5 Steps to Getting Anyone to Buy
February 25th, 2015 // 4:20 pm @ Scott Manning
Last week I talked to you about the 3 Relationship Factors that affect your entire business. I explained how most all businesses delay the “building of a relationship” until after the transaction and that’s all wrong.
For example, take my Dentists, most begin the relationship with the Patients after they walk through the door and sit in their treatment room.
Others, might do a great job on the phone, but most do not actually do anything to cultivate the relationship proactively in advance or even during the “buying” in this case the “exam” experience.
Instead they rely on creating a relationship with a Patient (customer) over years of 2-3x every 12 months of visiting. This is not a relationship.
If a visitor to your website must buy your products before you initiate your relationship with them, you are losing most, and not giving yourself a fair chance at getting the customer.
Reading your opt-in emails isn’t enough either.
And for those sales professionals or other customer driven businesses think about it, once they give you money you’ve sort-of already got them, and yes, over-deliver, wow them, keep them, and get them to refer and buy more.
But.
Understand that waiting until money has been transacted is waiting until the game is already won.
So. I’ll give you 5 very specific strategies to implement into your BUYING process, your Customer EDUCATION process that will help you get the relationship started with your prospective customers.
Remember my philosophy is very clear.
Trust in you gives a customer permission to believe what you say is true.
Belief in you gives a customer permission to feel confident in the outcome/benefit.
And
Confidence in you gives a customer permission to take a leap of faith and invest, buy, pay, spend money with you.
Got it? Good. As they say.
Everything about your marketing and interaction with your customer, client, or patients should be about these three things once you’ve gotten their interest in the first place.
This begins relationship.
1 – Ask questions.
This can be on a website, in a sales letter, on the phone or obviously in face to face scenarios. The simple concept is you have to get to know someone or at least let them get to know themselves if you want to build a relationship and make the sale.
Most everyone just starts talking… and just start…selling. They don’t listen or ask or learn or discover or research.
You already know this, but I will say it anyhow. My base fee is an investment more than some people’s automobiles and I do one and only one thing to make that ‘sale’, a phone call with questions.
Questions sell because you make it about the person about the customer AS YOU SHOULD.
2 – Show empathy.
Gosh this is so important. Relationships are two way streets not only of communication but also of feeling and emotion and empathy. You want to restate what people say and show them you listen and you resonate with them.
This is all about rapport.
And yes, it can be done in a video, website, email, you can have a conversation with someone in their own mind.
I’m not just talking about face-to-face customer engagement, although most everyone reading this is working with human beings in some form of interaction.
Are you showing empathy or rushing into your part of the program, stay focused on the customer?
3 – Illustrate understanding.
This one is easy, most get it, but not all put enough emphasis on it. Do not expect someone to believe what you say, show them proof, give them examples, tell them stories, help them see that you really do know where they are and where they want to go.
What the benefit will be from your product or service and why it matters to them is best illustrated by sharing about someone else and then relating that to their situation.
4 – Exert Authority and give guidance.
This is the only part where you “sell” your diagnosis and then prescribe. Each of these pieces are important in the integrity of building a relationship.
At this moment you very deliberately establish what I call the “parent” position. There are losers out there that will tell you to make your customers your friends and if people like you they will give you money and this nonsense.
That’s superficial and not true.
Friends do not pay friends money they give them things for free.
Hey, I like to think I become friends with every single one of my clients, ALL OF THEM, but in the context of our working relationship I am an advisor, more like a parent, and I have an obligation to direct them accordingly.
I do hope you understand what I’m saying, CUSTOMERS want to be TOLD WHAT TO DO, usually it’s not their lack of interest or ability to buy, it’s the business person’s inability to lead and to be confident in exerting authority and giving guidance.
That’s how you earn respect and trust in any relationship.
5 – Do not give up or give in on your stated course of action, nurturing relationships, building trust is about congruency and consistency.
Of course. You don’t leave them hanging.
The fastest way to never make it in business is to only hit breakeven. You have to have a profit and profit is always in the follow-up. You wouldn’t take $100 and give back $70 just because you didn’t want it.
Well that’s what it’s like if you ignore following up on your clients, customers and patients. It shows lack of integrity and it makes all the work you did all the investment into the relationship mean very little in the prospective customers mind.
So there you have it. A 5-step structure.
I do this. Teach this. Help others build their entire businesses and sales organizations around it.
On a monthly basis, all in, with this approach, I would venture to say I have 7 different countries, several hundred, and thousands upon thousands of customers “building new relationships” with this approach.
I hope you take it seriously and profit from it.
Category : Blog
