Customer perception of your business. . . make it positive

May 29, 2024/Business/

I’m one of the lucky ones who receive a text message from industry veteran Danny Jefferson everyday. His texts can be inspirational, aspirational, or simply good business thoughts.

The other day I received this text from Danny, “Perceptions are reality to most people. Perceptions are extremely hard to change”.

Receiving that text message made me go back almost 40 years ago to the time when I was the volunteer campaign chairman for our district’s United States Congressman. He always told me, “Perceptions win elections”.

I really took that to heart and used it as my mantra in the funeral home business for the next 30+ years. I continually told myself, “Perceptions win (or lose) business”. I lived that motto as a local funeral director by always buying my automobiles in my hometown so if people saw me driving the sales sticker on the back was from a local auto dealer so I was perceived as a local promoter. I made contributions to almost every charity in town so it was perceived that I was one with my stakes planted firmly in this community.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Eventually, I also realized that it was important to get our family funeral home’s story out there in paid advertisements and told how we had our roots in the community for over 100 years and had served generations of people in our home community. I probably worked on this perception situation more than my competitors and I think, over time, our funeral home gained market share because of it.

I also, however, lived the strategy. It wasn’t just a strategy. . . it was a life-style and could be noticed in a small town. I wanted to help my local car dealer and I wanted to help the charities — it wasn’t a sleight of hand — it was who we were. . . .and people saw that.

Move forward almost 40 years from when I started and customers still will use your firm or not use your firm because of the perceptions of you, your firm, and how you do business. And, in growing and growing communities, community members don’t have the ability to see what sticker is on the back of your car or really get to know you. . . . .However, what has not changed is that “Perception wins (or loses) business”. How you do it nowadays is the key to getting that positive perception.

In today’s world you have to make use of all the tools available to you to build your own stories and create the perceptions that you want the potential clientele to use in making their determination of where to take their business. It’s all about making and presenting positive images of yourself and your business to help in winning client families. . . .

To that end, I came across a couple of articles that will help you understand more fully the role of customer perception in the choice of businesses. Take a look at these articles and you may learn something to help you move forward.