Don’t Rob Your Prospects of Their Scarcest Resource

by Tom Trush

Ever notice how many people want to steal your scarcest resource? They crave a piece of your time— often for their own benefit.

But this theft isn’t only limited to people … each day hundreds of marketing messages attempt to rob you of your time, too.

So how do you decide where to direct your attention? Well, fortunately, this decision mostly happens on an unconscious level. If you were consciously aware of every marketing message competing for your interest, you couldn’t function.

Good thing you have instinct—that gut feeling that tells you (in a split second) when something isn’t worth your time. When marketing to prospects, you must overcome this intuition if you have any chance at getting your message seen or heard.

Just like you, your prospects recognize promotional fluff. Your gut knows advertisements. Your gut knows when someone is selling. Your gut knows when something serves someone else’s interests. Am I right?

Remember, the most effective marketing often doesn’t look like marketing. So, with this concept in mind, let me give you a challenge... When you write your next marketing piece, honor your prospects’ time by presenting information as if they were already your clients/customers.

Ignore your desires. Forget about selling. Disregard your competitors. Snub the internal voice that screams, “You’re giving away too much!” Take this exercise seriously and I guarantee your marketing grabs more eyeballs and gains greater interest.

Need an example to help you get started? Watch this nearly 12-minute video (with over 13 million views) from Dr. Robert Cialdini: http://youtu.be/cFdCzN7RYbw. He gives you six costless ways to persuade prospects and, at the same time, introduces you to his resources for improving organizational and personal performance.

While recently critiquing a few marketing pieces for a client, I was startled by a strange language style.

It wasn’t that the words were vulgar. Or even that they were wrong. The problem was that I couldn’t imagine the client using the language in a conversation.

Remember, marketing is just an extension of a one-onone discussion. The only difference is—depending on the medium you use—you’re sharing an identical message with multiple people. Look at your last written marketing piece. Would you use the same words while speaking with a prospect?

If you wouldn’t say something in a one-on-one conversation with a prospect, don’t say it in your marketing materials. Far too many entrepreneurs and executives use marketing to talk about themselves. So, you may see lists of accomplishments... heavily branded content... exaggerated claims... and language that needs a permanent home inside a thesaurus.

Can you imagine a real estate agent greeting you and then rattling off a series of awards?

Or what if you just met an accountant who explained how she’s “a leading provider of integrated information services and scalable workflow tools that create value-added alliances, while leveraging the evolving requirements of today’s business professionals”? If you’re a robot marketing to aliens, these approaches might work—but not with real people. So use your marketing to casually talk to prospects and deliver value. Your prospects will reward you with attention. n

Tom Trush is a Phoenix, Arizona-based directresponse copywriter who helps entrepreneurs and executives craft lead-generating marketing materials. Pick up his latest book, Escape the Expected: The Secret Psychology of Selling to Today’s Skeptical Consumers at writewaysolutions.com.