Selling the Invisible: a field Guide to Modern Marketing \(Biz Books to Go\) pdfdrive com

Charge for knowing where.
Value Is Not a Position
If your primary selling position is good value, you have no position.
Value is not a competitive position. Value is what every service promises,
implicitly or explicitly. It is fundamental to survival. A service’s price must
fairly reflect its value to the customer, or the service eventually will fail.
Some legal services charge $50 for an uncontested divorce. Lawyer
Lawrence Tribe charges $750 an hour. Acme’s clients say they get good value,
and most clients and experts point to Tribe’s results—a 15–6 winning record
before the U.S. Supreme Court—and they say he gives very good value, too.
In services, value is a given. And givens are not viable competitive positions.
If good value is the first thing you communicate, you won’t be effective.
If good value is your best position, improve your service.

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M
ONOGRAM
Y
OUR
S
HIRTS
, N
OT
Y
OUR
C
OMPANY
: N
AMING AND
B
RANDING

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Monogram Your Shirts, Not Your Company
ADP DMM ETI ADC APC ABC CBC BCW
Which “name” above did you remember?
None?
Don’t worry. Everyone flunks that memory test. It’s because people cannot
remember monograms. Monograms have no memorability. Just as bad,
monograms have no spirit, no attitude, no message, no promise, no warmth, and
no humanity.
So why do so many companies use monograms? Blame IBM. IBM convinced
executives that if they gave their company a fancy monogram like IBM, they
would succeed like IBM.
This is like thinking that Michael Jordan’s shoes will make you like Mike.
It’s also like thinking that dinner causes midnight, because midnight always
comes after dinner.
Dinners don’t cause midnight. And IBM’s name didn’t cause IBM’s success.