For the last 10,000 years two-thirds of the buying and selling (or trading) process has been controlled by the seller. The seller has control over the product, the seller has control over information about the product (for the most part) and the only aspect the consumer controls is whether or not to buy.
That is no longer the case, not to the extent it had been. Today the customer is framing the information around the product to a far greater extent, and it’s going to continue to increase.
It’s not doom and gloom though, it’s a good thing. It means better products and service for consumers, which means better businesses rise to the top regardless of bankroll or tricky messaging. Think about it, as scary as it sounds at first to lose control over much of your messaging, would you rather let the customer decide, let the chips fall where they may? Or risk some business like yours, but bigger and richer coming in and putting you out of business, just because they have 100% control over perception and the ability to drown your business out? Wouldn’t you rather a fair fight? (more…)
Business is about success, right? Success this, success that, every business that wants to work with you talks about their success, how they’ve made others successful, how you’ll be successful if you work with them. When you sell your product or service part of the pitch is success one way or another. “We’ve been in business for many years.” “We’ve served X number of happy customers.” “We have this award, that ranking with the BBB.” And it goes on. And that’s fine, we talk a lot about shifting the pitch toward what that means to the customer, we’ve covered why being “The #1 car dealership in whatever city” is less powerful than a good price on a sexy car. But it’s everywhere anyway, and is often the focal point of marketing. Success can build trust. It’s good background once you’ve broken through the recognition barrier and the affinity barrier to making a sale.