Five Ways You Can Offend Your Best Prospects When You’re Trying To Be Extra Nice

A few months ago I saw a totally offensive ad on Facebook, promoting an SEO company.

The ad showed a ditzy-looking lady who was clearly over 50. The headline read, “So simple even Grandma can use it.”

Whoever wrote that ad hasn’t been around the Internet lately.

Lots of people — especially women — in their sixties, seventies, and eighties are defying the stereotype. They’re building websites and online business empires. They’re running rings around their thirty-something colleagues…some of whom still don’t understand social media.

I bet dozens — maybe hundreds — of people saw that ad and vowed never to do business with that company again.

As a marketer, you can’t afford to make assumptions and you’ll kill your business with stereotypes.

Stereotypes are especially lethal when they appear in the stories you tell.

Many years ago, Avis Rental Cars actually ran a campaign to promote their awesome new computer system. “These pretty girls can’t handle numbers,” the ad said. “So we devised this system to help them.”

At the time I was working in a financial field. I wrote to the company, pointing out that I rented cars for business, and Avis…