Don’t Let This Be the Reason You Fail to Get the Job!

I’m going to share some popular business/sales and marketing advice with you that I think is conjecture, or just plain wrong, and then ask you to apply it to your own job application process:

If I hear this terribly over-used example in business books one more time, I’m going to scream:

“When you buy a drill, you’re not really buying a drill…you’re actually buying a hole”.

I’ve heard this so many times over the last 10 years, I feel I’m going loopy. And it’s not just because people mindlessly repeat it (because at first sight it seems an excitingly fresh perspective on sales and marketing, and what benefits really are.)  But it’s because it’s actually not true.

I like it for the fact that it shifts your thinking a little beyond the actual features of your product, service, or personal brand, but the reason it’s not true, is I’ve seen the fellas down my local hardware store buying drills!  Believe me, they’re NOT buying ‘holes’. They’re not even thinking about the holes.  Once in the shop, when their money is ready and it’s near to decision time, they’re thinking about the shiny new power drill they’re looking at.  They’re thinking about how it might perform, how it looks, and how it feels.  And they’re experiencing how it makes themselves feel.  And how it makes them feel like they’ve got a gun, and that they are, for one brief moment in their life, a little bit like James Bond, perhaps. They probably have the urge to point it at another customer and say, ‘bang!’ but they control themselves. They’re also enjoying the atmosphere of the hardware store too, where they feel instant calm pass over them, no screaming kids, just themselves and some sort of connection in the air between themselves and other shoppers. Like they’re all on a similar mission, living their role. It’s an experience. But when they’re in front of the drills, they’re not thinking about holes.

There’s an important lesson here on how to get ahead of others during the job application/interview process! The drill/hole example kind of tells people to stop thinking about the features, and look at the benefits. The people who read too much without thinking chant ‘people buy benefits not features!’  But actually, a lot of people out there buy features too, and don’t even consider or care about some of the benefits these features provide. Some people just want features. Yes, there’s the functional aspect to what they’re buying, but a lot of people like the flashy wow-factor of what they’re buying too. They like the thing that makes the product or service unique, beyond it’s primary functions.  The thing that you can’t always put into words. The feeling that the style creates within them. Some people aren’t buying a hole, they’re buying a drill. And they want a flashy shiny powerful looking one too that makes them feel big, strong and clever.

If you really want to take the ‘hole’ example further, you could argue that some people are buying ‘peace and quiet’ from their partners who keep nagging them to put some shelves up. But when they have a choice between the different drills in the shop, their mind shifts from ‘buying peace and quiet’ to ‘buying the drill that feels right for me’. Emotions take over, and the final decision is made.

So in your own work or career, demonstrate the ‘hole’ that you create through your work by proving that you can do the job, but get the edge over your competitors at decision time too by making yourself like that cool, shiny, exciting drill. The one that feels right to the buyer. When two applicants side by side can both do the job, it’s the one who makes the better impression through their appearance, personality, intelligence and questions and answers who clinches the deal.

Posted via email from Mark’s posterous