I Love This Industry

Your success in USANA will be based largely on your beliefs. You must believe in this industry, you must believe USANA is the vehicle that can get you where you want to go, and perhaps most important, you must believe in yourself. There are many reasons why I love relationship marketing. If you don’t already have an unshakeable belief in our industry, I hope you’ll lean on my belief until yours is well established.

For economies to thrive, manufacturers must find a way to get their products into the hands and homes of consumers. Did you realize that up to 90% of every dollar brought in by certain products is paid out in marketing and distribution! Getting consumers to purchase a particular product is a tricky and expensive proposition. Today’s consumers are overloaded with information. It has been estimated that we are exposed to over three thousand messages per day with at least 600 of those messages being some form of advertising. A simple trip to a department store or supermarket can be exhausting. My kids call it “TMI.” We’re bombarded with too much information! I personally refuse to clip any of the hundreds of coupons in my Sunday newspaper and prefer to shop in small boutiques or my corner grocery mart where there’s minimum sensory overload.

All this promotion and advertising has turned us into a skeptical bunch, hasn’t it? I recently read the results of an international survey done by Roper Search Worldwide Inc. The survey found that only 38% of people internationally believe businesses provide accurate information about their products and services. The vast majority of people surveyed believed benefits were exaggerated.

So, if consumers are skeptical (and they are) and annoyed (they are) with sales tactics and traditional invasive advertising, what is a manufacturer to do? How is it possible to get products and services to end consumers without alienating those consumers?

This is the part I love. Ask any market researcher to tell you the most powerful form of persuasion. It is word-of-mouth advertising or relationship marketing. We listen to and act on suggestions from people we know, people we like and people we trust. Think about it. We’re even more likely to act on advice from strangers than we are from ad campaigns. Do you ask your waiter for his recommendation when you’re ordering your dinner at a nice restaurant? I know I do. If you overhear someone recommending a great movie are you more likely to see it? I am. And when I shop my local Barnes and Noble bookstore I always look for the titles recommended by the staff. And I buy them! I don’t know these people, but I act on their word-of-mouth recommendations.

Relationship Marketing is a people-friendly occupation that is an honest legitimate way to distribute products and services for a profit. Successful relationship marketers make a lot of money – and they should. They are providing a valuable and necessary service by sharing their experience and passion with people who act on that information by becoming end consumers.

Collette Larsen
http://www.larsenglobal.com
collette@collettelarsen.com
USANA's First and Only 8-Star Diamond Director
(800) 238-9679