Insthinktive Influencing
Do You Know What Your Prospects Want? Really?
If there is one valuable lesson that you need to learn in sales, is understanding clearly what customers really want. What they really buy.
You see weWe been guilty in the past of making that decision ourselves. Assuming we knew what customers wanted because we were closing sales. But what were we leaving behind?
The revelation for us came when we decided to conduct interviews with clients and asked them a series of questions. Like why they bought from us. And we were well taken aback.
At the time our business was essentially supplying people to large Power Plant construction projects in an emergency.
We had assumed we had achieved success because of our technical expertise. But our clients never once mentioned technical expertise as a factor. They had assumed this, it was an expectation.
They universally fed back to us that our ability to provide a seamless service from an operational point of view was key. In other words they didn? want to have to deal with our people from a day to day perspective.
We addressed that problem by managing our own people, their accommodation, their transport, their people issues. The client wanted peace of mind, not technical expertise. And they were willing to pay a premium for it.
It had a profound effect on how we sold our service going forward. We literally changed everything in our sales approach to focus on ourselves as the company that delivers Weace of mind?We handled all the customer’s hassles. And it worked. It propelled our business to the next level, because more and more customers seemed to connect us with their biggest pain point.
We see this common error often. Accountants selling themselves as accountants, when their clients need advisors, need problem solvers, need facilitators to help them interpret their numbers.
IT providers selling equipment instead of selling their ability to make their customer’s lives easier through technology.
You need to be mindful of the same trap. People don’t care what you do. They buy what you can do for them. They buy end results. Outcomes, Impacts.
And you cannot predict what they want. You must ?nd out directly from them. Their needs, their wants, their problems. Their vision of a better outcome or better solution.
They you can sell to them.
Ultimately your customers needs are emotional in nature, they want more hope, more control, more money, more freedom, more time, more competitiveness, more innovation, more compliance. More security, more certainty.
What’s the customers Why?
So you need to ask what is the Why is for your clients. And you need to be speci?c.
-More sales ?
-More pro?ts ?
-More time ?
-More customers ?
-To be different ?
-To be more compliant ?
-A more ?nancially sound future?
-Less worry ?
-Better systems?
-More visibility?
-Better reputation?
-Easier to locate ?
-More customers?
-More efficiency?
-More control ?
-Retain staff longer ?
-Keep the boss off my back?
-More visitors to my site?
-More sales through my site?
-More people contact us and buy?
Now this is just a list your question is to ask Why?
Why do they want more sales?
Why do they want more pro?ts? What are they going to do with it and why?
Why do they want more time? What will they do with the time?
Why do they want to be different? What impact with that have on them?
I hope you are beginning to see that you must in essence get to the core of the reasons customers buy. And the core as you know is always buried deep, therefore it needs work to uncover it. Digging deeper in to the prospects Why, will determine how you can market
better to them.
Selling to logic is illogical.
Logic doesn? determine sales. Emotion does. It’s not a cliche that we buy emotionally
and justify logically. It’s a fact.
If you bought logically then you could answer all of the questions below with a yes
-I use the cheapest toothpaste on the market
-I live in the cheapest house available to me
-I drive the cheapest car on the market
Are you saying you don’t do these things? But logic would dictate that you?l defer to the lowest price. That’s logical surely?
Do you seriously believe that people in the workplace suddenly lose their emotional faculties and become logical drones? No they do stuff that deWes common logic.
And your job is to ?nd out what they do that does defy logic. You don’t eliminate logic completely but by de?ning the emotional drivers you?l ?nd that they will have the overbearing in?uence on decision making.
You simply need to learn to appeal to their Whys and you?l be talking in a language that they understand. And you?l increase your sales, whilst providing a better ?t for them. It’s a win win.
Action
Make a list Now of the Top Whys your prospects have.
1)
2)
3)
Make a list Now of the Top 3 Whys, your prospects should choose you to address their
Whys
1)
2)
3)
Key Takeaways
– Know your customers Why
– Be specific in every detail as to how you address their Why.
Next session; Build Rapport with your prospects ?rst
Simple, but not easy…..
