Get Into and Staying In Preferred Position

No matter how unique your company may be, in all business, across all industries, there exists a central framework for operation that is universally the same:  

Equally, there exists universal metrics in your business.  Those metrics, conversely, are not about you or your product.  It is, however, about the needs of everyone around you.  The formula for success is always achieved when you make the other person’s needs paramount to your own.  In order to satisfy the needs of those around you, develop the ability to understand the other person’s point of view and see things from their angle as well as from your own.  You have to understand their relationships and interdependencies.  By doing this with everyone in your business relationship, you reduce the blind spots to your plan and goal.  This wider picture reveals many new and strategic opportunities. Those results help you to begin an effective action plan to communicate your message more effectively to bring customers to your door and to act.

You Have A Terrific Company… 

What you have to sell is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  But that does not translate into sales, client base nor does it help you reach new markets. 

So how do you penetrate markets, locate, develop and retain clients?  You have to create and/or find the need, starting with:

Getting Off The Ego Trip

Stop bragging about how great, big or old you are.  The fact is, no one cares about what you have to say about yourself because they’re too busy thinking about themselves and are eternally interested in solving their own problems.  Bragging doesn’t make the sale.  However, if you can show how your product will solve their problem, you won’t need to sell them.  They’ll buy.  And a customer likes to feel that they are buying—not being sold.

Think Like A Customer

Business was never about what you had to sell.  Business is about what the customer wants to buy.  Remember, your customers and prospects are immersed in their own needs and their thoughts are echoing W.I.I.F.M. (What’s In It For Me)  

Position Yourself As An Educator

By sharing your knowledge and matching your experiences with you customer’s and prospect’s problems, you are demonstrating your concern for them.  By educating customers and prospects, you make it possible for them to learn from you.  They will perceive you as the expert.  You will gain their trust and eventually, be in a preferred position with them.

Give Marketing Your Financial Attention

  . . . A prospect walks into a room where you are and also a half dozen other companies with the same product/service.  You all can do the job well.  When you’re honest with yourself, you recognize that you’re just about as good as the competition.  In some areas even better and in other areas, maybe not as good.  So do you bang heads with your competition?  Do you cut prices to make a sale, even though that will cut into your profits?  Do you become all-pervading to any and all prospects?  Of course not!  But among other things, you can use marketing to influence what and how people think of you, your company and your product.  If you don’t, they will form their own supposition about you.  This is very dangerous because there is a greater chance that they will be inaccurate or incorrect… if they think of you at all.

Be aware that customer building is a continuum with no end.  Just because you have something to sell doesn’t mean anyone needs to buy from you—at first.

Analyze how buying decisions are made; ONLY when the need arises.

When someone finally needs a product or service, they will go with the company they remember.  For the sake of your image, your message must be targeted and accurate to have staying power and striking power to leave prospects with a lasting impression long after you leave the room.

Just remember, you will not make a sale of your product or service to anyone until that product or service is worth more to that person than the money in their pocket.  

Do you have a topic that you’d like to read about or need written?  We’d like to know.

Do you have a question about your business?  We can help. 

Call us at 908.322.4020 or email

info@infolutions.com

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