Selling a big brand name? Just as with glowing academic papers, that reputable name won’t work for you, if you don’t.
Could you be wallowing in the miasma of your company’s renowned brand name? “Watakuja tu” you reckon. (Customers will always come). “We needn’t put in much effort in selling. After all, we are (insert renowned brand name)” Well, if you are, I’ve got news for you. The name may get you the interview but will not sell for you. What the name does is mitigate the risk every buyer faces. “Will the product work? Is it value for money? Can I depend on it? Will it come back to haunt me?”
Brand name cuts both ways
Your company or product’s distinguished name tremendously alleviates these uncertainties. Your confidence in showing how the product or service solves the customer problem further energizes the buyer’s assurance that he did well to choose said brand name. However, the converse holds. Your casualness or uncertainty eliminates whatever gains the brand name had initially yielded and triggers the risk right back. Only this time it’s more potent. The prospect wonders: “This seller isn’t exuding trust (or confidence or knowledge). Could it be that the product is a counterfeit? And if this is their characteristic salesperson, what kind of service will I be expecting if a buy? What else have they compromised?”
Meanwhile, you are rattling on about how the brand name is globally respected and many of your clients are happy with it. Only this prospective one has already formed an unflattering opinion about you and therefore your globally respected brand.
Sellers for multinational companies are susceptible
Culprits of this debilitating attitude of misplaced entitlement include sellers in local offices of international brands, local dealers of globally respected brands and, though to a smaller extent, locally grown respectable brands.
This feeling of entitlement manifests itself in several ways. You present as if it is a favour you are doing the buyer. You talk down at him because of a misguided sense of superiority. (The buyer senses this and his need for respect from you supersedes that of buying, from you, and a sale is lost). Also, you punctuate every sentence with the brand name. “Brand X this, Brand X that,” without relating it to the buyer’s problem.
Overcoming the challenge
So, instead of stopping at, “Brand Solid has been around for over half a century and runs most of the machines in (name of reputable firms)”, you continue to state that, “For you this means that because it is tried and tested you are assured of Xshs in savings from a maintenance free run for at least three years. These savings are in tandem with the cost saving targets you mentioned you have for this year.”
Finally, blinded by selling a big brand name, your after sales service is less than stellar because your people skills are equally so. “Why are they the only ones complaining?” you blurt out. “Our brand is solid. They must be the problem.” As if it cannot have a manufacturer’s fault, or be wrongly installed.
Just as with glowing academic papers, that reputable name won’t work for you if you don’t.
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