Coca-Cola became a global icon by selling happiness, not just a drink. Ben Wright and Speaker A show how trade and construction leaders can copy this approach: embed emotional value into your sales process, customer interactions, and messaging to build loyalty and close more deals.
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Today we're going to unpack how a brand named Coca Cola has been able to create a global beverage that I would argue borders on being as powerful as water when it comes to the drinks we consume.
Welcome to Sales Process Made Simple. The show helping seven to eight figure industry construction and trade. Sales and business leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so your team can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, a leader who has been building businesses and sales teams just like you for the last 20 years.
Welcome to Legends of the Past. Today we are talking all about Coca Cola. Now, it's funny when we think about this brand. I'm not a big soft drink drinker myself, but certainly I have been asked the question along the journey of what is the most consumed drink globally? And the answer is water. For those that are hanging on to the answer, I won't keep you there. But often when I ask this question and have been asked this question in the past, the brands or the drinks that really popularly come up, coffee, water, tea and Coca Cola. And if we sit back for a moment, tea, coffee and water are generic types of drinks. Coca Cola is a brand. And to have a brand be included in a sentence around the globally most popular consumed beverage is unbelievable. I can't think of any other category where that really happens, where a brand can rank as strongly as a generic description of a product. And yes, I'm sure someone out there will prove me wrong. But Coca Cola has been able to do an incredible job at building a global beverage icon. And I want to unpack today how us as leaders can take some lessons out of that. So why did Coca Cola grow their sales so successfully? Well, for me, it was driven by a relentless, like an absolutely relentless approach to branding and marketing and distribution. There's no doubt about that. But what I want to focus on today is that they made their product not just a drink, but an emotional experience. I'd love you to think back about the ads you've seen with Coca Cola. That fizz when the bottle opens, that sigh when people are drinking Coca Cola. The attribution of Coca Cola to, you know, an unknown amount of brands and athletes and really influential people around the world, but they've actually been able to make this product into that emotional experience that I talk about, right? One that associates us, when we drink it, with happiness, with celebration, with community, even with status at times. And that ability to be able to do that, to create that emotional experience has meant that the brand has Just grown and grown and grown on top of that global distribution arm that they've really been successful at building. Now they're turning over something like, I think they're into the 40s in terms of billions of dollars of sales. They were certainly almost there in 2020 before the pandemic hit this well. But for me, the lesson that comes out of this from a sales point of view is that if you can build a brand that creates an emotional experience, and yes, this is absolutely within our grasp as smaller business owners, but if you can build a brand or a product, and that brand or product could be you and it could be your sales team, there's absolutely no problems with your team and the experience with your team being that brand. But if you can build a brand that creates a fantastic or positive emotional experience for our customers or for your customers, then you're gonna be closing more deals than you're not. And the reason is because if that experience, particularly during the sales process or the sales engagement is positive for a customer, right. Creates the beginnings of some strong brand loyalty, then when you're competing against those that don't, you will outperform. A known and liked brand is going to outperform against an unknown and potentially lesser liked brand every single day of the week. And that's where Coca Cola have been able to run rings around their competitors, particular Pepsi. Right. They've been more effective at not only distribution, but also the branding and the emotional experience that they run with their product. So for business and sales leaders, particularly in the industries that we're focusing on here, I'd really encourage you to think about how you can invest in your brand. Right? And from a sales point of view, brand means the experience your customers get, how you present in front of customers, how you lead your team, how your teams present in front of customers, how your delivery teams, how your sales teams engage with customers on site, the type of messaging that you're putting out to your customers through your quotation templates, how you're generating leads, the type of wording that you're using, how you're treating customers both during the sales process and the post process, how we're asking our customers for referrals and really trying to solidify to our customers that we're worth talking to others about, but where you can really lean in heavily to building an emotional connection with your business that is without doubt going to set you ahead of your competitors. Now, unfortunately, that's not always easy to execute. And often when I have these discussions with leaders, they're not sure, if just quite where to start. But I think the message coming out of today for me and the summary from today is have a think about something that you do in your business really well, something you do in your business, at the very least better than your competitors or something that generates really strong results for our customers. That's where I'd start having to think about how you can double down on building some emotional loyalty to what you do. That's where I think you can focus on speaking with your customers and communicating with your customers, just how you can create value for them and and a terrific experience because for me, the Coca Cola story to be able to have a specific brand mentioned in the same sentence as products, water, coffee, tea is amazing. And that emotional connection and experience that they've made with their customers absolutely has gone a long way to doing this. So have a think as you wind up from today's podcast around something you do really well and where you might be able to double down on that a little bit more to continue to create some emotion and some strong levels of loyalty with with your customers. So that's it for today. It's a Wednesday episode, a little bit different. We profile people or businesses that have really created brands that I think we as leaders can learn from. We're dropping episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That's it for this episode. Really look forward to the next one. Bye for now.
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