The customer's perception of you and your company is his reality and determines his buying behavior with you. The way your customer thinks about you, talks about you, and describes you to others determines everything he does or does not do in relation to you and what you sell.
Customer Perception
Every product or service must be perceived positively by the customer before the customer can make any kind of buying decision. The most successful products and services are those that the customer perceives are from the most desirable and trustworthy suppliers of these products or services.
Proper Positioning
With proper positioning, your product or service will be seen by the customers as the product or choice, against which others are compared. Some examples of excellent positioning are Coca-Cola, Kleenex, and Xerox. In each case, these products are the standard. When you refer to a drink, you say, "I feel like a Coke." If you have a runny nose, you ask someone to "get a Kleenex" for you. If you need a copy of a document, you ask someone to "make a Xerox of this." This dominant positioning gives these products an edge in the market, which translates into more and easier sales at higher prices with better profit margins.
Appearance
Every visual element of dress, product, packaging, printing, and promotion creates a perception of some kind. Nothing is neutral. Everything that you do or neglect to do, everything that the customer sees or fails to see, hears or does not hear, contributes to the customer's perception of you and your company. Everything counts.
Position Yourself at the Top
Top salespeople position themselves as the preferred suppliers of their products and services. Everything you do adds to the customer's perception of you as the ideal person to do business with when it comes to buying your particular product or service. The customer will often pay more for a similar product or service for no other reason than that it is you who is selling it and backing it up. Your position in the customer's mind can be so strong that no other competitor can get between you and the customer and replace you. The most successful companies and the more successful salespeople are those who have developed such strong positioning in their marketplaces that they are considered to be the standard against which competitors are compared.
Action Exercise
Determine the words that your customers use to describe you to others. How do they think about you, your products, your services, and your company overall? Do you know? Find out your exact positioning in your marketplace, and then decide what you could do to take maximum advantage of it.
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