There are many ways that I see people attempting to stretch their money during this recession. Some are planting their own gardens. Others are mowing their own lawns. Still others are washing their cars less.

One area that I noticed the other day was when I was at the . . . → Read More: Are Your Customers Sttttrrreeettccchhhiinngg Their Dollars?]]>

There are many ways that I see people attempting to stretch their money during this recession. Some are planting their own gardens. Others are mowing their own lawns. Still others are washing their cars less.

One area that I noticed the other day was when I was at the hair salon. Like a good business, my salon asked me as I checked out whether I would like to go ahead and schedule an appointment for six weeks out. I didn’t have my calendar with me, so I passed. However, on my drive home it hit me that haircuts are probably an area that people are cutting back on.

Now, maybe they aren’t going so far as to change salons to save money, after all, most women won’t let just anyone cut their hair. However, if I were a betting woman I would guarantee that the majority out there are beginning to go every 7 or 8 weeks instead of every 6 like before. After all, how many women haven’t thought to themselves, “I’ll just wear a pony tail for a week if it starts looking bad.”

So, knowing this, what could a salon do?

My thought was that they needed to offer an incentive to schedule a 6 week appointment at the time of checkout rather than calling and scheduling at a later date. Maybe 10% off your haircut. Or maybe a free mini facial. The little bit the salon would lose from the discount would be more than made up for by the guaranteed customers.

Think about it this way. In my area an average cut and style at a middle level salon is about $40 including tip. So, if you consider that if a client comes to the salon every 6 weeks for a year that is 8.6 times. Obviously someone can’t go half a time, so we will round down to 8. So take 8 and multiply it by $40. That is $320.

Now look at if they had gone every 8 weeks instead. That is only 6 times in a year. That is $240…$80 less! And that is if they only get a haircut. Let alone any highlighting, waxing, extensions, manicure, pedicure, massage, etc. As I said, the small discount you give for them automatically scheduling it 6 weeks out is more than made up for with the increased frequency.

What ways can you keep your customers from stretching their dollar too thinly with your products or services?

And then we get on an elevator.

And this elevator has other people on it.

And a lot of times the conversation stops — either from you, or from the people who were having . . . → Read More: Psychological Marketing: How quiet elevators apply to your business…seriously.]]> Sure, we’ve all done this before. We’ve been walking in a hotel or in a building having a great conversation.

And then we get on an elevator.

And this elevator has other people on it.

And a lot of times the conversation stops — either from you, or from the people who were having a conversation between themselves.

And it’s kind of awkward, isn’t it?

Now has this ever happened to you? And you go up the floors, 3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-14 (some skip 13 due to superstitions) and then you get out, and the conversation begins again.

Why does this happen, and what in the %$&@ does this have to do with your business?

Well, first the environment we are exposed to sets the tone for how a marketing or sales message is delivered and received. The environment is so important and yet often times overlooked. And a little, tiny, itsy bitsy mistake can cost you thousands. So, just as in the elevator a conversation is stopped, the wrong environment can kill your marketing message or business.

Second, what are the expectations of the people who are going to receive the marketing message or sales presentation? These expectations, or beliefs, or prejudices, or feelings about you ahead of time also govern the experience.

So, how does this apply to you. Well, you have to stop and think several steps ahead before you make a sales presentation or deploy a marketing piece. Is the environment appropriate? Is it preparing people for your message?

Here’s a perfect example. If you have an “in-bound” business what can you do ahead of time to prepare people for the sales presentation.

What can you do to open them up, to help them relax, to build your credibility, to build your authority?

In some scenarios a book of happy customers that have written letters about you can be very powerful.

In other scenarios photos of your happy customers can also work very well.

What does this do? It shows people you are a nice person (hopefully) and that you have helped some people before.

Will this be “enough” to persuade people to buy what you are selling ahead of time? Maybe, maybe not. But, if done correctly, it can certainly help tip the scales in your favor.

This is part of what psychological marketing is about. Tapping into the minds of your prospects, and answering the unasked questions. Creating a scenario or a condition ahead of time to prepare people for the sale. Reverse engineering your processes so it is like a greased slide when you talk to them.

So next time when you get on the elevator remember this automatic process. It just kinds of “happens” without you consciously deciding it.

-Matt

Most people are not using testimonials effectively. Why are testimonials important? Because if someone else says it it is more “true” than if you say it. Robert Cialdini illustrates this perfectly in his book “Influence, the Psychology . . . → Read More: Marketing Psychology: Are you using testimonials effectively?]]> Are you using testimonials effectively in your business? If not, here’s some things you can do immediately.

Most people are not using testimonials effectively. Why are testimonials important? Because if someone else says it it is more “true” than if you say it. Robert Cialdini illustrates this perfectly in his book “Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion.” If you haven’t read that book I highly recommend you read that book.

But most people cannot translate those concepts into usable tactics that you can implement easily. Here are some ideas.

One, if you have a room in your business to where people wait before you meet with them to give a sales presentation you could have the following

1) letters form happy customers on the wall, (or in a book)
2) pictures of these customers and their families on the wall (or in a book)
3) a “testimonials book” that the person can review before you meet with them

What does this do? It “prepares” someone else for the sales presentation.

You can then refer to these happy customers constantly.

Now, the next question you might have is this: How many testimonials should I have?

Answer: As long as they are professional, quality, and are true — as many as possible. As many as possible. As many as possible. How much? As many as possible.

Why? Well because some testimonials will resonate better with some people than other testimonials.

Testimonials are also used to overcome objections. They need to display the initial skepticism or objections someone had to buying your product or service before they bought it. What it did for them. Remember that most of the time people are thinking that whatever you are selling won’t work for them — they are somehow different and you must overcome their lack of confidence.

Does this make sense?

Other things to include with the testimonial.

As much information as possible. Their location, job title, what you have done for them, why they chose you versus someone else, and more.

Then you can ultimately say something like this, “If you have any questions about what I am selling feel free to call any of these people.” (of course, make sure you have permission from these people). Generally your clients will be glad to do this. They want to help you if you have taken care of them.

Remember, your goal is to build a case that proves your value proposition. And if you were on trial facing the electric chair for 8 years (crispy!) or 80 years with Bubba in a 8×8 cell, wouldn’t you want your defense team to present as much proof as possible in your defense?

That is the same idea. And remember many formats can work. Print, audio, video, anything and everything can work for testimonials. Make sure they are high quality.

Different words have different meanings attached to them, and often times even the same words we use mean different things to different people.

Why do . . . → Read More: Mind reading: Are you entering your target customer’s minds…]]> In your marketing and sales you need to realize that every person you talk to has different language that they need to hear to buy your product or service.

Different words have different meanings attached to them, and often times even the same words we use mean different things to different people.

Why do I bring this up? Because you need to consistently study the language that can make the biggest impact in your marketing and sales to your target market. For example, when selling to CFO’s of a company the language needs to be different than a CIO. One has a certain set of beliefs, experiences, and ideas regarding how to approach the goals of the company. The CIO will have a different set of beliefs, experiences, and ideas regarding how to approach the goals of the company.

If you do not tailor your message to each specific individual, then you will not have as good of response as you could possibly have.

So how do you determine the appropriate language of your target market?

You study to see what they are reading, watching, and listening to and how other people are selling to them. You figure out what words and what type of language they are using. What you want to do is study the process, and take apart the process like you would a puzzle. Once you take it apart and understand it, then you can adopt it for yourself.

It will take some work, but the good thing is hardly anyone out there will perform this work. They just want things to be easy, but if you take the time to study how other people are selling and marketing to your target market you can be miles ahead of your competition. And of course you also should study your competition, too, to see how they are marketing to your target market.

Oh, and just because they are marketing to your target market doesn’t necessarily mean they are successfully marketing to your target market. Sometimes big companies pour a lot of money down the drain just “to advertise” and very rarely quantify the leads they get. You need to justify every penny you spend on marketing — if you want to get the highest return on investment that you can.

So, don’t assume that if you see a “big company” spending money that they know what they are doing. If the current recession teaches us anything is that this market correction will weed out the inefficient, sloppy, and dumb businesses.

-Matt

Let me tell you a story. When I was growing up I was pretty good at school. Except there was one subject I struggled with. Do you know what subject that was? It was biology. It wasn’t because it was necessarily hard, it was because . . . → Read More: Using stories in your marketing and sales…]]> Do you use stories in your marketing or sales?

Let me tell you a story. When I was growing up I was pretty good at school. Except there was one subject I struggled with. Do you know what subject that was? It was biology. It wasn’t because it was necessarily hard, it was because I thought it was irrelevant and boring. At least the class I took was boring.

Here’s why. Every day we had old Mrs. Walker ramble on about tape worms and plankton and sponges and carbon and plants and…you get the idea. And the REAL problem was there was a girl that sat across from me at a different lab table and she was cute. And she caught my “attention.” Her name was Julie and Julie had a cute little pony tail that waived at me all the time. And this pony tail caught my attention and distracted me from all the plankton and tape worms and sponges and…you get the idea. And I NEVER had the guts to go up and talk to her. I was a wimp.

Oh yeah, and another problem was that my grade wasn’t coming along too well in that class. So, between me being a chicken and my grade sagging lets just say that biology was not my favorite class…yeah, I liked GOING, but every day when I would walk past without talking to her I would kick myself….until James showed up.

James was a new kid from out of town. He came from Ohio and as luck would have it, the teacher reassigned him in MY space, and moved me right next to Julie. Whoo boy… Now, I have no idea why this happened but I wasn’t about to question any higher power–I was just going to thank that higher power.

But the problem was I still chicken. So what happened next? Well, Julie and I had to become lab partners. She was very smart and I didn’t come across as Mr. Beaker so she kind of took the lead in biology class. After about a week of this happening I started gaining confidence and then actually started to feel comfortable around her.

Well, one day I asked Julie how she was so good at biology and I’ll never forget what she told me. She explained that the way she was able to keep everything straight and what everything did was to form it into a …… a story. She had little characters in her mind in the role of the story, who did what, and how the tapeworms and plankton, and sponges and all that were essential to life. She explained it to me and related it to me and how it all worked together. She explained aspects of human biology and how the cells and mitochondria worked together…it really was amazing. And my grades started to get a lot better because I could visualize the story when I was taking the tests.

Now you want to know the most amazing part? Here it is. About a week after I started to feel comfortable Julie smiled at me really big and said she had noticed a “change in me.” Well, I was a bit flustered at first but I regained my composure and asked her what she thought. And she said (I kid you not)… , “Well Matt, to be honest…I was kind of intimidated by you at first. You were so quiet…I didn’t think you liked me. But I guess you are kind of shy like I am sometimes. It has been good to get to know you.”

Turn on the television and just watch a television show for a minute or two. Generally it doesn’t matter which television show you are watching — unless it is C-SPAN you should notice . . . → Read More: More on Psychological Noise and Clutter…]]> Here’s an important quick assignment you can do which will show you how often your buyers or potential buyers are distracted.

Turn on the television and just watch a television show for a minute or two. Generally it doesn’t matter which television show you are watching — unless it is C-SPAN you should notice something that applies to almost every television show. This is true of sports in between plays or pitches. This is true in commercials. This is true on news programs. This is true of movies on television.  This is even true of talk shows a lot of times.

Can you guess what it is?

The viewpoint or camera angle changes about every 3 to 5 seconds.

What does this have to do with you?

You must realize that if you are boring in your marketing or sales process you are going to struggle.

But you also have to be relevant. So you can’t just run an animal talking on television — that works to some extent, but you must engage them continually.

You must realize that after thousands of hours of television conditioning, your buyers and prospects have been “programmed” to ignore you to some degree.

-Matt

Think of the brain like this. It is a bank vault. And to correctly get inside the brain and sell your product or service you need all the keys to the combination.

Just being . . . → Read More: The Vault of the Mind and Psychological Marketing]]> Often times in sales presentations you have people
who cannot understand why they have been unable
to make a sale.

Think of the brain like this. It is a bank vault. And
to correctly get inside the brain and sell your product
or service you need all the keys to the combination.

Just being one digit off will prevent you from access.

Now you must realize that the people you are selling
to probably cannot understand why they sometimes buy
and sometimes they do not buy. Sure, you must
look at factors such as qualification, budget, etc., but
above and beyond that are you getting the digits right?

Are you conquering the emotions of risk, fear, and doubt?

Are you overcoming their objections up front?

-Matt

Here’s a hint.  Do you love me question mark?

A question mark prompts the brain to ask a question.  In marketing one of the most important things you have to do is get the attention of your intended market.  Psychologically we are . . . → Read More: How to Get the Attention of Your Potential Clients]]> Do you know how to get the attention of your potential clients?

Here’s a hint.  Do you love me question mark?

A question mark prompts the brain to ask a question.  In marketing one of the most important things you have to do is get the attention of your intended market.  Psychologically we are trained, programmed, and conditioned to react to questions.

This simple tip can yield a large result in your headlines for marketing pieces.

Additionally, a good sales person understands the value of questions and can lead people to a conclusion.

So ask yourself this question.  How can you incorporate questions in your marketing pieces to get attention?

Now here is the key.   Sometimes, and I would say most of the time, your buyer is not going to know what . . . → Read More: Are you answering all the subconscious questions…]]> When you’re talking to your buyer via media (letter, e-mail, video, etc.) or in a sales presentation your buyer is going to have questions that he or she needs to have answered.

Now here is the key.   Sometimes, and I would say most of the time, your buyer is not going to know what all these questions are.   And if they do, they are not going to know how to enunciate these things.

Here are some unasked questions.

What risk do I have?

Is there a guarantee?

And… Why should I do business with you versus anyone else?

Subconscious thoughts often kill sales.   And if you don’t systematically destroy these subconscious or unconscious objections, chances are you are going to really struggle in selling your product.

The same things exists in your marketing.   So understand your buyer’s psychology.  Study their mind, their habits, their information.

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