The writing of this book has been quite a cathartic experience. As expected it has given me cause to reflect on my own life and all of the mistakes I’ve made, and of course, all of the things that I’ve learned. I hope this book will not only give you ideas on how to improve your business but also reflect on your personal relationships. I was struck by the idea that so many men would be unlikely to pick up a book that might provide some insight to improving their personal relationship but would relish the thought of reading about ways to increase the profits of their business. I feel like I’m sneaking in the back door with this book.
So what is this “Swapping Spit” stuff? While reading a book on psychology and relationships I came across a discussion about the idea of swapping spit. How relationships can become so strong that otherwise disgusting bodily fluids of others suddenly become accepted and in the case of spit, quite sensually stimulating. I know that sounds rather strange put so bluntly and out of context, but what I’m referring to is kissing. Not just a little peck on the cheek but French kissing...sucking face as they say. This is an act that most of us have engaged in and find it extremely stimulating and quite enjoyable.
And what about other body fluids? As a former Emergency Medical Technician I am all too aware of most bodily fluids. Those of us in professions that deal with the sick or injured develop a tolerance for someone else’s bodily fluids but that too is different from the connections between loved ones. As a paid professional I could tolerate most fluids of others simply because it related to someone else’s suffering and my deep desire to help. But even I found certain excrement powerfully offensive in those conditions. Sometime later, while in a loving romantic relationship, my partner over indulged in some alcoholic libations. I ended the evening holding her head in my lap while she expelled the remains of that nights’ dinner in a bowl. What would have caused me to lose my own cookies in the past seemed so natural and inoffensive. My partner even commented a short while later “How can you kiss me after that?” Parents can tolerate a variety of fluids from their offspring, some of which rank up there with some of the most offensive smells known to mankind.
Right about now you are probably asking yourself “what the hell does this have to do with my business?” Relationships have everything to do with your business and with the changes coming in consumer shopping habits and ways of thinking you had better understand this.
Well it was a little experiment that I read about that really got me thinking about the power of relationships. Not just ordinary relationships but the strongest of personal bonds between close individuals and family members. How do we get to this level of bonding and what exactly is going on here. Now if I haven’t grossed you out enough yet let me try here. You may think twice about that kiss after you read this so you may not want to read it. Imagine that you have just had the most wonderful, loving kiss. As the younger generations say, you were sucking face. Now, take a clean empty glass and have your significant other spit in it. Go on, a big wet hock. Now you take the glass and drink it. What’s wrong? You didn’t have any problem with it a minute ago. What is different? I know, it is different and that’s a discussion for another writer to explore. The point is, intimate relationships are a very unique thing with bonds that are almost inexplicable. I need you to keep this in mind as I walk you down the path of success in your business, and who knows, maybe add something to that relationship.
The reality is business is all about relationship building. Whether you are looking for a supplier/distributor, selling goods and/or services, maintaining staff, or marketing your company, the same principles apply. If you have serious long term business development plans you need to treat all aspects of your business like any romantic personal relationship.
I wanted to write a book about my 30 plus years of business development and the many things I’ve learned. I wanted to write a book about the psychology of sales and marketing. What is the potential prospect thinking? What should my marketing look and sound like to be noticed? How do I do a sales presentation so the prospect actually listens? How do I get more benefit from my existing customers?
I wanted to write a book about relationships. What does it take to build a long lasting, romantic, loving personal relationship? Friends have said to me “What the hell do you know about relationships? You’ve been married 3 times and couldn’t make them work!” The point is, if you just blindly go through life making no attempt to understand who you are and why events turn out the way they do the result will be a zero sum game. I’ve spent my entire life critiquing all events to attempt to improve who I am. Not to mention the library of books on psychology, behavioural economics, and neuroscience that I have read over the years.
This book is meant for the entrepreneur that truly believes the business or service they wish to offer is not, could not, and will not be provided as well by any other competitor. Some of these principles may work to a degree by some less than scrupulous business owners but I would like to believe it would be short lived. People can see through the facade of fakery. These rules of business also require more work than most might be willing to invest. At the very least if you are insincere the customer will see through you.
If you feel that your integrity is second to none and you believe that the customer has made a grave mistake by not dealing with you then this book is for you. If you feel like the best kept secret in town you should read on. If you are already in business I hope I can give you some tips on how to improve what you currently do to make the customer feel they would be an absolute fool to want to do business with anyone else.
I want to walk you through the steps to a successful business, from operating it, to marketing and sales, and the correlation between relationships and your success. I can say unequivocally that if you want to grow your business in the future you need to understand how to build relationships with your customers. In the process you may even discover something new about your personal relationship. I know I sure did.
I started my journey of discovery of business in 1975. I founded a driver education business and quickly became the number one player in the region. In the early 80’s I was in the right place at the right time and bought a floundering kitchen design and retail store. After helping to turn it around I sold it and founded a furniture retail business in the early 80’s with my brother. The early 90’s brought my piece de resistance. I founded a financial services company and went on to franchise out a total of 17 locations. The following pages are some thoughts on what I've learned on my journey of life.
In the Beginning…
So what’s in a relationship? How did we evolve to treat this powerful emotion with such importance? How did it become so important to be able to influence our lives in the most distracting ways? Some companies even attempt to give the illusion of really caring and we give a certain amount of weight to them because of it.
I want to start by walking you back through time to where we all began. It’s important to understand how we evolved to the state we are today. It was no accident that we have this drive to connect with others and understanding the genetic basis is key to understanding relationships. We are genetically programmed to respond to others in specific ways and these responses begin at the subconscious, inherent level. The brain stem is the most primitive part of our brain and the primary responder to our emotions.
So where did it all begin? Even before the evolution of a single cell with a membrane and a nucleus with DNA (the Eukaryote), simple organisms responded to positive and negative things in their environment. Instead of DNA, prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria contain genetic information in a circular loop known as a plasmid. Just like the information coded in DNA the plasmid is involved in the life regulation of these simple organisms.
All living organisms have instructions for survival to maintain a perfect PH and nutrient level. This ideal balance for sustaining life is known as homeostasis. Whether in a single cell or a complex multi-cellular organism such as our own, the system works in the same way. We are all driven by a programmed process well below our conscious state to achieve a homeostatic balance.
All of these organisms have the same instructions. Work toward the safe natural balance of life regulation and survive long enough to reproduce. There is an optimal time to reproduce and then the information code begins to break down. This occurs from a couple of processes. One is that every time the organism divides the mutations degrade or change the next generation. The other is the decay and mutations that occur due to the UV rays from the sun and other environmental factors. UV rays from the sun degrade or break down the genetic code. The organism has a mechanism to attempt to rebuild this break down by UV light but each time there are changes that take place that may make significant variations to the original program.
Even in the simplest of these organisms the inherent drive is there to achieve a natural balance. As they evolved and one co-opted the other in a combined force they created a joint survival mechanism. Prokaryotic cells became incorporated into the more advanced eukaryotes to create a more advanced single cell. I made a statement a couple of years ago saying we were the most beautiful host for the survival of bacteria. It is interesting that they were one of the first self sustaining organisms on the planet and now all living creatures are inhabited by thousands of them. It may be a question worth looking at. Did we evolve at the whim of the simple bacteria? Is it possible we evolved to merely as complex hosts to a multitude of these basic organisms? After all if its host does not survive “it” does not survive…and there are thousands of them that have a program for survival! They are part of the original program for the code of survival. It’s just a curious hypothesis and probably a discussion for another book.
To understand the power of microbial organisms we just need to examine the influence of the Rabies virus. This microscopic virus infects the host, a warm blooded animal, and as it multiplies and moves to the central nervous system it takes control. As it multiplies, the host will eventually die so it must ensure it finds another host. It manipulates the brain to create aggressive behaviour. The then delusional host attacks and bites another host, passing the virus on.
As we evolved and advanced from these simple cells we developed a natural process based on the existing programs. The same drive to survive displayed by simple single cells evolved to benefit more complex multi-cellular organisms. It’s a very basic principle but essential for sustaining life. The cooperation of all cells involved was paramount to the survival of the group. Individualism, generally speaking, could be harmful to the greater good. Having a single goal, homeostasis, was the key. This meant that neighboring cells of the organisms had to follow the system in a joint effort of survival. Rouge cells could lead to the destruction of the whole. This is not unlike what cancer cells do.
To extrapolate this concept further we can look at individual creatures and the combined effort to work as a community. The same processes are involved. Whether looking at a school of fish, a pack of wolves, or a group of people. The actions of the entire group are extremely important to their survival as a whole and strategies develop for their protection. In essence it’s a level of group consciousness. The group works to achieve a homeostatic state. This is a ground up inherent process that is just following the basic rules established by the most primitive organisms of early evolution.
Before we had consciousness at the level of an autobiographical self we were actors in a Darwinian play, scripted by evolution. It is not at all an accident that when we became truly conscious of a self, interacted with our environment, and capable of future thinking and planning that we instinctively strove to reach a balance. We weren’t the authors but merely following the evolutionary program. This is the catalyst for the advancement of relationships and relationships are a primary building block for a community. Relationships are necessary to achieve homeostasis of the community and family.
To build your business in a more cost effective way you must begin to understand and build deep and meaningful relationships with your customers. In this world of noise in marketing you need to work smarter. And the noise of marketing is only going to get worse in the coming years. Remember the Dunbar number…150. What if every time you spend money on your marketing it is hitting the 150 friends of an existing customer “directly”? As you work to build on those relationships you will get closer and closer to the other 150. I will address more marketing strategies later but what if you asked each of you customers for a list of 10 of their friends they feel might be interested in your product or service? Of course obtaining consent from these new ten to allow you to market to them is very important.
Relationships…
It’s a bit of a novel idea that if you want to be successful in business you need to understand how to be successful in your personal relationships and vice versa. The fact is your success in business is almost certainly because you understand the importance of successful relationships. And if you are successful in business but struggling to understand your personal relationships, a little self reflection prompted by some of the ideas in this book might help. Everything we do in life involves building relationships. If we want to get along in society we will need to understand how to build relationships.
In 2008 Warren Buffett was crowned the richest man on earth. This is a man that understands relationships. I just finished his biography “The Snowball—Warren Buffett and the Business of Life”, written by Alice Schroeder and there are a couple of quotes from Mr. Buffett that I would like to inject here. One was told to students of Georgia Tech while his wife Susie was recovering from mouth cancer surgery. “The purpose of life is to be loved by as many people as possible among those you want to have love you.” The second was a reflection of his life after his seventy-seventh birthday and is somewhat of an explanation of the title, The Snowball. “The snowball just happens if you’re in the right kind of snow, and that’s what happened with me. I don’t just mean compounding money either. It’s in terms of understanding the world and what kind of friends you accumulate. You get to select over time, and you’ve got to be the kind of person that the snow wants to attach itself to. You’ve got to be your own wet snow, in effect. You’d better be picking up snow as you go along, because you’re not going to be getting back to the top of the hill again. That’s the way life works.”
In the book “The Snowball”, the author references the first meeting of Warren and Microsoft co-founder Bills Gates at Bill’s parents retreat near Puget Sound on the east coast. As the group sat around dinner Mr. Gates Sr. “posed the question to the table: What factor did people feel was the most important in getting to where they’d gotten in life?” Warren and Bill Jr. both responded “Focus”. That is what truly successful people do and it is the same in romantic relationships.
When we build relationships we form bonds, even if only in the slightest way, that helps to connect us all as a unit, a community. This sense of community causes us to think differently about those around us. When we make decisions in our lives we are more likely to keep the thoughts of others in that community in mind. As a member of a community, whether in terms of the local or the broader global community, we are a species that forms opinions, makes buying decisions, or acts in any given way based very much on the responses and actions of others in that community.
One of the most significant problems, and possibly the most serious threat in our community and society at large is the potential for anonymity. As I suggested earlier in this chapter about rouge cells that present a potential threat to an organism such as cancer cells, anonymity can be a serious threat to the overall community. Those around us that may be antisocial or lacking in relationship skills can choose to be anonymous. We have created an environment for them to exist and survive. They can exist with no connection to the community and be virtually invisible. They can be left unaccountable. This is so serious because if an individual feels disconnected from the community they are not likely to feel any concern for others in that community. If I don’t know you, or worse still don’t want to get to know you I can objectify you. If I can objectify you it changes the dynamic of how I will treat you. If it is true that we are becoming more narcissistic and you are nothing more than just another object, I am not likely to care about your wellbeing.
The relationships that develop in communities act as a defense mechanism or protection for the group. To use a metaphor it can be seen as a protective shield with multiple eyes looking out for the safely of all. Anonymity is like a chink in the armor of a community, allowing the individual cancer to grow unchecked. As more and more individuals go unchecked the threat to the group becomes even more dangerous. They may feel no responsibility to the community as a whole and create fear in the masses. It has always intrigued me that less than one percent of our population are criminals or bad eggs so why is it that the other ninety nine percent of us may live to some degree in fear of them.
Buy-ologist...Not Salesperson
I have grown to really dislike the term "Salesperson"! If you are what people have traditionally identified as a great salesperson you are likely selling people something they didn't really want or need. My guess is your customers are more likely to suffer from buyers’ remorse than normal.
Being in business is about meeting the wants or needs of your prospect/shopper. Your job as a business owner is to identify how your product or service meets the specific wants and/or needs of your market. When you have identified your place in the market you need to understand how to act like a buy-ologist. You and your staff must focus on understanding each prospects wants and/or needs and simply assist them in their "buying" decision.
Transactions in your business!
I have often thought how is it that any transaction takes place in business? Unless you are the only show in town and the customer has no other choice but to buy from you, most consumer transactions take place because they felt confident enough in you and your business to give you their hard earned money. It may have been that you were the least of all evils in that market but there was possibly some connection between you and the customer. What did it cost you to get that one prospect in the door? Through conventional marketing it likely cost you in the neighborhood of $500. There is a better way.
The most cost effective way to grow your business is through referrals, or as I am more inclined to say “re-friendals”. Re-friendals from who you might ask. Why not from the last customer that gave you their hard earned money for your product or service? That’s a novel idea! How much would that cost? Let me tell you, the financial cost will be substantially less than your current marketing strategy to attract new customers to your business but the personal effort on your part will be substantially greater.
Let’s assume you are a great communicator and have given the most compelling reason to the prospect that they would be best served to do business with you. That’s a good start but do you understand where the actual sale/relationship begins? They thought you were absolutely wonderful when they made the final decision to give you their money. They said YES to your proposal. I bet you didn’t think you were proposing did you? The real trick to building a lasting relationship is “after” they say YES to the deal. Now what are you going to do for them?
Just like in your personal relationship, if you propose and think, OK that was easy, now I can just sit back and do my own thing and live happily ever after. Woe bucko, it’s not that simple. There are two people in the word “couple” and you need to keep that significant other in mind at all times. It’s not just about YOU. Just as in business, YOU will not survive long if you see the entire process as just one transaction after another, meant to satisfy only YOU. That’s a very one sided relationship and it is destined to fail.
So you get the customers money and deliver the goods. They should be happy right. The “transaction” took place as you had agreed, end of story. If you are into one night stands then what just happened is wham, bam, thank-you mam…next! Wasn’t that satisfying? If it was just a transaction, and that’s all the consumer expected, then your one night stand is complete and you each go your own way. If the customer needs another “transaction” at some time in the future and you were not too offensive then you might get lucky again. But if you’re looking for something a little more satisfying and less expensive why not try working on the relationships you have with your current customers?
What's in a relationship?
There is a concept in cognitive psychology called the “channel capacity”, which is the amount of space in our brain for certain kinds of information. Various tests and studies have revealed this number to be 7. The prefrontal cortex (PFC)--a part of your brain above your eyes and directly behind your forehead--is like the RAM memory of your computer and is where we handle short term memory. It is also the command and control center of the brain responsible for rational thought. The PFC has the function of holding our "to-do" list each day, information that we don't need to keep in our stored memory. When we need to take the car in for service, pick up a loaf of bread, take the kids to music lessons, etc. Once the task is complete we can forget it. When we walk into a room to get something and then forget what it was we went there for--your PFC is to blame. It seems the PFC has a very specific limited capacity for quantity and seven is the approximate number. This is why there are 7 digits to your phone number. We can remember a 7 digit number long enough to dial it but if we intend to keep this number we need to consciously store it in our long term memory. The psychologist, George Miller concluded in his famous essay, “The Magical Number Seven”.
Studies have shown that when it comes to our close personal friends, say those whose death would leave you devastated the number would be around 12. Psychologists have found that we seem to have a capacity of between 10 and 15 close relationships that we are capable of handling at any time.
The British anthropologist Robin Dunbar has studied what might be called our “social channel capacity”. Dunbar uses a formula based on the relationship between the size of the neocortex and the size of the brain. The resulting number he suggests is the maximum group size with whom we, as humans, could have genuine social relations with. Through various studies and observation he has come up with the number 150. Now think about that number…“One hundred and fifty!” That is the potential number of new prospects available to you through the network of “ONE” of your existing customers. I will address some more current thoughts on this number later in the book when I look at author Don Tapscott’s findings in his book “Grown up Digital”.
If you hope to build a strong, long lasting business there are some things you can learn from the building of a long lasting personal relationship. Rather than a “one night stand” think of it as “romance”. A good place to begin is to look at what psychologist John M. Gottman calls “bidding” in his book “The Relationship Cure”. To “bid” is to make “an attempt”. Dr. Gottman writes that in all relationships, whether between friends, co-workers, family or loved ones, there is a bidding process that goes on that builds the connection between individuals. I suggest this applies equally in the relationship you need to build with your customer but it must be sincere. “A bid can be a question, a gesture, a look, a touch…any single expression that says, “”I want to feel connected to you.””
“Relationships don’t suddenly appear in our lives fully formed. Rather they develop one encounter at a time.” The first thing you need to understand is what a bid looks like and then you must encourage or nurture it.
To start with it’s important to keep in mind a quote from John Dewey. Dale Carnegie refers to it in his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Mr. Carnegie quotes Dewey as saying “the deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.” Everybody has this innate need to feel important. Their bidding process of a prospect may be subtle, but if you are aware the desire exists then you can train yourself to respond appropriately.
As Dr. Gottman writes there are three responses we make to bids. Turning toward, turning against, and turning away. Turning toward can be as simple as reacting “in a positive way to another’s bids for emotional connection.” That could just mean laughing at someone’s joke, making a positive comment or just facing that person and listening…sincerely. Dale Carnegies’ “Principle 2” is “Give honest and sincere appreciation”.
Turning against may involve sarcastic or snide comments to another’s bids. There is an example that comes to mind on a personal level. It was a beautiful summer weekend and we had a few friends visiting us at our cottage. The cottage sits about 40 feet up a steep hill, surrounded by giant pine trees. While sitting on the wrap-around deck you have the feeling of being in a tree house. One of the ladies was explaining the differences between white and black pine trees and her husband looked over at her and says “Who the f… are you, Yule Gibbons?” In all fairness to the husband I need to put this in perspective. He was known as an amateur comedian and we all did have a good laugh, albeit at the expense of his wife in hindsight. Needless to say that couple is not together today. For those of you that may be from a later generation and don’t recognize the name, Mr. Gibbons was a bark eating naturist from the 70’s that did Grape Nut commercials. The headlines of his death said he “died of natural causes.” How ironic is that?
The third response is to turn away. This is a classic TV scene of the husband ignoring his wife while sitting reading his paper or otherwise “acting preoccupied.” He may be watching a game on the tube and she is in another room calling to him, while he experiences selective hearing. I’m a people watcher and see this all the time. I don’t mean to pick on men, women are also known to respond the same way.
Dr. Gottman suggests that we can actually build a “bid bank”. If you make a habit of “responding respectfully and lovingly to one another’s bids” you can “form a pot of emotional money in the bank.”
First impressions…
First impressions are formed very quickly, most of the time in the blink of an eye, and can have lasting consequences. Here is a little on how first impressions are generated in the brain. The subconscious mind through your five senses has the ability to process up to 11,000,000 bits of information per second. That’s right, eleven MILLION bits of information per second! In contrast, the conscious part of your thoroughly fascinating brain can only process a meager 40 bits of information per second. The thing is the subconscious mind is the adviser to the conscious mind. All of these bits of information being collected by your mind that you may, or should I say are not likely to be aware of, are being stored and used in a feed-back mechanism when you need to consciously think about what you should do.
With all this information being absorbed by the sub-conscious brain we need to be aware that the brain also hates ambiguity. In fact when confronted with ambiguity it is a master at making things up. If the brain encounters anything that doesn’t make sense it turns out that it is a very crafty spin doctor and will make something fit into what it already feels is a given. To begin to understand this you need to take the “blind spot” test. The eyes it turns out have a blank spot, or sort of black hole in our vision. At the point in the back of the eye where the optic nerve gathers all the information from the receptors and exits with it bits of information there are actually NO visual receptors. So why is it that we don’t see a “blank” spot in everything we look at? There is a simple test you can do to prove how creative the brain is when faced with an ambiguous situation. To see how creative the brain can be copy the link below and take the test at this web site.
http://www.frontsteps.com/games/blind_spot_test/
There are two ways to look at ambiguity, in a negative light or to your advantage, in a positive light. If you are unaware of this human condition it can cost you if it is a negative interpretation by the individual attempting to resolve the ambiguous situation. To demonstrate this you should know about a 2002 Web-based experiment to determine the world’s funniest joke. The one voted the funniest involved a situation with two hunters out in the woods when one of them suddenly collapses and stops breathing. The other hunter calls an emergency number on his cell phone and cries, “My friend is dead! What should I do?” The operator says, “Calm down; I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is silence, then a gunshot, and the hunter says, “OK, now what?” There was a slight misunderstanding of the ambiguous phrase “make sure”.
So what is happening here? We need to look at why this process evolved in the brain. As primitive creatures we needed the ability to make quick decisions about whether that big hairy beast with massive teeth designed to crush bone and tear off chunks of meat was a threat to us. If we left it to our conscious mind and its’ measly 40 bits of information processing ability, by the time we consciously evaluated the beast and give it any thought as to the danger to us, we would be the main course at our last dinner engagement. The eminent psychologist Dr. Daniel Gilbert wrote in his book, “Stumbling on Happiness” described it this way. As a means of survival as a “terrestrial” being, “evolution took no chances and designed the brain to answer the “”What should I do?”” question before the “”What is it?”” question. Experiments have demonstrated that the moment we encounter an object, our brains instantly analyze just a few of its key features and then use the presence or absence of these features to make one very fast and very simple decision. Is this object an important thing to which I ought to respond right now or not? That explains why we are here today as a species and not listed as the poor extinct species that spent too much time thinking and not enough time running.
So you might think, “If they get the first impression of me wrong I will just spend a little more time setting the record straight.” Before you think this is an easy task you need to understand a little more about how the brain processes this information or first impression.
To quote Dr. Daniel Gilbert again…”Most of us will pay a premium today for the opportunity to change our minds tomorrow.” Our brains find it difficult to disbelieve and information being gathered is first considered to be truth. It’s our inherently optimistic brain. When our subconscious brain encounters new information, for efficiency purposes it needs to quickly compare it to existing knowledge. It scans the most basic bits of this new information for a comparison. If some little bit fits the current preexisting knowledge registered in your brain, such as “I met someone with that particular look before and they stole my purse”, or “That smell reminds me of the terrible experience we had at that sleazy hotel”, then we may form a very rapid negative first impression. As part of our basic survival mechanism our brains will at the very least present us with a negative gut feeling and we are likely to be completely unaware of why.
I encountered a perfect example of this brain function in action in May of 2011. I walked into a business that sold a competitor’s product with the intent of convincing them to carry ours. I was aware that a previous representative from our company had courted them the year before but with no success of getting their business. You need to understand that the previous representative of our company is recognized as one of the most sincere, honest and likeable guys by everyone that knows him. After several minutes of conversation with the couple that own the business I had walked into, the gentleman’s wife said there was something about our previous representative that she just didn’t like but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She went on to say that had she met me first they would have been more likely to consider a new business arrangement. As you can imagine I was flabbergasted at her remarks since I know the rep to be so real and sincere. There was obviously some first impression that connected with some previous knowledge or experience this woman has had and the results were lasting and costly (to our company).
Our brains are wired with a “reality first policy” that takes into account the immediate, things we see and feel around us, first. This has the result of limiting our future thinking and how we might imagine something at a later time. It may also influence how we actually feel in the present depending on those current conditions. Dr. Gilbert has a great comic strip of a fish asking a sponge, without limits, and the entire universe of possibilities open to it, what would it choose to be? The sponge responds “I guess I’d have to go with a barnacle”. In the words of Dr. Gilbert: “Each of us is trapped in a place, a time, and a circumstance and our attempts to use our minds to transcend those boundaries is, more often than not, ineffective. Like the sponge, we think we are thinking outside the box only because we can’t see how big the box really is. Imagination cannot easily transcend the boundaries of the present, and one reason for this is that it must borrow the machinery that is owned by perception.”
Perception is the compilation of the brains experiences but because how we think we will feel about something, and what we are actually experiencing in the moment, use the same areas of the brain, the “reality first policy” gets the preferred treatment. In other words we are limited by the here and now. The immediate world, effects of information being fed through our 5 senses, will influence our decisions. When you consider that our five senses, active in the here and now, have the capacity to process over 11,000,000 bits of information per second, you have the ability to influence the customer while “inside the box” of your business environment. I will explain this in detail in a future chapter but suffice to say, you have some control over the future thinking of the customer using the right current environment.
Our brains are making comparisons with things around us when thinking of how much we will like something in the future. When a bag of potato chips is sitting beside a chocolate bar versus a can of sardines, we think we will enjoy the chips less if we see the can of sardines and more if we just see the chocolate bar beside the chips.
Let me give you an example of how a creature in the bird kingdom views the idea of first impressions:
The Bowerbirds are among the most fascinating in the world. Some are spectacular, such as the male Regent Bowerbird of eastern Australia whose colors are shocking in the deep wet forest. Others are very drab, like the Vogelkop Bowerbird (male, below, at his bower, arranging a man-made item).
It is these drab appearing males that build and decorate the most spectacular pieces of architecture in the avian world. Vogelkop Bowerbird, isolated in the Arfak Mountains on the Vogelkop Peninsula of western New Guinea, is the world’s greatest bower-builder. Just look at the size of this “maypole” structure (below), compared to the size of the bird (he’s in the lower right; he is actually the size of a medium-sized thrush).
Male Vogelkop Bowerbirds spend 9-10 months each year working on his bower in an attempt to attract females to mate. This one (above) has decorated his bower with green moss, red berries, silver snail shells, and in this case, a bit of decorative film casing and some batteries accidentally dropped by a National Geographic film team!
Coates, B.J. 1990. The Birds of Papua New Guinea. Part II. Dove Publ., Ltd., Alderley, Australia.
Now that’s creativity and persistence. We could all take a lesson from this little creature. I could go on to give you dozens if not hundreds of examples such as this from nature. It’s all about first impressions, and as the saying goes, “there is only one first”. Everything else is secondary. To paraphrase Tiger Woods, there is only one winner, second place is just first loser. And love him or hate him, he knows about winning.
Do you put that much effort in seeking Mr/Ms right? Are you trying that hard to find a customer? Remember the Bowerbird…presentation is everything. Ok, so it isn’t exactly “everything” but it’s an important start. Your appearance, or “outside perception”, creates that first impression that can make or break your chances of getting to communicate the “inside reality” of who you are. If you look like a slob what do you think the perception is of your inside reality?
Business Development…
Do you feel it is an accomplishment of yours to get a new client or is it an accomplishment of the client to have the opportunity to deal with you? In most cases its’ an accomplishment the client even found you. From what I see of most marketing these days you should consider yourself lucky to be found. Are you a salesperson or a consultant? How about a “buy-ologist”!
The Inside Out of Your Business.
Inside Reality…
So what is your “inside reality”? Well, it’s everything that makes up who you are. As a person that is made up of all of your life experience. It’s the way you communicate, your beliefs, your ethics, your wants and desires, family values, the people you surround yourself with, etc. In business it’s the way you communicate, your ethics, your systems, your staff, the products and services, and the customer network you may have already built.
What is your “outside perception”? That’s how the world perceives you. All of those people that don’t yet know you, begin to piece together thoughts of what you are all about based on the information available to them. If it’s you as a person the pieces begin to come together from your personal appearance, how you dress and groom yourself, the way you carry yourself, the condition of the vehicle you drive, the places you frequent, the people you socialize with, organizations you belong to and what others say about you. In business it’s the advertising pieces you put out there, the language or content in those pieces, and the name you use for your business. If you have a physical premises it starts with the parking lot (is it clean), the signage, appearance of the building. If you have vehicles with you business name on them are they well maintained and clean? Are the drivers always courteous? And just like the personal you, it also involves what others say about you. Remember if they aren’t a personal friend or already doing business with you this is the only way they will able to make a decision about why they should do business with you or your competitor in the future.
You could have the best run business, or be the best catch from the huge pool of singles in the country, but if you don’t understand how to communicate your inside reality to the outside world you will be the best kept secret in town.
Before we look at the media we need to establish what the message should be. The message must be relevant to your prospect. This requires you to think about not what you are saying but what the prospect is hearing. At a time when there are so many options, so many choices for the prospect to choose from you need to understand and think about how to address their needs and concerns. Does the fact that you are a family run business, have the largest showroom, or been around since the beginning of time mean that I’m not going to get screwed if I deal with you. Remember, they don’t know you but they do know that some business owners are less that reputable.
It’s December 12, 2008 and I’m sitting in a hotel in Omaha, Nebraska. I spent the day yesterday driving from St. Louis, Missouri listening to the various programs on National Public Radio (NPR). During the drive the NPR program “Day to Day” came on and was talking about how the cutbacks had resulted in the eventual termination of this show and elimination of 7% of NPR staff. While driving up I-29 north of Kansas City the NPR program Talk of the Nation discussed a topic “Where will you get your news in 2012?” We are in the middle of some significant changes in how we get our information which in turn influences how you will market our products and services. One of the major topics of discussion was the challenges faced by newspapers to attract enough advertising dollars to enable them to survive. An estimated 40% of their costs come from putting out the paper which generates about 90% of their income. With the advent of the internet more and more people are getting their news from these digital sources. The various media are forced to maintain web sites that provide information and news for free and haven’t yet been able to generate sufficient revenue from these sites to replace what is being lost with the lack of paper sales. A number of major papers are now facing bankruptcy due to the loss of businesses spending their advertising dollars on these traditional sources. It’s not just the newspapers. Most media are experiencing similar problems due to the change in how consumers get their information. NPR does not depend on advertising dollars to put programming on the air but it does require private donations from its listeners.
To begin marketing your business you need to establish who or what your target market is. This will determine which types of media you should invest in. Too many businesses dismiss or ignore certain media with claims that it doesn’t work or is too expensive. It’s important to make sure when using any media to get the message right. This is one of the biggest mistakes people make when choosing or avoiding various media. They may have tried a given media only to have experienced no or limited success. Rather than examining the message used they blame the media.
So who is your prospective customer and where is it that your message is likely to be noticed by them? If it’s a product or service that appeals to the masses, people of all incomes and interests, then look at places and media that could best get their attention. If this is your business you have the widest variety of venues to choose. Fairs, home shows or any place large groups of people are likely to gather. Bus signs, radio, newsprint, TV, web sites, and billboards are also options to consider but with each of these require careful examination of the message and delivery.
To examine a few of these there are some basic rules. If you choose bus advertising there are three positions, inside, outside (side), and outside (back).
If it’s an older group (in general terms those older than boomers) then you might still find the Yellow pages of phone books useful. These are becoming less and less effective with the increased use of the internet.
While reading the biography of Warren Buffet I was first struck by the idea that this is a man of extreme personal integrity…someone very driven to do the right thing while handling other people’s money. As I read further I was also struck by what an extreme control freak this man is. It’s a questionable balance of integrity and his need to control people and things around him. I would suggest his integrity may be compromised now and then. If he appears altruistic it is offset by his underlying intent to ultimately gain from those actions.
Conventional Advertising...
Advertising should be considered as part of the courtship of a relationship. You need to keep your message out there about how great you are and what a sensational couple you would make. You will be the ultimate provider (of the product or service the prospective partner is seeking) and you are the best suitor. Like a peacock strutting your stuff, you need to make a show.
The word “marketing” is such an all encompassing term. When you understand who could use your product or service…your market…you need to decide how to best present yourself to that “market”. This encompasses everything that is designed to tell your market who you are. All signs, flyers, web sites, radio, TV, all forms of print media, word of mouth, and your sales people are the advertising.
Many people treat Sales and Advertising as two separate parts of your business but I would argue they are one and the same. When you have a disconnect of the two concepts you may be missing out on more effective use of certain media. As you analyze the closing ratio of your sales staff so should you analyze the potential closing ratio of the rest of your advertising. Is the message being communicated by you salespeople the same as the rest of your advertising?
What are you doing when you give a sales presentation in person to your prospect? You should be overcoming objections they may have and building a relationship. Helping them to understand why they need you and why they would be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else. That’s what you do in a “sales presentation”. The old way of looking at advertising is to simply try to get the attention of the prospect using sex, or animals, or celebrities, or babies…and then some hook. You offer them something with a time limiting offer that they can never get again…Bull Shit!!! Everyone…EVERYONE is doing this. What makes you unique? How can the prospect identify you out of the swamp, no, the cesspool of marketing bombarding them every minute of every day?
The Buying Spectrum…
The buying spectrum is a scale that captures where the prospect is in there process of choosing what product or service to purchase and who to eventually deal with. Who will be their lucky new partner? Very few products or services are purchased without considerable thought unless you have had a sudden mishap or emergency and something needs to be attended to immediately.
This approach to marketing also limits the number of prospects that, should they even see this crap, are likely to respond. The hook or special offer is only of interest to the few people in the buying spectrum that are actually ready to buy right now. This represents no more than 5% of all of the potential prospects that may be thinking about your product or service at any given time.
If you are trying to attract a significant other into your world are you going to look at what all the other eligible singles are doing and copy them? Web site dating is the equivalent to the standard brand builder marketing. You present your image, point out your special features, hope that you are photogenic and appealing to the potential mate, and then hope he or she reads on or better yet takes some action. If you had a chance to meet face to face with this individual would you be any different? Would you do and say something that is not in your profile? I would hope so.
These so-called experts in marketing would tell you that your advertising needs to be kept simple with not too much verbiage because nobody will read it. I challenge them and suggest that if what you have to say is relevant to your audience they will read anything and everything you have to say. In this day and age the consumer is trying to filter through all of the crap and decide who is worth taking the next step with. You need to be seen as relevant to their needs before they are willing to endure the dreaded salesperson.
So how do I distinguish myself from my fellow suitors? Am I being lost in a crowd of competitors? If you are searching for the Queen (or King…hey I’m writing this as a heterosexual guy) of the Ball to be your date, what are you doing that’s different from all the others with the same date in mind?
The first easy litmus test is to examine the advertising done by your competition. This is assuming you have competition. In this day and age, chances are your market is so flooded with competition and your friends are thinking you’ve lost your mind to even consider entering the market to start your own business. Going into most businesses is like running a marathon but at any point, competition can jump into the race with fresh legs and challenge you. You might say “Why should I care about what my competitions advertising looks like? I’m so much different and better. If you take a close look at my business, who I am and how I look after my customer you would know.” Remember, the prospect doesn’t know you and how much better or different you are because you haven’t told them.
Take a close look at their advertising. I’ve done this for years and I can tell you, you will be shocked at what you see! In the overwhelming majority of cases you will see...THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME! They could be the worst run company that is totally unethical. I have personally worked in one of the sleaziest business I know. It is totally unregulated and the consumer should be concerned. It is rife with unethical retailers and manufacturers. The president of one of the largest companies invited me to see their new product. I asked him why they were doing what they did to their product and he said it was what the customer wanted. I suggested that the customer didn’t know what they wanted and needed to be educated. He just said he had to answer to shareholders.
They are all using the same platitudes and saying virtually the same thing. “Been in business since the 1000 BC”, “Largest Selection”, “Family Owned and Operated”, “Highest Quality”…the list goes on. Let’s assume you need a lawyer. Now there’s a quest. With all that you have heard about lawyers and the scary thoughts of selecting a one, what should you be asking yourself? Look in the Yellow Pages for a Lawyer. See if you could tell which firm to choose to handle your affairs. This is one of the worst categories of business famous for poor advertising. OK, I can’t resist a lawyer joke here. “Why did the shark not bite the lawyer? Professional courtesy.”
Seriously though…how can your potential mate distinguish you from all the other sharks out there? You need to stand out in the crowd. You need to be noticed if you are hoping to win the heart of the one of your dreams. If not, you will end up simply getting your small piece of the consumer pie. Assuming that you are in good economic times, you look like everyone else, and there are 9 other competitors, you will be dividing the pie 10 ways. As another marketing expert once said “Even a dead fish can float down stream.”
How can I say that attracting, selling to, and maintaining a customer for my business is anything like the relationship I am having or would like to have with a significant other? The first thing you need to do is to think of yourself as a customer looking for a product or service, and not the owner of the business. What would it take to get your attention? What would it take for you to part with your hard earned money? What would be necessary for that business provider to do to ensure you return as a repeat customer? This is the biggest question. How would you have to feel about that business to risk referring your closest friends to do business there as well? This means allowing someone inside your closely held network of friends. What if you do refer a friend to a particular business and he or she has a bad experience. Will this reflect on you? You could risk losing a good friend over this.
What would it take to get your attention? This part of the process could be viewed as not terribly important (by relationship standards) if your product or service will be a one-time investment by the prospect and you are of the mindset that there is a sucker born every minute. Chances are pretty good that you’re not in much of a relationship either. These people do still exist! I know a fellow that had done business that way for several years. He was buying reconditioned product by the truck load, and selling it as new. When the customer calls with problems he just ignores them. I predicted he would eventually run out of “suckers” and the last I heard he was out of business. What I didn’t predict was that the failure of his marriage to his beautiful wife would precede the demise of his business.
There are some basic thoughts in marketing circles about how to get your attention. The most common philosophy taught by most schools is the “Brand Builder” approach. This evolved in the sixties and early seventies when national advertising campaigns were used on TV. There were only a few channels and relatively few companies with a national market. It was comparatively cheap to get your message out to a captive audience, fascinated with this new technology. This was the time of the slogan. “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz”, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”, “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”…etc.
Marketing schools looked at how these big corporations were successful and said “Hey look…if you put together a cute message, put it out there a gazillion times and spend millions of dollars you will make all the money.” This is still being taught by schools to this day. There is still something to be said for this approach but most of us can’t afford to spend the money required using the “Brand Builder” method. Even if you could spend that kind of money I would argue there is a more efficient way.
Think for a moment about looking for a mate, that special someone, to spend the rest of your life with. How would you go about getting that persons attention? How much effort would you put into that process? How about that example from nature?
The message not the media…
When it comes to your advertising it’s the message you need to focus on not the media. The various media have their plusses and minuses and may even be excluded from your campaign based on your target market. I have seen far too many companies claim a particular media doesn’t work for them. They didn’t realize it was probably because they were using the wrong message.
You first need to make the message relevant to the market you want to target. In many cases you may need to make a few adjustments to how you operate your business prior to getting the message right. When you evaluate your competitors’ habits and style you may see some things that need to be improved. You want the present yourself in a way that makes your prospect feel they would be an absolute fool to deal with anyone else. In most cases if you are seriously concerned about being the best product or service provider in your industry it will only take some small tweaking to make you the premier provider in your market.
Don’t be afraid to expose your particular industry. Look at the business practices of the industry you are in. The easiest initial criterion is to ask yourself what fears or apprehensions the prospective client might have about your industry. What is holding them back from making the decision to spend their hard earned dollars? Let me just pick a company or two to examine what I am talking about.
You are in need of having the roof of your house re-shingled. I don’t mean to pick on the roofing industry but it is quite open to some questionable practices just based on the fact that anyone can buy a hammer and hang their “shingle” (sorry for the pun again) that identifies them as a roofer. You have no doubt heard any number of nightmare stories from friends or relatives about the things that have gone wrong. What if someone were advertising their roofing company with a money back guarantee of service and offering you the opportunity to contact any number of their past customers for a referral. They are even willing to let you go as far back in the list to the first few jobs they did. Do you think that could put your fears to rest? I think so.
So as not to be seen to be just picking on roofers let me pick another business I am very familiar with. Have you ever considered buying a hot tub? Do you know much about how hot tubs are built? Even if you have done your home work as most people have it is still a challenge to understand how these products should be built. It’s also important to know this is not a cash and carry product. Even the best of them may require the local support of knowledgeable service people. Most buyers are concerned about the cost of operation and the initial cost based on their budget. Prospective buyers have heard that some people are paying 50 or 100 dollars a month for energy costs and servicing the tub was so costly that some people were willing to give the tub away. Was that not a huge waste of their initial budget? What if some retailer was showing the exact cost of monthly operation and offering a real guarantee with no fine print? Someone that will be there every day to answer questions, do computerized water testing any time you come in. Would that help to ease your fears of making the purchase?
Now that you have identified and made the changes to your business you need to work on the creative language to get the best message out there. This is one of the most difficult parts. I don’t know too many business owners with the necessary creative writing skills to get it right and it is paramount to get it right. When you use conventional marketing and advertising you can’t afford to get it wrong because it costs too much. This is why this book will focus more on a better way to generate new business through investing in your existing customers. So when you are ready to spend your hard earned money on the message you want to send to your prospects it might be time to look at hiring a professional to get the language just right.
There are four key steps to developing an advertising and sales strategy. I include sales in this because they must be treated equally. The message and approach involve the same formula. Some might think developing the best advertising and sales training (buy-ology training) system is an art. You can get creative with the details in the formula but the strategy needs to follow the four key steps. It’s really a science when you understand how our brain functions. These four steps are: interrupt, engage, educate, and offer. This works whether in written advertising or verbal buy-ology presentation. They are no different and must be consistent to be seen as real by the prospect. In fact they have a compounding effect on our brain when the ads that brought them in are presented verbatim by the buy-ologist. Let me explain how they work.
Marketing schools have long taught a method of interruption. They used to recommend the use of sexual images or language in areas of advertising the reader or viewer would least expect it. This lead to the claims the “sex sells”. Sex doesn’t sell anything…it interrupts. When marketers using this technique and have your attention, they present the product or service they are advertising and hope you buy.
I need to take a moment to explain more of the science of what this process is all about. Our brain is a very efficient organ. It has to be because of the multitude of operations it is responsible for carrying out. Even considering the efficient operation it still uses about 25% of the energy we consume. To keep things simple it has developed an automated system for us to operate and navigate our life without intense attention paid to everything we do. As an example you could think about some time that you drove to work and have little or no recollection of the drive. You don’t need to be paying strict attention just like you don’t need to think about every step you take. It’s a learned behaviour and your brain should be wasting energy consciously thinking of every movement. Now think about driving to work in dense fog. Do you remember the energy and intense sensation and what that took out of you? Could you imagine if you functioned like that through every waking hour of life?
The reality is we operate on autopilot or cruise control most of our life. We aren’t paying intense, focused attention on much until we need to and there is a part of your brain that takes responsibility for getting your attention when needed. The scientific term for this part of your brain is the Anterior Cingulate Cortex or ACC. In laymen’s terms it’s referred to as the “oh shit” center. It’s triggered by things around you that may be unusual, familiar, or problematic. When it encounters something that fits these criteria it says “hey you, you need to pay attention!” Marketers understood this process long ago (I don’t know that they fully understood the science of what was happening in the brain but they understood something changes and people responded) and began implementing it in all sorts of unusual circumstances. They also understood the same concept worked to a degree by using familiar people such as celebrities. I believe the origin of this was to use celebrities as endorsement (social proof) suggesting these people used or bought a product or service so you should too. It is now understood that the simple display of a celebrity image wakes up the brain by stimulating the ACC.
Sex and celebrities are still used today (although using sex is now frowned upon as not politically or socially correct) but they fall short of doing the job any more. They do interrupt but if that’s all they do your brain will quickly go back on autopilot and their message is lost. This is why the next step is crucial in maintaining the attention of their brain. Once you get their attention you need to engage them with something relevant. Based on the product or service you provide, you need to identify that you know some concerns or issues they might have about spending their money. This engages them to help them understand you know what they are feeling about the product or service.
Now you need to jump right in with both feet here and provide them with more education and information than they ever imagined. You have their attention so use it while their brain is still in this alert mode. If this is a buy-ology presentation you must be continually involving them in the discussion and be listening for all of the cues they will display on whether it’s too much information, it doesn’t quite meet their needs, it’s too expensive, etc. This is where most will fall short and the consumers’ attention will quickly be lost if you and/or your offering is not real.
The last and in my opinion possibly the least important is the offer. To create an urgency to buy you may need to use an extra special offer but I’m not always a fan of that. Set your everyday prices based on real and solid value. It’s more important to create a fair market price for what you offer and educate the prospect on why the price is the price. If you are priced fairly for what you offer the consumer will buy. Meet their wants and needs better than you competition and they will flock to you. And when they do you need to be ready to work on a referral system, or as I have chosen to call it your “re-friendal” system.
Social Proof in your advertising….
We are all making decisions on what to spend our money on in part based upon what we see and hear others are doing. We are reluctant to be the first to buy most things. We don’t generally want that new model of vehicle or innovation unless it comes with some proven success of operation. In social psychology this is referred to as social proof. Your advertising must identify that others are using your product or service. Provide explicit proof that you have sold to your prospects friends and relatives. As MacDonald’s have done for years, tell everyone how many you have sold. That’s social proof.
The restaurant business is a good example of why social proof is so necessary. I see so many ads or commercials of restaurants that don’t show people. They may show the inside of their business so pristine and clean that it looks down right clinical. It’s nice to know they care about being clean since food preparation is taking place there but my brain wants to know if anybody eats or has fun there. In Canada the chain known as The Keg have been doing it right for years, showing a full restaurant and bar area with lots of food and people having fun. They are by my standards at best a mediocre restaurant with over price steak but they are a very successful chain and it’s primarily due to their great marketing. Another chain out of western Canada has copied the same format to the point that I need to watch the commercial to the end to see which chain it is.
If you can build strong relationships with your existing customers involve them in your ads and commercials. This is a delicate situation due to an issue that has been studied in behavioural economics known as economic norms. When you include the exchange of money it can change the way relationships are perceived by our brains. We subdivide our relationships into two groups, social norms and market norms. I will discuss this in the coming chapter.
If your advertising worked!
Now let’s take a step back to examine the first impressions formed by your next potential customer. To be in business and achieve any degree of continued success you must always keep trying to remember what it’s like to be a new customer of your business. That’s one of the most difficult challenges as a business owner…trying to remember how that customer must feel. The problem most business owners must overcome is unknowing what they already know. As time and experience pass that initial feeling of being in business fades. We quickly forget the excitement and enthusiasm we felt as new owners and quite frankly that’s a significant reason your first customers decided to buy your product or service. Excitement and enthusiasm are contagious. That contagion also has a neuroscientific basis related to what are known mirror neurons. It seems that our brains anticipate and try to predict what is happening or will happen while we are engaged in the world. When you see something happen to someone else, the area in your brain that would be activated, had the incident actually happened to you, become active, even though you are just a passive observer. I can’t stress this point enough. One of the simplest things you can do as an owner, manager, or salesperson (As I have said earlier I prefer the term “buy-ologist” not salesperson and will interchange the terms at the appropriate times) is get excited and be enthusiastic. IT WORKS!
So let’s take a look at the thoughts and feelings of the next potential new customer coming in to your business. Let’s assume you have a bricks and mortar business, a physical location your prospect walks up or drives up to. It’s important to understand that even if you are the owner you are lumped in with their feelings of how a “salesperson” is represented in their brain. You may be given special status by their brain because you own the place but you represent part of the selling team. They have been shopping around and they know (or think they know) exactly what you are going to do and say. They may have even sat in the car and discussed the anticipated shopping experience with their significant other. You are going to try and sell them something that they don’t want and charge them more than they want to pay. Sound familiar. Have you had that same experience while out shopping yourself? I know I have.
If they are your typical prospect they are getting ready for the experience by putting up a bullet proof barrier. They may even have some kryptonite just in case you are one of those “super” salespeople (in this case the word salesperson applies not buy-ologist). They have protected themselves with such a powerful shield that the first words out of their mouth will be “Just looking thanks!” They might be just looking but they are also hearing, feeling, smelling and yes tasting your environment. All of those eleven million bits of information are streaming in before they even enter your location.
First impressions for them begin from the moment they drive up to the building. You could even say they go back even further to a time they might have encountered your advertising. So the sight and smell of the outside of your establishment hasn’t put them off and they decide to make the dreaded leap of faith and walk through the front door. What are the first sights, sounds and smells that greet them as they enter? Let’s assume this prospect knows nothing about you. They don’t know you or your staff. They have no idea how long you have been in business (not that it matters since you might have many years of ripping people off). In a scenario such as this you need to remember they will likely be very defensive and looking for some sense that it’s safe to do business with you.
Here is a good comparative scenario. Imagine driving into the parking lot of a restaurant in a new town and there are no cars around. What is your first thought? Exactly…does anyone eat here? Why are there no cars or people around? You would have serious reservations (let’s hope you didn’t have a reservation and can just leave if you like) about whether to try what seems to be a not so well liked establishment with the locals.
As you approach a new restaurant what is it that you are looking for? It’s quite obvious you are looking for some kind of proof that the food is considered good or at the very least palatable. You don’t have your Zagat restaurant guide with you so the only other unofficial recommendation comes from seeing others happily indulging themselves and no emergency crews taking patrons away from having ingested a gastronomic disaster. What you are looking for “social proof”, the same thing I discussed in conventional advertising. You want…no need to know that others dine here. When we see others drinking, eating, laughing and appearing to have fun our brains are put to rest. Our subconscious brain relaxes and with a slight change to our gut feeling the conscious you enters quite happily.
What are the first things that greet your new prospect? You must remember everything counts. Their five senses are not overtly asking for advice or direction. They are giving it and you don’t get a second chance with them. How is the lighting? Do you need sunglasses just to be able to see where you are going or infrared night goggles because you are too cheap to pay the hydro bill? Can I smell yesterdays’ pizza or the backed-up toilet? Is that punk rock I hear blasting or elevator music? Are your staff smacking away on gum and popping bubbles and recently had a bath in some 50 cent dollar store perfume? And those torn jeans with the mustard on your shirt are real eye catchers! Is the paint of wallpaper peeling, discoloured, or cracked? All of these things matter and they matter a great deal. Get them all right and you don’t win a cigar. It’s just the preliminary courtship with the subconscious brain of this prospect. Get them wrong and you could lose the subconscious and the game may be over before it starts.
Let’s begin with your lighting. There is not a perfect standard of one size fits all types of business. This depends on the nature of the product or service you are providing. Unless you are Wal-Mart I don’t recommend rows and rows of bright fluorescent lights (in fact I would suggest even they are ill advised to use that style of lighting in this day and age). If you chose to use some fluorescent lighting it should be limited. Use directional lighting to highlight certain products or features of a product. Soft but well lit areas where displays of smaller retail product may be seen without the use of a readers magnifying glass. It they can’t easily see an items shape, detail and price they are not likely to ask questions to obtain the information. Don’t make them work to buy.
Don’t be afraid to have the most audaciously priced product or service you sell first and foremost on display or in your presentation. The age of the old idea of the so-called “sticker shock” is long dead and gone. I’m not even sure how that approach to business became the norm. I can’t say that I have ever walked into any business where the first number I saw or heard caused me to quickly turn around and run for fear of signing away my first born to have to pay for something. If that number was just the low end of the scale of their product or service then I probably didn’t stick around too long but the first number was not the cause of my retreat. There have been a great number of studies to prove my point on this issue. Contrary to this old wives tail of business, you MUST present the prospect with the most expensive of your products or services first! I know many will argue my emphatic MUST but this is not just my personal arrogant opinion. It comes from studies of behavioral economics and is called “price anchoring”. It seems this is just another trick coming from our subconscious brains. No matter what we may have had in mind as a conscious budget our subconscious can have its budget manipulated. Sears have taught their management this concept for years. I believe they use language like “walk them down to sell them up”. I may have the specific language a little off but in essence it means show the customer the highest price and work down because they are more likely to spend more money than originally planned.
To give you a taste of how disconnected your subconscious can be from concrete reality I must give you an example from a Harvard study. You would think we would make our buying decisions based on a rational cost/benefit analysis but alas this study showed how irrational your brain can be. Subjects were invited to participate in an auction of bottles of wine. Upon entering the hall the participants were asked to write down the last 2 digits of their social security number. They then entered the hall and proceeded to bid on the different bottles of wine. When the auction was complete the participants were asked to reveal the numbers that represented the last 2 digits of their social security number. Those with the highest last 2 numbers bid as much as 40% more than other with lower social security numbers. Many studies have shown that when arbitrary numbers are presented to our subconscious they act as anchors and may influence how much we will pay for things. Whether this will absolutely influence every individual is irrelevant. I will be happy to increase my overall dollar amount per sale even if only from a few shoppers.
Since we are looking at the irrational brain of the consumer you should also consider the idea of “free”. Examine your industry as a whole and look at what you can offer for free that is something normally charged for by competitors. Researchers discovered we respond in a very irrational way when something free is involved. In one study chocolates were offered to shoppers in a mall. People were offered the option of having a nice Lindt chocolate or a Hershey’s Kiss. The price was set at 11 cents for the Lindt and one cent for the Kiss. This is a very basic cost/benefit analysis for your brain. If you look at the cost of eleven cents for a Lindt it should be a no brainer (pun intended) for you to select this high end chocolate. And in fact that is exactly what the consumer felt with the majority choosing the Lindt. The next step was to change the price of each by one cent. The Lindt was reduced to ten cents and the Kiss…that’s right, was reduced to zero…free! Now the same economics are at play here with the exception of one being free. The results were an overwhelming majority chose the free kiss. This is a very good reason to examine what you can offer the customer for free when they would normally have to pay for it. This research demonstrates how consumers suffer from what is known in psychology circles as loss aversion. We have a strong aversion to loosing something, even if it is only one cent. It’s the same reason investors will sell stock as it is on its’ way down even though they would be better advised to weather the storm and hold out for the long term.
When it comes to smell there are a number of things to consider. The first is unless you are in the business of selling food your facility should not smell of it unless you are selling your house and using the smell of coffee, fresh baking or something similar. In business it may be things like vanilla, pineapple or coffee. There are a number of companies out there now that consult with various kinds of business to establish the right scent for the product or service you sell. They may or may not be worth the investment but I can tell you that general food products that might include garlic, mold, cleaning solutions, body odor, excrement and dead animal smells are definitely out and are not likely to have a positive influence on the sale. If you can’t afford to pay to fine tune the precise fragrance for you business you should do your best to lean toward neutral. At least it comes with no negative effect. Also ensure that your staff are not bringing their own preference for aromatics to flavor the surroundings. Have a strict policy on the use of cologne especially since there are a number of people suffering from this type of allergy.
Personal professional presentation seems like a no brainer but I can’t tell you how many people I have seen displaying themselves in a manner that is far from professional. Chewing a big wad of gum and/or blowing bubbles is not professional and unless you are selling the latest fad of clothing line that may include factory torn apparel your staff should always be dressed in “clean” well maintained clothing. In all of my years in business I have made it a habit to dress up rather than down during any meeting with prospective clients. Some have suggested I may be over dressed but I am an advocate of the idea there is no such thing as overdressed. I am not likely to be seen in a tuxedo (unless it was a black tie affair) but a modern suit is never out of place. I have had many comments from clients saying they feel underdressed but at the end of our meeting almost always make a comment about my professional presentation. You are who you dress to be. You can never be criticized for being clean and well dressed. Your clients’ subconscious is a neat freak.
You need to take a complete look at the rest of your establishment. Clean trumps dirt any day of the week. The subconscious is also a clean freak…and may even be arachnophobic so get rid of the cob webs. There are a number of opportunities when it comes to your walls and floors but again, clean and nicely finished is always first. Now is your opportunity to tap into some social proof to hit your prospect over the head with. If we go back to the customer that has no idea who you are this is where you need to inform them and you should always assume every prospect walking through your door has no idea who you really are.
Have you or your business ever won an award for anything? Display it! Make it very visible. This is your chance to be the peacock. Show off your accomplishments no matter how small you may think they are. I don’t care if you think people will consciously view it as flattering yourself. Their subconscious will see it as a base level of your integrity and achievement. It’s all positive and shows that you care what other people think of you. Your customers want to feel that you care about what they think. Display pictures of completed work and/or testimonials from you current customers…social proof. People will see that you have actually done business with other people before. Remember…they don’t know if you have ever done ANY work in your community. They don’t know you and for all they know you just opened the doors yesterday.
Have a well displayed presentation with a list of all of your current clients (more social proof) and go so far as to allow the new prospect to choose any 5 or 10 customers from the list to call and ask what the experience with you has been like. This requires addressing something I will speak of later but can be a powerful tool. I will bet your competition doesn’t do this. The best your competition might do is offer a list of vetted customers to call and one or two are likely to be family. Be bold and don’t be afraid to expose others poor business practices. You can undermine the competition by simply being up front with the prospect.
This is the very beginning of your relationship with this new prospect that just walked in the door. You’ve just met and asked them onto the dance floor. Get this stuff wrong and it could very well be your last tango in Paris. Get it right and you may actually sell something. Do it extremely well and you are on your way to building the stuff that dreams are made of. At any given step along the way you could screw this up. If you are just pretending to be the latest winner of Dancing with the Stars but step on her foot a couple of times and the jig could be up. This may seem like a lot of work but it’s the foundation of a solid business and a first step in the direction of building a lasting relationship. If you expect to increase your bottom line with more effective use of your marketing dollars in the coming decade you need to change how you do business.
In October of 2011 I decided to take the VIA rail to travel across Canada. I was on my way to a business meeting in Vancouver and chose to book a sleeper cabin on the train to spend some quiet time to work on writing this book. I had taken this trip in 1966 and remembered what a beautiful trip it can be. After two days of what seemed like a fairly rough ride I met a gentleman during lunch that used to work on the rail line. He explained that since the primary purpose of the rail line was now dedicated to the transportation of freight the maintenance of the tracks was not held to the same high standards it used to be. He believed the rough ride was the result of this lower standard of maintenance. This is an example of a company that has lost sight of the value of relationships with the potential customer. I was considering committing more of my travel time to rail but have since decided otherwise. I’m looking for more comfort during my travel and Canadian rail just doesn’t provide it.
So the prospect has walked through the front door and everything I have suggested has greeted their subconscious. I will refer to the subconscious a great because that part of their brain is more influential than most people expect. When you greet them DO NOT start with questions like “How may I help you?”, “Is there something in particular you were looking for?”, “Can I answer any questions?”. These kinds of questions will set you up for the typical defensive response they have been waiting to use…”No thanks, just looking.”
If you want to be a great buy-ologist you need to start the relationship building right now. If you start off with the expected salesperson questions you will be delaying the chance to build your much needed relationship with them. It’s important to just open a normal conversation that has nothing to do with what you are selling. If you don’t you may never really have them listening to what you have to say about your product or service. Look for something you may have in common. You want them to begin to see you as someone just like them, interested in them as a person in your community, and not the dreaded salesperson.
One significant attribute of a great buy-ologist is their mastery of listening. I love the maxim “Don’t just do something, stand there.” You need to learn to listen and listen with sincerity. “It is the Provence of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is only when you listen that can you expect to be heard. If someone feels you are not truly listening to their needs or wishes it won’t matter what you have to say. A talented listener knows it’s not what someone is saying that is important it’s what they are feeling. When someone is speaking they will be expressing their feelings, sometimes in the most subtle ways and you must learn to read that. Listen for particular metaphors they may be using. They often give you some insight into who they are and what is important in their life. If they use metaphors related to sports like, “That offer was a game changer”, “The last guy tried to stick handle around the issue”, it might indicate their interest or involvement in sports. You may want to use similar language because their subconscious will recognize this and help them to relate to you. It may also open the door to more detailed conversations about sports.
Don’t feel that your presentation about your product or service must be continuous and uninterrupted. Train yourself to get sidetracked from a canned pitch. Look for opportunities to get off the topic of your business offering and have a regular discussion about any topic that may arise. This is all about making you real and possibly someone they might like to get to know outside your business. You may end up joining some organization they belong to. Keep looking for more was to build a serious relationship with them. When you are out on a first date with someone the broader the range of topics the smoother the date will go. It’s also important to keep the conversation focused on them not you. Everyone wants to know you are sincerely interested in what they are all about.
Try to investigate who their community connections are. You may find you share some mutual acquaintances. This helps to bring more credibility to you. What if you find out there is a connection between you and one of their relatives. This could almost guarantee the deal but be sure not to use it as a direct line to ask for the deal. “So since your brother dated my sister we are almost related. Why don’t I work out the family discount for you?” Make a point that you might have a connection but don’t overtly communicate a connection to their purchase. Let their subconscious work out the significance of the connection and decide whether that is reason enough to deal with you.
Remember to always be smiling during your presentation and it must be sincere. I have written about the idea of smiling in my blog and twitter and feel it is important to address this very interesting phenomenon. There are approximately 33 muscles in the face that are not connected to bone. These muscles are activated by our emotions. There is even facial recognition software that has been developed and used by some Transportation Safety Authority official to indentify suspicious behaviour of individuals passing through Customs. This software is so sensitive to these 33 muscles that when you are having your picture taken for identification purposes you cannot smile. Smiling creates an emotional change in us and in turn adjusts these muscles. It is these slight changes that assist us in recognizing a sincere smile from a fake one.
If you are giving a presentation that invovles a woman you are speaking with a powerful force in business. Recent studies from across North America show that more than 80% of major household purchases are either made or influenced by women. Since women may purchase a product or service for very different reasons than a man this may require that you rethink your strategy for how you market or present yourself. And “pink” is not a strategy.
There is an old saying in business "If you want to know why John Smith buys what John Smith buys you need to see the world through John Smith's eyes." I would suggest "If you want to why John Smith buys what John Smith buys you need to see the world through Jane Smith's eyes!"
As with all animals there are gender differences when it comes to our brains. Male thinking evolved from the hunter /gatherer mentality. It was driven by testosterone and the adrenaline rush with winning. Her thinking was more based on the relationships of the family and others in their community. When she makes a purchase it may be first and foremost that she finds you to be someone she likes and trusts. The product or service, though it still must meet her needs, may only get her attention if the emotional connection is there.
Using metaphors in your advertising that relate to wars, the kill, champions etc. may not appeal to her. Customer service is of more importance to her and she is likely busy multitasking. If you can tailor your product or service to meet multiple needs she is more likely to deal with you. Your advertising needs to reflect this. You have to let her know how your product or service solves multiple problems.
If she enters your business she is more likely to make eye contact with you. She will probably notice how you and your staff look and the cleanliness of things. If she has children it’s quite possible they will be with her. Does your business have a way to entertain them safely to allow her to spend more uninterrupted time engaged with you and your product? Does your business have a clean and easily accessible washroom? If she has to worry about a washroom for her children it may mean she spends less time in your business.
Several years ago the golf industry was struggling to survive. Since men were their primary participants they had reached a plateau for growth. Callaway changed everything. They realized that women were a huge potential demographic that seemed to be participating to a lesser degree than expected. Callaway found this group had different needs or wants. They began producing clubs, bags and clothing designed specifically for women. Golf courses changed as well. They added washrooms that were actually clean not just in the clubhouse but out on the course (unlike men she was not comfortable relieving herself in the woods), and a greater selection of clothing in a revamped clubhouse.
The Economist magazine stated in a much publicized article “Forget China, India and the Internet: economic growth is driven by women.
I want to take a moment to discuss the concept I touched on earlier about studies on social economic norms by behavioural economists. Transactions in our social life can be categorized as two very distinct events. Behavioural economists separate them as “social norms”, and “market norms”. Social norms are transactions that take place in relationships that generally do not include cash. These include gifts we may give one another or offers of assistance where no financial compensation is a consideration. Market norms involve the transaction of cash.
Author and behavioural economist Dan Ariely sites a few examples of the difference of the social and market norms in his book “Predictably Irrational”. Imagine being at the family Thanksgiving dinner and at the end of a great meal you stand up from the table to give a thank you speech to your mother-in-law. At the end of the speech you pull out a wad of bills to present to her as thanks for all of her efforts. In most North American households this offer of money would be seen as an outrageous insult and you may be given the cold shoulder by the rest of the family for some time. What if we changed this scenario slightly and at the end of your speech you reached down and pulled out a very nice bottle of wine as appreciation for her hard work? It translates to the same actual dollar amount but the difference is quite significant. As long as the value of the gift is ambiguous no insult is registered and in fact the gift is greatly appreciated by your mother-in-law.
There was another study cited by Mr. Ariely about a child care facility that was struggling with an issue of parents showing up late to pick up their children. The facility tried a number of ways to encourage parents to be on time with little change in this behaviour. A decision was made to introduce a late fee charge to the parents if they were tardy. The result was surprising. Not only did the usual tardy parents not change their ways, the facility found that more parents were showing up late. The idea being that since I’m paying for this I have the right to be late. The social norms that may have been in place had been changed almost immediately to market norms by the introduction of money. When this occurs it can be difficult and actually take some time to bring things back to a social norm situation again…if ever.
This idea has implications for attempting to involve your customers in your marketing campaign and use them to endorse you. It may require some creative ways of compensating them for that endorsement.
Presentation complete…
I have considerable experience in the service industry but I want to take some time to address a creative practice I introduced to the retail business. I have been somewhat reluctant to openly divulge this idea since it involves some back door manipulation of the shoppers’ brain. I am fairly certain this process I will explain will not work for just anyone that is looking to manipulate and take advantage of the shopper since it requires a substantial degree of sincerity on the part of the buy-ologist.
Let us assume you sell a product that requires a substantial amount detailed explanation to the consumer on the value of buying your product versus the competition. You may have just spent at least 45 minutes to an hour helping to educate this shopper. They are not ready to buy from you today so you obtain their personal information with the intention of staying in contact with them. You shake hands and they are on their way out the door.
Let me now give you a reasonably accurate explanation of what is going on in the mind of the shopper. Before they entered your place of business they had already decided that no transaction was going to take place today, or at least not during this visit. This was their plan but they were aware that some slick salesperson may try to manipulate or trick them into buying today so they were understandably on edge. They are also entering a strangers’ territory which may make them feel slightly uncomfortable. At the end of all they managed to hold their ground and didn’t buy anything and they are getting away so to speak. From their brains’ perspective everything worked out as planned and they may even be getting a splash of endorphins from the reward center in their brain saying “Job well done. That worked out just as we planned.” This is what I am hoping has happened because I have a devised a way to stimulate the “oh shit” center of their brain.
I would like you as the business owner to go out and find a special little gift. I don’t want you to spend more than 3 to 5 dollars for this gift but it must have a totally ambiguous value, hopefully in the 20 to 30 dollar range. It can be a simple figurine or candy dish but it must have a quality look to it. Take the time to wrap this with nice gift wrapping paper. As the consumer is on the way out the door, or possibly out in the parking lot getting ready to get into their vehicle I want you to run out to them with an explanation that goes something like this.
“Oh Carol and Bob Jones I just want to thank you for coming into my business today. I know your time is valuable because I know mine is and I wanted to thank you for the time you gave me for the presentation of our product. Please let me just show you a small token of my appreciation.” Ask them to wait and go back to your office to get one of the gifts. Bring it out to them, just say thank you again and wish them a safe trip home.
I can tell you right now their brain is saying a big “oh shit…back the happy up a bit. What just happened here?” You have tapped into how we form memories and they are not going to forget you. That is the main objective of this exercise. You need a way to have a lasting impression in the mind of your shopper and trust me this works. When we go experience life whether it be getting together with friends, going out to dinner, watching a movie, or going shopping our brain doesn’t waste too much effort attempting to remember all of the details. That’s energy consuming and not necessary so the brain takes short cuts. It looks for unique circumstances and bits and pieces here and there from each event. If something unusual happens near the end of an event it holds even more sway with the brains memory. One thing the brain really hates is ambiguity. The brain doesn’t deal well with it and looks for resolution. The brain may invest hours attempting to resolve something that may not ever be resolved. If you want the brain to remember something just make it ambiguous. You may ask “How are you so sure of that?” Well let me give you an example.
The most watched final episode of any TV series was the one from MASH. I saw it but don’t ask me what it was about. It was probably some feel good or teary script that was quite predictable. Your brain has no reason to give it much attention when it is just same old, same old.
What do you think was one of the most memorable final episodes of a TV series? It was so memorable and talked about by the viewers that people like me who never watched a single episode could tell you roughly what happened. Have you guessed yet? What about the final episode of ‘The Sopranos”. It involved absolute ambiguity for the audience. Our brain hated that and everyone that watched had to discuss what could have happened. And the discussions went on for days and even months. You can still read postings on the internet of people hypothesizing what happened. That is one of the best examples of our brain struggling with ambiguity and why it is so powerful.
If you want your prospect to remember you after your presentation just give their brain a taste of ambiguity and I guarantee they are not likely to forget you.
This tactic is not easy to pull off due to the fact that if there is any amount of insincerity if will be flagged by the shoppers brain. It is meant to be used by business owners that truly believe the consumer would be making a mistake by not buying your product. To simply use this tactic to trick them into thinking you really care about their buy decision but just want the sale will eventually be exposed when the product falls short of the shoppers’ expectations.
After the money changes hands…
If you own a business or you are the salesperson (or "buy-ologist") for that business and you have just received the money for the product or service you are offering. Now what? Most people in business believe that is the most important time with the customer. They don't understand it should be just the beginning of what could become a lasting relationship.
The reality is your relationship with the customer has just begun if you want to grow your business in these challenging competitive times. One of the first and easiest methods to build on this relationship is to use the telephone. We need to look at telephone contact with customers as building a "friendship". Do you stay in touch with your personal friends using the telephone? So why not build on your relationship with your customers the same way. If you are not sincere then this is just standard telemarketing and the customer will easily see through you and probably learn to blow you off.
When you use the telephone for this type of relationship building be sure to start the call with language that indicates you are calling to help them. Be sure to ask them how their experience has been since purchasing your product or service. Let them know your line of communication is always open to them.
Don't be afraid to ask them if they would refer your business to their friends. Advise them you always reward customers that refer their friends with gifts to both the referring customer and the new customer.
As you finish the call let them know you appreciate their time and will be sending them a small gift. This is where most business owners will question my sanity and say "That's easy for you to say because it's not your money." Let me tell you it will be the best "marketing" money you will ever spend. Just send them something as simple as a $10 gift card from Starbucks. Or better still, an in-store credit to give you a chance for more face to face contact.
Most businesses are missing the point that customer service and marketing are the same thing. In the 21st century you must treat your customer service as one of the most important aspects of your marketing strategy. This will begin to turn your "telemarketing" into "tele-friending".
Error based training...
I am an advocate of building a consumer advisory council. Invite your top ten or twenty customers to act as a biannual board of advisors to help you learn to improve how you do business. Your clients are the ones most likely to give you ideas on how to improve and with the improved relationship with them you are creating the advocates that will refer their friends.
Before you make the choice of which of your customers to select to sit on this board you need to look at who in this group are the most connected with the largest number of personal contacts, and what other personality traits would help spread the word of how great you are. In his book “The Tipping Point”, Malcolm Gladwell discusses three different personality types that create a “tipping point” in our society--Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. When you understand the influence each of these personality types has you will see the importance of creating a board with the right mix.
The first are the Connectors—people that know a lot of people—but it’s not just the number of people but the diversity of the contacts in their network of friends. Gladwell uses the example of the American revolutionary movement after the 1773 Boston Tea Party. On the afternoon of April 18th, 1775, when a “stable boy overheard two British officers talking about how there would be hell to pay on the following afternoon” he took this very historical bit of information to a “connector”. That night 2 revolutionaries set off on midnight rides in separate directions to notify the residents of the towns and villages north and west of Boston of the potential threat of a British attack. They both covered roughly the same distance that eventful night but why is it that so few people know the name William Dawes? I would venture a guess that you are very familiar with the name of the rider of record in history—Paul Revere!
Paul Revere was a true “Connector”. He was well known in many circles and throughout a large part of New England. As Gladwell writes; “He was a fisherman and a hunter, a cardplayer and a theatre-lover, a frequenter of pubs and a successful businessman. He was active in the local Masonic Lodge and was a member of several select social clubs. He was a doer.” This was a man that people respected and listened to—a real erudite—and Mr. Dawes wasn’t. This personality type is relatively easy to identify in a community.
The next influential personality type that Gladwell identifies is the “Maven”. Gladwell writes; “The word Maven comes from the Yiddish and it means one who accumulates knowledge.” These people know the price of everything that matters. They can be the retail store owners’ worst nightmare. If you are claiming that a particular product on your shelf is the best price in town—beware the Maven—because not only do they know the prices of products they are obsessed with letting others know what they know. “The critical thing about Mavens is that they aren’t passive collectors of information. It isn’t just that they are obsessed with how to get the best deal on a can of coffee. What sets them apart is that once they figure out how to get that deal, they want to tell you about it too. A Maven is a person who has information on a lot of different products or prices or places. This person likes to initiate discussions with consumers and respond to requests.” Sounds like the ideal prospect for your board provided you are running the legitimate operation that you claim to be.
The third and final personality that Gladwell writes about is the Salesman. He writes; “In a social epidemic, Mavens are data banks. They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it. But there is also a select group of people – Salesmen – with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing, and they are as critical to the tipping point of word-of-mouth epidemics as the other two groups.” The best salesman has mastered the “science” of persuasion – and this is a science not an art. Robert B. Cialdini, a social psychologist, is considered one of the leading experts in the on influence. Mr. Cialdini co-authored a book titled “Yes! – 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.” Mr. Cialdini et al walk you through 50 chapters of scientific research that provides insight on the possible psychology behind these persuaders.
It is important that you keep in mind the idea that you are so close to your business that you may not see the “forest for the trees”—as they say. You need to be able to see your business as the consumer does so who better to keep you in touch with this view than the people that use your product or service.
Another approach based on the studies of “error based training” would be to maintain contact with the top prospects that didn’t buy from you or worse bought from your competitor. This will certainly be a test of how well you are able to build relationships with your prospective customers. The concept is that people learn more from studying their mistakes than simply reviewing what they have found to be the right way to do things. It was found that firefighters made fewer serious errors when they were taught what happened in cases where the wrong approach was taken. (chapter 25 in YES)
If you can build strong enough relationships with all of your prospects you should be able to remain in contact with them and consult with them about why they chose your competitor. There is so much more that you can learn to possibly avoid making the same mistake again. Wouldn’t that be a novel idea to have an advisory board that also contains lost deals? This not only broadens the spectrum of varied ideas to improve what you do but should help to create true devils’ advocates. We have the potential to learn more if we have input from true dissidents.
Use of Language...
It’s important to use the correct tense in your language when giving your presentation. Steven Pinker in his book, The Stuff of Thought, explains; “The future tense is often used by flight attendants and waitstaff at fancy restaurants as a display of politeness. It pretends not to foreclose any possibilities; as if the listener’s approval will be solicited at every stage, before anything is set in stone...it is an example of a common tactic of politeness in the world’s languages: Pretend to give the listener options.”
Next Generation
I believe the world of business will experience some dramatic changes when trying to attract consumers from the coming generations. The world is changing at exponential speed (get clips from the 2012 video). I believe the strength of relationships with consumers will be the difference between the winners and losers with this generation and beyond. The use of conventional marketing will be futile. Author Don Tapscott, considered one of the leading authorities of this highly wired—or more appropriately wireless--digital generation, has written a book called “Grown up Digital” in which he discusses what he calls the Net Geners. When the Net Geners are asked how they feel about email their response is that it’s a formal means of communication, such as applying for a job.
Mr. Tapscott believes this generation is even more concerned with relationships than past generations and they value honesty and integrity. They are building these stronger, complex relationships using networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Their preferred means of communication is text messaging. They may even ignore the incoming call on that very communication device being used to text a friend. It gives them a sense of control of their lives.
When it comes to relationships and employment Mr. Tapscott feels “In organizations this means that each employee is treated as an individual contributor. Employment is a relationship—between the employee and employer. It needs commitment from both sides, as the employer routinely taps into the needs of the individual worker; to engage and collaborate throughout their entire careers, at every stage of the employee life cycle.”
How much spit do you have in the game?
