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"I would have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you... regardless of price!"
Marketing in The Business World has changed
In order to explain the "Monopolize Your Marketplace" system, we have to start by defining the importance of marketing. A special yearly issue of Success Magazine called "The Selling Issue" quoted Scott DeGarmo,
"The big money goes to those companies with superior marketing operations. Entrepreneurial companies of today must evolve from being sales oriented to being marketing oriented in order to now win the consumer."
Let me explain why it's important to focus on marketing instead of selling. There was a time known as "the days of simple selling." The days of simple selling are generally considered the days before 1980 or, in some industries, before 1990. In this period of selling, it was a lot easier for a salesperson to go in and sell to a buyer. The reason was simply because the marketplace was a lot less crowded.
For example, in 1980, if you wanted to buy a Ford pick-up truck, where did you go? You went to the dealership. This was the only way to see your choices and ask your questions. You couldn't go online or to Barnes & Noble and read fifteen magazines that compared and contrasted new trucks and cars because these sources of information didn't exist. The dealership was the only source of up-to-date information. In the days of simple selling, there was less competition, fewer choices, and it was easier to make a buying decision. Let's wrap this up by saying, "in the days of simple selling, the seller had the power because the buyer had very few options."
The Days Of Simple Selling Are Over!
Now we've got a new situation; buyers no longer have to rely on limited sources of information about a product or service. The landscape of business now involves increased competition, information, choices, and more resistance. It has made buying cycles longer. There is now price competition that didn't exist before. Products are becoming commodities and a lot of the marketing messages are identical. Because of all of this, a wedge has been created between the seller and the buyer. This wedge is called "The Confidence Gap."
"The Confidence Gap" is the consumer's inability to determine whether any of the products or any of the services are any better or worse or any different than any of the others. This creates a big problem. What you need to understand is that people, who will be buying from you, have all these different choices. It's very difficult for them to determine whether you are any better or any different from anyone else. So your marketing goal needs to be to narrow the Confidence Gap and restore the consumer's trust and confidence.
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