Imagine two different salesmen walking down the street.
One goes from door to door and talks to people, makes his pitch, and asks for an order.
If what he’s doing is working, his pockets will be stuffed full of cash and orders by the end of the day.
If not, his pockets will be bare and he’ll know that he failed.
The other salesman walks along the pavement, shouting out his pitch to every house he passes.
He will never know if what he is saying is having any effect.
At the end of the day, he couldn’t tell you if he earned a single new customer.
Why am I telling you this story? Because every business needs customers to survive. And to get customers it needs to sell. Yet, most business people have no idea that advertising is nothing more than…
Salesmanship Multiplied By A Mass Medium!
Its job is not to look pretty, build awareness, impart an image on the brain of the reader, or any of the other 362 reasons an advertiser will give you.
It is there to do the job of dozens of individual salesmen.
Yet, most ads neglect salesmanship altogether.
They’re like the guy that shouts his pitch at every house. They effectively say…
“Hey, I’ve entertained you, so won’t you go find my product or service and buy it?”…
… and the advertiser has no idea whether or not it produced any sales.
I can’t imagine there are many businesses that would accept that level of performance from their salespeople.
So why accept it from your advertising?
Damn it. I try not to get annoyed about incompetence in advertising. But what can I say—sometimes my emotions get the better of me!
Okay, I’m going to assume that we’re on the same page on this so we can get down to the nitty-gritty…
Here’s a simple way you can apply the concept of “salesmanship multiplied by a mass medium” to your advertising.
The next time you are faced with a difficult advertising decision, ask yourself:
“Would this help a salesman sell the product if he were sitting face-to-face with a prospect?”
Yes, it’s that simple.
And you’ll make a much better decision yourself by asking this question than if you asked anybody else for advice.
Right, that’s all for now.
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