Persona Based Selling

We buy what we buy to remind ourselves and tell the world around us who we are.

“Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know these things about a man you can touch him at the core of his being.” – Bill Bernbach, legendary ad writer

“I am irresistible, I say, as I put on my designer fragrance. I am a merchant banker, I say, as I climb out of my BMW. I am a juvenile lout, I say, as I down a glass of extra strong lager. I am handsome, I say, as I don my Levi’s jeans.” – John Kay, columnist for The Financial Times

“In the factory we make cosmetics. In the store we sell hope.” – Charles Revson, maker of Revlon

You’ve heard it said throughout your life: “Birds of a feather flock together.” So what is the feather, what are the characteristics, of the birds who flock to your brand, your product, your company? Beyond the fact that they all chose to do business with you, what do these birds have in common? Answer that question and you’ll discover the truth of your brand and earn yourself a copy Bible, a dialogue Bible and a comprehensive brand manual.

Do you want true brand power? Then you must quit writing to a particular type of customer and begin writing to specific, representative customers. In their current bestseller, Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg call this technique “writing to personas.” (Yes, the boys did it again. Their new book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? leaped onto the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists as quickly as did Call to Action, their 2005 bestseller.)

According to the brothers, correctly identifying your customer personas is the foundation of Persuasion Architecture™ and the beginning of Six Sigma optimization in marketing.

Sharing a glimpse of what they plan to teach at the Wizard Academy Fundraiser this November, Jeff Eisenberg says,

“Anything that results in a lower level of customer satisfaction or a lost customer is a defect, a flaw in the sales process. When a person doesn’t convert, your marketing has a service defect and your processes don’t deliver on your promise to customers or to prospects. At least, that’s how you’d look at things if you applied the Six Sigma discipline to your marketing. Think of these defects as holes in a leaky bucket.

When you use Persuasion Architecture™ in your marketing, you are predicting your customer’s behavior based on assumptions you’ve made about their motivation. If he or she does what you modeled, then you understood the customer’s needs. But if what they do differs from what you planned, there can be only two possible reasons:

(1.) You correctly understood their motivations but your execution was bad. Correct your execution.

(2.) If these changes in execution fail to improve results, then your original assumptions were probably wrong. Correct your assumptions.

Either way, using Persuasion Architecture™ personas in your marketing is the best way to bring accountability to your ad budget.”

Jeff and Bryan Eisenberg were among the earliest graduates of Wizard Academy and have since become important faculty members. Will you be here in November when they whisper unpublished secrets to their Wizard Academy family?

Yes, we are taking over the world.

Roy H. Williams