word count:1157 character width: 60 resource box:6 lines + web link to "How to get More Sales without Selling" ===================================================== Packaging Maketh
Person by Alan Fairweather(c) Alan Fairweather - All Rights reserved http://www.howtogetmoresales.com/ Mail:alan@howtogetmoresales.com ==========================================================
Packaging Maketh Person
The multi million pound cosmetics industry is acutely aware of value of packaging. You'll know this if you've ever bought anything from those glamorous ladies whose counters are always just inside front door of Department stores.
However, from time to time we're presented with surveys about creams we rub on our bodies which take years off our age and make our skin as soft as a baby's bottie. The surveys tell us "Buy cheap stuff or own label one from supermarket, 'cause they're all same."
But do we? Of course we don't. Human beings are driven by emotions not logic and never more so when spending their money. People buy with their eyes, we love packaging. The marketing and merchandising experts have it down to a fine art and know colours and shapes that we're most likely to buy. They then design their packaging accordingly and make sure it grabs our attention. The product in packaging has to do what it says it'll do, however if it looks like it can do business, then we're more likely to believe it can.
It's just same with people. Whether we like it or not, people are likely to make judgements about us by way we're packaged. They'll then decide whether they like us, whether they'll give us a job or even just believe what we say. This seems to be so obvious. Yet I've seen professional speakers with scuffed shoes, business leaders with outdated suits and politicians wearing clothes that don't fit them or suit their shape.
A few months ago I attended a function where an accountant was invited to speak about his business. He told assembled audience how efficient his business was and about their attention to detail. However his tie was undone and his shirt looked like he was breaking it in for a smaller friend. His suit, though probably expensive, wasn't right colour for him and merely drew attention to fact that its wearer liked his grub. All of things he was saying were totally contradicted by how he was packaged.
Lawyers, accountants, plumbers or software engineers; it doesn't matter what you do, other people are very liable to make a judgement about your abilities by how you're packaged. Your colleagues and your boss will all make decisions about quality of your work and your promotion prospects by your dress and image.
There's famous story about 1960's pre-election television debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. These debates were also heard on radio, which was much more popular at time. After debates a poll was taken of how TV and radio audiences had reacted to two participants. The radio audience voted for Nixon, however TV audience voted overwhelmingly for Kennedy. The TV audience liked look of Kennedy better than Nixon - they liked packaging.
We also tend to make decisions very quickly about people we come into contact with. Psychologists have established that we subconsciously make around eleven decisions about other people within first six seconds of meeting them. Personnel managers have admitted in surveys to making a decision about a job applicant within first thirty seconds of an interview, these decisions being made primarily on how people looked and carried themselves.
