Tag: blogs

Tell the ‘why’ – don’t manipulate

Posted on by philipdodson

Tell the ‘why’ – don’t manipulate

Manipulation is how most companies sell. They use clever marketing techniques to manipulate you to buy their product/service. They add things, chop prices, do deals etc. All of this will bring about more sales.

It works for a while, as all humans are open to being manipulated. However, it never will bring loyalty, as any other company can out manipulate the buyers and people will switch in an instant to a better deal.

It will only bring you the late adopters, the laggards, it will bring you people only driven by price and the manipulations you offer.

Instead, you can build loyalty by inspiring your audience, then you don’t need to sell, you just need a great product/service, delivered well, that will get your customers to do the marketing for you.

Where does the inspiration come from? Simple, just communicate to your potential customers your ‘why’. As in why you do what you do. The what you do will validate the why. Look at all the successful products/services that have a hugely loyal following. All of them will have/do tell you ‘why’ they do what they do.

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It’s why people queue for Apple products, it’s why people don’t mind waiting 6 months + for a Harley Davidson, it’s why people get a ‘Never mind the bollocks’ credit card from Virgin when they already have a wallet full of cards and so on.

Sales & marketing should never be about manipulation. Marketing should be used to communicate your ‘why’ and then sales will come, and come again and again and again. Just make it simple for people to understand you and why you exist, then make it easy for people to buy. Then no need for sales.

By communicating your ‘why’ you will attract like-minded people who identify with your values, what you stand for, why you do what you do. Then they will walk over ‘hot coals’ to get your product/service often when you are more expensive and not always better quality than others.

If you want to look into how this works, check out Simon Sinek’s great book ‘Start with Why’. It is an truly inspirational read.

What do you do?

Posted on by philipdodson

The question we ask all too often is ‘what do you do?’

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The reason we do this, is that we have been conditioned by society to use the answer as a way of judging whether the person is worthy or not of our time.

All too often we help that process with our response too, we simply say ‘I’m an accountant’ or ‘I am a doctor’ or ‘I am a waitress’

Perhaps if we answered ‘I help people achieve their dreams through maximising their financial assets’ or ‘I save lives and improve people’s quality of life’ or ‘I make your dinning more special’ The list could go on. But would make a more interesting response and would remove a good deal of the instant judging.

However, surely it isn’t about what we do. Isn’t more interesting to perhaps ask people, ‘what are your values?’ or ‘what things make you happy?’. Or even ‘why do you do what you do?’. Or ‘what are you passionate about?’, ‘what’s your favourite book?’ or ‘who inspires you the most?’ or ‘what’s the most interesting place that you have visited?’. The list can go on and on, once you start to use your imagination and once you get into the habit of finding out something more meaningful about another human being.

It is better to build relationships based on common interest, shared values and trust. What does it matter what someone does as a job? By knowing that it often, will wrongly cloud our judgement.

All people are already worthy, it doesn’t matter what they do, it matters who they are as a person, what they stand for, what inspires them, what they love and why they do what they do.

It is just a habit and it is one worth breaking, it is all about thinking differently, being different and look at the world from the other end of the telescope.