Pam and I were interviewed on a radio show this past week. One of the questions asked dealt with using psychology in marketing. We explained that the easiest way to start using simple psychology in marketing is to discover the professions practiced by your target market.

See, each profession attracts people who tend to have the same personality type. For example, surgeons are cut from the same bolt of cloth. They are people who want to be (need to be) the king of the mountain. They want to tell other people what to do. The must be able to make snap decisions and be right. They have the Driver personality type.

Now, knowing that, all you’d have to do is appeal to that personality type to reach them more effectively. If you approached them in any other way, they would filter out your message.

There are three or four different types of doctors. Half a dozen different types of business people. Several different types of financial people. Each one is represented by a personality type, or a combination of personality types. If you don’t have a solid understanding of personality types, you will completely miss out on this strategic psychological advantage. So, isn’t it time to improve your knowledge?

If you are curious about it, just go to our website: http://www.aboutpeople.com/ and go to the Shop page. That’s where you can find a description of our book Face Values. It is the best book on the planet to learn about using types in your marketing and selling.

– Michael Lovas

On Friday morning (Jan 16), Pam and I delivered a three-hour teleconference presentation to the Society of Financial Services Professionals. It wasn’t supposed to be a tele-event, but frozen fog closed down the Spokane airport and I literally could not get to Tucson, where the conference was being held.

The point I kept driving home during the program was WHY. Why should you take your credibility seriously? And, the reasons is represented by two words: Bernie Madoff.

Madoff represents all the other financial people who have disgraced themselves and deeply hurt their clients. Consumers see this connection immediately: one bad apple embarrasses the entire industry. Dozens of bad apples destroys the industry’s credibility. So, in the mind of the consumer world, financial advisors, portfolio managers, insurance agents, bankers – anyone connected to the money industry is a potential crook. Period.

That’s a huge hurdle to overcome if you’re in the industry. In order to step forward and work through that mess, you absolutely MUST remain vigilant of the consumer attitude and let that be your guide. You must take a proactive position and work to prove your value. But, again, it’s a hurdle. The values you need to be conscious of are not your own. They are those of your clients and target markets.

Right now, the world does not care about you or your values. They don’t believe what you say and are skeptical about your intentions. And they’re justified in their skepticism because of the long list of negative headlines about the many different financial people who have bilked their clients out of their life savings. Bernie Madoff is just the most recent.

So, in your efforts to rebuild your reputation from the ashes, you need to learn what your prospect’s values are. Then ask which of those values are also your values. It is the values you share that will be your most powerful connection with that person. That connection will buy you a moment in time, and in that moment you can begin to activate the process of developing credibility.

– Michael Lovas