Are You Selling The Sizzle?
“Sell the sizzle, not the steak!” I’m sure that whoever coined this phrase had the best intentions, but now this has become the battle cry for hypesters and hucksters everywhere: “Sell the sizzle, not the steak!” It’s become a cliche and it really ticks me off.
When I hear this, all I can think about are the infomercials selling some miracle beauty aid or some “get rich quick” info product. These productions will spend 29 minutes telling you what your life will be like once you buy the product and 1 minute on what the product actually is. (Don LaPre was a master of this…and look where it got him).
Like I said, I’m sure this phrase started out as an attempt at good advice. But it’s been mangled over the years and holds a negative connotation… at least for me. The phrase I prefer is, “Sell the benefits, not the features.” At first glance, this might seem to be the same thing. But look a little deeper.
“Sizzle” to me is synonymous with “hype.” And whenever I’ve heard anybody say, “Sell the sizzle,” it invariably means, “Hype your product until you think you’ve gone too far, and then hype it some more.” I don’t see this as being a viable long-term business plan. Unfortunately, there are more than a few marketers who do.
I recently saw a sales letter for a list building product. It extolled the benefits of having a list and talked at great length about the lifestyle you could enjoy if only your list was big enough.
It turns out that the product is a program to create HTML squeeze pages, something that can be done easily by hand or with any of a number of free products that can be found on the web.
I recently saw a sales letter promoting private label rights for a number of software products, making only a passing mention of what the programs were and what they could do. The message was that you could build a software empire and enjoy high income and a life of leisure if only you had your own software products.
It turns out that the programs were (with few exceptions) very simplistic, doing functions you could easily accomplish using free utilities found on the web. Not only that, but they were full of bugs and could not be sold as-is without inviting a plague of support issues.
Nevertheless, within days I saw another marketer promoting the same package with master resale rights using basically the same sales letter that was used to sell the original private label package.
“Sell the sizzle, not the steak!”
If you want to take the easy road to fast profits but eventually have your business crumble around you (like Don LaPre and his “tiny classified ads”), then by all means sell the sizzle… hype, hype and hype some more.
But if you want to build a sustainable business, one in which you establish credibility and a reputation for honesty and integrity, then “Sell the benefits, not the features.” Tell people what your product does and why it’s important.
If you’re selling an electric drill, don’t make wild claims that border on blatant deception. But at the same time, don’t just talk about the amp rating of the motor or the space age materials used to make it. These are features and are best left to the product spec sheet. Instead, talk about the benefits. Show your prospects how quickly and precisely your product can put holes in different materials and how long it will run with no maintenance, along with the proof to back it up.
Take the high road in all your promotions. I think you’ll find it more profitable and rewarding in the long run.
- Daniel Joseph Moran
