Yesterday, I was blessed to participate in a three-way phone conversation with Bridget VanMeans, the leader of ThriVe Express Women’s Healthcare (Read my articles about ThriVe here, here, here, and here), and a pro-life benefactor (he subscribes to my articles but I don’t have permission to use his name here) who wanted to learn more about ThriVe’s strategy.
As always, Bridget offered a treasure trove of insights about what it takes for a pro-life Pregnancy Medical Center to win, as measured by market share, against Planned Parenthood.
Today, I want to reflect on just one of those insights that Bridget shared.
Bridget explained the bottom line of why so many abortion-seeking women change their minds and choose life when they visit a ThriVe Express Women’s Healthcare facility.
I’m paraphrasing a bit, but Bridget said, “Our product is better because we LOVE those women, and Planned Parenthood doesn’t.”
All You Need Is Love
Now many folks would hear that statement, and think because Bridget used the word “love” that it was expressing a sentiment – that it was an emotional proclamation.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
If I could sum up in one pithy statement what I have learned with my successes and failures in 30+ years of marketing, it would track exactly with what Bridget said.
I would say, “He who loves his customer best, wins.” (using “he” here in the general human sense)
“Fake It Till You Make It” Is a Lie
Again, please don’t mistake my use of the word “love” as sentimentality.
I use that word in the sense of an orientation of an act of one’s will.
In marketing, that “act” is an on-going, never-ending, gift of self – both individually and as a team of stakeholders in totality – to provide a specific identifiable customer with a product or service that measurably improves their lives in a specific identifiable way, and does it better than competitive offerings.
Highly successful marketing and sales programs are radically other-oriented.
Of course, if you survey all businesses and ask them if their marketing and sales strategies are “radically customer oriented,” I would guess over 90% would answer in the affirmative.
But it doesn’t matter what those businesses say about themselves.
Much of what businesses say about themselves is nothing more than “fake news.”
All that matters is what real customers who have purchased from those businesses say about them.
Only a customer truly knows if what your business provided them measurably improved their lives, or not.
If a customer experiences “buyer’s remorse” after buying your product, then all you accomplished was faking them out.
If you faked them out, you didn’t love them.
You manipulated them for your own perceived benefit.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at how this plays out in the Pro-Life Business Industry.
Regards,
Brett