This is the time of year when turducken makes an annual, and generally unwelcome, appearance on dinner plates across the nation. For those who are unfamiliar with turducken, it’s a deboned chicken – usually rolled with andouille or other savory sausage – that’s stuffed in a duck which is then, ultimately, stuffed in a turkey. It’s an orgy of meat that really has no purpose other than add unnecessary flash to an otherwise classic holiday dish.
For the record, I’ve had turducken and it’s not as horrible as it may seem. The real issue I have is that the extra meat – the chicken, the andouille sausage, and the duck – takes away from the simple beauty of a well-prepared turkey. Simply put, additional meat doesn’t enhance the turkey. For the most part, any turkey flavor is lost among the various meats of the turducken. In other words, the main vehicle for the dish – the turkey – is rendered meaningless by all the other meats.
Like turkey, the simplest sales principles are usually more than enough: hard work, hustle, integrity, transparency, and a sincere desire to help clients. Those attributes don’t need to be dolled up to be effective. In fact, I would argue that any attempt to dress them up will be viewed as disingenuous, causing them to be far less effective as their meaning gets lost in unnecessary sizzle.
Forget trying to distract clients with tricked-up, “turducken-style” marketing. The vast majority of them are savvy enough to see right through it. Instead, offer them the honest you. In the long run, it’s a much more memorable, palatable, and effective dish.
Bill is president of PromoCorner, the leading digital marketing service provider to the promotional products industry, and has over 17 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. In 2014, he launched brandivate – the first executive outsourcing company solely focused on helping small and medium sized-promotional products enterprises responsibly grow their business. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, president of the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS), and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, developing operational policies and procedures, creating and developing winning RFP responses, and presenting winning promotional products solutions to Fortune 500 clients. He can be reached at bill@PromoCorner.com.