Marketing Comet - Small Business Marketing Secrets

What Jury Duty Can Teach You About Small Business Marketing - The Negative Lessons

For the second time in my life I got the notice to appear for jury duty, and it's a good thing the jury duty people in Massachusetts aren't in charge of anybody's marketing.

I actually don't mind jury duty - I served on a jury a few years back and found the experience enlightening. I know a lot of people that try to get out of jury duty, but I would only seek to get disqualified under legitimate reasons.

So I get the card in the mail saying I have jury duty. In Massachusetts they have the one day or one trial system. That means I go for a day if I don't get put on a jury or, if I make it on a jury, I serve for the duration of the trial. I have no idea how long it's going to take so I make my schedule as flexible as possible around that time. It's a pretty big inconvenience, but it's my civic duty.

Now there's a form I have to fill out, and I have only ten days to do it or they can chuck me in jail. Thank goodness I didn't get the notice at the beginning of a two-week vacation. I am expected to parse through this booklet looking for reasons why I might be disqualified to serve on a jury. They're making me work to do my civic duty.

I send that thing in and I get another notice in the mail. I have been put on standby and I have to call on a specific date and time to find out if I actually need to show up. That makes me feel wanted. Oh yeah - there's yet another form I have to fill out and remember to bring with me should I have to show up to the courthouse.

I understand the process of jury selection can be very difficult, but if the system wants more people to do their civic duty shouldn't they make it easier?

In marketing, unless you are selling unique products with a very limited customer base, you should make it as easy as possible to buy. Don't make people work. By the way, most people consider thinking work. We like shortcuts, and we like things to be easy. We want to buy, but not if it's work.

Look at the sticking points in your selling process. What can you do to make it easier for your customers to do business with you?

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

Oprah, The Trouble With James Frey, And Small Business Branding

If you aren't living in a cave in Afghanistan you undoubtedly have seen the news about Oprah and the author of A Million Little Pieces, James Frey. Oprah recommended the memoir as part of her book club. Later it came out that much of the book was fabricated. Oprah has recently called James Frey to task face to face on TV.

So what's the big deal?

Oprah is not only a person, but Oprah is a brand. Her brand is worth somewhere in the range of a billion dollars. Anything that carries the name Oprah on it influences millions of people worldwide.

When Oprah's name appears on a magazine,or a book she's lending her name,  worth a billion dollars. If it turns out that something she puts her name on is not up to par - it can tarnish the trust people have in that brand. It can effect people's decision to buy Oprah branded products later.

Truly Oprah's recent on-air confrontation with James Frey might be referred to as "damage control". After Oprah defended Frey on the phone live on the Larry King show, the grits hit the fan. I'm sure the people that advise her knew that she was at risk of losing people who lost faith in her book recommendations.

I personally believe that Oprah's confrontation and direct handling of this will build even more trust with those that already love her. I have written before about confirmation bias. People will look at evidence that confirms their beliefs as being more valid.

Right now  Oprah.com has information about the James Frey controversy front and center. This is a good strategy. Put it out front and deal with it head on - most people trust that.

You brand is about two things. 1. The explicit and implicit promises you make to your customers. 2. The assumptions your customers make about you. If people assume that you are untrustworthy - they are not going to do business with you.

Branding is not just some high-concept fluffery that consultants get to charge millions of dollars for. Branding is very important and, when done well, operates at the very core of people's psychology. It's about creating associations in people's minds that make them want to buy from you.

Last year Procter & Gamble bought Gillette for $57 billion dollars becoming the largest manufacturer of household goods in the world. Did Procter & Gamble buy Gillette because they couldn't figure out how to make razors? No. They did it because the combined companies control over 22 brands that generate over a billion dollars a year, as well as many smaller brands.

P&G now controls Tide, Pampers, Duracell, Gillette razors and lots of stuff people worldwide use every day. Their business is not making stuff. Their business is creating, positioning, and profiting from brands. They are a branding machine like no other on Earth.

As a small business owner, it may seem that Oprah and P&G are so big they have nothing to do with you. However, you can learn valuable branding lessons from both.

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

Quirks Can Work In Small Business Marketing

15 years ago while traveling I went into a bookstore and found they had a very large white rabbit hopping about free in the store. No, I do not do drugs, nor was I hallucinating. The big bunny was the store mascot.

I remember the place to this day, and if I ever visit that town again I'll look up the bookstore to see if they still have a rabbit there. Why do I remember this particular bookstore after 15 years, because seeing a  bunny in a bookstore was unusual.

Let me lay down some brain science on you. Have you ever been in a restaurant full of people talking when somebody happened to say your name? Whether or not they were talking about you, or somebody else with your name, you probably tuned right into their conversation. Previously to that their conversation probably was faded into the background noise.

Believe it or not, your unconscious mind was scanning every single one of the millions of stimuli coming into your brain every second. Your conscious mind cannot possibly track everything. In fact, you can only hold about 7-9 pieces of data in your conscious mind at any given time.

So what happened when that person spoke your name? Well, a part of your brain called the reticular activating system triggered your conscious mind and said - here's something important that you need to pay attention to. The reticular activating system is the part of your brain that wakes you up. In caveman days it would make us perk up when a pattern of shapes moving through the woods might be a saber-toothed tiger.

Unusual stimulus trigger the reticular activating system, because our unconscious mind perceives that it unusual stuff may be a threat.

One day I was driving through Boston when I saw a clown smoking a cigarette in front of a four star hotel. Instantly my attention was pulled to this very unusual sight. Fortunately I didn't crash the car.

Unusual stimulus is also more likely to be remembered. Why? Because you are paying attention to it. Most memory problems can be attributed to a lack of focus. If you are thinking of four or five disparate things when you put your keys down, you may have a hard time finding them later.

How does this relate to small business marketing? If you want people to pay attention to you or your marketing, you have to present them with something that's not dull. You have to present a novel stimulus.

Here's a warning: being strange without a purpose can hinder your marketing results. A lot of local businesses I speak to want to do quirky, high-concept ads like big ad agencies do. Unfortunately these ads don't work well for big companies, and less so for small business.

The reason why big companies can continue to do high-concept ads is because they have hundreds of millions of dollars to repeat the ads over and over again. They build brand recognition on a very expensive and difficult path. Many good companies have gone out of business on this path.

Remember the ads for Superglue that had a construction worker dangling from a hard-hat glued to an I-beam. It was quirky and novel, but it also demonstrated the strength of the glue.

Not every business can benefit from going funky. Funeral homes and personal injury attorneys come to mind.

What's unusual about you or your business that will make a meaningful difference and bump the old reticular activating system into gear.

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

Telling It LIke It Is - Naked Truth As A Novel Marketing Concept

Seth Godin wrote a book called "All marketers are liars". Ouch - sometimes we marketers get a reputation as snake-oil salesmen. You know -  the guys that will "bend" the the truth to sell anything.

There's a new trend in marketing called "stealth marketing" which is a new way of saying you hide who the message comes from. The Blair Witch Project was an astounding success with stealth marketing. Before the movie came out there were fake bulletin board posts and web sites talking about the fake legend the movie is based on. It built buzz and people didn't seem to mind being duped a little in the name of entertainment.

People seem to be getting sick of being fooled. In this post on Adrants they out a stealth marketing campaign, and point to study by BuzzAgent that people are starting to hate this stuff. BuzzAgent itself used to do a lot of stealth marketing disguised as consumer praise.

As shocking as they might be, I'm a big fan of Axe body-spray ads. While it is clear hyperbole that you spray the stuff on and women from a 10 block radius attack you, the ad recognizes what the consumer wants an puts it out front. If you are a straight guy cologne, body spray, etc. is for attracting women. For the Axe target market, males in the 21-30 year old range, it's all they think about. (Trust me, I was that young and single once)

There is recent crop of Nutrisystem weight loss commercials out for men. I say brilliant, since most every other weight loss system is geared towards women. The ads feature testimonials from a number of guys several of which make comments like, "my sex life has been incredible since I lost all the weight." Again - go for what the target audience wants. In general women want to look great and fit into that dress. For men, it's all about being attractive, powerful, and having a great sex life.

As long as the product or service delivers - put it up front. Don't hide the benefits people care about. Don't hide who you are.

This is my problem with the majority of multi-level marketing systems out there. They don't tell you about who they are or what they do up front. Many of them sell crappy products that you don't want, so they don't talk about the products. They all try to rook you in by telling you can retire on residual income in 7 years without saying what you have to do. They delay giving you details as long as possible. Yes there are a few great MLM businesses out there with fantastic products, but most of them are snake oil.

If you're like the majority of people, marketing that's authentic, clear, and up-front. I like to call this translucent marketing. Sure, you are going to put your best foot forward, but you're also going to help educate your customers so they know buying from you is the best possible choice. If you're a mom and pop operation - that's fine. Don't try to look like WalMart in your marketing.

You can make advertising look like editorial, but it should be clear to a customer that it is advertising. People who feel duped are not in a buying mood.

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

How To Write Your Positioning Statement

Positioning is another one of those fluffy marketing words that many people don't get. This is unfortunate because it's an important concept.

Positioning is the activity of describing and promoting your unique place in the market. Your position is composed of what you do, who you do it for, and what makes you unique.

Think about the soap market. You've got Dove (the most popular brand in the world), Irish Spring, Ivory. Dove's position is that it is THE soap that is 1/4 moisturizers, so it makes people's (mostly women's) skin softer. Irish Spring is a strong deodorant soap that makes you fresh as an Irish stream and is mostly used by men. Ivory's brand is about purity and its position is that it is 99% pure, and a bit old-fashioned.

Your positioning statement is part of your branding. It's like a mission statement and acts like a blueprint that you use to inform your activities. It guides who you serve, how you serve them, and what makes you different and desirable. If you can't articulate a clear positioning statement, you'll have trouble getting through to your customers.

This is not to say that your positioning statement has to be public knowledge. Again it's a blueprint for your marketing activities. It describes the impression you want to make on your customers.

I have been hesitant to write about positioning statements before because I haven't found a really good model that works for everybody. While a positioning statement may be very simple, cutting to the essential core of your position can be difficult.

I found an article here that outlines a good process for working on your positioning statement.

The model is:

For (target market) (brand name)  is the ( product/service description) that (benefit) because it has (reason why.)

I guess I like his model because it pretty closely matches my own positioning statement:

I help small businesses who are frustrated with their marketing results rapidly double or triple their profits

so you have:

[brand name] I [ target market] small businesses frustrated with their marketing results [benefit] rapidly double or triple their marketing results.

OK, so I'm missing a couple components in this model. My positioning statement is scaled back so that I can deliver it verbatim as an elevator pitch. I do know what my services are, and have proof to back up my claims if I need it.

A good exercise is to run familiar brands, products, or companies through this model. Let's do Dove Soap:

For American women aged 25-45 (I don't know if this is their actual target age, I'm just guessing) Dove is the soap that softens skin because it has 1/4 moisturizing lotion.

Have some fun with this, try to make up positioning statements for companies you know.

Your own positioning statement may be more than a single sentence. You may have several target markets, several key benefits, and lots of reasons why. If you provide several products or services to multiple markets each one may have its own positioning statement.

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

Powerful Marketing Text Is Easy To Read

If you want a piece of marketing to work, you probably want people to understand it. If they don't understand your ad, your commercial, or your business card  - you're throwing your money away.

Microsoft Word has an amazing tool that allows you to check the readability of something you've written. I wish more people would learn how to use it. If you find it, it includes two figures such as flesch reading ease and flesch-kincaid grade-level. The tool also tells you the percentage of passive sentences. I'll explain the readability tool in this post.

One of the things I do a lot for my clients is rewrite their text. I rewrite web advertising, print, and direct mail pieces. Most of my clients have great ideas, but have trouble putting them into compelling text.

In general, compelling text is short, active, punchy, and understandable. This doesn't mean dumbed-down. However, marketing communication is not the place to impress people with your vocabulary. Unless you know you are marketing to PhD.s in English literature - keep it real.

If your marketing text is full of words like obsequious, ubiquitous, aromatic, malapropism, etc. - you are losing people.

So how do these reading scales in word work? They are based on a number of factors such as average paragraph length, word length, and number of letters per word. Basically short words, sort sentences, and short paragraphs usually equal easier reading.

The number to pay attention to in is the flesch-kincaid grade level. This roughly equates to grade levels in American schools. So a 13 should be understandable by a Junior in college. The problem is that even most educated people have lower reading levels. A good level to shoot for is around 8.

Winston Churchill is known for the persuasive speeches that helped England through World War II. I have read that his speeches rate at a 5 or 6 grade level. Nobody calls Winston a dummy.

Compare:

"War is hell." - Winston Churchill

to

"There are many horrors in the combat in which we are now engaged." - I just made that up.

Clearly Winston's three word sentence is direct and compelling. You get exactly what he means. The crappy second sentence kind of meanders around the point.

Passive voice weakens your text. You want to get this percentage as close to zero as possible.

Compare:

"The dog ate the food"

to

"The food was eaten by the dog"

Yuck, the second example almost doesn't make sense. Passive voice is weak and confusing. Avoid it like the plague when you write.

I once spoke to a court translator who told me that people who are lying almost always use passive voice. Instead of saying, "I broke the lamp," they might say, "the lamp was broken." He would have the judge force the person to use active voice full sentences which translate better.

For some reason, many marketers like to bury their benefits. They write long paragraphs that beat around the bush. Why? If your new pill will cure baldness, tell me up front I will attract more women.

By the way - this post has a flesch-kincaid grade level of 6.

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

How Important Is Your Headline?

Question - Why have newspapers used headlines for hundreds of years? Answer - because they help sell newspapers. Naturally headlines are tools that are designed to build interest.

Look at this headline from the AP today:

Terrorists 'invited to dinner' died in airstrike

Now, imagine the headline said something like:

Conditions under which airstrike conducted

Blaaah! Yuck - uninteresting. I probably wouldn't click unless i was already interested in reading a story on the airstrike in Pakistan.

Headlines work the same way in advertising, be it print, direct mail, email, web, television, radio whatever. Of course in radio and TV there's no real analog for the headline. As a rule of thumb we'll say that in radio and TV the headline equates to the first three seconds of the spot.

How may TV spots do you see every day with a weak opening? A lot. Of course these ads get more people to go to the fridge for a snack then they do to pay attention.

So the job of the headlines to get you interested in the rest of the piece - whether it's a magazine article, or a web ad. If you can't get people to give up their time and attention on your ad, then you're not going to sell them anything.

"The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising ."
David Ogilvy

David Ogilvy is one of the most influential ad men in history. His ads built empires. If you want to learn about good advertising - study Ogilvy.

So just how important is a good headline? Well I have spoken to several direct marketing people about this very subject. They test everything, and have told me that sometimes just changing a word or two in a headline can increase response rate 18 or 20 times. That has pretty powerful for us in the small business world.

Who wouldn't kill to increase the response rate to their advertising by just 10-25% let alone 1800-2000%?

So your next question is probably, "what makes a good headline?" The answer may be simple, but the execution can be difficult. Good headlines capture the reader's attention and make them want to pay attention to the rest of the ad.

There are tons of formulas out there for writing powerful and effective headlines. The problem with formulas is that they may work in some situations and not others. Headlines have to be considered in scope of the entire ad and with the target market. I believe that many people make the mistake of seeing a  good headline and basically copying it inappropriately.

I might scratch my eyes out the next time I see a headline that reads, "Who else wants ...?" or "they all laughed when I ... but then I ...". This is just lazy copywriting, and there's a lot of it. The problem is that people get desensitized about the 100th time they read the same headline with a couple of words changed.

Another losing headline strategy is to use hyperbole to the point that it taints the rest of your ad. If your headline reads like SPAM mail - forget it! "You'll get $4,973,146 working just six hours a week." Yuck!

So what are some good things to keep in mind when writing a headline?

• You can use a headline to get attention from your target market: Attention left-handed golfers...
• You can put a compelling promise out front: End The Agony Of ...
• You can relay some compelling news: Our new ...
• You can begin to tell a compelling story: Last month I was nearly homeless and then...

There's a lot of argument about a good headline length. I don't see any evidence for a hard and fast rule. I have read great 3 word headlines and 100 word, multi-sentence headlines. If the headline does it's job well, who really cares?

Look at the opening lines of the letters you write, or your web site, or the subject line of your email. Does it make people want to read the rest of your message? If not, go back to work!

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

Dynamic Pricing - Microeconomic Friend or Foe?

Did you know that when you buy stuff from a retailer, there may be other people who get a better price than you? Sure you did. You know that theaters and airlines offer discounts to seniors and children. You know that if you go to Mexico you have to haggle for the best price on that bracelet for Aunt June.

In microeconomic terms we call this phenomenon dynamic pricing. It also sometimes goes by the name discriminatory pricing. The word "discriminatory" here isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just a technical description of the phenomenon.

Dynamic pricing is used to maximize profit by selling the most number of things to the widest group of people at the highest possible price.

Let's pretend you own a theater with 200 seats. For the sake of this example we'll assume that it costs you the same thing to run a film no matter how many seats you sell. What do you charge for admission - let's look at some ways to figure this out:

• At $10 per ticket you know you can fill half the theater. You also know that $10 is a bit steep for most students and seniors. At $10 only 10% of your audience is comprised of students and seniors. Your gross revenue is $1000.
• You institute a $5 student and senior ticket rate. Now, you fill the theater to capacity and 55% of your tickets go at the discount price. Your gross revenue is now $1450.

This is a very simplistic example of discriminatory pricing, but you get the idea. Generally you create a pricing situation that attracts the most amount of customers.

In my opinion, there are some dangerous ways to do dynamic pricing. Amazon tried this a few years back with DVD sales. They assumed (probably correctly) that frequent purchasers were less likely to shop around before making a purchase. If you bought a lot of stuff from Amazon, they actually started charging you more.

The problem is, they got caught. People comparing prices on a message board found that they had payed a dollar or two more per DVD then new shoppers to Amazon. They raised a bit of a stink and Amazon stopped the policy.

In my opinion Amazon went wrong because they penalized their best customers, and they assumed they wouldn't get caught and generate consumer resentment. In the cooperative era of the web, you have to be very careful.

If Amazon had instituted a "frequent buyer discount" and openly advertised it - I don't think anybody would have had a problem with it. In fact this is a pretty common model of dynamic pricing.

Sometimes online companies use dynamic pricing randomly to do price testing. The first visitor to their web site gets offered a DVD at $21.99 the next at $22.99. They test to find a good price point for their products. Again, this can be a problem when customers compare notes.

To use dynamic pricing well,  I believe you need a few things:

• You need an identifiable customer segment (seniors, students, frequent customers).
• You need to justify your pricing. Nobody would argue with a new customer discount, a senior discount, or even a guy named Bob discount. It just has to make sense to your customers to prevent resentment.
• You need to prevent resale. You don't want a senior buying 20 tickets and then scalping them outside your theater.

Many businesses have successfully implemented a discount buying club. Customers pay an upfront fee and enjoy a membership discount. Sam's Clubs, BJ's and Costco are exactly that.

A local Harley Davidson dealer ran a $100 membership that gave people a 25% discount on clothing and accessories. They only sold 1000 memberships (so a $100,000 upfront fee). And I'm guessing that the discount probably served to get the people who belonged to increase what they bought over the next year. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing the dealer made out well.

Another way to make dynamic pricing work is with tie-in sales. If you are selling copiers, you might offer a discount on the hardware when people purchase a four-year service plan. If you own a movie theater, you might offer a "buy 5 full-price tickets get one free" sale. Certainly lots of businesses create packages that are less expensive than buying each item separately.

For most small businesses, pricing is an aspect of their marketing strategy that receives less planning than it should. People are price conscious, but not necessarily looking for the least expensive option.

To benefit from this, look to ways that you can use pricing to entice new customers, keep old customers, and encourage people to buy more frequently.

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

Small Business Marketing And Con Artists

There's a principle that con artists use that can apply well to small business marketing. No, I am not suggesting that you fool or rip-off your customers. The most skillful con artists use manipulation to make you think that you came up with the idea to hand them your money.

I personally had the displeasure once of speaking with someone who I consider one of the most successful con artists in the world. This guy has made countless millions and only gone to jail once for bank and wire fraud.

His biggest skill is making you feel comfortable while he lies to you. If you are comfortable with someone you will assume you can trust them. His modus operandi is also to play on basic human emotions like pride, greed, or the need for security. When he spoke to me, he used information he had gathered to make it seem like he was someone else. While my red-flag detectors went off the second I started speaking with the guy, and undoubtedly many people will detect his BS, tens of thousands of people have fallen for his schemes.

Here's the applicable Marketing Comet Principle: You may not believe what I say, but you will always believe what you assume to be true.

I can tell you that I am the greatest marketer in the world, that every client I touch multiplies their profits at least 10 times. I can also tell you that I can do the same thing for you. You may or may not believe me depending on what you already know about me, the context, and the proof I offer up. but it may be an uphill battle to convince you that what I am saying is true.

If you don't know me, it's going to take time for me to build the kind of perception in you that would convince you to hire me as your marketing coach. Here's a secret: that's part of the reason I write this blog. This blog is an amazing tool to let you know who I am, and hopefully impress you with nuggets of marketing wisdom. If you read this regularly I hope that you assume that I know some great ways to market your business that can kick your profits into overdrive.

Branding is all about building assumptions. It's no accident that Starbucks uses the colors of decor, the music, the logos, the Italian sizes of coffee. It's no accident that they call the coffee guy a barrista. In order to command the premium prices they ask for coffee they have to create a set of assumptions so that we think the coffee is worth it.

People make buying decisions based on emotions. Arguably, there is no stronger human emotional tie than our connection to our own beliefs. Our entire model of the universe, who we are as people, and our identity comes from what we hold to be true. Challenges to our beliefs are perceived as threats. Every war in human history has the component of a conflict in belief systems as a root cause.

Psychology has identified a phenomenon known as "confirmation bias". This bias means that we humans place greater weight on evidence that confirms what we already believe, and that we tend to discount evidence that conflicts what we already believe. If Starbucks has done its branding job correctly, and somebody tells me that their coffee is too expensive, I may actually argue with them.

One of the main jobs of your branding is to build the right assumptions with your clients. Literally everything you do that touches the customer plays into this. The old aphorism "you never get a second chance to make a first impression" really rings true. Fair or not, people make snap judgments about your business based on first impressions.

Here are a few things you can do to set up good assumptions about your business:

1. Train whoever answers your phone to be extremely professional.
2. Get a well designed and well thought-out business identity, and replicate it across your web site, business cards, letterhead, and signage
3. Pay special attention to your web site. This may be the first or only contact people have with your business.
4. Have a clean, well-lit, attractive storefront, office, or waiting area. Your facade must also reflect the impression you want to build.
5. Spell-check your email.
6. Work on your elevator pitch.

I highly suggest you regularly take a look at everything you do that contacts the public. Always be honest.

Remember that assumptions work both ways, and getting a customer back that you've lost is usually going to be harder than getting them in the first place.

J D Moore - Marketing Comet

How Not To Do Sales And Marketing - Lessons From Telemarketers

Once in a while a telemarketer ignores the fact that I'm on the "Do Not Call" list and rings me anyway. I relish these moments. Sometimes I'll try to sell them something. I will talk to them ... at least for a while. I realize that most telemarketers are just trying to make a living and, while I won't buy anything from a telemarketer, I won't be rude to them.

Instead, I try to learn from them. I pay attention to what they do that is extremely annoying. You might call it learning the negative lesson.

Here are a few things I've learned:

No telemarketer ever has anything I want or need
This may be because anything with real demand potential doesn't need high pressure sales tactics to get you to buy. Instead of finding out what a market genuinely needs, they randomly call a bunch of numbers and try to force me to believe that I need what they are offering.

If you're like me, when a sales situation like this happens, you feel instant resistance.

I don't trust people I don't know, and I don't buy from people I don't trust
When some stranger offers to sell you a TV off the back of a truck for $25, smart money says he's going to rip you off or that the TV is stolen. When a telemarketer calls you with an offer that's too good to pass up, or a free trial, or a survey - I'm betting you feel a strange tightness in your chest or stomach.

Again - this is resistance. If you pay attention to your own physiology, you can actually physically feel resistance. Usually in the muscles of your stomach or chest tighten or you feel a strange energy there. This is actually a precursor to the flight or fight response. Your brain senses danger and sets off some processes that your body responds to.

I hate to be interrupted
I don't care if I'm only sitting in my office staring at the wall, if the phone rings it had better be important, interesting, or someone I love. To intrude upon my day, take up my time, and then force feed me a poorly written and executed sales pitch - you'll have better luck selling ice cubes in Antarctica.

Everybody is so busy today. When you make business calls, even if they are expected it's always best to ask first, "is this a good time to talk?" If they say no, simply ask, "when would you like me to call back?" When you call back then ask, "is this still a good time for us to talk?" People will appreciate your respect of their time. You might even tell them, "I need to speak to you for about 10 minutes" and then ask if it's OK.

Sometimes people you call will feel anxiety because they don't have time to talk, but due to social discomfort won't get off the phone with you. They won't be paying very close attention, because all they can think about is when they can get off the phone. This isn't a good state to have people in when you want to conduct any type of business.

The "spray and pray" sales method doesn't work
the last telemarketer that called me asked for me by name and, after I confirmed who I was, talked at me for the next 5 minutes. It felt like 5 hours. She fired off every feature and benefit of the thing she was selling, never once checking in with me to see if I was still even on the phone. When she was done he simply said, I just want to send this to you for a 30 day free trial OK? Nope.

I know she's not a very skilled sales person, or she'd be doing something different. I know they have given her a script that they probably paid some consultant to write. Probably a lot of people say OK because it's a free trial and they just want to get her off the phone. Of course they will get billed $150 after 30 days.

One on one sales is always a conversation. Good marketing communication approaches a conversation as closely as possible. There may be situations where people expect scripted, dry, bland, lists of things. I'm imagining technical journals, maybe. In general, people don't like to feel bullied or tricked into buying. They like to feel like the idea comes from them.

The positive lessons:
If you flip around the negative lessons here, we should get some criteria for good sales and marketing communications. You should be able to come up with some great positive lessons, here are some that I got:

1. Find and fill a real need for your market
2. Allow people to get to know you and your company, familiarity builds trust. Build networks of evangelists who market your business to their friends.
3. Use non-disruptive marketing tactics whenever possible. Allow people to access your marketing and sales messages on their terms.
4. Make your marketing and sales communications as conversational as possible. Involve your customers in dialog as much as possible. Encourage feedback.

Look for marketing or sales situations that set off your flight or fight response and analyze them for the negative lessons. Turn the negative lessons around and you'll have a very inexpensive education in sales and marketing that works.

J D Moore - Marketing Comet