Today, I want to share some of my top 21 Peter Montoya quotes and marketing tips from his book: The Brand Called You: Personal Marketing for Financial Advisors.
I stumbled across this book in my local thrift store. Whenever I can find a marketing or sales training book, I purchase it. This book intrigued me, because I am a big fan of attraction marketing and personal branding.
While the book is designed for financial advisors, I believe most of the information is relevant for network marketers as well.
Top 21 Peter Montoya Quotes
What you see below are some quotes from the book that really resonated with me. They are listed by where I found them in the book. Each quote is in bold and italics. After that, I share my own two cents on it.
# 1: In this day and age, people sell themselves.
Your prospect must buy YOU before they will buy your product or service. People want to do business with people they like, know and trust. Work on your people skills. Treat others well. Show a genuine interest in others. Be the welcomed guest, not the uninvited pest.
# 2: Done properly, personal marketing gets prospects to like and trust you before they’ve ever met you, allowing you to close them in person with some mild selling and confidence building.
Good branding, advertising and marketing will allow you to create a relationship with your prospect BEFORE people even meet you in real life. This makes closing the sale much easier, because there are less obstacles you must overcome.
# 3: If you plan on being in this business, you must commit 20-35% of your time, money and resources to marketing.
Your real business is not your product or service. Instead, marketing and promoting your product or service is your real product. Do not fall in love with your product. Fall in love with PROMOTING your product.
# 4: You are your best and only product.
People must be sold on YOU before they buy from you. Be someone worth doing business with. Act like a professional at all times. Believe in yourself, your company, your products and your opportunity.
# 5: People only work with people they like.
If your prospect doesn’t like you, they won’t do business with you, even if they love your product or service.
# 6: Marketing is the art and science of systematically attracting clients, like a magnet attracts iron filings. Sales is the activity of chasing down clients like hounds chasing down a hare during a hunt.
You need to learn marketing so you have plenty of prospects and then you need to learn selling so you can close your prospects and make the cash register ring. However, good marketing makes selling a whole heck of a lot easier.
# 7: You see, being different from your competitors in the eyes of your prospects is the most important thing.
Find a way to stand out in the crowd and be different from your competitors. Don’t be boring. Don’t be like every other product, company or business or you will end up competing on price. Focus on what makes you different from everyone else.
# 8: You can’t be all things to all people, so don’t try.
Identify your target market and unique selling proposition. Figure out who your best customer is and then focus all of your efforts on why they should do business with you and not someone else.
# 9: We’ve discovered that the more you reject the kind of business you don’t want, the more you will attract the business you do want.
Decide which segment of people you want to work with and focus on them exclusively. Not everyone is a good prospect. Work smart and focus on the people that are similar to your “best customers” and people “most likely to do business with you.”
# 10: Nothing gets you in the door like a personal referral.
Ask for referrals whenever possible. It is the best way to find new prospects. When you talk with someone you were referred to, it is a much better prospect and conversation than talking with a complete stranger.
# 11: Cold calling is a waste of your time.
It makes more sense to get people to call you first, than for you to cold call people. This is where good advertising and marketing come in to play.
# 12: If you can’t sell yourself, your products will sit on the shelf.
People buy people BEFORE they buy a product or service. People need to like, know and trust you if you want to make the sale.
# 13: The world’s greatest marketers know that when used correctly, direct mail is the best business generating tool available, especially when combined with personal contact.
If you aren’t using direct mail to help grow your business, you should be. It is proven, time tested and effective. It is far less competitive than telemarketing or email marketing. Think about how many emails you get per day compared to how many calls you get per day compared to how many pieces of direct mail you get per day.
# 14: Write like you speak.
Whenever you are sending an email or letter, make sure it is written like you speak, not like a college essay. Be conversational in nature. Keep your sentences short and sweet and easy to read. Don’t use big, confusing words.
# 15: Ask for the business!
If you don’t ask for the sale, you won’t get it. You must be able to look someone in the eye, ask them to take out their credit card, and make a purchase. This is critical to your success in any business. You don’t need to use hype, pressure, or deception, nor should you. But, you do need to ask for the sale.
# 16: Direct mail, phone calls and other methods are valuable enhancements, but there is no substitute for personal contact, networking and relationship building.
Whenever possible, meet face to face with people so you can form that strong personal connection.
# 17: Basically, if you don’t have a website you won’t be in business very long.
No matter what type of business you are in, you should have your own personal website. The internet is here to stay. People will search for you online BEFORE they buy from you. Having your own website can impact what they find and see.
# 18: Press coverage is the best advertising short of personal referral.
Whenever possible, try to get some good PR in magazines and newspapers. This is a great way to get your name out there and find new business. People might not believe what you say about yourself, but they will believe something they read or saw in the media.
# 19: Good printing is worth every penny.
If you are going to do direct mail, offer brochures or use postcards, don’t skimp on printing or do it yourself. Hire a professional so your printing looks professional and high quality, even if it costs more. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
# 20: Tracking your return on investment is the only way to determine if what you’re doing is working.
It’s not about how many leads you generate. At the end of the day, your marketing is either successful, or not, based upon your return on investment. For every dollar spent, you want to receive more than $1 back. If you don’t track it, you won’t know what ads are working well and which ones aren’t.
# 21: If there is one piece of advice we could leave you with it is this: become a marketer.
Every business owner and professional would benefit if they took the time to learn marketing. Good marketing can make the difference between surviving and thriving in business. Marketing your products and services is your REAL business. Once you learn marketing, you can succeed in just about any type of business.
The Brand Called You Book Review
Overall, I give the book an 8 of 10. It was easy to read, well organized and loaded with great information. It would be extremely beneficial to any new or experienced financial advisor. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, you should.
About the Book
The ISBN is 0-9674506-0-8. The book has 207 pages and comes in hard cover format. The book sells for $29.95. You can purchase a copy on Amazon here.
About Peter Montoya
Peter Montoya is the founder of Millennium Advertising. He has worked for two national sales trainers and speakers. He gives over 100 speeches per year throughout North America. You can visit his website here.
Final Thoughts
There you have it folks. I hope you enjoyed my Top 21 Peter Montoya quotes and my book review of The Brand Called You. If you are a financial advisor, you definitely want to buy and study this book.
What are your thoughts? What is your favorite Peter Montoya quote listed above? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Chuck Holmes
Network Marketing Professional (21+ years)
Top Recruiter & Top Rep
mrchuckholmes@gmail.com