If you’re attempting to sell a product or service to someone, the most important thing you must do is establish relevancy.
How is your product or service relevant to them and their life? How does it affect them? What will change for them if they make the purchase?
You do this by showing them how it will either alleviate a pain or bring pleasure.
PROVEN FACT: People will make a purchase much quicker to alleviate pain than to find pleasure.
Why?
It has to do with our pre-programmed basic survival instincts. These types of decisions are made in the subconscious mind. This is the primitive part of our brain. It is our old reptilian brain. It has been around for 450 million years. It is what I refer to as Elmo.
Sadly, the world of commercial marketing and advertising is a universal, vast wasteland of squandered money with low ROI.
Why?
Because advertisers and marketers are…for the most part… unaware when it comes to knowing how to communicate with Elmo (the subconscious mind). They market to the conscious mind of the consumer, thinking it only logical that, given the facts, people will reach the right conclusions.
ANOTHER PROVEN FACT: People don’t act logically. They act based on instincts (fight or flight) which have evolved in our brains over millions of years. And pain avoidance is one of the most primitive, basic instincts of all living things.
Knowing this and using it to your advantage will greatly increase the response you get from your marketing, advertising and sales presentations.
EXAMPLE: Domino’s Pizza, founded by Tom Monaghan in 1960. (He sold it to Bain Capital in 1998 for $1 billion!)
When people were surveyed and asked what they disliked most about ordering pizza, their answer was universal: “You never know when it will arrive…and it is always cold.”
This was clearly a pain!
Once Monaghan had identified the pain, he presented the solution: “Fresh hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less…or it’s FREE!”
And the rest is history.
So…ask yourself this question: What pain will my product/service alleviate for my customers?
Once you determine this, then you simply have to convey it to them. Their reptilian brain (Elmo) must clearly see how buying from YOU will help THEM. If they don’t see that, they will never purchase from you…period.
Bottom line: You absolutely must make your product or service relevant. And the best, most effective way to do this is by identifying their pain and showing them how your product/service will alleviate it.
And then they will buy it.
Make sense? I hope so.
Now…go grow your business!
Hal
PS. If you are serious about wanting to grow your small business and learn the secret to getting more customer referrals and more new customers, give me a call at 770-993-0004 or email me at Hal@HalColeman.com and let’s talk about some ways I can help YOU.
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