photo credit: kevindooley 

Last week I wrote about Harry Beckwith’s book The Invisible Touch.  I mentioned how Beckwith looks at four key areas for the marketing of services businesses.  In last week’s article I wrote about how Price affects the perception of your service.  This week I’ll look at how your Brand can influence your client’s views of your service.

One of the first points he makes is that whether you like it or not, you have a brand.  You can’t choose not to have a brand. 

Your brand stands for something, and Beckwith talks about making sure that every interaction, every contact point with your customer reinforces the message of your brand (you do have a message don’t you?).  He has a concept he calls the Brand Placebo Effect where he shows that when people believe a certain brand or product will do a certain thing, they’ll actually believe that it did do what they thought it would – even when it didn’t.  If you go to an expensive restaurant for a meal, you expect the meal and the experience to be good.  When you think back on your experience, you’re more likely to feel that it was good and perhaps rate the experience higher than it actually was – all because you expected something special.  What you expect can cloud your perception of the actual experience.

So, how can you build a strong brand?

Firstly, be consistent in doing what you do.  When you sell a service, people look for the tangible elements to what you do.  If you can consistently deliver your service to people – so they become comfortable with the process – they’ll begin to feel more confident and comfortable in your ability to deliver.

Secondly, he talks about having a meaning attached to your brand – something that means something to your ideal clients.  Your brand needs to stand for something, and that something needs to appeal to people. In my financial planning business, we talk with our clients about helping them make a difference in their world.  We ask them what the things are they’d like to do that will enable them to feel they’ve left their mark on their world.  We then help them make sure they have enough money to do those things.  It’s a simple concept, but it’s easily grasped by our clients, and it’s easy for them to explain to others.

Finally, he talks about the importance of having a memorable name – something that stands out from the crowd.  I’ve read numerous interviews with business owners who’ve expressed regrets over the name of their businesses – if they could go back in time they’d change them to something different.  Often the business name is hastily thought up, but it becomes quite important when your building your brand.

In the financial planning industry, a lot of businesses are named after their owners – this makes it a bit difficult to build a brand and differentiate the business.  Beckwith points to names such as Google and Yahoo as names that are different and stand out from the crowd.

So, how do we apply this to our businesses?

What kind of brand are you building?  What is the intended message of your brand?  What is the actual message?  What can you do to build a stronger brand?  What branding success stories have you heard of?

Please leave your comments and let’s explore ways to build better brands.

photo credit: mangee 

 I’ve been reading The Invisible Touch by Harry Beckwith.  I like Beckwith’s books – he’s one of the few writers around who writes specifically for those of us who sell services.  In the book he looks at four keys to selling a service:

1. Price
2. Brand
3. Packaging, and
4. Relationships

In today’s article I’ll share some of his thoughts on Price.  Over the next week I’ll blog on the other three points.  As I outline some of these ideas, have a think about how they could apply to your business.

Beckwith explains how price is seen as an indicator of how good the service is likely to be.  He says

A price tells us how good a service probably is, then convinces us how good the service probably was.

I’ve read other articles through my MBA studies that back this up.  When you buy a physical product i.e. a TV, you tend to shop based on price unless there are other factors that you see as highly important to the overall deal.  When you buy a service, it’s difficult to compare apples with apples as the service you buy will be slightly different depending on who delivers it.  I’ve spoken before how consumers look for things that make the service become more tangible – one of these factors is price.

Harry uses the example of how in the 80′s Gibson were losing share in the guitar market.  They tried lowering prices and that actually led to a further reduction in sales.  They decided to increase prices and, you guessed it, sales increased.  Faced with a choice, if a consumer can afford to, they are more likely to pay a higher price for a service to gain the benefit of the perceived higher quality.

Harry is also against discounting, arguing that the discount buyer is only buying your price and doesn’t value your service.  He suggests if you offer a discount once, the client will expect it every time.  And the won’t value your skills or abilities – they only value the price.

He speaks about pricing based on the value you create instead of an hourly rate.  My last article touched on something similar.  He suggests creating a tiered pricing structure, where clients can pick from a menu of services that are combined in a set of pre-determined packages.

So have a think about these ideas.  Are you guilty of discounting prices to gain business when in fact you should be increasing them?  Is the service you sell sufficiently differentiated from your competitors that you’re able to charge a premium price?  Are there opportunities for you to change the way you charge and introduce service packages?

Please feel free to leave some comments on this article and let me know what you think.