Art of Making Money: Sell The Sizzle

Art of Making Money: Sell The Sizzle
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Art of making money: Sell the sizzle, not the steak.

This is part one of a 12 part series on the art of making money, a fast paced system for the guerrilla entrepreneur.

Does "a carbohydrate rich, high in sugar, carbonated drink in an aluminum can," sound appetizing, or would you prefer "refreshing,"?

Or how about: "Practically designed, economical and quiet," or would you prefer: "Oh what a feeling!"

Every great salesman knows it's the sizzle and not the steak. The steak, of course, is why the customer comes back, but the sizzle is what gets them there in the first place.

Seth Godin on the tribes we lead.

As Willy Wonka knew, the wrapper is always more important than the chocolate. Anyone can make chocolate, but it is only a few who have the vision to make a magic wrapper that will bring the world to their doorstep.

How you market your product or service is how the world will find you, talk about you and subsequently remember you. The quality and substance of your product or service is why your customers will keep coming back for more and recommending you to their friends.

There are two ways to sell a product. The first is the old school way, which involves throwing millions into repetition. Old advertising execs repeated this mantra: "Hit your customer over the head enough with the product proposition and they are destined to want it." This system does work, but you need to have piles of corporate cash and be ready to drive a nail into a piece of wood with a sledgehammer.

Since you probably don't have limitless piles of cash, it may serve you better to leave this system to the mega conglomerates and use a slightly less heavy handed approach.

The second system was all to familiar to the late Steve Jobs. The secret is simply to seduce your customer to fall in love with your product, to become unforgettable and to create a hypnotic state every time your customer even thinks of your product. In this way, your product becomes an indispensable essential of life. This system requires little cash and is truly the path of least resistance for the guerrilla entrepreneur. Whereas the first system requires a sledgehammer to drive the nail, this system requires just an ounce of pressure and the nail will drive itself into the wood.

All seduction starts with the sizzle. In that case of a product it will be the packaging and branding component. Sizzle is what makes a good product not only irresistible but indispensable. It is what makes it great.

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