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Covenant Designs' Whitepaper:
Making Money in Today's Economy
The Landscape of Business Has Changed

In order to convey the value of Covenant Designs' "Seize Your Marketplace" system, we have to start by defining the importance of strategic marketing. A special yearly issue of Success Magazine called "The Selling Issue" quoted Scott DeGarmo,

"Today's big money goes to those with superior marketing operations. Entrepreneurial companies must evolve from being sales oriented to being marketing oriented in order to now win the consumer."

Here is why it's important to focus on Marketing instead of Selling. There was a time known as "the days of simple selling." Advertising research defines this era as 1800 to 1970. In this period of selling, it was simple for a salesperson to go in and sell to a buyer. Selling was simple because the marketplace was not crowded.

For example, in 1980, if you wanted to buy a Ford pick-up truck, you had only one option -- visit your local dealership because that was the only way to see your choices and ask your questions. You couldn't go on-line or to Barrens & Noble and read fifteen magazines that compared and contrasted new trucks and cars because these sources of information didn't exist. Consumer Report™ was just starting up to address this very need.

Since the dealership was your only source of up-to-date information, there were less competition, fewer choices, and it was easier to make a buying decision. Simply put, the seller had all the power because the buyer had very few options.

Today, the buyer has more options than ever, turning simple selling on its head. Successful businesses have to adapt to capitalize on this shift. In the crowded marketplace of 2007, the days of Simple Selling are over!

Now we've got a new situation: buyers no longer have to rely on limited sources of information about a product or service. The landscape of business now involves increased competition, information, choices, and more resistance. It has made buying cycles longer. There is now price competition that didn't exist before. The marketplace is more global than ever.

Products are becoming commodities and a lot of the marketing messages are identical. A commodity is anything you can get anywhere from any store with equal value -- there is no edge -- no compelling value -- no worthwhile distinctiveness from one to the next. Because of all of this, a wedge has been created between the seller and the buyer. This wedge is called "The Confidence Gap."

"The Confidence Gap" is the consumer's difficulty in determining whether any of the products or any of the services are better, worse or any different than any of the others. This creates a big problem because unless you have a solid business plan, you now appear no different from the competition.

Today, potential customers have so many options, that it is difficult for them to:

(A) discover your business in the first place, and
(B) choose your business above the competition.

With all the competition making claims that sound similar on the surface, it has become very difficult for your customers to determine whether you are any better or any different from anyone else. How do you promote your distinctive edge? You cannot show excellent customer service to keep a customer unless they choose to use you in the first place. So your marketing goal needs to be to bridge the Confidence Gap and win/restore the consumer's trust and confidence.

Covenant Designs is geared specifically to generate trust in the client to encourage them to value you above the competition and literally cause them to want to give you their business.

How Do I Overcome Today's Marketing Challenges? Let us answer that question by first exposing 3 dead end myths that trap you into never succeeding.

Myth #1 — Customer Service Is Enough
Go to the business section of any bookstore and you'll find all kinds of books on this topic. You'll find things like "Better Customer Service." The theory is if you have better customer service, you'll have more customers. The catch is that you must have a customer in order to give them service. You can't just say, "I've got great customer service." It doesn't work that way; you must have a system that will reliably direct the customer to you.

Myth #2 — Sales Training Is Enough
One of the things you might hear business gurus say is, "If you have more sales training and if you are better at sales, then you'll be able to get more customers." The problem with that is, again, you've got to have high-quality prospects in order to use your sales skills. If you look at all the sales training books and all the sales training seminars, they are all short on advice in this particular area, which is: "How do I find someone to sell to in the first place?" Or even more important: "who is my IDEAL client?"

Myth #3 — Short-Term Gimmicks
There is another way that business books and business gurus tell you how to overcome this thing we call the Confidence Gap. "Use advertising tricks and techniques." "You can trick people through misleading advertisements to call you or come in." For example, I saw a car ad that said, "Pay no tax on all new vehicles." Do you think that sounds like a pretty good deal? If I weren't paying any tax, then I'd probably save a couple grand. The problem is when you looked at the fine print, it said, "Customers responsible for all sales taxes, state, and local. The dealer will pay for the inventory tax." This is a sales trick; the dealer already always pays the inventory tax so there really is no added value. It does not build trust and confidence. Instead it generates resentment and suspicion.

The result is a widening of the Confidence Gap when the goal of the advertisement should have been to establish confidence. A good business is here to serve customers with integrity, not trick and dispose of them. These examples reveal today's challenge. We used to have the days of 'Simple Selling', now we have The Confidence Gap. You, as a business owner, need to overcome this in order to be successful.

How Do I Get The Customers To Actually WANT To Do Business With Me?

It is futile to try to sell a potential customer something until you have first made him want to listen. Think about it; if they don't want to listen, they are not going to want to buy what you are selling. They are going to view you as a pest. That's where the difference between sales and marketing come into play.

In sales, what you are doing is essentially trying to make people want to listen to you in a sales situation. By contrast, Covenant Designs provides marketing programs that cause prospects to want to listen. It prepares the buyers so they will come to you and give you their business. Sales skills are still important, but your time is used more productively in closing sales rather that hunting them down.

Strategic Marketing Is The Only Way To Bridge The Confidence Gap

You must have marketing that proves you understand their needs and can effectively meet their needs. 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 Covenant Designs' Seize Your Marketplace system, we teach and implement a Marketing Program that helps businesses overcome the Confidence Gap. It accomplishes this by addressing two points: the Inside Reality and the Outside Perception.

The 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 gain from your direct and indirect communication with them. Your first line of Outside Reality is your web site. As far as the customer is concerned, your web site IS who your company is.

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.

The "Seize Your Marketplace" system centers around 3 pillars:

• Have something worth saying.
• Say it powerfully.
• Say it often.

Our "Seize Your Marketplace" strategy integrates all three of these business 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 -- or the "outside perception."

> learn more: contact Covenant Designs