Judging a Book by its Cover

The reason for their call to me (it wasn’t the owner that called) was to talk about one of their clients who is starting to ‘do the rounds’ on the speaking circuit at present. They wanted to know if I was interested in this speaker taking part in any forthcoming events I had.

Again, I’ve met the speaker in question previously. Again, heavily experienced, connected, knowledgeable etc. etc. and enjoying great success in their business. Importantly also (to me) they’re a good person!

Anyway, after a brief conversation I requested a ‘Biog’ of the speaker so I could refer back to it should any opportunities present themselves. This came through within a couple of minutes after the call had ended.

‘Nice one, prompt response’, I thought.

I opened the Biog and it told me all about ‘Speaker’: qualifications, experience, successes. Basically what ‘Speaker’ has done and is doing now.

Here comes the Rant:

Not once did the Biog give me specific details of what Speaker’s specialist subjects were, what his specific audience was and where he’d spoken before.

i.e. in Sales/Marketing speak, it didn’t state ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For Me), where Speaker’s expertise was relevant to me, what the benefits of booking Speaker would be for me and my event(s) and it didn’t give me any testimonials – e.g. where spoken before and what success/results this had brought.

Also (and this is a big one for me) there was no image of speaker attached. Why is this big? Well, I always harp on about people buying people and in my opinion; an image of Speaker along with a full Sales Pitch on Speaker would help me buy into Speaker more, as I can see the person who is going to WOW my Conference. I always prefer to see a customer or supplier face-to-face wherever I can, although I understand this isn’t always possible.

All I received was a Word document with a couple of paragraphs and even worse, no call to action.

Bad Selling and Bad Marketing. Period.

The biog just smacked to me as an afterthought. What I know though is that Speaker would be horrified if he knew that this type of tat was going about with his name, literally all over it!

What’s my point? Well, let’s say I didn’t already know Speaker, my perception of him/her would be the same as my perception of the ‘Marketing Literature’ I received about him/her. i.e. I wouldn’t have the slightest inclination to book Speaker for any Conference I run in the future.

The ‘literature’ would not have created any need in me to find out more (i.e. take action) about him (costs, availability, interest) and I would most likely (see, definitely) think that, ‘he can’t be that good if this is the best they can do to promote him.’

The point is, bad sales and marketing is even worse than no sales and marketing. In business, like in life and sometimes wrongly, first impressions count and people DO judge books by their covers.

This Speaker’s cover was tatty, dog eared and something you’d find in the bargain bin at a local Bring-and-Buy Sale.

The real shame is that the read of this particular book is a compelling journey of successful, self driven passion for the cause and if the cover doesn’t get sorted, not many people will be bothered to open the page and read.

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