Customer Reviews

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing

5 star:		(114)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I bought this book because I thought it might be relevant to "gold collar workers", those who manufacture and sell knowledge that is quite "invisible" or intangible. What a great book this is! Every person that relys on their brain for a living, whether as an employee or consultant or teacher, can double their *perceived* value by reading and applying the lessons of this book.

A few of the author's well-discussed and well-illustrated ideas are offered here to complement the many other favorable reviews:

1) Simplify access to your work! [Learn how to create executive summaries, tables of contents, hyper-links, etc.--don't assume that everyone knows your value and is willing to spend time digging into your work.]

2) Quality, speed, and price are *not* in competition, they must be offered simulaneously and at full value.

3) What is your promise or value proposition? Are you just showing up, or does every day offer a chance for you to show your value in a specific way?

4) Don't just be the best in your given vocation, *change it* for the better and redefine what "best" means!

5) Sell your relationship (and your understanding of the other person's needs), not just your expertise in isolation. Your boss or client has three choices and you are the last: to do nothing, to do it themselves, or to use you. Focus on being the first choice every time.

6) Execute with passion--and if you are a super-geek or nerd that does not have a high social IQ, form a partnership with a super-popular person and put them in front.

There are many other useful thoughts in this book. If you want to know how to sell the invisible, the intagible, the value propositions that revolve around knowledge and insight instead of bending metal and assembling things, this is absolutely the best book one could ask for. Really nicely presented.

As others have written, this book is not about creating a complex marketing design or plan. What it does offer is quick, a page or so, USA today-like snippets of insightful observations about marketing in general, and service marketing in particular.

As the title indicates, selling and/or marketing an intangible service is a different process than tangible product marketing. As the author writes, most people cannot evaluate the skills of an accountant, or lawyer, or any number of professional services. We often look for tangible proxies that indicate the professional's level of expertise and success (e.g., fancy offices, degrees on the wall, presentation, etc.).

If you read this book in its entirety in one session, you are bound to remember nothing in the sea of facts and tidbits (click on the table of contents link to get a feel for the topic areas). I've found the best way to read the book is to ponder on a few points every night and/or week, while attempting to apply them to a salient situation in your life. Overall, this book has some interesting and useful insights, and is a good read when you have a few minutes to spare.

There are several hundred books available on the market about selling. Most of these books are based on tangible products, something the consumer can see, feel and recieve an almost immediate satisfaction after the purchase.
This books is one of the few available about selling services. When a consumer purchases a service from you or your company, they are paying for your promise to deliver someting in the future. This is especially true in the world of finance and insurance industry. A financial advisor sells a fund and the buyer expects to recieve x amount of interest on his in vestment at a later date. In the insurance industry, a client buys an automobile insurance policy but will probably never see the benefits of the sinsurance policy until he or she has an accident. How do you sell something that has no immediate benefit to the client? Read "Selling the Invisible".
There are twelve very easy to read chapters with many short examples (lacking a little bit on the proof side). I do believe it is an excellent book but it is too North American oriented to be carried over one to one for european, asian or middle-eastern markets. There will have to be a few cosmetic adjsutments made to be able to adapt to other makets but it is still a catalyst to start doing things differently.
The chapters and some of the main messages of those I recieved from the author Harry Beckwith:

Planning - 1.) Accept the limititations of planning 2.) Don't value planning for its result;the plan 3.)Don't plan your future plan your people. 4.)Do it now. The business obituary pages are filled with planners who waited. 5.)Beware of focus groups; they focus on today and planning is about tomorrow. 6.)Don't let the perfect ruin good. 7.)Don't look to experts for all your answers. Ther are no answers, only informed opinions.

How Prospects Think - 1.) Appeal only to a prospects reason, and you may have no appeal at all 2.) Familiarity breeds business; spread your word however you can. 3.)Take advantage of the recovery effect. Follow-up brilliantly.

Pointing and Focus - 1.)Stand for one distinctive thing that will give you a competative edge. 2.)To broaden your appeal, narrow your position. 3.)No company can position itself as anything, your prospects and customers put you there. Positioning is something the market does to you. You can only try and influence your position. 4.) Your position is all in the peoples minds. Find out what that position is. 5.)Focus. In everything from campaign for peanuts to campaign for presidents, focus wins.

Pricing - 1.)Don't assume that logical pricing is smart pricing. Maybe your price which makes you look like a good value, actually makes you look second rate. 2.)Setting your price is like setting a screw. A little resistance is a good sign. The reason 10% of the population are chronic complainers of price. 3.)Beware of the deadly middle in pricing. You communicate that as well... We are average. 4.)Beware of the rock bottom in pricing...you communicate we are substandard. 5.)Value is not a position.

Naming and Branding - 1.)Give your service a name, not an abbreviation 2.)Generic names encourage generic business. 3.)In service marketing almost nothing beats a brand. 4.)Building a brand doesn't take millions. It takes imagination.

Communicating and Selling - 1.)Make the service and the prospect feel compfortable 2.)Saying many things usually communicats nothing. 3.)Good basic communicating is good basic marketing. 4.)If you think your promotional idea might seem silly or unprofessional, it is. 5.)Prospects do not buy how good you are at what you do. They buy how good you are at who you are. 6.)Far better to say to little than too much. 7.)People hear what they see. Watch what you show. 8.)Give your marketing a human face.

Nurturing and Keeping Clients - 1.) Watch your relationship balance sheet, assume it is worse than it appears and fix it. 2.)Don't raise expectations you cannot meet. 3.)To manage satisfaction, you manage your customers expectations. 4.)Out of sight is out of mind. If you are not meeting regularly, you are not in their mind.

Overall an excellent book that contains a lot of reasons as to why service marketing is different and how to keep yourself visible amongst the competition.

Harry Beckwith has boiled down the art of marketing into many small and easy to understand words of wisdom.

If you are in business you have to read this book. Whether you are an owner, CEO or department head, Beckwith lays out the essential tools to market your company, and sites fresh examples to illustrate. He says "Marketing is not a department" and he's right--it is your front line (sales people) to your CEO and everyone in between. Everyone at your company is involved in marketing your company-and the author makes sure you get the message. Stop wasting time with ploys that don't work. COMMUNICATE with the consumer and you will see increased sales and market share.

"Selling The Invisible" serves as a "renewing of vows" for those well into their careers. It provides a way to go from a jaded attitude to a fresh perspective and look at your company from the outside. If you think you've heard it all before, you haven't heard it like this. A clear a concise "handbook" for modern business.

Ra-ra books are those kinds of books that are full of good(?) intentions and motivational speech ("you can do it", "yeah", "believe", "position", "improve your service"), but then offer no practical advice on how exactly to achieve these goals.

I am the owner of a small service (training) business, so I read these kinds of books not for personal enjoyment, career advancement or writing amazon reviews, but to find insight about how to improve my business.

This book conveyed no additional information and when reading it I had a strange deja-vu feeling that many fragments and anecdotes I had already read before. What is worse, the book is filled with anecdotal evidence - someone did that and succeded, someother didn't and failed; anecdotal evidence, however, is even worse than no evidence, since you don't know the context, the economy, the market and all the conditions that influenced the outcome. Nowadays you can find anecdotal "evidence" to support just about anything. For example, some of the world oldest men and women are habitual smokers, but surely this does not mean that you should smoke as much as you can to live a hundred years.

There are no statistics, no research (the author even tells in one of the so-called falacies to distrust everything that begins with "the resarch shows") no proof whatsoever of anything. Compare this to books like Cialdini's "Influence" or Caples' "Tested Advertising Methods".

The chapters are one or two page anecdotes ending each one with a supposeldy profound moral. For example, "when choosing a name, choose one that sounds well", "find out what clients are really buying","planning is an imprecise art". No advice is given, however, about what makes a name sound well, how to exactly find what clients are really buying, etc. Of course, the typical references to McDonalds, Federal Express and Disney are also there. "Be like them", the author preaches.

A great disappointment after all these stellar reviews here. 1 star is too much.

Actually, this book is less about "selling" than it is about establishing and then nourishing relationships, not only with clients and prospective clients but also with almost everyone else within a given marketplace. For example, vendors, service providers, and strategic allies. Moreover, it is one of the few books I have read which focuses almost entirely on the marketing and sales of services which are, paradoxically, both "invisible" and experiential. (Schmitt has much of great value to say about this in Experiential Marketing as do Pine and Gilmore in The Experience Economy and Wolf in The Entertainment Economy.) Beckwick shares an abundance of information and advice, duly acknowledging various sources from which he has obtained some of the material. I do not damn him with faint praise. His own contributions are first-rate. In "Summing Up", he provides a brief but precise discussion of various sources which he commends to his reader. This has much greater value than does the standard bibliography. And there is a value-added benefit, his sense of humor, which is indicated by some of the section titles such as "Anchors, Warts, and American Express", "Ugly Cats, Boat Shoes, and Overpriced Jewelry: Pricing", and "Monogram Your Shirts, Not Your Company." Throughout the book, he includes more than 100 of what I characterize as "business nuggets" which are directly relevant (indeed illuminating) within the context in which he inserts them.

For whom will this book be of greatest interest and value? Obviously, those now involved in marketing, sales, and other areas in which there is direct and frequent contact with customers. Beckwick reveals himself to be an astute observer of human nature. What he suggests can be of substantial value to any organization in which business relationships, including those which are internal, are less than desirable. Everything he suggests combines common sense with a sensitivity to others' needs and interests. Indeed, almost everyone in almost any organization (regardless of size or nature) must constantly be "selling" various services to others within and beyond that organization. First, they must establish credibility, then trust, and finally obtain agreement to cooperate, if not collaborate. Almost all relationships succeed or fail because of intangibles. Beckwick examines them within a business context but, in process, suggests wide and deep implications relevant to all other areas of human experience. This is an immensely practical as well as thoughtful book.

I gave this book 4 stars because, while it was refreshing to read and I definitely learned quite a bit, it wasn't a paradigm-shifting book, which is what I am increasingly moving towards for my 5 star books.

As our economy evolves increasingly into more of a knowledge-based economy books on the marketing of services will become more important. As the title indicates, selling and/or marketing an intangible service is a different process than tangible product marketing. Mr. Beckworth says, "Marketing is not a department" and he's right--it is your front line (sales people) to your CEO and everyone in between. Everyone at your company is involved in marketing your company-and the author makes sure you get the message. Stop wasting time with ploys that don't work. COMMUNICATE with the consumer and you will see increased sales and market share.

This book is not about how to develop a complex marketing design or plan. What it does offer is quick, easy to read "business nuggets" that are a page or so in length. Each observation is a fairly insightful observation about marketing in general but focused towards the service industry. This book is written in a tone that is simple and down-to-earth rather scholarly or academic and was refreshing to read.

As the author writes, most people cannot evaluate the skills of an accountant, or lawyer, or any number of professional services. We often look for tangible proxies that indicate the professional's level of expertise and success (e.g., fancy offices, degrees on the wall, presentation, etc.).

If you read this book in its entirety in one session, you are bound to remember nothing in the sea of facts and tidbits. I've found the best way to read the book is to ponder on a few points every night and/or week, while attempting to apply them to a salient situation in your life. Overall, this book has some interesting and useful insights, and is a good read when you have a few minutes to spare. The best way to learn from this book is to APPLY it. Everything doesn't have to occur at once and frankly, I think that this book will be one that I look to in the future when I am looking for snippets of marketing wisdom.

Other useful books on marketing that I have read or been recommended include Seth Godin's Permission Marketing and Unleashing the Ideavirus (both great reads), the 22 immutable laws of marketing by Jack Trout and All Reis (excellent authors and a good read), Robert Cialdini's Influence and Ogilvy on Advertising or Wizard of Ads for help in sales copying.

I bought this book because it was recommended by Amazon.com, and because I was just starting my own part time service business. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I think that it is wonderful that an advertising and marketing guru can write a book that both inspires and motivates. THE GOOD: 1) I really liked the fact that this book is organized into 12 sections that contain short (one or two page) anecdotes about how other services have effectively marketed themselves. This type of organization makes it easy to read a few pages here and there and still get the gist of what is being conveyed. 2) The stories in the book are wonderful! They give real world concrete examples of how others succeeded in marketing something that wasn't a product. 3) I thought the best thing about this book was the way it motivated me. I would read a few stories and then think about how I could apply that to my business. This kept me going for weeks, and it was really what I wanted: a book that would push me to do better! THE BAD: The book doesn't go into tons of detail. Aside from showing you how others did it, the author rarely tells you how to specifically apply it to your situation. I thought that this was going to be a How-To book, and it definitely wasn't. OVERALL: I thought that it was an inspirational read. However, I am new to the whole marketing a service thing, so if you are more advanced in the business world you might not find this book very useful. It is great for motivational purposes however!

If you are looking for hand holding in creating a marketing strategy or definite step by step instructions in marketing success than this is not the book for you. But if you would like some very interesting insight and examples of the principles of marketing a service than read this book. I found myself remembering times when I experienced these principles and how i reacted in both positive and negative ways. And then I realized my company was doing several things wrong and we are on our way to changing them. Sometimes you need someone else to help you see what's starring you right in the face.... (Ever lose your keys and they're right there in front of you the entire time? Well Beckwith will help you see the keys right there on the table.)

Most marketing books are aimed at businesses that sell stuff, which makes them fairly inapplicable to the NonProfit world. "Selling the Invisible" comes the closest I've seen to helping market what NonProfits do. That's because "Selling the Invisible" focuses not on marketing products, but on marketing services, which makes it a great book for NonProfits.

"Selling the Invisible" is not a how-to book. Instead, it is a thoughtful guide, providing insights on how marketing works and how prospects think. The chapters are short - more like snippets than chapters - each with a single thought that moves you towards the next thought. I have read this book a number of times, and I can never get past 3 or 4 of its tiny chapters without stopping to scribble down notes, or to consider just how our clients (and our own organization) are currently doing things. I have even found it helpful in thinking about different ways to market my own book on NonProfit board recruitment.

The book starts by asking first things first: Are you sure what you have to market really is worth telling people about? Have you surveyed clients to find out if your service really is a quality service? Are you really providing what the community needs? Beckwith aims right for the heart.

Once you are convinced you have a quality organization to talk about, he moves you through all the thought processes that should go into that marketing. But don't expect to move quickly. Expect your brain to light up in thought. Keep a note pad handy.

Here are just some of the things I love about this book:
Under the heading 'Fran Lebowitz and Your Greatest Competitor,' comes this quote:
"Your greatest competitor is not your competition. It is indifference."
And under the heading 'The Value of Publicity,' you will find this:
"There are six peaks in Europe higher than the Matterhorn. Name one."

The last chapter is a discussion of other books that can help round out the reader's understanding of marketing. Because Beckwith takes a systems approach to the subject and not a 'sell-the-widget' approach, many of these books are applicable to the NonProfit world as well.

As someone who spends a lot of time combing bookstore shelves for business books that translate well to the NonProfit world, "Selling the Invisible" is one I would strongly recommend.