Alas, if only the same thing could be said of many salespeople. Just like the carefully designed impressions by advertising mediums inexorably chisel a spot into our psyches, so do the repeated visits by a salesperson embed a set of expectations, pictures and emotions into the minds of our customers. The position you, as a salesperson, occupy is a complex intertwining of the perception of your company, your solutions, and yourself. The most effective salespeople and sales organizations understand that, and consciously work to create a positive position in the minds of their customers. Creating Your Position Let's begin at the end. A good starting point is to think deeply and with some detail about what sort of position you want to create. What, exactly, do you want your customers to think of you? Let me suggest two possibilities: the minimum acceptable position, and the ideal position. At a minimum, I believe your customer should view you as a competent, trustworthy person who brings value to the customer. They believe that you generally know your products and their strengths and weaknesses, that you generally know the customer's issues, and that you can be reliably counted on to do what you say you will do. That's the least acceptable position to which you should work towards. If your customers don't think of you at least in this way, you probably should not be in sales. At the other end of the spectrum is the ideal position. This builds on the minimum, but adds a specific understanding on the part of the customer of your unique combination of strengths and attributes. It evolves as you have history with the customer until you occupy a position that is totally and uniquely yours and that carries with it the expectation that your strengths in some specific and unique way add value to the time the customer spends with you. The ultimate test of the power of your position is the customer's willingness to see you and the resulting preference for doing business with you. Here's an illustration. If you were shopping for an automobile, a low-mileage late model Taurus would probably provide you with competent, reliable transportation. So, when you think of that specific automobile, it would evoke a set of ideas in your mind all revolving around competent and reliable transportation. Now, think of a brand new Lamborghini and you would understand it to be transportation, but with a unique flair - something above and beyond just reliable transportation. That flair would be a result of the unique strengths of that particular automobile conveyed in a graphic way to your mind. So it is with salespeople. You want to position yourself in your customer's mind the equivalent of the Taurus. But if you really want to carve out a unique, memorable position in your customer's mind, you'd want them to think of you as a Lamborghini. The question then is, how do you want your customers to think of you? Once you articulate a specific picture, you can then start to build that position. Here are four essential steps to help you convey a positive position to your customers.
