Intellect and Emotion
Does the customer typically buy the best value, or does he buy what he feels to be the best value? The truth is that human beings usually do what their emotions dictate, then find the logic to justify it.
Nothing is quite so important as emotion in advertising and selling. Regardless of what you sell, the important things to remember are always the intangibles.
As Neurologist Donald Calne puts it, the essential difference between reason (logic) and emotion is that reason leads to conclusions while emotion leads to actions.
As experts in your industry, you and your salespeople see your product far more intellectually than does your customer. The benefits you see in your product are different than the benefits your customer sees in your product. You see things, which make your product different from your competitor’s.
Your customer sees only what your product will do for him and chances are, your competitor’s product will do the same thing. Advertising may increase the customer’s emotional predisposition toward your store, as well as increase the number of selling opportunities you will have, but it will always take a salesperson to close the sale.
Good advertising will begin the process of selling, but it is a process which must be completed on the sales floor. Do your salespeople know what your ads say? Are your salespeople in step with the spirit and thrust of the message you are advertising to the public?
Listening to your salespeople should be like hearing a continuation of your ads. If your advertising and your salespeople aren’t saying the same thing, you need to bring the two together.
The most effective selling organization will be the one whose external sales message (advertising) is in perfect harmony with its internal sales message (sales presentations). If your advertising staff is marching to the beat of the same drummer heard by your sales staff, there will be synchronicity.
And who is that drummer your ad people and your salespeople are all straining to hear? It’s You, of course!