For example:
You are not selling grass seed. You are selling a greener lawn.
You are not selling boilers and BTUs. You are selling warmer, cosier winter nights at a 27 per cent fuel savings.
You are not selling baseball tickets. You are selling memories of sunny afternoons that a father and his children will cherish forever.
Whenever you are marketing anything, always ask, "What are we really selling?"
Don't stop until you've got a long list of answers and test an ad built around each of your best answers.
But the railroad tycoons never saw these upstarts coming. They were blindfolded by the familiar. They were in the railroad business.
The difference in response will often astonish you, open up whole new markets as well as lots more opportunities to raise the question again.
A hundred years ago, the railroads dominated the American economy. If you had asked the railroad moguls of the day what business they were in, they would have replied, "The railroad business, of course."
But had they raised our 5-word question, "What are we really selling?" they could have realised they were in the transportation business.
And that simple insight could have allowed them to dominate whole new transportation industries that would soon emerge-automobiles, airplanes and trucking, whose revenues would dwarf those of the railroads.
But the railroad tycoons never saw these upstarts coming. They were blindfolded by the familiar. They were in the railroad business.
When a man named Ray Jacuzzi was getting nowhere trying to sell his whirlpools to physical therapists, he refused to give up.
Instead he asked, "What are we really selling?"
Another possibility arose-hot tubs for homes-and that idea catapulted him to stratospheric success.
Another example:
By the 1950s, almost every family in America owned a big square white refrigerator. As long as it kept the milk cold and didn't conk out completely, families were content to let it sit in the kitchen forever.
So how do we sell more refrigerators when everybody owns one?
"What are we really selling?"
Hey, we could start selling refrigerators as kitchen decor.
Let's produce them in decorator colours and styles to suit every taste and fashion.
This way, when people remodel their kitchens, they'll want new refrigerators to match.
That insight quickly became (and largely remains) the driving force behind new refrigerator sales.
The automobile industry had come up with the same simple answer decades earlier.
How could new rivals sell cars when Henry Ford dominated the business with his basic black cars? (Ford had boasted, "You can have a Ford in any colour you want, as long as it's black.")
His rivals asked, "What are we really selling?"
What happens if we change the answer from "transportation" to "style"?
Look, we can't compete head-on with Ford selling basic "transportation." He has that market locked. But we could start offering cars not just with Henry's basic black colour and one-size-fits-all features, but in lots of different colours and models, so that cars can now be an expression of personal style. Then we'd be selling something different and open up a whole new market.
That was the breakthrough-and the way cars are marketed to this day.
So think for a moment...
What are you really selling?
Are you sure?
What else could it be?
How might you repackage your product, or add to it, to trigger new demand or crack open a whole new market?
'The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.'
Thomas Berger
Action Exercise:
Ask "What are we really selling?" and take action on the answers you come up with.
Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing.
You can download his 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage' Ebook at
no charge from www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com
