I write a blog - so what?

I find myself asking a very simple question of people these days. It’s my way of responding to sales pitches, junk emails and pretty much any form of presentation that comes my way. You probably ask it yourself – some of you on a sub conscious level and others (if you’re anything like me) in ten foot tall letters, posted to the side of your building.

That question is – so what?

As simple as it is, this question can prove to be incredibly powerful when it comes to your next sales promotion. To put it to good use, make a list of all the things that you want to say to your customer in your next promotion.

Don’t hold back – no matter how mundane you think the point is, write it down. It’s much better to have a long list that you can edit right down, rather than desperately trying to think of new things just to make up the numbers.

Got the list? No? OK, I’ll wait a bit……………..

Right, time’s up. OK, so what you need to do next is to put yourself in the mindset of one of your customers. Just to make things interesting, picture yourself as one of the more disagreeable ones. You know the sort – your eyes always roll into the back of your head when you hear they’re on the phone but you still cannot afford to ignore them. Oh don’t act like you don’t have a customer like that, everybody has one and you never know, you may very well be that very customer to someone from whom you buy. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but we all need to accept that sometimes there are just people that rub us up the wrong way.

OK, so now you are in the mind of Mr or Mrs Pita (that’s an acronym for Pain in the Arse), take a look at point number 1 on your list and then ask the magical question – SO WHAT?

And pay very close attention to the answer, because once you’ve made a note of it, I want you to put that new point to Mr Pita again, and once again, ask the magical question – SO WHAT?

Keep doing this until you can really get to the point of why your customer would care about what it is you’re trying to tell them. In the traditional days of sales training, we were taught to look at Features – Advantages – Benefits. That’s still a powerful way to work, but using the SO WHAT method can cut through a lot of the crap that you’re about to share with your clients.

You see, any sales point without the benefits to back it up is no sales point at all, it’s just needless fluff, and it’s actually more damaging than you realise. I’ll give you an example; each week I get an email through telling me the name of someone who has won some sales incentive. Here’s the thing – I don’t care. That information is utterly pointless to me but what’s worse, the people sending the mail don’t give me the option to unsubscribe, so once a week I get mildly annoyed at someone or, more specifically, some company.

The result? Just how much do you think I want to do business with that company? Precisely – I don’t. The information they are sharing with me is of no benefit to me whatsoever. I ask SO WHAT? and there is no answer.

Are you guilty of the same? Are you telling people facts and figures that aren’t really all that interesting? Are you telling them why they need to know this stuff and, perhaps most importantly, do they really need to know in the first place?

We are all of us told that Knowledge is Power. Well knowledge of pointless crap is only useful when you’re on a game show, so just stop putting it out there.

On a parting note, please sponsor me in the Royal Parks Half Marathon by visiting www.justgiving.com/paulyrunsagain I have not actually ran at all since last year's London Marathon and in starting to train again last night, I figured I could pick up where I left off. WRONG!!! I need to go back to square one and develop my skills all over again. SO WHAT? you say, well the point is that any of you who think that an ex Marathon runner will not struggle is wrong - I am going to have to work very hard, so all of your support will mean a great deal to me.