Читать книгу Media Selling - Warner Charles Dudley - Страница 53

A salesperson’s most important sales strategy is to create value for their product, to create a perception of a differential competitive advantage of their product in prospects’, buyers’, and customers’ minds. Creating value means telling a compelling story and educating your prospects, buyers, and customers about your product and medium. Here’s an example of creating value with a sales story:

1 A new kids’ toothpaste is blue and tastes like bubble gum.

2 A revolutionary new product that is a glistening, bright, cool, deep blue color that shimmers with flecks of silver, making it interesting, exciting, and fun for children to push out of a dispenser that is easy for small hands to manipulate. Its foaming action in the mouth is new and different; it is thicker and foamier, as if something important is really working in kids' mouths to fight cavities and to make their breath smell great so their mommies will know they really did brush their teeth. When the kids first taste their very own type of new toothpaste that is not for adults, they experience a taste sensation unlike any other. It is not toothpaste; it is bubble gum! Kids cannot wait to brush their teeth several times a day. They are likely to say after lunch, “Well, I think I’d better go brush my teeth.”

Which of the above two sales stories about a new kids’ toothpaste creates more value for the product? Which sales story is better? Which story is more likely to make the sale? The second description tells a story and creates value for the product, which is positioned according to its benefits to the kids.

You must become a brand evangelist for your product.²⁷ You will find a much more thorough discussion of the many ways to create value in Chapter 7: Influence and Creating Value.