In my experience there’s no better way to maximize a customer’s experience than allowing them to feel like they got a deal.
It’s become cliché that people respond well to the idea they’re getting more for less, but only if they “act fast.” Yeah, it helped sell vacuums that cut hair, but it’s also the reason you have clothes in your closet you’ve never worn.
Humans have a tough time saying no to a perceived deal. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a deal. It just has to feel like a deal and we can’t help being tempted.
There are a few ways to structure your offer so that a prospective customer perceives it as a great deal. It starts with knowing what the customer wants. When you’re lucky, what they want is something straightforward, like a particular price. More often, what they really want from their salesperson is a mix of things:
- support
- an unexpected gift
- understanding their need to be listened to
- follow up
- signs of empathy and commitment
Being creative beyond your title is key here.
How do you find out what a customer wants? Each person is different.
“You’ll have to ask questions and which questions you ask will be unique to what you’re offering."
Your goal is to understand a person’s story and his or her needs, likes and dislikes. Develop questions to elicit emotion and real responses. Create scripts if you need them. You want to know what they need most, what they need least and what exactly are they looking for beyond price. Find out what would be their cherry on top of a great deal.
Once you have information about what they need, you can position the experience of the sale as something special for them. It will help them achieve a goal, and you can give them something extra and unexpected, but highly valued. Once that special something has been positioned as something achievable only by your hand (via your abilities, team, diligence or connections), you can turn a prospective customer into a loyal client.
Want more? Order your copy of Hustle: A Guide to the Ethical Art of Selling & Survival.
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