At the supermarket I noticed a package of batteries with this blurb: Lasts as long as Energizer.

So, they’re as good as the next guy.

Is that any way to advertise yourself? Is anyone going to switch battery brands (or, more importantly, start working with a “virtual” partner on mission-critical tasks) because they’re “as good as the next guy” ?

Marketers talk about your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for a good reason. If you can’t show a prospect why you are the only possible choice, why you are the perfect match for them, ask yourself: why should they choose you?

If you’re only as good as the next guy, what happens when the next guy gets just a little bit cheaper, or a little better, or both?

(By the way, even if you’re far better than the next guy, if you can’t show a prospect why you’re a perfect match, consider the possibility that they aren’t a perfect match for you.)

I just took a shower. For most of you, this is not fascinating. Unfortunately, the shower itself was not that great.

A shower needs to be a great experience, especially since it’s already a poor substitute for a nice long soak in a tub big enough for such a soak. Instead, the makers of this shower’s plumbing made it one step worse by designing a faucet which inextricably links the water’s temperature with its pressure.

In order to get hot water, you simply turn the faucet farther. Of course, this results in more pressure. Turn it up high enough to have a nice hot shower, and needles tear at your flesh. Turn it down to a gently stimulating spray, and the frigid chill stimulates goosebumps.

How does it make sense to link water pressure with water temperature?

Do you provide any packaged services in your business which make as little sense?

Do you require a client to take Service B when they sign up for Service A? Do you place restrictions which make life easier for you, not your client? Are there ways you can let suspects, prospects and clients have more choice, more control, over the degree and kind of services you provide them?

A cold brisk shower might not be your thing; nor might a gentle hot shower. It’s not about you! Don’t suffer from BLM (Be Like Me.) Unless the packages you’ve assembled are required by your very best professional advice, don’t insist that the people who provide your livelihood think like you.

Shower the people you serve with choice.

Have I got an amazing special for you!

You just know those words are going to be followed by a pitch, don’t you?

First, I’ll get the rant off my chest: telling me that you have $10,000 worth of ‘products’ for only $297 is selling, period. It’s not special, it’s not a gift. In fact, if these are electronic products with zero cost to reproduce, there’s no such thing as a ‘special’ price because even if I only give you a nickel, your profit margin on that sale was 100%.

Folks looking for yet another tricky advertising gimmick (you can tell them a mile off because all their prices end in ’7′) are delighted to imply that they’re giving you a gift, some amazing mega deluxe special extra deal, in order to make a sale.

Let’s stop corrupting what the words ‘gift’ and ‘special’ mean. Don’t you dare imply you’re doing someone a favor, and then ask them for money. Making a smaller profit isn’t a favor, it’s business.

Remember when you used to be able to ask someone out for coffee in order to get to know their business better? Smart folks realised that by unselfishly learning about others in order to send them qualified prospects, our networks grew and in the long run, it came back around to us.

Selfish folks figured this out, and started asking networking victims out to coffee to ‘learn about your business.’ And then, as soon as they’d trudged through the formalities, the hard sell started. Pitch pitch pitch.

Try asking someone out for coffee so you can learn about their business. Watch the panic in their eyes, the scramble for an excuse. Selfish sellers have done their best to suck the juice out of an unselfish but brilliant method of organically, humanly, growing your business.

Promise me that you, yes you, reading right there, will never resort to deception, no matter how subtle, in your marketing or your business. Promise me that if you offer a gift, it is truly a gift, with no thought of return. Promise me that your ‘special’ price is actually less than what you’ve actually sold for in the past, and explain why you’re reducing the price (otherwise, it just looks like you couldn’t sell it for a hundred so you’ll try fifty.) Promise me that you’ll stop ending prices in the number 7 because even if it works, it’s psychological trickery and it’s unethical and immoral.

Find someone who’s corrupting the gift culture which has been fundamental to civilization for thousands of years, and send them a link to this post. Let’s make sure everyone everywhere knows that we’re not gonna take it anymore. At the very least, the lazy clowns will have to find something else to corrupt.

Rise above the garbage and noise. You’re better than that. You know that, of course, but you’re afraid. I get it.

Sometimes being a hero is hard.

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Recently a personal interaction reminded me of an anecdote I read some years ago about tea. (I love tea, but this may be my first business lesson about it.)

When tea first arrived in England it was expensive. Not, a little bit pricey expensive, but prohibitive, only for the rich expensive. But it caught on quickly, because, well, it’s great.

One woman in the south took a full pound of her expensive cache and sent it to her sister in the north, telling her how marvelous it was. Her sister boiled it, dumped the black liquid off and served it like a vegetable. She wrote back about how terrible it was.

She’d prepared it like a vegetable, which she understood, instead of seeing it for what it was: something entirely new.

Some business folks hear about the ‘new marketing’ and assume it’s just more of the old marketing, except online. They still want instant results, measured in dollars return on dollars invested. They want ways to convince people to buy, no matter what they’re selling. They spend time and money bolting a website and blog and email autoresponders onto their old-school advertising.

They’re dumping the tea and eating the leaves, and then they wonder why it doesn’t work.

If you help your clients with their marketing efforts, you may, like the first woman in the story, assume that they’ll know how to brew a pot of social media marketing. Erm, tea. Whatever.

But, like the second woman, they don’t. They can’t. Because it’s so foreign to them, they have nothing to connect it to. Give information away, with no firm plan for monetising it? That don’t make no sense!

Had the first woman included some simple instructions along with her glowing praise, the story may have had a happier ending. Don’t leave anything to chance. Clients who are new to the new marketing will need a lot of hand-holding, a lot of encouragement and explanation and nudging.

Don’t assume they get it, unless you actually see them drinking the tea.