I got an email this morning that asked the following question:

I read your article on Value Proposition and ROI. Your examples deal with physical products. I coach people in so-called ’soft skills’ – presentations, speaking and listening, enhancing imagination. I can detail many positive outcomes but do not know how to quantify the results of such training. Therefore I don’t know how to use the methods you suggest. Can you help me?

Since this is such an important question, I thought I’d post my response here:

Today is the day to make Be Unreasonable a best seller.  If you haven’t gotten a copy of my book yet, today would be a great day to do so.  Just hop on over to www.unreasonablepromo.com and sign up for a number of great bonuses along with your book purchase. If you’ve already got a copy, get one – or several – for a friend.

A friend just sent me a link to Clark Mitchell’s review of my book. Totally unreasonable. Thank you, Clark

August 21, 2007

Be Unreasonable

Several weeks ago I told you I would share some thoughts from different books I read over my break this year. One of the best is a book called, “Be Unreasonable” by Paul Lemberg. God used this book to really speak to me and confirm some of the things He was saying. The greatest temptation in our life is to be reasonable or to settle for average. The problem is there is nothing average about our God!

Just got back from a trip to the Dalmatian coast in Croatia, and while en-route and in-situ, I made a little distinction about lines. Lines of people, that is. In Germany, lines are quite robust. People get on that at the rear, and they maintain their structure – in other words, the people who get on the line first, get off it first. In America, most people respect lines – but those who don’t – the line cheaters – are often the subject of vocal and occasionally martial conflict. In other words, people who cut the line get yelled at and into fights. “Hey buddy – the line starts back there!” In Croatia, I discovered that lines are simply a suggestion. Line form, and some people follow them, while many others ignore the lines completely and simply push to the front.

Just saw that Internet Marketing education pioneer Ken McCarthy is doing something I think is unreasonable. Ken pretty much invented the internet marketing how-to seminar. Now, since Ken’s first The System seminar, prices on these confabs has gone from $500 a day to $5,000, but without any significant increase in value. Following Dan Kennedy’s lead, these events have been stuffed with “air” – worthless stuff that make the package seem bigger, but no real increase in the impact of what’s being delivered. McCarthy has kept the value strong. But talk about bucking the trend – not only has Ken kept the value strong, he’s actually lowering the price. See http://www.systemintensive.com/

Anyone who has read Be Unreasonable knows how I feel about price cutting and the best response to it, so I was happy (and surprised) to read McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc felt the same way.  In 1960, one of his Knoxville franchisee was being hammered by a competitor offering five hamburgers for thirty cents. Can you imagine, thirty cents! Even so, the customers still came over to McDonald’s for the fries and shakes. So the competitor hit harder – with a hamburger, milkshake and fries for ten cents.  The reasonable response would have been to cut prices and at least match the other guy’s offer  – following him down the road to pricing ruin.