Your Customer's Perception Isn't the Same as Reality (Part 2) - Adult B2B Marketing T

[AdultB2B]

Your Customer's Perception Isn't Necessarily The Same As Reality - Part 2

Yesterday we said there are two parts of your business, the Inside Reality and the Outside Perception.

If the Inside Reality is about what you do and what you are that allows your business to perform better, then the Outside Perception is about how customers and prospects perceive your company. And usually, the Inside Reality and the Outside Perception are different. You see, regardless of how good you are, or how great your Inside Reality is, your prospects are more than likely going to be, initially at least, apathetic. And it's not because they don't like you or they think your business is bad, but because trying to figure out how good you are is the last thing on their priority list. Ask yourself this question: How many competitors, either direct or indirect, does your business have? Whatever that number is, that's how many choices your prospects have and how many businesses they have to sift through before making a buying decision. And that's assuming they want to buy what you're selling!

We call this situation the Confidence Gap. The Confidence Gap represents a consumer's inability to make a distinction whether any of the products or any of the services are any different or any better than any of the others. And unfortunately, many businesses are heaped right in the middle of that pack of indistinguishable competitors!

Which brings us to the crux of the problem: Most businesses don't have the ability to communicate via advertising and marketing their Inside Reality to the outside world. They can't lead prospects to the conclusion "I would have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you, regardless of price."...even if their business is good, and has achieved "WOW."

Now, there's a whole host of books, seminars and trainers that try to help businesses with their Outside Perception. There are books like "Guerrilla Marketing", "Principles of Marketing", "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing".. and then there are sales, marketing and advertising 'gurus' galore that all try to help you make your business look good to the outside world. And these are fine, but almost none of these books or trainers pay any attention to how good your business actually is - in other words, they ignore the Inside Reality. And they are almost all strictly technique oriented. They say, "Here, do this, that, this again, and then a little more of that and your ads will pull like crazy."

A very important principle to remember, though, is that advertising tricks and techniques won't compensate for a lack of confidence and perceived value in the consumer's mind.

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[rhetorical]

and still the spam spews. Like water in Niagara Falls. Dude, you look desperate. Why would I listen to advice from someone whose business is obviously not doing too well.