Posted by: Troy White
July 22, 2010
Issue #972

Quirky Questions For
Business Breakthroughs

Fellow Business-Builder,

One of the lessons I truly want to leave with my nine-year-old twin daughters, Katrina and Hailey, is in the power of an active imagination.

The skill is incredibly useful in every career and life direction we take.

Increasingly, the world is sadly lacking in visual thinkers and adventurous souls.

Schooling teaches them exactly what they should be thinking (in logical order) not how they should think about solving problems or seeing a different vantage point.

With my daughters, I have taken it upon myself to help them see the fun lurking in their imaginations.

From inspiring them to start their own ghost story books.

To helping them become promising young artists.

To the pure pleasure of a good book.

And of course, by osmosis, they have learned much about marketing and copywriting.

Actually, the infamous marketing guru, Jay Abraham, ran an article I wrote entitled "NO MORE Jay Abraham!!". I shared how I used to listen to Abraham audios in the car driving around with my daughters. After a couple years, they learned that all kids do NOT listen to Jay Abraham in the car … so they started protesting. "DAAAAAAD … NO MORE Jay Abraham!!"

I still tease them and try and play different marketing audios … it just doesn’t fly anymore though.

We just spent ten days camping in a very remote place in the Shuswap Lake area of British Columbia. No cell phone reception. No power. No running water (except for the mountain creeks and waterfalls).

Still have a bit of ten-days-on-the-beach brain as I write this, so it may smell a little of sun, surf and cold beverages.

Katrina and Hailey are fantastic at inventing new forts, new play areas, new games and such.

And they could entertain themselves in this remote spot for hours or days on end.

As I was watching them play, I admired their ability to find the unique things in nearly everything they saw.

So I started thinking about business and marketing (I know, that should be taboo while on a holiday).

The one thing that kept sticking with me was the similarities in how my daughters came up with new ideas, and how I had used with them the same quirky questions I use in creating marketing campaigns.

When it comes to marketing challenges, campaign creation, or copy ideas … the ability to look outside of your normal way of thinking is critical.

Quirky Questions Can Be Your Key to Greater Results

I love challenging new clients with questions that make them think.

Typically, it quickly becomes apparent that the entrepreneur hasn’t thought in much depth about some relatively simple questions. So I make them think about it.

But I also need to do a lot of my own thinking about how to turn the business owners’ perspective of what they do, into something that the ideal buyers want to pay for.

So I created a number of questions that help me create marketing breakthroughs.

How to use these for your own breakthroughs …

First, do not work with these questions from beginning to end. The better way to use them is to quickly scan them, then immediately start putting thoughts down on the questions that resonate with you strongest.

And you don’t have to answer just one at a time either. The best thing about the quick review process with the questions is that you can easily combine your answers for one, two or three of the questions all in one.

Or … pick one of the questions at random and answer that one first. Then another random question. And another.

The key is to have fun with it and let your creative, intuitive juices flow.

On with it …

1. What could be terrifying about what you sell? Hilarious about you or your company?
2. Has scandal been part of your industry? How can you turn that into your personal differentiator?
3. What would you never do with the product or service you sell? What would happen if you did it? How could you turn that into a promotional campaign?
4. If a child were to look at what you sell – how would they find a way to play with it? How would they describe it?
5. Is there any one component of your product that is (or could be made to be) environmentally friendly? How can you emphasize this?
6. Can you create some wordplay from your product or industry? Alliteration with two or more words starting with the same letter (like Quirky Questions or Sweat Secrets, or Chainsaw Confidential)? Rhyming words?
7. Has there ever been any mention of your type of product or service in movies or on reality style shows? How could that fit in?
8. What analogies might be appropriate when comparing your products or services to something else?

One solopreneur discovered that her standard relaxation massage was much like a mini-vacation … so she called it a 61 Minute Mexico Massage. It was different. It made it easy for others to visualize what they got out of it. And it worked.

9. Can you make your product bigger or smaller in their mind? Oftentimes a simple shift in the way they think about your product or service can be the difference in the type of buyer you attract. (think about the million dollar lobster story I have shared here before – they took a $10 Lobster and turned it into a $3,000 Lobster Membership Club).
10. If you could get in front of 200 of your ideal buyers – what one thing about your product or service would you demonstrate or describe as most important? How could you create a visual impact just showing that one thing?
11. How could you turn your product or service into a toy or adventure for youngsters?
12. Could you use drama to describe your offering? Comedy? Documentaries? Action adventures?
13. What could be five or ten bizarre ways you could use your product or service?
14. What one feature or benefit could be overstated in your marketing to create interest? How would you back it up?
15. What one feature or benefit could you be completely honest about (even if it is something you may never want to share)? What has no one in your industry dared to say before? Have you seen Crazy People with Dudley Moore? If not – find it! It is a great movie about using honesty in advertising and the hilarious ideas that can be inspired with some honesty in your advertising.
16. Is there anything in the history of your product or industry that could be built up into a useful marketing idea?
17. How do you see your product or service changing five, ten, even 50 years from now?

Many of these may be difficult to see the relation with your product or service. Many of them will be impossible for you to answer. But remember, you only need a few decent ideas from this to create one giant breakthrough for your business.

Try it out.

Invest an hour on this.

You will be surprised on the ideas you come up with and the inspiration that follows for your marketing campaigns will undoubtedly make you more money.

To your success,

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Looking for resources related to this article? Try some of these.

Looking for more of Troy’s articles? Check these out.

Looking for past issues of The Total Package? Click here for our archives.

A Final Note:

If you have specific subjects you would like addressed, or have any comments on what you have seen here, please send me a message and I will see how I can help.

“To escape criticism – do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”

– Elbert Hubbard

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6 Comments »

1. Comment by Laureen McMillan — July 22, 2010 @ 10:20 am

   Troy,

   Thanks for bringing a gleaming smile to my face this morning. Your encouragement and question ideas have brought me back from the underside of my desk where I have been looking for my lost wastebasket.

   I have been buried under a mountain of mundane answers to my average, at best, client questions. Somehow, I have been separating my creative writing from my client writing lately.

   But, your quirky question list has my right brain dancing with my left. Cool! Before I even read the list of questions I had already found your thread of advice and had already written five thought provoking questions for a current client.

   Your article took me back a couple of years when I was writing really interesting equine magazine stories with maximum successful impact. What you wrote today is exactly how I did it. I found the unusual in the usual, the unexpected in the expected.

   Glad we chatted earlier this week!

   Sincerely,
   Laureen McMillan, cool creative person

2. Comment by Troy White — July 22, 2010 @ 3:04 pm

   Thanks Laureen. Always great to hear from those who immediately can put to use these techniques.

   Sometimes it takes some wacky new ideas to give us a new direction or passion.

   Let me know how it all goes.

   Thanks, Troy

3. Comment by walter daniels — July 22, 2010 @ 7:58 pm

   About 8-10 years ago, a friend’s young (she’s now 16) daughter said to me. “You’re silly.” I answered. “Of course, how else will you learn? It’s my job as an adult, to teach you how.” She had the strangest look, as I said that. Adults aren’t silly, and they certainly don’t encourage it. But, I am and do.
   That girl and her sister, are good at being silly, and having fun, as is my adopted granddaughter. I am proud of all three of them. They know the difference between child like and childish. A secret that it took me too long to learn.
   Your daughters have also learned it well. I hope that all of those we taught, will teach it to their children, nieces and nephews. Maybe even using my line on an unsuspecting child that needs to hear it.

4. Comment by Troy White — July 23, 2010 @ 9:49 am

   Great comment Walter.

   I agree - once we reach a certain point in our teens - the silliness goes away and seriousness takes over. I was much like you that I always have prided myself in being goofy with my daughters.

   It seems to me that a light-hearted approach to life is a much healthier way to enjoy it, and much better ideas seem to flow.

   I like your line - thanks for letting me ’swipe’ it :o)

   Troy

5. Comment by Dale — July 23, 2010 @ 1:20 pm

   Hi Troy,

   Yeah, being quirky can be successful and make life more interesting. Years ago one nightclub called itself The Dump. Their advertising played on that theme, how they were a mess. They weren’t a typical bow-tie and tuxedo place but a blue jeans and t-shirt kind of place. The irony, the place eventually burned down.

   My great grandmother took a lighthearted approach to life. She was the oldest kid I ever knew. On one occasion we were traveling in Dad’s pickup with us kids riding in back (frowned on today). Grandpa, her son, started to get in back with us kids. Great grandma told him to get in front with my parents, then she climbed in back with us kids and she was wearing a dress. She was in her 80’s at the time. She outlived three husbands and died at 104.

   Until this post, I hadn’t thought about how she might inspire marketing ideas, but there is a gem there, if I can figure it out. Your quirky questions will help.

6. Comment by Troy White — July 25, 2010 @ 1:27 pm

   Hey Dale,

   I think you nailed the main point here - find those unusual ideas/memories from your past and use them in all your marketing.

   It gives you a definite advantage in the marketplace as people will remember you and your stories over all the ’same-old-same-old” marketing stuff from your competitors.

   Great Grandmas Youthful Marketing Secrets sounds great to me - let me know when you publish it :o)

   Troy