Finding the Breaking Point that Closes the Sale
As a marketing professional, I’m always trying to address our client’s pains through our education-based approach and marketing messaging. To provide something of true value they can use that day or another that brings them relief or better yet a breakthrough. But with all the noise and clutter out there, those pains become lost in opinions versus research-based facts. I believe in using high-level research experts to provide the backbone for my messaging because getting your message out there is expensive and the wrong message won’t generate the business you want. The costs run too high to not put the proper foundation in place right from the beginning.
Another helpful tip to laser-focus on your business-to-business client pain points and to narrow in on what moves them is to understand where they come from—their root cause. Pains in business are driven by fear.
“B2B buying decisions are usually driven by one emotion – fear. Specifically, B2B buying is all about minimizing fear by eliminating risk.” ~ Gord Hotchkiss, The Buyersphere Project
Often a business owner’s fears are based on the “perceived risk” which influences his/her purchasing decisions. The key to helping them overcome this fear is by easing or eliminating the element of risk associated with purchasing your solution. If you focus on how your product or service solves instead of selling all the features, you’ll earn their buy-in, gain permission to sell, and become a trusted provider at that moment and in the future. What this means is you are top-of-mind when another pain occurs (repeat business) as well as when someone in their circle needs help (referrals). Referrals are the highest compliment in solving versus just selling and they are a powerful way to double your business.
This sort of approach is even more powerful when you back your solution with a promise that breeds further confidence and helps dampen perceived risk. Here at CHI, we offer many products/solutions with a return policy – satisfaction guaranteed. By taking the element of fear around buying out, we alleviate the tension and raise confidence which gives us an opportunity to really shine. Time and again our clients are ecstatic with their results. This customer service approach is simple, straight forward and fear-reducing. Chet Holmes’ philosophy was to always give away your best stuff for free in order to ensure the client would see and feel the value then come back for more. You may have heard that statement in our previous blog post, What characteristics create a successful business executive?
Base your offer on the three conditions of need that motivates buyers: fear of a loss occurring in their current situation, perceived risk that the situation is deteriorating, an opportunity to improve their future situation through your solution. Then, incorporate the ‘green grass’ or the ultimate benefits to them (their achievable results) into your messaging. This may include: saving money, saving time, improving their product or service, delivering their product or service faster, better or smarter, etc. BENEFITS sell products/services – not FEATURES.
Finally to really kick your messaging into high gear take advantage of the reasons people buy and speak directly to those reasons. For example, previously I did marketing for a new cloud app platform and our main sales target was IT staff. Our messaging sold them so well that this all-in-one solution would do everything they do manually now we started getting feedback that they were all worried if they pushed this solution to their boss they would be eliminated and no longer needed. We shifted our messaging to address that yes this will make their jobs easier, more efficient and more cost-effective for the company, but that their hands-on personal touch is still needed. Once their fears were alleviated our sales soared and doors opened. In this case, their reasons to buy were to streamline their business processes and lower overhead, but they only took the first step once they knew their part of the operation was secure.
Discovering the motivation behind why people buy is always easier if you know their pains and can overcome their fears. Doing thorough market research, surveying your clients and being educated on the needs in their market, and then delivering that through education-based content will consistently get your foot through the door. We guarantee it. J
To your success!
Danielle Lafontaine, Director of Marketing at Chet Holmes International
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