Stienway & Sons had been running a series of ads for some time which featured famous Pianists in the ads. The ads would highlight the success of the artist along with a quote from the same singing the praises of the pianos.
One day the ad copywriter happened to be visiting the store when a customer walked in and declared that he wished to purchase a Stienway Piano.
The copywriter was intrigued and he went over to the man and asked him what it was that prompted him to buy a Steinway today. The man said it was because of an ad he saw.
The copywriter was of course quite pleased to hear this, and then asked him if he remembered which ad specifically that caused him to buy.
The man thought for a moment and said yes, it was one he saw about 25 years ago but it has taken him all this time to save up the money to buy one.
I must give credit to Terry O’Reilly (catch his incredible podcast Under the Influence), for this story which I heard him deliver in a lecture hall in Barrie, ON.
I loved this story for highlighting to my clients that sometimes we need to stay the course and just because we think our message is landing on deaf ears, it is possible that they are just not quite ready.
Keep going with the strategy for a bit before you throw it out to start again, we need momentum to see big results.
I remember back in my days as a massage therapist, I would often have clients come to me after having been given my card a year or two before. One person held on to the card for 5 years, at which point he had to do some digging to find me because I had moved and that card was useless.
He did, of course, find me and a great reminder that we just never know what is going to spark someone to finally take action and connect with us or purchase from us.
