Don’t fight perceptions with facts. Perceptions will always win.
Authors Al Ries & Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
Perceptions. While defined as a belief or opinion based on how things seem, for our purposes, perceptions can be described as how our clients (and potential clients) view us and our company. It’s the end result of the image that we’re working hard – or not so hard – to develop.
We know what we’re trying to accomplish. We’re well aware of what we can do. We know what talents we possess. We’re certain of what it is we bring to the table, and that’s exactly what we want everyone else to know as well. Problems start to arise when what we want our potential clients to think, and what they actually perceive as the truth, aren’t the same thing.
Most of us spend a good amount of time and money marketing. We’ve worked hard to carve out a portion of our local market for ourselves. We devoted a lot of energy making sure that everyone we’re targeting knows who we are and what we stand for.
But, if we’re not careful, all our work could be for naught.
It’s important for us to pay attention. It’s important for us to monitor our data. It’s important for us to understand how we’re being perceived by our audience.
What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed.
attributed to Peter Drucker
Many home inspectors, especially the old and ornery ones like me, are likely to shrug their shoulders at this thinking. We reason, what does it matter what they think about me. I know what I can do, so nothing else matters.
It’s great that we’re certain in our abilities. A business owner needs a healthy dose of self-confidence if they’re going to succeed in a competitive marketplace. The trick is making certain that we don’t allow our ego to blind us to the realities of the business world.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there in the home inspection industry. Given the fact that the vast majority of our potential clients are actively scrolling every day, we ignore our online presence at our own peril. Recent history is littered with the corpses of failed businesses who’s owners were too busy to care about their image.
Sure, we might be the best home inspector that anyone’s ever had the privilege to work with, but if no one knows about us, or worse yet, if they have a negative perception of us, we’ll be sitting alone at home, wondering why the phone’s not ringing.
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Thanks, Joe
