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This marketing truth stings: Whether you are the inventor, business owner, assembly line foreman, sales manager or marketing genius, what matters to you may very well not matter one iota to your customers or potential customers.

In other words, they don’t want to buy what you’re selling.

That doesn’t mean they don’t want to buy. It just means it might not be for the reason you expect.

Let’s look at a concrete example. Many wine drinkers know or care very little about varietals (grape types), bouquet (aroma), depth (layers of taste) or any of the factors that winemakers and connoisseurs greatly value.

For a very long time, wineries seemed to market their product based on either quality (which many consumers didn’t understand or know how to evaluate) or price. But product packaging is changing the way wine is evaluated.

Admit it; you’ve bought wine simply because of the name or label. They make us laugh or they create an aura we want to be a part of.

Many wine drinkers can’t tell a heady bouquet from a cloudy composition. But we can tell whether our friends would be amused by sharing some Cardinal Zin or Cat’s Pee on a Gooseberry Bush! (Both are real wine names.)

The wineries are starting to get it in a big way. Are you?

Do you sell your product or service based on your level of knowledge or interest? Are you using terminology that makes your consumers feel like outsiders or stupid?

It’s time to look at your sales materials, Web site, presentations and other marketing tools. Are they based on what matters to you or what matters to your customer?

Drew McLellan is Top Dog at McLellan Marketing Group and blogs at www.drewsmarketingminute.com. He can be reached at Drew@MclellanMarketing.com. © 2009 Drew McLellan