Learn to Sell Apparel Like a Pro!

I got an email the other day with “Scared Shirtless?” as the headline from a supplier in the promotional products industry.

After a quick chuckle surrounding the play on words, I found myself more than a little curious so I clicked through. I opened the email and was invited to a webinar where I could “Learn to Sell Apparel Like a Pro!” Now I’m thinking, ‘well since I get paid to sell apparel, that makes me a pro…I’d better check it out to make sure the other “pros” know what they’re talking about’. In any event, the value proposition was there, I would get FREE tips for apparel sales.

With a simple headline I was “pulled” in, I wanted to find out more, I was curious, I was engaged and I couldn’t help myself. The headline didn’t try to “push” me to buy anything…there would be plenty of time for that, an abundance of opportunities for me to buy something once they got me to the site…books, cds, mp3, videos, etc.

If the headline had just offered me “10% Off This Great CD Set To Sell More Shirts”, I would have deleted that email in about a half-a-second.

It can be argued that headlines may be more important than the content itself because if they never click through there is no chance of conversion. So the goal should always be to get them to click through, but then make sure you can deliver or they won’t be coming back.

John Zalepka

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

(Author: Patti Digh)

All of my businesses have revolved around some aspect of marketing, advertising or sales. Even as a small child I can remember being a sucker for great marketing… whether is was gum or baseball cards conveniently placed down low on the checkout line at the grocery store, or TV commercials in between my Saturday morning cartoons, or the Sears Christmas Wish Book, I had to have it all.

That’s why it was no surprise that when I saw today’s #Trust30 challenge question, I read it from a marketer’s perspective.

Ordinary, much like beauty, is indeed also in the eyes of the beholder.

Busy business owners often borrow (steal) ideas from successful companies in their industry, often trying to emulate concepts and product offerings that they cannot deliver on. A small retail boutique would be crazy to try and compete on price with Walmart… it’d be like like asking a Little-Leaguer to try and hit a CC Sabathia fastball (I’m a Yankees fan btw).

However, time and again I have small business clients ask me to print up fancy brochures and marketing collateral that contain a lot of industry jargon, that, truth be told, they hope no one ever asks them about. They try to be “clever”, but what they are really doing is over-promising and setting themselves up to under-deliver.

Your marketing efforts should focus on what you already do well and apply it to your ideal market segment, then rinse and repeat as often as possible. Social networking sites and blogs can make your marketing go viral as fast as you can upload a video customer testimonial or whitepaper answering questions about subject matter that you know about.

I firmly believe that if you spend a little “extra” time focusing on what you already do well (ordinary), then it’s just a matter of time before your ordinary becomes extraordinary!

John Zalepka