Will you sit down for Thanksgiving dinner eager to dig in to a feast of tasty turkey, succulent sweet potatoes, green beans, gravy, cranberry relish, fresh rolls and an array of apple and pumpkin pies?

In our house, the cooking begins the day before. Homemade pumpkin and pecan pies start popping out of the oven - but we can’t eat them yet. Early Thanksgiving morning, the big bird gets washed and stuffed and hefted into the oven. Then the work of preparing all the side dishes commences.

Walk into our house on Thanksgiving day, and you’ll be greeted by delectable smells. I’m sure most of your homes are the same.

By noon, the roasting turkey smells delicious, and you’re making frequent trips through the kitchen hoping to sneak a bite. You’re ready to eat, but if your family is like ours, you don’t sit down for the Thanksgiving meal until mid- or even late afternoon. By that time you’re very hungry.

Do you need to be sold on the idea of digging into this delicious meal?

Of course not. When you’re hungry and someone offers you something to eat you don’t need to be convinced. The hungrier you are, the more impatient you are for a meal and the better the food tastes.

Wouldn’t you like to be in a similar situation with your business? How would you like to have prospects so eager to buy that you didn’t have to sell and could focus instead on taking more orders?

If you’re like most business owners, marketers and sales people, you want to increase sales, but you don’t want to be so pushy that you turn people off. The problem is that you aren’t selling a delicious Thanksgiving dinner to family and friends. What can you do to increase the success of your marketing?

Focus Your Marketing On Your Prospects’ Hunger.

Food, family and friends are what motivate most of us to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. What are your prospects hungry for? You need to know in order to attract them to contact you and motivate them to buy.

Are they looking to eliminate wrinkles in their skin, get rid of back pain, avoid costly data loss, increase sales from their web site, increase repeat sales, look younger, make more money in a volatile stock market, or save on taxes?

Everybody is hungry for something and their hunger prompts them to take action. The hungrier they are, the more likely they are to take action.

Make a list of the five top reasons your prospects seek out your products and services. Next, list the reasons that it’s important or urgent for them to buy from you right away. Then use this information to focus your marketing.

Help Your Prospects Get What They Want.

When you sit down for your Thanksgiving dinner and someone asks you if you want turkey, rolls or cranberry relish, you don’t feel like they are trying to sell you. You’re pleased that they’re helping you get what you want - delicious food.

Your prospects don’t want to be sold, either. They want help solving a problem or satisfying a need. The fastest way to get them to buy is to stop trying to sell them and help them get what they want.

Picture this: before you get your fork anywhere near a plate of your Thanksgiving favorites, the cook insists on telling you where he or she bought the turkey, what it had been fed, where it was raised, how it was roasted, etc., etc. You’d probably never eat another bite of the big bird.

Instead, imagine what your reaction would be if the chef of the day simply asked you what you want to eat, and helped you get another serving of your favorite dish.

In your ads, your marketing brochure, your web site and your sales conversations, tap your prospects’ hunger for solutions to their needs. Speak to their concerns, problems and goals. When you communicate to prospects in terms of their hunger, you’ll get their attention and their business.

What do turkeys know about marketing?

Nothing, obviously. Turkeys’ brains are said to be about the size of a walnut and they have fewer brain cells than a cockroach. But they sure taste good when you’re hungry.

Charlie Cook