Barack Obama has the biggest megaphone in the world. Yet, his message — big government, big socialism, big spending, big deficits, big debt, big taxes, and deference to terrorists — is falling on deaf, angry ears. ObamaCare? Dead. Global warming? A lie.
Postscript: On March 21, 2010, ObamaCare became law by fiat, against the will of the people. At least 26 states, as of January 2011, are challenging its constitutionality.
CLICK ABOVE to watch Mr. Obama fail, in 17 minutes, to justify its expense to a North Carolina audience on April 2, 2010. Read the Washington Post story. Message matters.
Let this be a lesson to any CEO who believes that pouring money into bigger megaphones — more salespeople, more advertising, more search-engine optimization (SEO) — is a better strategy than fixing the message, the brand. Amplifying a bad signal yields white noise.
Such a move will increase the cost and inefficiency of sales. Put yourself in a customer’s shoes. If you receive countless messages that don’t resonate in your gut, you’ll react, with annoyance, by tuning them out. What a waste of advertising money.
There’s no doubt that, if you beat people over the heads long enough, often enough, hard enough, some of them will buckle to buy your product. Does this make any psychological or financial sense? Of course not. Yet, CEOs authorize such programs every day of the week. Think GEICO. Exhaustion does not a loyal customer make.
Reducing Your Cost of Sales
Everybody remembers when President George W. Bush stood among firemen and construction workers, bullhorn in hand, in the smoldering rubble of the Twin Towers in New York City.
He began addressing the tireless men when one of them complained, “We can’t hear you.” Bush responded with one of the most-memorable promises of all time: “Well, I can hear you. The whole world hears you, and pretty soon those evildoers will be hearing from us.”
This is an example of megaphone and message in-sync. Strong signal, amplified. A strong message that resonates fully in the guts of the audience. That’s the essence of GutShare™ and powerful branding.
Would any salesforce have difficulty repeating a clear, unambiguous message like that to your customers? Never. That’s why your first priority should be to invest in a strong brand — the key to reducing your cost of sales.
Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™
Focusing on the megaphone while ignoring the message is a sure path to disappointing revenues, lower profits, and a waste of shareholder money.
Make sure your customers will react to, remember, and repeat your message — your brand — before shouting it through an expensive, loud megaphone.
© 2010 Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
Marc Rudov is a branding advisor to CEOs,
producer of MarcRudovTV, and author of four books