Product Description

A comprehensive guide to service marketing furnishes tips and advice on how one can apply one's business knowledge to any area of sales and marketing, from a home-based consultancy to a multinational brokerage firm.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3946 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Amazon.com Review
The transformation from a manufacturing-based economy to one that's all about service has been well documented. Today it's estimated that nearly 75 percent of Americans work in the service sector. Instead of producing tangibles--automobiles, clothes, and tools--more and more of us are in the business of providing intangibles--health care, entertainment, tourism, legal services, and so on. However, according to Harry Beckwith, most of these intangibles are still being marketed like products were 20 years ago.

In Selling the Invisible, Beckwith argues that what consumers are primarily interested in today are not features, but relationships. Even companies who think that they sell only tangible products should rethink their approach to product development and marketing and sales. For example, when a customer buys a Saturn automobile, what they're really buying is not the car, but the way that Saturn does business. Beckwith provides an excellent forum for thinking differently about the nature of services and how they can be effectively marketed. If you're at all involved in marketing or sales, then Selling the Invisible is definitely worth a look.

From Library Journal
"Don't sell the steak. Sell the sizzle." In today's service business, author Beckwith suggests this old marketing adage is likely to guarantee failure. In this timely addition to the management genre, Beckwith summarizes key points about selling services learned from experience with his own advertising and marketing firm and when he worked with Fortune 500 companies. The focus here is on the core of service marketing: improving the service, which no amount of clever marketing can make up for if not accomplished. Other key concepts emphasize listening to the customer, selling the long-term relationship, identifying what a business is really selling, recognizing clues about a business that may be conveyed to customers, focusing on the single most important message about the business, and other practical strategies relevant to any service business. Actor Jeffrey Jones's narration professionally conveys these excellent ideas appropriate for public libraries.?Dale Farris, Groves, Tex.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Advertising professional Beckwith startles and disarms all potential doubting Thomases with one fact--that by the year 2005, 8 out of 10 Americans will be working in a service business. Chapters here are remarkably short; they are intended to convey one point (summarized in one sentence in boldface italics) and are blessedly free of jargon. Hints and tips cover the conventional four Ps of marketing--product, promotion, place, and price--in an irreverent and iconoclastic manner; nothing is sacrosanct. Stories from every corner of life illustrate and drive home messages. In a quandary about pricing? Read the Picasso story to remember, "Don't charge by the hour; charge by the years." About the value of research? Forget questionnaires and focus groups; instead, ask individuals what improvements are needed--not the dreaded "What don't you like?" A very human, much-needed book to savor and be refreshed by. Barbara Jacobs

Customer Reviews

Worth the price for 1.5 pages rated below
It's a good read, but there is a page and half that has had a major impact, showing me where I have a huge blindspot in business and how I stop my own progress. This page and a half is possibly the most important material I've read in a book in several years (for me it applies directly).

The author talks about the Fallacy of Planning in a business setting. He ranks plans in this order:

1. Very Good
2. Good
3. Best
4. Fair
5. Poor

Why is Good ahead of Best? Simple, to arrive at Best takes orders of magnitude more planning than Good. Also, who defines Best? How much time is spent creating the Best plan? Will Best stand the test of time? Can everyone agree on Best? Would Good work just as well as Best in the real world? Is Best satisfying the client's need better than a Good plan?

Choosing the "Best" plan leads to Paralysis by Analysis. Good plans allow for quick action and constant improvement. The most successful people in the world have acted on Good plans that they have refined over time. An actionable plan is more successful than a plan that never leaves the drawing board!

Personally, I've fallen into the Best trap many times. There is no such thing as a "Best" plan. Going forward the "Best" plan will be the "Good" plan that I can put into action and refine over time!

A lightbulb went off in my head when I got this concept. Thank you Harry for this valuable lesson.

A Great Book.
Great advice on how to sell a service.
I have a Moleskine full of notes from this book.
I have a photography business and I'm implementing the tactics from this awesome book now!

Very Well Done - Get This and Potter's "Winning" Book
Now, this is the book to get from Beckwith - don't waste your time with "What Clients Love" (60% of that book is in here and the rest of it is largely a promo for why you need hire a professional branding firm).

This book has lots of good gems that you should be able to put to use right away, including:

- the three stages of a service company and the relationship to positioning and sales

- tips on customer/client surveys

- why, when selling a service, you're actually selling a relationship and what to do

- how prospects decide

- why the there are really 2 aspects you bill for: the commodity (such as hammering a nail) and the expertise (knowing where to hammer)

And so on. Very well done.

As a side note, what this book will not do for you is lay out a plan for you to compete in this "invisible" market effectively; for that, take a look at Potter's "Winning in the Invisible Market."