Barney

People do not like to be interrupted. People doing important or time-sensitive work are especially hostile to interruption.

Think about it. You’ve got the TV remote control in your hand, you’re watching your favorite TV show “Barney the Asinine Purple Dinosaur” and it’s interrupted by some insane man trying to get you to walk into his Chevy Dealership. What do you do? Zap…you change the channel, IMMEDIATELY. Tivo, Comcast’s DVR service and other such services and gadgets are wildly popular for a reason…nobody wants to be bothered by your marketing message. Pop-up/Pop Under windows on The Web…those are a big hit, huh? Can’t get rid of them fast enough. It’s the same with Radio, Print advertisements and all other media. You may find the commercials on Super Bowl Sunday amusing (more on that later), but you tune EVERYTHING else out. The telephone consumer DO NOT CALL list, on its first day of online registration years ago, had tens of millions of people register.

If your job is to find new customers, it has become exponentially harder than it was a generation ago. It’s just the way it is. There are still people out there who could sell insurance dialing from the White Pages but they are incredibly rare (and rich). Why? Because it requires an exceptional talent AND one needs to be BULLETPROOF from constant rejection and even verbal abuse. If you don’t have both and you plan on mindless smiling-and-dialing all day…good luck with that.

There is good news. There are several new ways of reaching people that didn’t exist a generation ago. Of course people seized on some of them in the worst possible fashion and turned what could have been an asset into a hideous liability. (Best example: SPAM). This lack of creative thinking continues in most of the iterations of new media.

(No, Iggy the IT Services Guy…I don’t want to be your friggin’ Facebook “friend”). Good grief.

If you’re one of those rare creative/entertaining types, you can use new AND old media to get a foot in the door. If you’re an expert on a subject important to your prospects, that can be weaved into your approach to the market. There are dozens of ways of combining what is uniquely “you” with all forms of media….and that very much includes the telephone.

Think, people. Think and then act. Think, act, consistently modify and act until enough people find what you do valuable. With persistence and just a sliver of ability, you’ll never worry about money again. And you’ll never again have to interrupt an overworked manager to tell them how INCREDIBLE your company’s stuff is.