Dec 08 2010
Are You Selling What You Think You’re Selling?
If you didn’t know you,
would you buy
what you have to sell,
from you? Are you sure?
MacDonald’s sells consistency, not hamburgers. Golden Arches customers know they can get the exact same fare prepared the exact same way at any of their “I’m Lovin’ It!” locations in the world. It’s like a security blanket for your stomach (assuming your stomach can stomach what’s served up!)
Revlon’s founding family president Charlie Revson was often quoted as saying “We don’t sell cosmetics; we sell the promise of sex to single teenage girls!” Airlines don’t sell seat rentals; they sell destinations. Churches sell redemption and hope. Disney World sells brain escape. IT businesses sell “solutions,” but often just add more problems.
Self-appointed SEO and Social Media “experts”? They don’t seem to know what they’re selling. But –by now– YOU must have a pretty clear idea of what works for you, or maybe not . . .
How about YOUR business?
Are you putting out “mixed messages”?
Do those people you seek to attract as customers get it?
Are you presuming or have you actually asked them?
Do your customers buy what you have to sell, or what you claim to be selling?
Are you selling real products and services or images of what the benefits are that one gets from buying your products and services?
Have you made your marketing effort an exclusively online production?
If you are selling benefits (and you SHOULD be, by the way), does that represent some sense of ethical compromise to you? If you’re not doing that (and instead emphasizing and selling features, for example), has it occurred to you that your competitors surely are or will be selling benefits?
Do you think you would have lasted long in the passenger airline industry selling short-term rentals of seat manufacturing components while competitors sell happy couples skipping through the Caribbean surf or exploring Mediterranean fishing villages, or visiting Hawaiian mountain waterfalls, or diving off Mexican cliffs, or singing and dancing in Austria’s Oktoberfest?
When did you last sit still long enough to really take apart your sales message and examine the pieces?
Do the words work? Do they sell? Is there one word too many or too few? What you think you’re saying and what in fact communicates may be two separate things. How does your sales message look? How does it feel? What’s the intent? What did you discover by answering these questions?
How can you tweak or adjust or revamp or update what you have to make it better? To make it sing? To make it reach out and grab? If any of this leaves you puzzled and you are earnest about improving the process of selling what you’re selling, call me. No telephone fees. No strings attached. I’ll give you ideas. If you want more than ideas and I can’t help you, I can point you in the right direction.
# # #
302.933.0116 Hal@BusinessWorks.US
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]