A Little Advice From an Apple

I found this quote in an online article from the Wall Street Journal, about the way that Apple does business…

“According to several employees and training manuals, sales associates are taught an unusual sales philosophy: not to sell, but rather to help customers solve problems. "Your job is to understand all of your customers' needs—some of which they may not even realize they have,"

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576364071955678908.html#ixzz1PpRfBKll “

And as it turns out this is not only advice on how you could run your business, but more importantly--- also great advice on how you should create your radio ads.  Stop trying to sell – and simply help your customers solve a problem.  If you can do that, you’ll more than likely achieve the sale as a result.

The problem with most advertising is that it tries to answer questions no one is asking!   By giving the listener the who, what, when and where – when all they really want is an answer to the question “WHY?”   Why should I choose you?  How can you help me?

If you can solve the “why” they’ll give you their attention (and their money).  But drone on endlessly about how many years you’ve been in business, and load your ad with platitudes about your experienced staff and superior selection – they’ll tune you out and go back to whatever it was they were thinking about before your message came on. 

And they’ll do it with lighting speed!

 Thanks to the miracle of the internet and Google searches we’ve all become expertly honed at deciding what we’re interested in and what we’re not.  Give us information we don’t want, or didn’t ask for and we’re gone.  On to the next most interesting thought.  Which is really bad news for you Mr Advertiser.

So stop trying to sell, and stop cramming your ads full of “we-we” (as in we do this and we do that and we’ve been doing it for 35 years…) and figure out how you can solve their problem.   Then package that solution in a straight-forward ad, with some powerful and energetic verbs and you’ll get the listeners attention. 

And these days – that in and of itself is a huge success right there!


photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hello_baby/5189087055/">Patr!c!a</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/">cc</a>