Page 95 - Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing - PDFDrive.com

A brand will have three dramatic effects on your selling:
First, consider a common occurrence. Someone hears a positive story about a

nonbranded company. They remember the story but naturally forget the
company’s name. So they cannot pass the story on. When the same person hears
a story about a brand-name service, he remembers the story and the company. So
he can pass the story along—and does. Word of mouth for a branded service
spreads easier and farther, producing more inquiries.

Second, a brand singlehandedly converts more of these inquiries into clients.
Prospects feel more comfortable—and less fearful—with a brand name. “No one
ever got fired for choosing IBM,” the old saw goes. It applies to choosing brand-
name services, too. For the same amount of selling effort, a branded service
makes more sales than a nonbranded service.

Third, consider the plight of the typical nonbranded service. To justify her
choice of a nonbranded service, a prospective client often must schedule follow-
up presentations with the key people in her company (or her spouse, if it is a
consumer service). Frequently, a nonbranded service will spend more on this
lengthy selling process than the initial project is worth. Branded services rarely
face that expense. In fact, prospects routinely choose brand-name services
virtually sight unseen, so brands take less time and expense to sell.

Brand-name services can spend less time and money to get more business.
This gives them greater profits to reinvest to make their company even more
productive—and widen the gulf between them and their nonbranded
competitors.

Make selling easier, faster, and cheaper. Build a brand.

Stand by Your Brand

It is the tale of the wild world of advertising, perhaps—but the moral often is
missed.

A hot ad agency emerges. It wins dozens of awards and the adoration of a
hungry trade press looking for the newest thing. Eventually, the hot agency wins
a big account. If it is good and lucky, the agency keeps that account and wins
even more. It becomes a brand.

Almost everyone is happy. Everyone except George, Ed, Mary, and Nancy—
the team who did all the work for which their agency is taking credit. Flush with
confidence, the foursome meet secretly and make a decision. They will haul their
Clios, their clippings, and their prodigious talent to a neat loft downtown and