Tony Novak CPA

Which of these is different than the others?

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tonynova
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Comments about a marketing services sales video

Remember those questions on cognitive aptitude test asking you to identify which item in the group is different than the others? Here’s one I ran across today in a video presentation:

Item 1 – Marketing message from a daycare

message2

Item 2: marketing message from jeweler

message1

Item #3 – marketing message from marketing company

message3

I was quite surprised to see these three examples used consecutively in a presentation of the same concept of a compelling marketing message. Clearly #3 is not the same as #1 and #2 from the customer’s perspective! I can’t explain why a marketing company would use the three in the same exercise unless they are suggesting that the messages are the same.

My marketing messages and my letters of engagement (the actual work documents) resemble #1 or #2 with accountability for results. I recently released a social medial marketing company and have backed away from other marketing advisers simply because their message is too similar to #3 above. There is no accountability for results in the system. Notice that #1 and #2 use the word “guarantee” to convey the nature of accountability for end results. I am frustrated that many of the marketers who approach me do not use that word.

Comments

One response to “Which of these is different than the others?”

  1. Mike Russo Avatar
    Mike Russo

    A person that believes a day care facility could actually guarantee a child would read at any proficiency level would probably believe Mexico will build a wall. 🙂

    In all seriousness. What does that guarantee mean? Do you know what a first grade reading level actually is? Do you think most parents do? How do I know if they have achieved this guarantee? Do I get to pick a book and tell the kid to read?

    The second one….what is the actual guarantee? You, as the customer, are protected? Protected from what? Do you know about the quality of diamonds? Would you know if you didn’t get the best quality? How are you going to compare prices? They can simply state that their diamond is clearer than their competitor so you aren’t comparing apples to apples.

    Now, the third example doesn’t make an empty promise. How could they. They say you’ll attract more customers. More than what? If you get one customer, they did their job. How could they possibly put a number on that? If you make even $1 more, then you made more money….they win.

    What I’m getting at is what do you think they can guarantee? Can you guarantee me that I’ll never get audited? If I get audited, can you guarantee me that I’ll win? Can you guarantee that I’ll pay the least amount of tax? How? What if Joe Blow down the street gets me to pay less? Now, you have to get into an argument with a customer about interpretation of tax law. Hell, we can’t all agree on that and you want to have a guarantee with a customer?

    Ultimately, what is it you expect? You want someone to quantify what will happen to your business if you hire them? Would you enter into an agreement like that with a client? “If you hire me, my bookkeeping system will increase your profit by 10%”. What happens when the client won’t listen? Now, you look bad even though it’s not your fault!

    As a rule, I don’t like consultants. But you seem to what to hire one. At that point, it’s not about what they can do for you, it’s about how you can work with them. As I said on your FB post, don’t look at what someone has done, look at the people you want to be like and pick their brains. Steal their shtick until you get your own, but if you have the attitude that “I’ve build businesses before”, you’ll probably struggle as the world has changed.

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