Harry Backwith’s Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing was required reading at the system integration firm where I worked. All directors were given a copy and expected to finish them. I wasn’t sure what point our CEO was making when he assigned it to us, but I sure did when I was done with it.   Selling the Invisible explains the customer’s perception when buying something they don’t understand.   In our firm it meant buying technology they clearly didn’t understand.

What is it in your case?  About the same.  Whether you like it or not, the employer that’s looking for you or the contact that’s helping you network only has what’s visible as their guide.  They’ll make a 100% judgement based upon that.

Backwith explains using our relationship with medical doctors.  He illustrates by asking, “How can you tell if a surgeon or an oncologist is any good?”  After you’ve read through any legal databases to see if they’ve been sued or asked the opinion of other doctors, you really don’t have much else to go on. Even if you check with other patients, you are only getting the opinion of another non-expert. Since you lack intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the human body, you don’t have the knowledge to review the facts.

So what is it you can see and evaluate in order to judge a doctor’s overall competence?

• Their listening skills
• Their bedside manner
• The attentiveness of their office staff
• How timely they run their office.

That has to be an area of focus for you during your job hunt and everyone in your circle is your assistant.  This includes the person you’re networking with to someone at the company’s front desk where you are applying.  You are a complete unknown to them.  What they perceive about you, right, wrong or indifferent, is what they will use to either decide to bring you on board or something else.

If you fail to return phone calls promptly, arrive later than expected for meetings or forget to offer to throw away your own dirty coffee cup, the other person’s assumptions about the rest of your competence could be swayed. Would they assume your lack of attention to detail concerning your coffee cup will translate to sloppiness in your work?

But let’s think about it another way. What would they instead think if we were always timely? What if our level of professionalism far exceed that of those around us?  What a difference that would make in our relationships with others?

Selling the Invisible gave me a lot to think about when dealing with others in a professional environment working to make as good an impression as possible. Definitely worth the read.

Hope this helps!