“Dad, Is Five Percent A Lot?”

This morning my son was reading the comics in the NJ Star Ledger while eating his Cheerios- his normal morning routine. He stopped and asked me, “Dad, is five percent a lot?”


“It depends,” I answered.

“Five percent of $100 is $5.00,” I continued, showing him the math I was writing in the right-hand margin of the Wall Street Journal Opinion section.

Doing a totally “Dad” thing, I took the example further- ironically writing over the headline the Trouble with Precision in the Journal.

"Five percent of $1,000 is fifty dollars. Five percent of $10,000 is five-hundred dollars. Five percent of $100,000 is five-thousand dollars. Is five-thousand dollars a lot?” I asked showing him the numbers.

“Yes!” he answered.

“Okay. Look at it a different way,” I suggested.

“Let’s say there are 100,000 people voting on their favorite flavor ice cream. The choice is chocolate or vanilla. 5,000 people or five percent say they like vanilla. But 95,000 people say they like chocolate.  Now is five percent a lot?” I pressed.

“No. Way more people like chocolate.” He jumped in.

“It’s still five percent. So what’s the difference?” I ventured.

Smart kid that he is he didn’t hesitate, “What makes five percent a lot is the value.”

That’s the exact point in time this morning I decided to write this down and share.

You see, what my 10-year old knows that so many of us struggle with is what makes a number, a dollar figure, a percent- anything, really- important because he went on to say, “More people like chocolate, but vanilla is important to the five-thousand people who like vanilla.”

What makes it important is the value or ‘thing’ that is important to the person receiving the information rather than the person providing the information… which in turn leads us to a lesson in how to use and position information.

Here’s the lesson from my son you can walk away with- As a salesman, marketer and copywriter, to be more effective you need to look at:

1) What you sell in the context of what’s important to your customer(s)
2) How you convey what’s important to your customer(s)
3) How many messages and outlets do you need to use to reach and connect with your customer(s)

Next time you are building a headline, think about what is going to make the biggest impact with your target audience. Using the ice cream example you could write:

“Five-Percent Surveyed Prefer Vanilla”

“Five-Percent Prefer Vanilla,”

“5,000 prefer Vanilla”

“Chocolate Crushes Vanilla in Survey”

“Vanilla Takes Chunk Out of Chocolate”

Which headline wins? Depends what you are selling, who you are selling to, and the conclusion you want to lead your prospect to and whether your prospect sees and more importantly feels the value of you are offering.

Take yourself out of the equation. If you don’t have hard data to work with make assumptions. Think about how your ideal target prospect defines value- what is important to him when you construct your headline, USP, offer and story.

Whether it is a newspaper ad, sales letter, e-mail, website, article, postcard, PPC campaign or sign-up offer, of course you want to test and track response to more than one version. You also want to test response to the medium- did you get a better response online or from newspaper, from letter or magazine.

And you want to be in a position to react.
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Mark H Daniels is a B2B and B2C Marketing and Sales Coach, Copywriter, Author and Speaker specializing in simply better selling by finding your unique customer value proposition, refining existing messages, stories, and presentations, and designing new ways to present your company and product in print, in person, and on the web that has prospects and customers thanking you and making decisions in your favor.  Reach Mark at www.mysaleshero.net or call 732-417-0680.