What the SAS can teach you about marketing

Did you know Edinburgh Castle is an active military base?

The Castle is home to the HQ of the Royal Regiment of Scotland and Edinburgh is very much a “garrison” town.

Along with the HQ for the Royal Regiment of Scotland, Redford Barracks is the base for the 51st Infantry Brigade, and Glencorse is the main training base in Scotland.

This explains the steady stream of soldiers when I had my sports injury clinic.

Squaddies were great to work with and always good craic. 

One young lad was telling me about getting an impromptu training session from none other than the SAS.

Out on the range working on house clearance drills their sergeant discovered there was an SAS unit on site.

Not wanting to pass up an opportunity for his lads to learn a lesson or two he convinced them to run the rest of drills. 

Fired up with excitement the lads were getting rattled into the drills but before long the reality set in…there were no secret drills, ninja moves, or Jason Bourne-like methods for disarming baddies. 

The drills were the same boring drills they knew already repeated with small changes and refinements. 

Increase your spacing before you breach the door…

Hold your rifle like “this” when you’re the first in…

The second man sweeps the room this way…and my lad was loving it but half the platoon started complaining about having to do the same boring shit they’d do all the time. 

Becasue the best of the best didn’t have any secret moves they simply performed the basics with ruthless efficiency.

Practising the same drills as everyone else until they were second nature and could be done on autopilot.

Not that they did them with no thought…that would be a disaster.

They were performed with intense focus every time.

So when the pressure and stress were through the roof, every part of the task was so engrained into their very being that their base skill level was off the charts.

That ridiculously high base skill level separates the very best from the rest…not secret Ninja skills or other “hacks”.

And marketing your business is no different.

There are no cheat codes for success only mastering the basics.

Take social media.

You need to master the “Bait Builder” post.

The Bait Builder is made up of 5 parts -

The Hook - capture their eyeballs and makes them stop scrolling.

The problem - highlight the problem your ideal client is suffering from.

Agitate the problem - highlight how the problem is affecting their everyday life.

The Solution - a 30,000ft overview of how they can solve the problem (like suggesting using bait builder posts)

CTA - give them a way to contact you for more a more in-depth solution could be a lead magnet, or could be to join your programme.

Do this on each and every social media post and your engagement will improve as will the numbers in your programme.

Later ‘gater

Colin