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These 3 Basic Human Skills Are the Key To Brilliant Marketing.

This is an audio version for the blog post by published in Summurai. I’m Dave and I’ll be your digital host. let’s get started.

I love to discover creative entrepreneurs at my local Sunday pop-up markets. Vendors handcraft everything from jewelry to essential oils to artisan foods. But, even in the small confines of a 20 booth market it’s hard to stand out.

Add to that the fact that nobody really needs any of the things being sold and creators have an uphill battle getting browsers to part with their money.

As a former marketer for over 25 years, I couldn’t help but give my advice to one particular creator in the market who had so much potential, but no buyers.

I was wandering around the market and I saw a guy standing behind a booth where no one was shopping. He had about 10 bottles of his different hand-crafted, liquor-infused vinegars lined up.

“Would you like a taste?” he said.

“Hmm. Can you drink vinegar straight?” I said.

I was not looking forward to this but I felt bad about the fact that no one seemed interested in his booth.

“Sure,” he said, and he poured a teaspoon of bourbon barrel-aged, shitake mushroom vinegar into a paper cup.

I tried it and the pungent taste went right up my nose. “Ew” is not the sound you want to hear when someone tastes your beloved product.

The idea of a vinegar infused with bourbon and shitake mushrooms was original. “How did you come up with the concept for this product line?” I asked. That’s when he shared an amazing story that hooked me and made me want to hear more.

“I was a sommelier for a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York,” he told me.

“The wine companies would send me bottles and bottles of free wine. I was living a life that looked thrilling on paper — a hot girlfriend, a cool job, and an exciting social life. But, I developed a problem with alcohol, had to stop drinking, and had to leave my job as a sommelier. That’s when my love of creating flavors took over. I started tinkering in the kitchen and decided to figure out how to infuse vinegar with liquor in unique ways.”

“That is an amazing story!” I said. “Not everyone has a story but you’ve got a doozy.” That story wasn’t on his social media or on the cards he handed out with his name and website address.

That story made him stand out, made me care about his business, made me want to root for him, and affirmed his expertise.

Your story is step one in standing out. It is the “why” of your marketing. It is step one in creating a relationship with your audience.

1. Tell a story that makes people care about your business

His story sets him apart from everyone else who has developed a homemade product. It is packed with information. It’s emotional. In a world of millions of products and thousands of vinegars, his one-of-a-kind story is also his why.

The detail about having been a sommelier validates his expertise since it means he has the ability to pair ingredients and has a heightened sense of smell and taste.

What’s more amazing than the expertise is that the guy developed his product as a way to overcome addiction. Like an alchemist who turns lead into gold, he mixed alcohol with vinegar to create potential gold for himself.

Would you trust a product that someone put his soul into? Damn straight.

His story is a classic hero’s journey. He had a seemingly happy life. He faced challenges and struggles. He overcame those struggles and learned valuable lessons, transforming himself in the process.

The second problem he is that he was selling the product instead of what it could do for people. Vinegar, like most products, is a commodity. Even infusing it with exciting flavors isn’t enough to make people want it.

People care a bit about the actual product but they care much more about what the product can do for them. They don’t need another vinegar, but they do need to be able to cook foods that will impress their family and friends.

2. Sell the inspiration, not the product

During many of the years I worked in marketing, the product I marketed was yarn. Only a few things could be more boring than vinegar and one of them is yarn. When I started working for the company, I suggested they offer free patterns.

“We are not in the pattern business,” one of the guys who owned the company said. But that was a mistake. The patterns were what inspired people to buy, as we found out when we eventually added thousands of patterns to our website.

So, I suggested to my new friend at the Sunday market that he offer recipes and instead of sampling vinegar he sample food made with the vinegar.

“Nobody tastes vinegar and says ‘I have to have this.’ But, if they taste a piece of pan-seared chicken deglazed with Madeira Sichuan calendula vinegar, then they will want the product that made it.

The creator of these tantalizing vinegars told me about how vinegar is a wonderful ingredient for deglazing a pan. I had always heard about deglazing but didn’t know how to do it. This leads to the next rule of marketing.

3. Educate people and you will grow your audience and create power users

When I got home from the market with my new selection of vinegar, I Googled “How to deglaze a pan.”

If you teach people to use your product in ways that make them look and feel good, you enlarge your market. You do more than create new users, you activate the high-volume users by improving their ability to use the product.

Product education (in this case, cooking instructions) made my life better, by making me more creative and by enriching my family dinners with new recipes.

Education enriches people’s lives. When you educate people on how to get more out of your product, they become the creators. They make the product their own.

The bottom line

A product is a black-and-white commodity until you color it with meaning and purpose.

The sommelier who sold vinegar was in love with the product. But his audience had to learn to love it.

Stop selling. Start giving people a reason to care about you and about your product by telling your story. Inspire your audience with ideas that make your product come to life. Educate them so that they can customize it to their needs and make it their own.

Talk about how great your product is and you’ll lose your audience. Show them how it will make their lives better and it sells itself.

Have you ever unboxed an Apple product? If so, chances are you remember the experience. The sensation of lifting the perfectly fitted lid, the first glimpse of the gleaming device nestled within, even the faint new-product smell that accompanies it. It’s a sensory journey that begins well before you power on your new device. But once the novelty of the new gadget subsides, what happens to the box it came in?

For many people, the answer is simple: they keep it. But why?

In a world increasingly conscious of consumption and waste, the phenomenon of keeping product packaging might seem counterintuitive. After all, once its protective role is fulfilled, why does the box hold value? However, when it comes to Apple, a brand synonymous with innovation, quality, and a certain aspirational lifestyle.

Have you ever unboxed an Apple product? If so, chances are you remember the experience. The sensation of lifting the perfectly fitted lid, the first glimpse of the gleaming device nestled within, even the faint new-product smell that accompanies it. It’s a sensory journey that begins well before you power on your new device. But once the novelty of the new gadget subsides, what happens to the box it came in?

For many people, the answer is simple: they keep it. But why?

In a world increasingly conscious of consumption and waste, the phenomenon of keeping product packaging might seem counterintuitive. After all, once its protective role is fulfilled, why does the box hold value? However, when it comes to Apple, a brand synonymous with innovation, quality, and a certain aspirational lifestyle.