A common marketing challenge is getting prospects to take your company seriously. Your company may in fact be the perfect partner for a specific prospect. This will be a moot point, however, unless your prospect perceives you as such. 

Unfortunately, for many companies, size matters. “How could that small company help us? We’ll focus on the vendors who are obviously big enough to earn a second look from us.” The first task when searching for a new vendor is winnowing down the list of potential vendors to a manageable number. Company size is a simple way to reduce the field.

Even if you’re a large company, you may be a small player in an expansion market that is new for you. What’s a company to do?

An answer can be found in nature. No matter how accomplished a male bowerbird may be, he still has to get through a female’s perceptual filters to get a fair consideration as a mate. Successful bowerbirds have developed a way to make themselves appear larger than life, according to new research published in Discover magazine. The male bowerbirds arrange their nests with smaller stones at the base of the nest and large ones at the rear. This creates an optical illusion, so that the female looking into the nest perceives the male as being bigger than he actually is. This “trick,” augmented with a sparkly object held in the male’s beak, is enough to catch her interest. He may not close the deal every time, but at least he gets considered.

One of your primary goals in marketing is to sustain a “larger-than-life” image. A quality website, responsive customer support, and product or service “sparkle” can create and sustain that image. One the best lessons I learned in business was “sell the sizzle, deliver the steak!”

Marketing strategy will map out the sizzle you’ll need for selling, but to successfully deliver your product or service to a customer, your company will need a strong strategic plan.