Moving The Chains With Your Customers
September 27th, 2017 // 9:41 am @ Scott Manning
Most businesses are set up for a one-shot deal with a sales process that ends with a prospective customer either saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (and ‘maybe’ being equivalent to ‘no’).
Unfortunately, this is a problem because most people do not “walk” into a business and say yes immediately; at least not to the full extent.
They might buy something from you but then it ends there because there is no next step or orchestrated nurturing sequence or upsell approach or exciting progress of points of engagement.
Businesses fail because they do not cultivate and grow their customer relationship thereby growing and increasing their customer value. This is what we spent all last month going over and I do hope you paid attention.
To finalize our little football start to the season I want you to think of it like this…
In a typical sales process a representative of your business or perhaps you come in contact with a prospective customer – that’s begins the field of play. You have the ball and you drop back and then just throw the ball as hard and as fast as you can down the field hoping someone will catch it.
Defenders are objections. Your receiver is your customer.
They want the ball, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. But their money is in the end zone. If you don’t get the ball and the customer to the end zone – you get no money.
Many people do not think about waiting until the receiver (the customer) is ready for the ball, they just throw it. They don’t worry about defenders rushing in (obvious objections) and don’t do anything to create extra value for themselves to help free up the receive (the more value you create the more the defenders go away and the receivers free up).
That is why the idea of moving the chains is so important.
Yes, our goal is to get to the end zone but every customer is different and may need to move at different paces. If you can just move the ball down the field, you get the customer closer and closer to the end where they begin to see and experience what a victory would be like – what the benefits of purchase are.
The best news of all is, unlike in football, if you go out on downs you can still come back on to the field and play again without starting all over – if you do it right.
Unfortunately, most businesses do not do it right. They take a no and forget about the customer. They turnover the ball and then start all over again the next time they have an encounter.
In your business, if you really want to have multiplied profit it comes specifically from moving the chains, the ball and the customer down the field and staying with them until they are ready to buy.
Yes, you do whatever you can to speed it up but you do not force it.
For my dentists, I use the examples where some get caught up in all or nothing dentistry instead of meeting the patients’ expectations and then going to work to grow and elevate their desire for more.
Sometimes this is moving them through hygiene or fixing a broken tooth or starting with something smaller that’s not at the neglect of something greater, but by being smart and gaining yards to your goal with patient trust which is gained through more experience with you.
Think about this and really sit down and outline out what “moving the chains” is like for your customers, what it means to you and your strategy in your customer and selling experience.
What actions can you take to help a prospect get closer to saying yes? What does a customer need to experience in order to by wide open in the end zone?
This is a big deal. As the sports saying goes “you leave a lot of points on the field” by not knowing how and committing to doing this right here.
Your goal is to keep your prospective customers on the field long enough to score. Do that and you win more. It’s that simple.
Category : Blog
