ense of humor, which indicated by some of the section titles such as “ Anchors, Warts, and American Express”, “Ugly Cats, Boat Shoes, and Overpriced Jewelry: Pricing” and “Monogram Your Shirts, Not Your Company.”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. Beckwith provides an excellent forum for thinking differently about nature of services and how they can be effectively marketed. Marketing a service is not as easy as a product. Because we cannot get the physical and visual reinforcement for what it is that that you are buying. There is nothing to test, nothing tangible to assess what it is we might be getting, so that is why Beckwith called it invisible. That makes marketing a service is much different proposition because we have to supply a lot of missing things to reassure people. More and more products are starting to look more and more alike, and so are services. When people start perceiving things as relatively equal, they become commodities and the battle then turns into a pricing war. The objective on both the product and services sides is to remove that image of a commodity in a way that gets people to pay a good or sometimes even a premium price. This book is not merely about selling, it is more about establishing and nourishing relationships, not only with clients and prospective clients but also with almost everyone else within a given market place, for example, vendors, service providers and strategic allies. Beckwith shares an abundance of information and advice, duly acknowledging various sources from which he has obtained some of the material. What he suggests can be of substantial value to any organization in which business relationships are less then desirable. Everything he sugges...
