In
1900, Mercedes established world demand for cars never
to exceed one million (not enough chauffeurs); by 1920
there were 8 million Fords on the road. (It's all in
your head.)
Thomas J. Watson,
chairman of the board of IBM, said in 1943, "I think
there is a world market for about five computers."
When Alexander Graham
Bell offered Western Union exclusive rights to his "talking
machine" for one hundred thousand dollars, Western
Union president William Orton turned down the offer with
the question, "What use could this company make of
an electrical toy?"
the tell me/sell
me
from The One
Minute Salesperson:
It
comes down to caring about your customers. My purpose:
I help people get the feelings they want -- soon.
People hate
to be sold but they love to buy.
People
don't buy our services, products, or ideas. They buy
how they imagine using them will make them feel.
SPIN:
Situtation/Problem/Implication/Need
Jay's
List of Universal Business Hot Buttons
competitiveness/competitive advantage
service quality/close to customer
leadership (not management)
productivity improvement
excellence
participation
values
Yankee ingenuity
gain sharing
management of accelerating change
generation gap woes
What's in it for me? How am I going to
feel about this?
from
Influence, the new psychology of modern persuasion
by Robert Cialdini
Automatic
decision .making processes humans have adopted to simplify
our busy lives, how they are used to persuade us to do
things, rightly or wrongly, and how to counteract them
when appropriate. These automatic ("click, whirr")
responses provide shortcuts through the density of modern
life. The big six are:
reciprocation
We feel an obligation to make a concession
to someone who has made a concession to us. Krishnas
give them a flower before asking for a donation.
commitment and
consistency
After placing a bet, race fans are more
confident their horse will win. (An obsessive desire
to be consistent with what we've already done.) ***
Get a small order. Then they are a customer, not a prospect.
*** Once a person's self image is altered, all sorts
of subtle advantages become available to someone who wants
to exploit that new image. *** why you like it in 100
words or less....
social proof
We determine what is correct by finding
out what other people think is correct. 95% of people
are imitators and 5% intiators; actions of others are
the greatest proof. *** 23 .minute movie showing social
activity to reticent children enough to reverse pattern.
ditto fear of dogs.
liking
Good looking people . .>halo effect.
Joe Girard sends 150,000 I like you cards each year.
authority
authority & Stanley Milgram's shocking
experiments. Robt Young selling Sanka. Big title leads
to perception of tallness.
scarcity
Limited engagement ends soon. *** Used
car salesman . .all get appointment for the same time.
The
"contrast principle" doesn't fit into the six.
"If we are talking to a beautiful woman at a cocktail
party are are then joined by an unattractive one, the
second woman will strike us as less attractive than she
actually is." Or soak the left hand in cold water,
the right in hot. Plunge them both into a pail of lukewarm
water and the left swears it's hot, the right, cold.
Sell the $75 sweater after he buys the $275 suit.
Two types of advertising:
(1) noise and (2) news.
"When a fellow
says, 'It ain't the money, but the principle of the thing,
it's the money." --Elbert Hubbard
The Popcorn Report
Trend 1: Cocooning.
Growth in paranoia industries like guards...
Trend 2: Fantasy
Adventure. videos, mountain bikes, etc.
Trend 3: Small Indulgences.
Trend 4: Personalized
products. Make your own perfume.
Trend 5: Cashing
out. Live in the country.
Trend 6: Down-Aging.
Older is better.
Trend
7: Staying Alive. Cholesterol.
Trend 8: The Vigilante
Consumer.
Trend 9: 99 Lives.
Buying time.
Trend 10: Save Our
Socieity.
Bad Translations of Product Names...
from
"American Demographics" magazine:
When Braniff translated
a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in leather,"
it came
out in Spanish as "Fly naked."
Coors
put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish,
where it was read as "Suffer
from diarrhea."
Chicken
magnate Frank Perdue's line, "It takes a tough man
to make a tender chicken,"
sounds much more interesting in Spanish: "It takes
a sexually stimulated
man to make a chicken affectionate."
When
Vicks first introduce its cough drops on the german market,
they were chagrined
to learn that the german pronunciation of "v"
is f . which in german
is the gutteral equivalent of "sexual penetration."
Not
to be outdone, Puffs tissues tried later to introduce
its product, only to
learn that "Puff" in german is a colloquial
term for a whorehouse. The English
weren't too fond of the name either, as it's a highly
derogatory term
for a non .heterosexual.
The
Chevy Nova never sold well in Spanish speaking countries.
"No va" means "it
doesn't go" in Spanish.
When
Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years
back, they translated
their slogan, "Pepsi Brings You Back to Life"
pretty literally. The
slogan in Chinese really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your
Ancestors Back from
the Grave."
When
Coca .Cola first shipped to China, they named the product
something that when
pronounced sounded like "Coca .Cola." The only
problem was that the characters
used meant "Bite the wax tadpole." They later
changed to a set
of characters that mean "Happiness in the mouth."
A
hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist
Stick", a curling iron,
into Germany only to find out that mist is slang for manure. Not
too many people had use for the manure stick.
When
Gerber first started selling baby food in africa, they
used the same packaging
as here in the USA . with the cute baby on the label.
Later they found
out that in Africa companies routinely put pictures on
the label of what's
inside since most people can't read.
I
thought that Esso was the same as Japanese for stalled
car or abandoned vehicle.
It's been a long time, though . .Exxon sounds almost normal,
now.
There
was also a leakproof pen whose Spanish ad translated as
"It's a pen, it's
a condom!"
Internet
Time Group