You’ve got a phenomenal product or service. You’re passionate about what you do. You want to start selling the bejabbers out of what you’ve got. You study sales. You learn that you need to communicate the features & benefits of your stuff. You develop a nice list of features, and a terrific little list of benefits that those features will help deliver. Stop right there. DON’T do it. Don’t launch into the usual suspects of the sales game: features & benefits. What you really need to do is: tell the story of what you’ve got, why it’s great, and why you’re so passionate about it. The features & benefits will be apparent. Trust me. Think of some of the great marketing messages you’ve seen – were any of them loaded up with a features & benefits statement? Yeah, Cialis and Viagra do advertise the potential for a 36 hour hard-on, but I don’t know as that feature is really a benefit. Any feature that includes “see a doctor if…” might not be a real benefit. Or any kind of sales trigger. Seriously, though, what about those great Career Builder ads from the 2007 Super Bowl? Or this year’s model, the Naomi Campbell/Lizard-wit-a-grill LifeWater ad? Did they have a laundry list of features and benefits? No – but they spoke volumes about what the products/services had to offer. Career Builder will help you feel less like an office-supplies-bedecked gladiator. LifeWater will help you dance with lizards…or maybe look like Naomi Campbell. Or at least feel like you could. The best sales pitch is a great story about your product. The best features & benefits statement is a great story about how your service impacted someone’s life, business, health…pick one. Stories are what connect us. Charts & graphs, features & benefits –…

I found myself listening to a pretty powerful group of people talk yesterday about the economic trends in my hometown, Richmond VA.  Jim Bacon, Jeff Cooke, Michael Sesnowitz, and Greg Wingfield all sat around – well, on stage – and talked about whether or not events like the Wachovia Securities move from RVA to St. Louis would cause an economic tremor in River City. When I heard about the WachSec/AG Edwards merger, my reaction was “Opportunity!” – for new businesses, for watching some real-time change management, and for writing a new chapter in the Story of River City.  Turns out I’m with the smart set on this one, since that was the consensus of the experts. The presence of VCU – and the engagement between VCU and the region’s business community – is a prime example of how the practical application of knowledge can be the storied tide that lifts all boats.  A university that’s plugged into business trends provides learning – and a workforce – that’s relevant to need AND that drives innovation.  The very model of win/win. The interplay and collaboration between education and business would really make an impact in primary education, too – wouldn’t it be great if kids were taught early to find a need and fill it, rather than to get-good-grades-and-a-job?  The primary/secondary public education system seems stuck in a 19th century model.  Some concrete input from the business community on early education might address that – who’s up for pitching that to the Board of Ed…?

Comcast has gotten itself into some  deep kimchee – $4000 worth, to be exact – with the FCC over a video news release (VNR) it aired in September 2006 as a news piece on CN8’s “All About You” segment.  CN8 is Comcast’s “news” station, and is a good example of how the intersection of a need to fill air-time with the ready availability of corporate PR video can cause fender-benders on the information highway… First, there might be no such thing as bad publicity, but I doubt that the folks who make Nelson Rescue Sleep, the product being touted in the fine-inducing VNR, are entirely delighted with the headlines they’re getting today.  Seeing a company’s name in a story about “fake news” can make a potential customer run for the exit to avoid getting ripped of by something “fake” – whether the actual product is snake oil or not. Second, and more serious, is the further erosion of public trust in what they see on TV or in print labeled “news” – is it really news, or is it someone’s propaganda?  Propaganda has been around since the first clique formed, right after there were more than two people on the planet.  Everyone – individuals AND enterprises – wants to put their best face forward, to tell their best story.  Problems arise, however, when any story is presented as fact without independent commentary or opinion.  If you ask Allstate, they’re the best insurance company in the world – best service, best value, best coverage.  But if you’re doing a survey of the insurance industry, you’ve gotta get input from State Farm, too – AND from independent analysts. I’m all about a good story – but telling a story to attract customers is vastly different than presenting that story, stand-alone, as “news”. …

I haven’t weighed in on this before because…well, because I was utterly sick of hearing about it. No, I’m not talking about Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan.  I’m talking about Michael Vick and his alleged dog-fighting operation in Surry County, VA, which led to Mr. Vick being indicted on federal conspiracy charges in July. I’m flummoxed by the number of people who seem to be willing to defend him solely because he’s a black dude.  Black, white, green with purple spots – cruelty and horror know no color, and I wonder what man’s best friend would have to say about Mr. Vick, should Fido suddenly gain the power of speech.  I think Fido might just vote with his dentition, and sink his canines into Mr. Vick’s leg. Dog-fighting is, according to current media conventional wisdom, a “cultural issue”, and judgment is supposed to be suspended on “cultural issues”.  The subtext here is that we’re supposed to cut Mr. Vick a break ’cause he’s keepin’ it real and participating in a “sport” that’s popular with professional athletes, particularly professional athletes who happen to be black. “Keepin’ it real” appears to be code for rejoicing in ignorance, for celebrating what amounts to a willful lack of intellectual curiosity or engagement.  I’d abandon all hope if it weren’t for people like those I found at Black College Wire – in particular this post by Kai Beasley, a recent graduate of Emory University. The courts do need to weigh in, and Mr. Vick is innocent until proven guilty.  But those who are leaping to his defense strictly because he’s “keepin’ it real” should take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror and ask what W.E.B. DuBois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., or Malcolm X might say about…

Here’s an example of what I mean when I say “tell a story” – this is a press release I wrote last week in advance of an event that took place this morning.  Please notice that at no time during this release is anyone “pleased to announce” anything– that phrase literally makes me grind my teeth. Richmond, VA –- July 12, 2007 – Truckers, those sailors of the concrete and asphalt seas, are at the hub of American commerce, carrying everything – groceries and clothing, plasma TVs and medical supplies – from manufacturers and distributors to consumers across the nation. The margins in the trucking industry are razor-thin, with time between loads and fuel costs often eating into already small profits. The daily challenge for trucking companies is matching freight loads with trucks nearby, cutting down-time and empty-truck runs. In 1999,  GetLoaded.com opened its web portal as a truck and load-matching board, using the internet to revolutionize business process management for the transportation and logistics industry. Bryan Jones, President of GetLoaded.com, will tell the Greater Richmond Technology Council (GRTC) how the company has combined the internet with a cutting edge computer platform and a user–friendly interface to revolutionize the trucking and freight industry. Mr. Jones will be the featured speaker at the monthly GRTC Good Morning Technology! Breakfast at The Place at Innsbrook in Glen Allen, Virginia on Friday, July 20, 2007, 7:30am to 9:00am. As the leading internet load board, Getloaded.com handles over 140,000 loads a day for 27,000 trucking companies with upwards of 500,000 trucks. Managing and growing that volume of business, and providing value to all their customers, tech-savvy or not, has been GetLoaded.com’s goal since the company was started. “We designed the site to be simple, fast, and easy to use, knowing that there is a…

In this week’s New York Magazine cover article – the one that has Katie Couric on the cover saying, “Some days I’m like, oh my God, what did I do?” – the core of the issue, the a-ha, that’s why they’ve got a problem revelation, was right there at the top of page four: At Today, she looked into the camera and imagined her average viewer as a 32-year-old lawyer with a toddler who was preparing to prosecute a case that day, or a stay-at-home mom who would “hopefully get some things about raising kids or the environment.” On the CBS Evening News, she couldn’t see anyone in the camera lens. “I’m not sure,” Couric says drily. “My parents. I know they’re watching.” No matter how good your story is, if you don’t know who you’re telling that story to, it won’t have the desired effect.  In fact, your story isn’t great, or even good, unless you know exactly who the story is going to be told to – because the audience will decide if it’s any good by agreeing to keep listening. All the hand-wringing in the world won’t stop a newscast from sinking in the ratings.  CBS News has got plenty of audience measurement data, and they should know who they’re trying to attract to the evening news.  The next step has to be to tell stories to that audience.  Unfortunately, I don’t know that they know, or will do, that.  And therin lies the issue…

Do you talk to panhandlers? How about the compulsory car-wash – you know, the guys at the corner who swarm your car at red lights and “wash” (actually, smear) your windshield? The panhandler and the compulsory car-wash guy are both interruption marketers. They spring out at you as you pass by, simply because you’re in their orbit. I bet you enjoy those interruptions, don’t you? You’re really anxious to listen to these guys make their pitch, aren’t you? How about someone you meet at a conference, or a cocktail party? Do you talk to them? Of course you do. There’s context there, some shared story, even if it’s just the answer to “how did you end up here?” That, in a nutshell, is the difference between interruption marketing (the old-school ad game: “New and Improved!”, “Prices Slashed!”, “Psst! Look! Over Here!”) and permission marketing (agreeing to listen to a story – a product message – because you have something in common with the story-teller). Marketing used to be all about the interruption. Just getting the prospect’s attention was enough to start the sales process. In today’s ad-clogged marketplace, the customer is exhausted by all the interruptions, and has gone deaf and blind to blandishments like “New and Improved!” In fact, a marketing message containing that phrase will likely end up in the spam folder or the trash can. With the new-and-improved penis & breast enlargement product pitches. OK, I can hear you saying “and just how in blue blazes am I supposed to do THAT, Casey?” You tell a really great story, that’s how. In Seth Godin’s terrific book “Permission Marketing”, he uses dating as a metaphor for permission marketing. You can dude yourself up and hit a singles bar, proposing marriage to every person in the place, and you’ll…