Are You Delivering?

Scott Hogue

I look at online offers and just about any offer or advertising that comes along. I have a few market test email addresses I use for those purposes and I buy this and that to see what people are up to. I try to keep up with the best ideas and use them with my clients.

Recently I got an offer from a marketer for a free book if I just payed the shipping. I have done this before and got some nice hardback books and a few pretty nice paperback books. I am actually thinking of doing an offer like this and the chance came along at a good time for me, so I ordered.

I went to the mailbox today on the way to town and in the mail I saw a large, but thin envelope. I wondered what it was. It was the "Book."

About twenty sheets, slick back and front with a few words on the front and not even a barcode on the back. I open it and it is double spaced with a lot of room between the lines of print. Oh, and the margins at the top and bottom of the pages are wide borders of empty space.

I haven't read it yet, just thumbed through it. Of course it might have some really interesting and useful information, but it is packaged poorly.

There is an old classic advertisement that shows a pile of potato chips on a table, not even in a plate, just on the table and beside it there is a bag of chips with a nice picture on the front. In big letters the question "Which Would You Buy?" was at the top of the picture and "Packaging Is Everything!" was at the bottom.

I came home and this gentleman had an email in my inbox wanting me to buy his latest program. What do you think I was thinking? I wondered if he put as much effort into it as he did the cover and packing of the information in the book was what I was thinking. If I ordered his material would it come in such a small stack it would slide under the door?

The take away here is Do You Deliver? Does your delivery live up to your sales offer and hype? I don't feel this man's delivery did. It looks pretty sick beside of the hardcover books about three quarters of an inch thick that I got in similar "Pay the Shipping" offers. Now everything I see or hear from him will be framed by my not so hot experience with his book.

Your first exposure to a new client or prospect is extremely important. Try to over deliver and at least deliver. Under deliver and you are cold toast.

To your great success,
Scott Hogue CChH

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