Come On! Are They Really Serious? -- Small Businesses Discussion Forum

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Subject: Come On! Are They Really Serious?

Author:
Dennis S. Vogel

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Date Posted: 23:18:54 03/29/13 Fri
In reply to: Dennis S. Vogel 's message, "They Can't Really Mean That, Can They?" on 22:46:23 01/30/13 Wed

OK, so they probably, really are serious, they're just not realistic.

Real (serious) marketing involves understanding people & helping them understand their situations & options better. Miscommunication is too common. Below I've used some serious examples & a bit of (what I call) "humor".

If you miss a sale today because of a misunderstanding, you may miss your chance to serve some customers in the future too.

It wouldn't be just your loss. If you offer what people want & they don't/can't get that same value from anybody, they lose too.

Highly Effective Marketing
From The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey with my comments:

Habit 3: Put First Things First
You should determine what people (in your market niche) prioritize highly & do your best to track changes. This also includes the problems they have & results they want (their jobs-to-be-done in Clayton M. Christensen's parlance).

Habit 4: Think Win-Win
You should develop ways to help people get what they want/need to fulfill their priorities. Zig Ziglar said we can get what we want in our lives as long as we help enough people get what they want in their lives.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then To Be Understood
According to George Santayana, "All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous & wrong, or deny to be possible."

You should keep developing & expanding your understanding of your market niche so you can help people understand how to get what they need & why they need those things. If they realize they can solve a problem, they might stop denying the problem is real.

For ultimate success, it's imperative to help customers realize what their needs are & help them to accept the best solutions they can get.

Sometimes, it's a relief just to be understood & get a diagnosis. An unknown problem tends to seem worse than something we can identify. Showing you understand people & helping them identify problems is literally an act of mercy.

When people know you understand & sincerely care about them, they can feel better & start to cope instead of being in denial.

Denial is a psychological pain reliever (not a pain killer). Too often people seem to become addicted to denial instead of finding solutions.

Helping your market niche understand problems & possible solutions includes using words & grammatical syntax they're familiar with.

Yet, establishing & sustaining credibility may require a little higher level of vocabulary & grammar.

Jeff Foxworthy cited the importance of talking like people expect, not necessarily like they talk. Example - Even a redneck may lose faith in a surgeon who says (imagine this with a stereotypical deep South accent), "Now I ain't tellin' ya it ain't gonna hurt ya none. But I's {pronounced like eyes} fixin' to make ya feel better then ya could ever imagine."

Talk/Write To People Not At Them
Communicating with people is what normal people do when they communicate in personal ways. Communicating AT people is what people do too often in public statements.

This kind of message is sent AT people: "XYZ is proud to be a neighborhood store & we continuously strive to be a positive part of the neighborhoods we serve. We look forward to working with this community to create a store we can all be proud of."

Did this dull, generic "statement" (paragraph above) communicate anything worthwhile? It's just a fill-in-the-blank bunch of trash. I almost overlooked in an article until I realized, this stale stuff fits what I'm writing about.

If I'd replace XYZ with almost any retailer name, would it be meaningful or still as meaningless? If I replaced "store" with any other kind of business & put in any business name, would it express anything that would differentiate it from any other business?

Do Search Engines Ever Need Repairs?
I know it's frustrating to use search engines that find a lot of stuff (what you don't want) but little substance (what you want to find). Search engines can only find what's available. Though sometimes, I wonder if what's found really is available.

Sometimes, it seems I can type anything into a search bar then get an offer for it. Example - Dead Simple on XYZ - Find Dead Simple for less. XYZ - it's where you go to save.

This is a disguised text ad that appeared with search results. If somebody would click on it, would XYZ (whoever the advertiser is) be charged a per click fee (pay per click [PPC]).

I advise you to be careful about what you agree to pay for.

Why would anybody search for "drop dead simple"?

I heard "drop dead simple" in advertising for healthy nutrition product. I checked for other marketing attempts using "drop dead simple" & found some. There are probably more than these.

Examples -
"What if I told you there was a drop-dead simple way to support health as you lose weight? Is that something you might be interested in?"
"There is indeed a drop-dead simple way to help support exactly that."
"makes the choice to try their drop dead simple products"
"I'm dead serious!"
"the first week was dead simple"
"best of all� our drop-dead SIMPLE gut-cleansing trick"

Trick? How's that for a compelling thought? It seems like a trick to avoid.

Seriously, do these claims inspire your confidence?

It seems anything that improves health should delay "drop dead", otherwise why bother?
The general benefit of these products is supposedly better health like in these claims -
"decreased total cholesterol & blood sugar levels dropped from an unhealthy fasting blood level"
"dietary supplements to help people live better, fitter, healthier lives"

Of course, another overused word in advertising (even for health products) is "killer".

It's all hype. The claims may be accurate, but hyperbole decreases credibility.

Solid Trust Can Become Crumbling Rust
If you desperately try to gain trust, you may get the opposite. You may lose people's trust & any chance you had to persuade people. If I'm lying, I'm dying. If I'm lying, may lightning hit me on this spot, so help me ...
Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z ZAP
See what I mean?

Even if something is totally accurate, if (sales copy) claims describe anything that seems too easy, fast, strong, etc. it could be too hard to believe (seem too good to be true).

Would any drop dead claims seem to promote health?

It reminds me of a Saturday Night Live segment from decades ago, "With a name like 'Fluckers', it has to be good."
If it's drop-dead simple, it's has to be good for you!? Huh?

Dennis S. Vogel
thrivingbusiness@email.com
Successfully serving customers is helping
people includes increasing their understanding &
raising their comfort levels.
Learn how to help your market niche.
Please click here for free information.
http://www.lakefield.net/~thrivingbusiness/

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Yes! They ARE Serious, But WHY?!	Dennis S. Vogel	23:38:58 05/31/13 Fri