Page 33 - Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing - PDFDrive.com

most cases, that is where you need the most work.
If you’re selling a service, you’re selling a relationship.

Who Is Your Client?

Karl often feels overlooked and insecure.
Sharon has seven cats named after the Seven Dwarfs.
Karl loves Stanford football and his eight-month-old son.
Sharon wishes she had more time.
Karl wishes business could be better.
Sharon wishes she laughed as often as she did when she was twelve.
Karl wishes he felt more connected, to people and to life.
Sharon wishes she knew more about you, and knew she could trust you.
Karl craves one thing above all, as William James once observed. He craves

appreciation.
Before you try to satisfy “the client,” understand and satisfy the person.

With Whom Are You Really Competing?

Every great business school teaches competitive strategy. Professor Michael
Porter became famous by writing good books on the subject, and every good
marketing plan includes a section on competition.

It appears that you should study your competitors. But once again, this
product-marketing model fails you. Service marketers must look at competition
through a wider lens—as The Case of the Consultants Without Competitors
suggests.

Asked to help position a corporate consulting firm, I ask: “Who are your
competitors? How are they perceived? How should you adapt, change, and
attempt to position your company, given your competitors’ positions?”

Our discussion of competitors seems odd. Few names come up, and few
competitors are well known—and most are regarded like lint.

But if your competitors are so few, so obscure, and so badly regarded, why
don’t you dominate the market?

Their answer is the one you get in many service markets: My client’s market,