NO COMPRENDE!

By Ben Pedersen (c)2000

 

Stunning realizations happen in the weirdest places. They
can strike like lightning at anytime and they're told in the
oddest ways.

My lightning bolt of wisdom struck at a local Kinkos whist I
waited in line. Today, I'll share it with you.

I was waiting in line and in front of me was a frazzled
business woman. She was tired. She was moody and
she was in a HURRY. She needed some color copies.

Upon her turn, a young cashier waited for her. This woman
wanted color transparencies. She needed three manila folders. She also needed two reports spiral bound for her presentation the very next morning. And of course, this woman needed those things *right away*.

Unknown to her, there was a problem.

Another employee, some surfer looking dude with an earring,
was on the color copier. He was running another job. Thus,
the customer couldn't get her's done right away - like she had hoped.

She blew up. She melted down. She was on fire. She
prompted me to take a fighting stance.

That surfer on the copier noticed this too and had the
perfect solution! He had another color copier in a different
part of the store.

Ahhhhhh....

He would tell her about it. He would show her how to use it
and then she could copy her heart out. When she was
done, he would bind everything together in a neat little
report. Better yet, it could all be done *right now*.

Talk about instant bliss!

Solution in hand, visions of sales dancing in his head, the
modern looking employee marched right up to her.

The following dialogue ensued.....

>Ma'am, listen I've got a DucuStation Impress 2160 out
>there. Look, if you want to use it I'll show you how.
>With the exception of low fuser oil, it works great! Or,
>you can place an order and I'll use the Cannon 2400 CLC
>later tonight.

D'oh! Perhaps I'm a little slow but what the heck does THAT
mean?

Apparently the business woman's slow too. Here's her reply:

>What???!
>
>Ducu thingie.
>
>316054.. who cares! All I want is a solution. All I need
>is to get this done. Can you make color copies or not? Is
>there a way?
>
>I don't care about those other things.

Desperate to save the "sale-gone-south", the employee says....

>Ma'am! It's not that we can't do it. It's just that we
>can't use the 2500 CLC right now. I'm on it doing a huge
>lit run.

SHE SAYS.....

>Forget it! You don't *speak my language* here. I'm outta
>here! I'll go to the other shop where they know what I
>want.

With that colorful closing, she split. Behind she left
a handful of bewildered employees and a lone Internet
marketer to ponder what just happened.


THE TRUTH THIS TALE TELLS .......

Let me re-quote this customer for the sake of a lesson here.

>Forget it. You don't *speak my language* here. I'm outta
>here! I'll go th the other shop where they know what I
>want.

My interpretation?

The employee had the perfect solution.

Our business woman was a qualified prospect READY TO BUY.

It's every marketer's dream encounter. It's the situation
that we dub as a "formula to success".

So, what happened?

Our employee failed to talk in a "language" that his
prospect would understand. All those techie terms didn't
mean squat to her. Sure, they meant the solution to her
problems but she couldn't UNDERSTAND them.

Her brain performed an illegal operation on this one. "No
Comprende." was the error message.

That's what I see happening in on-line (and off-line)
marketing all the time.

People are losing perfect prospects because of a language
barrier that needn't - shouldn't exist. Case in point, I
saw a Northern California copy shop perform this faux pas
today.

Just think, would our employee character have had a better
chance of a sale if he said something like....

>"Hey, there's a color copier over there you're free to
>use. Why not let me show you how to use it and you can
>work on your project?"

The answer is yes.

It certainly would have increased his chances for a sale
because his prospect would have UNDERSTOOD what he
was suggesting. Most likely, he'd be ringing her out later
on.

THE MAIN POINT IS.....

If you don't speak your market's language, you're LOSING
sales every day.

I see it all the time.

Web sites and advertising that have sales copy spurting out
techie jargon.

You need to go over your marketing material with a fine
toothed comb and translate any and all "geek speak" into
"plain English".

Speak your market's LANGUAGE.

Your prospects don't care about techie stuff. Don't try to
impress them with it or assume they know it.

Don't let your prospect wind up like our color copying
counterpart's. You don't want them storming out of your
website do you?