This past weekend I ate a restaurant that had a “C health-sanitation rating. A long electrical cord hung from a light bulb in the ceiling. The blinds, half broken, did their best to keep out the sun’s rays. The tables, made of formica looked like something straight out of Granny’s kitchen, the mis-matched wooden chairs had surely been rescued from the Salvation Army’s give-away pile. The floor – large grey linoleum tiles that were cracked and faded - had certainly seen better days. The walls covered with yellowing newspaper cut-outs and old horse posters really made you feel like you were walking back in time 40 years. And the menu (don’t expect any at the table), was scribbled on a white piece of paper in sharpie and scotch-taped on the wall.

Picture this. You’re thumbing through the pages of a slim, elegant, catalog that arrived via mail earlier in the day.

The pages feel crisp to the touch, and you notice how vibrant the illustrations are. Captivating even. You glance over and something catches your eye.

Last week while in Toronto I stumbled across perhaps the sexiest piece of furniture I’ve ever laid eyes on.

There I was, minding my own business and making tracks to a meeting at my client’s office when it practically jumped out at me. Ok, jumped might be a slight exaggeration. It’s probably hard to imagine a 200 pound leather chair leaping off the pavement and bowling me to the ground. But there it appeared before me – a chair about 6 feet tall made of the finest cherry red leather– the “vintage” kind you might find in a weathered 1960’s Corvette belting out Beach Boy tunes on a hot summer’s day.

Last week, I was close to running out of foundation and knew there was no way I’d be able to get to Nordstrom’s before it was gone. As an avid online shopper, I have no idea why I insist on going to a department store to buy my makeup, but it’s just something I’ve always done. I Googled the exact color and name of my foundation (which is made by Chanel) to see which online stores might be offering the best deals. After a 30-second turbo search I gave up trying to read through all the fine print and just placed an order on Chanel’s main website.

How many times has someone told you that? (Of course you never hear back from them again.)

If you’re getting push back from your prospects about your prices, or stalling tactics – then this article is for you. The good news is that it likely has nothing to do with your prices or your abilities but it has everything to do about your actual sales process and how you market your business. It’s likely you either don’t have a good one, or you have gaping holes in the one you’ve got that are making people clamor to safety.

Take a look at this great old vintage ad I found on the internet. My how times have changed — and advertising along with it!

But some things haven’t changed in advertising, namely, the same basic human desires need to be fulfilled today just as much as they did 50 or even 150 years ago: better health, improved appearance, praise from others, social advancement…

The great late writer Maya Angelou, who passed away this week, had this great quote to say which applies to your business marketing as much as it does to our lives:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”