Mindset Shift Expert Marketer

Information product businesses require building and connecting all components before they start generating results - persistence is needed until you see first sales and website visitors

Eben explains that once all components are connected and you 'fire up the motor' and get first sales, customers, and website visitors, that's when you see it's possible and get inspired to tune it up further

Experts suffer from 'expert-itis' - believing the world should beat a path to their door and that they shouldn't have to do marketing because they've invested time learning information

Eben describes how experts feel entitled that people should 'force money into my hand so I can talk about things I learned in a casual way' and believe marketing is for 'common people that don't have ethics or morals'

Sales and marketing are considered second-class jobs by experts, like university professors who blame publishing companies when their books don't sell

Eben gives specific example of university professors who write books, expect everyone to buy them, then blame the book publishing company when sales fail, saying 'it was their fault because they didn't market it well'

Most successful information marketers are marketers first and experts second, with many making millions selling products they're not even experts on

Eben states that successful marketers 'go and get the expert to create the content' because they're such good marketers, and emphasizes 'it's not about the content, it's about the marketing'

Experts assume people should recognize value automatically, while marketers know customers must be educated to understand value

Eben contrasts how experts think 'when they see it, they should know how valuable this is, and if they don't, they're stupid' versus marketers who 'put it into terms that they can understand'

Customers only tune into WIIFM (What's In It For Me) - they don't care about your brilliant ideas and will tune out any pretense or arrogance

Eben explains that prospects 'want to learn things that they can relate to from people that they can relate to that are like them' and any pretense makes them 'just tune out'

If you're trying to talk people into wanting what you're selling or convince people to buy, you've already lost

Eben emphasizes this principle twice in the episode, stating that successful marketers create products that 'sell themselves' rather than requiring persuasion

Marketers think in needs and niches - starting with customer needs rather than what's in their existing product

Eben contrasts authors who say 'in my book, I teach this and that' with effective marketers who ask 'What does your customer want? What do they need? Because that's all that matters'

Effective marketers interview customers one-on-one to understand their biggest fears, problems, and frustrations using the customer's exact words

Eben gives specific example: 'I interviewed 100 of my customers over a period of 30 days, one-on-one, and I listened to the words that they said, and here's the biggest fear, problem, frustration, anxiety that they said'

Marketers expect customers NOT to buy and know that 8 or 9 out of 10 marketing attempts won't work

Eben explains that marketers 'know that eight or nine out of ten things they try to sell, it's not going to work' including ads, pieces, and appeals, so they 'turn their brains on and make every single thing count'

Successful marketers have no attachment to what works or doesn't work - they test everything systematically like McDonald's

Eben uses McDonald's as example, explaining they have 'franchise prototypes set up in different markets where they make tweaks and changes' and 'when they find something that works, they then roll it out'

Nothing works until the customer votes with their money - customer purchase is the only true validation

Eben emphasizes this as a 'Very important rule' and states that marketers only consider something successful 'if customers vote with their money, then they say it works'