When I was interviewed on the Sales Coaching Chalk Talk recently, we had some great discussions about looking at your marketing approach on the basis of who you’re trying to reach and what will motivate them to move to the next step of your sales process. But that doesn’t necessarily lead you to innovation, as I talked about before.

To be creative, you have to challenge some basic assumptions.

I was talking with a pet care provider who came up with some very interesting observations. His medical procedures are basically the same as any other similar company’s, at least from the customer’s eyes. You can try to explain why your equipment is so much better, but really – who cares? The customer wants to have a procedure done, and the rest of it is technical mumbo jumbo.

(Having come from the high tech mumbo jumbo world myself, some of this hits just a little close to home! We got so enamored with all the technical wizardry we were providing that we became blind to the fact that people didn’t really care that much.)

The interesting observation came when we realized that his customers really are buying their pet’s happiness, and therefore their own happiness through doing good for another living being. But how might a customer receive this kind of happiness when purchasing a medical procedure? It’s not too hard to imagine:

• The customer understands why his pet is behaving the way it is, and when that will change back to normal.
  
• The customer is welcomed with compassion and appreciation by the office staff.
  
• The customer isn’t surprised with unknown charges on the bill – everything makes sense.
  
• There’s a telephone follow up on the pet’s health after it should have recovered.
  

We can get REAL creative with these things, even without touching the medical procedure itself!

If you want ideas on how to get creative in your outreach to future customers, go listen to the recording (65 minutes) and download our ever-growing list of 123 ideas to be creative in your marketing.