How do your Prospects Feel about Buying from YOU?
Posted by Frank Belzer on Sun, Oct 09, 2011 @ 11:17 PM
If you have not read unthinking by Harry Beckwith yet then I suggest you do. I opened it as my flight from Boston to San Francisco was leaving the gate and I didn’t put it down for the entire flight. The book is about the way people make decisions and of course one of our biggest decisions often has to do with buying something.
Harry weaves a story at the outset related to Kobe Bryant and the way he is perceived by his fellow NBA players – I don’t want to spoil that for you but what I do want to share is what that experience tells us about the brain, we often take short cuts when making decisions. Imagine if as a sales person you were more aware, more in tune and more in sync with any mental short cut your prospect was taking. Don’t you feel that would be extremely valuable to you as a sales person? What about sales managers trying to help their people sell? And if you are a CEO or VP of Sales certainly you would love to know what mental short cuts your people are taking as they consider your vision and initiatives for the company.
The book shares one experience of a company that was trying to make a decision and after considering multiple vendors and options they couldn’t – so what did they do? They visited the choices and everyone was able to make a decision and the same decision. That’s great you think but what is more interesting is what they all said about their decision – “it just felt right!”
It did not come down to price, service, options, name, branding, presentations, materials or technology.
That’s it isn’t it? When people choose to buy from you or use your service they are basically getting to the point where they say it just felt right. Conversely when they decide to go in another direction they are basically saying “you didn’t feel right” or “the other guy felt more right”.
So what does this mean? How can you adjust?
We emphasize the importance of building relationships a lot. I have blogged a lot about what I see that many sales people are missing and how to improve the strength of these relationships. However reading unthinking helped me to appreciate that that is not enough. If we want to really get inside their short cut process we must understand how they feel.
“Mr. Prospect typically at this point you have met with a few providers, discussed a number of options and are trying to rank those options – do you mind me asking you how you feel at this point about the choices you have in front of you?”
We also have to ask more about the competitors – what did you like? How did you feel about? Are you comfortable with?
The goal is obviously to have any potential prospect feel most comfortable with us. To go back to their peers and say “it just feels right”. Most prospects or clients will then fit your offering into their needs. So shoot for improving the way they feel, be more observant of the signs and emotions expressed during your conversations and do not be scared to find out how they feel about you. Can your organization, can you execute that skill effectively?
