Repost by: Rick Hoening

Original Article by: Perry Marshall

When Jack Born called me on the phone one day after his morning run and sketched out the triangle you’re about to see, I instantly fell in love with it.

 This is the e=mc² of marketing.

 The “Tactical Triangle” always takes you where you need to go, and the 80/20 in the center always focuses you on the points of highest effectiveness.  I’m going to show it to you.

 Before I do, I need to warn you that most people, even the very sharpest students, will not instantly “get it.” It may not be at all apparent how many things you can do with this tool. But as you begin to use it, you’ll find it’s one of the most powerful tools anyone’s ever given you:

                            Conversion 

Traffic                                                         Economics

                The Tactical Triangle

Stick with me for a few minutes as I unpack the power of this.

The Tactical Triangle says: In order to sell something, you have to get Traffic; then you have to Convert the traffic and Economics means you have to make some money on what you sell – which is why you went into business in the first place.  When you make a profit, you re-invest it by getting more Traffic, Converting the traffic and further improving your Economics. And so it goes, clockwise in a circle. It’s a spiral of never ending traffic, conversion and economics.

 That’s the essence of marketing. It describes every human relationship and every transaction. You can apply it to romance or volunteering for the Peace Corps or trading favors with your fishing buddies. Today we’re going to focus on sales and marketing use it to develop a Grand Theory of Everything.

 The first thing to notice about the Tactical Triangle is the 80/20 principle is in the center. 

That’s a pretty prominent place. Jack Born put it there because we believe 80/20 to be the most important thing there is to know about business, period.

It is so fundamental to the operation of people and the world in general, it’s right up there with gravity and the laws of physics. And death and taxes. It applies to customers, products, companies, employees. Highways, real estate, rabbit populations, tree branches and the size of craters on the moon.

 80/20 is in the center because everything revolves around getting more out for putting less in. Leverage.  Finally, 80/20 is fractal. Inside every top 20% is another top 20%.

Putting The “Tactical Triangle” To Work

 You come to me and say, “I’ve developed this cool new invention and it’s going to make millions of dollars. How do I sell it?”  We’re instantly in Marketing 101.  Before we begin some lengthy discussion about Pay Per Click or autoresponders or infomercials or any other technique, I’m going to ask you three questions:

              1. Who would buy this?  (that’s T)

              2. Can you reach them affordably? (that’s E)

              3.What can we say to persuade them to buy? (that’s C)

 The second thing I want you to notice about the “Tactical Triangle”  is: You needed to go counterclockwise to figure out how to sell something.

 Which means the primary skill you must master in marketing is thinking backwards.

 When I was a copywriting newbie, I would say to myself, Perry, you’re not you, you’re them. You’re not sitting at your computer, you’re sitting at theirs. You’re not interested in what you’re interested in, you’re interested in what they’re interested in.  I pictured myself physically doing a 180. I would do that exercise every time I sat down to write. Now it’s second nature. To build a sales funnel, you begin with the end in mind, to use Stephen Covey’s famous words. You start from the end and you work your way to the beginning.

 Then traffic comes into the funnel at the beginning and goes clockwise to the economic end.

But since selling starts with traffic, advanced marketers don’t begin with the invention (i.e. the final transaction). We begin with traffic and ask ourselves: “What would these people want to buy?”

 In other words, advanced marketers watch for situations where they don’t have to think backwards. So yes, we all have to begin with the end in mind but it’s even better if you can begin at the beginning and decide what the best possible end might be.

 That brings me to the 2^nd thing I want you to notice about this, which is:  

There is a customer’s perspective on the Tactical Triangle. He’s standing in front of the Triangle and he sees all this happening clockwise.

 It all starts with the Traffic because he IS the Traffic.

Inside every Tactical Triangle is another Tactical Triangle 

The marketer is standing on the backside of the triangle. You want to envision all this happening counter-clockwise.  It all starts with the Economics because that’s the whole reason you started your business in the first place.

 The third thing I want you to see is that there’s a Tactical Triangle inside each element of the Triangle. The Tactical Triangle is fractal.

 It’s true on every scale. Zoom in, zoom out, it’s still there. It’s true on the micro level and it’s true on the macro level.  Let’s say that your traffic is Google ads, your conversion is a website sales page, and your economics is you sell shoes.

 Inside those Google ads we find another Tactical Triangle:

Traffic = people who see the ad (impressions)

Conversion = ad copy and the clicks it attracts (clicks)

Economics = bid price (cost per click)

Everything in marketing fits into the Tactical Triangle.  And every improvement you’re trying to make is found by answering the question:

 “What’s the #1 thing I need to improve next – Traffic, Conversion, or Economics?”  

 That question always leads you in the right direction.

 This is just an introductory explanation of Jack Born’s Tactical Triangle.

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