The biggest marketing mistake is caused by not knowing a simple fact...

People like to buy from people they relate to.

People want to buy from a person, not a company. Think about this yourself. You will remember a company when you liked the person there and want to buy from the company again because of it.

You don't care about the name of the company, what's that got to do with a benefit to you?

Let's face it. We're all selfish. We care about ourselves 10,000 times more than another person, let alone a company. So what we base our decisions on are emotional benefits... to ourselves.

With that 'filter' in place, we look at how we want to spend our money.

We want to trust the company we buy from, but as companies don't have a personality, we look at the person who represents the company in the ads.

If a company is brave enough to put a personality forward in their marketing, by using a person's name, then we judge whether they are relatable to use. If they are, we think, that company might be worth buying from... I relate to that person. And as I relate to that person, the company must be okay too.

There are two fantastic examples of this to demonstrate the point. There is a major retailer that promotes their company name and brand themselves as the biggest retailer of electrical appliances. They hammer this in all their advertising. But they never give you a person to relate to.

Another major retailer entered the market place over 20 years ago and they told a story of how they got started and kept running ads with the CEO on them. His voice was always on the ads and he personalised the company because he was the person you related to and bought from.

This second company now totally monopolises the retail industry and left the biggest retailer of electrical appliances way behind.

This same company decided to branch out with a store that competed with its own, however there was no owner promoting the new store. I realised right then the CEO didn't understand why his own major franchise was successful! How incredible.

Another example happened with an insurance company. One company had the country sewn up. It had massive market share, but then another insurance company came along and personalised their company by using a pretty lady to represent their company on all their advertising.

Then they put a catchy jingle on the end with the pretty lady smiling and bingo, they took over the market share in very quick order.

So if this principle works for billion dollar companies it will work for you in your small business.

How are you representing your company with all your marketing?

Are you giving them a person to relate to, or do you expect people to like your company?

You don't trust companies, you trust the people you see and talk to who represent the company. Who is representing yours?

How do you use this principle? Simple.

Always use a photo of a person in your marketing, preferable yourself the business owner.

And remember this law of advertising...

There are always two sales you have to make in business; firstly there is the person then after the person is 'sold' to the customer, next comes the company.

If you skip the first step your sales will never be great. If you do it well, your company may just become the next billion dollar company that takes over from some other's monopoly of the industry.