January – February, 2020 Volume 17 — Issue 93
One of my most prized books on marketing has been and likely will always be: Harry Beckwith’s ‘Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing‘. I pull it off my bookshelf often when I need a quick jolt of marketing inspiration. As the saying goes: ‘Good things come in small packages’. This small volume provides myriad ideas that improve marketing and sales for small businesses like yours and mine.
In addition to being a bestselling author and acclaimed speaker, Mr. Beckwith is founder and head of Beckwith Partners marketing and branding firm. His years of experience in these fields resulted in his enormous impressive knowledge of amazing marketing and sales tips and strategies.
Is Marketing and Selling ‘Invisible’ Products or Services Difficult?
It doesn’t have to be that way, you know. Small businesses offering ‘invisible’ services rather than a solid product that can be seen, touched or held will find this book invaluable. Beckwith uses a series of quick and easy to read strategies along with useful information on how markets work and customers think. His easy to understand concepts can help us all improve small business marketing and sales processes. In addition, he provides a ton of ideas on developing a brand for your small business upon which to build marketing and sales systems.
A long time proponent and guru of branding myself, I find his sections on branding and how a good brand positively affects sales to be extremely ‘spot on’. Order a copy of this book today and reap the deep value available at a very reasonable cost. Invest in yourself and increase the sale of your service offerings. While not a ‘hot off the presses’ book, twenty years after publication, it remains a must-have addition to any Small Business Book Collection. Even with the rapid pace of technology changing over two decades, there is nothing in this book that cannot be easily adapted to our new environment of online ‘social’ relationships with customers.
What a Brand Is – How to Improve Marketing and Sales.
It has long been said that “A brand is a promise.” A well developed brand represents any small business firm in terms of concepts like trust, loyalty, quality or customer service. That promise provides an expectation based on experiences. Harry Beckwith extended that phrase a bit when he said: “A service is a promise, and building a brand builds your promise.”
“A service is a promise, and building a brand builds your promise.”
A brand creates an expectation for customers. Developed correctly, that promise presented by small business owners and practitioners builds a mindset of what they can expect when using the services you provide. What do your customers expect when they hear your name during their buying process? Do 
they ‘expect’ a better result than any of your competitors offer? Can they ‘expect’ a cheaper or perhaps more expensive cost for what you offer clients? Will they ‘expect’ you to do your magic in less time than others? Build your brand and expectations carefully , then make sure you deliver on those promises – every single time.
When buying a service, the customer has nothing physical to own, touch or hold. Signing on and buying your service amounts to a promise that you will do something specific for them that meets their unique needs. If you don’t think you can brand something ‘invisible’ like a service, think again. Think social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram… all similar, but well branded companies selling slightly different social media services online. How about FedEx and UPS? Both sell delivery services and have strong, distinctive individual brands.
3 Important Things a Brand Can Do to Improve Sales
In just four short paragraphs in his book, Beckwith outlines three important things a brand can do to improve sales for your small business. You can read them in five to ten minutes tops and walk away with extremely valuable guidelines. He highlights these three basic points to improve your marketing and sales strategies.
1. Word of Mouth Recommendations
Sharing a personally delivered story or experience does far more good with a branded company or service. Of course, someone might pass on a personal referral or experience of a non-branded firm. But, they will more likely remember the story – or experience – but forget the branded name. When they are ready to begin serious shopping for what you offer, the name/brand is no longer top-of-mind for them.
2. Inquiries from Referrals
Once a referral is made, it is more likely to convert a prospect into a solid lead, then into a customer. The brand brings with it a level of faith and trust shared by a friend or colleague. Prospects are always looking for that Know-Like-Trust factor in their decision making process. Along with the trusted recommendation, your brand will do a lot to move them to that level sooner.
3. Shorter, Faster Sales Processes
For a non-branded company or service, it takes longer to move prospects through your Customer Buying Journey. It takes a number of stages to get them from the ‘I need something’ phase to their ‘This is it!’ stage of actually buying what you offer. They recognize your solution is the best one for their needs. Without that ‘boost’ from the friend or colleague referring you and telling them why you would be best for them, your sales process could go on longer. Recommendations from others help a prospect climb through the stages of your sales process more quickly, often eliminating unnecessary repetitive steps and presentations.
How Brands Help Improve Small Business Sales
A brand provides a strong support structure to improve marketing and sales processes, and can give a boost to leads in your Customer Buying Journey. This is definitely one of those Better – Cheaper – Faster small business concepts we all look for to lighten our load. ‘Better’ can be achieved based on how much easier a brand makes it for prospects to remember who you are. Don’t make them go searching for ‘someone’ when they have already heard about ‘Brand You.’ ‘Cheaper’ becomes easier too. Services don’t require big investments in slick packaging or expensive advertising budgets to sell value. ‘Faster’ is a benefit of having someone you know and trust break down barriers for you based on their own personal experience with you, your company and branded service.
Take Action for 2020
Never fear, this can be done without any campfire, branding iron or pain. It just takes some time and 
focus on your small business and how you want to display how you, your firm, your products or services are different from competitors. If you have not yet begun working on a unique brand for your firm and services, or what you have been using just isn’t working, it is time to get started.
Give me a call , send a text or zip off an email so we can talk about creating a killer brand for your firm. No better time than the beginning of a New Year – and new decade – to plan to improve marketing and sales with a solid brand for your small business. Set yourself, your firm and services apart from, and above the competition. Don’t continue to fight daily for recognition that you can strategically develop and market to your ideal customers.
And, never forget: customers will pay more for a well known, branded product OR service! Customers pay premium pricing once they know a company can be trusted based on experience with that company brand. Premium pricing can be based on a customer’s own personal experience or a referral from a friend or colleague.
Note: If you order a copy of Mr. Beckwith’s book, the included links will take you to Amazon.com. Purchases through those links provide a small commission to MCG, but not increase pricing for you.
Visualize — Analyze — Strategize
Your Way to Improved Marketing and Sales
