95% of any first impression is determined by the way you dress.  People (quite rightly) assume you choose your own wardrobe, or (if you wear a uniform) you choose your haircut, accessories and brand of shoes / belt / watch etc.  And, what your choice says about you determines whether people like you, or not.

It sounds unfair, and we probably all know people who deliberately dress in a way that they will be pre-judged.  They don’t want to be judged by their clothing – yet that’s how they subconsciously judge others.

If you want to sell to higher-income customers, you need to look at your appearance and make sure it fits.

The following may be read as a series of sweeping generalisations – they won’t be true in every case, but they’re widely regarded as accurate in most instances…

• Bright colours impress low-income customers, whereas higher income business owners generally prefer conservative colours and dress.
• Navy blue and dark grey are the most popular colours for top salesmen
• Navy blue and dark green are fab for women
• Brown should be avoided, as it’s seen as weak
• If you accessorise, choose well and select expensive accessories that match and don’t overshadow the outfit

I once heard that women who wear make-up outsell those who don’t.  I don’t think it’s the actual make-up that does it, I think it’s the additional care that’s obviously taken before you leave the house.  If you care how you look, you’re likely to care about your customers and your products.

Another tip I heard as a teenager was always to dress like the person in the role above you.  That was reiterated to me recently when someone told me, if you’re trying to sell business-to-business, to always dress as the business owner’s advisers do.  At least, if you want to be taken seriously.

Love it, or loath it, our clothes make a statement about us.  What are yours saying about you?

In order to move your marketing – and your business – forward, you need to have a view on where you currently are in your organisation.  This involves an audit of your current marketing, so you can take a critical look at what you need to change, in order to move forward.

An audit should consider a number of areas:

Business Mission

What are the over-riding aims of the company?  What do you stand for?  What is your core business?  Do you have a mission statement that makes this clear to you, your team and your customers / suppliers?

Market Analysis

What is happening in the external business environment currently?  Are there opportunities you could take advantage of?  Are there threats you need to be aware of?  Is your business growing, or shrinking?

Internal Analysis

What’s happening within your company at the moment?  How are things changing?  What’s the position with key members of your team?  Are your products / services improving?  What do your customers think of you?  Is their buying behaviour changing?

Objectives

What are your goals and objectives for this year? (More on this in tomorrows post.)

Once you have a view on where you are, you can start to take a look at where you’d like to be.  And, we’ll cover that in a bit more detail tomorrow…

Marketing services can be slightly more complex than marketing products for four key reasons…

• Intangibility

As we mentioned in yesterday’s post, services cannot be seen, or touched.  So, you have to market them in a slightly different way and try to incorporate some tangibility into your promotional methods.  For example customer testimonials, brochures and guarantees that reassure the customer of the quality of service you offer.

• Inseparability

Services are produced and consumed simultaneously, for example a haircut.  The service provider is therefore crucial in the marketing process and can make the difference between a one-off sale and long-term repeat business.  You therefore need strategies for selecting, training and rewarding staff to ensure customers receive great service that will bring them back again, and again.

• Variability

Because services are delivered by people, standards will vary between different personalities.  It’s therefore difficult to standardise what is delivered.  This again highlights the importance of your team and their selection, training and incentives.  It also raises a question of systems and equipment to reduce differences in the service provided.

• Perishability

Services cannot be stored – if a hotel room is not filled one night, that bed-night cannot be sold again tomorrow.  This increases the importance of matching supply and demand closely, to maximise profits.  You can use prices as one way of controlling demand, but we would recommend having a number of strategies to deal with this issue.

This post hopefully gives you some areas to consider if you are marketing services.  It’s slightly more challenging, but the solutions can provide some fantastic returns.  I hope it helps your business.

After Visibility, the next step to success is CREDIBILITY.  But, how do you create it?

Trust is a vital component in any sale; particularly a long-term purchase or with intangible purchases (like a service you can’t touch or hold in your hand).  But many business owners overlook its importance, or fail to take the time for customers to build trust and get to know the sales person.

They say it takes on average seven points of contact before someone will buy from you – and credibility is the reason why.  If people don’t trust you first, they’re unlikely to part with any money.

So, how can you build trust or credibility? Our top five tips are as follows…

1. Have a clear brand, through signage, business cards, telephone numbers etc.  People are happier with landline numbers that are local, rather than PO box numbers and mobiles.  And they like to know who they’re dealing with, so keep things simple and clear.
2. Ease of contact – is your telephone number easy to find on your literature and website?  Do you encourage people to call you and make it easy for them to do so?
3. Stick to your promises – if you say you’ll call back, call back.  As and when you promised.
4. Provide testimonials – let your customers see what other people say about you.  That’s far more convincing than any sales pitch.
5. Give something away for free – with services, it’s great if you can offer a tip or a piece of advice for free, especially if it proves you are great at your job.  If it’s products, offer a guarantee – put your money where your mouth is if your products are fantastic, instead of asking the customer to take all the risk.  You’ll be surprised how powerful it is.

When you take the time to build trust with your customers, they’ll reward you by referring you to other people and put their reputation on the line based on their relationship with you.

And, then you’re on your way to the third and final step…Profitability (see Monday’s blog for more…)

People can’t buy from you if they don’t know you exist, so this post focuses on VISIBILITY.

You need a series of strategies within your business to build awareness and tell people about your products and services.  That way, they can choose whether they are interested, or not.

There are plenty of ways to increase your visibility, for example…

• Signwriting your car / Signage at your business
• Business stationery – cards / letterheads etc.
• Press Coverage
• Networking Events
• Speaking Opportunities
• Direct Mail / Email…

You should choose at least four strategies and try to target the people you want to work for – you don’t want to waste time and resources attracting customers who don’t make you any money.  If you aren’t sure how to do this, ask for some marketing help (you can’t be fabulous at everything and a consultant will generate better results in a much shorter time).

Check back tomorrow for the next step… Credibility…