Welcome to this week’s Business Challenge of the Week: There are only two things people ever buy. Are you selling either one of them? This is the second challenge in our series on Sales which will go throughout the month of April. If you missed last week, you can catch up by going to this link: Do you know the greatest sales secret in the world?
Onto this week’s topic:
What are your customers really buying from you? It may seem like a silly question but it’s vital that everyone in your organization, from the CEO to the loading dock operator, knows the answer. Your customers aren’t buying what you are selling. They are buying what your goods or services do for them. For instance….
Don’t sell me clothes. Sell me a sharp appearance, style, and attractiveness.
Don’t sell me insurance. Sell me peace of mind and a secure future for my family and my business.
Don’t sell me things. Sell me security, efficiency, self-respect, happiness.
Don’t sell me consulting services. Make this nervous feeling in my stomach go away. (Real life conversation I had with one client)
There are two key things customers will exchange money for:
- Feeling happy and good
- Solutions to problems
Remember, customers buy with emotion and justify with logic.
Your challenge this week is to make sure you are communicating how your goods and services provide this to your customers. Three key questions to determine this:
- What good feelings and solutions does our business provide to our customers?
- Does everyone in our organization understand their role in providing good feelings and solutions to our customers?
- What can each employee do to provide more good feelings and solutions to our customers?
To put yourself in the right frame of mind, here are some tips when dealing with customers:
- Customers want to buy from people that make them feel good so be sure you are in a happy state.
- Never tell customers your problems. We all have our share of problems and discussing them is certainly healthy – just not with your customers.
- Customers buy for their reasons, not yours. So get in their world. You win customers by giving them what they want and not what you think they want.
- Always remember when you are dealing with a customer, you are representing the company and their decision to become or remain a customer depends on you.
- Use both logic and emotion to win and keep customers. Emotion causes customers to buy but logic keeps them sold and coming back.
- Always be solving problems for your customers. Find out their state of mind: Mad, Sad, Scared? Move them to Happy/Glad. Two key questions to always ask: What is the situation now? What would you like it to be?
If you pay attention to your customers, they will come back for more. If you pay attention to only your goods and services, they won’t.
Put it to work and you will see what I mean.
Sincerely,
Bruce Rector
The Rector Group
Tel: 954-356-0439
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