The Meaning of ‘Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak’ (Explained in 60s) | Small Business Marketing Tips

You've probably heard the phrase, "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." It was coined by Elmer Wheeler, an amazing salesperson from 1930s America. Wheeler was reminding us that effective selling is less about focusing on an exhaustive list of a product's attributes, but on the benefits those attributes deliver. Today, however, it seems the underlying meaning of Wheeler's aphorism has shifted. Too often, it encourages marketing people to concentrate on the sizzle to the detriment and exclusion of the steak, to believe the intrinsic quality of a product are secondary to its image. One of the outcomes of such thinking is the current situation, where customers mostly distrust whatever a brand says. Now, marketers will counter this by saying marketing today is more difficult than it used to be because buyers today are more sophisticated and savvy than ever before. But is that really the case? Are we actually implying, though never openly saying, that because these more sophisticated buyers have seen through our strategy, it's getting harder and harder to get away with the BS we've been spouting all these years. The change in buyer marketing literacy—their increased familiarity with marketing's techniques—doesn't just impact us. It applies with equal force to every one of our competitors. It's therefore difficult to argue that increased buyer sophistication somehow presents problems that are exclusively confined to us. Sure, the nature of the playing field continually changes, but it always remains level.