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You Can't Change A Sales Prospect's Mind

Guest post by: Mark Satterfield

Article Overview: I think we spend a lot of time trying to get people to change their minds. I also think it’s a waste of time. No matter how many facts you list, you’re just not going to be able to change the way someone views the world. It’s a bit like the old joke about you can’t milk a cat. First it can’t be done, and all it does is annoy the cat.

You Can't Change A Sales Prospect's Mind

I think we spend a lot of time trying to get people to change their minds. I also think it’s a waste of time. No matter how many facts you list, you’re just not going to be able to change the way someone views the world. It’s a bit like the old joke about you can’t milk a cat. First it can’t be done, and all it does is annoy the cat.

Since we all have a limited amount of time, money and patience for marketing and sales, it’s a far better strategy to find a group with a certain perspective and frame your sales message so that it resonates with that viewpoint. Demonstrating that you understand the beliefs of your audience is the price of entry into the sales conversation. Only by starting at that point do you stand a chance of eventually encouraging someone to consider an alternative point of view at some point down the road.

From a purely practical perspective, if I don’t think that I suffer from a particular problem I won’t pay the least bit of attention to the message you’re trying to communicate. It’s an amazingly noisy world so trying to convince me that something is important is largely a waste of time. You just don’t have the money or the marketing clout to make me care about something that I haven’t already decided is worth focusing on. The real trick is to make sure that your marketing story is both visible and interesting when I do decide to find a solution.

So what makes a sales or marketing story interesting? How do we frame the message so that it stands the best chance of getting attention? The answer is in both what is said as well as how it is communicated. You audience cares just as much about the choice of media, the tone of voice as they do the words that are used.

However once you get into the body of the message it’s important that it’s framed in a way that resonates with the reader or listener. Far too often messages are little more than a restating of the obvious. While this may be the safe path to travel it’s not a particularly interesting one. Which is why it is so important to have an opinion about your particular area of expertise.

Although that sounds perfectly fine in theory, what exactly is meant by developing an opinion? How does someone do that? One of the simplest ways is to develop a system or process for implementing your particular type of solution. Thus the opinion becomes that this process is what works. When people mess up the implementation phase, it’s usually because they failed to follow the process or did things out of order.

Another alternative is to develop a contrarian viewpoint. What is the prevailing wisdom among people in your field. Why might that opinion be wrong? People gravitate towards those who have a strong opinion about a topic and will at least tend to give them a hearing. It’s those that get stuck in the middle of the bell-shaped curve that get ignored. Don’t let that fate befall you.

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Article Tags: lead generation, marketing services, new business, new clients, selling services



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