by E.G. Sebastian
- Treat your prospects/client the way they want to be treated!You may think that you are charming and you can impress everyone with your humor… Or you might think that you are a person of principles and you pride yourself in treating everyone the same way: with a serious demeanor – a true professional, making sure that you pay great attention to details… The Golden Rule has taught us to treat everyone as we want to be treated; but the People Smart Rule says “Treat everyone as they want to be treated” and you’ll be much more successful. Treat your humorous and light-hearted customers with more warmth and use some humor yourself; treat the more reserved and detail oriented customers, more carefully, paying attention to details and sticking to the bottom line. (Learn about how to recognize each buying style at www.discBuyingStyles.com )
- Notice your prospect/clients pace and mirror it!There are two extremes, when it comes to pace: we either move fast, talk fast, bring quick decisions; or we move more carefully – even slowly – think things through before taking a decision, and talk at a slower pace… And while some of our clients will be close to these extremes, most of them will be somewhere in between the two extremes. However, it is important to match the other person’s pace in order to develop a sense of connectedness. If your client or prospect talks fast and brings quick decisions, and you come across as someone who talks at a much slower pace and are viewed as hesitant (due to trying to thoroughly analyze everything before bringing a decision), your chance to develop a good relationship with this client is rather slim. The opposite is true as well: if the client is more reserved, careful, and speak at a lower rate, you should not “overrun” him or her with a fast pace torrent of words… Notice the other person’s pace of talking and match it.
- Notice what is your client or prospect more focused on: relationships, emotions, people, etc; or they are more interested about talking about task-oriented topics, such as profit, technical data, percentages of whatever, etc.Again, this can create a disconnect if you approach the client in a totally opposite way as their personality style dictates them. There is a certain personality style that’s more people oriented and all they want to do is socialize on light topics. This personality style gets goose bumps from way too much technical talk. There’s also a personality style that is more detail-focused and they want to know exactly what they are getting into: they’ll want in-depth data and they are disappointed if the sales rep takes the conversation too lightly – stay away from chit-chat. (learn more about this at www.discSalesStyles.com )
- Do your homework – try to anticipate what your prospect/client needs and provide only limited choices.If possible, study the prospect’s website, or do a short interview before providing your solutions/products; talk to employees of the company, or perhaps send out a survey… Try to find out what is the “pain” of the prospect and offer the best solution to the prospect’s “pain.” Do not overwhelm the prospect with too many choices – when presenting too many choices, the prospect might end up buying nothing. Provide one “best solution” or at most two solutions, then ask which one would they like to choose (instead of asking whether they’d be interested in purchasing the product or service)
- Always collect the contact info of your prospect or client!Stay in touch by providing quality content (though a newsletter, ezine, video blog, etc.), keeping your name fresh in their mind, as well as showing that you are a reliable expert on the topic. This way, when they are ready to buy, you’ll be the only choice that will pop into their mind. If you have a webiste – and there’s no reason why you should not have one – make sure you have an opt-in box, where you offer a free report, eCourse, eBook, some useful tool, or other valueable give-away in exchange for their contact info (then you sty in touch with your ezine your newsletter). Make sure to provide a link to your privacy policy and/or state that you will not share their contact info with anyone for any reason…
- Do not overwhelm your prospect or client with too much email or postal mail!Let your prospect pick the amount of email they are willing to receive. Some do not mind daily emails; while others would be totally annoyed by that. Once a week is probably the most reasonable frequency; and once or twice mailing by regular postal mail.
- Pick provocative, exciting, or otherwise eye-catching subjectlines for your email communication.Make sure that your name or you company name appears in the “From” field. Use powerful words in your subject line, headlines, and in your subheadlines (if you use any). Three books that can help you choose powerful words for your subject lines and headlines are: “Words that Sell,” “Phrases that Sell,” and “Turn Words into Traffic” (this last one is great if your business is heavily based on online communication and it is also a great primer in learning how to write online copy)
Please let me know what you thought of this post… or if you have any follow-up questions on the topic…