Why sharper vision makes sharper ads

It’s essential to have clear vision, especially in sales. Unfortunately, many sellers have clear vision up to and through the landing of a sale. They spend all their energy, time and money selling a client, and then, they lose focus and set them up to fail.”

Jeff Sleete, a 50+ year broadcast industry veteran

Visual acuity, a measure of the sharpness or clarity of vision, is typically measured using a standard Snellen chart, which displays letters that decrease in size as you progress down it. The test is performed by standing 20 feet from the chart, covering one eye and reading the smallest line you can see. The results are expressed as a fraction, such as 20/20, where the top number is your distance from the chart and the bottom number is the distance at which a person with normal vision could read that line.

If your vision is 20/20, it means that from 20 feet away, you can see the smallest letters that another person with normal vision should see at the same distance.

If your vision is 20/15, it is better than normal since you could read something at 20 feet away that the average person could only read from 15 feet away. 

If you have 20/40 vision, your eyesight is worse than normal, as you need to be 20 feet closer to an object than a person with normal vision to see it clearly. 20/40 vision is the cutoff for obtaining an unrestricted driver's license in most states.

You can have excellent eyesight, but there’s no “perfect” number to hit. Human eyes are not capable of having visual acuity better than 20/10 or 20/8.

Eye doctors say that only 35% of us have 20/20 vision. The rest of us can have it with the aid of glasses or contacts or by having LASIK surgery or other interventions.

It’s essential to have clear vision, especially in sales.

Unfortunately, many sellers have clear vision up to and through the landing of a sale. They spend all their energy, time and money selling a client, and then, they lose focus and set them up to fail.

These sellers allow clients to do institutional advertising. 

They allow cliché-ridden ads that generically speak to potential customers about how they ...

• Have fast and friendly service. It's the best in town!
• Won't be undersold.

Stuff that I love and what Writer, Speaker, Sales Trainer and University Lecturer Paul Weyland calls a “perfect Crap-Master” ad.

Ads work best when ...

• They lead with strong, attention-grabbing hooks, whether visual or audio. (The first three seconds a consumer spends with an ad are crucial.)
• There is less ad/more something out of the norm.
• Have items or services at a price.
• Have a sense of urgency.

It isn't only the ad content that drops out of focus for many media sellers, but also the scheduling.

• Three ads per day, Monday-Friday, in the broadcast world, is not going to produce much.
• Bunch 15 ads over two days, and they will perform more effectively.
• Same with print, in most cases running three 1/4-page ads is more effective than one full-page ad.

This applies to all media; customers often need to be exposed to a message multiple times before it can register and motivate them to act. Close repeated exposure to an ad reinforces a brand and its messaging.

It’s so darn hard and challenging to convince an advertiser to undertake and invest in an ad campaign with you. Why let all that effort be squandered or even cooperate in its destruction with its final execution?

Strive to attain a visual acuity of 20/5 in your client relationships from start to finish. In other words, have eyes like an eagle all the way through!

Jeff Sleete is a 50+ year broadcast industry veteran — sales manager/GM/corporate sales head. He most enjoys helping sales departments position themselves as “mavens” (experts) of business to be more successful at selling advertising. Fundamentally, Jeff is a salesman. Through his media sales consultancy, Sleete Sales Script, he provides a daily road map for sellers of any media outlet type to be more consultative in their approach to their clients and set themselves apart from all their competition. Learn more about Jeff at https://www.sleetesales.com/. Or reach him at  jeff@sleetesales.com.