Bought Not Sold by AscendWorks

Bought, Not Sold

Don Dalrymple

www.ascendworks.com

www.blog.ascendworks.com

Not Sold

Bought BY DON DALRYMPLE

Why Read This Book It’s less about what you offer and more about how you deliver. You’re probably reading this book because you want to sell your valuable offering. Assuming that what you have is valuable, this alone, unfortunately, does not guarantee sales. Your value offering and how you sell it are two different projects altogether. Today, buyers are very different than a decade ago. One of the largest shifts in our behaviors is our attention. We are bombarded by messages every minute of the day. The sheer amount of information has caused us all to behave differently. It is not only the quantity of information we receive, but also the ease of accessibility to search it out, which has affected our

buying habits. We are able to connect with ease wherever we want. This has changed everything. Now think about your buyer. They are not paying attention. They are as busy and distracted as you are. Think about your challenge: you want to sell something; you are one choice out of many. The buyer is looking for something, and he is wanting it fast, easy and simple. They spend their time buying things, yet they spend little time mastering content in order to get all the information necessary to purchase wisely. If they cannot pay attention or they cannot distinguish you from your competitor, they go with the lowest price or the perceived industry winner. It’s easiest. We are going to show you what it takes to get their attention and win their business. It’s less about what

you offer and more about how you deliver. If you commit to this mindset, your opportunities will abound.

Table of Contents 1 Your Customer (Is Not Paying Attention) 2 How You Are Perceived 4 What The Customer Wants 6 Lacking Imagination 8 Why Read This Book

The Heavy Lifting of Selling

Positioning To Break The Noise

12 14 16 17

Leading The Buyer Touchpoints That Brand Taking Action

Chapter 2

Your Customer (Is Not Paying Attention) Under 60 seconds. This is the time which people spend looking at your website, billboard, article or whatever is put in front of them. The majority of viewers spend less than 30 seconds. Every year, that time is dropping. In the course of time, people have evolved to use heuristics – shortcuts for making conclusions. They see a suit and think “professional.” They see a sports car and assume success. It is painful to think. It is easier to react. Your buyer is being bombarded with over 300 selling messages a day. It is hard to pay attention. However, every month, your customer buys thousands of dollars of services and goods. Some are necessities; others are for pleasure. You do the same as well. Take a look at your credit card statement and you will see a long list of items. The two key questions are:

Bought, Not Sold

Why did you buy? Why did you pick certain vendors and brands and not others? A typical consumer has spent hundreds and even thousands of dollars in a month eating at restaurants. They love to eat. They love to buy food at places they enjoy. They hate to be sold. They will eat next month as well. They pick foods and places that entertain them like the Rain Forest Cafe. They spend money at Starbucks because of the experience and the escape. They want emotional experiences out of the thousands of options made available at any given time. Think about yourself. When you bought, two things happened:

Without either of these, you would not buy. The same is true for your customer. They act in the same way. They are on information overload. It is a challenge for them to: Give attention. Trust. What if you stand out from the noise? How would that impact your sales pipeline? What if you could build trust quickly? How would that impact your close ratio? There is a way. It requires thinking about the customer and the buying process. It is about asking the right questions of yourself.

You paid attention. You picked someone you trusted.

Chapter 3

How You Are Perceived It is likely you are not the only one offering what you have. If that is true, then you have the challenge of helping the customer make sense of your unique product or service. If you are like most businesses, your competition makes you appear irrelevant. Try shopping for a dentist or a mechanic. What they do is a commodity. Usually, you are looking at a list of names or trying to weed through web sites. What they deliver is the same – fixed teeth and repaired cars. To an extent, they can all get the job done. This is how your customer sees you. You are a commodity. They assume you can get the job done. Joe Calloway said, “A job well done exceeds nobody’s expectations.” Your service is supposed to work and get the job done. Your customer is looking for something that will differentiate you. They want to say, “Yes,” to the business who transcends being a commodity. Otherwise, they resign themselves to the lowest bidder or the most convenient choice. Picking the lowest bidder means the customer did not see any differentiating value.

Bought, Not Sold

Your customer does not think about your industry for forty hours a week. You do. They are thinking about themselves and their need. You can be part of that equation for them. The challenge is that when they are ready to buy, that they can perceive a difference in your business, service and product quickly. Your customer wants to experience this through how they see and feel your brand and product. They don’t want explanation, they want visualization. They decide based on what they perceive. They think in order to justify their decision.

How you are perceived initially gives you a shot or loses the sale immediately. It is hard work to affect this. It is often the place where a prospect has voted. Too often, a prospect who has voted, “No,” will not be noticed. They are silent voters. To have a shot at winning a stranger requires an intense focus on how you are perceived. You must design the experience to help them say, “I want more. I see a difference here.” You must know what the customer wants.

For your business to be anything but a commodity, you must have a perception that: Is accessible to the customer when they are ready to buy Stands out from your competition Affects the emotional senses of your customer Supercedes your commodity and highlights value

Chapter 4

What The Customer Wants If you ask the average person, “What do you want?” you will observe a phenomenon. There will be a vague answer, and often a difficulty in articulating. Most people cannot articulate what they want from life, much less from the businesses they buy from. Behavioral economists, like Nassim Taleb, have concluded, “We think with our emotions, and there is no way around it.” It explains how people behave. It is largely irrational. Think about smoking or obesity. There is a vast amount of logical and educational information for people to know what to do to curb these two health risks which lead to cancer and heart disease, respectively. Yet, the behaviors do not align with the logic. They are irrational. Your customer is just like you. They buy from emotion and justify with logic. It is difficult to articulate what they want. However, they can recognize it when they see it or feel it. Here are the things your customers want: • They want to feel special • They want you to lead • They want the most perceived value exceeding the perceived cost • They want you to care Telling them that you are these things is meaningless. They don’t believe your claims. Helping them feel these things every time they engage your brand gives them the confidence to say, “Yes.”

Bought, Not Sold

They Want To Feel Special If everything about how you engage the customer is about you and not them, then you lose. They are not thinking about you. They are thinking about themselves. They are actually thinking about themselves a lot, perhaps 90% of the time. Making your customer feel special is an art form. Here are a few ways businesses can do this: • Personalizing system communications • Giving the perfect gift • Turning a lunch appointment into an experience • Solving a problem they care about before they ask • Helping them clarify their problem • Bringing them a customer It takes imagination and a desire to engage. It requires careful construction of every specific piece of their pre-buying experience. Making the customer feel special is critical to helping them get what they want. They want to feel special.

They Want You To Lead The customer does not know your business. They are thinking about their own. You fit into their world. When they come into yours, you are expected to show them how to buy. This requires leadership. Leadership assumes you know where you are going, where they should go, and how to get them there. You are leading in every aspect of the business engagement. When they receive communications, how they should examine your product and which path to pursue is your

What The Customer Wants (continued) responsibility. If it becomes the customer’s responsibility, then you lose. This requires thinking about systems. If your customer needs knowledge to gain understanding, then your leadership should produce a content management system which you direct them to. If your customer needs to know how their application is going then you should have an automated system which emails them with detailed accomplishments and next steps. The customer does not want to push on you. They want you to lead and direct. The touchpoints of the buying process needs to be automated. Each touchpoint should be personal and relevant. This, of course, requires planning and strategy with a focus on the buyer’s mindset.

They Want The Most Perceived Value The price of your product or service is one part of the cost. Your customer is thinking about costs in terms of impact on their life and business, financial cost, timeliness of your work, longevity of your product and how you will handle mishaps. That is one part of their scorecard. The other part of their scorecard is how much they get. They want to feel like they got more. By doing business with you rather than your competitor, they were lavished upon, serviced expediently, and are wowed with tangible and intangible delights. Let’s take a car repair at the BMW dealer. If the customer is going to spend $500 with the dealer rather than 30%-50% less elsewhere, they will vote with their feet based on comments like: “I felt like I was at a relaxing spa with refreshments. I didn’t even notice the time.” “With the virtual office setup, I got a complete day of work done in a first class environment.” “The music, aroma and lighting relax me when I walk in.”

Bought, Not Sold

Everyone gets their car repaired. Few will get an experience. Every business can give more. Most will think about how little they can give for your $500 rather than how much. Your customer wants the most value beyond your commodity and beyond their $500. Give them what they want and you will have won them.

They Want You To Care There are always problems in life and business. If you are a problem solver, then you will be sought out. If you make your customer’s problems part of your problem, they will see that you care. If they see you care, then they will give you loyalty. It is a natural exchange of appreciation. To care means that you are thinking about your customer’s problems and you have answers to help them. It also means that when you create problems, you make things right with the customer. The root of care means responsibility. You and your business takes responsibility for what you do and beyond. Going beyond is what stands out to the customer. Imagine a chiropractor’s possible relationship to her patients. If she is only focused on the patient visit, she will only have a transaction, not a relationship with her customer. To bring more value, the chiropractor could bring more advice to her patients. Monthly free seminars which train on overall healthy living or creating an accountability system on exercise could be valuable to patients. It would take work to set up the systems and make it part of the business model. If it costs you something and the customer sees this, it speaks volumes to them. They will know that you care. You are acting in their interest in addition to your own.

Help Your Customer You cannot tell your customer what you are. You must show them and use every process, system, and tool in your company to show them consistently. If you do it right, then your customer will give you what you want – their loyalty and referrals.

Chapter 5

Lacking Imagination Guess who your customer is comparing you to? Your competitors? Partly. They are comparing you to everyone. It’s the same as you do. We are all snobs. We have experienced the Rain Forest Cafe with their entertaining way of delivering their commodity – American food. We have experienced Starbucks with their commodity – coffee. We go to these places to feel something we hope to get with whomever we do business with. The commodity is secondary. Imagine your customer walking around with a giant tattoo on their forehead which reads, “Wow Me!” Because they have been wowed before, they are looking for their fix again. They are wondering if you will give them what they want. However, wowing someone takes imagination. A lack of imagination makes doing business a transaction. Transactions are boring, irrelevant and without loyalty. When you get gas, is your store clerk engaging and remembering your name? What if they remembered everyone’s name? That would be a new experience. However, because the store clerk and the store owner lack imagination, they just do

Bought, Not Sold

transactions. They never rise above mediocrity. The customer goes to the closest gas station because it just doesn’t make a difference. The store clerk never gave her a reason to think otherwise. Watch kids and you will see wonderful imagination. They put stories on top of their play. They take blank sheets of paper and draw wild, crazy and imaginative figures. Watch adults and you will see boring and mundane. They do the same story and hesitate with a blank piece of paper. No wild, crazy exploration. Perhaps kids should advise businesses. They would be giving the “What if..” advice. What if we gave 5 minute free massages to tired people? What if our web site was an interaction rather than a pretty picture? What if our lounge was like the lobby of a Westin hotel?

If your commodity is common among you and your competitors, then what is the true product? It is the business itself. It is how you do business. It is how you engage the customer from step zero of the process. It is how you thought through what the customer experiences before they visit your store or website. How you do business matters a hundred times more than your commodity. Having a good product or service allows you to be in the game, nothing more. How you present it, service it and deliver it to win your customer differentiates you. Lacking imagination on how to connect with your customer and delivering a wow experience is detrimental. You risk being obscure and missing the great opportunities which come from delivering wow experiences.

Imagination is daring. Perhaps that is why so few businesses venture towards imagination. They like conventional and fear failure. All the while, the customer is not committed to your business or is not noticing you.

Chapter 6

The Heavy Lifting of Selling “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas A. Edison

If you were trying to figure out how to create a light bulb, how would you have gone about it? Would you have never gotten started because no one had ever created a light bulb before? Would you have stopped after trying twenty materials? Or would you have done a thousand experiments as Edison did to find the life changing invention of the tungsten filament? Someone asked him if he felt like a failure for his thousand failed experiments. He looked at the person funny and told him that he now new 999 ways not to do it. Creating something unique is nothing more than work. If each of Edison’s experiments took five hours, then you can consider the modern day light bulb took 5,000 man hours. Would you work 5,000 man hours to create General Electric or change the world? What price would you pay for the materials? What if it cost ten dollars an experiment. Would you pay $10,000 to make billions of dollars?

Nothing has changed since Edison’s time. Opportunity is there in the midst of an inattentive economy for those who are willing to pay a price in sweat, equity, and cash. To think you can merely be likable and get something for nothing puts you in the commodity game. You are invisible and irrelevant. It’s not what the customer wants. Selling in today’s economy means having a system for selling. Systems allow the customer to have a predictable result, which is what a business delivers. A system requires the following: 1. Technology: The right technology which scales with your business and changes when the rules change. 2. Process: An understanding and mapping of the steps to deliver a predictable experience. 3. People: Talented professionals who execute their role within the process using the technology. 4. Leadership: The team never executes perfectly. There are always problems in the technology. Leadership guides the resources of a system to the goal.

The typical business wants to get a sale without earning a sale. If what you offer sells for an average of $1,000, would you spend $100 to make the sale? What if it took you 100 hours to put the system together to make the $1,000 sale? Would you work the 100 hours to build the system? Or is it about “working” 100 people with a handshake, smile and hope? Hope is a poor strategy.

Bought, Not Sold

The Heavy Lifting of Selling (continued) To build a robust system requires the following talents: 1. Systems Thinking: An understanding of how the sum of the parts drives the whole. 2. Process Thinking: Linear and orderly documentation of the right steps for execution. 3. Talent Scouting: Can quantitatively and qualitatively map people to roles. 4. Technology Mastery: All the technology to drive a world-class sales process and create a customer experience. Picking the wrong ones have large consequences. 5. Leadership: Making decisions and moving everyone to a goal.

Assess Yourself Businesses fail because of the blind spots of leaders. They are not candid with their strengths and weaknesses. To attract, engage and win customers requires gaining attention and trust. It requires a system which will produce this result. Take this test to assess yourself based on a scale of 1-5 points per question. 1=Do not possess, 2=Struggle with this area, 3=Some success in this area, 4=Have had consistent success in this area, 5=Mastery and teaching of this area. Be as honest as possible:

I have thought about and implemented systems. I have designed and built processes for people to follow.

I am always thinking of ways to enhance the customer experience. Total

Take a look at your total score and compare with these assessments: 21-25: You are qualified and capable of delivering a business system for creating a customer experience. 16-20: You will be learning in areas, but delivering a business system is doable. 5-15: You will cost yourself and your business much more by seeking to design and implement a selling system. Hire an expert. The army has a saying, “Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way!” It is simple leadership decision making. You must lead your customer with a selling system and approach which wows them. However, if you are not the best person to build the system, the best business decision is to get the help you need. Selling should be by design. How to attract a customer should be by design. How to engage that customer thereafter should be well scripted. How to win them and service them must be an airtight execution. The heavy lifting of selling will be in the cost of time, money and failure to get a selling system creating a predictable result. When you have such a system, customers find you. They buy from you. They tell others about you. Don’t miss the opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls.

I know software products inside out. I have set direction and helped people follow.

Bought, Not Sold

Chapter 7

Positioning To Break The Noise “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.” – Peter Drucker

To undo a first impression takes a lot of work. Every day we operate on mental shortcuts. We decide. Then we think. We make conclusions based on what we perceive, and then we rationalize to justify our decision. If this is how people operate, then they will largely buy based on perception rather than convinced through a sales argument. If you are having to convince someone through selling, you are fighting an uphill battle. The reason you are having to sell so hard is either because of a lack of trust or perceived value.

You As The Customer: Your customer puts up defenses when they feel like they are being sold. The same is true for you. When someone tries to convince you to buy a new TV, a new car or a new computer, the burden is on them to overcome your reluctance and tension. However, when you want something, you buy. You are leading the discussion and the temperature of the conversation completely shifts. You ask buying questions. You are looking to rationalize your decision to buy. The salesperson is now reacting rather than driving you. If you are in a buying conversation rather than a selling conversation, it is because there has been effective positioning. The brand, product, service or

Bought, Not Sold

company is well-positioned in your mind as the following:

•

Credible: You believe what you want from the company will bring value and will deliver in your life and business.

•

Desirable: The pain of not having what is being offered is higher than the pain of the cost in purchasing.

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Pleasurable: Buying from this company rather than their competitor will deliver an experience which you will enjoy.

You As The Seller: If your offering is positioned in the mind of the customer in these ways, then the customer is coming to buy what you have to offer. Think about a repeat customer. Why is it that you are not having to sell them again on more business? It is because they have experienced your offering, and you are already positioned in their mind as credible, desirable and pleasurable to do business with. They have already decided. The state of mind the customer is in comes from firsthand experience. If the customer does not have firsthand experience, they must experience your company, offering and brand through their senses and through a carefully designed buying process. Your messaging and perception must speak to how they feel about you, how they feel about themselves doing business with you, and how others feel about you.

Positioning To Break The Noise (continued)

How They Feel About You If you met a new person at a social gathering your eyes would judge far faster than your ears. As you walk up to the stranger, you notice how she is dressed, groomed, walking, smiling, and conducting herself. As you engage her, you listen to her manner of speaking, her tone and her gestures. Perhaps you identify her dialect and pinpoint her to a part of the country. Where she is from, where she lives, what kind of job she has, the car she drives, the school she went to and a myriad of other data points build a profile for you. You categorize her in your mind. This is your starting point. It is what contributes to how you will respect her, engage her or feel about her. If Oprah Winfrey came to your door asking you to donate to a cause she is sponsoring, you are exponentially more compliant than if a stranger came to your door. Oprah is already positioned as a celebrity and icon in your mind. The stranger is not. Oprah is not selling. You are buying. The truth is, we do not know Oprah personally or intimately. However, we feel like we do know her and what she is about. It is what Machiavelli stated, “Everyone sees what you appear to be. Few really know what you are.” Much of our decision making and life is based on what appears to be rather than what is. Your buyer is making decisions the same way. If you are not stellar in the business “appearance” category, then you are having to work very hard in conversation and up close to position yourself in their mind to overcome their built-in reluctance to buy.

Why Referrals Work Most business gained is by referral. With so many choices, we rely on our network of friends and business associates to tell us what is worthwhile to give our money, time and energy towards. We do not want to go with the unknown if we can help it. Referrals work because it mitigates risk. If a person believes in a service or product enough to refer it,

Bought, Not Sold

they are taking a risk with their own reputation to recommend it. We do not do this lightly. We love to be associated with success, helpfulness and quality. That is what is in it for someone who refers. It is why they do it in the first place. We avoid making ourselves look bad. If all attorneys, dentists, realtors and other service people look the same, then the tie-breaker is a referral. A referral says that someone took risk and got a result. It is tragic that most business people rely on referrals, yet they do not build their business to deliver a reason for someone to refer. Here is why people refer:

They experienced something unique They felt you kept your word They made more money because of you They got healthier because of you Their family life is better because of you They connected with you, your business and your people

What are the reasons you give for someone to refer? Think about your birthday. If a person brings you a brightly packaged and elegantly wrapped new watch, how does that make you feel? What if another person brought the same watch and handed it to you with a sales receipt? You received the same gift, yet the experience was completely different. In your business, what is the wrapping? How is your business, with all its touchpoints to the customer, presented to be a special gift? That is the difference between giving someone a reason to refer and merely transacting. With every customer interaction, you have the opportunity to make a fan of your brand or be boring. Choose the first and your business grow. Be indifferent and your business will stagnate. The customer experience you provide is what differentiates you. It is the product which drives the referral. It is the hard work for growing your business.

Chapter 8

Leading The Buyer Think about all the receipts you accumulate in a day. You might have gone to the convenience store for gas. You bought breakfast later. You picked up dry cleaning. You went to a gym. You went to a bookstore. Now, from those, how many of those did you have an experience at? Did anyone even call you by name? If you showed up at places and you were ignored or marginalized, then you did not even get a transaction. You got ripped off. They did not care enough to attend to you. The reality is that you are always buying, and you likely do not think about how the dry cleaner does his process. It is opaque to you. You care about fast service with a smile. You want perfectly clean and pressed clothes through the drive-thru. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have time to think about the dry cleanerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business. You are moving on to your next shopping venue. Your customer, likewise, is not thinking about your business. They leave the details to you. They expect you to lead. You think about your business a magnitude of order more than they do. They just know they will like it or dislike what they experience. They want you to lead, and if you do not lead, they feel awkward or dispirited. Leading your buyer assumes that you know where you are going. You know what experience you want the customer to have so that they will refer. Buyers want to follow. It is inappropriate for them to lead. It would be like a guest preparing dinner in the home of his new host. It is not their home. They do not know where everything is at, and the situation can easily become awkward.

Bought, Not Sold

The buyer wants to know what the next steps are. There are two ways to drive the next steps: 1. By Design. Notice how airports have signs to direct you. The seats have armrests to dissuade you from taking naps across a bench. Your function follows the forms they set up. 2. By Direction. When you are getting customer support from a software company, they often have live chat. You know to push a button. The person on the other end tells you what to do and manages you step-bystep within this medium. They are your virtual concierge. Your business has one goal. It is to lead the customer through a process which delivers your promise. Get clear on the promise and execute the process and you have leadership. The customer delights on this. You are one business of many on their checklist. When they interact in your environment, you are expected to show them the next steps.

Defining How You Do Business Leading the customer requires a clear definition of how you do business. It is your trademark, what you are known for. But before asking how you do business, it is important to ask why you do business. There are millions of businesses out there. Why do you exist? Why should someone pick you over another person?

Leading The Buyer (continued) These are your core values. They are the very reasons you do what you do in the first place. Key questions to ask of yourself are:

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What’s important to you about success?

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What’s important to you about who you do business with?

Get detailed in your answers. In our consulting with clients, we walk through mindmapping exercises to help the client define specifically why they do business in the first place. It is extremely powerful to help a business identify their purpose for being in business in the first place. The products and services they sell are a means towards this end. The why unlocks the how. If you start with the mechanics, then your customer will see and feel the disjointed engagement you present. It would be like dancing by following directions off a script in a quiet room rather than having an instructor guide you in a music hall. The music creates fluidity and passion behind the movements. The movements merely isolated will be mechanical and contrived at best. How you do business becomes an art form rather than just a way to make money. A thought to consider: Does your customer want to feel that what you offer is just a way to make money? If they feel this way, then you lose. After truly identifying the core reasons for why you do business, identify the key values which describe what your business and culture are about. For example, one might be “Care.” You want your customers to know you care.

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What are the behaviors I would personally need to show for someone to feel like we care?

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What does care look like in the way we serve our customer?

You must push on these until you get concrete. Imagine being the owner of a fine restaurant establishment. Behaviors that would be measured and rewarded might include:

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My employees greet every repeat customer by their first name. We have a weekly reward for the most new customer names an employee can learn.

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There are free drinks in the waiting area.

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Each patron gets a handshake during their meal by the owner or manager saying, “Thank You. We are appreciative of your patronage.”

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The business software system sends deals and alerts at the right increments based on individual customer buying habits.

The list could fill several pages. It is your imagination and determination to live into your values which will help you get concrete about specific steps. Make it a show your customer will never forget and want to comment on to their friends. They will talk about your show. They expect your commodity. Give them the unexpected.

Ask yourself the following questions to get concrete about this:

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What would make my customer say, “I know they care about me?”

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What environment would communicate that we care?

Bought, Not Sold

Chapter 9

Touchpoints That Brand Your customer today is in front of a computer during the middle of a workday. They have a cell phone which they check frequently. They spend more time with these two devices than with people many times. What does that mean for you? You must meet your customer where they are. In the good old days (which we are never returning to) a salesperson had the privilege of personal meetings to educate the customer. They could talk about their product and present it with full attention. This was their primary utility. They helped the buyer understand the full breadth of their products or services and how to apply it to the specific problem the buyer has. Today, the buyerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inattention changes the game completely. Education happens virtually and is largely selfservice. The buyer have access to information with a quick Google search specific to their pain. Learning is happening without the salesperson. If your buyer is in front of a computer, then their inbox becomes a place of meeting. It is also a place of fierce competition. Your message may be drowned out by the incessant amount of emails, voicemails and text messages coming into the buyerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s systems. The strategy you develop must rise above the noise. It must speak to the pain of the buyer and connect personally. It must be timed with precision to bring the right message based on the behaviors and preferences of the buyer at different times in the buying process.

Bought, Not Sold

Chapter 10

Taking Action If todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy works more off of buying rather than selling, then your business must align. Your systems and work must drive what is known as inbound marketing. Provide valuable content which helps buyers engage you and trust you. Learn more about how to do this at our blog,

http://blog.ascendworks.com

Bought, Not Sold