Selling the Invisible: How to Improve Service Marketing

1. Selling the Invisible: How to Improve Service Marketing

2. Getting Started • STEP ONE: First step IS your service • Before you market anything, FIX your service! • Assume it is bad: it will force you to improve • Bad News: We’re competing with Disney • Ignore industry benchmarks; create the possible service

3. Getting Started cont. Forget the excuses- Remember McDonalds… Those “You want it when?” cartoons aren’t funny.

4. Getting Started cont… • Hire people that care • Outstanding service does not mean ZERO defects; mistakes are opportunities • Write an ad for your service; see if your service honestly meets the expectations

5. Getting Started cont… • Your service is the HEART of service marketing; check your pulse. • Don‘t think better… think different • Create the possible service

6. Surveying & Research Even your best friends won’t tell you… So, how DO you improve your service? ASK!

7. Surveying & Research cont… 4 Tips for improving survey results 1. Have a third party do your surveys 2. The Letterman Principle: Unless you are convinced you can interpret written surveys, always use verbal surveys.

8. Surveys Cont. 4 Tips for improving survey results 3. Never ask… “What don’t you like”, instead ask “What would you like to see improved?” 4. SURVEY, SURVEY, SURVEY!!!

9. Positioning & Focus The more you say… the less people hear • Have fanatical focus; stand for one distinctive thing that will give you a competitive advantage • What is the hardest task to do? Work to become an expert at it!

10. Positioning & Focus cont. • No two services are the same… look harder to find the differences • Fear of positioning: To broaden your appeal, narrow your focus

11. Creating a “Positioning Statement” Your Position: A cold-hearted, no nonsense statement of how you are perceived in the minds of prospects. It IS your position.

12. Creating a “Positioning Statement” Your Positioning Statement: States how you WISH to be perceived. It is the core message you want to deliver in every medium to influence the perceptions of your service.

13. Answer Some Questions… • Who: Who are you? • What: What business are you in? • For Whom: What people do you serve? • What Need: What are the special needs of the people you serve? • Against Whom: With whom are we competing? • What’s Different: What makes you different from those competitors?

14. And a last one… So? What’s the benefit? What unique benefit does a client derive from your service?

15. Narrow the Gap Narrow the gap between your position and positioning statement • Keep the steps small or people won’t make the leap • Craft bold dreams but realistic positioning statements; people can’t make huge perceptual leaps

16. Reposition the Competition Develop a style and stand for it; not a little of this, a little of that • Stress your advantages; responsive and caring and? • Relentless focus; you can’t afford not to. Focus wins!

17. Planning A Quick Summary of common Fallacies… by Harry Beckwith 1. You can’t know what’s ahead; plan for several futures. 2. You can know what you want; 3 ideas • Accept limitations of planning • Value planning for process, not result • Don’t plan your future; plan your people

18. Planning Fallacies 3. Strategy is king, execution rules! 4. Build a better mousetrap; execute passionately. 5. There will not be a perfect time; do it now! 6. Patience is a virtue; keep moving.

19. Planning Fallacies 7. Think smart. Think DUMB! 8. Planning is imprecise; mistrust “facts” 9. Beware focus groups; they focus on today less than the future. 10. Beware memory; in planning, beware what you THINK you remember!

20. Planning Fallacies 11. Experience: Have a healthy distrust of what experience has taught you. 12. Confidence: Beware of overconfidence bias… maybe they’re right! 13. Perfection: Don’t let perfection ruin good… don’t wait forever! 14. Failure: Start failing so you can start succeeding.

21. The Last Three! 15. Authority: The bumper stickers are right… question authority! 16. Common Sense: Common sense gets you only so far…for inspiring results, you’ll need inspiration 17. Fate: YOU GOTTA BELIEVE!!!

23. Communicating & Selling First two rules of service marketing: 1) Make the service visible 2) Make the prospect comfortable Our First Competitor is Indifference!

24. Communicating & Selling • If you say two things, people remember one; say one thing. • Saying many things communicates nothing. • Meet your markets need. • Attack the stereotype- attack your first weakness (the stereotype the prospect has about you)

25. Communicating & Selling • Good basic communicating is good basic marketing • Build your case; create the evidence of service quality. NO TRICKS! • Prospects buy how good you are at who you are! • Convey that you are positively good.

26. Communicating and Selling • Sometimes, it’s ALL in how you say it. • Get to your point, or you’ll never get to the close. • Don’t sell your service, sell your prospect. • Focus on buying, not selling; make your service easy to buy.

27. Other Considerations & Presentations • How to nurture and keep your clients. • How many ways to say thanks to your customers. • Quick Fixes: A short summary of quick win solutions. • The Collision Principle: Get out there, get everywhere, let opportunity hit you.

28. Just Do It… Forward motion leads to forward motion… www.equipmentfx.com