Think about your day and how many people are marketing to you. I bet you would discover, with some investigating as I have, I’m continually being sold. Today as I am writing this, I received 140 emails, and 109 of those were to sell me something.
These weren’t from people I had a relationship with or any experience as a buyer. So while our ways of communicating have expanded, our lives have become more cluttered.
What had promised to make our business lives more productive and profitable has become a lot of things to sort through and, in most cases these days, more things to delete, overlook and throw away.
If you take a look at your social media feeds. I bet there’s more out there trying to sell you something than there is trying to listen or respond to you.
I have an alternative to the madness I want you to consider in your own business and in your life and relationships.
Instead of pushing out information, try first to ask some questions.
Earl and I recently listened to a running podcast about shoes. I got some great info on shoes, but it was also full of great sales advice.
It reminded me that while marketing is part of our world, there is a way to do it that makes sales an excellent tool for making our lives and the lives of others better.
It doesn’t matter if you are a doctor or own a shoe store.
If you sell in a specific way rather than just to the masses, the results are better for both the salesperson and the buyer.
In the podcast, they give the example of getting fitted for shoes based on your own foot and what you will be asking your feet to do for you.
In marketing, they show us pretty shoes on someone running fast. But, what do our feet look like compared to that runner? What kind of experience have we had? What are we going to be doing in those shoes?
In this podcast, one of the shoe store owners said he had minimal returns from buyers because he felt they were doing an excellent job upfront on the sale.
They were asking the right questions, allowing trying on of the shoes and walks around the store.
In some cases, it could take trying on several pairs of shoes. The shoe store sometimes spends an hour selling one-to-one.
This hour rewarded the customer with happy feet and rewarded the store with a happy customer.
No matter how hard we try marketing, one-to-many can’t replace the one-to-one approach.
So what’s my challenge to you. For the next few weeks, as you are looking to start the quarter that will close out 2021, think about where you might find more opportunities to sell.
I mean to sell in a one-to-one way of asking questions and provide education and product that makes a difference for an individual or single organization based on their unique situation.
I recently read about The Ben Franklin effect; as defined by Wikipedia, a person who has already performed a favor for another person is more likely to do another favor for the other than if they had received a favor from that person.
Wow, as humans, we like the people we can help even more than those who help us!
Just one more thing I also read in the book (Beginners Pluck) that they did a study and took the Ben Franklin Effect a step further.
This study found while we like to hear again from people we’ve befriended before and will like them even more after we can help. We do not have the same feelings toward the people who ask us impersonally, such as part of a group. We won’t respond as favorably when we feel like we are just one of many.
So this week, take some time to reach out, ask some questions and see how what you offer may specifically help someone else in a specific way.
This is the time to stand out and reach out in a personal manner. I know it isn’t easy to reach out directly. This is when fear strikes. Fear tells us to be one of many, and human nature responds to one on one. If you want to be there for your prospects and offer help and receive help, ask one on one. Give it a try, send more emails directed to them specifically, make that phone call, and face to face connection when possible. This calls for you to reach out one to one, but you will also stand out against the many.
Want more on this subject? Check out Podcast 30: Benefits of One-to-One Marketing here.
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