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Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Ever Eat Too Much Chocolate?
Jul 28 2009 12:29PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (3) |
Blog This! using: Blogger.com | LiveJournal |
By Rick Heaston
I’ve been doing a lot of watching and listening lately and it caused me to think of a story Paul Arden wrote in his book, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be.
Paul is in advertising and talks about creative presentations agencies often make to their clients. One story in particular caught my eye.
In this case, Paul discussed what it must be like to be on the "receiving end" of these creative circuses. In other words, what are all of these presentations like from the customer’s point of view? Here’s how Paul's story goes:
Assuming it’s a fairly large account, companies looking for a creative services agency will probably schedule at least one major "pitch" each day for a week. By the end of the five days, their thinking will go something like this.
Monday – great meeting, great work, nice person
Tuesday – great meeting, great people, nice work
Wednesday – good meeting, very fresh work, lovely people
Thursday - yet another great meeting, nice people, fine work
Friday – ahhh, another meeting, who knows
Odds are, Arden surmises, this client will probably choose the Tuesday presentation. Not for any good reason, just because that on Monday it was too soon to decide, Tuesday they still had a clear head and something to compare to, Wednesday and Thursday was like eating too much chocolate … and Friday they felt too sick to want to decide anything.
Notice and similarities in Arden’s story and a customer shopping for a new home? Quite a few, I’d say. But maybe the biggest difference is that you can multiply a home shopper's confusion by two, to three, to four times.
Experiencing so many presentations, demonstrations and trial closes is like eating too much chocolate. It tastes good (emotion) when it first goes down, but sure doesn't make sense later as you try to sort things out (intellect). All of a sudden, everything begins to "taste" the same.
The answer to too much "chocolate"? Simple. If everyone else is serving chocolate … serve something else. They'll remember you if you do!
Reader Comments
at 8/3/2009 8:29:34 PM, Purple Cow said:
Your point is valid. If everyone is serving chocolate, it all seems the same. However, there are several different types of chocolate, and numerous ways to serve it. Today, people are afraid of making the wrong decision almost as much as they used to fear making the decision itself. Being too different may also cause some to avoid you. I would recommend following your opening lines... Get out to see your competition. Find out not only what chocolate they are serving, but how they are serving it. Then, you can see if you need to serve something else, or simply improve on the presentation. Think of it as them setting chocolate out on a plate. You may have the same chocolate but simply wrapping it individually and presenting it to them (the customer) may be enough to make you the purple cow.
at 8/6/2009 6:04:34 AM, FCBuilder said:
Been there, done that. Built a house in a neighborhood a couple of years ago, when this whole slump started. Everyone was putting the "builder's tan" siding on their houses. We opted to stand out with a "dark moss" siding. Beautiful. People loved it! One problem, they were scared of the house. Why? The potential for re-sale. What if they got stuck with the house? We did just that. It just didn't work.
at 8/6/2009 9:10:47 AM, OHBuilder said:
The different flavor isn't the house... it's you!
Purple, pink or green siding shouldn't make the sale. If it does, then you're not selling - you're taking an order.
Listen, what Rick's saying here is that we all build houses (some with tan siding - some with green)... they're not THAT different. What needs to be different is our approach with our buyers. Our salespeople and their approach have to be MEMORABLE.
If they're not, we wind up competing solely on price and we all lose.
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