这样的导师。
The process of becoming a maven is like releasing the parking brake on a new Porsche. Once you remove the self-defeating behaviors and subtle acts of self-sabotage that businesspeople routinely inflict on their own marketing efforts, business becomes a joy-more like play than work. And that joy starts multiplying geometrically. In fact, the more fun you’re having, the quicker your success will come-and the bigger your financial rewards. 成为专家的过程就像在一辆新保时捷上释放手刹。一旦你去除那些自我挫败的行为和商业人士常常对自己营销努力施加的微妙自我破坏，商业就变成了一种乐趣——更像是游戏而不是工作。而这种乐趣开始呈几何倍数增长。事实上，你越享受乐趣，你的成功就会来得越快——而你的财务回报也会越大。
PUTTING YOUR MAVEN MATRIX TO WORK 将您的 Maven Matrix 付诸实践
So, what does it mean to put the Maven Matrix into action? Here are some real-life stories of businesses that dared to move beyond mediocre marketing into the world beyond. 那么，将 Maven Matrix 付诸实践意味着什么呢？以下是一些敢于超越平庸营销，进入更广阔世界的企业真实故事。
In the early 1990s, I worked with a prominent Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon. Back then, he and all his local competitors were timid about their marketing. I convinced him to offer a free sixty-minute promotional video to prospects. He ran ads offering the video in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, and the L.A. editions of Cosmopolitan and Vogue. Up to that point, no one else in his profession knew how to market using a sophisticated, tasteful, educational infomercial. As a result, he built a monster practice. 在 1990 年代初，我与一位著名的比佛利山庄整形外科医生合作。那时，他和他所有的本地竞争对手在营销方面都很胆怯。我说服他向潜在客户提供一个免费的六十分钟宣传视频。他在《洛杉矶时报》、《洛杉矶杂志》和《时尚》和《 vogue》的洛杉矶版上投放广告，提供这个视频。在那之前，他的行业里没有人知道如何利用复杂、优雅、富有教育意义的电视购物节目进行营销。因此，他建立了一个庞大的业务。
Marketing can also be used for something other than cash flow. Years ago, while running Entrepreneur magazine, my associates and I were engaged in seven parallel marketing functions; one of these involved creating and selling memberships to an exclusive subscriber-like newsletter. The 营销也可以用于除了现金流以外的其他目的。多年前，在经营《企业家》杂志时，我和我的同事们参与了七个并行的营销职能；其中之一是创建和销售会员资格给一个类似于独家订阅者的新闻通讯。
newsletter staff’s primary job was to produce a monthly twenty- to thirtypage research report on emerging small-business enterprises, opportunities, and investment situations. 通讯工作人员的主要工作是制作每月二十到三十页的研究报告，内容涉及新兴的小型企业、机会和投资情况。
On the last day of each month, when the issue of the membership newsletter became outdated, we would add another twenty to thirty pages of timely information from different industries, thus creating multiple versions that we then sold for $39\$ 39 each as start-up manuals. Each year, that newly packaged report brought in roughly 7 to 8 million dollars_almost 80 percent pure profit - even though the newsletter publishing division that created those reports barely broke even. So the same product was used both for maintaining our subscriber base and for producing our revenue-generating reports. 在每个月的最后一天，当会员通讯的内容变得过时时，我们会添加另外二十到三十页来自不同行业的及时信息，从而创建多个版本，然后以每本 $39\$ 39 的价格作为创业手册出售。每年，这份新包装的报告大约带来了 700 万到 800 万美元的收入——几乎 80%的纯利润——尽管制作这些报告的通讯出版部门几乎没有盈利。因此，同一产品既用于维持我们的订阅者基础，也用于产生我们的收入报告。
Harnessing marketing’s capabilities is a matter of believing that your job as an entrepreneur is to make your business work harder and harder for you, so that you can work less and less for it. The harder your business works, the more asset value it creates, too. 利用市场营销的能力是相信作为企业家的你，应该让你的业务为你更加努力工作，这样你就可以为它工作得越来越少。你的业务工作得越努力，它创造的资产价值也越高。
Unfortunately, a lot of businesspeople default to traditional marketing instead of trying new things, which actually makes their job harder. They run semi-institutional-type ads (rather than direct-responsive ones) or have a sales team that makes cold calls. They don’t think beyond the conventional methods they’ve seen their whole lives. Here, on the other hand, are some examples of truly creative marketing techniques. 不幸的是，许多商界人士默认采用传统营销，而不是尝试新事物，这实际上使他们的工作变得更加困难。他们投放半机构类型的广告（而不是直接响应的广告），或者有一个进行冷电话销售的销售团队。他们没有超越他们一生中所见的传统方法。另一方面，这里有一些真正创造性的营销技巧的例子。
Just recently, I held an entrepreneurial fact-finding session with a group of dentists. Our goal was to hear alternative methods that practices had used to build their successful client base. Some doctors were slogging it out the oldfashioned way with advertising and Yellow Pages, but a few had hit on some truly revolutionary ideas. One doctor produced a traveling puppet show for schools that was seen by as many as 4,000 children a month, which in turn generated 100 to 150 new cases, at an average of $1,500\$ 1,500 annually apiece. 最近，我与一群牙医举行了一次创业调研会议。我们的目标是听取诊所用来建立成功客户群的替代方法。一些医生仍然在用传统的广告和黄页苦苦挣扎，但有几位医生提出了一些真正革命性的想法。一位医生为学校制作了一个流动木偶剧，每月有多达 4000 名儿童观看，这反过来又产生了 100 到 150 个新病例，平均每个病例每年 $1,500\$ 1,500 。
Another doctor went the philanthropic route, offering teeth-whitening services, valued at $300\$ 300 each, free to anyone who donated to a high school scholarship fund. The treatment cost the dentist $50\$ 50 to fulfill, whereas he determined that cold leads from ads and Yellow Pages generally cost $150 (in other words, three times more) to generate. Many teeth-whitening clients became $2,000-a-year patients, translating into an overall gain of nearly $200,000\$ 200,000 per year for the dentist-all from that simple-sounding nontraditional approach. 另一位医生走上了慈善之路，提供价值 $300\$ 300 的牙齿美白服务，免费提供给任何向高中奖学金基金捐款的人。该治疗的成本为牙医 $50\$ 50 ，而他确定从广告和黄页获得的冷线索通常需要花费 150 美元（换句话说，成本是三倍）。许多牙齿美白客户成为了每年花费 2000 美元的患者，这为牙医带来了近 $200,000\$ 200,000 的整体收益——这一切都源于这种听起来简单的非传统方法。
Another dentist I worked with sent any client who referred a new patient to him a written thank-you note-along with a lottery ticket. Talk about a failsafe, creative method of establishing a relationship with your clients! 我曾合作过的另一位牙医会给每位推荐新病人的客户发送一封书面感谢信，并附上一张彩票。真是一个可靠且富有创意的建立客户关系的方法！
Here’s a fourth example of using creative marketing to generate referrals and more business: A car dealer started sending helium-filled balloons to his customers at work after they bought a car from him. The balloons had no advertising on them, but they would float above the customers’ chairs while they worked. Their co-workers, in turn, would think somebody was having a birthday and ask them about it, and pretty soon the customers would be bragging about their new car and what a great experience they’d had at the dealership. Within nine months of starting this practice, the dealer’s business from referral clients had increased 50 percent. 这是一个使用创意营销来产生推荐和更多业务的第四个例子：一家汽车经销商在客户购买汽车后，开始向他们的工作场所发送充满氦气的气球。这些气球上没有任何广告，但它们会在客户工作时漂浮在他们的椅子上。客户的同事们会认为有人在庆祝生日，并询问他们，没过多久，客户就会开始炫耀他们的新车以及在经销商处的美好体验。在开始这一做法的九个月内，来自推荐客户的经销商业务增长了 50%。
With the Maven Matrix as your guide, you, too, can put these lessons to work. This is your chance to revolutionize your marketing strategy. The possibilities are just waiting to be discovered. 在 Maven Matrix 的指导下，你也可以将这些经验付诸实践。这是你彻底改变营销策略的机会。可能性正等待着被发现。
I have no formal secondary education, but I can tell you that most universities teach only theoretical marketing, not the sound, practical, result-based kind I’m putting forth here. My education was earned in the trenches, on the front lines of real capitalism, dealing firsthand with entrepreneurs who didn’t have the luxury of wasting time and money. They had to make every marketing activity a profit center. With a small amount of capital they had to produce big results. 我没有正式的中等教育，但我可以告诉你，大多数大学只教授理论营销，而不是我在这里提出的那种基于实际、结果导向的有效营销。我的教育是在战壕中获得的，在真正的资本主义前线，亲身与那些没有时间和金钱奢侈的企业家打交道。他们必须让每一项营销活动都成为利润中心。凭借少量的资本，他们必须产生巨大的结果。
Your days of mediocre marketing are over. Now you know how to market like a maven, and you can keep returning to the nine specific steps of the Maven Matrix to get you there. Apply these lessons to your business, and you’ll reap a windfall of rewards. 你平庸的营销时代已经结束。现在你知道如何像专家一样进行营销，并且可以不断回到专家矩阵的九个具体步骤来实现这一目标。将这些经验应用到你的业务中，你将获得丰厚的回报。
There’s only one last thing you need to know to get your business unstuck, and it’s this: You can’t go it alone. If you want to know why, turn to the next chapter. 你需要知道的最后一件事是：你不能独自一人。如果你想知道原因，请翻到下一章。
The Bottom Line 底线
Redefine the word “marketing” for yourself as the process of educating the marketplace. Inform your potential clients that your business can solve problems, fill voids, or achieve opportunities and goals in a way that no other business can. 将“营销”这个词重新定义为教育市场的过程。告知您的潜在客户，您的业务可以以其他任何业务无法做到的方式解决问题、填补空白或实现机会和目标。
One objective of marketing’s role in your business is to identify, connect with, and attract the best quality and quantity of desirable prospects. 营销在您业务中的一个目标是识别、联系并吸引最佳质量和数量的理想潜在客户。
A second objective is to convert your prospects to first-time buyers, upgrade them to multiple-product buyers, and compel them to return as often as necessary for them to receive the absolute maximum outcome. 第二个目标是将您的潜在客户转化为首次购买者，升级他们为多产品购买者，并促使他们尽可能频繁地返回，以获得最佳结果。
A third objective is to ethically mine your prospects for alternative revenue streams that will improve the quality of your relationship and enhance their lives. 第三个目标是以道德的方式挖掘你的潜在客户，以寻找替代收入来源，从而改善你们的关系并提升他们的生活质量。
■ Think of marketing as an investment, but one so powerful it can provide an ROI of more than 100 percent on a consistent basis-and sometimes even multiples of 100 percent. ■ 将营销视为一种投资，但这种投资如此强大，以至于它可以在持续的基础上提供超过 100%的投资回报率，有时甚至是 100%的倍数。
■ You can’t reach your goal until you define it. What is it you want to accomplish? ■ 你无法实现目标，直到你定义它。你想要达成什么？
Follow the nine steps of the Maven Matrix: Gain your market’s trust, establish a persona, develop a vision for your marketplace, tell your story, become a polarizing figure, develop your own phraseology, use a signature communications channel, create a velvet rope community, and work with mentors. 遵循 Maven 矩阵的九个步骤：赢得市场的信任，建立一个角色，为你的市场发展愿景，讲述你的故事，成为一个有争议的人物，发展你自己的用语，使用一个标志性的沟通渠道，创建一个天鹅绒绳社区，并与导师合作。
Immediate Action Step Bill Clinton is remembered for the phrase “I feel your pain.” Take out a sheet of paper and write down the top three pains your clients and prospects feel. Keep this list in plain sight at all times, as your business will grow to the extent that you feel-and can articulate - the pain your clients and prospects feel. 立即行动步骤 比尔·克林顿因“我感受到你的痛苦”这句话而被人们铭记。拿出一张纸，写下你的客户和潜在客户所感受到的三大痛点。将这份清单始终放在显眼的位置，因为你的业务将随着你感受到并能够清晰表达客户和潜在客户的痛苦而增长。
10
ARE YOU STUCK STILL SAYING "I CAN DO IT MYSELF"? 你还在固执地说“我可以自己做”吗？
Ask any business owners you know whether they invest in their company’s 401(k)401(\mathrm{k}) plan and the answer, invariably, will be “Of course!” Then ask them what kind of return on their 401(k) would really knock their socks off. They’ll probably tell you that 10 percent would be amazing, and that-in their wildest fantasies-they dream of getting 14 percent. 问问你认识的任何企业主，他们是否投资于公司 401(k)401(\mathrm{k}) 计划，答案无疑是“当然！”然后问他们，什么样的 401(k)回报会让他们感到震惊。他们可能会告诉你，10%的回报会很惊人，而在他们最疯狂的幻想中，他们梦想获得 14%的回报。
My response would be this: Even 14 percent would be anemic compared to the return on investment of hiring someone to create joint ventures for you. When you learn and understand the science of leveraging the talents of others, your resulting return will dwarf any passive investment you could ever hope to make. 我的回应是：即使 14%的回报率也相较于雇佣某人为你创建合资企业的投资回报显得微不足道。当你学习并理解利用他人才能的科学时，你所获得的回报将远远超过你所能希望获得的任何被动投资。
At heart, entrepreneurism is all about leveraging people, assets, capital, and efforts. It’s about helping other people get what they want so they’ll give and get you everything you want. As Robert Hargrove has pointed out, the most defining trait of great entrepreneurs in the twenty-first century will be the ability to creatively collaborate with other people, because individual business professionals could never acquire all of the necessary skills themselves. 从本质上讲，企业家精神就是利用人、资产、资本和努力。它是关于帮助他人获得他们想要的东西，以便他们能给予你和获得你想要的一切。正如罗伯特·哈格罗夫所指出的，二十一世纪伟大企业家的最显著特征将是与他人创造性合作的能力，因为个体商业专业人士永远无法自己掌握所有必要的技能。
In this chapter, I want to shake you out of the “control freak” mode of insisting on doing everything yourself. I want you to dispel the idea that no one else can be trusted or that no one else can do the job as well. If that’s your attitude, your business won’t last long, and it certainly won’t return the level of geometric growth you’re hoping for. Failing to leverage means condemning your business to a lifetime of stagnation. 在本章中，我想让你摆脱“控制狂”模式，停止坚持自己做所有事情。我希望你打消没有人可以信任或没有人可以做得和你一样好的想法。如果你抱有这样的态度，你的生意不会长久，当然也不会带来你所期望的几何增长水平。不利用资源意味着将你的生意注定于一生的停滞。
As I mentioned way back in Chapter 2, there’s good leverage and bad leverage, just as there’s good and bad cholesterol: 正如我在第二章中提到的，有好的杠杆和坏的杠杆，就像有好的胆固醇和坏的胆固醇一样：
■ Good leverage occurs when businesspeople buy vehicles or equipment, hire new people, or move into new facilities with the goal of producing a predictable, calculable amount of ROI. ■ 良好的杠杆作用发生在商人购买车辆或设备、雇佣新员工或迁入新设施时，目的是产生可预测、可计算的投资回报率。
■ Bad leverage occurs when businesspeople do the same things, only instead of knowing how much ROI the activities will produce, they only hope that their decisions will pay off-which, under such conditions, rarely happens. Then, instead of profit, the leverage leads to either debt service or capital diminishment. ■ 不良杠杆发生在商界人士做同样的事情时，他们只希望自己的决策能够带来回报，而不是知道这些活动将产生多少投资回报率——在这种情况下，这种希望很少会实现。然后，杠杆导致的不是利润，而是债务服务或资本减少。
Good leverage recycles previous buyers, helps current buyers buy more, and provides for new marketing avenues heretofore unexplored. And yet most entrepreneurs and executives invariably choose bad leverage. Don’t let that happen to you. 良好的杠杆利用可以回收之前的买家，帮助当前的买家购买更多，并为之前未开发的新营销渠道提供支持。然而，大多数企业家和高管往往选择不良的杠杆。不要让这种情况发生在你身上。
So without much further ado, let’s delve into how you can get on the right side of the good leverage/bad leverage equation. 所以在不多废话的情况下，让我们深入探讨一下如何让你站在良好杠杆/不良杠杆方程的正确一侧。
KNOWING WHEN TO STAY PUT AND NOT EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS 知道何时保持现状而不扩展业务
Entrepreneurs say, “We have to get our sales up, so we need to hire more salespeople.” However, what I have personally wit- 企业家们说：“我们必须提高销售额，所以我们需要雇佣更多的销售人员。”然而，我个人所见到的情况是——
nessed is that for every salesperson brought in, businesses frequently lose as much as 20 cents on the dollar. Obviously, that’s bad leverage-hiring new salespeople accelerated the rate at which the businesses lost money. A better idea would be to keep the same number of staff you have now and invest in high upside-leverage “performance enhancement” training, which would result in those same employees becoming as much as 50 to 100 percent more effective. Now, that’s a handsome profit! 每招募一名销售人员，企业通常会损失高达每美元 20 美分。显然，这种杠杆作用不好——招聘新销售人员加速了企业亏损的速度。更好的主意是保持现有员工的数量，并投资于高回报的“绩效提升”培训，这将使这些员工的工作效率提高 50%到 100%。这才是可观的利润！
It’s the optimization versus innovation debate again. Remember: Try optimization first. Work with what you have to make it work better. Once you’ve trained your team in consultative advisory sales methods, then you can think about recruiting more salespeople, because you’ll be incorporating them into a high-leverage system proven to work many times better than before you turbocharged it. 又是优化与创新的辩论。记住：首先尝试优化。利用现有资源使其运作得更好。一旦你训练了团队掌握咨询顾问式销售方法，那么你可以考虑招募更多的销售人员，因为你将把他们纳入一个经过验证的高杠杆系统，这个系统的效果比你加速之前要好得多。
Entrepreneurs are, by nature, control freaks. The secret to your success is to realize ultimate control by shifting into the role of the benevolent puppet master. Think of P. T. Barnumhe wasn’t the clown, he wasn’t the trapeze artist, he wasn’t the daredevil shot out of the cannon. But he masterfully orchestrated everything. He leveraged all his employees into a cohesive fabric. He gave them the spotlight, and doing that gave him the lion’s share of the money. 企业家天生就是控制狂。成功的秘诀在于通过转变为仁慈的操控者来实现最终的控制。想想 P. T. Barnum——他不是小丑，不是空中飞人，也不是被炮弹射出的特技演员。但他巧妙地协调了一切。他将所有员工整合成一个紧密的整体。他给予他们聚光灯，而这样做为他赢得了大部分的财富。
Most entrepreneurs never give themselves the opportunity to be in a position where they can think strategically. But that’s what you need to do if you really want to get unstuck. By juggling too many different roles, you’re not following the concept of highest and best use. And you almost always get forced to function tactically and suboptimally. 大多数企业家从未给自己机会处于可以进行战略思考的位置。但如果你真的想摆脱困境，这正是你需要做的。通过 juggling 太多不同的角色，你并没有遵循最高和最佳使用的概念。你几乎总是被迫以战术和次优的方式运作。
If you’re stuck in a snow bank, persisting in moving forward will only drive you in deeper and deeper. You need lever-age-either people pushing from behind (collaboration) or a piece of cardboard under the tire for traction (innovation). 如果你被困在雪堆里，继续向前移动只会让你陷得更深。你需要杠杆——要么是后面有人推（合作），要么是在轮胎下放一块纸板以增加摩擦（创新）。
You can do any number of things to get yourself out, but first you have to take a good look at your options to be sure they’re going to get you back on the road instead of buried deeper in snow. If they aren’t, you need a new set of approaches that will accomplish the goal. 你可以采取任何措施来让自己脱身，但首先你必须仔细审视你的选择，以确保它们能让你重返正轨，而不是让你在雪中更深地埋藏。如果不能，你需要一套新的方法来实现目标。
KNOWING WHEN TO EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS 知道何时扩展您的业务
It’s impossible to be on the cutting edge of every area of your business-technology, sales, marketing, management, and so on. You just can’t do it. The only possible way to succeed is to first acknowledge which areas you’re lacking in, then to find the best person for each of those areas, and then figure out the most practical way to enlist their participation, whether it’s hiring them, joint venturing with them, or trading them a service or product. The combined result of their pooled expertise, resources, and access will make for a business that thrives far beyond its competitors. If you don’t have the capital to compensate them outright, you can create a collaborative relationship, such as bonuses received on a percentage basis, deferred compensation, a trade-or any combination of the above. 在你业务的每个领域——技术、销售、市场营销、管理等等——都处于前沿是不可能的。你就是做不到。成功的唯一可能方法是首先承认你在哪些领域存在不足，然后为每个领域找到最合适的人选，再找出最实际的方式来让他们参与，无论是雇佣他们、与他们合资，还是以服务或产品进行交换。他们的专业知识、资源和渠道的结合将使企业在竞争对手之上蓬勃发展。如果你没有足够的资金直接补偿他们，你可以建立一种合作关系，比如按比例获得的奖金、递延补偿、交易或上述任何组合。
I’ve had many small clients who thought they had to go it alone. But doing it all themselves would have been the most self-limiting path imaginable. Instead of letting them trudge down such a treacherous path, I put these clients in touch with my resources-including distribution channels, creative marketing executives, and consultative sales trainers-who aided them in the areas in which they were deficient. The results were always stunning, with my clients seeing incredible expansion in areas where they’d previously seen very little growth. If my client didn’t have capital, I worked around that by making compensation to the resource we recruited variable or deferred, or by moving it to equity or exchanges. Truth be told, 我有很多小客户，他们认为自己必须独自应对。但让他们自己做所有事情将是最自我限制的道路。与其让他们在这样一条危险的道路上艰难前行，我将这些客户与我的资源联系起来，包括分销渠道、创意营销主管和咨询销售培训师，他们在客户缺乏的领域给予了帮助。结果总是令人惊艳，我的客户在之前几乎没有增长的领域看到了惊人的扩展。如果我的客户没有资金，我通过将我们招募的资源的报酬设为可变或递延，或者将其转为股权或交换来解决这个问题。说实话，
lack of capital has never been a deterrent for my clients-or for me. Let me illustrate what I mean. 资金不足从来没有阻碍过我的客户——也没有阻碍过我。让我来举个例子。
When I was about 20 years old, 8 -track cassette tapes were still the standard. I found a company that was overloaded with prominent tapes but had no good distributor. I convinced the owners to give me control of $500,000\$ 500,000 worth of tapes in exchange for the promise of split profits, and I took them to a popular chain of mini-marts in the Midwest. They agreed to let me put tapes into about 100 of their stores, and pretty soon I was making $1,000\$ 1,000 a day. Yet I had invested nothing up front. It was just a matter of recognizing that one person’s distress is another person’s opportunity. 当我大约 20 岁时，8 轨磁带仍然是标准。我找到了一家拥有大量知名磁带但没有好的分销商的公司。我说服了老板们让我控制价值 $500,000\$ 500,000 的磁带，以换取分成的承诺，然后我把它们带到了中西部一家受欢迎的迷你超市连锁店。他们同意让我在大约 100 家店铺中放置磁带，不久我每天就赚到了 $1,000\$ 1,000 。然而我没有前期投资。这只是一个认识到一个人的困境是另一个人的机会的问题。
When you first meet with a prospective partner to propose a joint venture, take an assumptive role. Go in armed with your knowledge. But don’t make any promises you can’t guarantee. 当你第一次与潜在合作伙伴会面以提议合资时，采取一种假设的角色。带着你的知识去。但不要做出你无法保证的承诺。
Imagine going up to a prospect and saying, “Look, I know what you do well, but I know you don’t do advertising. I know you don’t have the sales force. I have a way to set that all up for you in five different distribution channels in selling areas and markets that you aren’t reaching. It could be the tail that wags the dog. I am willing to set it all up, and once it’s rolling, I want to split the profits with you-after we put money in your bank account. I have three other prospects for this venture who are probably your competitors, but you’re my favorite and the one with the quality product that I think will get the most, do the most, and deliver the most. Do you want to join me, or should I go somewhere else?” Now who could refuse an offer like that? 想象一下，你走到一个潜在客户面前说：“听着，我知道你做得很好，但我知道你不做广告。我知道你没有销售团队。我有办法为你在五个不同的销售区域和市场中建立这一切，而这些地方你并没有覆盖。这可能是摇尾巴的狗。我愿意把这一切都建立起来，一旦它运转起来，我想和你分成利润——在我们把钱存入你的银行账户之后。我还有三个其他的潜在客户，他们可能是你的竞争对手，但你是我最喜欢的那个，也是我认为能获得最多、做得最多、交付最多的优质产品。你想和我一起吗，还是我应该去别的地方？”现在谁能拒绝这样的提议呢？
But if you find that people are reluctant (and you might, especially on your first try), redouble your efforts. The way to deal with a refusal is . . . to empathize! Imagine if someone came to you with a joint-venture offer and followed up by 但如果你发现人们不愿意（尤其是在你第一次尝试时），那就加倍努力。应对拒绝的方法是……同理心！想象一下，如果有人向你提出合资合作的提议，然后跟进……
saying, “If the tables were turned, and somebody I didn’t know came to me with a proposition, even one that was that appealing, I would probably hesitate, too. I would wonder, What’s the catch? What does he know that I don’t? But when I thought about it, I’d realize that he does know something I don’t. He knows how to deliver to the markets that are shutting me out. He knows how to dramatically enhance my yield, my revenue, and my profitability from what I can do alone.” 他说：“如果情况反过来，有一个我不认识的人向我提出一个建议，即使这个建议非常吸引人，我也可能会犹豫。我会想，‘有什么隐情？他知道我不知道的事情吗？’但当我思考这个问题时，我会意识到他确实知道我不知道的事情。他知道如何进入那些把我排除在外的市场。他知道如何显著提高我的产量、收入和我单独能做到的盈利能力。”
Finally, to seal the deal, eliminate risk. Engineer a template for your prospects that tells them what they should demand from you in terms of controls. Be detailed, and offer things they might not even have thought of. This will demonstrate that you know your business and can be trusted to take the helm. 最后，为了达成交易，消除风险。为你的潜在客户设计一个模板，告诉他们在控制方面应该向你提出什么要求。要详细，并提供他们可能没有想到的内容。这将表明你了解自己的业务，并可以信任你掌舵。
There are three things to avoid when you consider joint venturing. First (and what I see most commonly) is that businesspeople get caught up in the theory. There’s a lot of economic theory about joint venturing, but nothing beats experience. I have taught this approach to literally thousands of people, but I see it implemented only a fraction of the time. It won’t do you any good to know the theoretical returns you could glean from joint venturing if you don’t get out there and give it a shot. 在考虑合资时，有三件事需要避免。首先（也是我最常见的情况）是商界人士陷入理论之中。关于合资有很多经济理论，但没有什么能胜过经验。我已经将这种方法教给了成千上万的人，但我看到它被实施的次数仅仅是其中的一小部分。如果你不去尝试，知道你可以从合资中获得的理论回报是没有任何好处的。
The second thing to avoid is starting out too big. You probably won’t have a lot of success approaching big companies right off the bat, but you can create enormous wealth by engaging in several small joint ventures at once. 第二件要避免的事情是一开始就太大。你可能一开始接触大公司不会有太多成功，但通过同时参与几个小型合资企业，你可以创造巨大的财富。
Third, don’t allow yourself to be intimidated. You might not succeed the first time, but you can’t allow yourself to be hindered by embarrassment. The odds of doing something meaningful perfectly the first time you try it are low, don’t you think? The reality is that the worst thing that can happen is that your proposal will be rejected-but you still haven’t lost anything. You only stand to gain. 第三，不要让自己感到害怕。你可能第一次尝试时不会成功，但你不能让尴尬阻碍自己。你认为第一次尝试就完美地做成某件有意义的事情的几率很低，对吧？现实是，最糟糕的情况就是你的提案会被拒绝——但你仍然没有失去任何东西。你只会有所收获。
Joint venturing is truly the fastest, safest, most flexible route you have. You can do it anywhere in the country or in the world; you can do it in person; you can do it by phone; you can do it by fax; you can do it by e-mail. Ask yourself this question: If you can bring economic advantage to clients who never had it before, and you do all the work, but they stand to gain $10,000,$20,000,$30,000,$50,000\$ 10,000, \$ 20,000, \$ 30,000, \$ 50,000 a year, a quarter, a week to their bottom line, how many people do you think are going to turn down that opportunity? 合资确实是你拥有的最快、最安全、最灵活的途径。你可以在全国或世界任何地方进行；你可以亲自进行；你可以通过电话进行；你可以通过传真进行；你可以通过电子邮件进行。问问自己这个问题：如果你能为从未获得过经济利益的客户带来经济优势，而你做所有的工作，但他们每年、每季度、每周都能在底线上获得 $10,000,$20,000,$30,000,$50,000\$ 10,000, \$ 20,000, \$ 30,000, \$ 50,000 的收益，你认为有多少人会拒绝这个机会？
CHANGING YOUR MINDSET ABOUT DOING EVERYTHING YOURSELF 改变你对自己做所有事情的心态
As I emphasized earlier, to create opportunity you must first break free of the “go it alone” mindset and learn to move past fear to enjoy the adventure of business. Once you realize that there’s always someone who has what you’re lacking (and who needs what you have: vision, clarity, a plan of action), you’ll never feel that fear again. It will fade away like a bad dream, and you’ll forge ahead in growing your business as never before. But you have to take that leap of faith and move past your fear to be able to see what possibilities will put you on the pathway to greater prosperity. Let me share an example. 正如我之前强调的，要创造机会，您必须首先摆脱“独自一人”的心态，学会超越恐惧，享受商业的冒险。一旦您意识到总有某人拥有您所缺乏的东西（而且需要您所拥有的东西：愿景、清晰度、行动计划），您就再也不会感到恐惧。它会像一个噩梦一样消失，您将以前所未有的方式向前推进，发展您的业务。但您必须迈出那一步，超越您的恐惧，才能看到哪些可能性将把您引向更大的繁荣。让我分享一个例子。
A client who owned a national franchise of educational centers insisted on doing everything himself-from approving the ads to performing the quality-control checks to training the new instructors. I taught him to skip the conventional marketing that he was so tightly controlling and to instead hire someone to create joint-venture opportunities. Reluctantly, he did so. This person received $60,000\$ 60,000 in salary, plus a small amount of profit. 一位拥有全国教育中心特许经营权的客户坚持自己做所有事情——从批准广告到进行质量控制检查，再到培训新讲师。我教他跳过他如此严格控制的传统营销，而是雇佣一个人来创造合资机会。他不情愿地这样做了。这个人获得了 $60,000\$ 60,000 的薪水，以及一小部分利润。
The result? She created twenty joint ventures in her first year for my client, leading to more than $1\$ 1 million in new business. 结果？她在第一年为我的客户创建了二十个合资企业，带来了超过 $1\$ 1 百万的新业务。
The first mental step toward pushing past the fear involves recognition: Recognize the factor you’re lacking (i.e., recognize your constraint) and realize that there’s an infinite supply of that factor available for your use. Perhaps you need a sales force or an R&D team, or require more inventory or warehouse space. Most entrepreneurs struggle with nagging abstractions. Verbalizing your need is crucial, because it helps you to set up a concrete goal and then explore all the different options, opportunities, or alternatives available to achieve that goal rapidly and safely. 克服恐惧的第一步是认知：识别你所缺乏的因素（即，识别你的限制），并意识到有无限的该因素可供你使用。也许你需要一个销售团队或研发团队，或者需要更多的库存或仓库空间。大多数企业家都在与恼人的抽象概念作斗争。明确表达你的需求至关重要，因为这有助于你设定一个具体的目标，然后探索所有可用的不同选项、机会或替代方案，以快速和安全地实现该目标。
Next you have to break down the solution. Because this is the area where many entrepreneurs get stuck, let’s run through the most common “stuck” scenarios. 接下来你需要分解解决方案。因为这是许多企业家遇到困难的领域，让我们来看看最常见的“卡住”场景。
If you need a talented copywriter but can’t afford to pay one up front, the solution may be to work out a deal where you pay someone on the tangible results of her copy for as long as you use it. So instead of the normal $2,000\$ 2,000 rate for writing copy, the copywriter now accepts zero up-front payment but has an open-ended possibility for earning for months, even years, to come. Over time, your copywriter’s cut could amount to as much as ten times what she is used to earning in a onetime, up-front payment. 如果你需要一位有才华的文案撰写者，但无法提前支付费用，解决方案可能是达成一项协议，根据她的文案所带来的实际效果支付报酬，只要你使用这些文案。因此，文案撰写者现在接受零预付款，而是有一个开放式的可能性，可以在未来几个月甚至几年内赚取报酬。随着时间的推移，你的文案撰写者的收入可能会达到她习惯于一次性预付款的十倍。
If you can’t afford to bire a sales force, you can either find independent salespeople to take on your products or service, line up a noncompetitive company with strong representation in your market and form a joint venture, or locate an investor to fund a sales force with you and minimize that investor’s risk by doing a trial run: hiring just one salesperson initially to prove to your investor that the sales team will produce a great payoff for them. 如果你负担不起雇佣销售团队，你可以寻找独立的销售人员来销售你的产品或服务，或者与在你市场上有强大代表性的非竞争公司合作成立合资企业，或者找到一个投资者与您共同资助销售团队，并通过进行试运行来降低该投资者的风险：最初只雇佣一名销售人员，以向您的投资者证明销售团队将为他们带来丰厚的回报。
If you don’t have distribution, you can find somebody who does and buy into his by giving him a permanent share of the profits that accrue as a result of your having plugged into his resources. Alternatively, you can seek out someone with under- 如果你没有分销渠道，你可以找到一个有分销渠道的人，通过给他一个永久的利润分成来购买他的资源。或者，你可以寻找一个有资源的人。
utilized services and make a deal to buy her excess people or delivery or production capacity on a per-transaction basis. That way, you’re paying only when it’s profitable, which means it’s always a profit center and never an expense. 利用服务并达成交易，以按交易基础购买她的多余人员、交付或生产能力。这样，您只在盈利时付款，这意味着它始终是一个利润中心，而不是费用。
If you don’t have the capital to stock a full supply of new products, you can test a few out first to determine the sellthrough rate, then approach an investor with a conservative projection of returns and ask him to fund your investing purchase. Another method would be to find a manufacturer with that same product collecting dust in a warehouse and gain access to it by offering to split the profits once the product sells to your buyer. Remember Patrick Flanagan from Chapter 5? He built a multimillion-dollar company by selling rejected telephone systems that were too small for the big companies. He made a handsome profit, split it with the companies, and everyone walked away happy. 如果你没有资金来储备全新的产品供应，你可以先测试几个产品以确定销售率，然后以保守的回报预测接触投资者，请他资助你的投资购买。另一种方法是找到一个在仓库里积灰的同类产品的制造商，通过承诺在产品卖给你的买家后分成来获得接触权。还记得第五章的帕特里克·弗拉纳根吗？他通过销售那些对大公司来说太小的被拒绝的电话系统建立了一个数百万美元的公司。他获得了可观的利润，与公司分成，大家都满意地离开。
Part of an entrepreneur’s fear of leverage stems from not knowing whom to partner with, which is understandable. However, you can greatly narrow the field by first clearly determining your real needs. Once you know your needs, you then identify who has the ability to address them. 企业家对杠杆的恐惧部分源于不知道与谁合作，这可以理解。然而，您可以通过首先明确确定自己的真实需求来大大缩小选择范围。一旦您知道自己的需求，就可以识别出谁有能力满足这些需求。
In the past, researching this area was time consuming, but the Internet has made it a cakewalk. Rank your potential partners in order of where they stand within their industry. The odds that the top company in the market will show interest in doing a deal with you are very low. However, they’re much higher for the companies in the middle of your list, as these generally want to grow but don’t know how to do it because they don’t think they have the resources. Determine what it is these middle-level companies are lacking and how you can solve their problems as they solve yours at the same time. By approaching your future partners with a solution to their problems, you’ll get what you want every time-but only if you can give them what they want in exchange. Discovering your future 过去，研究这个领域非常耗时，但互联网使这变得轻而易举。按行业内的地位对潜在合作伙伴进行排名。市场上排名第一的公司对与你达成交易的兴趣非常低。然而，排名中间的公司对此的兴趣要高得多，因为这些公司通常希望增长，但不知道如何做到，因为他们认为自己没有资源。确定这些中层公司缺少什么，以及你如何在解决他们问题的同时解决自己的问题。通过向未来的合作伙伴提供解决方案，你每次都能得到你想要的东西——但前提是你能给他们想要的东西作为交换。发现你的未来
partners’ needs is a difficult skill to master, but once you’ve done so, it yields incalculable results. Here’s an example that follows up on a story I told in Chapter 2. 满足合作伙伴的需求是一项难以掌握的技能，但一旦掌握，便会带来不可估量的成果。这里有一个例子，跟进我在第二章中讲述的故事。
Remember how I convinced a Krugerrand minter to foot my client’s marketing bill? The client was a brokerage firm whose owners were dealing in rare gold and silver coins. I helped them move away from their tactical approach to doing business, which resulted in one-time-only sales. Instead, I developed a strategy that allowed them to build long-term relationships with their own clients, so that their purchases slowly increased in value as their trust in the broker increased. This meant that they were ultimately purchasing highpriced Krugerrands (back when these were legal). I was able to use this as a leverage point with the Krugerrand minter my client purchased from. Specifically, I convinced the minter to cover the brokerage firm owners’ marketing expenses because I already understood their problem: They wanted to sell more Krugerrands. I knew that this was their goal. All I had to do was approach them with a viable solution-a solution that only I could provide, and one l’d already validated with a small, safe test involving ads. The minter was happy to foot the bill, which meant not only more business for the firm but more for the minter as well. 记得我如何说服一位克鲁格兰德金币铸造商为我的客户支付市场营销费用吗？客户是一家经纪公司，其所有者专门交易稀有的金币和银币。我帮助他们摆脱了以战术方式做生意的做法，这种做法导致了一次性销售。相反，我制定了一项战略，使他们能够与自己的客户建立长期关系，从而使他们的购买随着对经纪人的信任逐渐增加而慢慢增值。这意味着他们最终购买的是高价的克鲁格兰德金币（在这些金币合法的时候）。我能够利用这一点与我的客户购买的克鲁格兰德金币铸造商进行谈判。具体来说，我说服铸造商承担经纪公司所有者的市场营销费用，因为我已经了解了他们的问题：他们想要销售更多的克鲁格兰德金币。我知道这是他们的目标。我所要做的就是向他们提出一个可行的解决方案——一个只有我能提供的解决方案，而且我已经通过涉及广告的小规模安全测试验证了这一点。铸造商很乐意支付费用，这不仅意味着公司有更多的业务，也意味着铸造商也会有更多的收益。
HOW JOINT VENTURING CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE 合资企业如何改变你的生活
There are a host of great benefits you’ll experience when you joint venture. It goes without saying that joint venturing allows you to achieve advantages of scale, scope, and/or speed. You can take advantage of other people’s infrastructure. You can take advantage of other people’s reach. You can plug into a wealth of intellectual capital. And you can take advantage of other people’s responsiveness, which, as a single proprietor or small-business owner, you wouldn’t be able to do. 当你进行合资时，你将体验到许多巨大的好处。不用说，合资让你能够获得规模、范围和/或速度的优势。你可以利用其他人的基础设施。你可以利用其他人的影响力。你可以接入丰富的智力资本。而且你可以利用其他人的响应能力，作为一个独资者或小企业主，你是无法做到这一点的。
You can also enhance your competitiveness in local, national, and international markets because now you’re in asso- 您还可以增强您在地方、国家和国际市场的竞争力，因为现在您处于合作中
ciation with somebody who’s a dominant force, somebody who has already built a market, or somebody whom your prospects already trust. 与某个主导力量的人建立联系，某个已经建立了市场的人，或者某个你的潜在客户已经信任的人。
Joint venturing will also afford you the opportunity to enhance product development. You don’t have to shoulder the burden of being the sole creative force in your company. You don’t have to try to allocate an unavailable portion of your meager profits to doing R&D\mathrm{R} \& \mathrm{D} and coming up with breakthroughs for the future. Now you can just go out and find other people who have already done it and don’t know what to do with it. Put their brilliant ideas through your distribution. Suddenly, you’ve got immeasurable flexibility. You’ve got a two-way valve. 合资企业还将为您提供增强产品开发的机会。您不必承担成为公司唯一创意力量的负担。您不必试图将微薄利润中不可用的一部分分配给 R&D\mathrm{R} \& \mathrm{D} ，并为未来提出突破性想法。现在，您可以出去寻找那些已经完成这项工作但不知道该如何处理的人。将他们的精彩想法通过您的分销渠道传播。突然间，您拥有了无与伦比的灵活性。您拥有一个双向阀。
With your newly installed two-way valve, you can take your product through as many different distribution channels as you like-publications, noncompetitive complementary providers of products or services, people outside your market, new applications of your product. And if you’re gutsy, you can even go through competitive channels. Here’s what I mean. 通过您新安装的双向阀，您可以将您的产品通过尽可能多的不同分销渠道进行分发——出版物、非竞争性互补产品或服务提供商、您市场之外的人、新产品的应用。如果您有勇气，您甚至可以通过竞争渠道进行分发。这就是我的意思。
I partnered with another company that sold training programs to people on how to become a utility auditor or a real-estate property tax abatement specialist. The company’s owners got tens of thousands of inquiries every year, but they sold only about 1,000 of them a $10,000\$ 10,000 to $20,000\$ 20,000 course. Ninety-five percent of the prospects making inquiries didn’t ultimately purchase - but they were all interested in learning a skill. It’s just that the skills this company was offering training on weren’t the right fit. 我与另一家公司合作，该公司向人们销售如何成为公用事业审计员或房地产税减免专家的培训项目。该公司的所有者每年收到数万条咨询，但他们每年只售出大约 1,000 个 $10,000\$ 10,000 到 $20,000\$ 20,000 课程。95%的咨询者最终没有购买——但他们都对学习一项技能感兴趣。只是这家公司提供的培训技能并不合适。
So I got the owners to send a letter (one that I wrote and paid for) to all their nonbuyers, offering a program teaching how to be a marketing consultant. We got $10\$ 10 million of business by mining that complementary. 所以我让业主们给所有不购买的客户发了一封信（我写的并且付费的），提供一个教授如何成为市场顾问的项目。我们通过挖掘这一互补关系获得了 $10\$ 10 百万的业务。
Once you realize that you’re not limited to just your own company product, you can create new businesses at will. You 一旦你意识到自己不仅限于自己公司的产品，你就可以随心所欲地创造新业务。你
can get control of other people’s distribution and other people’s products. You’ll become the link between two disparate businesses-and soon all three of you will expand. Process licensing, for example, is a gold mine; here’s a great story. 可以控制其他人的分销和其他人的产品。你将成为两个不同业务之间的纽带——很快你们三个人都会扩展。例如，流程许可就是一座金矿；这是一个很好的故事。
I knew a gentleman named George who ran a lumberyard. He had a lumber mill, and he used it to cut, cure, and turn raw lumber into board, and then he sold the boards. The key to the whole process - the most critical functionis the kiln drying. If you make an error, your lumber goes from A-grade to reject. And if you do it wrong, you’re not just wasting the raw material, you’re also wasting tens of thousands of dollars a week on energy, on gas or electric. It’s just a mess. But if you do it right, you save a lot of money and you get a premium for your lumber. 我认识一位名叫乔治的绅士，他经营着一家木材厂。他有一个锯木厂，用它来切割、干燥和将原木加工成木板，然后他出售这些木板。整个过程的关键——最关键的功能是窑干燥。如果你犯了错误，你的木材就会从 A 级变成废品。如果你做错了，不仅浪费了原材料，还每周浪费数万美元的能源，燃气或电力。这真是一团糟。但如果你做对了，你可以节省很多钱，并且为你的木材获得溢价。
George did it right. He was a fanatic about it, and he had the best kilndrying techniques around. The only problem was that the lumber business is inherently limited in terms of what markets you can tap into geographically. Lumber is so heavy that even if you wanted to literally give your lumber away to somebody 3,000 miles away, it would cost so much to ship that it wouldn’t be worth it. From a practical standpoint, your market has to be consolidated within a 500 - to 600 -mile radius. 乔治做得对。他对此非常狂热，并且拥有最好的干燥木材技术。唯一的问题是，木材生意在地理上可开发的市场本质上是有限的。木材非常重，即使你想把木材免费送给 3000 英里外的人，运费也会高得不值得。从实际的角度来看，你的市场必须集中在 500 到 600 英里半径内。
George came to one of my seminars, and I showed him how to take his kiln-drying method and license it to as many other lumber yards outside of his 600 -mile competitive radius as he could, all over the world. Suddenly, he started making $2\$ 2 million a year just from licensing a process that was already making him money in his own business. 乔治参加了我的一个研讨会，我向他展示了如何将他的窑干燥方法授权给他 600 英里竞争半径之外的尽可能多的木材场，遍布全球。突然间，他仅仅通过授权一个已经在自己业务中为他赚钱的过程，每年就开始赚取 $2\$ 2 百万。
Here's another example: 这是另一个例子：
I worked with a dry cleaner who used what he learned from one of my seminars to develop incredible marketing to grow his dry-cleaning stores. Pretty soon, he had three shops in Chicago, but he didn’t want to grow beyond that. He had this unprecedented marketing package with great specialty services, and he was earning about three times the average revenue 我与一位干洗店老板合作，他利用我在一个研讨会上学到的知识，开发了令人难以置信的营销策略来发展他的干洗店。很快，他在芝加哥开了三家店，但他不想再扩展了。他拥有这个前所未有的营销套餐和出色的专业服务，收入大约是平均收入的三倍。
of a dry cleaner, but that was good enough for him. His time was more valuable to him than money, so he didn’t want the added burden of expanding further. 作为一家干洗店，但这对他来说已经足够了。他认为自己的时间比金钱更有价值，因此他不想承担进一步扩展的额外负担。
I respected that - but I told him there was no reason he couldn’t increase his revenue in other ways, without adding more shops. I showed him how to license his incredibly lucrative marketing to noncompetitive dry clean-ers-dry cleaners outside of Chicago. He got 3,000 dry cleaners to pay him $100\$ 100 a month to use his advertising-and he became the maven of the drycleaning world! 我尊重这一点——但我告诉他，没有理由他不能通过其他方式增加收入，而不必增加更多的店铺。我向他展示了如何将他极具盈利性的营销授权给非竞争性的干洗店——芝加哥以外的干洗店。他让 3000 家干洗店每月支付他 $100\$ 100 来使用他的广告——他成为了干洗行业的专家！
The dry cleaner’s story is an excellent reminder that there are two kinds of assets-tangible and intangible. With joint venturing you can get control of both, as this example shows. 干洗店的故事很好地提醒我们，资产有两种类型——有形资产和无形资产。通过合资，你可以同时控制这两者，正如这个例子所示。
I had a client who realized that companies with big telemarketing sales rooms tend to generate a fairly high rate of sales. Some of these companies sell business to business, which means that their marketing happens during the day. The companies that sell to consumers are normally telemarketing from 3 to 9 p.m. 我有一个客户意识到，拥有大型电话销售中心的公司往往会产生相当高的销售率。其中一些公司是对企业销售，这意味着他们的营销在白天进行。对消费者销售的公司通常在下午 3 点到晚上 9 点进行电话营销。
My client was able to find business-to-business rooms that, although their owners had invested millions of dollars in them, were empty after 3 P.M. He leased these rooms on performance-based not on cash but on a share of the revenue. Then he went to consumer salespeople who wanted to leave their employers and start out on their own. He got equity in their business and a share of their revenue just for being the link between the company that owned the telemarketing room and the salespeople who needed the room. He made the money connection. 我的客户能够找到一些商务对商务的房间，尽管其拥有者在这些房间上投资了数百万美元，但在下午 3 点后却是空的。他以业绩为基础租赁这些房间，而不是现金，而是根据收入分成。然后，他找到了那些想要离开雇主并自己创业的消费者销售人员。他在他们的业务中获得了股权，并且仅仅因为成为拥有电话营销房间的公司与需要房间的销售人员之间的联系，他就获得了他们收入的一部分。他建立了资金的联系。
There are a lot of things that you can’t afford to do, but if you joint-venture them and pay for them only in direct proportion to the revenue that comes in, they’re no longer a cost. They’re an income stream. They’re a profit center. They’re totally transformed. 有很多事情是你负担不起的，但如果你与他人合资，并仅根据收入的直接比例为它们付费，它们就不再是成本。它们是收入来源。它们是利润中心。它们完全转变了。
And as a result, so is your business. 因此，你的生意也是如此。
REAPPLYING OPTIMIZATION TO FIND HIGHER-QUALITY PROSPECTS AND CLIENTS 重新应用优化以寻找更高质量的潜在客户和客户
Let’s return to an earlier example in this chapter, the misconception that increased sales are derived from increased contacts. Rather than turning 20 sales from 20,000 visits into 40 sales from 40,000 visits, you want to optimize the exposure you’re already getting from those 20,000 contacts to convert more of them. You might even be better off getting only 10,000 visitors, if you get higher-quality visitors brought in by changing your message. You don’t know which you really want until you try a couple of theories, which is very easy for smaller entrepreneurs to do-especially when you leverage the Internet. 让我们回到本章早些时候的一个例子，即增加销售额源于增加联系的误解。与其将 20,000 次访问中的 20 笔销售转变为 40,000 次访问中的 40 笔销售，不如优化您已经从这 20,000 个联系人中获得的曝光，以便转化更多的客户。如果通过改变您的信息吸引到更高质量的访客，您甚至可能更好地只获得 10,000 个访客。在尝试几个理论之前，您并不知道自己真正想要的是哪一个，这对于较小的企业家来说非常简单，尤其是当您利用互联网时。
The first leverage is to identify all the different possibilities that happen when visitors hit your website, and then see where you’re losing them. My guess would be that you’re losing them because the website is written about what’s important to you, not what’s important to your clients. This means that the path you want them to take through your website hasn’t been strategically thought out from their vantage point. Put yourself in their shoes and walk through your site, or invite a client or prospect to do so and watch how she actually navigates from page to page. This second leverage is known as usability testing, and it can be an incredible eye-opener because it allows you to see how your clients actually use your site. It can help you confirm that each element of your website and step in your purchase progression yields a solid payoff value to your visitors. 第一个杠杆是识别访问者访问您网站时发生的所有不同可能性，然后查看您在哪里失去他们。我的猜测是，您失去他们的原因是网站的内容是关于您认为重要的事情，而不是关于您的客户认为重要的事情。这意味着您希望他们在网站上采取的路径并没有从他们的角度进行战略性思考。站在他们的立场上浏览您的网站，或者邀请客户或潜在客户这样做，观察她如何实际从页面到页面导航。第二个杠杆被称为可用性测试，它可以是一个令人惊讶的启示，因为它让您看到客户实际上是如何使用您的网站的。它可以帮助您确认网站的每个元素和购买进程中的每个步骤对访问者都能产生实质性的回报价值。
Once you determine what is drawing in your users, you re-verse-engineer the best parts. For example, you may be sourcing your leads from the wrong media or the wrong demographic, in which case you shift your focus to a better source. Or it could be the flip side: You may be sourcing from 一旦你确定了吸引用户的因素，你就可以逆向工程出最佳部分。例如，你可能是从错误的媒体或错误的人口统计中获取潜在客户，在这种情况下，你需要将注意力转向更好的来源。或者情况可能正好相反：你可能是从
the right market but using the wrong bait (e.g., your message or keywords may be ineffective). You may even be sourcing from the right market and using the right bait, but when the users bite-meaning, when they hit your website-they’re turned off by your message and leave without even digging further. This last scenario is so prevalent that it has its own term in the industry: the single-access ratio, or SAR. High SARs are the bane of every website. 正确的市场但使用了错误的诱饵（例如，您的信息或关键词可能无效）。您甚至可能来自正确的市场并使用正确的诱饵，但当用户点击时——也就是说，当他们访问您的网站时——他们会被您的信息所吸引而离开，甚至没有进一步探索。最后这种情况非常普遍，以至于在行业中有了自己的术语：单次访问比率，或称 SAR。高 SAR 是每个网站的祸根。
The Internet isn’t the only terrain where you can apply the theories of optimization to leveraging. Consider this example. 互联网并不是唯一可以将优化理论应用于杠杆的领域。考虑这个例子。
A few years ago I worked with a company whose owners were selling very expensive entrepreneurial/enterprise software. They ran ads in all kinds of trade publications and they got a lot of leads, but they converted very few of these into sales. I said to them, “Well, people who respond to these ads aren’t doing it solely out of curiosity. They must want the benefit of enterprise software. They probably just don’t want to spend $200,000\$ 200,000 to $250,000\$ 250,000; it’s too expensive, too sophisticated.” 几年前，我与一家出售非常昂贵的企业/创业软件的公司合作。他们在各种行业刊物上投放广告，获得了很多潜在客户，但将这些潜在客户转化为销售的数量却很少。我对他们说：“好吧，回应这些广告的人并不是出于好奇。他们一定想要企业软件的好处。他们可能只是不想花 $200,000\$ 200,000 到 $250,000\$ 250,000 ；这太贵了，太复杂了。”
So I proposed an idea. I suggested that they source some other software provider (someone with a lower entry-level version), get a license on it, and then offer that software to all the people who didn’t buy the more expensive one. That’s exactly what they did: They paid a 5 percent royalty to the other company, and then made three times as much on the people they didn’t sell as on the ones they did. 所以我提出了一个想法。我建议他们寻找其他软件供应商（一个有更低入门版本的供应商），获得许可证，然后将该软件提供给所有没有购买更贵版本的人。他们正是这样做的：他们向另一家公司支付了 5%的版权费，然后在没有销售给的客户身上赚了三倍于销售给的客户的收入。
It was the perfect case study of leveraging: The business owners didn’t have to develop the software or pay for any of it; they just paid a royalty and let the people keep selling it themselves. And they made three times the profit they were making when they were going it alone. 这是一个完美的利用案例：企业主不需要开发软件或支付任何费用；他们只需支付版税，让人们自己继续销售。这样他们的利润是独自经营时的三倍。
Here’s another example. 这是另一个例子。
This one involves a Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon-the same one I mentioned at the end of Chapter 9 , who pioneered the infomercial in his field. He realized that everyone and their mother was advertising plastic surgery. 这涉及到一位比佛利山庄的整形外科医生——就是我在第 9 章末尾提到的那位，他在自己的领域开创了信息广告。他意识到每个人和他们的母亲都在宣传整形手术。
So he decided to write a book on the subject to position himself as the credible, preeminent source; instead of spending money on ads that didn’t always convert, he ran a book promotion, which meant he immediately got money back when books were sold. Of course he also made a profit on lead-generating. 所以他决定写一本关于这个主题的书，以将自己定位为可信的、卓越的来源；与其花钱在不一定能转化的广告上，他进行了书籍促销，这意味着他在书籍销售时立即获得了回报。当然，他在潜在客户生成上也获得了利润。
But how was he going to get his book out into the hands of the public? This is where he started looking for ways to leverage. The surgeon realized that one of the best, nonlinear sources of cosmetic surgery clients were the clients of other cosmetic service providers. So he hired a very attractive woman and mapped out a territory encompassing Beverly Hills and contiguous cities where other businesses offered cosmetic services. The saleswoman then called on high-end hair salons, high-end nail shops, and high-end spas - any place where people came and sat for thirty minutes or an hour-and offered to outfit the waiting room with a book. The plastic surgeon had done a thorough analysis of his metrics and knew what the statistical odds were: A scenario featuring 5,000 people a week sitting in ten cosmetic facilities reading this book was going to spawn cases. And it did. It can do the same for you. 但他要如何将自己的书推向公众呢？这就是他开始寻找杠杆方式的地方。外科医生意识到，美容手术客户的最佳非线性来源之一是其他美容服务提供商的客户。因此，他雇佣了一位非常有吸引力的女性，并绘制了一个涵盖比佛利山庄及周边城市的区域，这些地方有其他企业提供美容服务。然后，销售员拜访了高端发廊、高端美甲店和高端水疗中心——任何人们在这里坐上三十分钟或一个小时的地方——并提出为候诊室提供一本书。整形外科医生对自己的指标进行了彻底分析，知道统计几率是什么：每周有 5,000 人在十个美容机构里阅读这本书的场景将会产生案例。而且确实如此。这也可以为你做到。
THE JOYS OF JOINT VENTURING 合资的乐趣
Hopefully you now recognize the enormous potential of leveraging the talents and resources of other businesses, groups, and individuals. Joining forces with other unique and passionate people will take your business to dramatic new heights-a much better alternative than staying stuck isolated and alone. 希望你现在认识到利用其他企业、团体和个人的才能和资源的巨大潜力。与其他独特而充满激情的人合作，将使你的业务达到戏剧性的新的高度——这比孤立无援地停滞不前要好得多。
Now I want to recap the major benefits that you can capitalize on by joint venturing. This is a golden opportunity, one you can’t afford not to mine. So get motivated and act rapidly. Here are all the exciting ways that forming dynamic strategic alliances will revolutionize your business. 现在我想总结一下通过合资可以利用的主要好处。这是一个黄金机会，你不能错过。因此，请激励自己并迅速行动。以下是形成动态战略联盟将如何彻底改变您的业务的所有激动人心的方式。
Joint Ventures Increase Your Sales, and Thus Your Profitability, Massively 合资企业大幅提高您的销售额，从而提高您的盈利能力
If you’re currently operating only linearly, with a single marketing activity/area or just a few, you might be making a living. But in tough economic times, just getting by might not cut it. Through joint ventures, strategic alliances, endorsements, and host/beneficiary deals, you could open up twenty new distribution channels or ten new markets that could increase your business by a factor of 5,10 , or 20 . And if you can’t handle that load, you can joint-venture with somebody who’s got capacity and doesn’t have sales. There’s no problem, no need, no asset, no skill set, no issue imaginable that you can’t access through creativity. 如果你目前只是在单线操作，只有一个或几个营销活动/领域，你可能在维持生计。但在经济困难时期，仅仅维持生计可能不够。通过合资企业、战略联盟、代言和主办/受益人交易，你可以开辟二十个新的分销渠道或十个新的市场，这可能使你的业务增长 5、10 或 20 倍。如果你无法处理这样的负荷，你可以与有能力但没有销售的合作伙伴进行合资。没有问题，没有需求，没有资产，没有技能组合，没有任何可以想象的问题是你无法通过创造力获得的。
Let’s say you wanted to reach the legal market, and you’ve never done this before. Well, you can cold-call attorneys. Or, you can find a trusted, successful company selling products or services or advice to attorneys that, although not at all competitive, has worked for the last twenty years building access and a reputation. Go to this company and make a deal that puts your offer through their distribution. 假设你想进入法律市场，而你以前从未做过这件事。那么，你可以给律师打冷电话。或者，你可以找到一家值得信赖、成功的公司，向律师销售产品、服务或建议，虽然这并不具有竞争性，但这家公司在过去二十年里一直在建立渠道和声誉。去找这家公司，达成一个协议，让你的产品通过他们的分销渠道销售。
Lifetime value, which I briefly discussed in Chapter 9, refers to the totality of ongoing, cumulative profit that a type of buyer, client, customer, patient, or source is worth. Different kinds of buyers, and buyers coming from different sources, are worth a certain amount of money to you, not just in the initial sale but in their subsequent purchases as well. When you realize what that amount is, you can afford to invest very generously to acquire it. Here’s an example. 生命周期价值，我在第 9 章中简要讨论过，指的是某种类型的买家、客户、顾客、病人或来源所带来的持续、累积利润的总和。不同类型的买家，以及来自不同来源的买家，对你来说是有一定价值的，不仅在初次销售中，而且在他们后续的购买中也是如此。当你意识到这个金额是多少时，你就可以非常慷慨地投资来获取它。这里有一个例子。
In Chapter 9, I told you about how I helped Brian become a maven with his product, Icy-Hot. I’ll clue you in now on another secret to Brian’s success: He was able to take his company, which initially was bringing in only $20,000\$ 20,000, and escalate it to $13\$ 13 million in the next fifteen months by engineering joint 在第 9 章中，我告诉过你我如何帮助布莱恩成为他的产品 Icy-Hot 的专家。现在我将告诉你布莱恩成功的另一个秘密：他能够将他的公司，从最初仅带来 $20,000\$ 20,000 ，在接下来的十五个月内提升到 $13\$ 13 百万，通过策划联合。
ventures with radio stations, television stations, and publications - so that he did not pay for advertising. He let them sell his product, which was priced at $3\$ 3 per unit, and keep all the money on the first sale. He transferred the dynamic and paid the media only for results. 与广播电台、电视台和出版物的合作——因此他不需要支付广告费用。他让他们销售他的产品，单价为 $3\$ 3 ，并在第一次销售中保留所有收入。他转移了动态，只为结果支付给媒体。
People thought he was crazy, but Brian and I had done our math and we saw that every time we got two people to buy, one would buy every couple of months forever. And repeat clients would buy other products as well. Each such client was worth $30\$ 30 in profit a year to Brian, for a lifetime. So every time Brian gave away $6-that is, two $3 sales-he got back $30 the first year and $30 every year thereafter for no cost at all. Now that’s terrific lifetime value! 人们认为他疯了，但布赖恩和我做了我们的数学，我们看到每次我们让两个人购买时，其中一个会每隔几个月就购买一次，永远如此。而且回头客还会购买其他产品。每个这样的客户对布赖恩来说每年价值 $30\$ 30 的利润，终身如此。因此，每次布赖恩赠送 6 美元——也就是两笔 3 美元的销售——他在第一年就收回了 30 美元，之后每年都能收回 30 美元，完全没有成本。这真是惊人的终身价值！
Joint Ventures Provide Added Value to Their (or Your) Clients 合资企业为他们（或您的）客户提供附加价值
When you combine forces with another business, both of you can offer your products or services in conjunction with the other, so the client comes out with more benefits than she would have had if she’d purchased from you alone. Here’s an example. 当你与另一家企业联手时，你们双方可以将各自的产品或服务结合在一起提供给客户，这样客户获得的好处就比她单独从你这里购买时要多。这里有一个例子。
A martial arts club owner discovered he could give certain retailers valuable trial membership certificates to offer clients who made purchases at their stores. The certificates were good not for just one free lesson (which is typical) but for six full months of lessons, worth a total of $500. To the clients, then, the certificates had very high perceived value. So, the retailers could say, “I’ll give you a $500 membership to this martial arts club if you spend $200 at my store.” 一家武术俱乐部的老板发现，他可以给某些零售商提供有价值的试用会员证，供在他们商店购物的客户使用。这些证书不仅仅是一次免费的课程（这很常见），而是六个月的完整课程，总价值为 500 美元。因此，对客户来说，这些证书的感知价值非常高。因此，零售商可以说：“如果你在我的商店消费 200 美元，我就给你这家武术俱乐部的 500 美元会员资格。”
One out of every four people who came in and redeemed their certificates ultimately became a $2,000\$ 2,000 member. The retailers were delighted because they were able to add value for their clients; the martial arts club owner was delighted because he was getting incredible back-end value from the cooperation; and, of course, the clients were delighted because they got more bang for their bucks. 每四个进来并兑换证书的人中就有一个最终成为了 $2,000\$ 2,000 会员。零售商们很高兴，因为他们能够为客户增加价值；武术俱乐部的老板很高兴，因为他从合作中获得了巨大的后端价值；当然，客户们也很高兴，因为他们得到了更多的回报。
Joint Ventures Allow You to Enter Emerging Markets Instantly 合资企业让您能够立即进入新兴市场
Let’s say there’s a market that you don’t know anything about, but you’re eager to break in and be a pioneer. All you have to 假设有一个你一无所知的市场，但你渴望进入并成为开拓者。你所需要做的就是
do is figure out who already has a presence in that market but isn’t necessarily cutting edge. 要做的是找出谁已经在那个市场上有存在，但不一定是前沿的。
Let’s say that you’ve got software that’s a breakthrough for bakeries, but you don’t know anything about bakeries. Well, you don’t have to find a cutting-edge bakery to offer your cut-ting-edge software to. Find a bakery supply company, a bakery consulting company, and a bakery equipment company and do a joint venture with them. That’s how you can instantly usurp all the other people trying to enter that emerging market. 假设你有一款对面包店来说是突破性的软件，但你对面包店一无所知。那么，你不必寻找一家尖端的面包店来提供你的尖端软件。找一家面包店供应公司、一家面包店咨询公司和一家面包店设备公司，与他们进行合资。这就是你如何能够迅速取代所有试图进入这个新兴市场的其他人。
I’ve used joint venturing to take my brand to Asia, Australia, Europe, and Canada. I’ve used it to take my brand to the real-estate market, to the chiropractic market, to the martial arts market-and all with very little infrastructure. I used to have a big, complex infrastructure, but now I don’t need that. I can accomplish all of my goals on a performance, softdollar basis. Why should I burden myself with huge overhead and an HR department? Let somebody else do all that-while I get the leverage off of it. 我通过合资合作将我的品牌带到了亚洲、澳大利亚、欧洲和加拿大。我用它将我的品牌带入了房地产市场、脊椎按摩市场和武术市场——而这一切几乎不需要基础设施。我曾经有一个庞大复杂的基础设施，但现在我不需要那样。我可以在绩效和软美元的基础上实现我的所有目标。为什么我要给自己增加巨大的开销和人力资源部门的负担？让其他人去做这些——而我从中获得杠杆效应。
The potential for getting a foothold in international markets is especially exciting. I’m very proud of the following example. 在国际市场上获得立足点的潜力尤其令人兴奋。我对以下例子感到非常自豪。
When infomercials were just starting out here in the United States, I was doing seminars in Australia. Here’s a classic case of OPM (other people’s money), OPR (other people’s risk), and OPS (other people’s success): I taught an Australian direct-response salesman how to make millions of dollars in a way that, in retrospect, seems so shockingly easy that every reader of this book will wish he or she had been in this man’s shoes. 当信息广告刚在美国起步时，我正在澳大利亚举办研讨会。这是一个经典的 OPM（他人的钱）、OPR（他人的风险）和 OPS（他人的成功）案例：我教了一位澳大利亚的直接反应销售员如何以一种回头看起来如此简单的方式赚取数百万美元，以至于本书的每位读者都会希望自己曾经站在这个人的立场上。
Infomercials are expensive and risky to make, because you never know if a product will sell to a TV audience. But once you have a successful one, you can ride the wave of its success for a long time. So there are American infomercial makers who know which of their infomercials are making money. But they don’t have outlets beyond the U.S. market. 信息广告制作成本高且风险大，因为你永远不知道一个产品是否会在电视观众中销售。但一旦你有了一个成功的广告，你可以长期享受其成功带来的红利。因此，有些美国信息广告制作人知道他们的哪些信息广告在赚钱。但他们在美国市场之外没有销售渠道。
Enter my Australian client. I taught him to approach the U.S. infomercial makers, respectfully suggest to them that they were limiting their horizon to 进入我的澳大利亚客户。我教他如何接触美国的电视购物制作人，尊重地向他们建议，他们正在限制自己的视野。
just the United States, and point out that there are plenty of English speakers Down Under who would love to buy the products they were offering. I showed him how to get the rights to use their infomercials in Australia and New Zealand. He got access to infomercials that people were spending $400,000 to produce. All he needed to do was share (in a modest way) the profit from sales of the products in his territory. He made $20\$ 20 million a year by getting the use of dozens of successful U.S. infomercials that had already been created and had proven successful. He didn’t have to put a dime at risk creating products or infomercials. He just had to buy some TV time at 3:00 in the morning. Now, that’s a win all around: The U.S. guys got a piece of a new market without having to lift a finger, and my client became very, very wealthy, thanks to his willingness to partner with others. 仅仅是美国，并指出在澳大利亚有很多英语使用者愿意购买他们所提供的产品。我向他展示了如何获得在澳大利亚和新西兰使用他们的电视购物广告的权利。他获得了人们花费 40 万美元制作的电视购物广告的使用权。他所需要做的就是以一种适度的方式分享他所在地区产品销售的利润。他通过获得数十个已经创建并证明成功的美国电视购物广告的使用权，每年赚取 $20\$ 20 百万。他不需要冒任何风险去创造产品或电视购物广告。他只需要在凌晨 3 点购买一些电视时间。现在，这对大家来说都是双赢：美国的那些人获得了一个新市场的一部分，而我的客户由于愿意与他人合作而变得非常非常富有。
Apart from the limitless array of places you can go by partnering, it’s OK if you don’t have any infrastructure or capital! You know why? I’m sure you do by now: It’s because you can access anything through joint ventures. Whatever you needas long as you can show people that they’ll get something great out of providing it for you-is always at your fingertips. 除了通过合作可以去的无尽地方，如果你没有任何基础设施或资本也没关系！你知道为什么吗？我相信你现在知道了：因为你可以通过合资企业获得任何东西。无论你需要什么，只要你能向人们展示他们为你提供这些东西会得到一些很好的回报，这些资源总是触手可及。
Joint ventures allow you not only to emerge into new markets but also to control other people’s markets. Here’s how this works. 合资企业不仅可以让你进入新市场，还可以控制其他人的市场。以下是其运作方式。
Years ago, before the Internet had been developed, the way to communicate with people was through industry-specific advisor letters, or newsletters. I realized that a newsletter was the perfect vehicle for accessing specialized segments of the market, so I started typing up the rights to put inserts into other people’s newsletters for no fixed cost, but for a modest share of the revenue. 多年前，在互联网尚未发展之前，与人沟通的方式是通过行业特定的顾问信件或通讯。我意识到通讯是接触市场专业细分领域的完美工具，因此我开始撰写权利，将插页放入其他人的通讯中，费用不固定，但可以获得适度的收入分成。
The first offer I made to a newsletter publisher to tie up his insert rights didn’t cost me a cent. I said to him, “I’ll use your printer to print the insert, and they’ll send me a bill.” The newsletter publisher had ninety days deferred billing, so I got $30,000 worth of billing for my inserts that I didn’t have to pay for ninety days. My first insert made me $500,000\$ 500,000 long before then. I had to pay back $150,000\$ 150,000 to the newsletter publisher, who owned the 我给一位通讯出版商提出的第一个报价，旨在锁定他的插入权利，没花我一分钱。我对他说：“我会用你的印刷机来印刷插页，他们会给我发账单。”这位通讯出版商有九十天的延期账单，所以我得到了价值 30,000 美元的插页账单，而我在九十天内不需要支付。我的第一个插页在那之前就让我赚到了 $500,000\$ 500,000 。我必须向拥有该权利的通讯出版商偿还 $150,000\$ 150,000 。
rights-but that was a fraction of what those rights were worth. I was able to capitalize on his biggest asset, because I thought innovatively and creatively. 权利——但那只是这些权利价值的一小部分。我能够利用他最大的资产，因为我有创新和创造性的思维。
Joint Ventures Give You the Opportunity to Share the Costs 合资企业让您有机会分担成本
Let’s say you really wish you could penetrate new markets, but you’ve got to find a salesperson. The salesperson wants $100,000\$ 100,000, and you don’t have it. 假设你真的希望能够进入新市场，但你必须找到一个销售人员。销售人员想要 $100,000\$ 100,000 ，而你没有。
If you’re the one who’s got the idea, you can go out and find three or four other (noncompetitive) people who want to reach the same market, and put the whole deal together so that they share the cost, give you a great ride, and you can build a sales distribution cycle. Let me give you a picture of what the flip side looks like. 如果你是那个有想法的人，你可以出去找到三到四个其他（非竞争性）想要进入同一市场的人，把整个交易组合在一起，让他们分担成本，给你一个很好的机会，你可以建立一个销售分销周期。让我给你描绘一下反面是什么样的。
Years ago, I had an “almost client.” I say “almost” because the company went under before I could help it. It was a computer products company right when the big-box stores started selling computers for almost nothing, and it was getting squeezed. The company had about fifty salespeople, and it was doing $60\$ 60 million in Southern California. The owners were trying to keep their heads above water by boosting their marketing. So, they called me in, but between our first conversation and the time I got the first proposal to them, they got cold feet. 多年前，我有一个“几乎成为客户”的案例。我之所以说“几乎”，是因为在我能够帮助它之前，这家公司就倒闭了。这是一家计算机产品公司，正值大型商店开始以几乎没有利润的价格出售计算机的时候，它受到了挤压。公司大约有五十名销售人员，在南加州的营业额为 $60\$ 60 百万。老板们试图通过提升营销来保持公司的生存。因此，他们找我来，但在我们第一次交谈和我将第一份提案提交给他们之间，他们却退缩了。
I told the owner, “Please, if you’ll just listen to me. . . .” I had found two people who were willing to pay him a six-figure up-front payment and onefourth of the profits for the next three years to take over his salespeople. But he balked at the idea of waiting for future returns, was afraid to dig his heels in, and fired everybody without seeing where the joint venture would lead. 我告诉老板：“请您听我说……”。我找到两个人，他们愿意支付他六位数的预付款，并在接下来的三年里支付利润的四分之一，以接管他的销售团队。但他对等待未来的回报感到犹豫，害怕坚持自己的立场，结果在没有看到合资企业会带来什么的情况下解雇了所有人。
The moral of the story? The intangibles can be worth far more than the tangibles, but you’ve got to have the vision to see this. 这个故事的寓意是什么？无形的东西可能远比有形的东西更有价值，但你必须具备看到这一点的眼光。
If you have access to markets and you have a direct, implied, or explicit endorsement, and your competitors don’t, three things happen: 如果你可以进入市场，并且你有直接、隐含或明确的支持，而你的竞争对手没有，那么会发生三件事：
1. The selling cycle is shortened. 1. 销售周期缩短了。
The cost of access is reduced. 访问成本降低。
The response rate is enhanced. 响应率得到了提升。
That means you’re going to sell more, you’re going to sell faster, the cost is going to be lower, and you’re going to make more money-even if you pay back a portion of that revenue to the endorser or the joint venture partner. 这意味着你将会卖得更多，卖得更快，成本会更低，而且你将赚更多的钱——即使你将部分收入返还给代言人或合资伙伴。
This is the power of the concept of lifetime value. Even if you pay very generously on the first sale but keep all the profit on the subsequent sales, you’ll make out like a bandit. 这就是生命周期价值概念的力量。即使你在第一次销售时支付得非常慷慨，但在后续销售中保留所有利润，你也会像强盗一样获利。
Joint Ventures Give You Total Flexibility in the Way You Operate 合资企业为您提供完全灵活的运营方式
My company normally has control of fifty different products and services at any given time that we’re doing deals on in different forms in at least three continents at once-and I have only eight employees. If we had to do it all ourselves, it would take tens of millions of dollars. It would take staff. It would take specialists. Instead, whatever we need, we just find someone who’s eager to be a performance-based, profit-based sharing partner, and we joint-venture. If the first one turns us down, we ask, “Why?” Sometimes they give us an answer that I had never thought about. So, I figure out a preemptive way to overcome that, and the second or third person I go to will be on board. 我的公司通常在任何给定时间控制着五十种不同的产品和服务，我们在至少三个大洲以不同形式进行交易——而我只有八名员工。如果我们必须自己完成所有这些工作，那将需要数千万美元。这需要员工。这需要专家。相反，无论我们需要什么，我们只需找到一个渴望成为基于绩效、基于利润的共享合作伙伴的人，然后我们就进行合资。如果第一个人拒绝了我们，我们会问：“为什么？”有时他们会给我们一个我从未考虑过的答案。因此，我想出一种先发制人的方法来克服这个问题，而我去找的第二个或第三个人会同意合作。
If you have a competitor who’s weaker, instead of waiting for that competitor to go out, try a joint-venture type of acquisition. Show him how much better off he could be if he let you take over his clientele. Help him get rid of his overhead, release his offices-and pay him a share of the revenue on an ongoing basis. It’s the best solution for both of you, but you have to shift your mindset to arrive at that kind of innovative and em- 如果你有一个竞争对手比较弱，不要等着那个竞争对手退出市场，试试一种合资收购的方式。向他展示如果让你接管他的客户群，他会有多么好。帮助他减轻开支，释放他的办公室，并持续支付他一部分收入。这对你们双方来说是最好的解决方案，但你必须转变思维，才能达到那种创新和...
pathetic conclusion. The principles of joint venturing will give you the flexibility to get there. 可悲的结论。合资的原则将为您提供灵活性以达到目标。
Joint Ventures Are Less Risky 合资企业风险较小
Say you’re in Los Angeles. You want to open an office in New York? Great! But you’ve got to lease an office, and if it’s a nice one, you’ll be looking at a three- to five-year lease. You’ve got to furnish it. And then you’ve got to fill it with new hires. You’ve got to train them. You’ve got to buy equipment. If you’ve got a lot of money, no problem. If you don’t, then it is a problem. 假设你在洛杉矶。你想在纽约开一个办公室？太好了！但你必须租一个办公室，如果是个不错的办公室，你将面临三到五年的租约。你还得给它配备家具。然后你得用新员工填满它。你得培训他们。你得购买设备。如果你有很多钱，那就没问题。如果没有，那就是个问题。
But what if you find a company whose owner is distressed? That is, she isn’t using her opportunities fully, her relationships fully, her past clients fully. Imagine you could make a deal with her that’s incremental, so it’s variable-based. You just found a way to move to New York. But that’s not all-you could be in Atlanta, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto. And your downside is very little: If it doesn’t work, you unwind it or you adjust it. 但如果你发现一家公司的老板处于困境中呢？也就是说，她没有充分利用她的机会、她的关系、她的过去客户。想象一下，你可以和她达成一个增量的交易，所以这是基于变量的。你刚找到了一种搬到纽约的方法。但这还不是全部——你可以在亚特兰大、悉尼、东京、多伦多。你的风险非常小：如果不成功，你可以撤回或调整它。
Sometimes, of course, it doesn’t work because the money isn’t good. Here’s an example from my own experience. 当然，有时候这并不奏效，因为钱不够好。这是我自己经历的一个例子。
I had a deal once with an infomercial company. The owners had done a large number of infomercials where they were splitting 50/50 on the revenue with the companies who hired them. About half the deals didn’t seem to be profitable at first glance, and they summarily abandoned them. 我曾经与一家信息广告公司达成过一笔交易。公司的老板们制作了大量的信息广告，他们与雇佣他们的公司按 50/50 的比例分成收入。大约一半的交易乍一看似乎并不盈利，他们随即放弃了这些交易。
I came in, looked over what was happening, and realized that a lot of the partnerships were back-end deals, meaning that once those companies got a buyer, the buyer continued to yield subsequent product/service revenue. So I told the infomercial producers, “Restructure the deal so that you show those companies that even if they made no profit and just got back their cost up front, they’ll make money on the back end.” 我进来，查看发生了什么，意识到很多合作关系都是后端交易，这意味着一旦那些公司找到了买家，买家就会继续带来后续的产品/服务收入。所以我告诉信息广告制作人：“重组交易，让那些公司看到即使他们没有利润，只是提前收回成本，他们在后端也会赚钱。”
In other words, you can make a losing deal profitable. We renegotiated five of the deals right away, and suddenly the companies that had basically abandoned the relationship made a ton on the back end. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s all about your mindset. 换句话说，你可以让一个亏损的交易变得有利可图。我们立即重新谈判了五个交易，突然间，那些基本上放弃了关系的公司在后期赚了很多。我之前说过，我再说一遍：一切都在于你的心态。
Joint Ventures Give You the Chance to Access Knowledge and Expertise Well Beyond Your Company's Borders 合资企业让您有机会获取超越公司边界的知识和专业技能
There are so many consultants out there. There are a lot of excellent ones. And a good consultant really can make a difference for small- and medium-sized business owners. But most of the business owners who need them can’t afford them. 外面有很多顾问。有很多优秀的顾问。一个好的顾问确实可以为中小企业主带来改变。但大多数需要顾问的企业主负担不起。
Well, what if you could afford all the experts you ever wanted? There are three ways to make this a reality. Instead of paying for their specific expertise, you can convert their compensation to 好吧，如果你能负担得起你想要的所有专家呢？有三种方法可以实现这一目标。你可以将他们的报酬转换为
a share of your results, 你的一部分结果，
an interest in your company, or 对贵公司的兴趣，或者
an ownership in certain kinds of clients you acquire or sales you make. 您在某些类型的客户中获得的所有权或您所做的销售。
I’ve also engineered deals in which I found prestigious experts, put them together as a board of advisors, and created a joint venture with them so that they had no liability. But when they lent their implied endorsement to my client, it gave my client preeminence and competitive advantage. And of course the advisory board got a share of new sales. This strategy has tripled and quadrupled profit margins. 我还策划了交易，找到了一些知名专家，将他们组成顾问委员会，并与他们创建了合资企业，以便他们没有责任。但当他们对我的客户给予隐含的支持时，这使我的客户获得了卓越地位和竞争优势。当然，顾问委员会也获得了新销售的份额。这一策略使利润率增加了三倍和四倍。
Joint Ventures Can Strengthen Your Expertise in an Industry and Extend Your Product Offerings 合资企业可以增强您在某个行业的专业知识并扩展您的产品供应
I’ve done five joint ventures in the chiropractic industry: with three magazines, a cutting-edge technologist, and the leading chiropractic company. So now, if I send a letter introducing myself to chiropractors, they see me from five different impact points. My credibility, my stature, my attributes, and my relative worth are already pre-established because they’re plugged 我在脊椎按摩行业做过五个合资企业：与三本杂志、一位前沿技术专家和一家领先的脊椎按摩公司。因此，现在如果我给脊椎按摩师发送一封介绍信，他们会从五个不同的影响点看待我。我的信誉、我的地位、我的特质和我的相对价值已经预先建立，因为他们已经了解我。
in to the cumulative efforts and relationships of all these other people. 在所有这些其他人的累积努力和关系中。
Then there’s the issue of expanding your product line. Let’s say you’re a company that has one or two products but nothing else to sell. Find other related complementary or extended products, or even more advanced or expanded versions of what you’re already selling, then sell those things and share the profits. You can find all kinds of other businesses, all kinds of other service providers, all kinds of other publications or associations that have a limited number of services or products and that need you as much as you need them. And even when the relationship is exhausted, that doesn’t have to be the end. 然后还有扩展产品线的问题。假设你是一家只有一两个产品的公司，但没有其他可销售的东西。寻找其他相关的互补或扩展产品，甚至是你已经在销售的产品的更高级或扩展版本，然后销售这些产品并分享利润。你可以找到各种其他企业、各种其他服务提供商、各种其他出版物或协会，它们的服务或产品数量有限，正如你需要它们一样，它们也需要你。即使关系耗尽，这也不必是结束。
Joint Ventures Can Provide Marketing or Selling 合资企业可以提供市场营销或销售
Let’s say you’ve got a killer product, but you don’t know how to market or sell. You joint-venture with somebody who does. Or the flip side: Suppose you know how to market or sell, but you’ve got no products or services. You know what to do. Here’s a great story. 假设你有一个很棒的产品，但你不知道如何进行市场营销或销售。你可以与一个懂得这些的人合作。或者反过来：假设你知道如何进行市场营销或销售，但你没有产品或服务。你知道该怎么做。这里有一个很好的故事。
I had at one of my programs years ago the owners of a company that was in the aerobic attire business. They had really hot-looking clothing for people to work out in; however, their products numbered only about two or three, and they came to my seminar because the products were starting to slow down and they wanted to orchestrate a breakthrough. Upon asking some probing questions, I discovered that they had 5,000 to 6,000 retailers. They had Kmart before it got into trouble. They had a famous hosiery company with seven hundred outlets. They had Nordstrom’s. 我在多年前的一个项目中遇到了一家从事有氧运动服装业务的公司的老板。他们的运动服装看起来非常吸引人；然而，他们的产品只有两到三种，他们来参加我的研讨会是因为产品开始放缓，他们想要策划一次突破。在问了一些深入的问题后，我发现他们有 5000 到 6000 家零售商。他们曾经与 Kmart 合作，直到 Kmart 遇到麻烦。他们还有一家著名的袜子公司，拥有 700 个销售点。他们有 Nordstrom’s。
The owners were frustrated, but they weren’t responding creatively. They had developed these two or three products, and that was it. I told them, “Your biggest asset isn’t your product. It’s your distribution and your relationship with the buyers. You can use that very advantageously. Go on a road trip to the hot cities: Chicago, L.A., South Beach, New York. Go to all the health clubs, and in their little snack shacks there’s always some creative man or woman 业主们感到沮丧，但他们没有创造性地回应。他们开发了这两三款产品，仅此而已。我告诉他们：“你们最大的资产不是你们的产品，而是你们的分销和与买家的关系。你们可以非常有利地利用这一点。去热门城市进行一次公路旅行：芝加哥、洛杉矶、南海滩、纽约。去所有的健身俱乐部，在他们的小吃摊上，总会有一些有创意的男士或女士。”
who’s created a design for tennis shoes, or sweatshirts, or head bands. They’re selling them at that health club, and nowhere else. Find those creators. Get a royalty deal on the product. Take it outside.” 谁为网球鞋、运动衫或头带设计过？他们在那个健身俱乐部出售这些产品，而其他地方没有。找到那些创作者。为产品达成版税协议。把它带出去。
They immediately went into linear interpretation mode and answered, “We don’t want to be a distributor.” And I said, “Then don’t be. Tell those designers they can keep all the sales from their one or two health clubs, and you’ll give them a 5 percent royalty on all the other ones.” The attire company owners were thereby able to tie up ten fantastic joint ventures that way-just by understanding posture, power, leverage, control, and the value of intangibility. 他们立即进入线性解释模式，回答说：“我们不想成为分销商。”我说：“那就不要。告诉那些设计师，他们可以保留自己一两个健身俱乐部的所有销售，你会给他们其他俱乐部 5%的版税。”因此，服装公司的老板们能够通过这种方式缔结十个出色的合资企业——仅仅是通过理解姿态、力量、杠杆、控制和无形资产的价值。
Joint Ventures Allow You to Stay Focused on Your Own Core Business While Expanding, Exploiting, and Harnessing Your Joint Venture 合资企业让您在扩展、开发和利用合资企业的同时，专注于自己的核心业务
This one’s straight from the Tom Sawyer School of Business. Do you remember when Tom had to whitewash the fence, and he got all the other kids to do it while he smoked a pipe and relaxed? 这段话直接来自《汤姆·索亚的商业学校》。你还记得汤姆必须给篱笆刷白漆的时候吗，他让其他孩子们来做，而他自己则抽着烟斗放松吗？
If you’re able to take the fullest advantage of all kinds of assets, all kinds of distribution, all kinds of access that other people spent an enormous amount of time, money, effort, and credibility to establish, you can get functional control just by understanding what’s out there, what it’s worth, how to harness it, and how to communicate the idea to your prospective partner. 如果你能够充分利用各种资产、各种分配、以及其他人花费大量时间、金钱、精力和信誉建立的各种访问权限，你可以通过了解现有资源、它的价值、如何利用它，以及如何将这个想法传达给你的潜在合作伙伴，来获得功能控制。
People ask me, “Jay, what’s your theory of management?” And I say, “Don’t manage. Do joint ventures.” Plug into the resources of others, and they’ll provide whatever you’re missing. All you have to do is be the big thinker, the deal-maker, the strategist, and the visionary. 人们问我：“杰伊，你的管理理论是什么？”我说：“不要管理。进行合资。”利用他人的资源，他们会提供你所缺失的一切。你所要做的就是成为大思想家、交易者、战略家和远见者。
The biggest factor in harnessing joint ventures is the ability to become a more logical and more critical thinker. Collaborations are tricky by nature. It’s rare that both parties operate equally-one will always have an edge. But if you remain focused on the intended outcome for yourself and understand that this will not be achieved until (and unless) you first help 利用合资企业的最大因素是能够成为更具逻辑性和更具批判性思维的人。合作本质上是棘手的。双方平等运作的情况很少，总有一方会占据优势。但如果你始终专注于自己的预期结果，并理解这一点在你首先帮助对方之前是无法实现的。
those on the other side gain the outcome they’re after, you’ll be surprisingly skillful and effective at making collaborations happen. It’s all about the end result: In order for them to give back to you, they need to gain a meaningful outcome, too. 在另一方获得他们想要的结果时，你会惊人地擅长并有效地促成合作。这一切都关乎最终结果：为了让他们回馈你，他们也需要获得一个有意义的结果。
This is your time to experience exponential success-but that’s not to say you have to go it alone. In fact you can’t do it by yourself. Even if you could, why would you want to? The beauty of leveraging is that it makes life better for everyone involved. You’ll experience success like you’ve never experienced it, profits far beyond those you garnered on your own, and a quality of life you’ve only dreamed of. 这是你体验指数级成功的时刻——但这并不意味着你必须独自一人。事实上，你无法独自做到这一点。即使你能做到，为什么你还想这样呢？利用的美妙之处在于，它让每个参与者的生活都变得更好。你将体验到前所未有的成功，利润远远超过你自己获得的，以及你曾经只在梦中想象过的生活质量。
Looks like John Donne had it right all along: No man is an island. And no business is, either. Let the fruits of your fellowship commence. 看起来约翰·多恩一直是对的：没有人是一座孤岛。商业也不是。让你的友谊的果实开始吧。
The Bottom Line 底线
Entrepreneurism is about leveraging combined efforts. It’s about helping other people get what they want so that they’ll give and get you everything you want. 企业家精神是关于利用共同的努力。它是关于帮助他人获得他们想要的，以便他们会给予你和获得你想要的一切。
■ If you believe that you have to do everything yourself, your business won’t last. ■ 如果你认为你必须自己做所有事情，你的生意是无法持久的。
Break free from the “go it alone” mindset. It’s no longer a value in today’s business world. 摆脱“独自奋斗”的心态。在今天的商业世界中，这已不再是一种价值观。
Good leverage is achieved when a businessperson takes action with the goal of producing a predictable, calculable amount of ROI. Bad leverage occurs when a businessperson takes action blindly, without knowing what ROI his activities will produce and only hoping for the best. Choose good leverage. 良好的杠杆作用是在商人采取行动时实现的，目标是产生可预测、可计算的投资回报率（ROI）。不良杠杆作用发生在商人盲目采取行动时，不知道他的活动将产生什么样的投资回报率，只是寄希望于最好的结果。选择良好的杠杆作用。
Know when to expand and when to stay put. Start with optimiza-tion-getting the best from what you have-before you move on to innovation. 知道何时扩展，何时保持现状。先进行优化——从你所拥有的中获得最佳效果——再进行创新。
When it is time to expand and propose a joint venture, take an assumptive role. Go in armed with your knowledge. 当是时候扩展并提出合资企业时，采取一种假设的角色。带着你的知识去参与。
The way to deal with a refusal of your joint-venture proposal is to empathize. 处理合资提案被拒绝的方式是要表示同理心。
When joint-venturing, avoid getting caught up in theory, starting out too big, or allowing yourself to be intimidated. 在合资时，避免陷入理论中，开始时不要过于庞大，也不要让自己感到畏惧。
Apply the theories of optimization to change the way you leverage. Increased sales do not come from increased contacts; they come from higher-quality contacts. 应用优化理论来改变你的杠杆方式。销售增长并不是来自于增加联系，而是来自于更高质量的联系。
The benefits of joint ventures are countless. Here are a few: They increase sales, provide added value to your clients, allow you to enter emerging markets instantly, provide you with opportunities to share costs, give you flexibility in the way you operate, lower risk, give you access to knowledge and expertise beyond your own limitations, extend your product offerings, provide invaluable marketing and selling conditions, and allow you to focus on your core business while expanding through the joint ventures. 合资企业的好处是无数的。以下是一些：它们增加销售，为您的客户提供附加价值，使您能够立即进入新兴市场，为您提供分摊成本的机会，给予您在运营方式上的灵活性，降低风险，让您获得超出自身限制的知识和专业技能，扩展您的产品供应，提供宝贵的市场营销和销售条件，并允许您在通过合资企业扩展的同时专注于核心业务。
Immediate Action Step Drop everything and create one small, low-risk joint venture right now. As l’ve emphasized throughout, taking a shot at something trumps theory every time. And as Nike says, just do it. Don’t postpone this, because if you do, you’ll be among the 99 percent of business owners who are working too hard to make any real money! 立即行动步骤 放下所有，立刻创建一个小型、低风险的合资企业。正如我一直强调的，尝试某件事总是胜过理论。而正如耐克所说，去做吧。不要推迟，因为如果你这样做，你将成为 99%的企业主之一，他们努力工作却无法赚到真正的钱！
11
HOW TO
GET GOING AND GROWING IN A CRISIS ECONOMY 如何在危机经济中启动和发展
You did it. You just learned the nine sticking points, along with the secrets to getting your business unstuck in each area. And those lessons may have come just in the nick of time, too. 你做到了。你刚刚学会了九个关键点，以及在每个领域让你的业务摆脱困境的秘密。而这些课程可能恰好在关键时刻到来。
If you find your business facing a crisis economy-one like the sub-prime mortgage meltdown created in the fall of 2008-now is the time to capitalize on everything I’ve discussed. As you have seen, there are a number of factors that virtually none of your competitors will have the foresight and insight to focus on. After reading the previous chapters, you know what those factors are. Now you may be wondering, “Where do I start?” 如果你发现你的业务面临危机经济——像 2008 年秋季出现的次贷危机——现在是利用我所讨论的一切的时机。正如你所看到的，有许多因素几乎没有竞争对手会有远见和洞察力去关注。在阅读了前面的章节后，你知道这些因素是什么。现在你可能在想，“我从哪里开始？”
In this chapter, I’ll walk you through a synthesis of all the concepts we’ve talked about thus far. This is where we get into the nitty-gritty of how to get going and growing in a crisis economy. When we’re done, you’ll be armed with a creative, industrious, positive attitude in the face of hard times-the same hard times that cripple your competitors. 在本章中，我将带您梳理到目前为止我们讨论的所有概念。这是我们深入探讨如何在危机经济中开始和成长的地方。当我们完成时，您将具备在艰难时期保持创造性、勤奋和积极态度的能力——正是这些艰难时期使您的竞争对手陷入困境。
WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GROWING 当情况变得艰难时，坚强的人开始成长
If you’re reading this book in the middle of a crisis economyand chances are pretty good that you are-it’s vitally important to take careful stock of all the psychological and transactional changes going on in both the minds and lives of your marketplace and in the minds and lives of your competitors. We’ve talked a lot in this book about empathy, and for good reason. It’s one of the most valuable tools you’ll ever pos-sess-for relating to the world at large, certainly, but especially when you’re running a business. 如果你在危机经济中阅读这本书，而你很可能正处于这种情况——那么仔细评估你市场中人们的心理和交易变化，以及你竞争对手的心理和生活变化是至关重要的。我们在这本书中谈了很多关于同理心的内容，这有充分的理由。它是你所拥有的最有价值的工具之一——不仅是与整个世界的关系，尤其是在你经营一家公司时。
Look at the attitude and actions of all your suppliers, vendors, and support services. You’ll probably witness the following predictable reactions: Your competitors are feeling battered. Their sales and marketing approaches are generating meager results. They don’t have a tried and tested plan of action. And they don’t have a proactive strategy for capitalizing on all the things going awry. So, most typically, you’ll see them pulling back and trying to cut costs to maintain a holding pattern. Or, they’re redoubling the same ineffectual efforts that didn’t really work during the good times but got masked by the upward force of the growing economy. 看看你所有供应商、供应商和支持服务的态度和行动。你可能会看到以下可预测的反应：你的竞争对手感到疲惫不堪。他们的销售和营销方法产生的结果微乎其微。他们没有经过验证的行动计划。而且他们没有积极的策略来利用所有出现的问题。因此，通常情况下，你会看到他们缩减开支，试图保持现状。或者，他们正在加倍努力进行那些在经济繁荣时期并没有真正奏效但被经济增长的向上力量掩盖的无效努力。
So what do you do? 那么你做什么？
Set up an offense and a defense. Offensively, you look for gaps, weaknesses, and hidden opportunity in all this adversity. And believe me: It exists in droves. 建立进攻和防守。在进攻方面，你要寻找所有这些逆境中的空隙、弱点和隐藏的机会。相信我：这些机会是大量存在的。
Defensively, you stop doing anything that isn’t working. Implement the tools I empowered you with in Chapter 7: testing, monitoring, and measuring results. If you are super-vigilant, you’ll know immediately when something isn’t working, and you can stop wasting time and money on it right away. That saves capital by eliminating waste. 从防御的角度来看，你停止做任何无效的事情。实施我在第七章中赋予你的工具：测试、监控和测量结果。如果你非常警惕，你会立即知道某件事情是否无效，这样你可以立刻停止在其上浪费时间和金钱。这通过消除浪费来节省资金。
This will help you guard against loss, but you can do better than that. Your next step is to go beyond merely surviving and to begin enacting changes that will ensure that your business 这将帮助你防止损失，但你可以做得更好。你下一步是超越仅仅生存，开始实施能够确保你业务的变化。
continues to evolve. So, begin to conservatively and safely test new approaches to replace the ones that weren’t working and that you eliminated. In other words, you move from optimization to innovation. And in this kind of market environment, nontraditional approaches frequently prove the strongest. So instead of merely placing a better ad in the conventional paid media, you switch to finding the most direct and impactful way to reach and attract new buyers. 继续发展。因此，开始谨慎而安全地测试新的方法，以替代那些不奏效并且你已经淘汰的方法。换句话说，你从优化转向创新。在这种市场环境中，非传统的方法往往证明是最有效的。因此，与其仅仅在传统的付费媒体中投放更好的广告，不如转向寻找最直接和最有影响力的方式来接触和吸引新买家。
What are some of those direct and impactful ways? Well, we just talked about the importance of joint ventures in Chapter 10, so let’s start there. Your first plan of action should be to structure joint ventures with groups who already have access, trust, and a credible relationship with the market segment you want to reach. This could mean going to noncompetitive businesses that are selling to the same buyer you’re going after. It could mean selling something totally unrelated but selling to the same buying influence. It could mean going to anyone selling any product or service that your target buyers typically purchase directly before, right after, or at the same time they buy the product or service you sell. 这些直接且有影响力的方法有哪些呢？好吧，我们刚刚在第 10 章讨论了合资企业的重要性，所以我们从这里开始。你的首要行动计划应该是与那些已经拥有市场细分的接触、信任和可信关系的团体建立合资企业。这可能意味着与那些向你所追求的买家销售的非竞争性企业合作。也可能意味着销售一些完全无关的产品，但仍然是向相同的购买影响力销售。还可能意味着与任何销售你的目标买家通常在购买你所销售的产品或服务之前、之后或同时购买的任何产品或服务的卖家合作。
Or it could mean finding your market’s local, regional, or national association, journal, or organization and starting an endorsement deal in which it endorses, recommends, and tastefully promotes your product/service directly to its members. All these deals should be done on a pure performance basis whenever possible-which is most of the time-so that you pay the selling or endorsing source in direct proportion to the specific, actual sales that its involvement generates. You can also make similar arrangements with the sales force of any company selling directly to the same market you are targeting. 或者这可能意味着找到您市场的地方、区域或国家协会、期刊或组织，并开始一项代言协议，让它直接向其成员代言、推荐并优雅地推广您的产品/服务。所有这些交易应尽可能在纯绩效基础上进行——这通常是大多数情况下——以便您根据其参与所产生的具体实际销售，按比例支付销售或代言来源的费用。您还可以与任何直接向您所针对的相同市场销售的公司的销售团队达成类似的安排。
The key to this strategy is that it moves your costs from fixed and speculative to variable, contingent, and resultcertain. But it gets even better. These steps comprise only Stage 1 of your “crisis growth” strategy. Your entire outlook and 这个策略的关键在于它将你的成本从固定和投机性转变为可变、依赖和结果确定。但情况更好的是。这些步骤仅构成了你的“危机增长”策略的第一阶段。你的整体前景和
modified approach are based on gaining more direct, favorably predisposed, highly credible access to your market in unconventional (but highly ethical) ways-and these are ways that your competitors would never think to pursue. This is part of the strategy of preeminence we explored in Chapter 8: Make your product or service stand out head and shoulders above the rest. 修改后的方法基于以非常直接、积极倾向和高度可信的方式，以非常规（但高度道德）的方式获得对市场的访问——这些方式是你的竞争对手绝对不会想到的。这是我们在第 8 章中探讨的卓越战略的一部分：让你的产品或服务在众多竞争者中脱颖而出。
Before we go further, keep in mind that, even in a grossly downturned market, not all sales dry up. Sales certainly can drop 30, 40, or even 50 percent. But people and businesses are still purchasing things. Commerce doesn’t come to a full and absolute standstill. This realization is crucial. 在我们进一步讨论之前，请记住，即使在严重下滑的市场中，并不是所有的销售都会停止。销售确实可能下降 30%、40%甚至 50%。但人们和企业仍然在购买东西。商业并不会完全和绝对地停滞。这一认识至关重要。
Think about it. If a market normally does, say, 10,000 transactional purchases a month, and now it has dropped to 5,000 , that sounds bad. And it is-for everybody else! In short, if you figure out how to gain preemptive access to those 5,000 transactions that are still alive and well, and you make irresistibly attractive offers through trusted sources, those prospective buyers will be all the more committed to you because you’ve offered them the solutions they need in a trying time. When your competitors are too blinded by their own panic to reach out to the marketplace in a meaningful way, that’s when you have the best opportunity to establish yourself as the most trusted, reliable source. As I discussed in Chapter 2, instead of losing out to your competition your business can actually grow and thrive, while everyone else you compete against is bleeding red ink. 想想看。如果一个市场通常每月进行大约 10,000 笔交易购买，而现在降到了 5,000，这听起来很糟糕。确实如此——对其他所有人来说都是如此！简而言之，如果你能找到方法优先获取那 5,000 笔仍然活跃的交易，并通过可信的渠道提供不可抗拒的吸引力优惠，那么这些潜在买家会更加忠诚于你，因为你在艰难时期为他们提供了所需的解决方案。当你的竞争对手因自己的恐慌而无法以有意义的方式接触市场时，这正是你建立自己作为最可信、可靠来源的最佳机会。正如我在第二章中讨论的那样，你的业务不仅不会输给竞争对手，反而可以在其他竞争者都在亏损的情况下实现增长和繁荣。
Following are some other strategies to use and implement. 以下是一些其他的策略供使用和实施。
We assume in a crisis economy that most conventional media stops pulling well. Unless you’re crazy, you’d probably stop advertising there, right? But so would most, if not all, of your competitors, too! That means media advertising sales are down something terrible. And that represents a huge multiple opportunity for you. How and why? 我们假设在危机经济中，大多数传统媒体的效果都不好。除非你疯了，否则你可能会停止在那里投放广告，对吧？但大多数，甚至所有的竞争对手也会这样做！这意味着媒体广告销售大幅下降。这为你提供了一个巨大的多重机会。怎么回事，为什么呢？
First, when media sales are poor, media will make dealsand those deals can benefit you. You can undoubtedly get 首先，当媒体销售不佳时，媒体会进行交易，而这些交易可以使你受益。你无疑可以获得
deeply discounted pages or radio or TV spots well below the nonprofitable rate that you and your struggling competitors were paying before the economy took a turn for the worse. And you know the adage: The key to profit in business is not selling but buyer rights. Remember that at a higher price, a one-page ad in a paper or trade publication or spots on TV or radio may lose you a lot of money. But below a certain price point, they suddenly turn into a real profit center. So you can renegotiate rates down, big time. Make certain, of course, that any deal you cut is discreet and comfortable and that you promise or warrant in writing to the media that you won’t tell anyone about the great deal they’re giving you. Here’s an example. 深度折扣的页面或广播或电视广告远低于你和你那些挣扎中的竞争对手在经济恶化之前所支付的非盈利价格。你知道那句老话：商业盈利的关键不是销售，而是买方权利。请记住，在更高的价格下，一页纸或行业出版物上的广告，或电视或广播上的广告可能会让你损失很多钱。但在某个价格点以下，它们突然变成了真正的利润中心。因此，你可以大幅度重新谈判价格。当然，要确保你达成的任何交易都是保密和舒适的，并且你向媒体承诺或书面保证不会告诉任何人他们给你的好交易。这里有一个例子。
At the time of this writing, a client of mine in the Southwest just made a deal with the major daily newspaper to purchase full pages, normally priced at $18,000\$ 18,000 a page - for $3,500\$ 3,500. My client and I need only one-sixteenth the normal response to break even. Can we get that, even in a bad economy? You bet we can. 在我写这篇文章的时候，我在西南部的一个客户刚刚与一家主要日报达成协议，购买整版广告，正常价格为 $18,000\$ 18,000 每页 - 以 $3,500\$ 3,500 的价格。我的客户和我只需要正常反应的六分之一就能持平。即使在经济不景气的情况下，我们能做到吗？当然可以。
Of course, even better than a low renegotiated price is a no-fixed price. You can engineer countless performance-based deals with the media when you are able to make them irresistible propositions. A key to success at structuring no-cost, performance-based deals is knowing your allowable cost for acquiring a new purchaser/buyer. Simply expressed, there are many factors involved in the anatomy of a sale: 当然，比低的重新谈判价格更好的就是没有固定价格。当你能够提出不可抗拒的提议时，你可以与媒体设计无数基于绩效的交易。成功构建无成本、基于绩效的交易的关键是了解你获取新买家的允许成本。简单来说，销售的构成涉及许多因素：
The profit available on the initial purchase 初始购买可获得的利润
The number of times that new buyers will most likely repurchase that product over the next year 新买家在接下来的一年中最有可能再次购买该产品的次数
■ The number of years that the buyers will continue to purchase ■ 买家将继续购买的年数
The additional products or services that the buyers will most likely purchase along with the main product, or instead of the main product, over the course of their buying cycle 买家在购买周期内最有可能与主要产品一起购买的附加产品或服务，或替代主要产品的附加产品或服务
The profit those subsequent transactions will earn you over and over forever 这些后续交易将为你带来不断的利润
As I mentioned in Chapter 9, this concept is called the lifetime value or marginal net worth of a new buyer. Once you have determined this value, you’re in the catbird’s seat to negotiate irresistible deals with the media on a purely performance basis. Here’s how this can work. 正如我在第 9 章中提到的，这个概念被称为新买家的生命周期价值或边际净值。一旦你确定了这个价值，你就可以在纯粹的绩效基础上与媒体谈判不可抗拒的交易。以下是这如何运作的。
Suppose, for example, you run a bottled-water delivery service and you know that a residential, $50\$ 50-a-month new buyer purchases - on average - $50\$ 50 a month every month for at least three years before he or she switches suppliers. In other words, every time you bring in a new, first-time buyer, this transaction is accruing or seeding for you twelve monthly purchases for three years, or thirty-six total purchases, each at $50\$ 50. That’s $1,800\$ 1,800. Say your profit is 50 percent. 假设，例如，您经营一个瓶装水配送服务，您知道一个住宅的 $50\$ 50 每月新买家平均每月购买 $50\$ 50 ，至少持续三年，然后他或她会更换供应商。换句话说，每次您引入一个新的首次买家，这笔交易为您积累或种下了三年的每月购买，即三十六次总购买，每次 $50\$ 50 。那就是 $1,800\$ 1,800 。假设您的利润是 50%。
Armed with that knowledge, you could go to radio or TV stations or newspapers and offer them ads they can run whereby you let them keep $25\$ 25 of every new sale the ads generate. If you have a good capital base or cash flow, you could offer them all of the first sale (or even more) and still make a big-time ROI over the next three years. 掌握了这些知识后，你可以去广播电台、电视台或报纸，向他们提供广告，让他们保留每笔新销售所产生的 $25\$ 25 。如果你有良好的资本基础或现金流，你可以向他们提供所有的第一笔销售（甚至更多），并在接下来的三年中仍然获得丰厚的投资回报。
Most companies don’t analyze what a lead, prospect, and converted first-time sale really costs them. But until you know that piece of information along with the lifetime value of the buyer, you can’t go out and make killer performance-based deals with the media. By the way, I’ve made deals in which I gave the media 100,115 , even 200 percent of the first sale. And I always came out on top. 大多数公司并不分析潜在客户、前景和首次成交的实际成本。但在你知道这些信息以及买家的终身价值之前，你无法与媒体达成出色的基于绩效的交易。顺便说一下，我曾经与媒体达成过交易，我给了他们首次销售的 100%、115%甚至 200%。而我总是能获利。
You might not have the cash to pay out 100 percent or more to acquire this future stream of income. But you can always find private investors who will put up the money to pay pure performance-based compensation to the media, for the advertising time, in exchange for the right to get their money out of the pot first (what’s often called a “first money back-out-offuture profits”). That’s how they get their investment repaid quickly and fully. You can even sweeten the deal by paying them an above-market interest on their money and giving them a kicker by sharing a small part of the profit for Year 1. 您可能没有足够的现金来支付 100%或更多以获取未来的收入流。但您总是可以找到私人投资者，他们会提供资金，以支付给媒体的纯绩效基础补偿，作为广告时间的交换，以换取优先从利润池中取回他们的钱（通常称为“未来利润的首笔回款”）。这就是他们如何快速且完全收回投资的方式。您甚至可以通过支付高于市场的利息来让交易更具吸引力，并通过分享第一年的小部分利润来给予他们额外的奖励。
Ever been to the gift shop of a high-end health club and noticed that they had really distinctive handmade scarves or hats or something else lovely and expensive? Chances are good that the designer of those items lives within a few miles of the gym - and might even be a member! 你有没有去过高档健身俱乐部的礼品店，注意到他们有非常独特的手工围巾、帽子或其他美丽而昂贵的东西？很有可能这些物品的设计师就住在健身房几英里内，甚至可能还是会员！
If that expensive item is flying off the shelves in one big-city gym, in Dallas, for example, why wouldn’t it be equally successful in high-end gyms in high-income neighborhoods in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and elsewhere? It would-but most designers don’t have a marketing gift equal to their gift for creating beautiful things. 如果那件昂贵的商品在一个大城市的健身房，比如达拉斯，销售火爆，为什么它在洛杉矶、纽约、波士顿、芝加哥、亚特兰大等高收入社区的高端健身房中不会同样成功呢？答案是会的，但大多数设计师的营销才能并不等同于他们创造美丽事物的才能。
I taught one of my clients to travel around the country and visit the gift shops of all the high-end gyms and sports clubs, purchase unique items, contact the designers, and secure the rights to distribute them to the rest of the high-end gyms. It was a low-risk, high-reward proposition, because the items in question had already found acceptance from the discerning clients of a high-end gym - the very market my client was now pursuing, albeit on a larger, national scale. The result, to put it mildly, was very profitable. 我教我的一个客户在全国各地旅行，参观所有高端健身房和体育俱乐部的礼品店，购买独特的商品，联系设计师，并获得将这些商品分销给其他高端健身房的权利。这是一个低风险、高回报的提议，因为这些商品已经得到了高端健身房挑剔客户的认可——正是我的客户现在追求的市场，尽管是在更大、全国范围内。结果，简单来说，非常有利可图。
Do you like that approach? What’s not to like, when you encourage endorsers, joint venturers, or other companies’ sales forces to generate new sales for you? Whenever you can convert unpredictable fixed costs into predictable, guaranteedprofitable, valuable, result-based investments, all the new sales/ buyers your media joint venture generates will be pure profit. 你喜欢这种方法吗？当你鼓励代言人、合资企业或其他公司的销售团队为你创造新销售时，还有什么不好呢？每当你能将不可预测的固定成本转化为可预测的、保证盈利的、有价值的、基于结果的投资时，你的媒体合资企业所产生的所有新销售/买家将是纯利润。
And that’s just one of the many exciting growth options I’ve got for you. 这只是我为你准备的众多令人兴奋的增长选项之一。
COMMANDEER A FRIENDLY TAKEOVER 友好的接管
Here’s another approach. Let’s look at your competitors. Some are strong, and those are usually the ones against whom you measure yourself. But what about the overwhelming majority of your lesser competitors, who are weak, and could collapse at any moment in an economy like this? Now, you could wait for them to fail, collapse, and go out of business and hope some of their buyers happen to migrate to you. But a better, more proactive strategy is to actually contact your weaker but respected competitors and offer to purchase their active buyers from them-for zero up front (so you’re not risking a cent out-of-pocket). Instead, tell them you’ll take over servicing or fulfillment of order/service requests and pay them an ongoing share of either the revenue or profits. You both win on this deal. 这是另一种方法。让我们看看你的竞争对手。有些竞争对手很强大，通常是你衡量自己的标准。但对于那些大多数较弱的竞争对手，他们可能随时在这样的经济环境中崩溃，你又该如何看待呢？现在，你可以等他们失败、崩溃并退出市场，希望他们的一些买家恰好转向你。但一个更好、更积极的策略是，实际上联系你那些较弱但受人尊敬的竞争对手，提出以零前期费用购买他们的活跃买家（这样你就不会冒任何经济风险）。相反，告诉他们你将接管订单/服务请求的服务或履行，并向他们支付持续的收入或利润分成。你们双方在这笔交易中都能获益。
Here’s why: 这是原因：
Say you’re struggling competitor is in trouble and can hardly pay himself a salary. If you take over his assets (not his business), he can eliminate most, if not all, of his personnel, manufacturing, services, orders, client service, and so on. Let’s say he has a $2\$ 2 million business that’s dropped down to $1.2\$ 1.2 million. But his fixed overhead of staff and supply purchases is based on that $2\$ 2 million sales level, so he’s hurting terribly cash-flow-wise and may even be thinking about filing for bankruptcy. 假设你竞争对手的情况很糟糕，几乎无法支付自己的工资。如果你接管他的资产（而不是他的业务），他可以裁掉大部分，甚至全部的员工、制造、服务、订单、客户服务等等。假设他有一个 $2\$ 2 百万的业务，但已经降到 $1.2\$ 1.2 百万。但是他的固定开销，包括员工和供应品的采购，是基于 $2\$ 2 百万的销售水平，因此他的现金流状况非常糟糕，甚至可能在考虑申请破产。
But suddenly, you sweep in to save the day. You come in and offer to take over his buyers and service, putting them under the wing of your business. That means your competitor can eliminate up to 80 percent of his fixed overhead, sell all of 但突然间，你出现来拯救局面。你进来并提出接管他的买家和服务，将他们纳入你的业务之下。这意味着你的竞争对手可以消除高达 80%的固定开销，出售所有的
his equipment, and sublease some or all of his facilities, thereby reducing his overhead/expenses even more. 他的设备，并转租部分或全部设施，从而进一步降低他的开销/费用。
By converting his buyers into your operation, you get to take advantage of the economies of scale and absorb his buyers into your system. So, for no extra cost to you, you pick up, say, 500 new buyers-which your current infrastructure and personnel can easily handle. Even if you pay your competitor 2550 percent of the profit on all the buyers you acquire from him and you paid that split to him forever, you’re still coming out great on the deal. 通过将他的买家转化为你的业务，你可以利用规模经济，并将他的买家吸收到你的系统中。因此，对于你来说没有额外的成本，你可以获得，比如说，500 个新买家——你的现有基础设施和人员可以轻松处理。即使你支付给你的竞争对手从他那里获得的所有买家利润的 2550%，并且你永远支付这个分成，你仍然在这笔交易中获得了很大的好处。
Plus, you’re not limited to doing this with just one of your competitors. A client of mine did this with six different competitors in one year (one really bad year for his industry-but a great year for my client). His business tripled. And his competitors went from losing money to making more for doing nothing by receiving the monthly profit split checks he sent them. 此外，您并不局限于只与一个竞争对手这样做。我的一个客户在一年内与六个不同的竞争对手这样做（对他的行业来说是非常糟糕的一年，但对我的客户来说却是一个好年头）。他的生意增长了三倍。而他的竞争对手从亏损变成了通过收到他每月分红支票而赚更多的钱，完全没有做任何事情。
You can even turn your competitors into star salesmen or saleswomen for you. How? Well, if you take over their buyers and show them how to eliminate most or all of their staff and reduce or eliminate their overhead, they’re going to have a lot of unfilled time on their hands. What’s more, they’re receiving good money from you with no more overhead to use that revenue on. Your competitors are financially far better off. But now they’re bored. 你甚至可以把你的竞争对手变成你的明星销售员。怎么做到呢？好吧，如果你接管他们的买家，并向他们展示如何消除大部分或全部员工并减少或消除他们的开支，他们将会有很多空闲时间。而且，他们从你那里获得了不错的收入，却没有更多的开支来使用这些收入。你的竞争对手在财务上要好得多。但现在他们感到无聊。
Many of those former fierce competitors started their onceprosperous businesses by being good to great salespeople, media generators, or networking masters. Unfortunately, though, a lot of beleaguered entrepreneurs stop doing what grew their business in the first place when they hit a certain size and instead start trying to be everything managerial. You can handle it differently: Once you’ve liberated those beleaguered competitors from the yoke of crisis, they are free to go out and start doing again what they originally excelled at doing-selling, 许多曾经激烈竞争的企业家通过成为优秀的销售人员、媒体生成者或人脉大师，开始了他们曾经繁荣的业务。不幸的是，许多受困的企业家在达到一定规模后停止了最初推动他们业务增长的做法，而是开始尝试成为一切管理者。你可以采取不同的方式：一旦你解放了那些受困的竞争对手，使他们摆脱危机的束缚，他们就可以自由地重新开始做他们最擅长的事情——销售。
networking, getting media exposure. Only this time, you get them doing it for you and your business. 网络营销，获取媒体曝光。这一次，他们为你和你的业务这样做。
Why would once-fierce competitors want to go out and generate new business and media exposure for you? Because, of course, you share all the profits that result from rechanneling their efforts. Those redirected “dynamos” can catapult your business into the stratosphere during bad times, once you help unshackle them from their own business strife. 为什么曾经激烈竞争的对手会想要出去为你创造新的业务和媒体曝光？因为，当然，你们分享所有因重新引导他们的努力而产生的利润。一旦你帮助他们摆脱自身的商业困境，这些被重新引导的“发电机”可以在困难时期将你的业务推向更高的层次。
Now here’s the next strategy. One of the easiest “stealth” ways to grow a business that employs salespeople in a crisis economy is to start out clearly understanding and knowing your marginal net worth numbers. Why? Because once you realize the ongoing, recurring value and profit of bringing on a new, first-time buyer, you can easily embrace my philosophy of breaking even on the first sale. You start thinking about it as a long-term return on a one-time investment. 现在这里是下一个策略。在危机经济中，增长一个雇佣销售人员的企业最简单的“隐秘”方式之一是清楚地理解和了解你的边际净值数字。为什么？因为一旦你意识到引入一个新的首次购买者的持续、重复的价值和利润，你就可以轻松接受我关于首次销售持平的理念。你开始将其视为一次性投资的长期回报。
So, once you clearly know what the gross incremental profit (profit before all amortized overhead) after hard direct expense is for a first-time sale (whether it’s product- or servicebased), you can do something quite exciting. You can go to all your competitors’ top salespeople and offer them 100 percent of the profit (or more) for all the accounts they bring you that you aren’t selling now-if they switch employers and come to work for you (and stay with you a minimum validation period of time). Plus, you can give them a generous, above-currentlevel, ongoing commission afterward. 所以，一旦你清楚知道首次销售（无论是基于产品还是服务）在扣除所有摊销间接费用后的毛增量利润（在硬性直接费用之后），你就可以做一些相当令人兴奋的事情。你可以去找你所有竞争对手的顶尖销售人员，向他们提供 100%的利润（或更多），作为他们为你带来的所有目前你没有销售的客户的回报——前提是他们换工作并来为你工作（并在你这里至少待一个验证期）。此外，你还可以在此之后给予他们慷慨的、超过当前水平的持续佣金。
Why would you do that? For many reasons. First, most employers take their sales force for granted. They don’t value the fact that the salespeople are the ones who build an entrepreneur’s client base, revenue base, and income. The salespeople control the relationship; most buyers buy because of the salespeople rather than because of the company. Yet many companies treat their salespeople with ambivalence, even disdain. They push them when bad times come but fail to reward them 你为什么要那样做？原因有很多。首先，大多数雇主对他们的销售团队视而不见。他们没有重视销售人员是建立企业客户基础、收入基础和收入的关键。销售人员掌控着客户关系；大多数买家之所以购买，是因为销售人员，而不是因为公司。然而，许多公司对待销售人员却表现出矛盾，甚至轻蔑。在困难时期，他们会施压，但却未能给予奖励。
for their achievements. Most entrepreneurs don’t invest in growing their salespeople’s ability and worth. 为了他们的成就。大多数企业家并不投资于提升销售人员的能力和价值。
If you target your competitors’ best salespeople and offer them super-attractive signing bonuses and above-market commission or pay, and if you commit to training them in consultative selling (see Chapter 3) and other professional development areas, they’ll flock to you. Interestingly, most entrepreneurs do not have any kind of restrictive employment agreements, noncompete covenants, or protective arrangements in place to keep their salespeople with them. So you can have a field day by legally and ethically snatching away the top talent and real business builders from as many struggling competitors as you like. I once quadrupled a client’s business in growth using this strategy alone. 如果你针对竞争对手最优秀的销售人员，向他们提供超级有吸引力的签约奖金和高于市场的佣金或薪酬，并且承诺在咨询销售（见第 3 章）和其他专业发展领域对他们进行培训，他们会蜂拥而至。有趣的是，大多数企业家并没有任何限制性雇佣协议、竞业禁止条款或保护性安排来留住他们的销售人员。因此，你可以合法且道德地从尽可能多的挣扎中的竞争对手那里抢走顶尖人才和真正的商业建设者，尽情施展你的才华。我曾经仅仅使用这一策略就使一个客户的业务增长了四倍。
A word of advice here: Whether you’re going to approach your competitors directly about taking over their buyers on a permanent profit-sharing basis or you’re going to focus on hiring away their top salespeople, you need to carefully plan your proposition, your presentation, and even the sensitivity/ empathy of your delivery. One of the keys to collaboration success is first recognizing exactly what those on the other side want or need most that is not being provided or achieved and showing them that your prospects, your plan, your strategy will-not can-deliver it to and for them in better ways, and more quickly and easily than any other option they have. Respect, acclaim, appreciate, and empathize with what they are going through first, so they will trust your intentions and plan. 这里有一句建议：无论你是打算直接与竞争对手接洽，永久性地分享他们的买家利润，还是专注于挖走他们的顶尖销售人员，你都需要仔细规划你的提案、演示，甚至是你表达的敏感性和同理心。合作成功的关键之一是首先准确识别对方最想要或需要的东西，这些东西目前没有被提供或实现，并向他们展示你的前景、计划和策略将以更好的方式、更快、更轻松地为他们提供这些，而不是他们所拥有的任何其他选择。首先尊重、赞赏、感激并同情他们所经历的事情，这样他们才会信任你的意图和计划。
The process is more extensive and detailed than just thisbut the key to always remember is to put into words what your targets are feeling, struggling with, or desiring. Show them that you feel what they are feeling-that you know what they want and have a clear, safe direct path to get it for them. 这个过程比这更广泛和详细，但始终要记住的关键是用语言表达出你的目标所感受到的、正在挣扎的或渴望的东西。向他们展示你感受到他们的感受——你知道他们想要什么，并且有一条清晰、安全、直接的路径来为他们实现。
Your next strategy: Make even more irresistible offers. 你下一个策略：提出更具吸引力的优惠。
In a crisis economy, when sales are down along with buyer confidence or motivation, you need to make offers, propositions, and proposals that are irresistible, unbeatable, and nonrefusable. And in this context especially, remember the lifetime value of the buyers. In any economy, your goal is to start the buyer relationship as quickly as possible, because the sooner they buy that first time, the sooner they’ll come back and buy a second time, and so on. So your goal-whether in good times or bad ones-is always to lower their resistance, lower the barrier of entry, and reduce the hurdle. Make it easier for them to say “Yes, let’s get started” than to say “No.” 在危机经济中，当销售额和买家的信心或动机都下降时，你需要提出不可抗拒、无与伦比和无法拒绝的报价、提议和建议。在这种情况下，尤其要记住买家的终身价值。在任何经济环境中，你的目标都是尽快开始与买家的关系，因为他们第一次购买的时间越早，他们就越快会回来进行第二次购买，依此类推。因此，无论是在好时光还是坏时光，你的目标始终是降低他们的抵抗，降低进入的门槛，减少障碍。让他们更容易说“是的，我们开始吧”，而不是说“不是”。
This goal is even more critical in a crisis economy. 在危机经济中，这个目标更加重要。
How do you do it? You have a whole array of options. Consider one or a combination of the following: 你是怎么做到的？你有一整套选择。考虑以下一个或多个组合：
Extend such generous and irresistible risk reversals, trial offers, and money-back guarantees that people can’t not at least try your purchase out that first time. 提供如此慷慨且不可抗拒的风险逆转、试用优惠和退款保证，让人们至少在第一次购买时无法不尝试。
■ Consider adding more bonuses, add-on products, services, or extended warranties to the purchase to make it such a great bargain that prospects can’t possibly say “No.” ■ 考虑在购买中增加更多的奖金、附加产品、服务或延长保修，以使其成为一个如此划算的交易，以至于潜在客户无法说“不”。
■ Figure out, when applicable, how to defer payment for your prospects or clients so they can have the product/service in their lives, home, or business now but not have to pay or start paying for it until later, when (ostensibly) the crisis conditions have improved. ■ 找出在适用的情况下，如何为您的潜在客户或客户推迟付款，以便他们现在可以在生活、家庭或业务中拥有产品/服务，但不必立即付款或开始付款，直到稍后（表面上）危机条件改善时。
■ Provide far more support, follow-up, and benefit than usual to make your prospects and clients feel comfortable committing right away. ■ 提供比平常更多的支持、跟进和好处，让您的潜在客户和客户感到舒适，立即做出承诺。
Another thing you can do is get your current suppliers/vendors, or new vendors who are eager to have your business, to provide assistance-perhaps in the form of funding subsidies to help you invest in more promotion and payments to partners for generating first-time buyers, media, PR, and so on. Remember the lesson of Chapter 6: Don’t allow your costs to eat up all your profits. Here’s an example. 另一个你可以做的事情是让你当前的供应商/卖家，或者那些渴望与你合作的新卖家，提供帮助——也许以资金补贴的形式，帮助你投资于更多的推广和支付给合作伙伴以吸引首次购买者、媒体、公关等。记住第六章的教训：不要让你的成本吞噬你所有的利润。这里有一个例子。
In Chapter 2 I explained how my associates and I in the brokerage business got our investment companies to pay for full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal. Well, I’ve also gotten others to pay us to mail sales letters to our 500,000 clients, others to pay bonus “split” monies to our salespeople, and still others to pay for the creation and distribution of a hard-bound book on investing in bad times that we sent out to hundreds of thousands of prospects. Basically, I’ve gotten others to pay for everything. 在第二章中，我解释了我和我的合伙人在经纪业务中是如何让我们的投资公司为《华尔街日报》的整版广告付费的。好吧，我还让其他人支付我们向 50 万客户邮寄销售信的费用，让其他人支付奖金“分成”给我们的销售人员，还有其他人支付制作和分发一本关于在困难时期投资的精装书的费用，我们将这本书寄给了数十万潜在客户。基本上，我让其他人支付了一切费用。
If your vendors want to see you grow in bad times-to survive and thrive-ask them to invest in that process. If they’re unwilling, consider finding vendors who have read this book and are willing. If you can’t do that, buy a copy of this book for both, and go with the vendor who gives you the most enthusiastic and substantial offer of support! 如果你的供应商希望在困难时期看到你成长——生存和繁荣——请他们投资于这个过程。如果他们不愿意，考虑寻找那些读过这本书并愿意投资的供应商。如果你做不到这一点，就为双方各买一本这本书，并选择那个给你最热情和实质支持报价的供应商！
PENETRATE NEW MARKETS 开拓新市场
In a crisis economy, odds are great that your competitors are focusing their attention on the same basic market that all of you have targeted all along. If you move outside their radar, you can have a multitude of markets all to yourself. 在危机经济中，你的竞争对手很可能将注意力集中在你们一直以来所针对的基本市场上。如果你走出他们的雷达，你可以拥有众多市场供你独享。
Want some examples? 想要一些例子吗？
Say your business is home improvement. Business is down a lot. But select people are still doing home improvement. How do you find those people-before your competitors do? 假设你的业务是家居改善。生意大幅下滑。但仍然有一些人正在进行家居改善。你如何在竞争对手之前找到这些人？
Well, if everyone else is depending on either their newspaper ads or the Yellow Pages to generate business, you can tap into overlooked, undervalued alternative sources. For one thing, there’s an economic connection between the incentive to do one type of home improvement and the incentive to do others. For example, people who re-do a kitchen suddenly see that the rest of their home looks old in comparison. So, they recarpet and re-paint and re-do their driveway, roof, bathroom, and so on. It’s the same for people who add a pool or spa. They re-do their landscaping, re-envision their garden, and add an extension to their back porch. 好吧，如果其他人都依赖报纸广告或黄页来产生业务，你可以利用被忽视的、被低估的替代来源。首先，进行某种类型的家居改善的动机与进行其他类型的改善之间存在经济联系。例如，重新装修厨房的人会突然发现他们家其他地方与之相比显得陈旧。因此，他们会重新铺地毯、重新粉刷、重新修整车道、屋顶、浴室等等。对于添加游泳池或水疗的人来说也是如此。他们会重新设计景观、重新构思花园，并在后廊加建一个扩展部分。
My point? Well, let’s say you’re the contractor remodeling a bathroom. You can go to all the people who do nonbathroom remodeling such as kitchen remodelers, carpet companies, and roofing people and make deals to get their clients’ names after their work is completed. Their business is potentially a huge source of future business for you. 我的观点？好吧，假设你是一个正在翻新浴室的承包商。你可以去所有不做浴室翻新的公司，比如厨房翻新公司、地毯公司和屋顶公司，达成协议在他们的工作完成后获取他们客户的姓名。他们的业务可能是你未来业务的一个巨大来源。
Remember: Even in a down market, business goes on. Business is down as I write this, but not everyone has stopped replacing their carpet. Not everyone has stopped re-doing their kitchen. Not everyone has stopped resurfacing their driveway. There will always be a portion of any marketplace with enough need or desire and financial capacity to do these things. Your job is to find out who they are, who they are dealing with, and how you can access them in the most direct, favorable, and cost-effective manner possible. 记住：即使在市场低迷时，商业仍在继续。就在我写这篇文章时，生意在下滑，但并不是每个人都停止了更换地毯。并不是每个人都停止了重新装修厨房。并不是每个人都停止了重新铺设车道。任何市场中总会有一部分人有足够的需求或愿望以及财务能力去做这些事情。你的工作是找出他们是谁，他们在与谁打交道，以及你如何以最直接、最有利和最具成本效益的方式接触他们。
What’s next? Look at your basic business-not at what you do sell but at what you don’t sell that your type of buyer or client needs, wants, and will buy in a crisis economy. Most business owners see themselves as being highly specific sellers of a single category of product or service; yet the same people who buy from you also purchase complimentary or related products and services before, during, and after they buy from 接下来是什么？看看你的基本业务——不是你卖什么，而是你不卖的那些你的买家或客户在危机经济中需要、想要并会购买的东西。大多数企业主将自己视为单一类别产品或服务的高度特定卖家；然而，购买你产品的人在购买之前、期间和之后也会购买互补或相关的产品和服务。
you. By adding additional back-end products or services that you can source from quality providers who, like you, are struggling in this crisis economy and will be open and willing to structure very advantageous deals in which you offer their products, you can double, triple, and even quadruple the revenue you earn. 通过增加额外的后端产品或服务，您可以从优质供应商那里获取这些产品或服务，这些供应商和您一样，在这个危机经济中挣扎，并且愿意以非常有利的交易结构来提供他们的产品，您可以将收入翻倍、三倍，甚至四倍。
So, go back and ask yourself, What else do existing buyers want or need? What else do unsold prospects or leads want or need to buy? If that “something else” is logistically related to what you do in your business, go out and source it (with a huge portion of the profit coming to you) and test out offering it to your people. I’d be surprised if it doesn’t put a huge windfall of profit into your bank account right away, much less expand your ongoing business, revenue, and profits many times over. Here’s a great example. 所以，回过头来问问自己，现有买家还想要或需要什么？未售出的潜在客户或线索还想要或需要什么来购买？如果这个“其他东西”与您在业务中所做的事情在物流上相关，请出去寻找它（大部分利润归您所有），并测试向您的客户提供它。我会很惊讶如果这不会立即为您的银行账户带来巨额利润，更不用说多次扩大您的持续业务、收入和利润了。这里有一个很好的例子。
Tom Phillips is a mentor, friend, and former partner of mine. He’s a brilliant entrepreneur. He took an idea and $1,000\$ 1,000 and transformed it into a $450\$ 450 -million-a-year industry leader. How did he achieve this? In good times and bad times, he did three things every year, without fail: 汤姆·菲利普斯是我的导师、朋友和前合作伙伴。他是一位杰出的企业家。他将一个想法和 $1,000\$ 1,000 转变为一个 $450\$ 450 百万年收入的行业领袖。他是如何做到的？在顺境和逆境中，他每年都毫不例外地做了三件事：
Every year, he made certain that he penetrated at least one new market for each product or service he sold. This kept him far above the plateau of erratic business volume, which I discussed in Chapter 4. 每年，他确保为每个销售的产品或服务开拓至少一个新市场。这使他远远高于我在第四章中讨论的波动不定的业务量平台。
Every year, he made certain that he introduced at least one new product or service to his existing buyers. Remember my discussion of strategizing techniques in Chapter 5? Well, add this one to the list-there’s nothing your existing clients like more than new stuff. 每年，他都会确保向现有客户推出至少一种新产品或服务。还记得我在第五章中讨论的战略技巧吗？好吧，把这个也加到列表中——没有什么比新东西更能让你的现有客户喜欢的了。
Every year, he made certain that he acquired, usually on a pure performance-payment purchase basis, at least one new business he thought was perfectly suited to benefit off of innumerable infrastructures and buyers. 每年，他确保自己至少收购一个他认为非常适合从无数基础设施和买家中获益的新业务，通常是基于纯粹的绩效支付购买方式。
My friend Tom has mastered the art of growing his business regardless of what is going on in the surrounding world. His business always thrives-in good times or in bad. 我的朋友汤姆已经掌握了在周围世界发生什么情况下发展自己业务的艺术。他的生意总是蓬勃发展，无论是在好时光还是坏时光。
Yours will, too, if you take action on my ideas. 如果你对我的想法采取行动，你的也会如此。
The Bottom Line 底线
Take stock of the psychological impact of the downturn on your competitors. 评估经济下滑对竞争对手的心理影响。
Set up an offense and a defense. Offensively, look for weaknesses and hidden opportunity. Defensively, stop doing anything that isn’t working. 建立进攻和防守。进攻时，寻找弱点和隐藏的机会。防守时，停止做任何无效的事情。
Begin to safely and conservatively test new approaches, such as joint venturing. 开始安全且谨慎地测试新方法，例如合资。
Measure your marginal net worth numbers. Once you determine how much a long-term customer is worth, you’ll know how much you can invest in attracting first-time buyers and converting them to repeat buyers. 测量你的边际净值数字。一旦你确定了一个长期客户的价值，你就会知道你可以在吸引首次购买者和将他们转化为回头客上投资多少。
Now is the time to make deals with the media to get the word out about your business. They’re primed to give you special treatment, because they’re losing business too. 现在是与媒体达成交易、宣传您业务的时机。他们准备好给予您特别待遇，因为他们也在失去生意。
Offer your competitors’ salespeople a better deal and get them on your team. 给你的竞争对手的销售人员提供更好的交易，让他们加入你的团队。
Negotiate friendly takeovers that benefit you and your competitors. But be sure to approach them with empathy and respect. 谈判友好的收购，以使你和你的竞争对手受益。但一定要以同理心和尊重的态度来接近他们。
Make offers that are irresistible: Offer guarantees, trial periods, add-on products, and deferred payment plans. Provide even more support than usual so that your clients feel comfortable about committing. 提出无法抗拒的优惠：提供保证、试用期、附加产品和延期付款计划。提供比平常更多的支持，让您的客户在承诺时感到安心。
Penetrate new markets while your competitors are busy focusing on their narrow niche. 在竞争对手忙于专注于他们狭窄的细分市场时，开拓新市场。
Remember that not all buying stops in a downturn, even a severe one. If you can tap into the transactions that are still alive and well, you can not just survive but thrive. 请记住，并非所有的购买在下跌时都会停止，即使是严重的下跌。如果你能抓住那些仍然活跃的交易，你不仅可以生存，还可以繁荣。
Immediate Action Step Lose the mindset that confuses “economic slowdown” with “economic total standstill.” Yes, in a down economy, fewer people are taking the steps they would take in rosier times - putting in a new kitchen, getting new carpeting, taking a trip. Your competitor is going out of business because he possesses the mentality that says “No one’s doing anything, period.” Meanwhile, you’re ethically and respectfully growing (and taking your competitor’s business) because you are adopting the mentality that says “The pie may be smaller, but my piece of the pie is getting bigger and bigger!” 立即行动步骤 失去将“经济放缓”与“经济完全停滞”混淆的心态。是的，在经济下行时期，较少的人会采取他们在更美好时光中会采取的步骤——装修新厨房、铺新地毯、旅行。你的竞争对手正在倒闭，因为他抱有“没有人做任何事情，完毕”的心态。与此同时，你在道德和尊重的基础上不断成长（并夺取竞争对手的生意），因为你采纳了“蛋糕可能变小了，但我的蛋糕份额却越来越大！”的心态。
CONCLUSION 结论
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'RE UNSTUCK! 恭喜你！你解脱了！
What is it like to be unstuck? 摆脱束缚是什么感觉？
Imagine feeling in control of your destiny for the very first time. Your competitors and a faltering economy don’t frighten you-they excite you, challenging you to conjure up innovative solutions. You see hard times as an opportunity for infinite growth, whereas your competitors cower in the corner, waiting for the sun to return. Meanwhile, you’re ready to soar. 想象一下第一次感受到掌控自己命运的感觉。你的竞争对手和疲软的经济并没有让你感到害怕——反而让你感到兴奋，挑战你想出创新的解决方案。你把艰难时期视为无限增长的机会，而你的竞争对手则在角落里畏缩，等待阳光的回归。与此同时，你准备好翱翔。
That time has come: You’re ready now. The future is clear. You can predict what tomorrow will bring, as well as the next month and even the next year, because you now have a goal. You’ve established strategic processes for reaching that goal, and every business activity is launched with that goal in mind. Your business is working harder for you than you’re working for it. You have multiple activities under way to source new prospects, and you have the necessary machine in place to migrate them through a long-term, systematic process that has no end. You’ve established methods to attract referrals of the highest quality and quantity, who will be moved through the same machine in good time. 那个时候已经到来了：你现在准备好了。未来是明确的。你可以预测明天会带来什么，以及下个月甚至明年会发生什么，因为你现在有了一个目标。你已经建立了实现该目标的战略流程，每一项商业活动都是以这个目标为导向启动的。你的业务为你工作得比你为它工作得还要努力。你正在进行多项活动以寻找新的潜在客户，并且你已经建立了必要的机制，以便通过一个没有尽头的长期系统化流程将他们转移。你已经建立了吸引最高质量和数量推荐的方法，他们会在适当的时候通过同样的机制被转移。
You’ve identified new ways to reach your market and are constantly innovating to find even better ones. Your performance is always increasing, because you aim for constant improvement, with the objective of rendering your current model obsolete through innovation. You’re consistently expanding your leverage through collaboration with a variety of resources, skill sets, and profit partners. You’re spending significant time working toward the future, not simply trying to sustain the moment. 您已经找到了接触市场的新方法，并不断创新以寻找更好的方法。您的表现始终在提高，因为您追求持续改进，目标是通过创新使当前模型过时。您通过与各种资源、技能和利润合作伙伴的合作，不断扩大您的杠杆作用。您花费大量时间致力于未来，而不仅仅是试图维持当下。
Your business is no longer stuck-it’s growing. And it’s becoming a prized asset, owing to its sustainable systems and predictable profitability. 您的业务不再停滞不前——它正在增长。由于其可持续的系统和可预测的盈利能力，它正成为一项宝贵的资产。
In the previous chapters, we’ve identified and analyzed the nine reasons why businesses get-and stay-stuck, and we’ve seen what needs to be done in each of these areas to move off the plateau and into a dramatic upswing in profitability-and fun! We’ve explored the multifold advantages of leveraging-leveraging one’s abilities, time, resources, and relationships. We’ve come to understand that success in the twenty-first-century business environment means the ability to collaborate creatively with others: No one individual can possibly know everything or have every piece of the puzzle. 在前面的章节中，我们已经识别并分析了企业为何会陷入困境并保持停滞的九个原因，并且我们已经看到在这些领域中需要做些什么，以便从停滞状态转向显著的盈利增长和乐趣！我们探讨了利用自身能力、时间、资源和人际关系的多重优势。我们已经理解，在二十一世纪的商业环境中，成功意味着能够与他人进行创造性的合作：没有一个人能够知道一切或拥有每一个拼图的所有部分。
Continuing to think that you can go it alone would be selfish, for three reasons: 继续认为你可以独自应对是自私的，原因有三：
■ First, if you have a great product or service, you should contribute, because success is a by-product of contribution. 首先，如果你有一个优秀的产品或服务，你应该贡献，因为成功是贡献的副产品。
Second, whether you are an entrepreneur or a corporate executive, your family is looking to you to make your business or career as fulfilling, low-stress, and assetaccruing as possible, for both you and them. 其次，无论你是企业家还是公司高管，你的家人都希望你能让你的事业或职业尽可能充实、低压力，并为你和他们积累资产。
■ And, finally, you owe it to your employees, investors, and other stakeholders to make your business as profitable as can be, because they, too, are counting on you. ■ 最后，您有责任让您的企业尽可能盈利，因为您的员工、投资者和其他利益相关者也在依赖您。
Getting unstuck is about choosing the fastest and easiest ways to make a difference, so that your “wins” are realized. This will animate your spirit, your sense of possibility-and your treasury! Your priority should be based not on the biggest payoff but on the question of which of these tools is easiest to implement right now. 摆脱困境是选择最快和最简单的方法来产生影响，以便实现你的“胜利”。这将激励你的精神、你的可能性意识——以及你的财富！你的优先事项不应基于最大的回报，而应基于这些工具中哪个是现在最容易实施的。
As I suggested in Chapter 1, think of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz . He didn’t have to go back to the shop in order to continue traveling down the yellow brick road. A little bit of oil, applied judiciously in the right places, got him moving again. That’s what I hope we’ve accomplished over the course of this book: finding clear solutions that maximize results with the least amount of effort, and all the while enjoying the process. It won’t happen overnight, but if you keep applying oil, you’ll be headed toward a smooth and exhilarating future. 正如我在第一章中所建议的，想想《绿野仙踪》中的锡人。他不需要回到商店就能继续沿着黄砖路旅行。适当地在正确的地方涂抹一点油，让他再次动起来。这就是我希望我们在本书中所取得的成就：找到明确的解决方案，以最少的努力最大化结果，同时享受这个过程。这不会一蹴而就，但如果你不断涂抹油，你将朝着一个顺利而令人振奋的未来前进。
I have a very simple philosophy of life: You shouldn’t steal from yourself. If you’re going to commit your life to an enterprise, to wealth creation, and to the security and financial well-being of your family, and if other people-your staff, your team, your employees, your vendors-are going to commit their lives to you, you owe it to yourself and to everyone else to get the highest and best results. You should never accept a fraction of the yield whenwith the same effort or less, the same people or fewer, the same time or less, the same capital or less, the same opportunity cost or less-you can gain so much more in this moment, and perpetually. 我有一个非常简单的人生哲学：你不应该从自己身上偷窃。如果你要将自己的生活投入到一个事业中，投入到财富创造中，以及投入到家庭的安全和财务福祉中，并且如果其他人——你的员工、你的团队、你的雇员、你的供应商——也要将他们的生活投入到你身上，你就有责任为自己和其他人争取最高和最好的结果。当你可以在这个时刻，以及永远，获得更多的收益时，你绝不应该接受一部分的收益，即使是用相同的努力或更少的努力、相同的人或更少的人、相同的时间或更少的时间、相同的资本或更少的资本、相同的机会成本或更少的机会成本。
Destiny is yours for the taking. Even in a downward market, if you carry out the principles discussed in this book you will be in control. Of course, there will always be aberrations-in the economy, in world events. But you’ll have far more control than any of your competitors, and it’s their “stuckness” that will create a perfect opportunity for you to swoop in and claim the marketplace as your own. You can realize unhindered growth, knowing with certainty that you’ll never, ever be stuck again. 命运掌握在你手中。即使在下行市场，如果你遵循本书中讨论的原则，你将掌控局面。当然，经济和世界事件中总会有异常情况。但你将比任何竞争对手拥有更多的控制权，而正是他们的“停滞”将为你创造一个完美的机会，让你迅速进入市场并将其占为己有。你可以实现不受阻碍的增长，确信自己再也不会陷入困境。
So take that first step forward. Make the adjustments we’ve explored. Move from surviving to thriving, and on to the exponential growth that makes doing business a truly joyful experience for you and for everyone you serve. 所以迈出第一步。进行我们探讨过的调整。从生存转向繁荣，进而实现指数级增长，让做生意成为你和你所服务的每个人真正愉快的体验。
The moment is now. It’s time to unstick yourself! You can do it-easily, enjoyably, and very profitably. Seize your destiny-and 现在就是时刻。是时候解放自己了！你可以做到——轻松、愉快，并且非常有利可图。把握你的命运——
leave the negativity and doubt to your competitors, as they surrender their clients to you. I’m rooting for you! 把消极和怀疑留给你的竞争对手，因为他们将客户拱手让给你。我支持你！
Immediate Action Step Do something - anything! Right now! Before your competitors read this book. And let me know how it turns out. I’m always thrilled to see another entrepreneur reach new levels of success, and I want that person to be you. 立即行动 步骤 做点什么 - 任何事情！现在就！在你的竞争对手阅读这本书之前。并让我知道结果如何。我总是很高兴看到另一个企业家达到新的成功水平，我希望那个人是你。
*I drew heavily from Rick’s material in the writing of this book, and I want to acknowledge him for the original research he performed, the outstanding analysis he developed, and the writing that developed from all of his hard work. *在写这本书时，我大量借鉴了 Rick 的材料，我想感谢他所做的原创研究、他所发展的出色分析，以及从他所有的辛勤工作中产生的写作。
*Originally published by Wilshire Books in 1985, the paperback edition is available on Amazon.com and I recommend that you run, not walk, to the nearest computer and order a copy posthaste. *最初由 Wilshire Books 于 1985 年出版，平装版在 Amazon.com 上有售，我建议你快点跑到最近的电脑前，立即订购一份。