Selling Is Simple - Keeping It Simple Is Hard

When you are in business, your job is to sell. If your business is good, you will be providing good value for a fair price. If you are doing that - providing something valuable at a good price - you should do it enthusiastically and without hesitation. The formula for doing that is simple:

You make promises.
You list benefits.
You create attractive images.

Anything else you may be tempted to do is completely unnecessary. And more often than not, it will thwart the sales process.

Experienced marketers are the last to see the badness in their own marketing, because they already know the rules and have done the deeds. You can't tell them anything. They've been there and back. But when their businesses break down because they have decided to take a "new and different" approach to selling - and every business will - they begin to look for answers.

That's when they are willing to listen - when they are already hanging from a limb, perched over the precipice of disaster. Still, late is better than never. And when someone does suggest, "Why don't you go back to the basics?" they are suddenly astounded and enormously appreciative of the amazing insight they've been given.

It's natural to drift away from the basics. After all, we are intelligent, complicated beings. Who would be content to bang away on the same six bongos year after year when there is an entire orchestra of instruments waiting to be played?

Intelligent marketers have the advantage of being able to see patterns that their less-gifted colleagues fail to notice.

They learn quickly and often rise like shooting stars.

But unless they stick to the basics, they may find that their advertising isn't working anymore. And if they take the time to figure out why, they may discover that they simply forgot the most important marketing "secret" they ever learned: When it comes to selling, simplicity is always the best course of action.

- Michael Masterson