CONFESSIONS OF A CUSTOMER

Confessions Of A Customer ® By Eric Anderson

THE THRILL OF THE HUNT Hunting Is Selling — Killing Is Closing

Where does your biggest thrill come from? Prospecting for more customers? Closing the sale? Ensuring repeat customers? Building longerterm relationships? Networking with new local outdoor groups? Engaging socially online or face-to-face? If you can bring home the bacon and put food on the table for your family and your employees, you must be doing something right… but what is that “something” exactly?

As a species, man remains a hunter/gatherer (H/G) with omnivorous teeth in his jaw to this day. Our pre-civilized background is wandering in search of food — both vegetables which are gathered and meat which is hunted. Later, tool-making helped the H/Gs become much more efficient and advance from primitive hand-to-mouth subsistence. Spears, grind stones, awls, hoes and big sticks came before more advanced bows and arrows.

The invention of agriculture cut down the amount of wandering necessary, but not the radius for hunting. Further technical refinements to hunting equipment came along including the recurved bow, crossbow and metal arrowheads. Then firearms arrived shortening the hunting radius for H/Gs. The Internet, smart phones, refrigerators and fast-food apps have now decreased the radius from our couch to the front door. No wonder obesity is overwhelming our society! But I digress — back to how hunting applies to the evolution of selling and its subsequently similar decrease of shopping radius brought about by technological advances and societal change. It is very easy to blur the natural mixture of “hunting” and “killing” processes in the above list of questions leading me to ask myself — and you — if we truly know the difference between the two? “Hunting” of course, requires a lot more planning and strategizing than “killing” does, but one cannot perform the latter without the former. I became intimately familiar with the differences this last hunting season by bagging my first big game animal — a pronghorn antelope. Metaphorically, the entire months-long process helped me more emphatically learn the differences between the two.

The “kill” itself is only one small part of the experience tied to flexing the index finger for a millisecond while sighting through the crosshairs, but it seems the only part on which most people focus. I feel this is misleading to the rest of the world who only sees the kill… without the hunt. The evidence here is the obsession with hunter’s selfie photos staged next to a dead animal while holding a big weapon. It’s somewhat similar to you being photographed with your first motorcycle purchase… or at your powersports store’s grand opening. It supposedly portrays the entire motorcycling experience in one shot, but it doesn’t, does it? That’s only the vehicular “bagging” part excluding the utilization and riding parts -- except for the fact nothing had to give up its life for sustenance or the thrill of the hunt.

Admittedly, there was an adrenaline rush when stalking and killing the animal… similar but different to closing payment for a $30,000 UTV off the showroom floor. Despite some feelings of remorse in killing an innocent animal, it made more sense to “work for my meat” than simply buy it fully prepped and packaged at a fast-food franchise or the grocery store. Life is very, very easy these days when you look from my newfound hunter POV.

This experience and its associated extra effort put me back in touch with the fundamentals of hunting… and in many ways selling. Just because we have the power of the Internet, social media and modern point-of-sale aides does not mean we can lose the fundamental methods of selling. The 5 “simplified” steps I still use to this day are here along with an abbreviated list of how hunting leads to killing like selling leads to conversion.

Inquiry/Discovery Stalk/Discovery

Propose Solution Select Weapon/Plan Shot

Overcome Objections Overcome Distance, Obstruction, Weather

Trial Close/Close Shoot/Kill/Chase/Prep/Eat

**more detailed version available in sidebar

What exactly have you been doing “right” all these years to make a success of your business and will it continue to be “right’ moving forward is this strange new world of ours? Up until now, you have known how to hunt and kill choices are changing not only in the products they are seeking/hunting, but also the shopping/stalking methods which they are utilizing. If you want to continue to remain “special” in your customer’s minds, then become their hunting mentor. Fortunately, on my first big game hunt I had mentors

using current technologies, but note how quickly customer along who helped with protocol and use of much new technology including an app called OnX Hunt. What is your new equivalent for helping to sell…moving forward into the new economy, new election, new year?

Have a plan based on fundamentals, but also new social and technology changes so that you can continue to hunt, sell, close and eat!

HUNTING FOR SALES Starving For Training…

What’s missing from the over simplified simple “hunting/sales” equation is all the training and preparation leading up to these 5 steps, and then all the processes which follow it. Hunting for sales is a process, but without proper training and preparation you may be in for a long, hungry winter!

This is a more realistic list of ALL that needs to be done to be truly ready for getting a prospect in position to sell, then taking it ALL the way to making him a permanent, repeat customer.

HUNT/KILL/EAT

Apply for Hunting Tags Wait for Lottery Results, Prepare for Hunt Sight in Weapons Establish Base Camp Stalk/Hunt Sighting /Acquiring Kill (only half way done) Prep/Chill Transport Butcher/Wrap Store/Freeze Clean Up Eat Wash Up

ACQUIRE/SELL/CONVERT

Apply for Business Licenses/Permits Wait for Approvals of Government Officials Build Inventory of riding gear Maintain Equipment, Practice, Training Determine Places/Roles for Employees Prospecting New Customers Hearing the Phone Ring or the Front Door Open Converting Shopper into a Customer (cha-ching) Establishing Customer Service Follow Up Help New Customer Learn to Ride (Prep to Ride) Help New Customer Learn Maintenance Help Customer Enjoy Non-riding/Social Aspects Organize New Life Around Riding/Driving Enjoy the Reward for All the Work …As always, there is more to do after it’s over! SEPTEMBER 2020