Great marketing is rarely about the product or service.
It’s typically more about the hope the product or service holds.
You or your company must be believed in before your product or service will find acceptance.
Telling the marketplace what you believe is probably more beneficial than promoting your world’s greatest widget.
We buy people and companies – not products and services.
Back in the day (not long ago), art wasn’t blessed within the lines of commerce.
We just wanted the news and maybe The Late Show.
We just wanted a pair of shoes.
We just wanted a hotel for the night.
We just wanted a cup of coffee.
No room for art here in these wants.
But that was then and this is now.
We just wanted a pizza when that is all Dominoes offered. Now enter Cane Rosso to open pandoras box on what you thought a pizza was. You didn’t know you wanted art with your pizza did you?
We just wanted to make mobile calls when that is all Motorola offered. Now enter Steve Jobs and with his cronies looking to bring sexy back with your phone. You didn’t know wanted fashion and art with your phone did you?
We just wanted to take a picture, but Instagram knew we wanted to make art. You din’t know you could be or wanted to be an artist did you?
Look at who is gaining market share and you’re going to find a bunch of artist, modern day hippies, ex-hippies, and so called “randoms” shaking things up and changing the world.
Intro to Art, in my opinion, is just as necessary as Intro to Business in your career development.
The anthem in our business is that we seek to be value focused – which will achieve results – instead of being results focused and hoping to add value.
So your idea, product, or service isn’t selling?
Chances are the market’s perceived value of what you are offering is less than the price you are asking or charging.
The market never stops asking “where’s your value?” Check yourself.
One of the bedrock rules of kindergarten is back: share.
Your social media platform will not succeed without sharing.
Your mentorship with a young lad is contingent on the sharing of your hard knock knowledge.
Your business will thrive with the information it shares.
Share. Then share some more.
Rest assured, you will get more than you give.
Alas, in this brave new world you are what you share.
No matter the transaction, the service, or the product – when you leave the customer asking “How did they do that???” – you win.
Zappos calls this “wowing” your customer. Wow is now a verb.
You win because astonishment is sharable. We can’t keep astonishing things to ourselves. So we share how you “wow’d” us and the people who hear the story come to you at some point to see it for themselves.
Secondly, you win because they come back for another wow at some point. AND, Sale #2 is a much easier credit card swipe for them than sale #1. “Swipe. Now wow me again, please.”
Examples of leaving the customer asking how….
The problem here is if they can find out how you do what you do they may:
A) Find a way to do it themselves.
B) Go find someone, not you, to do it cheaper.
This is highly unlikely if your wow is off the charts though.
In summary, just to be safe, don’t let your “wow” cat out of the box.
PS – Here’s a secret. Loving your neighbor (customer) like yourself wow’s 99.9% of the time. I’m not asking you to reinvent the wheel. I’m simply asking you be human.
#LTMP
Ashton.Gustafson 