I Think, Therefore I POD

No, not the IPOD gadget you use to listen to your favorite tunes.

I'm talking about POD - Point of Distinction.

What is one specific thing you do differently from your peers? What is an area of speciality no one else in your industry offers?

That is your Point of Distinction, and it determines whether you stand out from the crowd or get lost in the crowd.

WASH radio station was losing marketshare so they studied their competition. One thing they noticed was many stations played the same top 40 hits over and over. They decided to "Do the opposite, not the obvious" and became the "Do Not Repeat After Me" station. They NEVER play the same song twice during working hours. By offering a refreshing alternative, they dramatically increased their fanbase.

A restaurant in Virginia wasn't drawing many people to their happy hour. Why? Dozens of establishments in a 3 mile radius were also offering happy hours.

Their smart restaurant manager noticed a customer had tied his dog up outside while he came in for a beer. Hmmm. Why not invite professionals to bring along their loyal pooches who had been cooped up all day while their owners were at work? The restaurant could give out dog buscuits and put out water bowls for Fido and Fifi so when people took their dog for a walk, they could both stop in for a cold one.

What to call this unique offering? Well, take Happy Hour (what I call a "Core Word") and run it through the alphabet. What do you come up with?

Yappy Hour!

Voila! That clever name tripled the restaurant's business and got them a front page story in the Washington Post. The article was then picked up by many newspapers around the country which means millions of people now know about this restaurant's unique offering -- all because the quick-thinking manager identified and capitalized on a POD by creating a clever name that catapulted his restaurant into the national spotlight.

Want to learn how you can identify your POD and catapult your organization or offering into the national spotlight? Buy "POP! stand out in any crowd to learn 25 specific ways to break out instead of blend in.

Also, visit www.SamHornPOP.com to see when I'll be speaking in your area. I'm in the middle of a 20 city media tour. Chances are, I'll be in your area soon. I would enjoy meeting you and having a chance to brainstorm an attention-grabbing title or tagline that helps you stand out from the crowd.

Thanks to the Boston Globe

Thanks to Cecil Johnson of Mcclatchy Newspapers for his favorable review of POP! in the Sept. 3, 2006 edition of the Boston Globe. His review, entitled Get to the Point of Your Pitch starts off,

"In the movie `Kill Bill,' David Carradine (Bill) is about to bop Uma Thurman (Beatrix Kiddo) with the business edge of a samurai sword when Thurman whops Carradine in the chest and stops him in mid-backswing.

In that instant, Thurman achieves what business consultant, trainer, and public speaker Sam Horn calls, in her new book, "POP!'

Beatrix gets Bill's attention. He pauses long enough to ask, before he takes his last five steps and drops:

`Pai Mei taught you the five-point palm exploding heart technique?'

Well, of course, that venerable martial-arts misogynist taught Kiddo that heart-stopping trickery. And in her book, Horn, a language-arts and marketing maven, is endeavoring to hand off to readers a technique for marketing products or services they have to offer.

The review (which can be accessed FREE at www.boston.com/get_to_the_point_of_your_pitch_with_pop) ends with saying that POP! ' . . . shows how almost anyone can find tools on the Internet to learn how to radiate something approximating POP.'

Johnson is right. ANYONE can coin a memorable phrase that helps their pitch and priority project POP! out of the pack -- and it's in your best interests to do just that because it turns people into good will ambassadors for your offering.

Think about it. The movie Jerry Maguire coined four iconic phrases that were repeated ad infinitum around the water cooler, “Show me the money,” “Help me help you,” “You complete me,” and “You had me at hello.”

I bet you remember Jack Nicholson confessing "You make me want to be a better man" to Helen Hunt in As Good as It Gets. Do you also recall Jack Nicholson barking, “You can’t handle the truth” to Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men? And how about Clint Eastwood’s snarled warning, “Make my day” and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s promise, “I’ll be back.”

In POP!, this is called a Money Phrase because it puts money in your pocket. If people can’t repeat anything from your book, website, speech, or movie, how can they recommend it to others? If they can't remember your business name, how can they contact you? We forfeit profits if we don't intentionally craft a phrase that gets repeated.

Catchy phrases create a tell-a-friend phenomenon that translates into cash. People “hear” the buzz about your project by word of mouth (or word of mouse) and are motivated to try/buy what you have to offer.

What’s one of your favorite Money Phrases from a book or movie? Did you like “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Brokeback Mountain? How about “Where did we go right?” from The Producers? Can you think of a product name or business slogan that was so intriguing it prompted you to check them out?

Submit your favorites and I’ll feature the best in an upcoming blog. Want to learn how to produce your own money phrase? Visit www.SamHornPOP.com for FREE articles on how to coin pithy pitches that get your offering noticed, remembered, and bought.