Once you get the answer to the question “Why do people buy?”, you still have to ask yourself, “How do I get people to buy from me once they’re ready?” To get that done, you must help your target audience learn about the products or services you have to offer in a way they can relate to as the answer to the age-old question, “What’s in it for me?”
In other words, regardless of the features (or the number of them), what they care about more than anything else is what they will gain from doing business with you; the benefits your products or services offer them. These are the only things your marketing message should be about.
Saying this is one thing but how it works in the real world takes some explaining.
Real-World Sales Tips
Sales Example #1: Auto sales is a great real-world example because the product can be loaded (even overloaded) with features, yet most consumers will take those things for granted. The technology of the engines, transmissions, and electronics used in modern vehicles has become so reliable that buyers rarely ask about them these days.
What contemporary car buyers tend to care about most are comfort and price. They usually want every luxury item available while paying the basic price. Of course, wanting both of these things makes little sense so the question becomes, how can the sale be made when the potential buyer wants all the extras but is only willing to pay the minimum price?
The answer to that one is impossibly simple yet seemingly impossible. Building value in the features the customer wants is the only way to defeat this type of thinking because value overcomes objections about price. In fact, it’s the only thing that will. And that is the key to making a sale – when the value is greater than the price, the sale is made.
Sales Example #2: Personal and business coaching have become incredibly popular in the age of internet marketing and virtual services. From life coaching to nutrition coaching; from personal training to health and wellness coaching; and from career coaching to business start-up coaching as well as many others, the number of online coaching services has grown exponentially over the past couple of decades.
The best online coaches can offer services packed with features yet, if the benefits of these features are not clearly defined, few prospects will be willing to buy. Again, if the value of the benefits exceeds the price, your prospect becomes a buyer.
Creating a Marketing Message
Back in the day, when pretty much all selling was done face-to-face, the message was far easier to convey (at least in theory). It was easier to build trust when looking someone directly in the eye, just as it was easier to show one’s expertise. By contrast, and with something like 2 billion websites worldwide, today’s virtual world is impersonal and detached.
This is easy to forget for those of us who work virtually on a daily basis, so it’s important to remember that such an environment requires extremely personal messaging if you hope to build trust and value. And, if you want to get people to buy, that message must be heavily benefits-based.
How can you put the ideas in these two sales examples to use for your benefit, as an interior designer or furnishings dealer?
If you're searching for help with answering that question for yourself, Ted remains available with real-world experience as a business consultant to the trade. To find out more… Contact TD Fall today.
