Just the Facts, Ma’am

What do webcams and Oreos have in common?
Well, not much, except that both are a part of a perfectly executed message. How can you tell a perfectly executed message apart from the others? Watch this video and ask yourself the following questions:

• What is this commercial selling?
• What do I remember?
• How did it make me feel?

Business travel whisks me away from my family frequently. I am away from home two nights a week. How do I keep in touch with my kids? With a webcam, of course. If you have one, then I am willing to bet that you immediately connected with this advertisement. After seeing it only once, I could recite the dialogue, “Good night, Buddy.”  “Good morning, Dad!” I bet you could, too.

Do you remember details like the Asian music in the background? Do you think you could confuse the Oreo brand with some other brand? No way! Will you forget who brought this message to you? No way! It’s “milk’s favorite cookie.” They were able to convey a lot of emotion and brand-building in only 32 seconds.

So how can you quickly connect your message with your customers? How do you get them emotionally invested in what you’re selling? Do you do it by using “techno jargon” or “industry speak?” Those riveting and compelling words like integrated, flexible, and scalable?

Or, do you connect your message to the problems and challenges your customer is trying to solve – those ‘hot buttons’ that are holding them back from growing their business and accomplishing their business, financial and personal goals?

Create a vision for them. Show them what they’ll be able to do differently, how they’ll be able to solve those pains and problems that are holding them back and slowing them down. You’ll be well on your way to getting them emotionally hooked and connecting with them in a meaningful way.

Back to the Oreo commercial:
If I didn’t have a webcam, I would go out and buy one after seeing that commercial. I would go as far as saying that this commercial will sell far more webcams than Oreos! So why is it a perfectly executed message? Because they connected to me on an emotional level, and that emotion helped me remember their message. The ad connected the Oreo brand to my feelings around my family and that is a strong brand connection.

Use the creative half of your brain to find that connection to your audience, and don’t be afraid to stretch a little.

— by Larry Florio,
Director, Partner and Channel Sales
Kronos Talent Management Division

Corporate Visions alumni are always on the hunt for good messaging examples. This video and accompanying article were sent to us by one such long-time alumnus.

Have you seen a great messaging example lately?
Let us know and get published.

Letters from the Road

I was exhausted. The flights, from Reno, to Denver, to Munich and eventually to Istanbul had taken their toll. I was dealing with a ten-hour time change, my class had run long and I knew I was going to have to face rush-hour traffic.

As I left the building, I looked out to Buyukdere Cadessi road, where I was headed. It was jammed with traffic. There was no visible movement. It was going to be a very long trip to get to the Istanbul Hilton some twenty kilometers away. After what seemed like hours of searching and waiting, I finally spotted a cab. I quickly signaled and crawled in the back. The driver didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Turkish. So I showed him where I needed to go, then out of weariness, closed my eyes in an attempt to recharge.

I opened my eyes 10 minutes later, only to see that we had not even made it out of the parking area. After another 20-minute nap, I woke up and found that my driver was actually making progress. We were going in and out of lanes, around motorcycles, buses, cars and even crowds of pedestrians lined up on the off-ramp. The sight was amazing. It made New York City rush hour look easy.

Now impressed with the progress we were making, I began to watch my driver. He could weave in and out of traffic really quickly, avoiding collisions and yet fluidly making progress. From the back seat, I noticed something very strange. Even though this was an automatic car, there was a stainless steel metal rod coming out from below the radio and extending out to just above the shifter. My driver rested his right hand on the shifter while moving the rod in a circular motion. What was the purpose of this rod? Could my driver have converted this car from an automatic to a stick with some kind of clutch mechanism? Now, my curiosity was peaked. I watched him steer in and out of traffic with his left hand and controlling the metal rod with his right. This seemed so odd. I leaned forward to get a better view and try to figure this out.

As I did so, I met his eyes in the rear-view mirror. He could see how curious I was. He turned and looked directly at me with very warm eyes and a smile so broad, so genuine that I can remember it to this day. As he looked at me with that big grin he took his right hand off of the metal rod and pointed down to his lap. I looked, first at the steering wheel, then down. What! No legs? He had no legs! Amazed, I looked up at the mirror and met that same warm smile. His expression was saying, “I can drive, I can drive!”

The steel rod, when turned to the right, was his connection to the accelerator. When turned left, it was the brake. I sat back in amazement. How could he drive so well with one hand? How could he have rigged this car to work this way? How would he even get to his car in the morning to go to work? I wondered how he lost both legs. How many angry tourists had yelled at him to get out of the taxi and get their luggage?

In spite of all of these images and questions, nothing impacted me quite like his warm smile and his pride in knowing that he can drive.
That taxi driver taught me so much that day. The lesson was about Ki. Ki is who you are on the inside. It’s who you are when no one else is around. It is you as you really are without the camouflage, without the subterfuge, without the hype. Strong Ki, combined with skill, can produce success where failure seems inevitable. Instead of focusing on his missing legs, the driver focused on his opportunity. He focused not on what was missing, but what he had. Oh, what a humbling thought.

It is natural to get into the habit of focusing on the pieces of your product or services that do not measure up to your competition. I realized how many times I had thought of things that were missing or limiting my success instead of recognizing my own attributes. Price, features and services are often obstacles that come to mind. It is very easy to let this become the starting point of a competitive analysis when facing a selling situation. Somehow, the grass really does seem greener when you look at your competition.

I should have learned this lesson many, many years ago. At the time I was selling for a Fortune 100 Company and all I could do was focus on the things we didn’t have. I wondered why our prices were always higher, why our service lacked at times and why we often did not have features that many of our competitors had. How in the world could my company expect me to accomplish the quota they raised every year?
One of my colleagues suggested I should write down every unique capability we had, no matter how large or small. Due to my respect for his success, I took him up on that challenge and overnight came up with a list of 25-30 capabilities that my company and product had that my competition did not. When I showed him my list he said, “Just look at how many of these things are very important to your customer that your competition cannot take into their sales call with them. But you’ve forgotten the most significant capability that none of your competitors can take into any sales call.” “What is that?” I asked. He looked at me and said, “You.”

Do you believe that you provide the best overall solution to your customer? Have you understood their issues and struggles so well, that you feel no one can help them move forward like you can? Do you feel that if your customer purchases from your competitor that somehow you have failed your customer? If you do not believe this, this is visible not only to you, but to your customer as well.

If you’re focused on the missing legs in your product, your company, or even yourself, I encourage you to do as I did many years ago: grab a pen and write down all of those things that you have, that you can carry into every sales call, that your competitors wish they had. The list is there, you just need to find it. Don’t forget to put yourself at the top of the list. Focus on what you have, not what you are missing. Do this and you can change your Ki. If you can accomplish this, you will find that you can accomplish great things, like driving a taxi without any legs. I will never know the name of that taxi driver. He will never know how he impacted my life. However, I will always remember that warm, smiling face, confidently saying “I can drive!”

By Steve Hub, Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.

I Like You!

Robert Cialdini is considered the world’s most famous researcher on human influence. His book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, is required reading for marketing students in colleges and universities. He says that one of the most powerful ways to influence people is through Liking.

You make think that it’s obvious that people buy from people they like, and you’re right.

If that was everything Cialdini had to say on the subject, he wouldn’t be famous today. What was surprising about Cialdini’s theory of Liking was not that people buy from people they like. It was that people buy from people they think like them.

Cialdini tells the story of the most successful car salesman who ever lived. Joe Girard’s performance was so remarkable that he won the title ‘Salesman of the Year’ for GM 12 years straight and was described by The Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest car salesman.

Joe took extreme advantage of the Liking principle. Every month he sent each of his 13,000 customers a holiday card that had the holiday name, his name and one message. It said, “I like you.” As Joe explained, “There’s nothing else on the card. Nothin’ but my name. I’m just telling ’em that I like ’em.”

So, how can you communicate to your customers that you like them? You could do something as extreme as Joe, or you could take another approach that also tells your customers that you like them.

You could treat customers like you treat others you like. You could treat customers like you treat your best friends.

What’s the difference between how most sales professionals treat their best friends vs. customers? Think of it this way.

When you’re together with your friends, do you share data?

No, you share stories.

But when you’re around people you don’t like, do you share stories?

No, you treat the interaction more like a transaction that you want to end quickly, so you don’t share stories.

My question for you is, do you treat customers like they’re people you like or like people you don’t like?

Most sales professionals prepare for a sales meeting by getting all of their facts in order – their I’s dotted and their T’s crossed. In the process, they forget how to talk to customers in the most basic way that humans talk. They forget to tell stories.

Once you start sharing stories as part of how you talk to customers, you’ll see relationships change. Your customer relationships will be deeper and more rewarding. Your customers will share stories back to you.

In the context of sales messaging, you want your stories to tie into the benefits your product delivers. If you’ve ever taken a workshop with Corporate Visions, you’ve heard your consultant use dozens of personal stories. In my workshop, I often share a story about buying a big screen TV. It supports a concept I’m trying to get across and it makes the concept more memorable. What happens though, at the very next break in the workshop?

Students come up to me and share their own experiences with buying a big screen TV. Why? Because they feel like they know me through the story I told, and now they want to share their stories with me.

It changes the relationship from facilitator-and-student to a relationship of two friends talking. The interactions become deeper. The class becomes more valuable. And my ability to persuade grows immensely. All because of a personal story.

By the way, have I told you how much I like you…?

By Erik Peterson, Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.

Stories: Concrete vs. Intangible

“Hey Dave, I’m debt free!”

“Congratulations. How’d you do it?”

“Beans and rice, Dave – beans and rice!”

If you’ve ever tuned in to the Dave Ramsey talk radio show, you’re probably familiar with this exchange that occurs dozens of times a day. Individuals and families who were ‘buried in debt,’ call in to proclaim their freedom from the proverbial financial noose that used to hang around their necks. They have saved their financial health and well-being, and they give Dave the credit for helping them, not only see the light, but providing them with the successful game plan.

One of the core tenants of Dave’s advice in rebuilding your financial health is to stop using your credit cards. In fact, going one step beyond that, he tells people to cut them up and start paying for everything in cash. Why is he so relentless in this approach?

Dave believes that people spend 12-18% more when they purchase things with credit cards rather than with cash. Why is that? “Credit card purchases don’t feel real. Flipping a credit card up on a counter registers nothing emotionally” It is intangible, an abstract spending experience. It doesn’t feel like you’re spending real money, until you get your credit card statement at the end of the month and you gasp in amazement. “I can’t have spent that much money. Did I really spend THAT much money?”

However, when you reach into your pocket and pay for the purchase with cash that’s a completely different buying experience. You feel the money leaving you. It’s more concrete, as you know that when you hand the money over the counter, you’re going to have $50, $100 or $200 less in your bank account. You take more ownership in each and every purchase, and it’s a more emotional experience for you when real cash is leaving your pocket or your bank account.

There’s a highly valuable lesson that applies to the fast paced world of business today.

Why is it that when people need to be their most persuasive: in front of customers or on sales calls, during executive presentations or board meetings, or inspiring and motivating the ‘troops’ in company meetings that they fire-up their PowerPoint slide deck? They click rapidly from one slide to another, directly spelling out the message, ‘hitting them between the eyes’ with the facts? The challenge is that while the facts may seem logical to you, they are often intangible to everyone else. People are left wondering how to make sense of it and what it means to them.

If you want to motivate your customers or employees, rather than just give them the facts, tell them relevant stories. You engage your audience and involve them with the ideas that you’re sharing. In his book, The Springboard, Steve Denning says, “In addition to creating buy-in, stories mobilize people to act. Stories focus people on potential solutions. Telling stories with visible goals and barriers shifts the audience into a problem-solving mode. A story is an exercise in mass customization – each audience member uses the story as a springboard to slightly different destinations.”

Relevant stories are more concrete, and they go beyond telling information which is often an intangible exercise and show your audience exactly what you want from them.

So, the next time you need to be at your persuasive best, don’t bury them with information. Tell them a relevant and meaningful story.

By Mike Miller, Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.