Have you walked down the cereal aisle lately?

There is a lot you can learn from sitting surrounded by the boxes and bags of artificially sweated corn, rice and wheat for a few minutes observing marketing in action.

If you look closely, you will see solid marketing, the result of leading experts. Just visiting your local grocery stores cereal aisle is like attending masters level seminar in marketing.

Youre probably thinking that all the sugar has made us crazy but I assure you - were not.

Heres why the cereal aisle in your local grocery store influences how your potential customers choose your business over your competitors or why they dont!

Take yourself back in time to a day where you were riding in the back of a shopping cart. Youre crouched down, hanging out over the side, grabbing at a world of marvelous packages, boxes and bags as they move by you just out of reach.

Youre mom is wisely pushing the cart just far enough away from the shelves to keep your grubby-little-paws from reaching their contents.

Finally you can sense it. You are getting so close to the Holy Land!

THE CEREAL AISLE IS NEXT!!

This is what youve been waiting for. This makes the trip all worth it. This is your reason for living. This is what you know you were put here to do. You get to pick the cereal for the week.

By now you are a master at this. Youve done it so many times. You know what youre going to pick. You just need to be let loose.

So what makes the choice so obvious?

You havent tasted all the cereals on the shelf. In fact, you havent tasted even a small fraction of them, some you havent even shaken, looked at or even picked up.

But you know which one you will pick in a single instant.

Which one ?

Whats the name of the cereal you are going to pick?

The name

The name of the cereal doesnt really matter.

It doesnt matter because you dont make a decision on which to buy based on the name or the contents or what it tastes like.

You buy based on which one has the best offer or the newest, hottest toy The free prize, the bonus. Thats what youre after.

Its the buried treasure youve been searching for!

Now, lets get back to the present. I know you are thinking thats what kids do when they pick breakfast cereal and not what my prospects do when they chose my business or my competitors.

Wrong The decision making process was created, refined and sharpened right then in the cereal aisle all those years ago and continues to be used to this day you just dont realize it.

Your prospects pick you over your competition based NOT on how good you are.

A better mouse trap does not mean more business and if you think it does you are destined to fail.

Dont get us wrong, we feel having a superior, scendsational product that exceeds expectations is a MUST but it is not what gets new customers.

What gets new and more customers is the bonus, the free prize, whats new.

People are always interested in what is new, because with new, brings possibilities, solutions and opportunity.

No one is interested in reading yesterdays newspaper.

You have to constantly be coming up with new stuff for your customers and prospects.

It doesnt have to be revolutionary changes little things work.

Let us go back to the cereal example. Cereal companies stimulate tons of sales just by changing the color of a marshmallow or adding a new one. They change the color of the box or put a clever game or offer attached to buying it.

Its so easy and so effective and so vital, but so often missed.

Do you see the opportunity in that last statement? As long as you are not in the cereal business you have a major advantage if you just do this one simple thing.