I sat in on a sales presentation earlier this week with one of our long-time clients. The presentation started very quickly (and to my thinking, very poorly) with an assault on the use of traditional advertising mediums…everyone DVRs all TV programs, everyone listens to satellite radio in their cars, all newspapers have gone or are on their way out of business, blah, blah, blah…subjective and irrelevant information designed to baffle.
The product this company is selling is very compelling on its own terms and along with our strategic use of traditional mediums can very likely be accretive to advancing our client’s business to a new level. All in the meeting recognized this fact.
So, here’s the thing…go sell your product based on its own merit, based on results, based on anecdotal information from real case studies. DO NOT INSULT your target audience by launching a truckload of scud missiles. (We all remember scud missiles from Iraq, right? Missiles with no intelligence and subsequently little to no impact.)
Sell based on intelligence! With a wealth of available resources, consumers are more intelligent now than at any time in the history of the world—always assume you’re dealing with smart people. One client remarked recently that he’s found his consumers to possess highly sensitive and highly active “BS Meters.” I can’t agree more.
Therefore, I’m declaring the days of being able to “baffle ‘em with BS” officially over.
Cheers!
