To explain what the Monopolize Your Market Place System is and what it does we first have to define what has happened in business that makes marketing more important now than 5 or even 8 years ago… When the Management Consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton surveyed 320 marketing and non-marketing business managers they found: “75% agreed that marketing is more important now to corporate success than it was five years ago- competition and new products were cited as the two main reasons why.”So why is a focus on marketing rather then selling more important now? Let me explain…There was a time when it used to be a whole lot easier for a salesmen to go in and sell to a buyer. The reason was that the marketplace was less crowded, there were fewer choices, buyers were dependant on sellers for information, and resistance to selling was low. The Only Easy Day To Sell Was Yesterday Think about it…back in 1980 if you wanted a computer you had to go down to the store. You couldn’t go on the Internet and print out 17 articles on computers and compare prices and features. These sources of information didn’t exist. Talking to the salesman, letting him know you were in the market to buy was the only way to see your choices and get your questions answered. The seller had the power. According to Robert Hollier of the Banner Corporation: “We are moving towards a world of increasing ‘sameness’, where there are few radical breakthroughs, competitors catch-up too quickly, differentiation is lacking and people are cynical. In order to achieve success, organizations must combat sameness…” Today The Buyer Has The Power Today we’ve got a situation where the buyer has the power. Buyers no longer have to rely on the seller for a limited supply of information about a product or service. With the Internet and increased competition, there is more access to information, more choices, sales cycles take longer and buyers are more resistant to selling. This has compromised trust and increased consumer cynicism. This is a problem for you! How Do You Solve This Problem? You might be asking “how do I address, or how do I solve this problem and make my marketing easier and more effective?” Walk into your local book store, or search on line and you’ll find business and marketing books talking about better customer service. The theory is that if you treat your customers better, they will buy more from you. The trouble with this theory is that FIRST you have to have customers before you can have anyone you can treat better… You’ll find books preaching that what you really need is to get better at selling, and improve your closing techniques. But again, if you don’t have customers first, who can you sell to? To get customers you must first generate more leads. Then you can work on converting more of those leads into willing customers. So how do you get more leads? Enter the Brand Builders You can read books, or try talking to advertising agencies and creative designers, who will tell you that what you really need is to build a strong brand for your company. Then when your customer wants to buy what you are selling, they will think of you first. It makes sense, right? I mean you can picture a prospect in your store, or shopping on your website. They see your product… and because with advertising-you have etched a picture onto their brain they buy your product. Except… you must realize, according to www.pdkids.org, people are exposed to 3,000 advertisements per day. Think about it…those magazine ads, radio ads, the commercials on TV, newspapers, bill boards. 3,000 a day! Do You Have $250,000,000? Corporations like Coke, Toyota, and IBM spend from $220 million to $360 million building new brands! Now, if you have that kind of financial horsepower you can generate the advertising repetition it takes to have an effect. Break through the advertising clutter. Maybe even etch an image in a person’s mind. It’s just a very expensive method. At best… after you spend all that money, you might be able to measure a prospect’s INTENSION to buy. If you’re comfortable believing that a person’s intension to buy is the same thing as actually counting their cold hard cash, then you can stop reading right here…. Let me save your time; this marketing system just isn’t for you! Still reading? You made a good decision as you must realize that because big business started spending enormous sums of cash on brand building, they made money. Then the business schools started bench-marking them. Training their graduates on these marketing practices. They’ve churned out MBA’s who believe that building brands is the only way to make any real money. That’s simply big poo poo! What Is Marketing & How We Do It The only purpose marketing serves is to increase you sales. You’ve got to realize, for the people who will be buying from you, they have all these different choices available, and it’s very hard for them to determine if you are any better, or really any different from anyone else. Unless you have several hundred million, any spending on anything not directly related to measurably growing your sales: like building an image, branding you to your market, creating awareness…is inefficient, wasted and a potential advertising disaster. So your marketing goal needs to be to reduce cynicism and make the prospect feel in control of making their buying decision. Think like a buyer to start dramatically increasing the effectiveness of your marketing. All buyers naturally want to make the best decision possible. Check for yourself and see…whenever you decide to buy something, don’t you always want the best deal possible. You don’t price it out, and then go where you’ll get the 5th worst deal, right? It’s simple human nature. All buyers want to make the best possible buying decision. You can use that! How Do You Make Customers In the next section we’ll review how we help your buyers feel in control by giving them enough quality and quantity of information so they become aware of the issues in your industry and learn what to look for. Want help innovate your business so it’s in line with what customer’s expect? We help you focus on one of seven industry-specific marketing strategies that will help you facilitate your prospect’s decision making process, so they’ll quickly draw the conclusion that they’d be absolute fools not to do business with you! So in summary, the business environment has changed! There’s more competition now, then there was 5 or even 8 years ago. Product and services are becoming commodities. Sales cycles are taking longer. Buyers are becoming more resistant to selling. The brand builders have created tag lines, fluff and hyperbole and created a problem where the market has grown increasingly unresponsive. This problem is so pervasive and ingrained that no body even recognizes what the problem is. And your goal has to be to make the prospect feel in control when making their buying decisions. |