Expectations
By Melvin Ram - December 14th, 2005
“Be who YOU are and be the best YOU there ever was, is or will be.”
- Someone Wise
There are many keys to being successful in business and in marketing. Consistency is one of the most critical of them all: Consistently improving… Consistently offering products & services your customers love… Consistently being friendly.
McDonald’s has built an empire selling crappy food using consistency. Millions stop at a McDonald’s everyday. Is it because they make incredibly tasty food, that is great for you’re health and keeps you in shape? Any of the above would be difficult to believe. It’s because they know exactly what they can expect.
Understanding the power of Consistency leads to a second conclusion: People expect Newton’s First Law to apply to life in a very real sense.
Newton’s First Law states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
People expect things to continue as they are unless there is a good reason for things to be different. Basically, people expect ‘More of the Same’ when it comes to life.
So how does this More of the Same concept apply to marketing and why is this important?
Marketing is ’bout persuasion and setting expectations. The More of the Same concept is important to understand and embrace because everything we do and everything others do sets expectations. These expectations determine the quality of a customers experience with you and ultimately determine the success or failure of products, services & ideas.
If you go to a new Mexican restaurant that’s just open up and order a margarita, you expect that when you return the next week with a friend, the margarita will taste the same. You expect more of the same. In fact, you demand more of the same.
Give away version 1.0 of a product & people who take up the offer expect version 2.0 to be free. This is the core reason why the millions of people who were Napster users before have not flocked back to Napster after it reopened as a paid music provider.
Tips on Putting ‘More of the Same’ to Use
- Use consistent benefit phrases across all marketing communication… from the website, to print ads to your sales people.
- Inventory all things that you do unique and do it that way consistently.
- Imagine a sales meetings/phone call. Now imagine it happening 50,000 times, successfully. What does ‘More of the Same’ look like in phone call # 50,001? Be vivid in your imagination… including the sales tools you may need, the amount of calls it’ll take, the things benefits you’ll mention and more.
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