People are selfish. If you want to move product and have a successful career in sales and/or marketing of any time you have to understand this basic human trait. They don’t give a damn about your product or you. You could keel over and they’d keep walking. May sound harsh but this is the business environment that we are in. Your customers are not going to come to you on their own, they must enticed and given great reasons for coming to you and using your product or service.
People are sick of ads and salesmen. Sales has a PR problem there is no doubt about that. And with amount of spam, click bait, and shoddy products that are being hawked this is only growing. People are exposed to more advertisements before than any time in the past. To stand out in today’s world you have to do things differently then they were done in the past. Spamming your name will do you no good, you must offer value and genuinely help people. With the internet word spreads fast about cheats and hucksters, this is a good thing for a businessman like you. However understand that when people come to your ad they are going to be wary to say the least.
Because Of You, People Think More Of Me
You have to give your customers a good reason to come to you. You must appeal to their needs, wants, and desires. Things like “We’ve been in business for x amount of years” or “We’re used by X, Y, and Z experts” aren’t going to mean a whole lot to them. Great they think but that doesn’t do anything for me. What can you do for your customer? This cannot be said enough but you must always focus on the customer. The customer is what matters.
One great way to remember this is by the phrase “Because of you people think more of me”. What this means is because of you (the salesman and your product) people (others) think more of me (the customer). Everyone wants to be liked by others. Everyone has some insecurities that they have, they your product can help alleviate.
Appeal To Vanity
One of the greatest of these insecurities or needs is the desire to be liked or desired by others. In another word to look good to others or vanity. Everyone wants to look better to those around them. If your product can do this it will sell. Look at beauty industry which is a billion dollar industry founded on appealing to one’s vanity. Though it didn’t in the past now men are just as bad as women when it comes to vanity and others finding them attractive physically (despite the fact that attraction works differently for men than women).
How many men go about preening and pruning themselves like school girls. Instead of having younger skin they fuss and worry over their six pack abs or whether their shoulders are chiseled enough. While this spells disaster for the manhood of the country it is a boon to advertisers including you. Now the average high school boy is just as preoccupied with the clothing he wears and the shape of his body as the average woman. Again pitiful from a manhood standpoint but shows you the power of appealing to vanity.
The Seven Deadly Sins
Even though this is a bit of a cynical way to look at it whenever you appeal to one of the seven deadly sins your copy is going to be improved and your are going to move more product. Do I like this? No of course not but what I like doesn’t mean anything when it comes to making money. I am simply telling you what works. Appeal to people’s sense of pride, envy, laziness, lust, gluttony, greed, vanity, and the like and your going to have a product that appeals to more people.
Remember humans are part animal, most are all animal. Meaning they function purely on their biological functions and do whatever they are told to do. You may hate it but when marketing to the mainstream populace you must understand it to be successful. This is how the world works and this is how people are. To be successful you have to appeal to the customer. In the masculine self-improvement niche these things may be different but in general marketing they apply one hundred percent. Understand this.
Click here to read the rest of the sales 101 series.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
