Dan Kennedy - How Adversity Leads to Opportunity #gkicsc11

Here are more great ideas from Dan Kennedy's talk today, building on his ideas from yesterday at the 2011 SuperConference in Chicago ...

How Adversity Can Lead to Opportunity

1) By forcing you to do something you otherwise would not do

• Example: A guy running chain of tanning booths saw that his video rental shops were dying and decided to put tanning booths in. 
• Example: Joan Rivers started her jewelry business on QVC because she couldn’t get a job and needed to make money; it was a Plan B invented out of adversity. 
• Example: Disney’s original deal with ABC was driven when they were out of money just before opening of Disney World and signed 5-year deal; it ended up being a great deal because ABC advertised Disney every Sunday night.

"Plan B ending up better than Plan A" is common in business, so Plan B is not to be feared. In fact, you should always ask what your Plan B will be -- it’s a good creative question.

2) It can build a new foundation

• Example: the book, “What a Way to Make a Living: the Lyman Wood Story” about a guy who started a mail order religion out of necessity. He had been successful in mail order, selling lucky rabbit’s feet via print ads; they made big claims for the rabbit’s feet re: getting good luck, and the U.S. Postal Inspectors showed up to investigate the claims. Because there was no regulation for religion (then or now) they took out the rabbit’s feet, kept the incantations and sold them as religious tracts, which skirted the law successfully. This was a creative, profitable solution. 
• Another story: Tupperware was dying with ugly products and facing adversity. It drove them to go somewhere that was at least a decade behind the U.S. culturally –South America and Asia -- where they prospered with that they had and used the money to come back here and create better products; to this day, they do 70% of revenue overseas. Without this thinking, Tupperware would be out of business now.

3) It can create a million-dollar story
The stories of your pain are incredibly valuable, because the one thing all people have in common is adversity. So if you want to connect with people, a story of adversity has widespread, valuable appeal – in the millions.

• The first Chicken Soup book was rejected by 33 publishers and 17 agents. The adversity that Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield overcame through all the rejection and the perseverance has helped them win credibility with authors and other people they sold other products to. 
• Example: the founders of Amway used to tell about their 15+ failed businesses as a way to bond with audiences and build credibility. 
• Almost every time something horrible happens, you can use the story later to profit. Think: “This is going to a great story.”

4) You can capitalize on others’ misfortunes, tragedies, and failures
When other people screw up, there is opportunity for you.

• Example: Sellers of gold thrive in a recession.
• Example: Joe Costman realized would hunt for under-marketed products and find new channels of distribution. His biggest success was The Ant Farm, which had been sold via school supply catalogs as a teaching aid. He sold it via print ads directly to kids all over America and made millions. Moral: Look at your own business this way, for untapped channels of distribution.

More ideas like these in my Free Report, Guaranteed Marketing for Service Business Owners.