An Overview of
The Monopolize Your Marketplace™ System
The Monopolize Your Marketplace™ system, also known as MYM, is a combination of strategic and tactical marketing programs and concepts that are based on simple human nature. Rather than “trick” people into buying from you, we simply help them make the best possible buying decision. After all, that’s all anyone buying anything really wants – to get a good deal, and to not make a mistake.
It helps if you understand how the Brain works….
An entire book has been written on the MYM system, so it is unrealistic to explain it in just a few paragraphs. But here’s the bottom line – this system has been tried and proven successful in well over 10,000 different businesses and industries across North America, including hundreds of pool builders. As a licensed agency of MYM, our strategies and tactics are based on the fundamental principles of the Monopolize Your Marketplace™ system.
The Landscape of Business Has Changed
In order to explain the “Monopolize Your Marketplace” system, we have to start by defining the importance of marketing. As quoted by Scott DeGarmo in Success Magazine:
“The big money goes to those companies with superior marketing operations. Entrepreneurial companies of today must evolve from being sales-oriented to being marketing-oriented in order to win the consumer.”
Let me explain why it’s important to focus on “marketing” today instead of “selling.” If you go back 50 years in time, it was a time known as “the days of simple selling.” Hard to imagine, but back then, there were few options for buyers, so it was much easier for a salesperson to simply “take the order.” Competition was fairly minimal.
For example, if you wanted to buy a Ford pick-up truck, in 1980, you went to the dealership. This was the only way to see your choices and ask your questions. You couldn’t go online or to Barnes and Noble and read fifteen magazines that compared and contrasted new trucks and cars, because these sources of information didn’t exist. The dealership was the only source of up-to-date information. The seller had the power, because there were fewer choices, and less competition. That made it easier for the Seller AND for the Buyer. (Because the buyer had very few options.)
The Days Of Simple Selling Are Gone Forever.
Nowadays, buyers have nearly unlimited options and sources of information about a product or service. There’s more competition, more information, more choices, and more resistance. In many cases, this has made buying cycles longer. Now there’s price competition that didn’t exist before. Products become commodities, and to make matters worse, most of the marketing messages are all the identical.
Overwhelming choices and info create a “Confidence Gap” between the seller and the buyer.
“The Confidence Gap” is the consumer’s inability to determine whether any of the products or any of the services are any better or worse or any different than any of the others. This is a huge problem for sellers. People have so many different choices and options that it’s difficult for them to determine whether you are any better or any different than anyone else.
How Do We Bridge this Confidence Gap?
To narrow the Confidence Gap, and restore the consumer’s trust and confidence, you could go to the business section of any bookstore (or ask your favorite Artificial Intelligence system), and you’ll find all kinds of recommendations.
- Some will suggest “Better Customer Service.” The theory is if you have better customer service, you’ll have more customers. The problem with this philosophy is you must have a customer first in order to give them service. You can’t just say, “I’ve got great customer service.” No one will believe you.
- Others will suggest Better Sales Training. Certainly the sales trainers will say “If you have more sales training and if you are better at sales, then you’ll be able to get more customers.” And this may be true, but you’ve got to have prospects in order to use your sales skills. Sales training books and seminars are all short on “How do I find someone to sell to in the first place?”
- Still others suggest “Advertising Tricks and Techniques.” Often referred to as “bait and switch,” you can trick people with misleading advertisements to contact you. (For example, there was a car ad that said “Pay no tax on all new vehicles.” Sounds like a pretty good deal, because it could save you a couple thousand $$. But the fine print said, “Customers responsible for all sales taxes, state, and local. The dealer will pay for the inventory tax.”) This is a sales trick. It does nothing to build trust and confidence. Instead it builds suspicion, hatred, and contempt. It WIDENS the Confidence Gap, when the goal should have been to NARROW it.
Obviously these approaches won’t overcome the Confidence Gap. You need a better solution.
Here’s How To Get Prospects To Actually Want To Do Business With You.
If you’re familiar with Napoleon Hill and Think and Grow Rich, you’ll recall his statement “To try to sell a man something before he wants to listen is as useless as it would be to command the earth to stop rotating.” Obviously, if someone doesn’t want to listen to you, they are not going to want to buy from you. They will simply view you as a pest. Instead, you should use MARKETING to make people want to listen to you in the first place. Great marketing will prepare and interest and educate the buyers so they will come to you, and give you the opportunity to sell.
Sales skills are important, but your salespeople’s time and effort should be focused more on closing sales, rather than chasing them down.
Marketing Is The Tool To Bridge The Confidence Gap.
Marketing needs to be concise, well-articulated, and powerfully stated. It is low or no pressure. Marketing is one-way communication. It’s not afraid of rejection. It’s not obtrusive. People can review marketing at their own pace, when it’s convenient for them. And, if they aren’t interested, they can ignore it altogether. No commitment. That is why we need to talk about a marketing program.
In the Monopolize Your Marketplace system, we implement a Marketing Program that helps businesses overcome the Confidence Gap. It accomplishes this by addressing the challenge of “Inside Reality” versus “Outside Perception.”
Your inside reality is everything your business does that makes you valuable to your customers. It is what gives you a competitive edge in the marketplace. It is all of your skills, your passion, your systems, the way you conduct your business.
The outside perception is how customers and prospects perceive your business. It is the ideas and impressions consumers develop from your messages with them (both direct and indirect), as well as just about every one of your competitors, and your industry reputation in general.
The Outside Perception Of Your Business Should Match The Inside Reality
To be successful in business and to continue that success, your inside reality and outside perception should match. If you spend all your resources developing the inside reality and neglect the outside perception, you will be frustrated wondering why you are having minimal results with your superior product or service. On the flip side, if you focus solely on the outside perception and neglect the inside reality, prospects will soon find there is little value in the product or service and you will get little, if any, return business.
To paraphrase the great business philosopher Jim Rohn, there are three keys to being a great communicator:
- First, have something good to say.
- Second, say it well.
- And third, say it often.
Our marketing system incorporates all three of these communication elements thoroughly. About 25% deals with having something good to say or the inside reality, the remaining 75% deals with saying it well and saying it often, i.e. “managing the outside perception.”
Would you like to know more about MYM?
Check out our FREE NEWSLETTER…
Our newsletter is written specifically for Pool Builders, offering practical, real-world advice on marketing, advertising, lead generation, websites, sales tools, social media, referral programs and anything else that helps pool builders sell more pools and make more money.
Your Contact Info…
* Indicates a “required field”