Global Atlantic Financial Group - Leaders Insights Summer 2020 | Page 10

WHEN MOST people think of marketing,
they copy what everyone else is doing
because they think that’s what works.
That’s like the blind and dumb leading
the blind and dumb.
Far too many people narrowly focus
on their own industry, imitate their
competitors, and hope for the best
without realizing that most of their
competitors don’t know any more about
marketing than they do. The problem is
that most businesses waste their time
and energy trying to reach everyone
rather than targeting the best possible
prospects for their business.
Peter Drucker, one of the most highly
influential authors and management
consultants of the last century, said:
If you accept Peter Drucker’s definition
of business, you would think there would
be a huge emphasis on marketing and
innovation.
Unfortunately, too many people
confuse sales with marketing.
• Selling is what you do when you’re
on the phone or in front of a
prospect.
• Marketing is what you do to get
someone on the phone or face-toface
with you, properly positioned,
so that by the time you talk to
them, they’re pre-interested, premotivated,
pre-qualified, and predisposed
to do business with you.
Note: neither sales nor marketing has
any relationship to the actual quality of
your product or service.
You want to invest your time and
effort attracting and selling to the best
prospects.
You could be the greatest salesperson
in the world, but you’re not going to make
much money selling lifeboats to people
in a desert. Yet, even if you’re the worst
salesperson in the world, you could easily
sell lifeboats to people on a sinking ocean
liner—because these prospects would
be pre-interested, pre-motivated, prequalified,
and pre-disposed to buy your
product.
Your marketing efforts should be
devoted to finding these types of ideal
prospects.
“BECAUSE THE PURPOSE OF BUSINESS IS
TO CREATE A CUSTOMER, THE BUSINESS
ENTERPRISE HAS TWO—AND ONLY TWO—
BASIC FUNCTIONS: MARKETING AND
INNOVATION. MARKETING AND INNOVATION
PRODUCE RESULTS—ALL THE REST ARE COSTS.
MARKETING IS THE DISTINGUISHING, UNIQUE
FUNCTION OF THE BUSINESS.”
However, you don’t want to spend your
own time looking for these people. You
want to structure your marketing so
these people come to you.
How?
1. UNIQUE SELLING POINT (USP)
Your USP is a precise statement of why
your company is special.
This should answer a prospect’s
question, “Why should I do business with
you instead of any of your competitors or
not doing anything at all?”
Think of every successful company
that offers a clearly defined USP, such
as Federal Express’s “When it absolutely,
positively, has to be there overnight.”
Apple’s USP for its first iPod was “1,000
songs in your pocket.” The USP gives
a clear, distinct description of what
that company has to offer. And when
customers need what a company’s USP
offers, they think of doing business with
no one else.
Without a clear, distinct USP, most
businesses simply say, “Because I have
a great price,” or “Because I’ve been in
business for 20 years.” The reason you
can’t make any of these claims is because
that’s exactly what everyone else is
saying.
2. FOCUSING ON CLEAR BENEFITS
This is the secret to a powerful USP.
First, it’s important to understand
the difference between features and
benefits. A feature is what the product
is or how it functions. A benefit is what
that feature actually does for the person
who’s using it.
Imagine that the world’s supply of
toilet paper suddenly evaporated and
you’re the only person left with a closet
full. Even if you’re not a smart marketer or
a great salesperson, you could easily sell
all the toilet paper you own, for hundreds
of dollars a roll if you wanted. All you’d
have to do is scribble on a cardboard
sign “I have toilet paper for sale!” Or put
a post on Facebook or upload a video on
YouTube, and you would sell out of your
supply quickly and easily.
That’s the advantage of having supply
and demand on your side.
If you happen to be in a business where
there’s so much demand for what you offer,
you don’t have to rely on any marketing
techniques. However, most people are in
competitive businesses, so they need to
structure their marketing so that it drives
business to them by creating demand.
To do that, you need to talk about the
benefits customers will get from doing
business with you.
Once you start focusing on what your
customers can receive, prospects can
clearly understand why they should do
business with you. Your competitors
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