Business Coaching

I Feel Good - James Brown's Marketing Lesson

I've been listening to Glenn and Sharon Livingstone talk about Emotional Marketing today and whilst I didn't get as much out of the two hours as I'd hoped, it did remind me that the emotional end benefit of buying something is enhanced self esteem.

When you strip away the layers you buy when it makes you feel better about yourself.

Sharon Livingston has identified four basic categories:

Referral Incentives & Rewards Motivate Your Customers

It is psychology 101 that if you want to encourage a certain behaviour, you should reward it and that certainly applies to encouraging your clients to give you referrals.

Referrals are recognised as the second best source of extra business (after your existing customers) but I know many businesses who provide a good to great service but are frustrated with how few referrals they get.

The Profit Tipping Point ™

Why is it that so many businesses fail while others go on to great success?

I am planning to answer this key question in a special report, The Profit Tipping Point ™.

I believe that there are special factors, dynamic factors some of which are controllable and some which can't be controlled but can be predicted, giving the observant a chance to take proactive action.

Business Coaching For Baby Boomers

I hold up my hands and admit it. I have been guilty of the "do as I say and not do as I do" type of advice when it comes to whether a business should have a niche.

So I am trying one on for size - business coaching for baby boomers.

I'm proud to be a baby boomer and I am seeing many more people leaving the corporate world and looking at self employment and starting their own business as a much nicer option that trying to tout themselves around the jobs market.

From Managing Director & chief executive down, baby boomers with plenty more to give are leaving employment and starting new businesses.

Features Advantages Benefits Make Your Selling FAB

I have been reading a few blogs recently that go along the lines of "don't sell your features, sell your benefits instead" along the lines of "features tell, benefits sell" and I've left a few comments saying share your features AND benefits.

In fact, you need to go one step further to make it really easy for the prospective customer to join the dots and understand - you need to explain Features, Advantages & Benefits.

Definitions of Features Advantages & Benefits

First lets get a few definitions out of the way.

Features are a factual attribute of your product or service.

• The iron bar is made from leaded steel.

• I am a qualified chartered accountant.

Both statements describe features.

Advantages are a positive description of what the feature means and are the link through to benefits.

• The leaded steel bar is softer than normal steel so it is easier to machine.

• Because I am a chartered accountant I have an excellent understanding of finance that is much stronger than the majority of business advisers.

Benefits are what the advantages mean to the prospective customer and explain the "what's in it for me" factor. This is the return or value that the product or service provides.

• The leaded steel bar which is softer and easier to machine will mean that you can run the lathe at a faster speed, increase your productivity, shorten lead times and reduce costs.
   
  
• Working with a business coach who is a chartered accountant and has a strong knowledge of the way finance work means that I can guide you better to strategies that will increase your profit and cashflow.  
  

Benefits Motivate

Yes benefits motivate and sell.

People only buy because they expect to get something back which is worth more to them than they are giving up in terms of price and effort and benefits clarify what they can expect back.

Benefits are one of the emotional elements of the buying/selling process - the other is the pain or cost of the problem. Benefits answer the "what do I get" question.

Benefits can be exciting or they can be a relief to a nagging worry or fear.

Features Give Confidence

Features are the logical element of buying/selling process.

They provide the rational reasons that make the benefits believable.

Features answer the "how does that work?" question and are part of the answer to "why should I believe you?"

A sales pitch that is pure benefits will smack of hype.

"Gather around and get your credit card out. With this steel, your factory productivity will increase by 30% and your costs will reduce by 25%. Limited quantities available. Buy now or miss out!"

A pure benefit based sales pitch doesn't answer the question "because...?" Because is a magic word that has been proven in tests to be extremely influential in getting people to agree to things.

Advantages Link Features & Benefits

Advantages are important because they provide the link from feature to benefit which is often not understood by the prospect.

It's still part of the "because" element which helps to make the logic clearr.

"This PC with the XYZ Rocket 7 computer chip will make you much more productive at work"

A statement like the one above has a feature (the computer has the XYZ Rocket 7 chip) and a benefit (you will be much more productive at work) but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

The advantage of the feature which creates the benefit is missing.

If we insert an advantage - it is one hundred times faster than your existing computer chip - we get something that is much more compelling.

"This PC with the XYZ Rocket 7 computer chip which is one hundred times faster than your existing computer will make you much more productive at work."

Putting The Features Advantages Benefits Model To Work

There are four steps:

1. Identify the important features of your product or service
    
   
2. For each feature identify one or more advantages
    
   
3. For each advantage identify one or more benefits
    
   
4. Put the features, advantages and benefits together in compelling statements and practice using them. Try them in the FAB order and then reverse going from benefit through "because" to the advantage and feature.

"This computer will make a huge improvement to your productivity (benefit) because it is one hundred times faster than your existing PC ( advantage) thanks to the XYZ rocket 7 (feature) which is the very latest on the market (feature)."

The statement also works as benefit + because + feature + advantage.

What If You Only Sell Features?

Your sales pitch isn't very relevant or compelling.

You are leaving it up to your prospect to draw their own conclusions and to work from feature through advantages to benefits.

Some might and come to the right answer, some might try and come up with the wrong answer and many won't bother. If you don't make the effort to link features, advantages and benefits why should they if others are after the business.

And if there is no link from features through to benefits, there is no motivation to buy. No logical or emotional reasons.

What If You Only Sell Benefits?

I showed earlier that a pure benefits based pitch with no regard for features and benefits can be thought of as hype.

"Get Rich Quick" - two important benefits.

It may attract attention and emotional appeal because it is a benefit that the prospect wants but it lacks substance.

While the benefit is wanted, the prospect is being asked to take a lot on faith and an uncertain prospect is usually one who says "No" or "I want to think it over".

What If You Sell On Features & Advantages

You have gone part of the way since you have described a generic "good" of the feature but you've not made it personal.

The prospective customer may see the link to what they want and their mind may take the advantage and turn it into a relevant benefit or they might not understand and see how that particular advantage solves their problem.

If you are selling face to face, you need to be linking the features and advantages to the benefits that the particular customer is looking for. If you are selling off the page, you need to be writing to solve the problems of your customer avatar.

How Do You Know If You Have The Features Advantages & Benefits Right?

Use the "so what?" test.

Imagine that you are a prospective customer and if you read through a statement and you don't have an answer to so what test, you haven't gone far enough.

Benefits - The More Specific The Better

The benefits are what the customer will get in return for buying but a common problem is to ask a prospect to trade a certain cost (buy this for £5,000) for uncertain benefits (you will get increased profit).

There is certainly a case but it is not compelling so try to make your benefits as specific as possible.

Building up the finance case is easier for some products than others (see Competing On Value) - but making a specific finance case - buy this for £5,000, get your money back in 3 months and earn an extra £10,000 of profit within 12 months - makes the justification much stronger.

If you can't spell it out in numbers, you need to give the buyer a chance to experience in their own minds what purchase will be like. The stronger the picture you paint, the stronger the emotional desire to buy.

What Do You Think About Features, Advantage & Benefits?

I have written more than I intended to but what do you think about features, advantages and benefits.

I won't pretend that this is cutting edge stuff as the features advantages benefits model has been around for many years but I don't see it used well. 

The Buying Cycle - Meet Your Customers Where They Are

Today I want you to think about your customers and their buying cycle.

Why The Buying Cycle Is Important

I am critical or marketing and sales approaches that scream out "me, me, me" and while we can only be responsible for our own actions, it has to make sense that if we are going to influence and persuade someone to buy, we must see things from his or her perspective.

Turnover Is Vanity Profit Is Sanity Cash Is Reality

My favourite finance saying is

"Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity but cash is reality"

In just a few words, the phrase, which is known as the "Banker's Mantra", sums up everything you need to understand about financial control.

Turnover, sales, revenue, fee income - whatever you care to call the top line - doesn't matter in finance terms.

Why Don't Prospective Customers Buy - Search Marketing

I use the phrase "search marketing" to describe the process where your prospective customers are looking to buy a solution and you take the necessary steps to be found - but when you are found - why don't customers buy or even contact you?

Your Prospect Discovered Your Competitors

The first reason why customers don't buy is that in their search they didn't just find you but they found your competitors as well.

That is certainly one of the problems with search marketing.

While you have a potential customer who recognises that have a problem and might want a solution, a search on Google reveals your business and those of your competitors who have done a little search engine optimisation.

It's the same with Yellow Pages and attending a trade show.

What can you do?

Since you can't stop your customers finding out about your competitors, you can try to be found first.

You pick up everybody who is looking and not just those who will only click on the first 5 places in the search engine results.

Psychologists also say that in a choice the brain best remembers the first and last and things in the middle go a bit mushy. Tests indicate that first is best since it sets the standard and it is easier to mark down than up but I know sales people who like to be last so they can clinch the deal without the "I need to get some more quotes" stall.

Your Prospective Customer Doesn't Understand What's Special About You

The second reason why prospective customer don't buy from you is because you don't stand out.

There is nothing that looks different or special about your business that attracts the customer to you in preference to a competitor.

Without that hook, unless the need is urgent - like a burst pipe - the tendency is to put off any decision to contact anyone. Your prospect wonders if there are better keywords to use and will search some more later, or perhaps one of their contacts knows someone who is good.

For more details see Emotional Selling Proposition and the links off it.

Your Prospective Customers Is Confused

The third reason a customer may not buy after searching the market is that they are confused.

That's what happens when the brain is overloaded with data that doesn't connect into a pretty picture of the customer, sometime in the future, happy with their purchase.

There can be too many options and it gets worse when you are not on a fixed budget as you can find yourself looking along the value for money range trying to understand what you want, rather than finding the best buy at a price point.

It happened to me over a new kitchen. Both Margaret and I were overwhelmed with choice because we didn't have a clear view about what we wanted and it took us over a year to make the decision.

Jay Abraham says that customers are silently begging to be led, so help your customers to buy with a consultative selling approach which focuses on their needs.

On a related point, if the prospective customer is not sure what you are offering, they may not have the confidence to contact you.

Everyone likes to feel smart and non one wants to feel dumb but I see websites that I don't understand.

Especially technology and management websites that are full of jargon and meaningless phrases like " we accelerate the positive and dynamic leveraging of strategic synergies between participating stakeholders". OK I made that one up but I am sure you have seen it.  

They Don't Trust You

Sorry to be blunt but you may not have passed the know, like and trust test.

For more information on this please see my relevant article - why marketing doesn't work

Your Prospective Customer Thinks Someone Else Offers Better Value
 
In this situation the prospect doesn't buy from you because they buy from a competitor, believing they are getting better value.

It may not be true but that doesn't matter.

All that counts is what your prospect perceives, that is what they think, feel and believe.

Unfortunately they may have been conned by a competitor - on what they are buying or the price they will pay. I used to have a roofing contractor client who operated ethically but I heard stories of one competitor quoting low, taking the old roof off and then bumping the price up because of "unexpected problems". You can also have the bait and switch tactics that can attract orders for products that are suddenly out of stock - but they do have this more expensive item that they will do a special deal on because they are so sorry.

Or more often the customer doesn't by from you because you have failed to communicate your case as well as you should.

Perhaps you didn't understand exactly what they wanted to achieve or didn't discover the criteria they will use to make the decision.

Or perhaps it is true, for them your competitor genuinely offers better value.

To reduce the opportunities you lose in this area, you need to improve your questioning techniques and then be clear in the way you present your solution against their problem and buying criteria. Look to provide proof where you can.   

They Can't See How To Contact You

Sounds silly but I've been to websites where I can't see the contact details. Yes they are probably on the sitemap somewhere but make it easy.

I also know of advertisements with the wrong website address or telephone number.

If you make contact difficult, then unless you are very special, the average prospective will give up and buy elsewhere.

The solution is to make sure that contact details are clearly seen and that they are correct.

They May Be Nervous Of Contacting You

Your marketing may give off an "aggressive selling vibe" which makes a prospect nervous about contacting you and suffering a hard selling pitch which threatens to take control away from them and hand it to you.

It might be something about you that is making them nervous or they may feel out of their comfort zone and be looking for some particular kind of reassurance. Professionals are very keen to say "the first consultation is free" because when you think about lawyers and accountants, it is easy to worry about the money clock running before you've even decided they are right for you.

Perhaps contact is delayed because they are not ready to verbally admit to their fears and share their thoughts with a stranger or they may have concerns over confidentiality.

They Contacted You But You Didn't Respond

Sounds crazy but it happens all to often that a lead isn't followed up.

You give the prospect plenty of reason not to buy from you and to buy from someone else.

So record all leads coming in, including those that come in out of normal working hours and make sure that they are followed up.

They Didn't Buy Because You Were Too Expensive (Or Too Cheap)

It's back to the value issue I covered above.

Some people do have limited budgets and if they can't afford you, then qualify early and stop wasting time. Others don't see the value.

It may seem strange but you can also lose customers because your prices are too cheap. Price is linked to quality in people's minds so a low price implies a poor quality product or service.

If you are offering a special deal that stretches credibility, give your reasons why - you bought too much, old stock that you are selling to make space for the new or you need to raise cash for a big tax bill.

You Didn't Ask For The Order - Or Didn't Ask Often Enough

Some people hate closing the sale.

Either they fear the result and rejection of that moment of truth or they think closing techniques are sleazy and manipulative.

Just ask for the order.

And again. And again. And again.

Surveys show that sellers often give up before buyers are ready to buy so perhaps you didn't get the order because you didn't stick around long enough in the process.

The Prospect's Priorities Changed

Sometimes prospective customers don't buy because something happens and their priorities change.

The need to buy may change, there may be more pressing priorities or the ability to buy and pay may suddenly change.

What Do You Think? Why Don't Customers Buy?

This article is written for the situation where the prospective customer recognises that there is a problem and is actively looking for a solution, finds you but doesn't buy.

Have I missed any reasons?

Can you think of times when you have been looking but haven't bought and if so, why didn't you buy? 

Value For Time - The Key To Keeping Attention

I am sure that you are familiar with the concept of value for money since it is a fundamental part of buying anything but what about your exchange for a commodity worth even more than money? Do you think in terms of value for time?

Not value of time i.e how much your time is worth but value for time i.e. how much you get back from investing your time in anything.

How To Get Attention

I tend to think about attention as the first step in marketing, thanks to the famous AIDA acronym used in advertising - attention, interest, desire and action or the less well known ATR - attention, trial, reinforcement (or repurchase) for impulse buys.

But it just shows what a narrow mind I have because when I searched Google for "How To Get Attention" I found:

How To Get Attention - when entering a room

How To Get Attention At School

Top 41 Bad Ways To Get Attention - don't try these

How To Get More Attention From Women - mmm don't think I should read that as it will get me into trouble

So back to marketing and how you can get the attention of your prospective customers.

You need to do two things:

1. Be seen
   
   
2. Involve your prospects - be relevant and interesting  

To be seen in this over-advertised world is tough so you have to do something dramatic - biggest, loudest, brightest, funniest - so that you attract both potential customers and reinforcing public relations.

There may be some doubt on whether sex sells, but sex certainly attracts attention.

Here are a couple of earlier blogs I did on attracting attention with Guerrilla Marketing tactics.

Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for Creating Attention

Driving School In Slough Uses Guerrilla Marketing

But once you've got someone's attention, you have a split second to appear relevant and to make them want to know more - if you don't, you have lost them.

The main way to do that in marketing is through the headline so see

How To Write Headlines That Capture Attention

Once You've Got Attention, What Next?

Once you have someone's attention you need to start building the relationship.

Even though you may not be getting money yet, you need to be building brand loyalty and reputation so that your prospects get to know, like and trust you.

In other words, they start to prefer to hang out with you than anyone else - at least while they want to think about whatever it is that you do.

It's like friendships.

You may be lucky enough to have a best friend who shares many interests with you or you may have a friend you go to football matches with, a friend you go to rock concerts with and a friend who takes you to wine tasting events.

On that basis, it is hard to move away from the classic "How to win friends and influence people" (a classic attention grabbing headline in its own right as it appeals to our emotional desire to be liked and popular) - see Wikipedia for an excellent summary of the main points.

In a business context, you need to be providing helpful assistance and advice which is helping to move people towards their goals (or away from the pain of the problem towards the gain of the solution). 

How To Keep Attention

The problem for marketers is that once you start the relationship, you need to keep attention focused on you by keeping your attention on their needs, issues, problems and goals.

Getting attention is the easy bit, keeping attention is much harder.

You need to deepen your relationship which is where my value for time concept comes in.

Take the Internet marketer for example who offers an incentive for an email opt-in and follows up with a series of autoresponder emails.

Getting the opt-in is relatively easy (you have opted in to my email list haven't you to get your copies of the Marketing Secrets for small business, How to win profitable customers from competitors and my email series on the Eight Pillars of Business Prosperity)

But then you need to keep people's attention long enough to look at the freebies.

And that is where many people fail. I am guilty of downloading far more stuff - reports, audios and even videos than I look at.

So if the attention is broken at that stage - if you like, the promised value of time was strong enough for the 20 seconds it takes to opt-in but it wasn't strong enough for me to go back and become involved later - the relationship is already in trouble.

So when the autoresponder series starts coming in, the emails have no meaning.

Value wasn't established and I may not even remember opting in so you've got to start again and capture my attention and explaining why your email gives me value for time.

Keep Focusing On Value For Time

You need to keep focusing on the value for time relationship and deliver great content to me that is interesting and quick.

Video is certainly effective and you can see why it is so popular.

Video engages, it creates an experience and it is usually consumed immediately. No pdf to download, look at, think about printing and then read later.

But the value for time needs to be clear from the start and needs to be maintained.

I have started watching videos where the presenter waffles on about qualifications, awards, testimonials before they deliver any content but at that stage I don't care.

It fails the value for time test.

It says loud and clear that they are trying to sell to me and not prove to me that they have the answers.

Continue The Relationship

To keep attention high you need to keep top of mind awareness high.

Repetition is key.

Take Twitter as an example.

If I follow you, and you don't tweet for three months, then unless I know you from other sources, you have to compete for my attention and your photo is not enough to make me take a closer look.

But if you keep on tweeting about stuff that is not relevant - or even things that I oppose - then you risk losing my attention because you are failing the value for time test.

It may only take a second to read a tweet but it is a second I will never have again.

It is back to this know, like and trust issue.

To keep my attention, I need to feel I know you and that I like you so you need to feed me little snippets but without wasting my time.

But Twitter also helps with the trust issue.

Every time you tweet with a link, it is a moment of truth.

If you describe it right, trust goes up but if I think you have misled me, then trust goes down.

It has happened to me. I have clicked on links thinking they were one thing and found that it was a misleading pitch.

My value for time was abused, it damaged the person's reputation and it reduced the attention I give to future tweets.

Perceived Value For Time

Finally I should make the point that just like value for money, it is the other person's  perception of value for time that matters.

Not what you think but what they think and feel.

So are you providing value for time?

What Do You Think About Value For Time?

I have written another long blog but have you found it value for your time?

Let me know by leaving a comment but look out for the crafty captcha that appears after you've submitted it.

  

Stop Start More Less Grid - Manage Your Constraints

I want to introduce you to an absolutely essential business and personal improvement tool - the Stop, Start, More, Less Grid.

You are probably one of the business owners that works too hard.

For me or any business coach or advisor to come along and say "if you want more profit you need to do X, Y and Z", you can immediately feel overloaded and more closer to the point where you do find the "straw that breaks the camel's back".

And this is where the Stop Start More Less Grid comes in.