The Landscape of Business Has Changed

In order to explain the Success Marketing Systems^TM and Truth Produces Trust^TM marketing, we have to start by defining the importance of marketing. A special yearly issue of Success Magazine called "The Selling Issue" quoted Scott DeGarmo;

"The big money goes to those companies with superior marketing operations. Entrepreneurial companies of today must evolve from being sales oriented to being marketing oriented in order to now win the consumer."

Let me explain why it's important to focus on marketing instead of selling. There was a time known as "the days of simple selling." The days of simple selling are generally considered the days before 1980 or, in some industries, before 1990. In this period of selling, it was a loteasier for a salesperson to go in and sell to a buyer. The reason was simply because the marketplace was a lot less crowded.

For example, in 1980, if you wanted to buy a Ford pick-up truck, where did you go? You went to the dealership. This was the only way to see your choices and ask your questions. You couldn't go online or to Barnes & Noble and read fifteen magazines that compared and contrasted new trucks and cars because these sources of information didn't exist. The dealership was the only source of up-to-date information. In the days of simple selling, there was less competition, fewer choices, and it was easier to make a buying decision. Let's wrap this up by saying, "in the days of simple selling, the seller had the power because the buyer had very few options."

The Days Of Simple Selling Are Over!
Now we've got a new situation; buyers no longer have to rely on limited sources of information about a product or service. The landscape of business now involves increased competition, information, choices, and more resistance. It has made buying cycles longer. There is now price competition that didn't exist before. Products are becoming commodities and a lot of the marketing messages are identical. Because of all of this, a wedge has been created between the seller and the buyer. This wedge is called "The Confidence Gap."

"The Confidence Gap" is the consumer's inability to determine whether any of the products or any of the services are any better or worse or any different than any of the others. This creates a big problem. What you need to understand is that people, who will be buying from you, have all these different choices. It's very difficult for them to determine whether you are any better or any different from anyone else. So your marketing goal needs to be to narrow the Confidence Gap and restore the consumer's trust and confidence.

How Do I Fix This Problem?
The questions you may be asking yourself are "How do I figure this out?" and "How do I fix this problem?" Go to the business section of any bookstore and you'll find all kinds of books on this topic. You'll find things like "Better Customer Service." The theory is if you have better customer service, you'll have more customers. The problem with this philosophy is you must have a customer in order to give them service. You can't just say, "I've got great customer service." It doesn't work that way; you must have a system that will drive the customer to you! One of the things you might hear business gurus say is, "If you have more sales training and if you are better at sales, then you'll be able to get more customers." The problem with that is, again, you've got to have prospects in order to use your sales skills. If you look at all the sales training books and all the sales training seminars, they are all short on advice in this particular area, which is: "How do I find someone to sell to in the first place?"

There is another way that business books and business gurus tell you how to overcome this thing we call the Confidence Gap. "Use advertising tricks and techniques." "You can trick people through misleading advertisements to call you or come in." For example, I saw a car ad that said, "Pay no tax on all new vehicles." Do you think that sounds like a pretty good deal? If I weren't paying any tax, then I'd probably save a couple grand. The problem is when you looked at the fine print, it said, "Customers responsible for all sales taxes, state, and local. The dealer will pay for the inventory tax." This is a sales trick. It does nothing to build trust and confidence. Instead it builds contempt, hatred, and suspicion. The result is a widening of the Confidence Gap when the goal of the advertisement should have been to narrow it.

These examples reveal a problem. We used to have the days of simple selling, now we have The Confidence Gap. You, as a business owner, need to overcome this in order to be successful. You need to find a solution to the problem.

How Do I Get The Customers To Actually Want
To Do Business With Me?
I don't know if you are familiar with Napoleon Hill; he wrote the book Think and Grow Rich. He had a saying that went like this:

"It is as useless to try to sell a man something until you have first made him want to listen as it would be to command the earth to stop rotating."

Do you believe that? Think about it; if they don't want to listen, trust me, they are not going to want to buy what you are selling. They are going to view you as a pest. That's where the difference between sales and marketing come into play.

In sales, what you are doing is trying to make people want to listen to you in a sales situation. What we're presenting is a marketing program that does the job of making people want to listen. It prepares the buyers so they will come to you and you will have an opportunity to sell. Sales skills are still very important, but your time is used more productively in closing sales rather that chasing them down.

Marketing Is The Tool You Must Use To Bridge The Confidence Gap
Marketing needs to be concise, well articulated, and powerfully stated. It is low or no pressure. Marketing is one-way communication. It's not afraid of rejection. It's not obtrusive. People can review marketing at their own pace, when it's convenient for them. And, if they aren't interested, they can ignore it altogether. No commitment. That is why we need to talk about a marketing program.

In the Success Marketing Systems^TM, we teach and implement a Marketing Program that helps businesses overcome the Confidence Gap. It accomplishes this by addressing two points-the Inside Reality and the Outside Perception. Truth Produces Trust^TM

Inside Reality
The inside reality is everything your business does that makes you valuable to your customers. It is what gives you a competitive edge in the marketplace. It is all of your skills, your passion, your systems, the way you conduct your business. The outside perception is how customers and prospects perceive your business. It is the ideas and impressions consumers gain from your direct and indirect communication with them.

The Outside Perception Of Your Business
Should Match The Inside Reality
To be successful in business and to continue that success, your inside reality and outside perception should match. If you spend all your resources developing the inside reality and neglect the outside perception, you will be frustrated wondering why you are having minimal results with your superior product or service. On the flip side, if you focus solely on the outside perception and neglect the inside reality, prospects will soon find there is little value in the product or service and you will get little, if any, return business.

To conclude this introduction to the SMS &TPT system, I would like to reemphasize the point just made. I paraphrase Jim Rohn, a great business philosopher, in a lecture about personal communications he said:

"First, have something good to say. Second, say it well and third, say it often."

Utilizing Truth Produces Trust^TM principles you incorporate all three of these communication elements thoroughly. About 25% deals with having something good to say or the "inside reality", the remaining 75% deals with saying it well and saying it often or the "outside perception."