Being Specific to Avoid "Me Too" Marketing

In many cases when helping technology business owners differentiate themselves in their marketing, they often say to me that things such as headlines, subject lines and benefits sound too much like everyone else.

They have a hard time not sounding like a “me too” advertiser.

And I agree that when you do the same things as competitors you do tend sound the same on websites, direct mail, email, etc.





With that said, take a look at this quick 7 minute video post about being specific in your marketing messages to avoid "me too" marketing:

At this point I would check out your marketing messages especially things such as benefit claims and see if you can apply some specific statements, facts or figures to prove your company services value and separate business from your competition.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments below or to feed me with any topics you may want to see covered on the blog.

To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach

Behavioral vs Motivation Selling Conversations

Recently I was on a call with a client and we were talking about sales conversations. They had read books and took courses talking about things such as mirroring client mannerisms and using their personality type to better get into the potential client’s head. Not only did my client relay that this was difficult to do but it didn’t seem to work all that well.

That’s pretty much been the status quo that I’ve also experienced over the years. These are behavioral selling techniques that really don’t work if you figure wrong.




It’s very often that during a meeting when someone knows you’re there to sell them something that they don’t truly act as their normal selves. They may be using it as a defense mechanism or they know they don’t have the purchasing power but want you to think they do or it could be a number of other reasons.

The point is, you are more apt to peg someone wrongly and in turn, you will speak and adjust your pitch based on that incorrect analysis. So now you are truly selling uphill to this person. Furthermore, they also have an incorrect assessment of your personality since part of behavioral selling has the sales person behaving in accordance to the assessed prospect. Not pretty.

It’s kind of ridiculous when you really think about it. And impossible to pull off if you are meeting with more than one person at a time.

So what’s the better approach? Why using motivation of course!

This concept is very well described by Thomas A. Freese, author of The Secrets of Question Based Selling. In the book he uses the terms German Shepherds and Gold Medals. The basic principle is that people are normally motivated best by two types of notions. Either they will make a buying decision based on fear (German Shepherds) or positive outcomes/rewards (Gold Medals).

A German Shepherd example would be to buy your solution because it avoids downtime or mitigates risk. A Gold Medal example would include things like increased productivity or profitability.

So the question that stands at this point is; which approach do you take in a sales meeting? That can go one of two ways.

If you set your marketing up so that this prospect came through a funnel that was talking about German Shepherd items or Gold Medal items, then you already know what the prospect was attracted to. If the marketing did not distinguish between the two, then you need to present both sides and see what makes them light up so you can follow that path.

So follow this advice that I gave this particular client and see where it takes you. It would be best to back it up one step and apply/test it out in your marketing. You should see a significant difference in how these conversations go. For more on these kinds of techniques I really recommend you read The Secrets of Question Based Selling.



To Your Business Success-

George Sierchio
The Consultant’s Coach