The Three R’s of Influence
Image via Wikipedia
Before you can sell you need to respect your prospect, build rapport, and understand the rules of how your prospect makes decisions. You can choose to ignore these three points but you will not be as effective as you could be.
1. Respect: All people want to feel that on some level they are held in esteem or honor - one where consideration is shown for their thoughts, ideas, and feelings. This is also true when making a purchasing decision. They make will make a judgment based upon how well you communicate with them and create a ‘connection’.
- What do I/could I like about this person? (connection)
- Do I understand this person? (communication)
- What ideas does this person have that I can appreciate?
2. Rapport: Before influence happens an air of trust and rapport must be created. Rapport can best be defined as an agreeable or harmonious relationship.
We all do business with people that we like and trust. They feel a sense of rapport when there is a harmonious relationship where the buyer feels you understand their feelings and ideas. You know you have rapport when you and the buyer each sense a connection, have things in common, or each identify that there are good reasons to maintain and build a business relationship.
On some level every prospect is asking the following questions, you need to do our best to answer them:
- Does this person have my best interests at heart or able to assist me? (interdependence)
- Do I like this person? (connection)
- Do they have something I need and want? (common link, interdependence)
- Could I do business with this person and feel comfortable? (trust & rapport)
3. Rules: Every buyer has an agenda or reason to make a purchase and by understanding the rules your prospect uses to makes a purchasing decision can make a real difference in doing business with them. The best indicator of a prospects buying pattern is how they have made a similar purchase in the past.
- How does this person make a formal decision? If they have made a similar decision in the past, what were the most important criteria as to why they bought, what changed their mind?
- What are their beliefs/perceptions about your industry, people and products/services?
- What do they need to control?
- What governs their decisions?
- Why not ask them how they’ve made a similar decision in the past?
Keep the answers to the above questions in mind while communicating with your prospect.
Gen Y Trend: Brevity, Trust, Relevance
Numerous studies demonstrate that attention span of the consumer keeps decreasing.
This is especially true for the young adults and so-called Generation Y, as their opinions and outlook can change quickly. Things that were cool a year ago are no longer “cool”.
Never mind that they do not even use that word anymore. Nor do they use email.
They use social tools like IM, Twitter [gregbd] and SMS but rarely use email. Short and sweet that is how they like it.
How low can it go?
Email marketing experts state it should contain about 300 words (250-400 actually, depending on the topic). Exceed this limit and you’ll just lose the attention of your audience. Twitter limits you to 140 characters.
How do you reach people with brief and short messages?
- Relevance: They want relevance from you. Try to step into their shoes - get to the question they want answered right away. Don’t waste their time for extraneous self-serving graphics and copy - get right to the point.
- Connect: You should be talking with them, not regurgitating your own technical product and service knowledge - that is just noise - you need to give them a real reason to believe you. Do this and you will connect with your audience to build trust and empathy.
- Brevity: Be specific, distill your points down to the bare bones. Offer hyperlinks that take your prospects to a source of information and if they want more information they can go get it.
Follow these tips and you will gain trust of the reader. Trust still is the thread that holds a business together.
Entrepreneurial Skill Sets
Sharing my observations about skills and entrepreneurship. Comments, feedback, and discussion welcome.
Inquiry Marketing a.k.a. Search Engine Promotion
Before the Internet existed, I studied and tested various methods to generate sales leads for small business. I had the opportunity to participate in a loyalty marketing program using a consumer membership card and loyalty program.
It seemed a no-brainer.
Business owners loved it and bought in. Consumers adopted it.
But it failed. Why?
The consumer quickly forgot about the program and stopped using it.
It was a combination of issues including confusion among the business participants and the consumers — in retrospect it was because we simply did not understand the relationship between the buying and selling cycles.
Sales Cycle
Today, marketing requires vision. That vision must be able to articulate how your understanding of the ‘buying and selling cycles‘ can be used to modify your marketing and sales approach to make your offering more relevant while building a relationship with your prospect or future customer.
Inquiry Marketing (a.k.a Search Engine Promotion) Comes Of Age
No matter your opinion about the best form of Internet marketing, the only business purpose of any web promotion should be to generate an inquiry.
Whether you want to make the phone ring, get an email inquiry or make a e-commerce transaction — the goal is the same, motivate the prospect to inquire or buy your products or services.
Misconceptions Of Web Marketing
Marketers from all walks of life have recognized the importance of search engines. However, many tend to focus on the ‘technology’ of search engine marketing (SEM) which has created numerous misconceptions that never seem to go away. For example:
- Most people think that SEM is about keywords and conversion.
- The second belief is that if you use pay-per-click (PPC) your web marketing will succeed.
Misconceptions have been created by web marketing professionals. The very nature of the web demands specialization and so web marketing professionals have become highly specialized.
As sales people try to educate their clients about their services salespeople tend to paint an all or nothing approach. If you have been victimized by some well meaning but misguided salesperson, let me extend an apology to you on their behalf.
Here is the problem with an all or nothing approach. It ignores the fundamental reality of what the Internet has accomplished — the buyer is in control. They determine what they like or dislike. If they dislike or your approach is off, even a little, they leave.
Achieve Balance - What’s Supporting Your Marketing Table?
If I used a table as a metaphor for marketing - and you have only one leg or marketing tool supporting the ‘table’, how easy would it be to upset the table? Pretty easy, all you would need is to bump into it and over it goes.
On the other hand, if I have multiple legs (multiple marketing tools) supporting my marketing table, you would have to knock out several legs and expend a lot more effort to knock over my table.
Which would you rather own? The table with one leg or multiple legs? Guess what? Your business is the marketing table! Please tell me you chose the table with multiple legs.
If you say you cannot afford to have multiple marketing legs supporting your business, I suggest that you close your business and keep your money. Why? Because you will be disappointed with the lack of results. You must be prepared to educate your visitors.
Buyers Seek Information
Remember, the buyer moves from web site to web site seeking information as they move through the buying cycle - advertisers must to get their message in front of the buyer and be ‘relevant’ to them if they hope to influence their customers purchasing decision.
Balanced Inquiry Marketing attempts to intercept a customers ’seek’ behavior of a searcher and ‘attempt to influence’ the buying behavior of the target customer by placing the company brand in the path of the interest after a need has been aroused.
A balanced approach to Inquiry Marketing includes four essentials:
- Identify customer research patterns.
- Provide relevant content throughout the buying cycle.
- Blend traditional (organic) search engine marketing with Paid Inclusion and Pay-Per-Click campaigns.
- Modify push marketing strategy i.e. traditional advertising & web promotion.
As the buyer moves through the buying cycle a relationship is formed, trust builds into emotional momentum that is released by the customer making either an inquiry or a purchasing decision.
Your Customer Does Not Care About You - They Care About Themselves
You have to understand your market’s purchasing behavior and then use the terms of their search query as a way to qualify their purchasing intent.
By the nature of their language (search terms) you can infer differing degrees of intent to buy. The last thing to do is to continue to create value as the buyer moves through your sales qualification funnel.
Inquiry Marketing Expands Search Engine Marketing
It is the method you use to conceptualize your search marketing that influences the success of your web marketing efforts. Inquiry marketing simply treats SEM as one tactic within a broader marketing spectrum and context.
Inquiry marketing is more of a holistic process that encompasses the buyers’ behavior, the individuals buying cycle and the exact words used to construct a search query. It can include the time of day, where a user is located, as well as their behavior after you have generated the initial need and interest.
The first iteration of Inquiry Marketing was introduced by the yellow pages. When the Internet came along it literally blew the lid off the yellow pages model. Contextual ad placement can also be a component of inquiry marketing because buyers visit various Web sites as they move along their inquiry process. How? By reaching out to them with relevant content as they progress through the stages of their buying decision.
Inquiry Marketing is crucial today as our buyers’ use of global search engines and utilities on the Web has grown to half a billion daily search inquiries. All of them are all looking for something! Never before in the course of marketing history have so many searched for so much, using so few tools.
Where Does This Leave Traditional Advertising?
There’s still a need for traditional push advertising because you still need to create a trigger to get people to want to learn about your products or service. Getting a customers to start the ball rolling and to inquire is still a big challenge.
The good news is that using ’search’ and Inquiry Marketing you can likely do a better job of working that inquiry and making sure that the inquiry turns into revenue.
It seems to me that many marketers overlook the power of natural search optimization. Perhaps they are simply caught up in old thinking by focusing on clicks and conversions. Or perhaps they do not think they can get a decent ranking in the search engines. My experience is that if you are prepared to do some work and be patient your efforts will be rewarded.
A Great Opportunity Awaits
We have to thank the search engine marketing community because it has demonstrated to the world that you can be more relevant by letting consumers find the solution themselves.
To participate in the Inquiry Marketing you will need to change your thinking because search has developed as the way that consumers reveal their buying behavior and intentions. How are you taking advantage of this evolution to market your business?
A Simple and Elegant Marketing and Advertising Strategy
Image via Wikipedia
Talk to anyone with experience marketing and promoting their own web site and you will get as many different opinions as there are people. However, there is really only one marketing principle that matters:
Marketing secret — get your sales or marketing message (banner ad, classified, web site or print ad etc.) where the people are.
Sounds simple? Too simple perhaps, but true none the less. Let me explain. Unless you want to waste your marketing budget, get your ad or promotion in front of your specific target customer.
Be Creative — Think Outside The Box
This is how I would go about targeting places to advertise and promote an on line business. Assuming you have a detailed profile of your customers needs, wants, emotions and perceptions (NWEP), here are a few ideas:
- create a list of places they visit (businesses and web sites).
- offer free content (in your area of expertise) to some of those web sites with a link back to your web site.
- create a strategic alliance and offer to pay them a commission for any referrals that result in a sale.
- create a joint venture by approaching the other business owners and offering to split the profit on any sales of your product/service. They send out a mailing recommending your product or service. You track the sales made to their customers and then split the profit with the merchant.
These are just a few ideas. I am sure you could think up more. In many ways the Internet has many similarities to direct marketing in the bricks and mortar world. Internet marketing requires consistency and persistence. You will make mistakes and if you are willing to learn from your mistakes and change your approach you will eventually succeed.
What To Do When Customers States They Should Buy
Often if the sales process has been effective a buyer could say that they think they “should” buy your product or service.
Is This A Buying Signal - Or Not?
Should is a very general word. When someone says that they SHOULD buy something, it might mean that they understand the logic or reasons to make a purchasing decision. However, it may also be a sign that they are not motivated to buy (emotion sells).
Or it might be that they have some negative perception or concern that you have not yet uncovered amd is unconsciously holding them back. You must uncover the prospects perceptions, ask questions. If they have a negative perception or attitude take the time to deal with those issues. Remember, your job is to help them remove the obstacles — help them buy, make it simple and effortless.
Sales Strategy
Make sure you are prepared to deal with any possible problems, issues and roadblocks. If you cannot, ask for permission to investigate and get back to them. Leave the door open. Many a deal has gone sour due to not nailing down all the specific issues and roadblocks. If you don’t nail down the issues and roadblocks you may have just prepared your customer to buy from the next sales person that is willing to deal with the customers problems, issues and roadblocks.
Tip
Watch for buying signals - listen for intent. Often the comment that they think should buy is a cry for more information or a desire for assistance in making the purchasing decision.
Remember, selling is a process. Be patient, follow the process through to the end. Why?
Friday Links
Here are three links to pages I found interesting reads, good information, or services that look interesting to me.
- Emma: Email Marketing Service, a nice service that seems like a real good alternative to Constant Contact and Aweber.
- Introduction to Twitter: breaks the important rules from Presentation Zen but contains good content.
- The Next Bubble: from Harpers, this article from February is an interesting read.
Web Sites Tell But Blogs Relate
Image via Wikipedia
I remember my first web site in 1998 and I used it to tell instead of sell. Today we interact, communicate and relate. It is who we relate tom how we communicate, and what we disicuss that gets the attention of your customer.
Via Earthling notes from the Doc Searles closing keynote at Syndicate:
The “consumer” is a relic of the industrial economy. Doc hates the term “consumer,” because it no longer describes our relationship to the economy. He says we are customers, or listeners, or viewers instead.
From the early days of the Cluetrain Manifesto we have come a long way but still need to discuss and debate how to make the best use of the Internet.
1. Markets are conversations. Via the Cluetrain Manifesto
Blogs are two way conversations. Are you listening business owners?
19. Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.
23. Companies attempting to “position” themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.
Business needs to stop selling, shouting and start conversing. If you do not have a blog, get one because your market will teach you what you need to learn - first you have to stop selling and start listening.
We need to learn how to relate to one another all over again. Tell me, what are you doing to engage your audience?
Creating Value: The Essential Unique Selling Proposition
Image via WikipediaMy friend Daryl was out shopping for a new vehicle, doing his part to keep the economy going. However, his experience was not pleasant. He said:
“These sales people just do not get it!”
He took a used minivan for a test drive and as he was leaving the sales person made the comment:
“”I do not care what type of car you buy, I just want a sale.”"
Daryl just shook his head. I asked him: What would have happened had the sales person said,
‘I do not care what you buy, as long as it is the right vehicle, for you.’
“Exactly!” He replied. “Salespeople just do not understand or care. They only care about themselves.” Daryl went on to say “Another sales person was going on and on about the 0% interest rate. He just kept going on and on. It made me sick! Did he think I was born yesterday?!”
Media & Hype Weary Customers
Our conversation turned to communications skills and strategies. Daryl made a very interesting comment “Maybe us Baby Boomers are just tired of all the hype” and negative approach to trying to make them buy.
Have you ever visited a web site with a lot of marketing and sales hype? You know the kind I mean. They have the “Powerful, Patented, Seven Steps To Online Success! This offer is only available for a limited time! You must subscribe before November 16th!”
These sites tease you with all the great features and benefits of owning the product or service, then they tell you there is some limited time offer. Marketers call this the law of scarcity: something becomes more valuable if it becomes in short supply. Now the point is a valid one if there truly is a inadequate supply. However, in the case of manufactured products or services how can there be a limited supply? If there is a limited time, special offer/price and I decide not to buy now, I probably never will. Why would I want to pay more for something later?
The sad truth is this type of marketing has been successful. It plays on peoples fears and the pain of missing out on something. Personally, I sense things are changing. There are a significant number of people who echo Daryl’s sentiments. They are weary of all the shouting, creative attention getting stunts advertisers and the media use to try and get our attention. Not all but many are insulting, condescending and offensive.
Root Of The Problem
The root of the problem is not the media or the creative professionals coming up with slick ads to gain your attention and approval. Competition is the problem. So many people are out there shouting and blasting messages at us that for many consumers, it has outlived its cycle of effectiveness.
This is a huge problem. If your customers have tuned you out — blasting louder and with more creative tricks only makes an already frustrated consumer more skeptical and jaded. This blur has created a group of media weary consumers who have simply shut down or turned off to sales and marketing hype. Please do not send me an E-mail extolling the benefits that marketers and advertising executives have bestowed upon us. I realize that marketing and advertising are a crucial part of our economy. I am just asking you to consider trying a different approach.
The Antidote? Turn Down The Volume, Turn Up The Value
Many small businesses simply do not have enough money to spend on a creative advertising campaign to “out shout” the competition. The way I see it you can:
- try and slug it out with all the other marketers and advertisers shouting at your market, or
- you can shift gears by quietly helping your customers with the information they want and need.
Invest in them. Create value. Help them today, even if they do not buy anything from you.
To do this you will have to shift from selling and advertising your products or services to focusing on the buying/sales process. Align everything you do with your customers needs, wants, emotions and perceptions. Feed them information appropriate to where they are at in the buying/sales cycle.
That is exactly how we teach our clients to build a web site so it becomes a ‘Lead Generation System’. It is a combination of research, strategy, content (information) development and marketing design that always adds value.
Train to Develop Your Business Like an Athlete
Image via WikipediaI wanted to draw a comparison with the major international sporting event that takes place every four years and most recently in that Asian country that starts with a “C”. But the governing legal-begals will hunt me down if I use the ‘O’ word, so I will not use it.
Business is Like a Sporting Event?
I see a lot of similarities between professional sport and business. Athletes train for years in the hope of achieving their best personal performance and winning a major competition or international sporting event (like the one that happens every four years and begins with the letter ‘O’).
The big difference between sports and business is that business owners have to bring their best game everyday.
The big advantage athletes have is they have a tradition of training. It gives them an opportunity to identify areas for improvement, learn new skills, and then practice what they have learned.
As entrepreneurs and business owners I think we could make a substantial difference in performance by modeling our training using a sports metaphor.
Why Athletes Have a Coach
Left to their own devices most athletes fall back on what they know and do what they have always done. The problem with that is that it may not be enough to win. What a coach does is help them tap into that potential and develop beyond what they initially believed.
The reason that coaching works is because the coach has a combination of technical knowledge, understanding of the game, and a vision of the athletes potential which allows them to create a unique training program to expand the capabilities and potential of the athlete. Over a period of time the coach consistently raises expectations, continues to develop new skills, and helps an athlete to expand their vision for success.
Unfortunately there are very few opportunities to ‘practice and train’ for business. Yes, there are business schools but generally most schools are not able to offer a hands-on, real world business experience.
Business Performance Coaching Increases Effectiveness
Business Performance Coaching fills the gap for business owners by providing an environment where personal and business skills can be nurtured, developed and tested. It is a place where you can learn new business skills, train, and develop new ideas without wasting large amounts of money and losing precious time. The areas included are:
Effective business coaching is the COMBINATION of teaching business fundamentals and strategies, as well as teaching personal effectiveness fundamentals! Business expertise (consulting) works for some, but NEGLECTS the personal effectiveness side NEEDED for effective implementation and long-term growth. Traditional coaching works for some, but neglects the business fundamentals NEEDED for effective implementation and long-term growth!
Duality of Purpose
This is where my approach to coaching business owners is dramatically different - because I coach to increase both personal (business owner) and business effectiveness and the the impact can be significant (visit, Business Model with Examples to learn more)
Focusing on one area alone may or may not generate increased performance a.k.a. more profits for you. However, focusing on several different areas, setting up systems to ensure that new strategies are employed every day, and monitoring your results for future strategic initiatives can have a HUGE impact on your bottom line.
