Tweet

Sell to WANTS and watch your sales soar!

Guest post by: Gerry Black

Article Overview: Have you ever given some deep thought to what it is your clients are actually buying when they decide to do business with you? Sure, they buy your services and products but I mean do you have a clear understanding of WHY they decided to take action and do business with you. As business owners, this is an important question to consider if we want to maximize the effectiveness of our marketing. 95% of what we buy is driven by emotion and is something we want. Is your marketing telling your prospect what he or she WANTS to hear?

Sell to WANTS and watch your sales soar!

Have you ever given some deep thought to what it is your clients are actually buying when they decide to do business with you?

Sure they buy your services and products but I mean do you have a clear understanding of what problem they are looking to solve or what need they are looking to fulfill?

As business owners, this is an important question to consider if we want to maximize the effectiveness of our marketing .

So how do you find out what they're thinking?

Simple. Ask them. Explain in an email or on the phone that you are revising your marketing plan and wondered if they could help you understand, in a sentence or two, the value your service offered them.

Here are a couple of unedited answers I got when I did it.

The most important 'value' I received from working with you Gerry was time. Time allowed me to concentrate on my business (using my entrepreneurial time wisely) while you used the info I gave you and weaved it into the ideal website for my business. Time management is something I support my clients with and I truly know the importance of delegating. In essence, that is what happened between us. You were the expert in copywriting and I have learned over the years to delegate to the 'expert'!

You helped us give voice to the value of the services we provide with a consumer-orientation that helps differentiate us from others. You also offered the potential of a follow-up system that other marketing service providers did not offer or did not have a clear vision of its value. Your availability and follow-through is particularly appreciated.

When you analyze their responses, you can see they were "buying" different benefits.

The first found marketing very time consuming and unfulfilling. Why? Simply because that's not this particular client's area of interest. In her case, she's capable. But she determined that she would spend far more time trying to get a handle on creating an effective marketing message and strategy if she tried to do it herself.

And whatever time she could find was not of a quality that would allow for the timely creation of an effective selling story. It was crammed into and around other aspects of running her business. She determined she would be missing opportunities if she tried to do it herself.

In the second example, the client simply realized he needed to stand out from his competition. He's in a real "me-too" industry. The economy is playing having with his industry. Many of his competitors use the same marketing message. When that happens, it always comes down to defending prices. He didn't want to play that game so he decided not to.

You'll notice he didn't even mention time. In his mind, as soon as he decided he needed some help, he made an instant decision to find someone to help him.

By asking our clients why they bought from us, we can take their responses and build our marketing message around them.

With some careful content creation on our websites and in our other marketing communication, we can make sure we mirror back this value in such a way that anyone considering our products and services will clearly see it and choose us over our competitors.

Related Articles
  Practice no matter how good you think you are
  You can't build business “thinking” about it
  Stress-Free Selling® - Close Three Times Faster
  Salespeople Aren't Made of Glass
  Does Changing Compensation Increase Sales?
  Like it or not – Success is about being able to sell YOU
  3 Rules for Successful Up Sells
  Get All the Business You Want: Never Sell Again!
  Get The Best Out Of Your Business
  Content is King! Long Live the King!
  Creating YOUR Top 10 List To Help You Sell More Of Your…
  Commitment
  5 Simple How To Strategies to Dramatically Boost Your Sales Ads
  Beat That Sales Slump
  Is Your knowledge an Obstacle to Selling More?
  Shoes / Watch / Grooming
  The 3 Secrets of Instantly Establishing Interest
  Attract More Clients By Dumping the Junk – Your PITA Clients!
  Article #28 Looking For A Business That Works Fast In As Little As Six Months?
  Twelve Simple Tips To Fill Your Events, Programs And Teleseminars

Article Tags: convert more prospects, more sales, sell to wants



Related Forum Posts
Some online business suggstions debunked - 2. Sell photos on stock photography sites --- I tried this, couldn't even get in the front door. But then, I'm apparently a lousy photographer... However, if you do get in, I think you only get something like 25 cents a download... 8. Build services atop Amazon Web Services ---I've been an Amazon associate for a loooong time, selling books, and business has been lousy since the beginning. Nobody reads anymore...I do get a few DVD sales every now and again... but frankly I make much more money though Google Ads on my site. It took several months for that to build up, but now as my website has more readers those ads are starting to pay off, whereas there's been no corresponding jump from Amazon ads on the same pages...
Re: Thanks for the link Barbara - Yes....last year - and again this year - I've subscribed to MLB TV on the web, so I can watch baseball games on my computer. I can watch every baseball game this season, "on demand" which means not only when the game is going on, (except if its blacked out in my area - a restriction that really annoys me!!!), but after the game is over, even if it was blacked out, I can watch it. Very helpful to keep track of the Seattle Mariners, since they're 3 hours ahead of me and I can't stay up that late to watch my favorite player, Ichiro! And you can continue to watch games past for the whole season. For sports writers, that's an invaluable tool! My only regret is that baseball started recording games so late...I would so love to be able to watch a full game of Lou Gehrig...
Re: Mother's Day and small business - [quote="Takuya":1624kv6j]I have a friend, when he finally focuses, he spends his entire year getting ready for Halloween related stuff. One time I heard about these seasonal stuff and I did experiment using Google Adwords, selling books related ... I can't remember what it was, but I made a surge of sales. I am sure smart folks are leveraging from them. good to see you back everyone, I have been away for a little while... Takuya[/quote:1624kv6j] Hi Takuya, Good to see you again! I think getting into more popular restaurants will be quite difficult on Mother's Day, and even if you're lucky enough to find some seats, you'll have the misfortune of having to pay higher prices for a fixed "Mother's Day" dinner specials. For example, there's this restaurant my family and I sometimes go to, and their dinners cost approx. $28 for a full course meal... but on Mother's Day or Christmas time, the prices soar to $50-60/set dinner. It's such a rip off that it's probably better to just host a family dinner at home. Well Happy Mother's Day everyone!
Your advantage over others - Sell using your USP - unique selling proposition. Why should people buy from you, instead of your competitors? Think about it, why are you so great? It may be a hard question, but finding the answer can multiply the effectiveness of any advertising or marketing activities you undertake.
How many sales people do you have working for you. - I love this forum since it has such a large variety of members. It would be great to have a better understanding of the sales function (if there is one) in your company. If you have a minute, vote in our poll and tell us about your sales department breakdown and sales efforts.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Adjusting Your World

Severance and Separation Agreements

Build Corporate Credit for Your Small Business

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.