Page 71 - Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing - PDFDrive.com

distinctive brands, and made billions.
If buyers can perceive differences in different catsups, flour, pickles, and

sugar—all of which are almost identical biologically and chemically—then
people certainly will perceive major differences in services. Services, after all,
comprise unique components: people, no two of whom are the same.

Two services cannot be virtually identical in the people they attract, the work
they inspire, the information and training they pass on, the rate at which they
learn, or the efficiency with which they work. It is not unlikely; it is impossible.
Human beings are too different, and their interactions in different environments
only magnify those differences.

What’s more, prospects perceive services as different. All of us have walked
into a company and immediately detected the forces at work. Passion, energy,
optimism—in a dynamic service company, all these qualities are palpable within
the first fifteen seconds of entering the lobby. You can read the DNA of a
company from the receptionist and discover it replicated throughout the
company.

Every service is different. Identifying and communicating those differences
and creating new ones are central to successful service marketing.

If you cannot see the differences in your service, look harder.

Position Is a Passive Noun, Not an Active Verb

We want to position ourselves as the market leader,” say several million
executives each year.

They cannot do that.
They cannot position themselves as the leader for a simple reason:
No company can position itself as anything.
You can focus your efforts and your message, which sometimes can influence
your position. But your position is a place, and someone else puts you there:
your prospects.
Even services that do nothing to market their company have a position. A
prospect simply takes what he knows about the company and positions the
company accordingly.
Take the position of my native state of Oregon, the last stop on the train to
heaven. For years, the state has tried to attract more tourists. Among the
obstacles the state confronts—including the fact that many people know nothing
about Oregon—is the state’s position in the minds of many other people: that