Do You Sell Experiences Or Do Your Customers Experience Your Selling?
March 12th, 2021 // 10:25 am @ Scott Manning
Did you put some effort into last week’s challenge? To comb through your business and assess your messaging, your marketing materials, and your communication throughout your customer experience to see if you were being directive and also giving ‘reasons why’ your customers should move forward with buying decision.
I hope so because it really is all about the words and the experience being a guide that leads to natural conclusion.
There’s another deeper level of this that we’ve touched on before but very few really take the time to do the work necessary to master their ability to influence their customers in a way that leads them to an obvious and obstacle-less ability to buy.
Before in these writings, we’ve unpacked the word “understand” which I believe most represents anyone’s ability to influence.
I’m reminded of the lesson from my Grandmaster in the Martial Arts long ago about breaking apart the word and switching it around to “stand-under” the customer (or actually any human) you want to influence. This is how empathy is developed.
It has a role in marketing and most certainly in customer experiences. Perhaps it is all that is actually needed instead of all the fancy bells and whistles – just genuine honest empathic understanding of your customer.
So, how do you master this perspective from your customer?
It is literally looking through their eyes and making an exhaustive list of all the reasons why they would and would not buy. Then checking your experience to see if you are suppressing and overcoming one while accentuate and expanding the other.
This is something that every team member in your business should be able to do and it should be the core to guide for all conversation and sales opportunities.
It is this “understanding” of your customer that gives you power to move them to buy. And here’s the real secret… not waiting until after the fact.
This is the difference between offense and defense, playing ahead or playing catch up, in control or desperate. I call it tug of war with customers versus being an influential person of service.
All of this work from reasons why to understanding your customer and should become the basis for your customer education and experience.
And you know when it gets really exciting is when this isn’t just putting on a show running your customer through the motions but actually getting them involved and making them a part of the process.
Here’s the way I look at it – you are not “selling” an experience, your customers are experiencing the “selling.” When you transform your business to that, in whatever way that is applicable to you, then you transcend your business to an entirely different level.
Okay, now bring in our conversation a while ago about pricing structure and strategy. How you set-up the math and value building by changing the way they perceive and “justify” price in their minds. With these elements, you’ve got the total package.
And if you are taking my point seriously then you will know that once “price” is presented, if there are issues to overcome in your customer’s mind that puts you on defense, then you haven’t done enough on the front end to execute this level of experience.
It doesn’t mean that there won’t still be some sensitivity to the investment you require (and in fact there should be else it’s too cheap). However, the difference is when the customer is working to get there because they want to be on the other side of the investment instead of trying to come up with all the reasons why they shouldn’t.
This all starts with the “first point of contact” and engagement. All too often the difficultly of the ‘first step’ is underestimated. Done right on the front end you have already won the customer over in their willingness, their own desire, and their initiative to want to buy.
This is why we do so much work on the front end verbiage; whether on the phone, website, or other. Not just to convince someone to schedule an appointment or to click through a link but also to begin immediately shaping the conversation, explaining ‘the reasons why,’ and expressing that empathetic understanding.
Businesses rush so fast into transactions and they skip right over the relationship which is literally the difference between asking for their money instead of understanding their interest – a rush to move a customer to a buying decision or any type of decision too fast does the exact opposite of what we are talking about here.
It results in them being defensive and skeptical as they build up all their reasons ‘not to’ instead of all the reasons why they should move forward.
When you master this dance (and it’s authentic and about something bigger than a sale) the customer joins with you on your mission to help them and they will take responsibility for their own decision and therefore investment.
As Kevin always says, “What we are really doing is helping the customer make a smart decision for them… not us.”
What can you do to better align your understanding of your customer with your messaging?
What can you do to demonstrate more reasons why and remove any doubts from their mind?
What would you add, change and do differently to create and illustrate more empathy for them?
How can you evolve further into experiential selling?
Let’s get to work and we’ll circle back to ‘what not to do’ next week…
Category : Blog
