The Lazy Reader

Henry Ford once said, "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few engage in it." Henry was ahead of his time. Modern scientific studies have found that human beings naturally try to keep their thinking to a minimum. We seek "Cognitive Ease" because as Mr. Ford had guessed, thinking is the hardest work we do. Though it only makes up about 2% of our body mass, the brain consumes up to 20% of the energy used by our bodies. Because of this disproportionate use of resources, we have evolved strategies to conserve energy and limit our processing of information. This is why it is so important to make sales presentations and ads simple and easy to understand.

Using laser technology researchers can precisely track where a reader is looking on a page. These studies have shown that readers will skip over an ad that is crowded or too complex. Readers prefer an ad that is easy to follow and clearly offers them a benefit. The same is true of a sales presentation. FMRI studies, which track brain activity, show that most people  "zone out" when presented with too many facts or if the presenter is too hard to follow. Salespeople who present only one or two ideas at a time and who use analogies and other tools to help the prospect understand their message will be far more successful than someone who buries them in information. In presentations, more is certainly less.   

Obviously we need to get our customers thinking about our products. The best way to do this is stay completely focused on the customer's needs and desires. If we can use simple presentations to demonstrate how our products can help the customer, they will be more than willing to invest the energy required to consider our proposals.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post or found it useful please feel free to pass it along.

Jim B.

Time Warp Questions

I am a powerful believer in the power of questions. A skilled sales person can use questions to steer the direction of a conversation and to reveal the prospect's "hot buttons." Great sales people prefer to ask questions rather than make statements. Research has shown that the more the customer talks, the more likely they are to buy. Questions are the tool that gets them talking.

In addition to revealing the customer's business situation and needs, questions can be used to reveal the customer's motivations and their purchasing patterns. For this purpose I like to use what I call "time warp" or "origin" questions. These are questions that ask the prospect to go "back in time" and tell you why they did something. When I meet a prospect for the first time, I like to ask them, "So, what led you to get into the whatever business?" Their answer tells me a lot about their personality and their goals. If they say, "I like being my own boss, the guy I was working for was doing shoddy work and I like to take pride in what I do," I know that I need to talk to them about promoting quality rather than price. If, on the other hand, they say, "I knew I could beat any body's price," I know to go the other direction. What led them into business, reveals a lot about the prospect and how to sell them.  

In competitive situations if you ask a customer why they are advertising in a competitive product, they may see this as a personal challenge. They may think you are attacking the competitive media and therefore attacking their decision to go that route. I find it is far better to say something like, "I'm glad to hear that you see the value of advertising, many of my customers also advertise in the XYZ. Can I ask what led you to go with XYZ?" This accomplishes several things, I defuses a potentially tense situation, it tells the customer that there is no reason that they can't advertise in both media and helps you to uncover their advertising goals. This is a way to gain insight into the thought process they use when purchasing advertising. I often use a follow up question like "You said that one of your goals was to increase your carry-out business. Have you accomplished this?" Rather than challenging the competitor directly, this gets the prospect thinking about the other media's performance.

"Time warp" questions are non-threatening because they take the issue out of context. They force the customer to step back and look at their situation from a distance. These questions can be used to remind customers of their goals and their dreams. Putting them in this frame of mind makes them much more receptive to you ideas on how they can achieve their objectives.

On another note, I recently started a new blog featuring some of my favorite quotes. You can check it out at http://theapothegmatist.blogspot.com/ The first post will explain this blog's rather "geeky" tile.  As always, I welcome you comments, feedback and ideas. Thanks for reading.


Jim Busch

The "IKEA Effect"

In the 1940's and 1950's, American food companies began making cake mixes. To make a cake, all the housewife (it was the 50's) had to do was add water and bake. These mixes were convenient, quick, and easy to prepare; the only problem was that nobody bought them. Market researchers found that they were "too easy," that women wanted to feel like they were making an effort to feed their families. The companies removed the powdered eggs from the mix, changed the instructions to "add 1 egg," and the problem was solved. The act of breaking and adding an egg made the family cook feel like she was part of the process. Psychologists have dubbed this behavior the "IKEA Effect." This is based on the fact that people overvalue IKEA furniture because they can point to a bookcase with pride and say "I built that!" The act of assembling a piece of furniture engages them physically and emotionally. This gives them an enhanced sense of ownership that far surpasses their feeling for a piece that was delivered ready to use.




What does this have to do with selling advertising--everything! If we can get a prospect involved in creating their program, they are much more likely to buy it and much less likely to cancel. My company uses software from Tactician Media to map out a customer's coverage area. I will take my laptop into a call and locate the customer's business on the map. I hand them a pencil and ask them to point out where they would like to sell their products. I keep adding these to the map. When I am closing the sale, they often tell me they want to cut the cost. I take them back to the map and ask them which areas they would like to cut. Since they have personally chosen the areas, they have a hard time cutting them out. In the ancient days before laptops, I would use a similar method with a blank map and a highlighter



Another technique I use is getting the customer involved in designing an ad for their business. We work together to determine what consumers need to know about them. I ask a lot of questions like, "What kind of art do you think would work the best?" This engages them fully and like the map example above, they are very reluctant to cut anything out.



You can use the "IKEA Effect" to engage customers and get them to take ownership of their advertising. When they are involved they are less likely to quibble about price or to cut back. When they are involved in the process, you are no longer talking about "an" ad; you are talking with them about "their" ad.



Thanks



Jim B.

Have I told you lately why you love me?

We all know the 4 "W's" of information gathering: Who-What-Where-Why. Working with sales people, I have found that far too many reps and copywriters get so bogged down in the the first three of these that they forget to make use of the 4th, and in my opinion most important, "W" the why. Selling advertising is all about motivation. We have to figure out what will motivate someone to buy an ad and then we have to design an ad that motivates their customers to patronize them. Motivation is driven by "why's." Why should I advertise? Why should I advertise with you? We need to answer these questions on every sales call. We need to answer these questions even if the customer doesn't ask them. When I am working in the field, many reps do a great job with the "who:" I am from the Pennysaver. They cover the "what:" I have this special home improvement tab. And they do a great job with the "where:" it is delivered to every home in your local community. Where their presentation falls apart is on the "why." They give their customer all the details on pricing, ad sizes etc. but fail to tell the customer that the special section will bring in new customers and MAKE THEM MORE MONEY! I believe this omission stems from the fact that they understand how advertising works and they assume that the prospect shares this insight. They think that everyone knows that if you deliver a marketing message to 10,000 homes that some of these people will become customers. Reps need to explain this to their customers and explain the "why" of advertising. Mr. Customer, This special section will be of great interest to your potential customers, by telling these people about all the great services you have to offer, you will generate a lot of calls so that your crews will be busy when the weather breaks. This is a great way to make sure you have a profitable start to the season.

The same thing is true with your customer's ads. Scanning through our publications I see many ads that tell me everything that the customer sells. I read through lists of dozens of pizza toppings in 6 point type. I see cartoon pizza flippers and the customer's name at the top of the layout. What I fail to see in many cases is a "why." Is the customer's food good? Do they have great prices? Great service?" To be effective an ad must tell the reader what they should do business with the advertiser. Research has shown a headline as simple as "Best Pizza in Town" will greatly enhance the response to the advertising.   

Don't make your prospects or your readers have to figure out for themselves why they should do business with you or your client. Every time you give anyone a "who," a "what," or a "where" make sure that it is accompanied by a clearly stated "WHY!" "WHY" should you do this--because YOU'LL MAKE MORE MONEY!

Thanks for reading--Jim Busch

Free holiday content for your paper

Here is a gift for all my free paper friends. In addition to my sales training and research duties, I write features for my company. I also have had some success as a freelance writer. Several years ago I wrote and published a Christmas article titled "Miracle on Aisle 3." This non fiction inspirational piece produced more positive feedback than anything that I've ever written. In the spirit of Christmas, I am offering this article to any paper at no charge. It runs about a thousand words. All I ask is that you use my byline and let me know if you decide to publish it.  If you would like to review this article send an e-mail to ideasandeyeballs@gmail.com and I will send it to you. I wish you a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous 2013. Thanks--Jim Busch

Does your selling style reflect your buying style?

One of the wisest things I've ever read came from the pen of American writer Anais Nin. She said, "We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." It is human nature to imprint the way we see the world on everyone and everything we encounter. This behavioral quirk can have a direct effect on how we perform on sales calls. We spend our workdays as sales people, but we spend a good deal of our leisure time as consumers. We purchase everything from a pair of socks to a new car, from a magazine to a 4 bedroom home. How we approach making a purchase, our personal "buying style", is as unique as a fingerprint. Some people are impulse buyers and make snap decisions on even major items. Others like to research and deliberate when shopping for something they want. Some of us are price shoppers while others are more focused on quality and brand names.



It is quite dangerous to assume that our customers share our buying style. I have a much deserved reputation for being the world's cheapest man. I drive a 1995 Ford Escort and buy a lot of my clothes at Goodwill. This is great for my savings account, but my frugality hurt my sales efforts when I started in the business. As a young rep, I thought that customers would always be interested in the lowest cost option. As I gained experience, I came to learn that many buyers were more interested in results, or the best coverage etc. They were more interested in advertising that addressed these concerns than they were in buying the least expensive program. Not being aware of a customer's buying style, and your own, can lead to communication difficulties. If the rep is an impulse buyer, they may not understand why a customer needs research to make a decision. Once, I was with a rep who liked to collect as much information as possible before making a buying decision. We presented a program to a customer who immediately responded, "That sounds good to me!" The rep actually had trouble recognizing this buying signal. He said to the customer, "I'm sure you'll need time to think this over." He would have walked away from the sale if I hadn't been there to close the sale for him. The key here is to recognize your own bias and to observe the customer to determine their individual style.


Managers should ask their sales people about their individual buying style. Asking a rep to describe the process they use to purchase a car or other big ticket item will help the manager to understand their rep's individual approaches to selling. By helping our reps to understand how their behavior as a customer influences their behavior as a seller is sure to increase their sales.

Sticky Presentations

We live in a crazy busy world. Everyone is constantly inundated with information and sales pitches. This creates a challenge for sales people becasue we have to break through the clutter and make our presentations memorable and impactful. We need to make our presentations "sticky," to get the prospect engaged so that they retain the information we share with them. I like to use  "visual analogies" to sell advetising.

 For example: I was doing a presentation to a customer who advertised in a competitive product to convince him to include us in his marketing mix. I did some research and found that about one third of the market read their product exclusively and almost an equal number read only my paper. The remaining third read both publications. I could have printed out the research and shared the numbers, but in most cases this overwhelms the customer. Instead I bought three cheap clear plastic vases and two bags of Hershey's Kisses, one milk and one dark choclate. I put milk chocolate candy in one vase and the dark chocolate kisses in another. The third vase was left empty. During the presentation I pulled out the three vases and told the customer that they represented the readership of the two local papers. The vase on the left with the silver wrapped candy was my paper, ant the purple wrapped candy on the right was my competitor. I then poured some of each into the empty vase in the middle telling him that this was a more accurate description of the market because a third of local residents read both. I then took the vase of milk chocolate candy away and put it behind my back. I told the customer  "You current program misses one third of your potential customers" and pointing the the mixed vase "you are cutting your exposure to these people in half." This image helped the customer to understand what he was doing much more clearly than any chart or PowerPoint could do, The sight of having his "candy" taken away invoked the natural human tendency to avoid loss. Making my point visually burned this into the customer's brain and helped position the value of my paper. They expanded their budget and now advertise in both papers.

One final point: I first considered using dried beans to make my point but decided to go with the chocolate. After my demo, the client ate some of my"props" and I left the rest for his staff. This small gift made the presentation more memorable and literally left a "good taste in the customer's mouth." Whenever possible use visual analogies to prove the value of your products. Doing so will make what your presentations much "stickier!"