Making It Safe for Your Customers to Buy

“Today’s decision makers are reassessing every spending and investment decision they make. They are looking for ways to reduce delay or cancel purchases and investment decisions, and they are seeking certainty that desired results will be achieved as planned.”


At a recent business meeting, one of the participants complained, “I’ve never seen so much indecision. Our customers just won’t pull the trigger. They get right up to the point of buying then back away, putting off the buying decision until next month or next quarter or longer.” That drew a lot of “me too” responses around the room, so it became a lengthy discussion topic. Why is this happening?

In these tough economic times, with budgets screwed down to the last dime, people are fearful. One poor buying decision could shake the whole organization and may cost jobs . . . including the job of the person who made the poor choice. So people are looking for safety . . . assurances that the product will perform as promised, that the expected ROI will be achieved, or that the anticipated cost savings will be realized. That’s not new. Sales people have always had to convince skeptical buyers that their product or service will perform as advertised. It’s the degree that has changed . . . buyers no longer want assurances, they want guarantees. They want their buying decisions to be bullet proof, and until they are, those decisions will be delayed, delayed, delayed.

So we need to make it “safe” for our customers to buy from us. How do we do that? The answer is probably different for every business, but the best example of an industry that really bent over backwards to attract skittish buyers is the auto industry. People weren’t even coming into showrooms because they were afraid of losing their jobs and of being saddled with big car payments. So what did some car companies do to make it “safe” to buy? They said, “No problem. If you lose your job, you can give us the car back.” Pretty radical stuff.

Iron clad guarantees of specific outcomes can be difficult if not impossible. There are too many variables that are outside the control of the seller. So focus on those things that are under your control and that you can guarantee. For instance, you may not be able to guarantee that a market research assignment will deliver the answers the client hopes for, but you can guarantee that you will assign your best, most senior researcher to the project, and that the answers will be accurate, validated, and above reproach. You can also guarantee the methodology that will be used to conduct the research and the controls that are in place to assure the quality of the data.

Traditionally, we probe buyers to discover where their pain is. Now it’s a little different. We have to probe for where their fear is and find ways to overcome it. The success of our sales effort depends on it.

For more small business blogs, visit my website at www.rocksolidbizdevelopment.com.

Tell Your Salespeople to Stop Selling

“No one likes to be sold; everyone likes to buy.”

Professional sales people get a bad rap. Sales is an honorable profession, but it has been sullied by poor practitioners of the craft . . . sales people who are determined to make the sale regardless of the needs and wants of the customer. We’ve all run into pushy sales people who are clearly more interested in their commission than they are in helping us. So they lose our trust.

The fact is, good sales people are problem solvers. They ask questions, they listen intently to the answers, and they get a clear picture of the problem the customer is trying to solve. In some cases, the sales person may have to say, “I understand what you’re trying to do, but I don’t think our product (or service) is the right answer for you.” Of course, that loses the sale today, but it earns the respect and trust of the customer. Is that customer likely to bring you back the next time he has an appropriate need? You bet! Is s/he likely to feel comfortable referring you to others? Absolutely!

Contrast that with the poor sales person who is motivated by self-interest and will try to fit a square peg into a round hole to make the sale. S/he loses the trust of the customer, may very well lose future opportunities, and almost certainly will not get any referrals.

Hopefully, your sales people are not “selling” in the worst sense of the word. Instead they should be creating a trusting relationship, allowing the customer to buy with confidence and enthusiasm.

For more small business blogs, visit my website at www.rocksolidbizdevelopment.com.