The answers to the questions
are listed here in short form. For more complete discussion of the issues raised,
visit the linked resources. Better still, subscribe to Small Business Pro. newsletter.
Okay, okay… it’s
a trick question! But it does serve a purpose.
Strictly speaking,
who knows which remedy might be most effective, if any? We have no idea what
we’re trying to cure!
Put it this way:
if you went to the pharmacy or drug store and bought some medication, would you choose
it on the strength of the packaging alone? (That makes about as much sense
as going home, emptying the contents down the drain, then eating the packaging!)
Put it another
way: if you went to the doctor with a raging headache, and he said to you “Here,
take this pink potion in the green bottle with the yellow label three times a day
before meals, and come back in a week if it’s not working”, and you went back because
it didn’t help, and he then said “well, let’s pour the pink potion into a brown bottle
with a green label and try it again”, what would your first reaction be?
(Find another
doctor, surely?)
In the medical
profession it’s illegal to prescribe a treatment without first diagnosing
the problem. You can go to jail!
In business, you
just go out of business.
Take your advertising
as an example. What happens when an ad doesn’t work very well?
Too often, we
change the border. Or move it to another page. Or change the headline or the picture.
But what if we’re
just targeting the wrong audience? Or if our offer has no real appeal? What if our
product or service has serious defects? Or if the marketplace simply doesn’t see
the need for them?
All the tinkering
in the world with your layout or copy isn’t going to change the outcome. Relieving
symptoms doesn’t cure the disease. It just masks it, so we think it’s
gone away. It hasn’t. It’s just festering on, until it eventually becomes terminal
— and our business dies.
But there is a
point to this exercise other than to make you feel foolish. Or to ram home the message
that you have to isolate the CAUSE — the real problem — not just tinker with
the symptoms or effects.
Read the question
again:
“Which of the following do YOU feel is likely
to offer the most effective remedy? Why?”
Notice the operative word?
“FEEL”
You were asked
which remedy you FELT was likely to be most effective, not which one you THOUGHT
it would be. And most people do exactly that… they respond with their irrational
emotions, not their rational minds. (Think about your own response.)
Sure, lots of
people say “But I thought that — that we didn’t know what the problem was we were
trying to cure — but we had to choose one of them… there were no other options!”
Hey… you did what
most people do in real life: you succumbed to your emotions. You set aside
your rational concern and chose on the basis of a little emotional manipulation on
our part. You acted like a normal, flesh-and-blood human being.
As a marketer
and seller, this is what you have to deal with. This is reality!
People generally
choose for emotional reasons first, then seek frantically for reassuring rationalisations
to justify that initial, irrational, emotional choice.
That gives you
two options:
1. If you act
with intelligence and integrity, you’ll wrap solid product or service features that
satisfy genuine, rational needs in strong, attractive emotional appeal. Because no
matter how much they need what you’re offering, until they want it,
they won’t buy it. But you’ll never induce your prospects to want what they
don’t genuinely need.
2. If your predominant
attribute of character is terminal stupidity, and you harbor a burning commercial
deathwish, you’ll exploit peoples’ irrational emotional responses to the hilt. You’ll
really shaft ’em!* You’ll get them to want what they already want (but don’t really
need}. And they’ll just keep on coming back for more, time after time after time
— because what they don’t need can never satisfy them. That’s why you can never get
enough of what you don’t need! Isn’t that fantastic? (Don’t believe us? Talk to your
local illegal drug dealer.)
It takes no talent,
no skill, no intelligence or integrity to get people to want what they already want
(but don’t need). Which is why those who do it bear those hallmarks… no talent,
no skill, no intelligence and no integrity.
But the chickens
always come home to roost, eventually. Sooner or later, the sucker always wakes up
to the truth… that their behaviour is irrational and based solely on emotional self-indulgence
and dependence.
The question is…
when they finally make that connection, and they feel humiliated and angry, who
are they going to blame?
That’s right.
You.
And you’ll have
earned every vicious, widespread, endless word of accusation and retribution. You’ll
never shut them up!
Put it this way…
on average, one dissatisfied customer will tell 11 other people who, on average,
will each tell 6 others. (After that it’s hearsay and loses its impact.)
But that’s still
67 people who won’t buy from you in future.
It’s called leverage.
Burn one and lose 67.
Really, r-e-a-l-l-y
clever.
Back
to top of page