A Marketing Lesson from a 13-Year-Old Girl Scout
By Grant Miller, Salon Consultant
The late, great Gary Halbert is widely considered to be the world’s greatest copywriter ever. If you are a certain age, you may recall your parents receiving a “Coat-of-Arms” letter in the mail with an offer to receive a drawing of their family crest and a brief history of their last name. This offer was mailed successfully for over 20 years to more than 600 million people!
When Gary conducted seminars on selling and copywriting, he would pose a question to his students to emphasize an important marketing lesson. Let’s see how you answer his question.
“If you and I both owned a hamburger stand, and we were in a contest to see who would sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you like to have on your side to help you win?”
I’m certain that many answers are popping into your head: the best meat, the freshest buns, the ideal location, a secret sauce, a fancy sign, the lowest price, great advertising, the list goes on. Gary would tell his students that he would give them every single advantage they asked for, and that he would only want one single advantage. If he had it, he would whip the pants off all of them. Can you guess what it is?
The only advantage he wanted was a starving crowd.
I was reminded of this classic lesson when I read an article about a 13-year-old Girl Scout who decided to sell Girl Scout cookies outside a store in San Francisco. It wasn’t a Walmart or Target store. It wasn’t a busy shopping mall or movie theatre.
Click here to read the entire article in Smart Tan Magazine online.
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