1. What You Should REALLY Do to Make Your
Business Successful
September 13, 2012 By Dyan Hernandez
You opened a new restaurant in town. Your site is where your target market roams around everyday for
work or school. You have the best marketing plans to magnetize people to go try your stuff. But in less
than six months, your stats start whispering that soon, you are going to close down your business.
Ouch. Ever wonder why a seemingly
good and perfectly-planned business
fall down too easily just like that?
And why in the world that small
eatery nearby is still standing proud
and growing?
Last week, I attended a seminar
organized by Philippine Marketing
Association – Batangas Chapter
dubbed as “Trojan Marketing: How Brilliant Marketing Ideas Turn Ugly and How Simple Ideas Emerge
Successfully”.
The seminar was chopped into two. Part one was all about personal branding as discussed by the talented
and uniquely entertaining Pocholo “The VoiceMaster” Gonzales (who did countless of dubbing for
animations, movies, TVCs, etc) and part two was the main chunk about Trojan Marketing as dissected by
Lloyd Luna, a business consultant, motivational speaker, author of a couple of business books, pianist,
etcetera.
Personal branding is basically how you market yourself to the world (www.stevepavlina.com). Why is it
important and what does it have to do with your business? Say for example, you own a fashion store.
You’re selling the most stylish to-die-for pieces but you’re a shabby chic. How do you think your
customers will believe that you actually sell clothes and stuffs that will make heads turn and gain
overflowing compliments about beauty and style? Personal branding, according to Pocholo Gonzales, can

2. be achieved and maintained by being consistent, by writing about you and your business on blogs or any
medium you think of, by creating an output of interest for your customers, and by extending a helping
hand to others (knock knock, that’s what CSRs are for). And oh, if you practice online marketing,
Gonzales advised that you pay attention to Google. Yes, sir.
Moving on to Trojan Marketing. For marketing practitioners, have you heard of this new type of
marketing? Yes, the basis has something to do with the Trojan Horse from Greek mythology. Lloyd Luna
pointed out ‘carelessness’ as a major culprit why good people fail. Trojan Marketing, according to Luna,
is “the art of ingraining the message by breaking the buyer’s wall to hit the emotion”. He talked about
perceived value (of one’s good), branding (the importance of the name, the logo, the packaging), knowing
your market and how you will be able to ‘break that wall’ a.k.a your customer’s perception of what you’re
selling.
I won’t be discussing here all that they’ve shared in the seminar but allow me to share two lines from
Luna that might inspire you to think
further as well. One: “Comfort zone
is kill zone”. Challenge yourself and
do what else you think you can do.
Get out of the box and perhaps be
bolder, braver in taking risks. But…
Two: “Avoid being everything to
everybody”. Unless you own a
shopping mall that says they’ve got it
all for you.Winks. Starting a business
involves risks. If you won’t dare to
materialize your ideas, they will
remain as they are — ideas floating, wanting to burst out of your mind. And hey, if you want to know
more about Pocholo and Lloyd, Google them. They’re so available online. Trojan Horse photo:
talesoftime.co.uk
Source: wowbatangas.com/features/latest/what-you-should-really-do-to-make-your-business-successful/