It's not About You

from Jim's Marketing Blog:

How to massively increase your sales and profits, with this 1 great idea!

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 04:28 AM PDT

If you want to increase the number of clients you have or boost your sales figures, here’s a quick marketing tip for you: “People buy for their reasons, not yours!”

Most small business owners make the mistake of selling their services, based on what THEY think matters. In other words, they look at their product or service and because they know it so well, they assume they ALSO know why each individual person wants to buy it.

They are wrong!

Buying motives

Notice I used the word individual in that last paragraph? This is because people have their own, individual motivations for making a purchase. We call this their buying motive. If you try and sell or market your service to someone, based on what you assume will be of most importance to them, you may well lose their interest. However, if you take a moment to discover what matters to them, you will know exactly what to focus on.

That single step, of discovering someone’s buying motive and then focusing on what motivates them, can increase your conversion rate by hundreds of percent!

I saw a great example of this last weekend. I needed a new phone, so I visited a store and was greeted by the store manager. She asked me how she could help and when I told her I was looking to buy a new phone, she asked me a few simple questions:

• What would I be using the phone for
• Whether I had a contract or not and who the contract was with
• What my budget was

Once I gave her my answers, she was able to point me in the direction of a small selection of phones that did what I wanted. Then, by asking and answering my questions, we were able to spot a clear winner. She discovered my buying motives and focused everything on getting me a phone, that fitted my needs. I got a great phone which I am extremely happy with and she made a sale (and an advocate!) Win-win!

By the way, discovering someone’s buying motive always allows you to render better service to them. With my example of the phone store manager, at no point did I even feel like I was being sold to. It felt like she was using her knowledge to advise me, so I made the right decision. Now, had the store manager simply looked at how I was dressed (in jeans and a t shirt), and then assumed I would want a “lifestyle” phone or that I was on a low budget, she would have lost the sale. She would also have came across as pushy, because she would have been offering me things I wasn’t interested in.

Whenever you speak with a prospective client or customer for the first time, always establish what’s important to them and what they are looking for. Make that your primary focus. If you get it right, people will never feel like you are selling to them; just like in the example I gave earlier. You will come across as a professional, who is helping them make the best decision possible, based on their needs – not yours!

Photo: Terry Johnston

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