Sales Minute - Got Position?

Got Position?

When a security breach or "Dumpster diving" incident happens in your town, who does the local news call? Is it you or is it your competitor? Do they call anyone?

Are you the security expert in your market?

We all know (by looking at SDB magazine, NAID News and various news Web sites) that almost every day, we see a news story about a medical office throwing patient health information away or an identity thief stealing personal information.

Local media outlets love to report negative stories such as these. They also love to have "experts" in the field comment on how to avoid these types of "crisis." Next time you watch the news, see how many "industry experts" with knowledge of the subject at hand they talk to.

Now, in advance of such a report, is a prime opportunity to position yourself and your company as the "security experts" that media outlets will want to lean on when they have questions about how to avoid similar security breaches.

Here are some ways to position yourself and your shredding company as experts:

• Write as many "security tip" articles as possible and send them to the newspapers and business journals in your market.

• Stay in touch with local media outlets in various ways.

• Contact your most-watched local news cast about sponsoring a "Shred Day."

• Commit to a "Shred Day" at least annually.

• Do a press release at least once every quarter about your company and send to all local media outlets.

• Contact your local news stations offering your expertise for when these unfortunate events occur.

What I’m talking about here is establishing a company positioning strategy.

It took me a while to realize the difference between positioning and exposure. A company positioning strategy is so much more involved than just exposure.

By now, you know I cannot write a sales article without some kind of sports analogy, so here it goes: Positioning is very similar to a basketball player "boxing out" in order to get the rebound. Just like in basketball, make sure you "box out" your competitors so you get all of the rebounds (relationships with the media).

Exposure, on the other hand, is just being on the court.

When you commit to a company positioning strategy, you’ll see how many more of your clients and prospects care less about lowest price!

Ray Barry is the president of Total Training Services, which operates Shred School in Spartanburg, S.C. He has helped and trained more than 150 companies in the document destruction industry to grow their businesses. Previously, he was the VP of sales and marketing for a shredding company that was named twice in Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in America. Ray can be contacted at raybarry@totaltrainingservices.com