The Invisible Touch by Harry Beckwith

• Certainty is fatal. • People who know they are being studied change what

they do. • Research supports mediocre ideas and kills great

ones. • Ignore hard evidence. Soft evidence is much more

reliable. • A little information-gathering will usually produce the

same insights much faster and cheaper than an exhaustive study will.

What you really need uniquely insightful information, from

the people who lead the markets and influence them. • Successful marketing hinges on creating distinctions;

best practices quickly become common practices. Ignore best practices. Then create them. • Most decisions are not made; they are quickly reached,

then justified. • As someone who markets a service, what can you do

about this? Clearly, the first thing you need to figure out is what decision you prospect has already made.

• Before you try to influence a prospect’s decision,

find out what she’s already decided – and why. • We fertilize our imagination with learning. “Original

ideas” spring fastest from well-furnished minds. Each year it sends key staffers and clients for a four-day

tour of New York at its most exotic. Everyone returns slightly charged, more imaginative.

To create more, learn something new.

• You do not manage people. You create a business they care so much about that they don’t require management; create goals so compelling that your employees manage themselves to achieve them.

• Employees need few directives, reminders, or

motivational speeches. They organize around this compelling purpose – and work relentlessly to achieve it.

People don’t lead. Purposes do. • There are no ordinary jobs. There are only people

who insist on performing them in ordinary ways. • Before you try to sell yourself, make yourself

familiar. • Because of the extraordinary demands for our service

and the importance we attach to providing truly exceptional service to our loyal clients, we have a policy not to pursue (accounts/ projects/ assignments) that require extensive proposals.

• Our qualifications to perform the work you outline in your

request can be found in the words of these loyal clients. We have included their names and phone numbers and have alerted them that you may be calling. These men and women would be happy to answer your questions and tell you why they chose us – and why they are elated they did.

We are eager to meet with you wherever and whenever

you choose, to provide a detailed, concise, and clear description of how we would proceed with this work, and the costs, timetables, and other guarantees.

We are confident that like our clients, you and everyone at

XYZ Corporation would be delighted with our work on this important task.

• Before answering an RFP, make sure that you

should. • Who is your competition? In case after case, it is not

other firms. You are competing with your prospect’s view of your firm.

• Prospects prefer to work with apparent experts. • Prospects do not buy what they do not comfortably

understand. The more elements you add to a sale, the more you risk complicating the transaction.

The more you bundle into a sale, the more you risk losing

the sale entirely. • When in doubt, don’t bundle. • Step one: What are the points of contact between a

bookstore and a customer? In column one, list what you are currently offering. Then

list what your strong competitors are offering that is different and might be preferable. Then list the key items.

What might you do? What is possible? What has no one done? You would begin to make some of your customers more

familiar with one another. • Inventory your points of contact. Then imagine

what could make each one extraordinary. • Service buyers, with good reason, avoid risk. But buying a service, by contrast, merely means buying

some promise of future performance. The buyer knows she cannot turn the service back in.

• If They’re Satisfied, You’re Doomed • “Satisfied” clients do not help your business, and “very

satisfied” clients help only a little. You want surprised and delighted customers; you want

customers who will not simply offer nice references, but volunteer them.

If your goal is satisfied clients, your goal is far too

modest.

• Client and customer expectations are constantly increasing, and your competitors are almost certainly improving.

Stop measuring client satisfaction and start

increasing it. • The better you do, the better you must do next time. • You must get better to avoid falling behind. • We experience what we believe we will experience.

This means that anything and everything a service can do to convey quality, expertise, and the ability to perform well likely will enhance client satisfaction. Conveying quality can be as critical to satisfaction as actually delivering quality.

On the subject of satisfaction, the client’s perception is

always right. Your job is not to deliver a service; it is to create

satisfaction. Make your clients believe they will be satisfied, and

they will be, especially if you do it with passion. • Like money, price talks. It changes perceptions. Price communicates the quality that purchasers expect. Price does not merely change assumptions and

perceptions. Price changes the actual experience of using the service. A high price actually improves the experience.

• Push price higher. Higher prices don’t just talk;

they tempt. • Price creates perceptions, then creates satisfaction. • The higher your price, the higher your perceived

quality. • Avoid the discount buyer. • Charge by your worth, not by the hour.

• Acquire, build, or align yourself with a brand. • Live your brand. • At a minimum, try to say at least several hundred words

with your pictures. Choose images that at least imply that you are different. And at a minimum, choose images that convey quality. Images speak volumes – but only if you let them. • Create the environment that will create in your

clients the crucial feeling: their feeling of importance. • Your package is your service. • “Fees” typically ranks several notches below “promptly

returns my phone calls.” • Each Monday, he calls the CEOs of the companies he

has invested in. He often has no particular agenda, except to remind them that he is there to help. And every Monday, Don’s clients are reminded of something even more critical: they are important to Don.

Make your clients feel important. • To build trust, build consistency – in everything you

do. • Write down every pledge you make to a client – and

be sure that you keep it. • Tell me, in a way that stops me, engages me, quickly

and clearly informs me – and moves on. Skip the balderdash, the puffing, the filler. Tell me.

• “Perfect” means “pretty good but incredibly fast.” • You’re only as expert as you appear. • Communicating clearly is the essence of creating the

impression of competence, skill, and mastery.

• Credentials do not matter. What mattered? Who did people think was the more

expert expert? The person who most clearly communicated her

expertise. Communication is not a skill. It is the skill. • More than you know, your prospects don’t get it.

You must be clearer. Much, much clearer.

• Assume everyone in your company could communicate more clearly – and invest in learning how.

• Every industry, like every person, believes itself – its

markets, processes, challenges – to be unique. • Find your specialty – no matter how narrow it is –

and communicate it convincingly. • In your key communications, you must immediately

state your most compelling claim to expertise. • Get to it. State your claim strongly, confidently, and

immediately – or it might never get heard. • Human beings want services when they are told to

expect them, rather than merely when they need them. • If someone does for us more than we have earned, we

must do something nice for him in return. Sacrifice is the cement of human relationships.

Nothing bonds someone to you more. • Say thank you – often. • “Why doesn’t every service company call back within

days?” • The welcome to a service influences a person’s

perception of the entire experience.

• What’s in a name? A better, stronger relationship. • Observable within seconds of your arrival inside the

headquarters of any of these three – is their passion. “At Microsoft, the constant feeling is that whatever you are

doing could always be made better.” “An extraordinary commitment to better.” • Knowledge gets you into the game. Passion wins it. • Excellence is not easily seen; it often escapes detection.

The passion for it, however, is unmistakable.