Selling the Invisible - Thoughts and Questions

I’m reading through Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith. Here are some of my thoughts and questions over the book.

Preface

Notes

• Selling services are more complicated than products.
  • You can smell, touch, sense products, but services are intangible.
  • With a service, you’re usually relying on people to get your result.
  • There’s not a normal process for ensuring a quality job like a product has.
  • People are more skeptical of services.
• Most businesses are service businesses, even if they sell products.
• How are successful companies marketing in this services oriented world?
• “This is not a how-to book… Instead, this is a how-to-think-about book. Because if you think like these new marketers–if you think more broadly and deeply about services and their prospects–you will figure out dozens of better ways to grow your business.”

Questions & Observations

• Different businesses (prodcts v. services) need different marketing techniques.
• How to sell a more complex thing? (product v. service)
• Is personal branding/character an integral part of a service based business? Especially for small service businesses?
• What kind of culture/attitudes/habits lead to successful service based businesses?
• How can people grow to trust a service based business?

Chapter 1 - Getting Started

Notes

• “will equate the word “marketing” with selling and advertising: pushing the goods. In this popular view, marketing means taking what you have and shoving it down buyers’ throats.”
• “Unfortunately, this focus on getting the word outside distracts companies from the inside, and from the first rule of service marketing: The core of service marketing is the service itself.”
• Lake Wobegon Effect - you think your service is better than it is.
  • “Assume your service is bad. It can’t hurt, and it will force you to improve”
• Let Your Clients Set Your Standards.
  • “Who is setting your standards - your industry, your ego, or your clients?”
• “Ignore your industry’s benchmarks, and copy Disney’s.”
• The Butterfly Effect. In service companies, a world where tiny efforts often produce enormous, though sometimes distant, effects.
• “Even though effective service marketing starts with oustanding service, outstanding service does not mean zero defects.”
  • We know to err is human, and judge business based on what happens after the error.
  • “Big mistakes are big opportunities.”
• “America’s great service successes are not the companies that did what others did, but a little better. They are the companies that decided to do things a whole lot differently.”
  • It’s not just how can we do it 15 percent better? How can we do it different?
• How can I surprise the customer?
  • “Create the possible service; don’t just create what the market needs or wants. Create what is would love.”

Questions & Observations

• The core of service marketing is the service itself.
  • Especially today, finding people to do quality work is rare. If you commit to doing that, people will talk.
• You’re not the source for how it went.
  • It’s not about how you thought it went.
  • It’s about what your client thought.
• What are some small things I can do that make an outside influence?
  • Writing thank you cards/notes to clients. No one does this anymore.
  • Serve first - money is a by product of good service.
  • Invest in a place. Most people are fascinated about remote and working anywhere. Be strategic about Arlington and DFW.
  • Tap into human network affect - an Anti Social Business.

Chapter 2 - Surveying and Research: Even Your Best Friends Won’t Tell You

Notes

• Clients won’t tell you what you’re doing wrong.
• Have a third party do your surveys.
• The problem with written surveys - “the surveyors interprete the answers based on what they meant by their questions - even though the people answering meant many different things by their answers.”
• “…when the lawyers could not see him, they were more willing to talk openly.” They would never be recognized due to it being a phone call.
  • On the phone, people will open up and reveal the information you need.
• Never ask what you don’t like, you’re asking someone to admit they made a bad decision.
• Don’t do focus groups. Group dynamics change the feedback. “You’re selling individuals. Talk to individuals.”

Questions & Observations

• What should I ask people to get the information I need?
  • I remember a Sherlock episode where he stated wrong information so someone would correct him. They’re more like to correct information than volunteer it themselves.
• I’ve experienced this in work, when people ask me for feedback it’s hard to say something bad.
  • But if someone else asks me, I’ll happily tell them.

Chapter 3 - Marketing Is Not a Department

Notes

• A service business is very fragile. If one person in the process fails, the customer doesn’t come back.
• “Everyone in your company is responsible for marketing your company.”
  • “More than half of all Japanese companies do not even bother to have marketing departments, because they believe that everyone in the company is part of the marketing.”
  • “Marketing is not a department. It is your business.”
• Marketing Myopia - “…the inability of people to see the broad scope of their businesses.”
• You don’t need to know your company. You really need to know your customers and your prospects.
• “Every act is a marketing act. Make every employee a marketing person.”
• McDonald’s is not in the hamburger business, it’s in the experience business.
  • What business am I actually in?
  • Am I really in the networking business?
• Clients aren’t experts in what you do.
  • They usually can’t tell if the service was good.
  • Is this tax return correct? (That’s why they hired you)
  • But they can tell if phone calls were returned.
  • “Clients are experts in knowing if they feel valued.”
• In most professional services, you are not really selling expertise—because your expertise is assumed, and because your prospect cannot intelligently evaluate your expertise anyway. Instead, you are selling a relationship. And in most cases, that is where you need the most work."
  • “If you’re selling a service, you’re selling a relationship.”
• “In many cases and in many markets…your prospect faces three options: using your service, doing it themselves, or not doing it at all.”
  • “In many cases, then, your biggest competitors are not your competitors. They are your prospects.”
• Study your point of contact
  • “To get started, study every point at which your company makes contact with a prospect.”
  • “Then, ask: What are we doing to make a phenomenal impression at every point? Don’t squander one point of contact. It may be your only one.”
  • “Study each point of contact. Then improve each one—significantly.”
• “In large part, service marketing is a popularity contest.”
  • “Service businesses are about relationships. Relationships are about feelings. In good ones, the feelings are good; in bad ones, they are bad.”
  • “Be professional—but, more importantly, be personable.”
  • People will hire you if they like you and your personality.

Questions and Observations

• What business am I in?
  • I’ve listened to some other businesses talk about being in the sales and marketing business. But the channels they’re relying on (Google, Facebook), I don’t want to build my business on that.
  • I’m landing on that I’m in the networking business. I network and get to know people.
• “Clients are experts in knowing if they feel valued.”
  • How I make them feel is as important as my service.
  • If I provide great service but make them feel lousy, they think I’m bad at my job.
• “If you’re selling a service, you’re selling a relationship.”
  • How can I grow and nuture this relationship?
  • Writing thank you cards.
  • Remembering things about them.
  • Treating them with respect and dignity.
  • Educating them throughout the process.
• People will hire you if they like you and your personality.
  • This is my area of growth right now.

Chapter 4 - Planning: The Eighteen Fallacies

• Fallacy #1 - You Can Know What’s Ahead
  • “You never know. So don’t assume that you should. Plan for several possible futures.”
• Fallacy #2 - You Can Know What You Want
  • Everyone involved in planning should start with three ideas:
    • First, accept the limitations of planning.
      • Don’t assume that putting smart people in the room with good data will automatically product something.
    • Second, don’t value planning for its result: the plan.
      • The greatest value of the plan is the process, the thinking that went into it.
    • Third, don’t plan your future. Plan your people.
      • Outsanding people who fit your basic broad vision will tend to make the right decisions along the way, not by following a plan, but by using their skill.
• Fallacy #3 - Strategy Is King
  • …in successful companies, tactics drive strategy as much or more than strategy drives tactics. These companies do something and learn from it.
  • Ready, fire, aim.
  • “Lead, take a shot, listen, respond, lead again.”
  • “I once advised a consultant who was vacillating among several resonable marketing tactics. I had a button printed with two words of advice for him: Do Anything.”
• Fallacy #4 - Build a Better Mousetrap
  • “We still believe that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will start lining up on your porch. But too many examples today…suggest otherwise.”
  • Execute passionately. Marginal tactics executed passionately almost always will outperform brillant tactics executed marginally.
• Fallacy #5 - There’ll Be a Perfect Time (The Bedrock Fallacy)
  • Don’t hold off releasing a good product because you want a great one.
  • Today’s good idea almost always will beat tomorrow’s better one.
  • Do it now. The business obituary pages are filled with planners who waiting.
• Fallacy #6 - Patience Is a Virtue (The Shark Rule)
  • Organizations aren’t governed by the principle of inertia: “Organizations tend to stay as they are, either at rest or in motion.”
  • They are governed by the same law that governs sharks: “If a shark does not move, it cannot breathe. And it dies.”
  • “Moving organizations tend to keep moving. Dormant ones tend to run out of air and die.”
  • “Not-moving begets more not-moving. By the time the delayed consequences of all this not-moving occur–one of which is that action-oriented people in the company flee the company, making the company even more waiting-oriented–it often is too late to correct them.”
  • “Act like a shark. Keep moving.”
• Fallacy #7 - Think Smart (The Crab Concept)
  • The Crab Plaque was awarded for the Stupidest Idea.
  • “…because crabs move laterally, symbolizing the power of lateral thinking. Because lateral ideas do not follow in a straight line from the thinking that preceded them, they usually look stupid at first.”
  • “We just needed to be stupider—and to be unafraid of coming up with seemingly stupid ideas, which often turn out the best.”
  • “As we learned every day, highly intelligent people are the world’s foremost experts at squashing good ideas. That’s because intelligent people have one absolute favorite use for their formidable intelligence: telling other people, with total conviction and logic, why other people’s ideas will not work.”
  • “Planning tends to attract these people, but they are dangerous.”
  • “Think Dumb”
• Fallacy #8 - The Fallacy of Science and Data
  • “This aura of science has the remarkable ability to fool people.”
  • “__Mistrust ‘facts.’ And don’t approach planning as a precise science. Planning is an imprecise art.”
• Fallacy #9 - The Fallacy of Focus Groups
  • “So maybe focus groups can brainstorm for you. But you should never bet on it. "
  • “Beware of focus groups; they focus only on today. And planning is about tomorrow.”
• Fallacy #10 - The Fallacy of Memory
  • “We remember badly. We look back and see things that were not there. We cite as proof for something an event that simply did not occur as we remember it.”
  • “In planning, Beware of what you think you remember.”
• Fallacy #11 - The Fallacy of Experience
  • When we infer things from experience, we tend to overgeneralize.
  • “What does what you experience really prove? Usually, far less than you thought. And what you thought you learned can make you abandon a strategy or tactic that was 90 percent right.”
  • “__ Have a healthy distrust of what experience has taught you.__”
• Fallacy #12 - The Fallacy of Confidence
  • “The overconfidence bias”
  • “In fact, many businesses unwittingly follow the Path of Greatest Conviction; they consistenly do whatever the most convinced person argues they should do.”
  • Lots of so-called truths are false. Just like many of your truths about your service.
  • “On the answers of which people say they are totally—100 percent—certain, they are right only 85 percent of the time. In other words, 15 percent of the time you think you are absolutely certain you are absolutely wrong. In most services, that 15 percent error…is the most leverageable part of your business. Find it, and attack it.”
  • “Beware of the overconfidence bias. Maybe he’s right.”
• Fallacy #13 - Perfection is Perfection
  • “The planning process tends to attracts perfectionists. But something paralyzes these people: their fear that executing the plan will show that the plan was not perfect. So rather than risk being found out, these people do nothing. They wait.”
  • “__Don’t let perfect ruin good.”
• Fallacy #14 - Failure is Failure
  • “Few phobias are more widespread than the fear of failure.”
  • “There’s little point in killing an idea by saying it might fail. Any idea might fail. If you’re doing anything worthwhile at all, you’ll suffer a dozen failures.”
  • “Start failing so you can start succeeding.”
• Fallacy #15 - The Fallacy of Expertise
  • “Before you look to expert insight for help in planning, ask yourself: What is an expert?”
  • “The Wall Street Journal periodically matches the nation’s leading stock analysts against a handful of darts. Over the past year, the randomly thrown darts consistently have hit better stocks on a dartboard than those chosen by the experts, after months of study and years of experience.”
  • “The value of an “expert”’s experience is dubious for another reason. Every experience in life is unique. Anytime that we apply the apparent lessons of one experience to another one, we tend to assume that the two experiences are essentially identical. They never are.”
  • “Don’t look to experts for all your answers. There are no answers, only informed opinions.”
• Fallacy #16 - The Fallacy of Authority
  • “Chances are, your organization runs on the Alpha Principle. Ideas do not follow the good thinking in an organization; ideas follow the power.”
  • “If you’re an alpha, learn to shut up. Imitate Ben Taylor, the alpha who runs the Executrain franchise in Minnesota, often the most successful of America’s very successful Executrain franchises. When asked to explain his success, Taylor’s first response is “I listen.””
  • “The bumper stickers are right: Question Authority. Question alphas.”
• Fallacy #17 - The Fallacy of Common Sense
  • “…most people possess enough common sense to draw a logical conclusion from a premise. But in planning, people do not stumble in reaching conclusions. They err in establishing their premises.”
  • “Common sense did not inspire the great marketing innovations of this century—the L.L. Bean boot, personal computer, overnight delivery, or any other. Leaps of imagination created them.”
  • “Common sense will only get you so far. For inspiring results, you’ll need inspiration.”
• Fallacy #18 - The Fallacy of Fate
  • “There are fatalistic groups, fatalistic people, and fatalistic companies. Some people cannot picture success. Some people are afraid to believe in it because they are terrified of disappointment. And most people will say, “We tried something like that. Didn’t work.” The New York Mets didn’t have a prayer in the 1969 World Series. They had been laughed at for years. Their relief pitcher Tug McGraw implored them, “Ya gotta believe.” They started believing. Their opponents, the Baltimore Orioles, wish they hadn’t.”
  • “You gotta believe.”

Questions and Observations

• I’ve never thought much about how planning attracts a certain kind of person. (Perfectionists, most-convinced, etc) And those might not be the people best suited to lead groups/companies.
  • If you plan all the time, you attract planners.
  • Do you want planners or doers?
• Oftentimes I think planning and process are attempts to replace competency.
  • We don’t hire the best people, so we give them a plan or process to follow
  • So the plan is compensation for competency.
  • But those people won’t know when the plan is no longer relevant. They just follow the plan.
• The rule of the shark - if you stop moving you die.
  • I’ve often thought of inertia being how companies work, but it’s really more like a shark. Keep moving.
• Alpha Principle - ideas follow power.
  • Organizations have to actively encourage people out of power to speak up.
  • See “Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say–and What You Don’t”

Chapter 5 - Anchors, Warts and American Express: How Prospects Think

Notes

• People don’t buy with logic
  • Visa v. American Express.
  • “Few prospects can intelligently evaluate the rational features of your and other services and make an informed, rational choice”
  • They’ll fall back to other decision makers - are they nice, personable, respectful, how they felt, etc.
• People choose what seems most familiar.
  • We tend to choose the option we hear the most about.
• “The evidence suggests that it is better to be known badly than not to be known at all. This is due to a human trait called attribute forgetting.”
  • Over time you forget the negative thing but remember the company.
  • Familiarity wields that much power.
  • “Familiarity breeds business. Spread your word however you can.”
• “You try to take advantage of another bias of people: the Recency Effect.”
  • Do everything possible to be the last company to present/pitch.
  • The essential point is that you should always take advantage of this effect, with a follow-up that is as well conceived and powerful as anything in your presentation.”
  • “Take advantage of the Recency Effect. Follow up brilliantly.”
• “People do not look to make the superior choice; they want to avoid making a bad choice.”
  • Looking for Good Enough principle.
  • Why we choose McDonalds when traveling, it’s good enough.
  • “What risks might a prospect see in hiring us?”
    • “Then, without reminding the prospects of those risks—which will only remind your prospects of their fears—eliminate the prospect’s fears, one by one.”
  • “Forget looking like the superior choice. Make yourself an excellent choice.”
  • “Then eliminate anything that might make you a bad choice.”
• The Anchoring Principle - people are anchored in their initial perceptions.
  • People do not simple form impressions. They get anchored to them.
  • “Even more important, people with little time—almost all people today—are more apt to make first impressions as snap judgments, and then base all their later decisions on them. The smart marketer must be aware of this strong tendency. First impressions have never been more critical—they take hold very quickly, and they become the anchors to which you and your success are tied.”
  • “What first impression do you make? What’s the first thing you say? The first way that you position your service?”
  • “Identify and polish your anchors.”
• Last Impressions Last
  • [People] remember the first and last items but forget the middle.
  • Recognizing this special power of first and last impressions…
  • “Each impression you make will—temporarily, at least—be your last. So make it strong.”
• Risky Business
  • Prospects are not looking for the service they wanted most but the one they feared the least. They did not choose a good experience; they chose to minimize the risk of a bad experience."
  • Prospects are not expressing their preference. They are minimizing their risk.
  • “Yes, build the quality into your service—but make it less risky, too.”
• You Have Nothing to Fear but Your Client’s Fear Itself
  • Peggy is afraid about buying an invisible service…it’s less risky for Peggy to do nothing.
  • You need to take some of the fear out. How? How do product manufacturers do it? They offer free home trials, or free money-back guarantees.
  • “The best thing you can do for a prospect is eliminate her fear. Offer a trial period or a test project.”
• Show Your Warts
  • …Showing John’s warts actually helped sell John.
  • Rather than hide your weaknesses, admit them. That will make you look honest and trustworthy—a key to selling a service.
  • “Tell the truth. Even if it hurts, it will help.”
• Business Is in the Details
  • The more similar the services, the more important the differences. In fact, much of effective service management can be described as the careful management of the seemingly inconsequential.
  • “Accentuate the trivial.”

Questions and Observations

• Initial impressions are everything.
  • How do I answer the phone?
  • How quickly do I return customer’s calls?
  • Do I accurately communicate expectations on scheduling, cost, how long it will take, etc?
  • Am I clean shaven?
  • Am I dressed professionally? Clean clothes, nice shoes, etc.
• Be open about where I am right now.
  • I’m not an expert, I can’t answer any question.
  • But I am friendly, I’ll ask you some questions about your family, I’ll make small talk.

Chapter 6 - The More You SAy, The Less People Hear: Positioning and Focus

Notes

• Fanatical Focus
  • “A fanatical focus on doing one thing well.”
  • “Stand for one distinctive thing that will give you a competitive advantage.”
• The Fear of Positioning
  • …standing for one thing means you cannot expressly stand for other things. You must sacrifice.
  • Rather than sacrificing opportunities, a narrow focus often creates opportunities.
  • “To broaden your appeal, narrow your position.”
• Lesser Logic
  • Skadden’s position in a narrow but complex area appealed to clients with less complex problems. “If they can do something that hard, then by lesser logic they can do this.”
  • “Ask yourself: What special skill could your business develop and communicate that would, by lesser logic, position you strongly in other areas? What is the big skill you could develop and market that clearly implies other valuable skills?”
  • “In your service, what’s the hardest task? Position yourself as the expert at this task, and you’ll have lesser logic in your corner.”
• Halo Effects
  • People associate.
  • “We tend to think, for example, that attractive people are smarter, friendlier, more honest, and more reliable than less attractive people. We associate one positive thing—attractiveness—with many other good things.”
  • “We assume that poor people lack initiative and intelligence, are less trustworthy, and are less concerned with cleanliness and appearance, when few if any of these characteristics are displayed by one poor person we may see. We associate; we automatically link one negative thing—poverty—with many other negative things.”
  • “It’s how people are programmed. It’s how your prospects think.”
  • “Say one positive thing, and you will become associated with many.”
• No Two Services Are the Same
  • “…creating and communicating differences is central to effective marketing.”
  • “Services, after all, comprise unique components: people, no two of whom are the same.”
  • “What’s more, prospects perceive services as different. All of us have walked into a company and immediately detected the forces at work.”
  • “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
  • “Don’t start by positioning your service. Instead, leverage the position you have.”
• Creating Your Positioning Statement
  • “A position (or statement of position) is a cold-hearted, no-nonsense statement of how you are perceived in the minds of prospects. It is your position.”
  • “A positioning statement, by contrast, states how you wish to be perceived. It is the core message you want to deliver in every medium, including elevators and airport waiting areas, to influence the perceptions of your service.”
  • “Ask yourself these seven questions—and have seven good clear answers.”
• Creating Your Position Statement
  • “A positioning statement describes what you want the world to think. A statement of position, by contrast, admits the truth.”
  • “Your position is all in people’s minds. Find out what that position is.”
• How to Narrow the Gap between Your Position and Your Positioning Statement
  • “Getting prospects to move from how they see you—your position—to how you wish them to see you—the perception captured in your positioning statement—may require a huge push. And the wider the gap between your position and your statement, the stronger you must push.”
  • “Ask yourself: Given our position, will people believe our positioning statement?”
  • “Most people get anchored to your initial position and will not accept the new position if the gap between them is too wide.”
  • “If the gap between your position and your positioning statement is too big, your customers won’t make the leap. Keep your steps small.”
• If That Isn’t Our Positioning Statement, What Is It?
  • “A too grand, overly bold positioning statement that tries to leap over too many lily pads still has value. It can be, and probably is, your goal.”
  • “Keep it. It can motivate your people, define your longer-term goals, and guide your mission statement and long-term plan. It gives you an end in mind, as Stephen Covey puts it—a significant step toward being more effective.”
  • big hairy audacious goals
  • “Craft bold dreams and realistic positioning statements.”
• Repositioning Your Competitors
  • “Choose a position that will reposition your competitors; then move a step back towa rd the middle to cinch the sale.”
• Positioning a Small Service
  • “You are what you are. You cannot try to be something that does not fit the way your prospects position you. This is often painfully true in the most common service in this country: the small service company.”
  • “The small service must start with small. It must dance with the one that brung it.”
  • “In positioning, don’t try to hide your small size. Make it work by stressing its advantages, such as responsiveness and individual attention.”
• Focus: What Sears May Have Learned
  • “Sears tried a little of this and a little of that—and in the middle of the decade, no American within two blocks of the Sears Tower could describe Sears’s position. And if no prospect can describe your position, you do not have one.”
  • “If you think you can afford not to focus, think of Sears.”
• Focus and the Clinton Campaign
  • “It’s the Economy, stupid”. Ruthless focus on one thing.
  • “Focus. In everything from campaigns for peanuts to campaigns for president, focus wins.”
• When the Banker’s Eyes Blurred: Citicorp’s Slip
  • “If innovation drove Citicorp to the top, a lack of focus almost knocked it all the way back down.”
  • “No one—not even the most innovative and remarkable company in its industry—can be many things to many people.”
  • “No matter how skilled you are, you must focus your skills.”
• What Else Positions and Focus Can Do For You
  • “They will make your word of mouth more effective.”
  • “They will make your “word of elevator” more effective.”
  • “They can rally your troops.”
  • “They will get your marketing communications—and the people who create them—working as one.”

Questions and Observations