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Your Perception Controls Your Customer’s Reality

Your Perception Controls Your Customer’s Reality

perception-v-reality-sales-marketing

This article originally appeared in Amalgamate: A Mix of Ideas for Your Business, Summer 2015

Take a quick peek at this graphic inspired by Alex Goldfayn of the Evangelist Marketing Institute.

sales-marketring-perception

Let’s use this graphic to frame our conversation. Anchor it. In the graphic I’m making a few assumptions.

First, looking at the top of the graphic, Sales is primarily a One to One activity. The most powerful conversations you have with your customers happen in these One to One situations.

Second, moving to the lower left, Marketing is primarily a One to Many activity. In marketing, your team promotes your value both internally and externally, to the Staff, the Sales team and the Customers.

Third, moving to the lower right, you’ll see Perceptions. Specifically, Your Perceptions. It all starts with you. How you see, hear, feel and interpret your company and your company’s place in the market.

Working with those assumptions, the graphic is sending us a message. At each arrow, an specific idea takes form.

Our Perceptions Control Our Customer’s Reality.

Evidence of the power of perception showed up earlier this year while reading the article, “How to Raise a University’s Profile: Pricing and Packaging,” New York Times, 02/08/2015 

Read this excerpt:

“Mr. Trachtenberg convinced people that George Washington was worth a lot more money by charging a lot more money. Unlike most college presidents, he was surprisingly candid about his strategy. College is like vodka, he liked to explain. Vodka is by definition a flavorless beverage. It all tastes the same. But people will spend $30 for a bottle of Absolut because of the brand. A Timex watch costs $20, a Rolex $10,000. They both tell the same time.”

What are your perceptions about your company? How are those perceptions shaping your customer’s reality?

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