Most small business owners are in the service business. Well, unlike many of the marketing books aimed at product marketers, Harry Beckwith writes immensely powerful guide books for people who need to market their service business.
In an earlier article we reviewed Beckwith’s second book: The Invisible Touch. This first book, Selling the Invisible, is sub-titled: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing. Sound practical? Sort of like a book you would toss in your rucksack before you go out on a long hike in unfamiliar territory? That’s exactly the type of book this is.
This is a great read to stick in your car or briefcase for the next few weeks and read in ten minute bursts. If you are out shopping and find yourself logjammed in a long queue at the return counter or stuck in a parking lot of the mall pull out Beckwith and get re-energized as a marketer or a small business owner. You won’t feel quite so alone. Harry gives us the feeling he’s been there with us before, selling in the trenches.
Again, Beckwith focuses on those of us who sell Services, rather than Products. Most of us in small business are in the Service business. Our deliverable to the customer is, in effect, invisible. This is the theme running throughout Beckwith’s book. The challenge, then, is to make the invisible visible, and he has several different clues and ideas on what to look for. His 45 page section on Communicating and Selling alone is worth the price of the book.
Also, please don’t let the title throw you off; this is a great book for both marketers and for salespeople. And yes, we realize that in small business we often are required to be both. One thing we really like about Mr. Beckwith; he understands how hard it is to sell the intangibility of a service. As he points out–often customers only see the results of a service decision when something goofs up.
This book is just over 200 pages, but it is a quick 200+ pages that allows for today’s busy marketer to quickly devour some needed information. If you are like us, you will absolutely catch yourself shaking your head and saying: “Yep, I’m doing just that in my business now and I’ve got to change it.”
Now, you can. We strongly recommend reading Beckwith’s Selling the Invisible so you can find out where you are going wrong and what you can do to correct it. This will give your business a burst to propel yourself forward even more.
