It’s best to move on now from what you have, to what you believe. 

 If you are transforming from a commodity-like company to a knowledge and service based company, its best to move on from what you have, to what you believe.

 So many of us are doing just that.   Whether we are a company or a sales rep or a marketer or a trainer;   more and more of us are adding (or must add) insight/ intelligence to our stable of widgets or even in some cases, instead of our widgets. 

 The market is starving for direction.

Don’t get me wrong, what you have is fine for they are the products and services.   Thankfully, they pay the bills and feed the kids.    

But too often we eagerly share, shout and talk about those products and services.  Too often we earnestly show what we have for products and services on our websites, in our phone calls and during our webinars.  Too often we study too hard about what we have for products and services.   Too often we train too much about what we have for products and services. 

And we spend so little time talking about what we believe.  

That’s right, what we believe.  What your company believes.  What you believe. 

You thought I was going to tell you to focus not on what we have but on what your products and services do for the customer; how they solve a problem, how they fit a need.  

Good lord, that is so 80’s.   And that’s table stakes now.   

Belief sharing is better.  Belief sharing is needed now more than ever.   Belief sharing is the new black.   

We spend so little relative time in sharing our credible prescriptive path to success for our customers.  We spend so little relative time espousing our beliefs about the direction our clients must go to achieve what they want to achieve. 

Products and Services are critical yes, but amazingly, they are too often fun, too easy to count, too easy to have sales on and in fact can crowd out the very essence that they should be an extension of a very passionate and clear belief– not just about what our products and services do but what we believe the path is to get there. 

An obsession about what we have may work well for widgets, gum and shoelaces, but what we believe matters more if we profess to be in the Advice and Counsel game; the Insight game or the Knowledge and Service game as so many of us do ( and need to do).

Customers are drawn to those who have passionate beliefs.  Small businesses for example, line up to get counsel from SCORE, to join Mastermind groups, to access advice and counsel from Hubspot, DuctTape Marketing and Amex’s Open Network. .    

The difference between saying “We have this and this and this……” and “We believe the best route to success is …” is awesome.  And powerful. 

What you believe in the knowledge and service game sells the products and services that you have.   It’s not the other way around.

We must also be consistent about those beliefs from the company home page to the person in the field or on the phone.  And we must be different from the competition.  And we must be religiously true to those beliefs as if they were inscribed on tablets made of stone; not just in what the results will be but in the prescriptive method of how those beliefs are executed upon.

It’s OK to teach and lead customers to your beliefs.  It’s more than OK.  In a shaky economy and a world that gets more confusing everyday, it’s got to be your lead story now.  

For without that rock solid, credible path about what you believe, nobody will come to you, or listen to you or give a darn about what products or services you have no matter what they do.

Take a stand.  Have a belief.  Preach it, teach it, brand it, package and sell it.  Leave the obsession with products and services behind.

If your customer is so inspired, have no fear, they’ll ask you what you have.

 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark