Yesterday, my co-founder Vince was telling me a story of a scene he witnessed at a local coffee shop. The basic scene was a person being overly aggressive toward another person in the shop about the services they sell. Person ‘A’ was trying to push their product/service on person ‘B’ without any kind of knowledge of what person B’s needs or wants were. This is a scene that is very familiar to me, I see it played out all the time, sometimes in the past I have been person A, sometimes in the past I have been person B.
Getting sold to is just annoying
I think that pretty much covers it. Being person B is not a fun spot, no one wants to be sold to by someone who obviously doesn’t care. These days the buyers are so informed that they usually don’t need to be sold to, they know what they need and they know where to get it. Sales should be seen more as an educational process (in depth education vs quick research), not as a necessity to build revenue.
Qualify your customers
Don’t be person A. Don’t try selling your product or service to everyone, not everyone is your customer, dummy. This is one of the many lessons that I have learned over the past four years of being a business owner. The most important thing about deciding to qualify your customers and pin down your true target market is that everyone is happier. You magically start doing better work, your customers magically are more satisfied with the service or product they are getting. Take that extra time to make sure the fit is right between what you do best and what the potential customer’s needs or wants are.
This has a crazy snowball effect on your marketing and business growth as well. Like if you have a customer who is your perfect customer and you do an amazing job for them, not so much because you’re amazing, but more because your offering fits their need PERFECTLY, you usually get a rave review from them. Even more important other usually get a rave review from them about you and what you do. People don’t go around recommending services and products that were “okay” or “helped us get by.” However, they do go around recommending services and products that were “amazing” or “life changers.” In terms of overall marketing program and marketing strategy, word-of-mouth is still super high on the list of importance, maybe even number one on the list of marketing importance. By tightly qualifying your customers you can really push yourself towards super positive feedback and super powerful word-of-mouth.