Jul 23, 2019
The aim of the Dream 100 concept is to move clients along a continuum of:
This podcast walks you through the steps to implement this great client generation system and talks about how Lady Gaga is the master of using it.
Episode Transcript
The Dream 100 is a concept first introduced by Chet Holmes in his book, The Ultimate Sales Machine. In it, he describes how he was able to double the ad sales of a magazine three years in a row using a technique he called the “Dream 100 Effort.”
He realized that out of the magazine’s database of advertisers, only 167 companies bought 95% of the advertising in the top four magazines in their market — yet none of those companies was advertising with his magazine at the time.
He started a relationship building campaign with these advertisers, and within a year, he was able to get 30 of them to start buying ads in his magazine. By the end of the third year, all 167 companies were buying ads in the magazine.
So, the Dream 100 is a mindset and a set of steps that anyone can follow to grow their business. You can use it to target your ideal customers, to identify media outlets and influencers who can give exposure to your brand, or you can use it to help you find partners or people to work with - who will sell your products and services for you. The possibilities are endless!
I have used it for premium apartments sales – where I actually made a list of the most likely buyers who had $4+ million to spend and then set about finding how I could get to them.
Remember the secret to the Dream 100 is to play the long game – getting in this case to have the people say:
So, I needed to find people or businesses I could collaborate with who already deal with these people but are not in conflict with my project. Groups like the AMA or the ADA, Luxury watch retailers, fine art galleries, luxury car dealers, high end yacht clubs and boat dealers – you get the picture.
Having identified the people to collaborate with, you then need to work on a win/ win strategy to build relationships and ultimately launch your campaign. In the luxury apartment project that I have been talking about I had to devise different strategies for each of the particular partners but hey in my market $4million plus buyers don’t grow on trees!!
Dream 100 isn’t an easy strategy and it certainly isn’t a lazy person strategy – but executed properly it is well worth the effort.
Remember the identifying the Dream 100 is a great first start – but it really is the tip of the strategy.
Most people - don’t go the extra step and don’t have an actual strategy to get in front of their dream clients, other than cold calling and cold emailing, they don’t obtain dream clients coming to them through their normal marketing campaigns.
I have been able to use the Dream 100 strategy for countless businesses by helping clients to first identify their dream clients, giving them a strategy or in most cases strategies, to connect with those dream clients while showing up with credibility or authority, and then ensuring a command of respect is in place prior to that first touch-point.
This is a highly effective combination, one that has created fantastic results for many of my clients.
Another way to use The Dream 100 strategy is to target influencers - that is a hundred people who are influencers (e.g. list owners, podcasters, bloggers, social media influencers) who already have your dream customers in their following…
What you want to do is identify who these influencers are and aggressively market to them so that they might promote you or your offering to their audiences.
Then you have to devise a strategy on how you are going to go about contacting everybody.
Last night I watched the Lady Gaga documentary – it was about her record release and the frantic few weeks she had promoting and launching the album – in truth it was just a mega Dream 100.