You Only Have 3 Seconds
A day has exactly 86,400 seconds (I know, I just calculated this with my 10 year for his math class ;-) and you only have three of those seconds to capture the attention of your prospective customer.
Needless to say with Twitter around, but people today are impatient but they are also trying to avoid getting buried in an avalanche of marketing messages on TV, their phone, email, Twitter, Facebook, etc. etc. they must make VERY quick decisions.
In those three seconds, sales are made, deals are closed, and empires are built, but to take full advantage of those three seconds to impress is very difficult – unless you know the formula!
Mark Joyner has a simple concept that can make your business utterly unstoppable; he calls it The Irresistible Offer.
In order to do business, you need to make an offer. Essentially, you offer someone a product or service, and they give you money. Everything else — public relations, marketing, surveys, and focus groups — are side shows to the main event of making the offer.
Making an offer involves much more than putting a dollar sign on a product, it means addressing the buyer's core problems. If you do that well and consistently, then you'll have more than a single sale, you'll have a customer for life. But to make the sale effectively, you'll have to overcome the prospect's objections, inevitable fears and uncertainties. In short, your offer must answer the Big Four questions that all customers always ask:
- What are you offering?
- How much will it cost?
- Why should I believe you?
- What's in it for me?
The first two questions basically boil down to, “What's your offer?” Your communication must assure the prospective customer that you are offering something of acceptable quality for a reasonable price. Once the offer has been made, the next question that must be addressed in the prospect's mind is, “Why should I believe you?” This comes down to trust! Sometimes, offers sound too good to be true – an offer only works if the person offering it is trustworthy.
Finally, prospects want to know, “What's in it for me?” (WIIFM) This isn't the same question as “What are you offering?” which is about what product you're selling. When people ask, “What's in it for me?” they want to know how they will benefit from the product. For example, a customer may buy a Bentley, but the benefit he or she receives is the prestige that comes with owning one.
An old marketing axiom says that, “People make their decisions based on emotion, and justify them with logic.” There's a lot of truth to this idea. The first three questions — about the offer, the cost, and the seller's credibility — address the buyer's logic. The last question, about benefits, deals with emotion.
By answering all four questions, an Irresistible Offer satisfies the customer both logically and emotionally. So let’s discuss what Mark means by an “Irresistible Offer”
What the Irresistible Offer is — and What It is not
The Irresistible Offer is an identity-building offer that is central to a product, service, or company. When such an offer is made, the believable return on investment is communicated so clearly, and so efficiently, that it's immediately apparent that the customer would have to be a fool to pass it up.
A perfect example is Domino's Pizza. In 1960, Tom Monaghan purchased a single pizzeria. By 2004, he had 7,000 stores grossing $4 billion in annual sales. How did he achieve this remarkable growth? Simple – Domino's communicates an Irresistible Offer as “Pizza hot and fresh to your door in 30 minutes or less. . . or it's free.” Monaghan realized that people wanted the convenience of pizza delivery, but they didn't want to pay for a product that arrived cold and later than expected. By guaranteeing that the pizza would be delivered hot within half an hour, he created an offer that was irresistible.
Now, let's look at what an Irresistible Offer is not.
First, it's not a special offer, one designed to produce a temporary uptick in sales. Instead, it is a permanent reality — and the lifeblood of your business identity.
Second, an Irresistible Offer is not a statement of fact or a statement of bragging rights. You may have been in business for 20 years, or you might have the largest store in your city, but that isn't enough to motivate anyone to buy from you right now.
Third, an Irresistible Offer is not a Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. For instance, one of the great examples of a USP is the classic ad for Anacin. It contained seven words: “Anacin: The Pain Reliever Doctors Prescribe Most.” The ad appealed to people who were mystified about which pain reliever to choose. It sought to persuade them to buy the one recommended by physicians. It's a great USP, but it's not an Irresistible Offer. Why not?
It requires only that you reflect on the best aspirin, but it doesn't make you want to buy right now. An Irresistible Offer shouldn't be useful only when you're in the drugstore wondering which pain reliever to buy. Rather, it should motivate you to drive out to the store and buy a specific brand.
An Irresistible Offer for a pain reliever would sound like this, “Your headache is gone and you're feeling good in 10 minutes or your money back.” That offer is truly irresistible, so let’s see why it works.
In the next lesson, we’ll learn the elements that are needed to make an offer irresistible, let's go on to the next section.
Be Well, DrJ
Dr. Gordon Jones is a serial entrepreneur with his creative work born through his innovation development company, Birddog.Ventures. Follow him above, connect with him on LinkedIn, and/or view all of DrJ's Pulse articles!