Memecast #68: Perception is Reality

I like to run the following thought experiment. Imagine that I'm auctioning off a coffee mug. Auction it off in a classroom, or a keynote room, and maybe I can get people to bid say $15 for my coffee mug. And then when I hand the coffee mug over, I intentionally pull out a $50 bill and show them, hey, this $50 bill was in the coffee mug. Well, why didn't I get paid for that?

Because the buyers didn't know that it was there. Their perception was, it was a coffee mug.

Now imagine I reach back and I grab a second coffee mug and I auction that one off. Now I might get $40. But what if there is an no $50 bill in this coffee mug?

The real point, is that what our buyers believe has everything to do with their willingness to pay. It actually has nothing to do with what's true.

Hopefully as marketers, as business people, we try to help clients believe the truth. But if we've built products that are better than our competitors, if we have $50 bills tucked into our coffee mugs and our buyers don't know it, we can't win the deals. We don't get paid for it.

We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This impactful insight came from the book, Selling Value, which I wrote to help salespeople win more deals at higher prices. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected].

Now go make an impact.

 

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