How to Sell a Boring Product (Spice it Up!)
Let’s face it – some products are just more boring than others. An air filter that takes out all the nasty stuff you don’t even know is there in the first place? Uninteresting. A video game that makes you feel like you’re going at mach speed with your hair on fire? Exciting!
So how do you sell a dull product? By making it exciting. As an example, let’s take one of the most ho hum products there is: White bread.
If you’re like most people, you’re already yawning. Sell white bread? You’d rather sell dust.
But what if you make that white bread into delectable frybread? Spicy croutons? Brandied bread pudding? Combine it with chocolate fondue? Toasted cheese with tomato and turkey?
You get the picture – it’s not the product you’re selling at all, it’s what you can do with the product. It’s the sizzle, not the steak.
You’re selling pimple cream? Then you talk about how they’ll be pimple free, right? Not really. Yes, you’ll show the before and after, the face with the pimples and the face without. But what you’ll talk about is how they’ll finally get the girl they’ve been lusting after for the past six months, or how the boy of their dreams will finally notice them and ask them to prom.
How about life insurance? What product could possibly be more boring and even repulsive than life insurance? Burial insurance, I suppose. Who wants to talk about either one of those?
But what if you made that life insurance and burial insurance EXCITING! Think it’s not possible? I think it’s VERY possible.
Consider this: When Joan Rivers passed away, we heard a quote from her that went something like this:
“When I die, I want my funeral to be a big showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action… I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I want to look gorgeous, better dead than I do alive. I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag. And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyonce’s.”
And by all accounts, Joan’s funeral was indeed a beautiful, funny, lovely and bittersweet event attended by 1,000 of her closest friends.
So why don’t life insurance sales people and burial people help the client plan a FUN funeral that shows the person as they truly were in life? Why not help them leave behind a legacy for their loved ones, a tribute to their life and give them a feeling of immortality?
It would be so simple to do, and the insurance/burial people who do it would be rich beyond measure because they’d have no competition. Imagine that – a life insurance person being SOUGHT OUT by clients. Yes, it could happen for them, and it can happen for you, no matter what it is that you’re selling.
So stop worrying that you have a product that makes paint drying look fascinating, and find a way to make it EXCITING, memorable and yes, FUN! Do this and you will be rich indeed.
