If you haven’t noticed, the way consumers make purchasing decisions has drastically changed over the last few years. With all of the information available with Google searches, ratings, reviews, and smart phones, the consumer is now extremely educated about nearly every major purchasing decision. I mean, you can literally download an app on your iPhone that will scan the bar code of an item in a store and give you consumer ratings and price comparisons of every store that carries that item within 50 miles of you…now that is a well-informed shopper. So, what does that mean for you?
It means you have to stop selling and start teaching, or as my good friend Scott Ginsberg would say, “Don’t sell, enable them to buy.” You might be able to get a one time purchase through the old manipulative marketing efforts or trying to compete on price and features alone, but as our society’s interaction with one another is being reduced by technology, consumers are looking for more than just a transaction, they are looking for a business relationship with a company they like, a company they trust…a company they can personally identify with.
I was having lunch a few weeks ago with Steve Hughes of Hit Your Stride fame, and he asked me my opinion on social media and if it could be effectively monetized. My response was that social media, as popular as it is right now, is not necessarily for everyone. Social media is best used for businesses and organizations that can truly develop a community around it’s brand and service. More importantly, I don’t think social media necessarily needs be used as a tool for direct monetization, it should instead be used as a forum for businesses to interact and educate their “fans” (or ‘likes’ now) about who they are, what they are doing, and most importantly why they do what they do. If you try pushing your product or service, screaming “Buy! Buy! Buy!” from every possible location, including social media, your prospects will emphatically respond with the “Bye, Bye, Bye”.
So, take the time to give some valuable information to your customers and prospects. Take the time to let them know who you are and what you are all about, get to know more about them, and stop having every message coming out of your organization only being about good-buys from you or you’ll end up getting a lot of good-byes from them.
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Derek Weber derek@goBRANDgo.com www.goBRANDgo.com 314.754.8712.
3 Responses to “Buy, Buy, Buy = Bye, Bye, Bye”
Great article, love the “Buy, Buy, Buy equals Bye Bye Bye”. Thought Leadership and gaining a following – equals more business – truly does depend on education and connection with the prospective and even existing client. To enable them to buy, one must go beyond the sales pitch. More then ever The New Rules of Marketing and PR apply and must be followed. Pushing a product with commercials may work with a fast food chain or a brand of auto wax — gaining clients and repeat business involves security and confidence through ones own efforts and ones own availability of information. Don’t lose site of the sale however; marketing efforts are for nothing if the sale, the volume of clients being helped with your product or service, is not named as the ultimate goal behind it all.
Good points Matt. You definitely cannot lose sight of the sale, because at the end of the day, in business it doesn’t matter how smart you are if you don’t have revenue, you don’t have a business. I think where a lot of sales people fail is that they make the process a monologue on what they can do for the customer before ever finding out what exactly the customer is looking for.
- Sorry for the delay on this answer, I didn’t get alerted you had replied and so never saw it! – That is valid topic to bring up Derek. We all know that salesmen talk too much. They all do. Even the ones that think they don’t talk too much, do! And the ones that know they do, and work on it to lessen it, are the ones that are worth hanging onto. Asking questions of the prospective client and learning about them is where the answer lies. Finding what problem they are trying to solve and then letting them know what solutions you offer to solve them. From there a little but of “closing technique” does help such as caring enough to get them to buy so that you can actually solve there problem. Or how about simply asking for the close instead of waiting for them to ask you (some people just can’t ask for a close!).