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e o ce cleaner got me to give him an opportunity to
meet a potential client.
e salesperson wins an opportunity to supply that rst
order.
The point is, if we are going to expend a great deal of time,
effort and money on a marketing campaign, are we ready to
recover the cost of that campaign from the customers who
come in? I am always shocked and surprised when I talk
to a roomful of salespeople who often have no idea what
their company’s marketing strategy is, have no knowledge
at all of any special offers that have been widely promoted
and, worst of all, have no connection with or confidence
in the marketing strategy – which, after all, has only been
set up to give them the opportunity to meet potential new
customers. It is no good investing in any kind of marketing
if everything else you do is not set up to recover that cost by
securing profitable business from the activity.
Let Me Twist Your Arm
What about bribery? Often cheap and elegant but still just
an opportunity. Just imagine that you are reading this book
to help grow your small coffee shop and, just like our diner,
you feel that a simple business boost would come from more
customers. “Aha,” you cry, seeing a section on marketing,
“that’s what we need!” But what sort of marketing? Let’s
start with a half page advert in the local paper. You do a
tough deal with them and they give you a whole page for
£400 (you’d be lucky! I think you could expect to pay thou-
sands but hey ho).
The next day your small coffee shop has one hundred
people in it. Twenty is too many at one time so there is
trouble brewing anyway but, more to the point, they cost
you four pounds each. They drink a cup of coffee, price two
pounds, cost to you one pound, profit one pound, loss three
pounds.
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So let’s try good old bribery. Go off to a public place and
give away free coffee vouchers “Bring this voucher and get
a free cup of coffee!” The benefit is that you can control the
flow. Each person who ignores the bribe of the free coffee
costs you virtually nothing, the ones who reclaim it cost you
only a pound – half the loss of the advert and much more
controllable. If the numbers overwhelm you, stop handing
out the vouchers. So that’s good then, a much slower way of
losing money than straight advertising.
The Wandering Husband
It is time for another awful joke. A woman rushed up to a
friend and said, “I hate to gossip but I thought that I had to
tell you. I have just seen your husband chatting up the new
pretty young barmaid!”
She appeared totally unconcerned and replied, “Oh, is he.
I can’t say I’m particularly bothered.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“No, not really!”
“Why on earth not?”
“We had a dog once that used to chase cars but if he ever
caught one he wouldn’t have been able to drive it!”
If You Caught a Customer, Would You
Know What to Do with Them?
Back to the office cleaner. What did he do with the oppor-
tunity?
The diner and its autumn leaf campaign. What if it had
worked?
Your coffee shop? Do you see what we have done? You
said that you needed customers, so quite simply we went out
and bought you some. They cost a pound each. In market-
ing terms that is something of a bargain. In coffee shop
terms it is a bit more edgy. So now you’ve got them, are you
a bit like the dog and have no idea what to do with them?
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First question is, how are you going to recover your
pound? This is yet again grandmother and sucking eggs
time, but let’s for a moment consider profit. Profit is the
difference between what it cost you and what you get. In the
case of the coffee shop, it’s wages, rent, coffee, and market-
ing costs. So now you have given the coffee away, how do
you get that pound back? Either by inviting that customer
to spend more on that visit, or by returning over and over
again in the future to recover that initial outlay.
See You Next Fall
Seems simple, but back to the diner and the autumn leaf
promotion.
You receive one of these leaves and decide to give it a
try. You are met by an eighteen stone kid with a badge that
states, “I’m Kevin and I’m here to help”, wearing a bright
red boiler suit that’s so tight it’s flossing his bottom. He
brings, after a very long wait, a plate of tepid grey stuff and
you ask, “What is this?” The cheery reply, “Dunno, never eat
veg myself.”
Eureka! It’s his fault, isn’t it? We are shovelling the
customers in and he and his kind shovel them out again
BUT…you know it isn’t his fault, the fault is much more
fundamental. While you make all these extravagant prom-
ises to your prospects, just make sure your products, offers,
and everyone involved can deliver the promise. Market in
as vigorously as you market out. It isn’t just the people who
work for us either. There is a famous saying that states,
“when you are up to your arse in alligators, it is very hard to
remember that you set out to drain a swamp”. We ourselves
often forget – or don’t even realize – what expectations we
have created. We cheerfully use power words like ‘excellence,
delight, and wow’ without considering the fact that that is
actually what our subject may expect. In other words, we
must all understand the expectations that we have created to
attract our subjects, and must be prepared to deliver or even
exceed them if we want to see a return on that investment
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PERSUASIVE MARKETING
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which we made. We can either profit on a single meeting
with a customer, cheerfully knowing we are never going to
see them again – which is classic high pressure selling – or
we can get a return on this investment from repeat business
which means making our subject happy and satisfied every
single time we meet them – which is a big challenge.
Let’s examine what our sales and marketing are going
to do for us in the first footsteps on our journey of
persuasion.
To persuade anyone, we must create an opportunity to
persuade, but the other edge to this sword is that it also
gives us an opportunity to disappoint.
Great Expectations
We get our opportunity by creating expectations. From the
flashy adverts to the rock star who comes on stage with a
cucumber in his trousers – the result could be a horrible
disappointment in both cases.
Marketing people have taken issue with me over this
rather simplistic view, saying that another of their tasks is
brand awareness, but what if your brand is rubbish. There
are a number of very well known companies, shops, airlines,
and conglomerates who are famous alright – famous for
being awful. Of course I wouldn’t dare mention them here
but if while on a walk with me I shouted “Dog turd” at
you, previous experience, legend, and expectations would
not make you want to jump in it. In fact its fame should
hopefully get you to do just the opposite. Therefore, being a
familiar name doesn’t always help to persuade.
We persuade by creating expectations of wonderful
things but we must be prepared to deliver. Second chances
are difficult to get.
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POINTS TO PONDER ON CHAPTER 19
1. Every business thinks that all they
need are more customers. Marketing,
sales and gangsters fi nd them by making
promises (or threats).
2. This will always have a cost that can
only be recovered when that promise has
been kept.
3. It is very easy to make big promises,
it is very diffi cult to keep them
ourselves, and even more diffi cult to
get the people who work with us to keep
them.
4. Rather than blame everyone else,
make sure you market in to everyone
involved, as well as out to your
potential customers. In other
words, make sure everyone involved
understands, is able, and agrees, to
keep the promises that you and your
‘marketing’ have been making.
5. Anyone can buy a customer but not
everyone can profi t from them.
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