If It Crashes, Millions Will Be Lost!!!
Mars curiosity will be landing one way or the other August 5th. Will you have seven minutes of terror, or will you know your prospects are watching your whiteboard before the video is over?
Read MoreTag Archive: Storytelling
What George Lucas and My Grandson Can Teach You About Your Marketing Videos. Try White Boarding.
In a recent post, People Don’t Read…What Are You Going to Do About It? I advocated the use of video to get your messages across. But by extension, if no one watches your video, you’re still stuck. Try this White Board Video technique next time. They won’t be able to look away.
Read MoreGenetically Test for Great Sales People!
For years, VPs of Sales and CEOs have been looking for the magic bullet to help select the best sales people, the top 20 percent that bring in 80% of their sales. There are minor industries built on evaluating and testing sales candidates. Including recruiters, testing, and the risk of making the wrong decision, hiring a great sales person can be an expensive proposition.
So with advances in genetic testing, why can’t we test for the genes that make great sales people? Now you can.
Read MorePeople Don’t Read. What Are You Going To Do About It?
Sales people like to talk. The good ones listen. Marketers, on the other hand, tend to be verbal but more focused on reading and writing. They wind up working on the copy for websites, PR releases, direct mail, email, literature and whitepapers. The problem is… no one reads any more. So much of this activity is wasted. Too bad. What are you going to do about it?
Read MoreMetaphor 7: The Messaging Summary
Over the last set of posts, I’ve discussed the subtleties of messaging in relation to how we think and how the brain works. I have a strong conviction that most B2B messaging is still stuck in the facts and figures mode, and most companies are trying to use reason and logic alone to persuade prospects to buy their products. As a result, they are missing huge marketing and sales opportunities, especially when positioning for market growth.
Read MoreMetaphor 6: The Positive Frame – The Lady or the Leopard
Recent research (O’Keefe & Jensen, 2008) indicates that the negative frame will only take you so far in influencing behavior through messaging. Their research finds that there is a slight positive effect at persuasion for messages that were positively framed. It may be simply that we prefer thinking about the beautiful lady and not the leopard, pleasant thoughts compared to dark thoughts. However, I believe framing in a positive way helps activate the dopamine circuitry in the brain that is associated with positive emotions, happiness and satisfaction.
Read MoreMetaphor 4: Step Away From the Taco. Dealing With Negative Frames
I once had a competitor say to a prospect that if they bought from us, we would nickel and dime them to death. Of course this is a lousy way to sell, and I would never advocate disparaging your competition like this. But having been presented with this “negative frame” and hearing it repeatedly in the marketplace, I had to do something.
Read MoreMetaphor 3: You Never Hear the Metaphor That Kills You
While it is fun, it is not necessary to make up metaphorical language about beavers. Rather the point is that we think metaphorically. A metaphor exists in the brain as a connection of synapses and neurons. It can be expressed by language. Knowing this, we can create messaging based on language that fits naturally into the narratives we already have in place in our heads and that are activated by metaphorical thinking. The most influential metaphorical language construction is the “frame.”
Read MoreMetaphor 2: The Bark of a Tree Never Tastes Bitter to a Hungry Beaver
When we are children and are held by our parents, we feel warmth (temperature) and learn to associate warmth with affection. What happens in these two cases is that our brains do something called neural recruiting. Two neurons each holding different concepts begin to be connected. The more often that two things are associated together, the more the neurons that hold each of these two things begin to connect or wire together.
Read MoreMetaphor 1: You Can’t Put a Duck Bill on a Beaver and Call It a Platypus.
One of the key building blocks of thought is the metaphor. It is also a building block in market and sales messaging. Metaphors are actually mental structures in the brain that are independent of language, but can be expressed by language to help us understand something. When we activate innate metaphors in people’s brains with language, we are then communicating with the unconscious parts of the brain and often have a greater chance at influencing thought than conscious reasoning or the use of facts and logic.
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