This week, I have already received several, ineffective “old school” marketing messages, based around the same tired, generic format. I wonder if you get these sales pitches too?
The person introduces themselves to you and then asks, “how can I help you?” The subtext here, is that the person wants you to believe that they are offering this help out of the goodness of their heart and not as part of a commercial transaction. Money, prices or fees are never mentioned – Just the mysterious offer of help, from a stranger who knows nothing about you or your business or your needs.
They want you to think of them the way you would, if your car had broke down miles away from anywhere and they kindly stopped to offer you a lift.
Of course, in this case, they were not just driving by – you were deliberately targeted for marketing purposes. They know and you know that in reality, they are actually looking to make you a customer.
Like most people, I cringe when someone tries to market to me under this kind of false pretence. I also wonder what they believe they will achieve, by starting off a commercial dialogue, with both parties aware that there’s an unspoken, yet blindingly obvious ulterior motive in play.
If you want to help someone, that’s great. If you want to market to someone, that’s great too. But please, don’t pretend to be doing one thing when in reality, you are doing the other. The marketplace is not stupid.
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Some good points there, as always Jim.
Nothing annoys me more than people being dishonest about their intentions on a call or in a letter. By all means tell me about your product and if I’m not interested I’ll say so, but don’t try and engage me in a phoney dialogue because it just annoys me.
Hello Stuart,
I agree totally sir!
Can’t create interest where there is none. Marijuana never needed marketing and it’s our biggest cash crop with revenues in some states comparable to those of an average WalMart store.
The drug dealers I have met in prisons, where I have spoken, were often extremely good marketers. They knew how to boost sales AND develop new markets (users).
For example, they would offer freebies of new ‘products’ and in many cases were very methodical in their approach. They often had better distribution channels than many businesses I’ve met too.
There’s a project I read about in The States, where drug dealers run a VERY successful bakery business, using all these same skills.
If any readers know of a link to that project, I would appreciate it if they would let me know.
Reading backwards again, Jim…
but this makes me think about a call my husband took the other night. He insisted the woman knew him and he was, as usual, chatting away. I was feeling like it was a telemarketer… and then I heard him say “my wife might want to talk to you, she just made a change in her business” … well, hand signal, glares, and mumbles weren’t working… so I finally said, “tell her I don’t want to be rude, but I am really tired and I can’t talk now.” He took down her number and I was going to throw it away but I felt bad being rude… so a few days later, I called back to see if I could figure out what she was selling. I took a few minutes to explain and then listened. She told me she had something that would really help my business. I said much of her approach sounded like MLM and she said no… but she never did tell me what she was selling. I told her that my focus now is in the career industry. She remained vague but said she would call in 6 months to see if it was a better time. No mention or clue of what this miraculous cure or marketing strategy was.
I hate that… If your product or service has value, please let me know what it is. There are times when I really am looking for something new but you have to build my trust first and that wasn’t the way.