Know your Clients

Know your Clients (2000 - 15)

by Peter Carruthers

Consulting is wonderful, because you get to delve into a huge variety of other peoples businesses. During the past 4 weeks I have been privy to a number of marketing plans – and these have highlighted a single major flaw. Many of us small business owners do not know who we’re selling to. Or who is actually buying. Or why they’re buying. Or even what they’re buying.

For example, if I am selling an advertising service to a business owner – what is he really buying? Is he buying the fact that my system is cheaper than that of everybody else? Is he buying the fact that he can display more information on my system? Or that he can display in colour? Or that he can display en route to the airport where there is a lot of traffic? Or that he can change his information online? I don’t think so. He is buying more clients. And if I don’t sell him on the fact that my product/service is going to bring him more clients – than I am wasting both his time and mine.

Almost all the sales literature that I read [I send stuff to 6000 email addresses – most of whom send stuff back as well – so I get to read a vast array of sales material both online and brochures] focuses on the supplier and his product. I am assured that this product is state of the art [who cares], or revolutionary [ho hum], or unique [yawn] – but nobody tells me exactly how it will benefit me! Allan Pease talks about WII-FM in his book Write Language. If you have ever traveled to the USA you will know that radio stations there often choose a call-sign that reflects their programming. KISS-FM is a romantic music station; OPRA-FM is for opera devotees, ROCK-FM is an Afrikaans radio in Texas [:-)]; etc. You get the idea. Well WII-FM reflects a similar concept.

If you want to sell to me you have to get onto my wavelength and tune out all the other stuff. And my wavelength is simple – WHAT’S IN IT – FOR ME? So if you’re selling to a business keep it really simple – tell your prospect what your product is going to do FOR HIM. You can even tell him what it has done for others in positions similar to his. But don’t waste your time telling him how wonderful the product is – unless you can immediately translate that into money for him. That’s why he is in business. You’re maybe thinking that you can’t do that because your product isn’t that kind of product. Please trust me when I say that every single product can be evaluated in terms of money.

Even a seminar can be. For example, we’ve just launched a seminar on hiring and firing staff. BORING! Until you realise how wrong things can really go. I fired my secretary 2 weeks ago, and I now have to pay her 3 months termination – simply because I omitted to follow the correct procedures. Now if someone had told me that firing a secretary could cost me R15,000 and that their seminar of R295 could save me that cost – I would have been real interested.

So when talking to your clients – focus on just one thing. WHAT CAN YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE DO FOR THEM? How much money can it save them? How much time can it save them? How many more clients will it bring them? How many people can they fire by using you instead? How much more mileage will they get? How much admin will it cut? Good luck in finding questions your clients want to hear.

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