Make Yourself Useful

Marketing had changed a lot over the past hundred years.  And more than anything else, that evolution has been characterized by an increasing focus on the consumer.  Back in the early days of the twentieth century, marketing had more to do with logistics and the process of getting a product to the marketplace.  But over time, markets became more competitive and companies had to invest more and more energy to understanding the consumer mindset.

In the recent years, this trend led to extremely liberal return policies, allowing consumers to actually purchase the product and then have the option of returning it later.  The idea was that most people will buy the product and find value in it, justifying the original purchase.  And even for those who could not find real value, the odds of driving back to the store to process the return were fairly low.

This trend has now taken another step further.  Marketing today all revolves around giving the consumer a free sample of the product before expecting a purchase in return.  We go to Costco and sample tasty morsels of food before buying a thing.  Countless advertisements announce free reports we can get to read about the benefits before committing dollars towards it.  And on the internet, we have access to free information and useful resource tools, all in the name of building trust with prospective clients.

Make yourself useful.  That is the underlying moniker behind today’s competitive environment.  In order to succeed in modern business, we have to make ourselves useful to our prospective clients.  We have to position ourselves as valuable resources they can benefit from.  We have to be a tool they rely on to achieve their own objectives.

There are a number of things you can do to accelerate this process.  First, you can actively demonstrate your expertise in front of your target market.  And any effort to freely distribute expertise will make your competence obvious.  You can write a book, publish articles, post on forums, offer workshops, speak at conventions or build an authoritative website.  All will demonstrate your expertise for prospective customers to see.

The idea is to provide real value to your audience.  Regardless what approach you take, the distribution of real value is what gets prospective customers hooked.  They see the value.  They experience the value.  They benefit from the value.  And after that, they realize they can’t live without it.  By delivering real value, you create a dependence relationship that fuels future sales.

What ends up happening is that you build trust with prospective customers.  You earn that trust first, long before you try selling a product or service.  And by the time you have to start selling your product, they’re already sold.  They’ve seen the value already and believe in the selling proposition.  All you have to do is make the product available at a fair price and your converted audience will be ready to buy.

Tactical Execution is committed to fostering sustainable revenue models.  We provide implementation solutions designed to deliver immediate results and much of our strategies are built on the active demonstration of expertise.  Visit the website for a host of free resources you can use to grow your business.