August 2007

Shania Twain may know what you like, but I know what we all want, because human nature hasn’t changed since the masters of selling, advertising and marketing were around doing their thang.

It won’t change in the next 50 years either.

Universal truths and desires cause people to read, to believe and to buy. So all you have to do to sell more of whatever it is you sell is to appeal to these basic wants:

People want to gain, to save, to do and to be.

They want to gain health, praise from others, popularity, time, self-confidence, pride of accomplishment, improved appearance, comfort, social and business advancements, security, leisure, prestige and more enjoyment.

They want to save money, discomfort, work, doubt, embarrassment and worry.

They want to do things that express their personalities, satisfy their cravings and curiosities and attract affection from others.

They want to be able to resist being dominated, to emulate those they admire, to collect things they desire and to improve themselves physically, mentally and spiritually.

They want to be creative, efficient,recognized as experts, good parents, cutting-edge, in first place, sociable, hospitable, proud and influential.

They also covet the heck out of links !

Woohoo ! The new AdAge Power 150 rankings was unveiled and I’m still in the top 150, coming in currently at No. 129.

I’m probably going to have to post more often, post more audio and find someone to help me scarf some big-time links to rise up to my goal of being in the top 50, but at least I have plenty of room to grow.

As for the audio portion, I’m working on it and will have a couple of mp3’s from webcasts up soon.

That and my podcasts, which are soon to be, may help me climb the ranks a bit.

As for posting more, that’s not too likely as everything else I do in life makes money EXCEPT this blog, which is mostly a way to vent to, teach and tantalize you.

BTW - Thanks for reading and if you’re not an RSS subscriber, maybe you could do that today and that might help my rankings.

I remember several great advertising tag lines:

Don’t squeeze the Charmin !

Have a Coke and a smile !

We try harder.

Let your fingers do the walkin’.

I also have seen a million terrible ones, too. Just yesterday I looked over a piece of crappy copy that someone was thinking of using and the tagline on the top of the page was as poor a choice as could have been made.

That started my thinker and I tried to come up with an answer as to how and why the good ones come from. Pure luck is what I’ve decided.

Whatever you do, don’t force it. If you can’t come up with one, just run the ad and see if anybody suggests one after they see the campaign.

Most of the time the really good one’s are accidentally created anyway.

Good tag lines stand alone and make people think of your product.

Bad tag lines make people think your company is run by monkeys.

I just read an old-time account of a sales manager who brought in his poorest salesman and told him he knew why he was dead last in sales.

The poor fellow was eager to listen, which proves this was in a different day and time.

The sales manager cleverly, yet bluntly proved to his salesman that he was using sales tactics that were out of date.

” How old is your car ? “, the sales manager asked.

” Six months old. Barely broken in. “, the salesman answered.

” Why not drive one that’s six or seven years old ? “, the sales manager asked.

” Because the new one’s give better performance”, the salesman answered.

” So would a new sales model. “, the sales manager pointed out.

You drive a six-month old car and use sales tactics that quit working six years ago, was the basic premise of the “motivational session”.

How many large, slow to respond, bureaucratic, meeting heavy businesses today are missing out on the performance of the new models because they’re slow to change, slow to adapt and slow to respond to the modalities of choice of their customers and prospects ?

Here’s a tip from a country boy that we already done learned -

If the dog don’t like the dog food, it don’t matter how good you think it is, how much you paid for it or how much you saved when you bought it.

If your market penetration’s getting a little shallow, maybe your ideas are too. Maybe you need to stop, look and listen to those people you’re trying to reach, instead of the one’s that work for you and with you.

Thanks to Jack Hayhow for reminding me of that countryism the other day in a post of his.

My friend Jay Jennings and I did a webcast this afternoon about podcasting and his product, Podcasting In About An Hour.

It was nearly 90 minutes of very fun, very informative content.

Jay gave away more secrets than he intended and we both gave away a LOT of good ideas.

To give it a listen, feel free to visit the replay page and at the end of the interview, Jay made a special offer, so hold out til the end and you’ll get way more than you’ll pay for.

I own the product and no affiliate links were used in this marketing effort or during the webcast. Nor were any animals harmed in any way, although we did mention cats way more than you’d believe.

You can also use the Get Podcasting Info button on the replay page to get Jay’s product.

The special price will show up in the shopping cart and he has a great guarantee, so don’t even hesitate, head over and get educated about podcasting.

In my offline world career, I represent multiple manufacturers. Frequently, I call in for samples to take to architects, developers and contractors.

Yesterday, I left a message around 4:30 with a plant manager, asking him to send me two samples. I left my cellphone number, in case he had any questions.

He didn’t have a question, but he did call. I wish he hadn’t called.

He called me, after I’d called him, to tell me to fax the sample request in, so he’d have a record of the request.

No, really, he did that. Really.

He turned one call and a shipment into 3 calls, because, he said, that’s the way we do things.

I absolutely hate that phrase - because that’s the way we do things.

I asked him a simple, that’s how I am, question:

” Dave, couldn’t you have taken a piece of paper, which my fax is gonna be, written down who I was, the time I called and the two samples I asked for and saved 2 calls and a fax ? Wouldn’t your paper look just like my fax ? “

” That’s not the way we do things “, is all I got back.

So I have to come in off my trip thru the bush in Africa and send a fax or I have to call someone in one of our 17 locations and have them drop what they’re doing and send a fax, all because they want to do things poorly, stupidly, blindly, ignorantly …. or, I just thought of this, I could use one of the other 24 manufacturers who won’t make me act in a stupid manner !

Maybe if Dave calls, in a month or two, and wonders where that fax is or why I haven’t placed any orders since then, I can tell him -

” That’s not the way I do things. “