The art of commerce. What? I thought commerce was more math? For sure commerce has lots and lots of math but the real variable for success in the modern market is creativity. Speaking with a highly successful retailer the other night and he said “We don’t sell clothes anymore. We sell an idea, a lifestyle…” I don’t think anyone sells what they sell anymore. I think we all sell ourselves. Consumers connect with a person and an idea before they purchase a product or service.
When my phone has all the answers, to any question I could possibly ask, for free, in any format I want to consume the answer in…. I better have more than math. The market is one massive pool of info that has turned all non-creatives into white noise. The followers are all doing the same stuff a day late and a dollar short. The leaders are doing something different, which gets them the attention they need to build the front running business. This is not done strictly on numbers. This is achieved by being creative and understanding the behavior of the market.
We have to be hunters. We have to track our customers. We follow them until we are seamlessly moving alongside of them. Instead of shooting them, we use creative to grab their attention. Some will try to smack them over the head with a bad pitch to take their money. The best will use the attention to create interest that leads to trust. Once you have this, you can ask for the sale which gives you the opportunity to deliver with quality, service, and value that will either gain a new customer or fall short and have a 1 off sale.
The sales process is a whole other issue. The thing we need to grasp is that creative is what will keep you engaging new customers and maintaining what you have. It is not service, sale, service sale… you have to engage and provide an experience that people associate your product or service with. You need to become world famous in the consumer brain for what you do. The way to do this is thru content and more content. I don’t care what medium you choose to go in on, just go in on something.
To earn the opportunity to solve a problem, you need to use creativity to grab attention. This is the art of commerce. It is not just math, it is an art that requires you do the work and show the audience you get them and you care.
Brian Wright