Today I’m going to talk about something a little bit different. I’m going to give a brief marketing lesson about two important keywords. I see these keywords used very often, but I think they go right over most people heads. The keywords are “sales” and “gross sales”. Seems simple, but they’re very powerful. These keywords are often used in advertisments and in print and TV all the time.
Often used to describe how much money ones has made, can make or will make. But the bottom line, these words are useless. “Gross sales” mean nothing. “Sales” means nothing. You can do millions in sales and still be losing money. Just ask the airlines.
This article touts “$1 million in sales!”. So what. That means zip, nothing, nada. Anyone can underprice the market, do a massive amount in sales and brag about high sales numbers. When in reality, they are deep in the red.
http://smallbusiness.aol.com/grow/online/article/_a/1-million-in-sales-at-19-he-did-it-on/20060518143909990001
What does this mean? Let this be a lesson to you and teach you two things.
1) Don’t think because someone claims to have done $1 million in sales or gross sales that they are rich. It’s a marketing gimmick used to make you think income is much larger than it is.
2) Use this gimmick yourself!! It works. That’s why everyone uses it. Whenever describing income of any kind, never say “net profits” or even “profits”. Always say “gross sales” or just “sales” is even better.
On: April 16, 2008 at 9:45 pm
# 94
Adam, here’s something we can agree on. When I worked for the Apple Store I did 1.2 million in sales the year before I left the company. I was working part time for $11.50 an hour. I think I might have made just over $10,000 from Apple that year. If only I had been working on commission! The cool thing about that job was when I quit. My boss told me that I wasn’t closing enough sales. WTF? The next closest salesperson in a store with 25 had sold only $720 thousand. But I was the one who wasn’t closing enough sales…. At this point it was time to leave.