RobertJRGraham.com Interviews Imran Md Ali, Asia’s Premiere Marketing Guru, and author of two successful marketing books.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself, and your background?
I started out by being a serial entrepreneur, and still own an art gallery, publishing firm, manpower supply company and also an info-product company. Basically, i found that the principles for creating, and building up startups are pretty much the same.
The domain knowledge needed differs of course, but the mechanisms itself stay the same. I’m also a published author of 3 books, and an upcoming product with marketing legend Brian Tracy, which is basically my golden moment in my journey thus far!
Your first book “The 10 Step Marketing Formula” has a focus on business principles, what’s something we aren’t typically considering?
A lot of people think that it is a generalist book, covering all aspects of business. But the real truth is that the mainstays of business still remains two pillars- Marketing and sales. That is the core of the book.
Your second book “Creating Marketing Breakthroughs” points out 51 ways to ressession proof your business. Can you explain how that’s possible?
People assume that recessions are bad times and that customers are not buying. But they are wrong. If you have a superior positioning and marketing strategy, you will actually become MORE successful during recessions because other business owners generally decide to cut back marketing costs and close down during these periods. Recessions offer the best opportunity for you to dominate the industry.
You highlight some very interesting examples of Successful Mindsets, how important is this to expanding our businesses?
Your mind makes up your beliefs. Your beliefs in turn, make up your actions, and in turn actions lead to results, or lack of it. The mindset is the most basic of all pillars of success.
Without giving too much away, can you highlight an unconventional method to market a product or brand?
The best way is to identify where your potential buyers reside or tend to congregate, and then laser target them using direct mail. This is something many “modern” marketers scoff at, but in fact, has a high ROI.
Many of us have products, books, or services we can offer, but many don’t market themselves. How can beginners get started?
Well, the first is to ask. Go out there, give samples of your products, free signups on your website. Offer to giveaway excerpts of your book on your name cards. Just ask. Make every day a “marketing day”
Where can we get your books?
You can get it at amazon.com and amazon.co.uk and it will soon be available to barnes and noble as well.
Creating Marketing Breakthroughs