I'm watching a television show geared towards my six-year old on television. It's a commercial break and a Sinister Stepford Mom is doing the hard sell on me. In the background, her young children are finishing up their learning-tool program while simultaneously accepting their advanced degree diplomas from Harvard.
According to the mother doing the pitch, If I don't buy the product that will help my child learn to read the entire works of Tolstoy by the time he's done eating his bowlful of Sugar Fruit-Simulated SpongeBob High Fructose Corn Syrup Snaps...if I don't buy this freakin' product from this wildly grinning Automaton Soccer Mom, I'm essentially confirming her suspicion that my goal is to destroy the children of the earth.
This technique practiced my marketers is, in my opinion, on an ethical par with randomly attacking the elderly in shopping malls with spiked bats. It's a pre-mediated attempt to make money by attempting to make you, the parent, feel like squirrel manure.
Resist, my fellow parents. Let your children be children. These people are concerned about your kids well being about as much as Charlie Mansion was concerned about grammatical syntax.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
Compelling, isn't it?
I’m hardly breaking new ground here when I say that, without a compelling reason to buy, well, people don’t buy things. Whether it’s their own personal money or somebody else’s. They just don’t.
Oh yeah, there are a couple of exceptions. The impulse buy is known to all, usually most recognizable as you’re about to drop a hundred and a half on eats at your local supermarket. You’ve got that downtime waiting in line and, amongst other marketing messages assaulting you, including those new LCD brainwashing screens, you are blasted with headlines and glossies about the Celebrity du Jour and how their lives have reached the tipping point. Damn you, Brad and Angelina!! Couldn’t you have shelved and rationed some of that perfection for the rest of us?
There’s a whole industry, sometimes called the impulse giftware industry that falls in line here. Remember the Troll Dolls? I once had a compelling reason to buy a troll doll but then my meds wore off.
If your livelihood is dependent on others buying your stuff, re-read the first sentence.
If also what you’re selling is a commodity, your job just exponentially increased in difficulty, in particular, the time it will take to build, nurture and manage the relationships necessary for people to buy from you instead of the eighteen other knuckleheads with identical products trying to knock down their door.
So what is a compelling reason? Well, that’s easy. You’re a consumer, also. You buy goods and services. Most of these things you buy because you need them; some because it strikes a chord. Either way, unless you’re extremely gullible and/or easily manipulated, NOBODY has EVER sold you anything. You bought it.
The bad news is unless your employer happens to be The Buddha or some other enlightened person or entity, they’re not interested in your sob story. All they know is, twice a month, the direct deposit goes from their account into yours. They pay you for results. Everything else is Charlie Brown’s teacher addressing the classroom.
If your company has a marketing division capable of providing quality leads, you may be in a very good situation. If you are expected to create your own leads- on top of turning these people (most of them complete strangers) into customers- pack a lunch because it’s going to take awhile. Perhaps most important, if you are skilled and clever enough to not only produce these leads but to walk the prospects down the aisle and into the abject bondage that is marriage (Sorry….I completely lost my head there…let me start over).
If you posses the skills required to turn a complete stranger into a customer of ANY product or service (yours or somebody else’s), you are the custodian of probably the most important tool required to be an entrepreneur and business owner instead of an employee.
Editor’s note: Sadly, this also happens to be the ONLY skill of world-class con men.
Assuming you are a decent human being and you have the requisite communications skills, some marketing savvy, basic management skills, something to offer that people either need or want, at least a two-litre container of integrity and (THIS IS HUGE) the unwavering confidence to shed yourself of the dependency of the moods and whims of others (read: a boss), it’s time to pull the rip-cord and stop making others wealthy in exchange for security.
On the concept of security, and not just job security. I’ve got some bad news for you, Sunshine. Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel and there is no security in life. Ask the bazillionaire as he draws his last breath about security. That’s not negativity, its reality and it’s not a bad thing. It just is.
Editor’s note, Part Deux: This piece was intended to be about a concept known in Marketing as “Compelling Reason to Buy”.
As John Belushi’s Bluto Blutarsky’s character in Animal House said to the untalented acoustic guitarist on the stairwell in Delta House, moments after utterly humiliating him in front of several fawning females by turning his guitar into electron-sized wooden splinters……sorry.
Oh yeah, there are a couple of exceptions. The impulse buy is known to all, usually most recognizable as you’re about to drop a hundred and a half on eats at your local supermarket. You’ve got that downtime waiting in line and, amongst other marketing messages assaulting you, including those new LCD brainwashing screens, you are blasted with headlines and glossies about the Celebrity du Jour and how their lives have reached the tipping point. Damn you, Brad and Angelina!! Couldn’t you have shelved and rationed some of that perfection for the rest of us?
There’s a whole industry, sometimes called the impulse giftware industry that falls in line here. Remember the Troll Dolls? I once had a compelling reason to buy a troll doll but then my meds wore off.
If your livelihood is dependent on others buying your stuff, re-read the first sentence.
If also what you’re selling is a commodity, your job just exponentially increased in difficulty, in particular, the time it will take to build, nurture and manage the relationships necessary for people to buy from you instead of the eighteen other knuckleheads with identical products trying to knock down their door.
So what is a compelling reason? Well, that’s easy. You’re a consumer, also. You buy goods and services. Most of these things you buy because you need them; some because it strikes a chord. Either way, unless you’re extremely gullible and/or easily manipulated, NOBODY has EVER sold you anything. You bought it.
The bad news is unless your employer happens to be The Buddha or some other enlightened person or entity, they’re not interested in your sob story. All they know is, twice a month, the direct deposit goes from their account into yours. They pay you for results. Everything else is Charlie Brown’s teacher addressing the classroom.
If your company has a marketing division capable of providing quality leads, you may be in a very good situation. If you are expected to create your own leads- on top of turning these people (most of them complete strangers) into customers- pack a lunch because it’s going to take awhile. Perhaps most important, if you are skilled and clever enough to not only produce these leads but to walk the prospects down the aisle and into the abject bondage that is marriage (Sorry….I completely lost my head there…let me start over).
If you posses the skills required to turn a complete stranger into a customer of ANY product or service (yours or somebody else’s), you are the custodian of probably the most important tool required to be an entrepreneur and business owner instead of an employee.
Editor’s note: Sadly, this also happens to be the ONLY skill of world-class con men.
Assuming you are a decent human being and you have the requisite communications skills, some marketing savvy, basic management skills, something to offer that people either need or want, at least a two-litre container of integrity and (THIS IS HUGE) the unwavering confidence to shed yourself of the dependency of the moods and whims of others (read: a boss), it’s time to pull the rip-cord and stop making others wealthy in exchange for security.
On the concept of security, and not just job security. I’ve got some bad news for you, Sunshine. Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel and there is no security in life. Ask the bazillionaire as he draws his last breath about security. That’s not negativity, its reality and it’s not a bad thing. It just is.
Editor’s note, Part Deux: This piece was intended to be about a concept known in Marketing as “Compelling Reason to Buy”.
As John Belushi’s Bluto Blutarsky’s character in Animal House said to the untalented acoustic guitarist on the stairwell in Delta House, moments after utterly humiliating him in front of several fawning females by turning his guitar into electron-sized wooden splinters……sorry.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Need, Want and Money
Lawyers, guns and money.
RIP, Warren Zevon..you were always so ahead of your time.
That tune got and gets alot of airplay and it so succinctly defined how his problem could be solved. He needed three things and he needed them right away; three things that will "..get me out of this this, HEY!!.."
My title should have read Need, Money and Working With the Person Who Can Pull the Trigger but that hardly flows with how I wanted to blend Zevon in here so we're all going to have to just sit with that.
(people will debate whether it's easier to do business with someone who wants something as much if not more than they need it. That one is a jump ball).
You know the roughly the 2,878 book titles currently available on Amazon that tell you how to sell stuff? With the exception of about 10 of them, they're about attempts to teach you techniques in control (the benign) or full-blown manipulation (the malignant).
Gain a degree of expertise in an area(s). There's your personal value, there's the reason someone takes that meeting with you. Tact and diplomacy. Unfortunately, that one really can't be taught. Do your very best to understand your audience. Make sure you have access to the person with the authority, the need and the money to buy from you. Do your darndest to uncover the person lurking around the corner who can throw a monkey wrench into the deal in the 9th inning. (oh, there is almost always one person who fits that description). If you can say with COMPLETE certainty you've done all of the above and your offering unequivocally meets their need, you're in pretty good shape. They're no closing, here. I am consumer, too. I close myself all the time.
That's it. Good night.
RIP, Warren Zevon..you were always so ahead of your time.
That tune got and gets alot of airplay and it so succinctly defined how his problem could be solved. He needed three things and he needed them right away; three things that will "..get me out of this this, HEY!!.."
My title should have read Need, Money and Working With the Person Who Can Pull the Trigger but that hardly flows with how I wanted to blend Zevon in here so we're all going to have to just sit with that.
(people will debate whether it's easier to do business with someone who wants something as much if not more than they need it. That one is a jump ball).
You know the roughly the 2,878 book titles currently available on Amazon that tell you how to sell stuff? With the exception of about 10 of them, they're about attempts to teach you techniques in control (the benign) or full-blown manipulation (the malignant).
Gain a degree of expertise in an area(s). There's your personal value, there's the reason someone takes that meeting with you. Tact and diplomacy. Unfortunately, that one really can't be taught. Do your very best to understand your audience. Make sure you have access to the person with the authority, the need and the money to buy from you. Do your darndest to uncover the person lurking around the corner who can throw a monkey wrench into the deal in the 9th inning. (oh, there is almost always one person who fits that description). If you can say with COMPLETE certainty you've done all of the above and your offering unequivocally meets their need, you're in pretty good shape. They're no closing, here. I am consumer, too. I close myself all the time.
That's it. Good night.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
And you are??
College. Bluebook exam. Creative Bone....Explain.
My primary offering is facilitating conversations between senior managers with current specific needs to vendors who can fulfill these requirements. If that sounds like fancy-pants language for "selling" or "appointment setting", I am DEFINITELY not the right service for your organization.
My efforts often become augmented with the collective and collaborative output of half a dozen or so independent business specialists...brought in on an as-needed basis.
I am at arms length to people with Mergers and Acquisitions expertise, some Finance folks, some Operations people, Information Technology pros and an array of sales and marketing types. But I am both the engine and the quarterback....so a little about me.
I'll stick to the not in disputes, for now. Born in 1965, father of one and the youngest of five. I've spent almost of all my life in New England, born raised and reared on Boston's Northshore in Marblehead, Mass. I've lived in New Hampshire's Seacoast in Dover since 2002.
I did my first two years of college at ULowell (now called UMass Lowell), took a semester off to rake leaves professionally then transferred to The Zoo (sometimes called UMass Amherst).
I lived three years on the Redneck Riviera in Pensacola, Florida as a kid in the early eighties and did roughly another three in the early nineties in Raleigh, North Carolina. Was stunned to learn that much of the deep south was unaware that Confederate and Union soldiers were no longer fighting. I'm speaking of the Pensacola area. In fairness to those folks, from a purely geographical standpoint, they were required to travel NORTH to reach the Alabama state line. Many of them didn't get out much. Raleigh was great as were the roughly four natives of Raleigh I met while living there.
I don't see myself leaving New England again. Being separated from the collective regional grouchiness, not to mention five months of icy slush would be just a little more than I could bear.
My primary offering is facilitating conversations between senior managers with current specific needs to vendors who can fulfill these requirements. If that sounds like fancy-pants language for "selling" or "appointment setting", I am DEFINITELY not the right service for your organization.
My efforts often become augmented with the collective and collaborative output of half a dozen or so independent business specialists...brought in on an as-needed basis.
I am at arms length to people with Mergers and Acquisitions expertise, some Finance folks, some Operations people, Information Technology pros and an array of sales and marketing types. But I am both the engine and the quarterback....so a little about me.
I'll stick to the not in disputes, for now. Born in 1965, father of one and the youngest of five. I've spent almost of all my life in New England, born raised and reared on Boston's Northshore in Marblehead, Mass. I've lived in New Hampshire's Seacoast in Dover since 2002.
I did my first two years of college at ULowell (now called UMass Lowell), took a semester off to rake leaves professionally then transferred to The Zoo (sometimes called UMass Amherst).
I lived three years on the Redneck Riviera in Pensacola, Florida as a kid in the early eighties and did roughly another three in the early nineties in Raleigh, North Carolina. Was stunned to learn that much of the deep south was unaware that Confederate and Union soldiers were no longer fighting. I'm speaking of the Pensacola area. In fairness to those folks, from a purely geographical standpoint, they were required to travel NORTH to reach the Alabama state line. Many of them didn't get out much. Raleigh was great as were the roughly four natives of Raleigh I met while living there.
I don't see myself leaving New England again. Being separated from the collective regional grouchiness, not to mention five months of icy slush would be just a little more than I could bear.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Lobotomize Me
I see and read an untold number of people in the business world describe themselves as "results-oriented". Or companies seeking such individuals.
Are they typing this with a straight face?
As opposed to what? Let me guess...you're "dynamic", too...and a "strategic thinker" Well, I'm sorry, we had more of an utterly random thinking, stagnant person in mind with a propensity to deliver not so much results but substandard and incomplete work.
Unfortunately for me, as I try to market my business and services to managers to corporate America, I read hundreds and hundreds of businessperson bios and business websites. 97% of them say THE EXACT SAME THING. For the record, every software company in America, regardless of their niche, is the "leading" company in their respective markets. It's gotta be true because it is in a recent press release and their validity is right up there with the latest headline from supermarket tabloid, World Weekly News.
(This weeks headline in WWN: Elvis, using Paris Hilton as a shearing device, cut Britney in half and out popped a space alien who looks remarkably similiar to Chelsea Clinton!!)
Is there a conveyer belt in a factory somewhere in the U.S. of A where where these GroupThink automatons are rolling off into boxes and being shipped to Silicon Valley, Rt 128 and Research Triangle Park? For the love of God, does anyone have the courage to be themselves?
If you're a leader/manager at any level in a corporation and can not get through several minutes of conversation without uttering at least five of the following:
leverage
synergy
critical mass
player
proactive
value-proposition
think out of the box
paradigm shift
tasked
strategic fit
strategic partnership (as opposed to?)
client-focused (as opposed to?)
customer-centric
best of breed
synch-up
circle back
win-win
Congratulations! You'll fit right in! There's a comfortable living wage awaiting you. You can sashay from meeting to meeting, bluetooth and blackberry enabled, and insert these and the 100 or so throwaway words I left out, at will. While you're doing that, several million others across the world will be busy either making things that people need or somehow assisting their fellow human beings get through the day.
On a more upbeat note, The Sox won last night.
Are they typing this with a straight face?
As opposed to what? Let me guess...you're "dynamic", too...and a "strategic thinker" Well, I'm sorry, we had more of an utterly random thinking, stagnant person in mind with a propensity to deliver not so much results but substandard and incomplete work.
Unfortunately for me, as I try to market my business and services to managers to corporate America, I read hundreds and hundreds of businessperson bios and business websites. 97% of them say THE EXACT SAME THING. For the record, every software company in America, regardless of their niche, is the "leading" company in their respective markets. It's gotta be true because it is in a recent press release and their validity is right up there with the latest headline from supermarket tabloid, World Weekly News.
(This weeks headline in WWN: Elvis, using Paris Hilton as a shearing device, cut Britney in half and out popped a space alien who looks remarkably similiar to Chelsea Clinton!!)
Is there a conveyer belt in a factory somewhere in the U.S. of A where where these GroupThink automatons are rolling off into boxes and being shipped to Silicon Valley, Rt 128 and Research Triangle Park? For the love of God, does anyone have the courage to be themselves?
If you're a leader/manager at any level in a corporation and can not get through several minutes of conversation without uttering at least five of the following:
leverage
synergy
critical mass
player
proactive
value-proposition
think out of the box
paradigm shift
tasked
strategic fit
strategic partnership (as opposed to?)
client-focused (as opposed to?)
customer-centric
best of breed
synch-up
circle back
win-win
Congratulations! You'll fit right in! There's a comfortable living wage awaiting you. You can sashay from meeting to meeting, bluetooth and blackberry enabled, and insert these and the 100 or so throwaway words I left out, at will. While you're doing that, several million others across the world will be busy either making things that people need or somehow assisting their fellow human beings get through the day.
On a more upbeat note, The Sox won last night.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
How about never, does never work for you?
(Editor's note: By inserting the image of this upstanding gentleman, my paragraph spacing got tasered. It's a bug with the software. It's a good read but the paragraphs are huddled together like plane crash victims waiting for Search and Rescue).
The dreaded Sales Technique.
If you're in your in your thirties or beyond, you've probably been exposed to books and training whose purpose was to impart the wisdom of various sales techniques. Essentially they are methods of manipulation in an attempt to trap or get a prospective buyer in a position they may otherwise resist. The example below is parody but this is what buyers typically associate with strangers trying to solicit their business...even in the year 2008.
Salesperson: Hey..listen, just so happens, I'll be in your neck of the woods Tuesday and Thursday.
Prospective Buyer: Who is this?
Salesperson: ABSOLUTELY!
Prospective Buyer: What are you trying to sell me? Who is this?
Salesperson: I ABSOLUTELY hear you on that!...are mornings better for you?
*********************************
The marketing part of any sales position is definitely a contact sport. If things eventually align correctly, you don't want to be calling strangers asking them for their time and money. They hate it, you hate it. But in the short run, you may not be so lucky. You will likely have to reach out to someone who isn't expecting your call or correspondence. In almost all cases, they will be engaged in something else and you will be an interruption. Put yourself in their shoes. Don't be an idiot.
Be concise. Give them an out. If they give you the floor, don't talk about how freakin' incredible your products are. Don't ask them "what keeps you up at night". Telemarketers keep them up at night. That milk carton's expiration date of a phrase is six weeks old. Buyers are sick of it.
Ask them if they have any business problems that, potentially, your company can solve. Most important, work on the rapport part without being a phony. It isn't easy and if you're incapable of the nascent building blocks of building rapport with a complete stranger, you might be in the wrong business. (Doesn't make you a bad person. Very few can pull this off. It's very difficult.)
Bottom line: There are plenty of companies that can solve their business problem, several might already be on their rolodex.
But if you've gotten this far, you're in the game.
Again, if given the opportunity, try to have a conversation. The rest (e.g. next actions, their buying process, drilling down a little, etc..) should come as a natural part of the conversation and not be forced.
Pretend you are they, chaos is in full session and, for whatever reason, you decided to pick up the ringing telephone.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Kim Jong IL, Inc.
The next time I'm on a company's website and they use the language "the leading"... as in Strategic Cyber Paradigm Shift Solutions, the leading Enterprise Application Integration company, today announced it will be entering a strategic partnership with Win Win Solutions.
Says Strategic Cyber Paradigm Shift Solutions (SCPSS) CEO, Tucker Buffington, "Being a dynamic, customer-centric, client-focused global leader means, among other things, we hope the value-add created synergies will clearly exhibit our penchant for entering utterly meaningless partnerships, issuing inane press releases and using the word strategic as frequently as possible-including but not limited to- all written descriptions of our senior management's trips to the restroom"
Where was I again? (not to worry- I'll tie this in to that little menace Kim Jong IL in a moment)
Oh yeah, the insistence of companies in describing themselves as "the leading" no matter who they are, what they do or, perhaps the most patently absurd-if indeed they are the "leading" anything.
I casually glance at the text of hundreds of business websites a month. It’s riveting stuff, really. They basically all say the same thing. And that thing is “we are an un-freakin’ believable company..”!! Read what random people are saying on our website!! We’re the leading company in our space!! We might even be the leading company in Outer Space! You say IBM is in that space? We’ll take their lunch money and issue a press release about a strategic partnership we just formed with IBM’s lunch money!
North Korea’s state media has stated several times that Kim Jong Il is an avid golfer and routinely nails three or four holes-in-one per round. That just one of several dozen whoppers that they feed their incredibly oppressed people.
Here’s where I'm going with this.
There’s a marketing guy named Perry Marshall whose writing I enjoy. Several months ago he stated that the promotional materials that typically emanates from totalitarian states-past and present- hardly differs in bombast from the promotional materials/drivel marketing departments of U.S. Corporations churn out every day. I had been thinking this for years but he beat me to the punch.
I understand an organization wants and needs to present themselves in a most favorable manner to their customers, potential customers and the investment community. One can tell a very nice narrative of an organizations history as well as their present and future directives without sounding like some cement-head from The World Wrestling Federation.
Can we just, for openers, put an immediate moratorium on the usage of the adjective phrase “the leading”?
Any study of the truly great people who’ve walked among us and before us reveals they didn’t spend a helluva lot of time wordsmithing their press releases.
Says Strategic Cyber Paradigm Shift Solutions (SCPSS) CEO, Tucker Buffington, "Being a dynamic, customer-centric, client-focused global leader means, among other things, we hope the value-add created synergies will clearly exhibit our penchant for entering utterly meaningless partnerships, issuing inane press releases and using the word strategic as frequently as possible-including but not limited to- all written descriptions of our senior management's trips to the restroom"
Where was I again? (not to worry- I'll tie this in to that little menace Kim Jong IL in a moment)
Oh yeah, the insistence of companies in describing themselves as "the leading" no matter who they are, what they do or, perhaps the most patently absurd-if indeed they are the "leading" anything.
I casually glance at the text of hundreds of business websites a month. It’s riveting stuff, really. They basically all say the same thing. And that thing is “we are an un-freakin’ believable company..”!! Read what random people are saying on our website!! We’re the leading company in our space!! We might even be the leading company in Outer Space! You say IBM is in that space? We’ll take their lunch money and issue a press release about a strategic partnership we just formed with IBM’s lunch money!
North Korea’s state media has stated several times that Kim Jong Il is an avid golfer and routinely nails three or four holes-in-one per round. That just one of several dozen whoppers that they feed their incredibly oppressed people.
Here’s where I'm going with this.
There’s a marketing guy named Perry Marshall whose writing I enjoy. Several months ago he stated that the promotional materials that typically emanates from totalitarian states-past and present- hardly differs in bombast from the promotional materials/drivel marketing departments of U.S. Corporations churn out every day. I had been thinking this for years but he beat me to the punch.
I understand an organization wants and needs to present themselves in a most favorable manner to their customers, potential customers and the investment community. One can tell a very nice narrative of an organizations history as well as their present and future directives without sounding like some cement-head from The World Wrestling Federation.
Can we just, for openers, put an immediate moratorium on the usage of the adjective phrase “the leading”?
Any study of the truly great people who’ve walked among us and before us reveals they didn’t spend a helluva lot of time wordsmithing their press releases.
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