There’s one question that has served me extremely well in over six years as a small business consultant. It’s the same question that heart-centered, soft sell salespeople and marketers need to ask their customers and prospective customers. The most important question is, “Why?”
I’ve had salespeople and small business owners ask me about writing a script. I have used them successfully 18 years ago when it was a required part of the job. I didn’t like them then, and I really dislike them now. Other than to memorize an opening question to get you started so you can avoid being tongue-tied, scripts are designed to control the flow of questions so as to control the prospect. That’s a hard sell approach to sales because it only cares about one thing, getting the prospect’s money. After a short stint using scripts because a job required it, I returned to talking with prospects.
Heart-centered, soft sell sales and marketing focus first on the customer’s needs and wants. While people may quickly tell you what they think they want, it’s very important to dig deeper to understand why. Look for their real motivation then help your customers buy what will do the best job you can for [...]
This week I had an insight into the concept of perceived value that came out of visiting with my brother, Jim. We were in Madison, Wisconsin for a family function. As we live across the country from each other, we rarely get together. I was wearing one of my Disneyland hats and commented that it really is “the happiest place on earth.” He disagreed. He felt ripped off when he took his family to Disney World. He wanted to buy his daughters some refreshing treat until he found out that this item, which he could normally buy for $.75 would cost him $5.00 at Disney World.
I understood how he felt as he’s right. When you’re in a Disney park, if you want it, you pay the price they want to charge. Then it dawned on me. This is the brother who plays golf all the time. And he’s complaining about prices at Disney World for something he’s only going to pay for once, yet he gladly pays his golf fees?
Like my brother Jim’s and my discussions on the relative merits of Disney’s markup on treats versus the cost of the golf course fees, our prospects and customers have views that may differ from ours as to what’s a value-added service or product. If they don’t care about it, regardless of how much you spent on it, it wasn’t [...]
I love it when someone can help me appreciate my profession in a new way. The fascinating part of it is that after over 30 years in sales and marketing, it took a couple psychologists to give me a major insight into how to make my marketing activities more effective. I found their tweak to the definition of marketing in The Heart of Marketing by Judith Sherven & Jim Sniechowski, known as Judith & Jim.
This significant change is so subtle yet simple. I was always taught that marketing is about making yourself known in the marketplace. To quote them, “The essence of selling is converting your prospective customer into an actual customer. And the essence of marketing is — preparing your prospective customer to buy.” [...]
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