Clients’ lives matter

Zach Aldwin Milkshake in the Boardroom
Last time I wrote about making people an offer they cannot refuse. One of the great beauties about shopping in Zimbabwe is that there are so many offers that I can refuse. “Let me sell you a new phone at three times the retail price overseas.” “Let me sell you a phone at half the price overseas but do not check the serial number against the international database because it was stolen in South Africa and laundered up here.” “Let me sell you a phone that I know nothing about at all because I am a store clerk and I think my job is merely to take your money, not to match a phone to your personality and level of IT knowledge.”

Making a great offer is not some spur of the moment whim. Rather it is a well-crafted piece of art that draws a client in and turns them from a potential customer into a relationship. It is a process that is tested, tweaked and retested throughout the lifespan of your organisation.

Let us start at the beginning, shall we. Realise first of all that none of this is about you. Getting someone to buy from you has little to do with your needs, how much money you should be earning, the street credit you get for making a sale. It has everything to do with the buyer and the consumer. Note that I made a difference there between the buyer and the consumer.

If you are selling to a large corporation you need to understand the psychology behind the person in procurement (who is trying to make his boss happy) and the consumer (the actual people in the organisation who will use your product, and the boss who wants to know that his money was well spent). Design your pitch to that person’s needs. If your banter is about bulldozing over all my objections just to make a sale but not making my life better I won’t buy from you.

Now set the right frame for yourself in your mind. If all you see is making a sales call then you will probably make a call, feel great about it, but not actually make a real sale. If you imagine yourself working on making a sale and earning a repeat customer it drastically changes your drive and motive.

Now find out what people really want. Often what people want is not the product but the story behind it. It could be the method of procurement, the emotion the item brings, or the problem that it solves.

I went to buy a tap from a hardware store this weekend. It was a spur of the moment thing, I had a broken garden tap and on the way home I decided to pick one up. Here was the snag-there are two sizes of tap available and I can never remember which one fits my house. I had been in a hurry in the morning and only noticed the tap as I was leaving; there had been no time to grab a sample.

At that point buying the tap was secondary, what I really wanted was to get the correct size. Sadly the salesman was not psychic but he understood my problem and solved it by allowing me to bring back the tap if it was the wrong one. There may have been other ways he could have dealt with me to bring a solution, but he gave me an answer that worked.

I probably would not have got the tap from him if he had not allowed me to return it. Guess where I am shopping next time I have a hardware need.

Give no opportunity to say no. The instinctive analysis that people make when you approach them is done in milliseconds. Often it is based on a deep-seated, conditioned fear in the base of the brain that resists change. Before you have even finished introducing yourself they are thinking of a million creative ways to avoid dealing with you. The same voice that makes people say “I’m just browsing” in a clothing store is the one that says “not interested” or “I’m really busy” on your sales call.

The best marketers and salespeople have a way of captivating their client enough to sidestep the initial fear and replace it with curiosity. One organisation would take a guy in gorilla suit on their initial sales call, because instead of throwing you out people are thinking “what’s with the gorilla”. Word of wisdom here; don’t take a gorilla guy with you, it’s been done-find something else that works.

What are you really offering? This is the flip side to finding out what people really want. If there is a mismatch then there is no crime in deciding “this is not for you”, walking away and finding a client with the right match. Your story needs to be hammered out really clear.

Done that? Now add value to it. Ask yourself “What else can I do to add value, to enrich this person’s life through my product”. Then do it with the attitude that other people are a valuable commodity to be treasured.

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