‘Why Should I Buy From or Hire You?’
February, 2017
• When your customers, clients, channel partners and investors see, hear or read about anything relating to your products, services and companies, do they think to themselves, “I gotta have it”; or do they think, “B-o-r-i-n-g — Do any of them have one ounce of creativity in them! Nah, no thanks, never mind, pass?”
• In this attention challenged world where 140 characters on Twitter are getting to be too verbose, wouldn’t you agree that you can’t just be better than everyone else (who all say the same about themselves)? Instead, you have to be different?
• Wouldn’t you also agree that people don’t remember “better than,” they remember “different from?” And if you’re merely better than, you’re a commodity, but if you’re different from, you can price yourself higher on value?
Steve Jobs came back to a nearly bankrupted Apple in 1997 and came up with the message, “Think Different.” And because they did, they became the most successful company in the world after they introduced the iPhone in 2007.
Why should you care? Why am I talking about this?
Because I’ve recently been doing a one-man show titled, “Steve Jobs Returns: How to Build a Visionary Company,” where I don’t play Steve Jobs ... I am Steve Jobs.
I can do that because, as a former FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer and suicide interventional psychiatrist, I learned how to hack into people from their inside out to unlock and disarm them so they turned in a gun, instead of pulling the trigger.
In my 2017 PIE presentation, I have hacked into your customers, clients, channel partners and investors, and figured out what it would take — and what you need to create in your ads and marketing — to cause them to think, “I gotta have it, buy it, work with you or invest in you!”
YOU’RE ON NOTICE!
To keep you from falling asleep, I will start out with an in-your-face, interactive session with you, where I play a customer, client, channel partner and investor, that’s titled, “Why should I buy from, work with or invest in you?”
And guess what? You won’t be able to convince me. But you may have some fun trying.
But never fear, by the end of my presentation and follow-up workshop, you’ll learn the answers and secrets to making even me think, “I gotta have you!”
BTW, after one of my last hostage negotiation training sessions, Timothy McNally, then-Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s LA office, wrote:
“Not only was this the highest attendance program (during a full day of hostage negotiation training), it also had the highest sustained attendance of any program. I believe ... that the information [he] imparted will save lives in the future.”
It is gonna be a blast holding all of you hostage during my presentation at 2017 PIE in March in Chicago. See you there.
Mark Goulston, M.D., is widely regarded as a “people hacker.” Goulston has written seven books, including “Real Influence: Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In” and “Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone.” He contributes to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Business Insider, and writes a syndicated business advice column at The Business Journals. He can be reached at mgoulston@markgoulston.com.
