Every business has a marketing and sales flow. From the moment you engage some one’s attention, there is a process to go through before they hire you. Sometimes this is a short process, for some businesses it can be a lengthy time span.
Attracting attention is clearly important in the first place. However once you have established that interest, the next stage is equally important – gaining the trust of your prospect. Many sales have been lost by rushing to try and close a deal before that element of trust has been established. There are several important factors in play:
- People don’t like to be sold – but they love to buy. If they sense you are in any way pushing them toward a sale they will resist.
- There is a lot of this going on! – Let’s face it, people are bombarded with sales messages every day, from a variety of media including TV, Radio, Internet as well as the businesses they meet in networking activities. The result is they are highly tuned into sales messages and will immediately recognize when you drop into that mode and again, they will resist
- Even if the prospect hires you, they may not be your ideal client – you want to work with ideal clients, not just anyone who will pay (or maybe resist paying) you.
- It’s hard work – trying to close a prospect who is uncertain that they wish to work with you involves a lot of work on your part – anticipating and overcoming objections, persuading, talking, showing them material, trying to be entertaining, remembering your spiel etc.
This is why understanding how your marketing process flows is so important. What is the best way for you to start to gain that trust?
When you know the approximate length of the process it will immediately take pressure off you to close immediately. You can relax. Use the fact that many, many businesses still rely on some form of persuasion and/or degree of hard sell. You have the choice to be different, and you will stand out as a result.
Give early, give unconditionally. Think of ways that you can help your prospect. Be unafraid to give away somethings you have in your business, that clients often pay you for. That is probably your expertise in essence, and can be delivered as a report, a video, a “how to” instructional. You can also invite people to events. If you have a wide list of connections, find out the type of people they would like to meet and offer to introduce them.
Key to success is giving without an agenda. OK, you don’t give everything away, but make sure what you do provide is valuable in itself. A good test of this is: “If they use this and don’t hire me, is it still valuable to them?”
Once your prospects and clients get this value from you it will a) raise your perceived value and b) build trust so you can get into a deeper conversation that does move you closer to the deal.
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