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| Learn to be a mind reader. If you want to improve your sales performance, take the time to understand what motivates your prospect. |
Sales tips on how to better understand what is in the prospect's mind.
People make their buying decisions based on a number of different motivations. If you can discover what makes a buyer tick, you can craft your sales proposal to satisfy his particular needs. This makes all the difference when you are in a highly competitive situation.
When
you are wearing your sales hat, a big part of your job is to understand the
psychology of the buyer. Understanding the buyer goes a lot deeper than
analyzing his business needs. It requires that you size up his personality.
Some extroverts are driven by a desire to express themselves. Others
buyers, who are more cautious, are motivated by fear making a bad decision and
a need for security.
This
may come as a surprise to you, but money is rarely the most important factor in
making a purchase, even in B2B buying. Basing our buying decisions on dollars
and cents is just too rational for a man’s or woman’s impulsive nature.
Of
course, nobody wants to pay too much for a product. Buyers usually want to get
the most value for every dollar spent. And I will concede that there are a few
automatons among us that value money above all. In many cases, buyers with
analytical personalities are involved in either engineering or finance. Here’s how
to deal with them in a sales situation.
Usually
the analytical buyer wants to know all of the minutia of your proposal,
especially the financial aspects. Pragmatic buyers in many cases are also
interested in dollars and cents. For these types of buyers, you need to provide
them with a financial justification.
In
selling fleet graphics I usually emphasized the lifetime cost of a graphics
program, because I was generally the high priced vendor and I felt that I
needed to justify my pricing. What lifetime cost represents is the total cost
of owning a product.
When
selling fleet graphics, lifetime cost is not simply the cost of the graphics
alone and the longevity of printed vinyl markings. It also entails the cost of
application. Let’s face it, some vinyl films are much easier to install than
others. In costing graphics installation, many professional decal installers
factor this into their pricing of a job, and, by all rights, they should.
Customers,
who apply their own graphics will also need to consider the cost of
application. While the do-it-yourself may seem economical, there is
nevertheless a labor cost associated for their personnel to complete a job, in
addition to the downtime cost for their trucks to be out of service. When vinyl graphics are especially difficult
to apply, the waste factor is another hidden cost, which can be significant,
especially, if their workers are unskilled.
I
cannot think any instance when it makes financial sense for a customer’s shop
personnel to install vinyl graphics. My argument to someone motivated by money,
is that professional installation is faster, so there is less interruption of
the customer’s business. What’s more, a professional decal installer knows how
to do the job right, so there is less chance of failure and the installed
graphics will look better. That’s should appeal to the buyer who fears failure.
While
the cost of application is important, the cost of removal is often ignored by
many buyers. When I worked for fleet graphics companies, I found that some
vinyl films removed from truck surfaces very easily with little or no adhesive
residue. This was a big selling feature, because the graphics removal can be
time consuming, unpredictable and expensive.
Many
buyers also know the dangers of buying cheap. Who hasn’t heard that you only
get what you pay for? The problem of buying on price is that you could be
wasting money on something that doesn’t satisfy your needs. If you are a
professional buyer, the problems resulting from a bad purchase go much deeper.
Buying a product that is inadequate or that fails reflects badly on the buyer’s
competence. These types of mistakes could be hazardous to a buyer’s
career. While money is important, the
need for security is often greater.
If
you can discover any dissatisfaction that a buyer has with his current graphics
supplier, you have a great sales opportunity.
In fact, the bigger that a problem is, the better it is for you. This
type of buyer needs a solution fast, especially if he is answerable to a
superior. His motivation is pain avoidance and while his decision will be well
thought out, it will be made without hesitation.
Many
professional buyers will carefully analyze your proposal. My recommendation is
to avoid these people if you can. When I had to deal with someone in
purchasing, my proposals were thorough for a couple of reasons. In many cases,
a professional buyer will screen you from the people actually making the final
decision. When this happens, your only contact with the real decision makers
and influencers is your proposal.
The
first pages of the presentation or sales proposal are a summary of the program complete with
pricing. More often than not, it is easier to get any discussion of pricing out
of the way early in a proposal. Once you have done that, everything else is a
detailed explanation of the program.
In
the supporting material, you want to accomplish two objectives:
1. Create doubt in the mind of the customer
by alerting him to potential problems if the job is not done correctly; and
2. Satisfy the customer’s need for security
with an explanation of how your sales proposal avoids the pitfalls.
In
explaining how you will handle your customer’s program, you will want to
emphasize your experience in manufacturing and installation. Case studies of
complex programs provide the evidence supporting your claims. The goal is to
build the prospect’s confidence that you have the expertise to handle their
program.
If
your company has a long history of manufacturing excellence and financial
stability, you should use this to your advantage, especially if you are
competing with smaller companies. By stating that you are not a fly-by-night
organization and have the resources to correct any problem in the unlikely
event that some mishap were to occur, you raise a doubt in the mind of the
buyer, whether your competitors are capable of the same support.
Fear
and the need for security are not the emotions that can motivate a buyer. For those business owners with a great sense
of pride in their companies and their accomplishments, good looking graphics on
their trucks and in their stores satisfying their need of expression and can
bolster feelings of self-worth. I am not insinuating that there is anything
wrong with a healthy ego. Not at all!
Just be aware that some buyers crave the attention and desire the best that
money can buy. These people are usually easy to spot. You can tell what their tastes
are by the cars they drive and how their offices are decorated. All you can do
is to give them what they want.
Conclusion
While
people would like to believe that all of their purchases are based on rock
solid logic, what really triggers their behavior is quite different. You have
probably heard that people make decisions on emotion and justify or rationalize
their actions with logic. This especially applies to buying behavior.
Taking
the time to understand the personality of your prospect is the key to
determining his or her emotional needs. To better assess the personality traits
and motivations of your prospect, the skills that you need to develop and hone
are:
1. Learn to ask insightful, open ended questions to best engage
the prospect in a conversation. As self-help guru Tony Robbins says, “if you
want better answers, ask better questions.” The same type of questions that I
would ask when interviewing a business owner for a story, I would ask when
having a conversation about a company’s graphics program.
2. Improve your listening skills. While the words that the
prospect utters are important, you also need to learn the art of reading
between the lines of what is said as well as reading body language.
3. Focus on the prospect. To gain a true understanding of the
personality of the prospect and his motivation, you need to remind yourself
that your sales interview is not about you, your company or your products. It
should be all about your customer. Do you really think that a prospect wants to
talk about you – of course not. He wants to talk about himself.
About Jim Hingst: After fourteen years as Business Development Manager at RTape, Jim Hingst retired. He was involved in many facets of the company’s business, including marketing, sales, product development and technical service.
Hingst began his career 42 years ago in the graphic arts field creating and producing advertising and promotional materials for a large test equipment manufacturer. Working for offset printers, large format screen printers, vinyl film manufacturers, and application tape companies, his experience included estimating, production planning, purchasing and production art, as well as sales and marketing. In his capacity as a salesman, Hingst was recognized with numerous sales achievement awards.
Drawing on his experience in production and as graphics installation subcontractor, Hingst provided the industry with practical advice, publishing more than 150 articles for publications, such as Signs Canada, SignCraft, Signs of the Times, Screen Printing, Sign and Digital Graphics and Sign Builder Illustrated. He also posted more than 400 stories on his blog (hingstssignpost.blogspot.com). In 2007 Hingst’s book, Vinyl Sign Techniques, was published. Vinyl Sign Techniques is available at sign supply distributors and at Amazon.
By understanding these factors, businesses can tailor their strategies to better meet the needs and desires of their target audience, leading to more successful sales and marketing efforts.
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