The Screwtape Emails: Intuition is a Two-Edged Sword

The Screwtape Emails: Intuition is a Two-Edged Sword

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: Much About Nothing

My dear Wormwood,

The sword has been used both to do good, and for horrible evil, and it is a good metaphor for something the humans call “intuition.” Much like a weapon, its power—and conversely, its danger—lies in how one uses it.

You must influence the Patient to use intuition to his own harm. The two edges of this “sword” consist of the dichotomy between over-dependence on one’s intuition all the way to completely ignoring it. Indeed there are two different ways to define intuition:

  • Pseudo-intuition: A hunch based on feelings and/or guesswork.
  • Authentic intuition: Insights based on the subconscious mind’s ability to inform the conscious mind based on synthesis of multiple pieces of evidence and data.

I’m sure even you can see that making major decisions based upon feelings or guesswork is pure folly, so by all means, encourage such behavior in the Patient. Give him just enough successes with this haphazard approach to have him believing a hunch is an excellent guide.

A second, and just as effective approach is to convince the Patient that only hard data and left-brained, analytical reasoning is valid. Have him brush aside authentic intuition and conflate it with mere hunches.

It’s said that there’s nothing more powerful than a strategic mind informed by intuition, and it’s true. Years of experience working with data, human behavior and other inputs can and will create the ability to recognize patterns and metanarratives because the subconscious mind is a powerful thing.

Even if the Patient learns to listen to his intuition, all is not lost. If he fails to regularly test those intuitions, compare them to the data and verify results, he can easily fall into the trap of being unable to distinguish authentic intuition from pseudo-intuition.

See how easily one can be led into one ditch or another. If the Patient were to hitch his wagon to both reason and intuition, our cause would be in jeopardy. But if he uses one to the exclusion of the other, his endeavors will eventually end up in the ditch. Right or left…either will do fine.

Your affectionate uncle,
Wormwood

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


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Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

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  • Online Presentations and Webinars
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  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
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The Most Powerful Sales Tool You Don’t Have

The Most Powerful Sales Tool You Don’t Have

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

Imagine having your ads appear on someone’s mobile device when they pass through a defined radius of your office…or when they visit a competitor.

What if you could deliver coffee shop ads to parents dropping kids off at local elementary schools…or cosmetic dentistry ads to anyone leaving a plastic surgery facility and/or local gyms?

With Geofencing technology, this kind of “hypertargeting” is a reality, and you need to be part of it!

A recent study determined that 57% of survey respondents had visited a business after receiving an offer on their mobile device when they were in the area.

What is Geofencing?

Geofencing is the ability to trigger a response on a person’s smartphone when they enter or leave a particular geographic area or specific location. Think of it as a digital boundary that you can define in any shape and size, wherever you want on a map. When someone enters your Geofencing boundary, they will see an ad that appears on their search results and/or social media.

You can even tell which customers showing up at your business have seen competitors’ ads!

Geofencing is more cost-effective and generates better results than other methods of advertising.

A Search Engine Land analysis revealed that geofenced digital advertising produces double the click-through rate compared to non-location-based digital advertising. Other research indicates location-based advertising is 20 times more effective in generating returns than traditional banner advertising.

With Geofencing, you can even dial in your audience more accurately than direct mail at a fraction of the cost, reaching potential customers in the right place, at the right time.

Geofencing technology can bring your sales to a new level, with measurable gains. Put it high on your to-do list to check it out!

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

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SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
The Power of Resourcefulness

The Power of Resourcefulness

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

It happens to everyone. You reach an impasse. End of the maze, and there’s no cheese; no way out. You keep trying to solve a problem, and the “solution” keeps failing. You’re ready to throw up your hands and say, “this can’t be solved!”

But most things can be solved, if you break out of linear thinking and approach the issue from an entirely new perspective. The problem is that we are all susceptible to “mental gridlock,” or getting so fixated on limited perspectives, that we can’t see our way to creative solutions.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the truck that got wedged beneath an overpass. Law enforcement arrived. Should they try and cut the top off the truck? Engineers showed up and talked of dismantling a section of the bridge. Intense conversations ensued.

Then a little boy walked up, tugged on a police officer’s sleeve and said, “Why don’t you just let the air out of the tires?”

Teddy Roosevelt, one of the greatest and most beloved presidents of all time, was also a great father. He often played a game with his children where they would pick a landmark in the distance with the objective of reaching it in a straight-line route. To achieve this, the kids (and the portly president) would have to go over, under, or through whatever lay in their path. He loved the game so much that he once recruited a visiting ambassador to join in the fun.

Teddy was teaching his kids that overcoming obstacles to attain a goal requires creativity, perseverance, and the willingness to do unconventional things rather than give up on the goal.

Survivalist, Bear Grylls said, “The appeal of the wild for me is its unpredictability. You have to develop an awareness, react fast, be resourceful and come up with a plan and act on it.”

Resourcefulness is the ability to clever ways to overcome difficulties.

The Greeks couldn’t beat the Trojans, so they built a wooden horse.

Avis Rental Car Company couldn’t compete with the Hertz brand, so they came up with the tagline, “We try harder.”

Geico brought humor into the humdrum world of insurance advertising.

A small business owner who couldn’t afford a billboard, co-advertised with two other business and divided the costs three ways.

Next time you’re facing a challenge or needing to solve something, do one simple thing: put a hold on any solutions you’ve been implementing and approach the problem from an entirely different angle. Maybe you just need to let the air out of the tires or build a wooden horse.

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

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SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales

The Write Stuff, Pt. 1: Copywriting Tips for Selling Your Ideas

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

You are selling ideas. It doesn’t matter if your stock and trade comes bubble wrapped or sits on a display shelf, or is a service you provide. Before anyone reaches into their wallet, ready to buy what you sell, you have to give them a reason for doing so. That’s why everyone who sells anything is, first and foremost, a merchant of ideas.

This series of blogs will share powerful techniques for selling ideas that you will want to employ even before you say a word about the features of your offerings. Sell someone on an idea, and the monetary transaction will follow.

Before we begin sharing tips, here are a few guiding principles to lay the groundwork.

  1. You’re selling an experience, not a product.

Many businesses make the mistake of focusing their pitch on the details of their products or services, rather than on what they can do for a person’s life. Harley Davidson, among other successful companies, is a master at selling an emotional experience.

Take this classic, award-winning, ad for example. Notice how it does not speak to the engineering of their bikes, the newest model or any other detail of the product, except with a subtle nod to the power of the engine. The ad appeals to the deep soul longing of its target audience: Freedom from the grind. It contrasts the impotence of struggling with a plastic bag on a crowded airplane with the power and freedom of riding the open highway.

Somewhere on an Airplane a Man is Trying to Rip Open a Small Bag of Peanuts

Give us life at ground level, riding along the endless highway on a Harley-Davidson. 100% depressurized. Just sunlight on chrome. The voice of a V-Twin ripping the open air. And elbow room stretching all the way to the horizon. Maybe you too think this is the way life ought to be lived.  Time to spread some wings.

Harley peanuts ad

Every professional commercial copywriter knows that the headline is the most crucial part of any ad, and typically spends most of their creative time on a campaign coming up with powerful headlines. The “Father of Advertising” and founder of the agency, Ogilvy and Mather, David Ogilvy, once said, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

We will expand upon writing powerful headlines that sell in a future blog.

  1. Every purchase is an emotional decision.

“Oh,” but you say, “Some people make purely logical choices based on product research.” There is no such thing as a purely logical decision. Even a research-based decision is based on the emotion of feeling secure in one’s decision.

Take this study, The role of emotion in decision-making: evidence from neurological patients with orbitofrontal damage (Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Bechara A.) The abstract reads:

Most theories of choice assume that decisions derive from an assessment of the future outcomes of various options and alternatives through some type of cost-benefit analyses. The influence of emotions on decision-making is largely ignored. The studies of decision-making in neurological patients who can no longer process emotional information normally suggest that people make judgments not only by evaluating the consequences and their probability of occurring, but also and even sometimes primarily at a gut or emotional level. Lesions of the ventromedial (which includes the orbitofrontal) sector of the prefrontal cortex interfere with the normal processing of “somatic” or emotional signals, while sparing most basic cognitive functions. Such damage leads to impairments in the decision-making process, which seriously compromise the quality of decisions in daily life.

Human beings are essentially incapable of making purely cerebral decisions, as the “gut” constantly communicates with and informs cognition.

  1. Loyalty starts with likability.

People buy from people or brands they like, and liking someone starts with them liking us. Take the study entitled, Similarity versus liking as determinants of interpersonal attractiveness. This psychological study showed that, “Liking has a significant effect upon the Subject’s feelings for the other person—regardless of attitude similarity or dissimilarity.”

Connect with people in a way that makes them feel like you or your brand likes them and cares about what’s important to them, and you’re likely to gain brand loyalty.

Stay tuned for powerful tips and recommendations to help you use written content to sell like a pro!

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

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SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
The Screwtape Emails: Much About Nothing

The Screwtape Emails: Much About Nothing

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

There are right and wrong ways to go about marketing, and the pitfalls are many. A lot can be learned by seeing how not to manage your marketing. This original blog series weaves together an entertaining story that will help you navigate 21st-Century marketing with a view from “the dark side,” as “Screwtape” teaches his apprentice “Wormwood” via email how to sabotage your marketing. Enjoy…

PART FIVE:
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: Much About Nothing

My dear Wormwood,

Alright…I couldn’t resist following up my last email about wrecking the home page with tips on making the about page dry, boring and disjointed. It’s too tasty to pass up and, besides, I do not fully trust your amateur skills to thwart the Enemy’s plans to help the Patient write a good home page.

Call this Plan B…and just know that Plan C is pain and suffering for you (I say that with all due affection).

Should your efforts to geld the home page fail, you can target the ever-present about page. Here are a few tactics to employ:

  • Break the joints

The best about pages are “team” pages. They weave together the personalities of the office, with a thread that ties everyone together as a mosaic of the brand (under no circumstances allow the Patient to write as elegantly as this!). Instead, influence each staff member to write their own bio, about themselves instead of their role on the team and their relationships with co-workers. Under no circumstances allow humor or personality to make these disparate bios a joy to read.

  • Take the pictures…

…as in, take control of the pictures. Make sure some people on the team submits a clipped and grainy picture from a family picnic, or at the amusement park with awkward background props; put these next to stiff, formal suit-and-tie photos, and you’ve got a recipe for a cake frosted with suck. Do not allow the Patient to think, ‘hmmm. What if we hired a photographer to do a photoshoot where all our photos are consistent and professional quality?’ Extra points if you influence stiff, cardboard poses instead of letting each person’s genuine personality come through.

  • Keep it stale

The about page is “done.” If we add new staff at all, or remove past employees, it will be “one of these days.” And, we already paid the photographer, so that photo of you eating a corn dog on the beach will be fine. This is the usual entropy of the about page. Even if it starts high class and interesting—human nature being what it is—it’s likely to descend into mediocrity.

Mediocre is our favorite color.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape

P.S. Get it? Medi-ochre…Oh, forget it.


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

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  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
Content vs. Connection

Content vs. Connection

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

For years now, we’ve heard “Content is King,” with the result that myriad businesses have dumped considerable time and money into “Content Marketing.” Indeed, good content is key to a successful marketing strategy; the problem is that now, “everyone” is doing it! The marketplace is cluttered with a dizzying, ubiquitous cloud of great content, diluting the efficacy of any particular business’s efforts to be noticed.

Content may be king, but without engagement, there is no kingdom to rule! What is engagement, you may ask? It is what the “Wizard of Ads,” Roy H. Williams refers to as being more interesting than the thought currently occupying someone’s mind. Engaging your audience means, first of all, being impossible to ignore so that you can get their attention above all the competing voices, and then most importantly, making an impact on their emotions. All decisions are emotional, and the logical mind justifies the decision.

Here are three steps to engaging your audience so that your awesome content (a given these days) has a chance of leading you to sales conversions:

  • Get Attention: No, we’re not talking about the “sad little attention getters,” as Williams calls them—all caps, bright colors, loud noises; we’re not talking about cheap interrupters most people will despise. What you need are relevant messages communicated in a way that’s very different than how your competitors are communicating. Geico brought slapstick humor into car insurance, Old Spice upped the ante ad ridiculum to catapult a musty old brand to dominance. To break the cognitive filters every human being’s mind on the planet puts up to protect them from information overload, you absolutely have to stand out. Go against the grain—and, by the way, avoid clichés like, “go against the grain!”
  • Inspire: Not every ad has to be a tearjerker, or a goose-bump generator; you can also inspire laughter, anger—any number of emotions. The important thing is that you do inspire emotion in your audience. If you can cultivate the right response, you’re 75% of the way to the sale.
  • Engage with your audience: Know your audience, speak their language, and then interact with them. It is essential for any business to make their audience feel important, listened to, understood. All politics aside, Gillette reported an $8 billion loss, mainly due to their recent “toxic masculinity” ads. Without taking sides on the issue, and from a purely marketing standpoint, offending your base (mainly men) is not a good idea. Uphold your principles and beliefs privately; when it comes to your company, serve your audience as a trusted brand that accepts them for who they are. Gillette has tried to foist change upon their audience, but the result was that their audience changed brands!

Is Content Marketing still relevant? Is content still king? Yes to both. However, making your content engaging gains devoted followers for the king!

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

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SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales